Christmas At The Castle: Tarnished Rose of the Court / The Laird's Captive Wife

“He is a gentleman!” Celia protested, trying to dismiss the feeling of disquiet she had felt with Knowlton.

“So am I,” John said solemnly.

Celia shook her head. She turned to look at John and found he wore a fierce scowl on his face, his hands curled into fists. Because she had been talking with Knowlton? He had no right to care. Should not care. And she should not be feeling as she did either. As if her whole being was wound so tightly she might burst.

“John, you are the very furthest thing from a gentleman there could be,” she said.

“God’s teeth, Celia, don’t push me away like this any more!” he suddenly shouted.

He moved so fast she couldn’t back away, lunging forward to seize her arm and pull her towards him.

“Tell me what you’re feeling. Tell me how I make you feel.”

How he made her feel? Anger and pain as she had never known, everything she had locked inside her for so long, rose up in her like the fiery force of a volcano. It exploded from her, and she lunged forward to slap John across the face. “You left me!” she cried, all the pain of years ago flooding out of her. “Tell me why you did that? Tell me how you felt then. Tell me …” She slapped out at him again as he instinctively stepped back.

In her blindness, she caught him low on the jaw with the flat of her hand. It wasn’t a hard blow, but he was caught by surprise and fell back a step. She reached out to hit him again, and he caught her wrist in his hand. His fingers tightened on the slender bones there and she sobbed as she struggled to break free.

The flash of fury in his eyes, of some pain that answered her own, made her sob again.

“You have no right to question me, John Brandon,” she cried raggedly. “You have no right to say anything to me at all. You left me. You have no part in my life!”

“Celia …” he began, his voice tight as if he too was on the brink of an explosion. As if he held himself tightly leashed.

“Nay! I survive however I can now. And you—you …”

His fingers closed even harder on her wrist, a manacle she couldn’t escape from, and he reeled her closer. She tried to dig her boots into the frozen mud, but he was stronger.

His stare was so glittering, so intense. No one had ever looked at her like that before—as if he knew her, was part of her. Yet he wasn’t. Hadn’t been in so long. She had been alone.

She wanted only to leave him, to run and hide, to be free at last of whatever hold he had on her. She twisted her body hard as it touched his, trying to wrench away. But she overbalanced on her uncertain feet and fell heavily to the side.

Her hand was pulled from John’s at last, yet she couldn’t right herself. She felt herself toppling to the ground.

“Celia!” she heard him shout.

As she fell heavily onto the ice her leg caught on a fallen branch and she rolled forward. She had only a dizzy glimpse of him, of the raw horror on his face, of the flat grey sky above her, and then she was tumbling down the steep riverbank. Faster and faster.

She tried to catch at the ground, at anything she could find, but it slid out of her grasp. Her head struck something and bright stars whirled around her. Her whole body seemed to go numb.

Yet she felt it when she tumbled into the water. The icy-cold waves closed over her head, and it felt like a thousand daggers plunging into her skin. She tried to scream at the agony, and water rushed into her mouth.

Celia did know how to swim, and she struggled to push past the pain and fight her way to the surface. Her heavy skirts and boots grew sodden, weighing her down. She kicked hard against them and managed to break upwards and gulp in a precious breath. But the river wasn’t finished with her yet. It caught at her again, pulling her down.

And suddenly she only wanted to live. When her brother had died, when she’d been with Thomas, she had never really wanted to die. But merely surviving, putting one day behind her and then the next, had been all she could do. Otherwise the pain and anger would overwhelm her.

But now, with her whole body numb and the rushing river carrying her away, she wanted life again. Music and colour and sunshine. She wanted to see John—to slap him properly, to find out once and for all what had really happened when he left her. Or to kiss him as she once had, with nothing held back.

That was her last thought as she was sucked under the water again. The precious air was cut off.

Suddenly a hard arm caught her around her waist and jerked her up towards the light.

She gasped and let her head fall back onto a naked shoulder as she was drawn towards the shore. It seemed so very far away, yet she wasn’t scared now. Somehow she knew it was John who held her, and that he wouldn’t let her go. He wouldn’t let the river have her.

