Tarnished Rose of the Court Read online

  “Home?” Celia said. She wrapped her cloak closer against the cold day and watched Queen Mary and her ladies as they gambolled with their little dogs amid the trees. She had no home to go back to; she could hardly remember what a home felt like at all. A place that was hers, where she belonged. She had been a prisoner or a guest for too long.

  Only when she was in John’s bed, wrapped in his arms, did she feel she was meant to be there. And it felt too good, too frightening.

  She realised Allison was looking at her quizzically. She had been silent for too long. She smiled and said, “I will be happy to see England again.”

  Allison laughed. “You don’t care for Scotland?”

  “It is a strange place. A rough one.” Celia studied the craggy face of King Arthur’s Seat rising beyond the palace. She remembered John’s crumbling family home. “But beautiful in its own way. I’m glad to have seen it.”

  “But also glad to leave it behind, I think?”

  “Perhaps.” Scotland had been a dream, Celia thought, a moment out of her real life when she had found John again, had come alive again when she had thought herself dead inside. How could she regret that, even if the dream-time had to end? She could not be sorry.

  Yet she felt so fragile inside, as if she was barely held together. One cold wind would shatter everything.

  “I’m not sure what waits for me back in England,” Celia said. “But I must face it soon. I cannot stop time.”

  “Perhaps you could do more services like this for Queen Elizabeth,” Allison said quietly. “It has its own rewards.”

  Celia looked at her, still unused to seeing such a solemn look on Allison’s pretty face. She couldn’t fathom how she’d missed it before, how she had failed to peer behind the façade.

  It made her frown, wondering what else she had missed.

  “Have you been doing such work for a long time, Lady Allison?” she asked.

  Allison shrugged, and the hood of her cloak shifted from her red hair. “I was the daughter of an earl who was sadly impecunious. When I was fourteen he married me off to a much older man.”

  In those simple words—the tale of so many young ladies—Celia could hear a vast amount of pain. Had she not experienced that herself? “Were you married very long?”

  Allison shrugged. “A few years. I learned many useful things from my husband. He was—demanding in the bedchamber, even though he could not often become aroused. When he died I found myself without money again.”

  “So you worked for the Queen?”

  “Aye. Lord Burghley saw what I could do and gave me a task to prove myself. Then another and another. I do well for myself, and serve England as well.”

  Celia stopped at the end of the pathway, listening to Queen Mary’s laughter, the shrill barking of the dogs. She could only think of John, of all her old foolish hopes. Hopes she had dared to resurrect even as she knew better.

  “Do you never want anything else?” Celia asked.

  “Such as what?” Allison said with a small smile. “I have no wish to marry again. Especially to another man who is not my own choice. I am content.”

  And Celia envied her that. To have work she was good at, a purpose. To serve something important, larger than herself, and be free to do it. It was what John did.

  “I was wrong about Lord Knowlton,” Celia said. “I never suspected him. How can I do what you do when I can’t read people?”

  “You learn that,” Allison said. “Once you know a few things people can be shockingly transparent. Most people.” She laughed. “I could never understand you, Mistress Sutton.”

  Celia had to laugh in return. “I cannot understand myself at times. But how did you learn to do this?”

  Allison’s face softened. “Marcus helped me when we first met. He and John have been doing this work longer than I have.”

  “And do you often work together?” Celia asked, pushing away a small pang of jealousy. It seemed it was Marcus Allison had the soft spot for, not John. Even so...

  “With Marcus, aye. Not so often with John. But we were all in Paris together for a time, working to discover a traitor in the embassy there. There are always those ready to take French coin, just as Knowlton was. It was a dangerous time.”

  “But you all survived?” Celia whispered, afraid that might not always be the case. Her hands were suddenly cold, her brain numb at the thought.

  “Aye, we watched each other’s backs. John had just finished with the Drayton conspiracy when he was sent to Paris, and I don’t know what happened to him but he was fiercely looking for a fight. Even the French could not stand against him.”

  Celia froze. Arthur Drayton was the name of her brother’s friend—the one who had embroiled him in his traitorous scheme. Surely she had heard Allison wrong? Surely—? Nay, it could not be. It could not! She wouldn’t let it be. And yet she feared it was the truth—the truth that had always been staring her in the face even as she denied it.

  Clutching at her cloak with numb hands, she spun towards Allison. “What did he do before he went to Paris?” she whispered.

  Allison frowned, as if she was disquieted by what she saw in Celia’s face. “Lord Burghley knew there was some sort of trouble brewing, and that John’s uncle lived nearby. He was sent to ferret out the traitors there. Once he did that he was sent immediately to France. You have turned very pale, Mistress Sutton. Are you ill?”

  Celia shook her head. She felt as if she had been turned into a block of ice. Her face, her skin, her heart were so cold, and thoughts raced through her head.

  Of course John had not really been sent to the country to atone for some scandal. He had come to trap her poor, foolish brother and his friends in their silly game of conspiracy. William had never had a chance against a cool, deceitful predator like John Brandon. And neither had she.

