Sir Elizabeth was silent then.
Cordelia forced herself to go on. "I want things that I feel selfish for wanting. Is it so terrible to think Lady Jeanne's marriage should not exist thanks to a monarch's indulgence? I know my father loves me, and that he's done what he can to give me a life in which my duty does not chafe too terribly." She paused as shame filled her lungs like poisoned air. "I'm not sure his life is any better than the one he's tried to shape for me. I know he feels weighed down by duty, too. I was raised with so much responsibility." She shrugged helplessly.
Sir Elizabeth struggled up onto an elbow, cocking her head. "You walked all the way around the pond, but never actually took a swim."
"Excuse me?"
"You never said what you want. You never answered my question."
"I want to put you on the back of my dragon and fly somewhere else. Some place where you could get the honor you deserve as a knight, and where I could find…" Tears stung the backs of Cordelia's eyes. She cut off the sentence before she choked on it.
Sir Elizabeth touched her arm softly, hesitantly, and Cordelia tried to hide how it made her shiver. "Find what?"
"If it were up to me," Cordelia said quickly, hoping to outrun the emotion behind her words, "then I'd be a beastmaster. I wouldn't be anyone's prize. I'd take care of my dragons and look for a woman who wanted me for me. Not a knight who mostly wants the glory, but thinks we might be able to feel for each other if we spend long enough locked in the palace together."
Sir Elizabeth's hand fell away. "I'm sorry. I wish I could have given you what you wanted."
Cordelia glanced down at where her fingers had been. "Truly? That is your wish?" She reminded herself not to melt too much at this sentiment. She was like a starving woman, desperate for any scrap she might be given.
Sir Elizabeth smiled ruefully. "It isn't really glory for me. It's self-respect more than anything else." She drew a line in the dirt with her fingertip. "Before all this, I never thought much about marriage. When I did, I worried about it. What man would allow me to carry on as I am? What man would indulge me that way?" Here, she glanced meaningfully at Cordelia, showing she'd understood the bitterness the princess had put into that word. "You're right, of course. I don't want to live in a world where I can only be myself if the people around me feel like being kind to me. I don't want to marry a person who thinks he's doing me a favor by letting me keep what I already earned."
Cordelia realized that Sir Elizabeth was drawing her coat of arms in the earth. She thought about the meaning of the symbols, and how they spoke to what she had already been through and accomplished at Tyrell Keep.
"If you had a destination for your dragon, Your Highness, I might want to get on. On the other hand…" She trailed off, placing the last few lines in the dirt with firm vigor. "Perhaps this is what you meant before. I'm loyal to the king, to this country. I took all my oaths quite seriously, on my soul. Even if the realm you wish for exists—and I'm not sure it does—it might not be right for me to seek it and leave behind the duties I'm sworn to here. I want to live in a place where my accomplishments are recognized, but would I exile myself for it? Betray my oaths?"
Cordelia slumped miserably at these words. Sir Elizabeth was right. Cordelia couldn't turn her back on the duties she'd been raised to fulfill, especially when she wasn't even sure anything better was available. She leaned back on her hands, wishing she hadn't shown such weakness in front of one of her subjects. Why couldn't she control herself? Why must she bare her soul to any woman who showed the slightest interest in her, be that woman knight or serving girl?
"I will speak for you," she said, when she thought she could control her voice. "I have the skills for that, at least. Even if you've made an enemy of Sir Dalton, I'll make sure he's declawed."
"I should hope so," Sir Elizabeth said, an odd smile playing around her lips.
"I beg your pardon?" Cordelia couldn't help bristling when faced with such an insolent tone.
"Well, I wouldn't think you'd want your spouse to be weak at court."
"My spouse?" Cordelia's mind flashed to Sir Dalton, but she'd fling herself off a balcony before she'd marry him.