He reached the bank and hauled her up its slippery length under his arm. Celia couldn’t stop shivering, couldn’t think. When they reached the top, he laid her on the ground and pulled up her skirt, to draw her own dagger from its sheath at her thigh.

He cut away her sodden doublet and the stays beneath in smooth, quick strokes and spun her onto her stomach, his legs straddling her hips. The flat of his hand hit her hard between the shoulderblades once, twice, until she expelled the water that choked her lungs.

She sobbed out all her fear and relief, and through her tears she felt him pull her back into his arms. He wrapped his body all around her, all his heat and strength. He pressed his lips hard to her cheek, and to her shock she felt his own tears on her skin.

“God’s teeth, Celia,” he growled. “I thought you were dead. I thought …”

“You saved me,” she sobbed through her chattering teeth. “You—you could have drowned.”

“I won’t let you go,” he said. “Not without me.”

Celia heard a shot and the pounding of running feet on the icy mud.

“John!” Lord Marcus said, and for once there was no lightness at all in his voice. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

“She fell into the river,” John answered. He still held onto her.

“Oh, sweet God, Mistress Sutton, but you will surely freeze to death!” Lady Allison cried.

Celia heard the swish of fabric and a warm, fur-lined cloak covered her icy skin.

She was drawn away from John even as she tried to hold onto him. “Nay,” she cried.

But darkness closed in on her, born of the cold and shock, and she fainted into its weighty oblivion.

Chapter Eight

“Shh. Be still. Rest now.” John slowly smoothed the cool, damp cloth over Celia’s brow and whispered to her until she settled back in the bed. She still frowned, and her hands were curled tightly against the sheets as if she fought demons in her sleep. But she quieted.

John sat back in his chair by the bed and ran the cloth over her shoulders and along her arms. It had been three days since she’d tumbled into the icy river—three days that they’d been alone in the small hunting lodge tucked into the woods. The chills and fever that had come upon her seemed to be subsiding, but sometimes he feared that was his own wishful thinking. His own fear of losing her all over again—for ever this time.

He balanced her hand on his palm and studied the delicate pale fingers. She had survived the fever that killed her parents and husband because her delicacy hid a fierce spirit. He had told her she was the most stubborn person he had ever seen, and she was. She would survive this. He would make certain of it. He would use all his strength to pull her back to him.

Once he had dared to begin to think of a future with someone else, with Celia. Could he afford to think of that now? What could he offer her? She was in this place now because of him. He never wanted to hurt her again.

“I should never have quarrelled with you that day, Celia,” he whispered. He should have known she would fight like the warrior she was, his fairy queen with claws. But he wasn’t willing to let her hurt herself.

He laid her hand back on the sheets at her side and went on bathing her skin. She felt cooler to his touch now. Most of the heat on her bare arms was from the fire he had built up in the grate. She wore a chemise with the sleeves cut away, a bandage wrapped above the elbow, where the physic had bled her before the others moved on with their journey. Her hair fell over one shoulder in an untidy black braid.

John slowly smoothed the cloth up her arm and over her collarbone. He saw again the shoulder that had had him so furious when he first undressed her.

It had obviously been damaged, wrenched out of its socket and then reset improperly, so that it stood out crookedly under her smooth white skin. Pale scar tissue lay in a pattern over it. There were also faint marks on her back and buttocks, thin white scars that had not been there when they’d made love three years ago.

Her bitterness and distance, her hatred of her husband and gratitude for his death, made terrible sense now. If the man hadn’t already been dead John would have killed him with his own hands, in a slow, terrible way involving red-hot pokers and dull daggers.

But torturing Thomas Sutton wouldn’t bring his Celia back. How could he do that?

“You have to fight to live now, my fairy queen,” he said fiercely. “Fight so you can go on hating me.” Go on punishing him. He deserved no less. Yet he could never bear it if Celia died. She would take with her every dream he’d ever had of a better life than the one he led.

