Lords of the Kingdom

by Le Veque, Kathryn

“I know exactly what I’m doing.” For tonight she did anyway.

  His gaze burned her. “This makes you mine. There’s no turning back.”

  She wanted to be his forever. Even if only like this. “I know.”

  He slid a gold ring off his finger and held it toward her. “I don’t have a ring for you yet, but soon you’ll wear one—mine. For now, I pledge my loyalty to you and swear it on this ring, which holds great meaning to me.” He kissed the ring, and she swallowed back thick tears. God, how much would he hate her tomorrow? Was this wrong? She was too selfish to change her mind now. He cupped her chin. “Will you pledge your loyalty to me?”

  She could. She would always be loyal only to him, but he may not see it that way. Still, she had no choice. Shaking, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to the cool metal. “You have my undying loyalty.” She took the ring from him, kissed it and handed it back to him.

  He slid the ring on, cupped her neck and drew her face close to his. A deep ache coiled through her when his lips brushed her tender mouth.

  “You are so damn beautiful.” His voice hitched.

  That she made him vulnerable made her tremble anew. She shook her head.

  “Don’t do that.” His tone was sharp, insistent. “You are beautiful. I know your mother made you feel ugly because you were different, but it’s that difference that makes you so beautiful, so special to me.”

  His words unlocked a part of her she hadn’t realized had been barred against people. Inside, she felt as if she shattered. Moaning, she pulled his head closer still, needing more of him. His mouth crushed down on hers in a plundering kiss that robbed her of coherent thought. Blood surged through her veins; the rush of heat through her body was extraordinary. His hands were underneath her, scooping her up and laying her back against the soft pillows. As she reached for him, he rolled off the bed and stood beside her. His eyes held hers while he stripped the clothing from his body.

  She meant to protest the loss of his heat, but as he revealed himself, she sighed. His skin glowed in the candlelight. She caught her breath as she drank in his appearance. He was hard and sculpted, just as she had always imagined her knight would be. There was nothing soft or relenting about the rippling muscles of his flat abdomen or the rising curves of his arms. His broad shoulders appeared strong enough to withstand many blows from an enemy, and based on the angry red zigzagging scars on his right shoulder, she realized he’d already withstood some sort of wounds.

  She scrambled off the bed and licked his shoulder, and then she kissed the scar once, twice, three times. “How did you get this?”

  “Equerry training.” He sounded guarded. Maybe training had not gone well.

  “You should choose a less dangerous profession.”

  He laughed. “I wish I could. Too late for that, my love.”

  My love. The sound of the endearment from his lips made her smile. She trailed her fingers down the smooth skin of his chest, grinning when he shuddered beneath her fingertips. “Is that because of my touch?”

  “It’s because I want you too much.” He cupped her breasts, causing her nipples to harden.

  Her newfound power made her dizzy with excitement. “How much do you want me?”

  Laughter rumbled from his chest. “I ache all over.”

  She nodded, understanding his need because her body burned as well. His mouth slanted then, trailed kisses down her neck, over her collarbone, and back up to her lips.

  Now she was the one shivering from desire. Heat singed her skin every place his warm mouth touched her. Madness and need consumed her, overriding any doubts. She wanted to rub her lips against every part of his body. She kissed his shoulder, his neck, his chest.

  The length of his body covered her for a moment, wiry hair to smooth skin. Once again, his mouth found her breast, sucking greedily until she moaned and writhed beneath him. Her loins pulsed, and she ground her pelvis against him, gasping at the sparks of pleasure that shot through her. “What happens now?”

  He smiled slowly. “Now I bring you pleasure again.” He caressed her belly before moving to the juncture between her thighs.

  “No!” Laughing, she tried to scramble out of his reach, but his hands locked down on her legs like two steel manacles. “Oh yes, my love. The more pleasure now, the less pain in a moment.”

  “But you already brought me pleasure,” she protested.