The humor went out of Sir Elizabeth's face. "The way I see it," she said slowly, "if we're not going to fly somewhere else, then we need to be realistic. You're out of the tower. Your dragon is alive. Can't we find a way for me to claim credit for that and 'win' you? You know what would satisfy your father. You don't want to marry a man? I'm not a man. I'll marry you, gladly. We'd make good partners. I think we understand each other. As for me, I'd know I was marrying a spouse who wouldn't see my accomplishments as a threat, and who therefore would have a chance of… coming to care about me as myself. For what I am."
"And you'd rule the country in the process."
"If that's what it would take to marry without trading away my freedom, then yes."
Cordelia hesitated. She liked the idea of marrying Sir Elizabeth much more than she wanted to admit, but she kept feeling naive around her. When the other woman had spoken chivalrously, Cordelia had feared manipulation. Now that she spoke strategically, Cordelia still felt afraid.
"I'm not sure," she said finally.
Sir Elizabeth leaned back. "I would never want to force you."
"It's girlish, I know, but I don't want to live without…" She blushed and trailed off.
"Without what? I think love could grow between us."
"You love women, then?"
"Not usually." Sir Elizabeth flashed a grin, but her cheeks were tight and the expression didn't look easy. "I thought I could make an exception."
Cordelia gave her a hard look. She knew herself, and no matter how much love she might be able to feel for a hypothetical man, she couldn't imagine that love going beyond friendship or partnership. She couldn't imagine turning it into a physical expression. If Sir Elizabeth wasn't the sort to love women in that way, then Cordelia just couldn't see her way clear to hoping they'd someday discover passion in the marriage bed.
"I suppose we could find ways to work around things," the princess said. "Make agreements. It wouldn't bother me for you to have a lover, as long as you were very discreet." That lie roughened her throat on its way out. She coughed and pushed on. "Perhaps you'd afford me the same courtesy. I know better now than to cause scandals with serving girls. Perhaps Lady Jeanne could help find me someone trustworthy." Cordelia studied the palms of her hands, cheeks burning at admitting to her own unladylike carnal needs.
"Your Highness." One of Sir Elizabeth's hands landed on hers. "Princess. Cordelia. May I call you that?"
"Not where anyone might overhear."
"Cordelia. May I call you that now?"
Cordelia shrugged, glumly. She was trying to resign herself to returning to the palace, to marrying for friendship rather than love, to experiencing the physical act only in secret and at the risk of being caught and shamed for it. She still felt childish for her feelings—none of those sacrifices should have surprised her.
"Your Highness."
Sir Elizabeth was still trying to get her attention. Cordelia forced herself to lift her head. A rosy shade colored Sir Elizabeth's skin from her face, down her neck, and onto her chest. "Cordelia," she said again. Awkwardly, she retrieved her hand and gestured at herself, at her still-naked body.
"Am I… Do I not… Is it perhaps that you want someone…" Her voice broke and failed. Sir Elizabeth smoothed her expression into determined lines, and Cordelia was sure this was the face she wore to battle. "If you like women, I'm probably not your type," she said flatly. "You probably want someone… more womanly, I suppose. Someone pretty."
Cordelia shook her head, confused. "What does it matter what type of woman I like?" It was beyond foolish to think about preferences when she was so far from having her needs met in any way.
Sir Elizabeth seemed frustrated.
"You wouldn't have to worry about guessing the identity of my lover, if I took one," Cordelia assured h
er. "If we do marry, I want us to trust each other. As much as possible, anyway."
"So you don't… You're not…"
What had happened to the smoothly chivalrous knight Cordelia had met in the tower? She wondered what could have transformed Sir Elizabeth so. "Out with it," she said.
"There's no way you'd ever consider me," Sir Elizabeth said miserably.
Cordelia's throat tightened. She still questioned herself about Malia sometimes, wondering if she'd inadvertently convinced the serving girl to do things she'd never wanted to do, worrying about what it would mean if she possessed power like that. She felt deeply uncomfortable with the idea of Sir Elizabeth trying to resign herself to a physical relationship she wouldn't naturally desire. "Just as I would not wish a man to force himself on me, so I would never want to force myself—"
"Your Highness, with all due respect, you couldn't force me to do anything I didn't want to."