  She had fallen into his bed like a ripe plum. But at least then she had been a naive girl who could not know better, who had never encountered anyone like him before. Now she was a woman, a widow, who knew she should guard her heart. But she had gone to him again, opened herself to him again.

  She was a doubly damned fool. And she could feel her heart cracking inside her and falling into a thousand shards of doubt.

  “I must go inside now,” she said tightly.

  “I will go with you,” Allison said, but Celia shook her head.

  “You stay with the Queen,” Celia managed to say. “I am well. I only need to rest for a while.”

  And to kill John Brandon. But even if he was gone from her life, gone from the world, she would never be able to banish the hollow pain inside of her. The pain had been diminished for a time, while she lay in John’s arms, but now it was back, a steel vice on her soul.

  She had the terrible certainty it would never be gone again.

  She turned and walked away. She forced herself to move slowly, to make her steps measured even as she wanted to run. She still walked slowly when she reached the palace, climbed the stairs past the courtiers who swept past her laughing and stood whispering in niches. They were all a blur to her.

  Her mind felt quiet, hazy, as if time had ceased to have all meaning. She felt nothing at all. The pain had gone too deep. If only she could go on feeling thus the rest of her life.

  As she turned onto the quiet corridor lined with closed chamber doors she reached up to unfasten her cloak. She didn’t notice as it dropped to her feet. Her eyes were on the door to John’s chamber, the innocent-looking wood that concealed the mouth to hell.

  She pushed it open without knocking and stood frozen on the threshold. John was packing books and papers in a valise, wearing a loose shirt over his bandage, his hair tousled. He looked so beautiful, so much like the John she had loved, that her heart gave a painful squeeze within her.

  But that John had never existed except in her own foolish mind, Celia reminded herself. This John was a hardened intelligencer, a liar. He had destroyed her brother, her family, her whole life.

  Ye
t she loved him still, and that only made her hate him more.

  He glanced up, and a smile spread across his face at the sight of her. His eyes lit up a brighter blue than any summer sky.

  “Celia,” he said. “What do you do today?”

  The sound of her name on his lips made the ice that encased her crack violently. Flames of utter fury roared through her—fury at him for making everything

  between them a lie, at herself for wanting to believe him. She lunged towards him and caught his cheek with her nails. The long scratch on his golden skin stoked her anger higher, and she slapped him with the flat

  of her palm.

  Caught by surprise, he fell back a step and she slapped him again. With a scream, she tried to strike once more, but he was ready for her. Her fury gave her an abnormal strength, yet he was still much stronger. He caught her wrist, his fingers like steel manacles, and swept her arm behind her back as he spun her round, her back to his chest. His other arm banded around her waist.

  “How could you?” she cried, and to her horror felt hot tears spill down her cheeks. She kicked back at him, twisting against his arms, but her skirts tangled around her legs and bound her in place. “I hate you.”

  “Hush,” John growled against her ear. He easily evaded her strikes, holding her bound against him. “Hush now, Celia.”

  “You killed him,” she sobbed. “And I let you. I let you deceive me because of my foolish lust for you, and he died because of it.”

  John’s body went rigid against hers. “You know.”

  A tiny, foolish part of her had actually hoped he would deny it. That part died at those quiet words, and Celia went limp in his arms. The angry fire burned away, leaving her cold again. So cold.

  She slumped in John’s arms and let her tears fall. They had been held back for so long. “So it is true. You were sent to find the traitors, break their conspiracy.”

  “Aye,” he said roughly. She felt him lower his head and press his face to her hair. His breath was harsh against her. “That was why I went there. It seemed a simple enough task. But I never expected you, what you would do to me.”

  Celia closed her eyes and sniffed back the last of her tears. She turned her damp cheek into his shoulder, but the familiar smell of him made her heart twist again. “Did you use me for information? Suspect me?”

  He gave a bitter laugh. “If you remember, Celia, we seldom had time to talk at all. You never told me anything. They gave themselves away easily enough.”

  “But then why...?”

  “Why did I take you? Because I had to. I knew it was wrong, foolish, but I had to have you. No woman has ever made me feel as you do, Celia, so wild, insane with need for you. My fairy queen.” His tone was rough, strained, as if he held back a flood of emotion.

  Celia gave a ragged sob. Her whole body felt weak, empty. “Do not call me that.”

  “I am sorry, Celia.” He was silent for a long moment, their breath the only sound in the room. “Have you done with beating me now?”

  “For the moment,” she said. She felt too weak and sad even to lift her arms. There was nothing but the numbness. Remorse that she had let herself trust in him again against everything. She was a fool, a fool.

  John carefully lifted her in his arms and laid her on her back on the bed. She closed her eyes and turned her head away, achingly aware that he stood over her, watching her intently. At last she heard him walk away and sit down on the stool where she had sat for so many hours while he was wounded.

  “I was going to tell you,” he said.

  “When?”

  “Soon. Or perhaps long years from now, when you were too old and weak to attack me like that. But I did know that after everything we had been through you deserved the truth.”

  Celia still could not open her eyes, could not look at him. “Why did you not say before...?” Before she’d made love with him again. Opened her heart to him again.