  “And I intend to keep bringing you pleasure the rest of your life. It’s my most sacred duty as your husband.”

  Her heart slammed against her chest at his revealing words. “You are not my husband.”

  His brow puckered. “Not yet. But I will be soon.”

  There was no point arguing. What could she say anyway? Tomorrow I’m intending to flee you and betray your trust? She nodded and forced herself to relax. His fingers massaged across the sensitive place between her legs, but this time light as a feather until she was pushing against him in silent demand that he move faster and harder. He acquiesced without a word.

  Need coiled once again within her, driving her to clench the sheets as her body quivered with wanting. Her longing slowly grew stronger like the heat of the sun from morning to afternoon, until she burned within. “Please,” she moaned. This time she knew exactly what she begged for. That same release, but not from his hands. She wanted to feel him sheathed inside her. She pushed his hands away and dug her nails into his sides. “Take me.”

  He hovered above her, sweat covering his brow. His ragged breathing told her just how difficult prolonging his own pleasure had become. One strong hand slid below her pelvis and lifted her toward him before he drove into her. She tensed with a twinge of pain, but he was hot, hard and pulsing. He stroked once, twice, three times. The pain disappeared, and she lost count, desperate to meet him stroke for stroke. She clutched his back, moaning.

  He nipped at the sensitive skin of her ear. “Let go, my love.”

  She pulled him to her, wanting to bury herself within him, until they were one. Every muscle in her body clenched as wave after wave of pleasure rolled through her. Her back arched as her head fell back. He groaned and drove faster, harder until his muscles shook beneath her fingertips. With a final stroke, his body shuddered, tightened and trembled with his release.

  He sagged against her, slick with sweat. They lay for a moment panting with exhaustion, until he moved off her onto his back then tugged her against his side. She snuggled up to him and laid her head on his chest to count the beats of his heart. “I love you.” The thought had been flooding her mind. She’d not intended to say it, because it would seem a lie tomorrow, but she couldn’t hold back.

  He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “And I love you.”

  Doubts about her decisions crept into her head. Maybe she could trust him? The errant thought horrified her. Not only was it breaking her vow, it would be putting Grey in danger, if things should go badly. No. She had to leave him. To protect him.

  The candle in the room burned itself out. Madelaine lay very still and pretended to be asleep. Grey’s chest rose shallowly at first and then deeply and his heartbeat against her ear slowed as well. She rose until she could see his face, but could not make out his expression in the dark. Yet his moans indicated he dreamed.

  With care, she rolled slowly away from him and swung her legs over the bed. Her feet touched the material of her dress, and she silently bent, retrieved it and quickly put on her clothes. Her body was sore all over, but she welcomed every precious ache that had come from giving herself to him. Within a few minutes, she was at the stables, where the boy who was paid to keep the horses was only too glad to hand over Grey’s stallion for a handful of coins. She started to walk away, but then thought perhaps she better take the other horse as well. She gulped as she handed the last of her coins over. That was the last of two years’ worth of pin money.

  Yet, she had to spend it. She could not afford Grey reaching her before she met the prince. After another exchange of coins, she got on Grey�
��s stallion and led the other horse deep into the woods where she swatted it in the opposite direction of the inn. When she was certain the horse ran away, she turned the stallion and galloped toward home and a future filled with only one certainty—she would always love Grey and he’d likely hate her until his dying day.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Madelaine wept for the first hour of her ride. In all her fantasies of her first time with Grey, she never imagined fleeing. His undying love. Yes. Marriage. Absolutely. Betraying him? No. The possibility hadn’t crossed her mind. It didn’t matter she was doing what she had to. Knowing she had no choice did nothing to obliterate the queasiness of betraying Grey nor the certainty that a future with him was lost to her forever. Moreover, she was terrified about what her future would bring. What would happen once she found the king’s paper and took it to the prince? What sort of battle lines would be drawn then between the king and the prince as they fought for control of the throne?