She'd recovered it now: the confidence, the subtle flex of muscle, the attitude that made her so appealing. Sir Elizabeth's strength set Cordelia at ease. She needed to feel this was someone she couldn't force. Her father's words came back to her. There is only so much love that can exist without trust.
"I told you I hoped things might become personal between us. But you don't seem to think they could," Sir Elizabeth said. Her gaze was steady now. Her throat moved up and down. She seemed resigned. "So I'm asking, because I want to know. Is the trouble that you don't find me pleasing?"
Heat rushed through Cordelia. Her heart began to pound in her chest. She dared to glance away from Sir Elizabeth's face, at the rest of her body, but its full, naked glory overwhelmed her when she wasn't studiously focused on binding wounds and soothing hurt. "Sir Elizabeth—"
"Beth. If we're going to talk about this, you should call me Beth."
"Nothing would please me more than if you wanted—"
Beth stopped Cordelia's words with a finger on her lips. "Will you try?" She cleared her throat. "Before we start talking about discreet lovers and secret arrangements, I think we ought to know for sure that it's really not possible between us."
The excitement that had been building in Cordelia's body wilted at that. She leaned back and shook her head. "If you're thinking like that…"
Beth cursed and shifted position, coming forward onto her knees. Cordelia noticed her compensating for her wounds, but her movements weren't awkward. "Cordelia," Beth said. "May I kiss you?"
Cordelia couldn't form any words, so she just nodded. Despite her misgivings, she couldn't pass up the chance. There had only ever been Malia, and Cordelia had been so naive then, so hungry and so unsophisticated.
Beth's fingers stroked Cordelia's neck before settling on her jaw. They were strong and callused, but still slender and light. Cordelia clenched her teeth to keep from shivering.
She was so close, Cordelia couldn't look at her without crossing her eyes. She closed them instead, but that made her incredibly aware of the scents of metal, blood, earth, and woman.
Beth's kiss darted in, like a child fulfilling a dare, their lips brushing so briefly that first time that Cordelia might as well have imagined it. Still, even that ghostly contact set her skin prickling everywhere.
Please don't let that be all she does, Cordelia prayed.
For once, her prayer was answered. Beth's mouth returned, bolder this time. It pressed against Cordelia's and held for a long moment. When Beth pulled back, Cordelia wondered if that had truly been a kiss. It felt more like something that ought to be called a caress.
She noticed how fast her breathing had become. She felt dizzy, foolish, and frightened, and could not help reaching out a hand to steady herself. Cordelia wasn't sure what she was grasping for, but Beth was there to receive her, to hold her upright.
The knight's face approached again. "May I… Hell, will you let me keep trying, Your Highness? I think I can do this better if I just…"
Cordelia's eyes snapped open. Beth clearly felt she had to take the lead, that she had to romance the princess like a knight in a story would. Strong as the idea of that story was, they were trying to change it, weren't they? Cordelia didn't want to let the story bat her about, as if she shouldn't have any say in how she conducted her own life.
"Let me kiss you," she said. "Will you, Beth?"
"Please," Beth answered, and there was a note of real, ragged need in her voice that gave Cordelia the confidence she needed to take hold of her, to wrap one arm around her shoulders and put one hand on the back of her head, and to kiss her with the full force of pent-up desire.
There were years of general longing in that kiss, but it also contained a full measure of specific lust. Cordelia's heart sang for the simple fact of kissing a woman again, it was true, but she never forgot she was kissing this woman, who managed to be hard and fragile at the same time, who had fought Sir Dalton for Cordelia's sake, who wouldn't fly away on the back of a dragon but who was trying to figure out a way for them to spend their lives together.