“Fight, damn you!” he shouted.

“Oh, John, do leave me alone,” she murmured hoarsely. “I cannot sleep with so much noise.”

John’s eyes shot to her face. Her eyes were open and clear, not glassy from the fever, and she watched him as if she actually saw him, not some nightmare hallucination.

“Celia, you’re awake!” he said, and a new happiness pushed away the fear and fierceness. He carefully took her hand in his, reassured when her fingers weakly squeezed his.

“Am I?” she said. She carefully shifted on the bed, frowning. “I feel as if I’ve been drawn and quartered. Where are we?”

“At one of the Queen’s hunting boxes. Luckily one of Darnley’s cohorts remembered it was nearby.”

“Nearby what?” She looked terribly confused, so young and vulnerable.

“Do you not remember?” John asked.

“I remember riding in the cold. It was snowing …” Her eyes widened. “I fell into the water! I wanted you to tell me … something.”

John shook his head. “And you caught a feverish chill. We’ve been here three days.”

“Three days?” Her gaze darted quickly around the chamber: the large bed, the faded tapestries on the walls, the fire. The freezing rain that lashed at the mullioned window.

“Alone?”

“Don’t worry, Celia,” John said with a teasing grin. He suddenly wanted to burst out laughing like a fool, to shout with exultation. She was awake! He could face anything if she would only stay alive, stay with him. “I am not in the habit of ravishing unconscious females.”

“But you came in after me. How are you not ill?”

“I was not in the water as long as you. And we can’t both be ill.”

She glanced down at her body under the sheet, at the bandage and the basin of cool water. “You have been taking care of me?”

“The others had to continue on their journey if they were to make it to Holyrood when expected. And that cursed Darnley was fearful of contagion.”

“It would serve him right,” Celia muttered. She shifted on the bed. “I’m so thirsty.”

“Here, take some wine. The doctor said it would strengthen your blood, but you haven’t been able to keep it down.” John slid onto the mattress beside her and eased his arm around her shoulder to help her sit up against his shoulder. She shivered, and he frowned as he felt how thin she was under the chemise.

Celia was too slender anyway, much thinner than she’d been three years ago. Until they were able to travel and catch up to the others John would see to it that she ate, that she grew strong again. A heated, tender rush flowed over him as he looked at her.

He held up a goblet of fine, rich red wine to her lips and she drank deeply. When it was gone, he eased her back down to the pillows and tucked the blankets around her.

“Could you take some broth?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I feel so tired.”

“Then just sleep now. You will feel stronger in the morning.”

He started to leave the bed, but her hand reached out to grasp his arm.

“Stay with me?” she whispered.

He looked down into her eyes, now the pale grey of a winter’s day. She looked back. Steady, calm. Beseeching.

Oh, how he wanted to stay with her. To hold her close in his arms and feel her breath, her heartbeat, the very life of her. Even as he knew he should stay away from her, not hurt her any more, he couldn’t stay away.

He lay slowly down on the bed beside her and she turned onto her side, her back to his chest. John wrapped his arms around her waist and felt her relax with a sigh. She was with him now, in this moment. That was all that mattered for now. All that had ever really mattered.

“Thank you,” she breathed, and sank down into healing sleep.

But John stayed awake all night, cradling her against him and remembering all he had lost when he’d lost her. Did he dare hope to get it back?

Celia slowly drifted up from her soft, dark sleep, becoming aware of the world around her again. It had been a good sleep, not the plague of nightmares like before, and her body didn’t ache and burn. She could feel a soft pillow under her cheek, clean linen sheets around her shoulders, the brush of a fire’s warmth on her face.

Everything felt so quiet and peaceful. Safe. When had she ever felt safe? She couldn’t even remember. Had she died and gone to heaven, then? She slid deeper into the warm cocoon of the bedclothes—and then she truly remembered where she was. Who was with her.

John. He had pulled her from the river, had nursed her here, just the two of them alone. It felt so strange to be here with him, it felt—right. Yet she had been so angry with him. She was utterly confused.