  The nagging feeling that she and her father would be standing on the wrong side of the battle plagued her. Even if Father was correct and the king was going mad, to go behind the king’s back and strip away his power without consulting him or trying to come up with some sort of alternative seemed morally wrong. She wished there was some other course, but she couldn’t think of one nor would anyone listen to her, even if she could.

  She struggled to push the thoughts of the king and Grey out of her head and concentrate on the road. As she neared her home and made her way down the long drive, she gripped the reins and her heart pounded in trepidation. She gasped as the estate came into view. This was not the home she had left over a year ago.

  There was no welcoming light, no smell of fresh baked bread or apple tarts, no servants bustling about or even the whinny of the horses from the stables. Hope and life had deserted this dark, silent place. She had thought she’d been prepared for what she would find, since Grey had told her his brother had forced her father to dismiss all the servants with some cockamamie tale about financial woes, but she shook as she viewed her home so different than her memories. Though Lord Ashford had done her father a favor, by removing the very people who would spread gossip about him being arrested for treason, she couldn’t squelch the anger running through her veins when she opened the front door and saw the shambles her childhood home had been left in.

  Overturned furniture and paper littered the floors. After pushing a chair out of her way, she stalked from the entrance hall to the library, then through the ballroom and drawing room. Disorder reigned in every room. Drawers lay half open or pulled all the way out and left on the floor. The books in the library had been removed from the shelves. Chairs were overturned, no doubt in the men’s haste to try to locate the paper that would prove her father’s guilt. But Father was clever. Thank God! If he’d not hidden the paper he would be dead already. Neither Lord Ashford nor the king was likely to give a whit that her father meant only to protect England. Men and their games. They were all arrogant and self-serving, except for Grey.

  Ugly treacherous thoughts reared as she picked her way through the disorder and toward the kitchen and the door that led to the cellar. Every step on the marble floor echoed in the eerie silence. She passed a ball of ribbon lying on the floor. Abby’s ribbon! She bent, picked up the ribbon and fingered the silken thread. “Abby. Where are you?”

  Madelaine gulped back the sadness threatening to overcome her. She’d not given one thought to her childhood friend or any of the servants, for that matter. And blast Father, neither had he! His betrayal of the king had put them all in a precarious position.

  She prayed Abby and her mother had found someone to take them in or even new employment. If they hadn’t, maybe when things settled she could find Abby and bring her and her mother back here, or if not here wherever fate forced them to settle. God! She clenched the ribbon in her hand. It may do Abby more harm than good if she worked for Madelaine and her father, assuming they’d be in any sort of position to employ a servant.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and breathed deeply. She had to quit thinking about the future and secure the list for the prince. Opening her eyes, she strode down the hall and made her way to the back and through the door to the kitchen. Here everything was perfectly in its place. They’d never thought to look in the kitchen, let alone the wine cellar. With her lips pressed together, she quickly found a candle and then made her way down the dark cellar stairs.

  She’d always hated the damp, dark cellar. Her heart raced and her palms sweated. She shuffled past the barrels to the back where the wine bottles were. The endless rows filled her with dread. Dusty containers lined the walls eight rows deep. Dirt and dust filled her lungs and made her cough.

  Something creaked in the room, and she darted a look around seeing nothing but glass and wood. Trying to ignore the despair the rows conjured, she eyed the towering racks and hurried to the fourth row. In the middle of a sea of white bottles was a green one. The relief that poured through her made her tremble so that she had to set her taper on the shelf. It was just as well. She needed her hands free. She closed her fingers around the green bottle, and after a moment she managed to open it and turn it upside down. Inside the empty bottle the smooth edge of a rolled up piece of paper protruded.

