Christmas At The Castle. Amanda McCabe
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followed by a tall, lean man clad in fashionable black and tawny velvet and satin.
John Brandon. It was him she had seen before. He was no illusion. Celia half rose at the sight of him, and then fell back onto her stool. She felt cold all over again.
His eyes—those bright sky-blue eyes she had once loved so much—widened when they glimpsed her. For a fleeting instant she saw a flare of emotion in their depths. A hint of a smile touched his lips. But a veil quickly fell over those eyes, and she could read nothing there but fashionable boredom. He gave no signs of recognising her at all.
“Ah, Sir John, there you are,” Queen Elizabeth said. She waved him forward, holding out her hand for him to bow over. He gave her an elaborate salute and a flirtatious grin that made her laugh.
“Your Grace outshines the sun itself,” he said. “Even in the midst of the winter you send us warmth and light.”
“Flatterer,” the Queen said, laughing even harder.
Celia remembered that smile all too well, and how it also had made her laugh and blush whenever he turned it in her direction. Back then it had been half hidden in a close-cropped beard. Now he was clean-shaven, the sharp, elegant angles of his chiselled face revealed and the full force of that smile unleashed.
From the corner of her eye Celia saw some of the young ladies-in-waiting sigh and giggle. Yes, she remembered very well that feeling—that sense of melting under the heat of his smile. But that had been long ago, and she had learned the painful consequences of falling under John Brandon’s spell.
“Sir John, this is Mistress Celia Sutton, who will also be journeying to Scotland,” Queen Elizabeth said. She lowered her voice to whisper confidentially, “She will give you any messages to be dispatched directly to me. You must see that she stays safe in Edinburgh.”
A frown flickered over John’s face, as if he was not happy with the task. But he could not be any less happy than Celia. Her heart sank in appalled confusion. She would have to travel with him? Confide in him?
She had the wild impulse to leap from her seat, cry out that she refused the Queen’s task and run from the room. But she forced herself to stay where she was, biting her lip until she tasted blood to keep from shouting. She could not refuse the Queen. There was nowhere for her to run.
John’s frown vanished as quickly as Celia had glimpsed it. He bowed again and said, “I am Your Grace’s servant in all things,” he said.
Elizabeth leaned back in her chair with a smug little cat’s smile. “Come now, Sir John. This is surely far from the most onerous task I have asked of you. Mistress Sutton is quite pretty, is she not? I’m sure spending time with her will not be so difficult on your long journey.”
Celia froze at the Queen’s teasing words. John’s glance flickered over her with not much interest. “I fear that when Your Grace is near I can see nothing else,” he said.
Elizabeth laughed. “Nevertheless, I expect the two of you will work together very well. Your mother was Scottish, was she not, Sir John?”
A muscle tightened along John’s jaw. “Yes, Your Grace.”
“She even lived at the Court of Queen Mary’s mother, when Marie of Guise was Regent, I believe?” Elizabeth said carelessly, as if those years when the English and Scottish armies under Queen Marie de Guise had been at bitter war was a mere trifle. “So you should be able to assist Mistress Sutton in learning the ways of the Scottish Court. Perhaps you will even rediscover your own family there.”
“I have no family but that of England, Your Grace,” he said tightly.
Elizabeth waved this away and said, “You may both leave us now. You will have a great many tasks to prepare for your journey, and I must finish these petitions before tonight’s banquet.”
Celia rose slowly from her stool and curtsied, her legs trembling and unsteady. She still could not quite believe all that happened in this strange short meeting. Her worries of having no home or income had been whisked away, only to be replaced by the sudden reappearance of John Brandon and a journey to Scotland to spy on Queen Mary. Her head spun with it all.
She would have laughed if it was not so coldly serious.
John bowed to the Queen, and the major-domo came forward again to lead them away. He took them not to the crowded presence chamber but through a hidden door into a small, dimly lit closet. After the brightness of the privy chamber Celia could see nothing but the shadow of heavy tapestries on dark wood walls.
She rubbed her hand over her eyes and took a deep breath. When she looked again the servant was gone—and she was alone with John.
He watched her closely, his lean, muscled shoulders tense and his handsome face wiped of all expression.
“Hello, Celia,” he said quietly. “It has been a long time, has it not?”
Celia stared up at John in the shadows of the closet. The faint, hazy bars of light fell over his face, and she saw that the years had changed him just as they had her. He was leaner, harder, his eyes a wintry, icy blue as they studied her warily.
Once she had thought those eyes as warm as a summer sky, melting her heart, piercing all her defences. But now her heart was a stone, a heavy weight within her that was numb to all feeling. It was better this way. Feelings were deceptive, treacherous. Never to be trusted.
Especially when it came to this man.
Celia stepped back until she felt the hard wood panelling of the wall against her shoulders. He didn’t move, yet his eyes never wavered from her face and it felt as if he followed her. It felt as if he pressed up against her in that dim, quiet light, his hard, hot body touching her as it once had. Demanding a response from her.
She twisted her hands into her skirts, struggling not to look away from him. Not to show her weakness.
“Aye, it has been a long while,” she said, once she finally found her voice again.
The last time she’d seen him he had been kissing her beneath that tree, their secret meeting place. His body had held her against the rough wood of the trunk, just as she braced herself to the wall now. He had kissed her, his mouth and tongue claiming hers, demanding she give him all her response as he dragged her skirt up, baring her to his touch. There had been such a wild desperation between them that day, a need such as she had never known. He had made her dream of a romantic, glorious future with him.
And the next day he was gone. Vanished without a word.
“Yet not nearly long enough,” she said coldly. “I thought never to see you again.”
His glance swept down over her again, taking in her austere gown, her ringless fingers, the tight, smooth twist of her hair. For an instant another image flashed in her mind. John taking her hair down, freeing it from its pins and running his hands through its heavy length. Calling it a fairy queen’s hair as he buried his face in it …
Those all-seeing blue eyes focused on her face again, narrowing as he watched her closely, as if seeking her thoughts. Once she had gifted him with all she was, given herself to him in every way.
She hoped she was no longer such a fool. She looked back at him with a steady, cool daring. Let him try to read her, play her again. The besotted, silly, giddy Celia he’d once known was gone. John had killed her—with the able assistance of her wretched husband and foolish brother.
“I’ve thought of you, Celia,” he said.
She quickly scrambled to cover her surprise at his words. He had thought of her? Surely not. Unless it had been to chuckle at her naivety. The country girl who had fallen so easily for his charm, his dalliance to pass the time of rural exile.