She used to feel, kissing Malia, that her lust erased all the rest of her—that in those moments, who and what she was stopped existing, and she became nothing more than a woman needing another woman. Now, with Beth, everything felt different. Cordelia felt more herself than ever. She was a princess kissing her knight, they were two women seeking a solution in a world that didn't offer one, she was pouring herself into this kiss praying she might wake something in Beth, that she might feel the other woman respond, that her mouth and lips could form the shapes of a new future for them both.
At first, the angles of Cordelia's elbows felt awkward, and Beth's body felt stiff and strange in her arms. Before the princess could give up hope, however, a soft puff of air heated the inside of her mouth, accompanied by an almost inaudible catch in Beth's throat. Then, slowly but definitely, Beth began to melt into their embrace. Her body fitted itself against Cordelia's. Steady warmth radiated where their skin connected. Beth's mouth opened wider, her movements natural rather than studied, and her tongue met Cordelia's.
Cordelia could feel it then, without a doubt. This could work for her in the marriage bed, if Beth was willing. She broke the kiss then, needing to see Beth's face, needing to know she wasn't inventing the alchemy she sensed between them.
Beth's eyes were closed, her expression soft. After a breath, she recovered and met Cordelia's gaze. "I want more," she said frankly.
The words were almost unbearable. Hearing them, Cordelia ached. Her body broke out in hot and cold patches. After Malia, she had tried to lock her desire away, had wondered if she would ever sate it again. Now it rushed out of the places she had hidden it, leaving her prickly and tingling everywhere.
In Cordelia's moment of hesitation, the corners of Beth's mouth turned downward. "Unless you didn't…"
"No. Heavens no, Beth, my dear, my knight, my—" Cordelia interrupted her own words, kissing Beth's temples, her jaw, her neck. Urgency was beginning to take her. She wanted to stretch Beth out beside the campfire and explore her body thoroughly, with depth. One last objection came into her mind. "What about your wounds?"
"You've taken care of them already," Beth said. She drew Cordelia toward her, in just the way the princess had been envisioning. They lay down together, and Beth lifted her lips to Cordelia's again and again.
Oaths
Beth's mind kept interrupting the moment. Cordelia's fingers would find a clever spot, and sometimes a surprising one—Who knew the left side of Beth's lower back was so exquisitely sensitive? Not Beth, and certainly not any of her previous lovers—and just as Beth twitched with ecstasy, she'd distract herself by thinking something like, This is the princess doing this to you right now. This is Her Highness Cordelia, daughter of the ever-blessed King Carlysle. How in the world has it come to this, where you're lying in the dirt with a woman like that, next to a campfire, rutting?
Then a different strand of thoughts would interrupt. Is it still called rutting if it's with a woman? You have no idea what you're d
oing. You don't have a clue where to put your hands, but she knows exactly—
That would be when Cordelia rescued Beth from the confusion of her mind, perhaps by trailing a finger down her bare inner thigh, bringing the needs of the body into bright, thrumming focus.
Cordelia was skilled. It wasn't that Beth's body burned under her touch—that word wasn't specific enough to describe Cordelia's ministrations. She had bound Beth's wounds with the object of soothing pain, and Beth's pain had been soothed. Now she applied that precision to causing pleasure, and Beth found herself gasping and writhing in a way that embarrassed her if she—no, don't distract yourself again!—let herself think about it too much.
This wasn't the tentative exploration she'd done with the blacksmith's apprentice. It wasn't the matter-of-fact seeing-to she and Sir Mark had given each other a few times, which had been a pragmatic recognition of what body parts could do and the relief and good feelings they could bring. This wasn't even the careful reconnaissance she'd envisioned when she'd suggested she and Cordelia try this, in which she'd imagined herself sharing caresses and slow kisses while concentrating carefully on whether a woman's touch could awaken and satisfy lust within her.
No, this thing with Cordelia felt like a battle she was losing, a force she couldn't match, a duel she wasn't fast enough to understand. Beth had never really given herself over to a lover, and she wasn't sure she ought to start now. With every new kiss, though, she found herself slipping a little more deeply into… whatever this was.
To the Victor Page 6