  Grabbing the edge of the scroll, she tugged it out. For a moment, she eyed the paper, suspended between duty and curiosity. If she was going to risk her life and betray her king, she wanted to see exactly what he had written. After unrolling the paper, it shook as she brought it close to read. The first lines were the king’s mad statement about the angel visiting him, just as her father had said. Her scalp tingled as she read the king’s disturbing words. She moved her gaze down the paper. The distinctive slanted scrawl of her father’s handwriting leapt out at her and made her gasp. Trembling, she moved her finger along the first line. Primary Code of the Network Language.

  She traced the second entry. “QOTM” and “AKUXMK.” The code made no sense to her, but after reading further, she thought she had it. Her father had always made her solve elaborate puzzles he’d created and for the first time ever she was glad for it. This was not a complicated puzzle. The English word was written below the coded word which represented it. The coded word was her father’s handwriting, but the decoded word was not.

  She rubbed the paper between her fingers as she thought. Why had Father created ciphers for the king? Not enough sleep and lack of food sent a wave of exhaustion rolling through her that left her dizzy. For one bleak second, she thought she might swoon, but after a moment the spinning stopped, and she once again composed herself to study the paper.

  Blast her father.

  Her belly clenched in denial but the truth was in swirly dark ink before her eyes. Father had not told her the whole truth. He’d not said a word about being involved in creating a code for the king. Dizziness overwhelmed her again. She squeezed her eyes shut, breathed deeply and reached a steadying hand toward the shelf. Gripping the wood so tight her fingers ached, she swayed as wave after wave of nausea consumed her. Sweat, damp and sticky, trickled down her sides and covered her brow.

  If Father had omitted part of the truth, what else might he have lied about? Her mother’s voice, bitter and accusing, filled Madelaine’s head. How many times had her father returned from a long trip only for her mother to scream that he was lying about where he’d been, what he’d been doing. For years, her parents had scurried off to the garden to argue in private, only they were never alone.

  Madelaine’s secret hiding place had been in the garden. By the age of ten, she knew Mother thought Father was in love with someone else and that he secretly went to meet her time and again. And Madelaine would never forget the awful day her Mother had begged him not to go on the trip he had planned. She promised to be sweeter, more loving and make Madelaine a better, more dutiful daughter.

  Her mother’s pleas had fallen on deaf ears. He’d left, not to return for two months, and the beatings while he was gone ha
d been the worst Madelaine had ever received. But the beatings paled in comparison to the guilt that ate at her. She vowed to be a better daughter, one that would not cause her mother heartache and make her so angry that she fought with Father. She vowed to be the kind of daughter Father would want to come back to. Then he would stay with them. Then he would love them.

  But when he came back from his trip, he’d sought her out instead of Mother. That had been the best and worst day ever. He’d taught her a new way he’d learned to shoot his bow, and she’d eagerly gone with him for the better part of a day into the woods to hunt and shoot. Abby and her mother had even joined them for a time, which had never happened before and never happened again. When they’d all returned to the house, her mother had been livid beyond reason and had smacked Madelaine across the face with a hairbrush.

  Madelaine opened her eyes and rubbed her cheek, which throbbed as if just freshly hit. She could see her parents standing before her as if time had not moved forward a single second, minute, hour or day. Father grabbing Mother’s arm as she raised it to strike again, and Mother’s stricken face before she fled the room—those memories never faded. Abby and her mother had scurried off to the kitchen when Father had commanded them to go. Madelaine had crawled into bed early that night and prayed things would be better on the morrow, but the next day her parents barely spoke, and her mother made sure she knew it was all her fault.

  Madelaine kneaded her fingers into her aching head. In her heart, she didn’t believe her father betrayed her mother, nor was she sure he had really loved her. What was he doing all those times he was gone? Was a glimmer of the truth here in this paper?

  Her pulse raced as she read the next two lines written by the king’s hand. “King George III’s personal spies and missions,” she muttered aloud. Disbelief caused her to laugh nervously. Head of circle of six – Fifth Duke of Ashdon– mission – deliver message to Nelson regarding the movement of Napoleon’s fleet across the Atlantic.