Slowly, carefully, Celia raised her head from the pillow and opened her eyes to look around. She had vague memories of John holding her as she fell asleep, lying on the bed with her. He wasn’t there now, she was alone on the wide feather mattress, but she could see the imprint of his head on the pillow beside her.

Holding the sheet against her, she sat up. She realised she wore only a chemise with the sleeves cut away, one arm bandaged. Had she done that? Undressed herself, torn away her sleeves? Nay, it had to have been him. And that meant he had seen her bare shoulder.

Celia rubbed at the bump there and wondered what he’d thought of it. Well, he had his own secrets and she had hers. Nothing could change that, not even the most fervent wishes. She had to remember that, even when she felt so overwhelmed with tenderness for him.

But where was he now?

She eased back the blankets and carefully slid off the edge of the bed. Her legs trembled they were so weak, but she held onto the carved bedpost until the dizziness passed and she could stand. She saw his doublet tossed over a chair, and picked it up to wrap around her shoulders. It smelled of him, of that lemon soap he used, leather and John.

It made her shiver all over again.

She carefully made her way to the window, her bare feet cold on the uncovered wood planks of the floor. The diamond-shaped panes of glass were covered in frost, and she scrubbed away a small spot to peer outside.

Snow still fell, a silent white blanket that covered the ground and iced the trees, obscuring the whole world in cold and silence. They were at a hunting box, John had said, and everyone else had ridden on ahead. How long would they be here together?

She heard the chamber door open, and glanced over her shoulder to see John standing there in his shirtsleeves, a tray in his hands. A frown darkened his face, and he dropped the tray onto the table to stride across the room to her.

Celia instinctively backed away, but the window was behind her and she could only go one step before he was upon her. He caught her up in his arms, holding her high against his chest, and turned towards the bed.

“You foolish woman,” he said roughly. “What are you doing out of bed?”

Celia tried to kick, to push him away, yet that damnable weakness still pulled at her limbs. “I’m not ill now! I wanted to see what was outside.”

“I can tell you what’s out there. Snow and more snow.” He deposited her in the middle of the bed and climbed up beside her to hold her there when she tried to scramble away. “You’ve had a terrible chill, and you’ll catch it again wandering about in bare feet.”

“Then where are my boots?” she asked, to cover what she really wanted to say. She wanted to demand to know why he had left her three years ago, what he felt now—what he was making her feel. But she dared not.

“Your trunk is here. You can have your boots when I tell you you can. Until then you’ll stay right here.”

“Villainous bully,” Celia muttered. She slumped back on the pillows.

John grinned at her, that mischievous smile that brought out the dimple in his unshaven cheek and made such odd, disturbing things happen inside her. She felt so ridiculously young and vulnerable again.

“You remembered,” he said. “If it takes bullying to keep you here until you are completely well, then I’m prepared to do it. Don’t make me tie you to the bedpost.”

Celia narrowed her eyes as she studied the new, hard light on his face. She couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. She had a sudden vision of herself bound to the bedpost, naked, and John kneeling between her legs with that expression of intent determination on his face …

She rolled away from him, her face feeling embarrassingly warm.

“You would not,” she whispered.

“Why don’t you try me and see, fairy queen?” he said.

When she crossed her arms over her chest, he laughed. He drew her feet onto his lap and started to rub them gently, bringing heat into her frozen toes.

Celia slowly relaxed under his soothing touch. She let herself lean back into the pillows and closed her eyes. His gentle touch moved in slow, soothing circles over her ankles and her calves, tracing a light pattern over her skin that felt delicious.

She knew she should pull away from his touch, hold herself back from him, but she was so tired, so horribly weak. It felt too good to feel his touch, not to be alone just for a moment. To remember all the good things about when they had first met.

“You said we are at a hunting box of the Queen’s?” she asked.

“Aye, though not one that’s been used since her father’s day, I would wager. This is the only chamber that has any furniture. Everything else is covered with dust.”

“But there is food?” she said, remembering the tray he brought in.

“They left us provisions. There is broth and bread there, and I’m going to make sure you eat every bite.”

