Christmas At The Castle. Amanda McCabe
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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