  She heard the rasp of his hand rubbing over his bristled jaw. “Because I was weak and selfish. I wanted this time with you. Needed it.”

  “There are dozens of other women who would happily warm your bed. Why toy with me again?”

  “God’s blood, Celia, but it is not like that with us and you know it,” he cursed. “I know it was wrong of me, but I had to have you again and I would have done anything to get you.”

  Celia wanted to cry again, to sob out all her hurt and confusion, but she simply had no tears left. She had nothing left at all.

  She slowly pushed herself up until she sat at the edge of the bed. John didn’t move, but he watched her as closely as a hawk watched a mouse, as if he could read her and know what she would do next.

  But he couldn’t know. She didn’t even know herself. She wanted to demand he tell her why he had done this to her again, what it was about her that set her up for hurt like this. But she did not want to give him the satisfaction of knowing what she felt.

  “Well, then, you had me, John,” she said. “And I had you. But no more. Never again. I have nothing more to give anyone.”

  “Celia, I beg you—” he began, but she held up her hand to stop him.

  “I need to be alone now,” she said. “Please don’t follow me.”

  She slid off the bed and moved towards the door on trembling legs. John moved to help her, but at the touch of his hand she flinched away and took a step back.

  “Celia, this is not over,” he insisted.

  “Not now,” she whispered. “Please, not now. If you care even one tiny bit for me, John, you will let me go now. I might shatter if you touch me.” She could not connect with him again. She did not trust herself any longer.

  She felt the tension in his body, the urge he had to grab her in his arms again, yet he made no move towards her. Celia wrapped her arms around herself tightly and moved to the door. She felt cold and fragile, and very, very old.

  Once the door had closed behind her she ran. She scooped up her cloak and kept running until she was alone in her chamber. She collapsed to the floor, her hands over her face, and wished the terrible ache would go away. That she could just be numb again for ever.

  But she feared the hurt would never, ever be gone.

  * * *

  John smashed his fist down onto the table, scattering papers everywhere. Pain drove up his arm but he didn’t even notice it. All he could see was Celia’s face as she turned away from him. So pale and still, with eyes that were void of any light. Dead.

  And he was the one who had done that to her. To Celia, the woman he loved.

  “I love her,” he whispered, and the truth of those words was like a bolt of burning lightning, illuminating what had been hidden in darkness for him for too long. What he had hidden from himself.

  He loved Celia, and he had lost her. Because of his own actions, his past, he had hurt her far worse than her hell-damned husband ever had.

  “God’s teeth!” John shouted, and swept the table clean with a vicious swipe of his arm.

  He had to go to her, make things right for her again. He would give her anything, be anything, if she would just trust him again as she had when she took his body over hers.

  Full of violent desperation, John swung towards the door and flung it open, intent on finding Celia. But Marcus stood on the threshold, blocking the doorway. His friend’s face, usually so full of humour and mischief, was solemn. He shoved John back into the room and slid inside, slamming the door behind them. He crossed his arms over his chest and blocked the exit.

  “Whatever this is, Marcus, I have no time for it now,” John growled. “Get out of my way.”

  Marcus shook his head. “So you can go to Celia Sutton?”

  John froze, his hands curled into tight fists. “Aye.”

  “What is between the two of you?” Marcus demanded. “I thought she was merely some kind of challenge to you, an unattainable lady for you to try and seduce. But now your quarrels are the talk of the palace.”

  “She was never merely anything
to me,” John admitted.

  “Then what? Why are you running after her now, with that violent look in your eyes? I have seen that look before, right at the moment you ride into a tournament.”

  Violent? Aye, he did feel violent. As if he could grab Celia and hold her fast between his body and the wall and force her to listen. To understand, to forgive. Even if he knew her forgiveness was impossible now. He would do anything to get her back, but that would only drive her further away.

  John slumped down onto the stool and ran his hands through his hair. “I knew her before...years ago.”

  Marcus relaxed his stance, but still stood by the door. “And you had a youthful affair that ended badly? One you renewed here in Scotland?”

  “Aye, something of the sort,” John muttered. “Do you remember the Drayton conspiracy?”

  “Of course. You more than proved your worth on that one.”

  “Her brother was one of the men involved, but I did not know he was until after I had made love to Celia. He was executed and her family ruined.”

  “Curse it,” Marcus breathed. “And she did not know before?”

  “Not until today. I was going to tell her, but she found out somewhere else. Now she despises me.”

  “Then that is why...”

  “Why what?”

  “Allison told me Queen Mary has arranged an escort back to London for Mistress Sutton and they are to leave at dawn tomorrow.”

  “She is going already?” John burst out. “Then I must see her now!”

  “Nay, John, that would not be a good idea! She needs time to think,” Marcus protested.

  John shoved him out of the way and tore open the door. He ran hard through the corridors, seeking her chamber. Her door was locked, but he could hear the murmur of soft voices inside.

  “Celia!” he shouted as he pounded his fist on the door. He drew startled glances from passing courtiers, but he did not care. All he knew was that she was leaving, and time grew so very short.

  “Celia, I know you are in there,” he said, resting his forehead on the door. “Please, just listen to me for a moment.”