“You are a terrible bully, Sir John.” But she smiled as she said it. She could feel her whole body relaxing under his touch.

“Of course I am. A man has to be to get the best of a minx like you.”

Celia rubbed her toes over his thigh, feeling the shift of his powerful muscles under the leather breeches. “Just wait until I have my strength back.”

She felt him bend down, and his lips touched the inside of her ankle. The tip of his tongue flicked over the sensitive skin there, then was gone.

“I’m shaking with anticipation of that day, Celia,” he said quietly. “But come and have your supper now. Or you will never have that fiery spirit again.”

After she had taken as much of the broth as she could, and hastily washed in a basin of warmed water, John tucked her under the blankets again and blew out the candles. Once the chamber was dark, with nothing but the flickering shadows from the fire in the grate, he climbed back onto the bed beside her.

She felt him hesitate, felt the tension of his body, but then he drew her against him again, her back to his chest and his arm light over her hip. His palm flattened on her abdomen, and to her surprise she followed her instinct and traced her fingertips over the bare, hair-roughened skin of his forearm.

He went very still, his body taut against hers, yet he didn’t draw away. Celia closed her eyes and just let herself feel him under her fingers, his chest curved around her protectively. The ice pattering at the window, the crackle of the fire, seemed to enclose them in their own little world. Their own special moment. The anger had drained away, and there was only the warm tenderness of old memories she hadn’t let herself think about for so long. It was one moment out of real time.

Maybe that feeling of deceptive security was what made her open her mouth and ask, “Where did you go? When you left your uncle’s house in the country?”

His hand tightened, and she closed her fingers over his arm to keep him from moving away. She didn’t want to lose the good feelings with him. Not just yet.

“I went to Paris,” he said brusquely.

“Paris?” She wasn’t quite sure what answer she’d expected, but it hadn’t been that. He’d gone to France? So very far away? To get away from her, from their flirtation that had burned so out of control? Was that why he had left so suddenly?

And what had he found in Paris?

“I was given a position in the ambassador’s household,” he said.

“How long were you there?”

“Above two years,” he answered.

Two years—at the most sophisticated, licentious Court in Europe. No wonder he had forgotten his country dalliance. Celia turned her face into the pillow and tried to force away the old pain that was trying so hard to rise up in her again. She didn’t want that again. Not yet.

“I was told I had to return to London for a new task,” he said. “But I had other work to perform on the journey.”

Celia gave a laugh. “Perhaps you would have stayed in France if you’d known the task was minding Lord Darnley and the Scottish Queen.”

John laughed too, and his warm breath stirred the loose hair at her temple over her skin. It made her shiver despite the warm room, and that tenderness she had always felt towards him returned. So dangerous.

“Perhaps I would have. But then perhaps I would have returned much sooner if I’d known you were here, Celia.”

He brushed aside her hair and kissed her just beside her ear. At the touch of his lips she closed her eyes tightly, and thoughts of French ladies and what John might have done with them flew out of her mind. Only this moment mattered.

John kissed her cheek, and the corner of her mouth. The tip of his tongue touched her, but when she opened her mouth to make him kiss her properly, he drew back.

His arm tightened around her and pulled her closer against his chest. He tucked his legs along hers, their bodies perfectly aligned. She could feel his erection on her backside, but he just pressed his mouth to her ear and whispered to her.

“Sleep now, Celia,” he said. “You need your strength. Especially if you still think you can give me that whipping you promised.”

Celia laughed and closed her eyes. She was tired. Her whole body was sore from fighting off her illness. Yet she feared that when she slept her dreams would be filled with images of John, stripped naked and stretched out on his stomach across the bed as he waited for her pleasure, his blue eyes aglow with tenderness …

John held Celia against him closely as she slept, listening to the soft, even sound of her breath, feeling the movement of her, the wondrous life of her. For a few moments there, in the depths of her fever, he had feared to lose her. He had already lost her once. He wasn’t sure he could bear it again—not when death was such a great severing and he’d never been able to make things right for her again.