She fell back onto the pillows and raised herself on her elbows to watch him. He looked back at her, his eyes hooded as he slid her shoes off her feet. His palms moved slowly up the back of her legs, pulling her skirts out of his way as he went.
He bent his head and kissed the sensitive spot behind her knee, his open mouth hot through her silk stocking. Celia let her head fall back and closed her eyes to let the feelings wash over her. She wanted to feel every touch, every kiss, every breath.
John loosened the ribbon garter and eased her stocking down and off before reaching for her other leg and doing the same there. As the white silk rolled down his mouth followed, a fiery trail over her skin. He licked over the arch of her foot and rose up between her legs to reach for the ties of her skirt.
Celia arched her hips to let him strip away her clothes. Every part of her he bared he kissed, slowly, reverently, as if he worshipped every curve of her body. It was achingly tender, and she wanted to cry from what it did to her. It was as if her heart was cracking all over again and letting him slip inside.
When she lay before him naked, he stood beside the bed to strip away his own clothes, his doublet and shirt tossed to the floor as his gaze never left her. She sat up and reached for the fastening of his breeches, unable to wait a moment longer to see him.
She peeled them away from his lean hips, down his thighs, until his erection sprang free. She caressed with her thumb that spot he loved until he pushed her away.
“Celia,” he groaned.
Watching him, looking deeply into his eyes, she lay back down on the bed and opened her legs to him, welcoming him to come atop her and love her however he chose. Giving herself to him.
He seemed to see exactly what she was telling him. His nostrils flared and fire kindled deep in his eyes. She nodded, and he lowered his body slowly against hers, until she could wrap her legs around his hips and draw him to her. He slid along her, skin to skin, heartbeat to heartbeat, until his lips met hers in a soft, searching kiss.
Celia moaned at the touch of his mouth, at the way his tongue tasted the seam of her lips before sliding over hers, twining with hers. She had to touch him. She dug her fingers into his back, feeling the sweat-damp heat of his skin, the shifting and tensing of his muscles. They had come together so many times before, coupled as if compelled to each other, but in this moment she felt as if they were truly together.
One moment they were two people, two beings, then with a twist of his hips he slid inside her and they became one. He pressed forward until he was fully seated, his pubic bone pressed to hers, deeper than ever before. And then he rested against her, letting her feel their bodies together, feel him truly touching her.
“John, please...” she whispered, even though she had no idea what she begged for. She just needed more, needed him.
And then he drew back, slow and steady, until he almost pulled out of her. When she cried out he thrust forward, harder, rougher, only to draw back again.
Celia grasped his taut backside and dug her fingers in tight, urging him forward, silently asking for him to make her his. To show her he was hers, if only for now. He braced his hands on the bed to either side of her and thrust hard. She heard his breath, heavy and intoxicating in her ear as he kissed her, and she couldn’t breathe at all.
She closed her eyes and tilted her head back as she opened herself to him. She let him take her, hard and hungry, and felt her heart pound inside her breast as she reached for her climax.
“Wait for me, Celia,” he growled. “Come with me.”
“Yes,” she panted. “Yes.”
His movements grew faster, all rhythm gone to leave only hunger. Celia cried out as pleasure burst inside her, and he shouted her name as his back arched. She opened her eyes to see his features contorted with raw pleasure, the muscles in his arms taut.
And then he collapsed to the bed beside her, his hand on her hip. She had never felt anything like the peace that descended on her like a silvery cloud. She curled into his side, against his chest, and he pressed a kiss to her hair.
She couldn’t say anything. She could hardly even breathe. She could only slide into sleep again, held in John’s arms. She never slept as deeply as when she was safe with him.
Chapter Nineteen
John smoothed his hand softly down Celia’s bare back and over her scarred shoulder as he watched her sleep. Her skin felt so soft under his touch. Soft and slender—so vulnerable.
He slid his touch down her arm to take her hand, and thought how those delicate fingers held everything he was within their grasp.
She shifted against him, sighing in her dreams, and he lay down beside her again with his arm around her waist. Her hair drifted over his bare chest in a black cloud, and he buried his nose in the satin strands to inhale her perfume.
Their mission was drawing to a close and his time with Celia was slipping away. John closed his eyes on a spasm of pain deep in his heart. Something had moved inside him when he took Celia today. Nay—he had been changing ever since he saw her again that day at Whitehall. For so long she had lived in his mind as a memory, a dream, a beautiful and passionate young woman who had brightened his life for all too short a moment, given him hope for a different sort of life. He had seen so much that was violent, ugly and full of greed, and Celia was soft and as brilliant as the sun. Not sweet—never that—but even her tart tongue made him laugh. Made him live again, want to live again.
He had repaid all she’d given him with pain and trouble. Yet still he cherished every memory of their time together.
Celia now was so much more than he remembered. More beautiful, more brave. And when she’d lain back on the bed and held out her arms to him, surrendering to him, his soul had broken wide open and everything he was had flown free. She’d set him free.
And now he only wanted to keep her for ever, to make her his, even as he knew that could never be for them. Celia would never belong to anyone again—especially not him.
Not once he told her of his part in what had happened to her brother. He would have to tell her, he owed her no less now, and he would have to make amends for what he had done to all the people he had hurt in his service to the Queen. Part of his penance would be to lose Celia for ever, and then he would be only the hard, cynical shell he had always been without her.
But not yet. Not today. Today he still had her.
He slid down on the bed and moved the fall of her hair to kiss her shoulder. He wanted to heal those scars, to take away all the pain of her past. Her body undulated against him and she gasped as he kissed a hot, open-mouthed path down her back. He licked at the hollow just above the curve of her buttocks. His fingers caressed her softness there and she whispered his name.
“I am here,” he answered. His fingertips brushed against the soft cheeks and she hissed.
John smiled against her skin and rolled her onto her back. He rested his chin on her stomach and looked up at her to find she stared at him with stormy grey eyes. Her pale cheeks were flushed with desire.
“Did I wake you, my fairy queen?” he said. “A thousand apologies.”
“You aren’t sorry at all,” she answered. She slowly drew up her leg, brushing against his erection. He grew even harder at the merest touch of her skin. “Someone obviously seeks amusement.”
“I watched you while you slept,” he said, pressing soft kisses over her hip, her tight stomach, around her navel. “You looked so beautiful while you were dreaming.”
Celia stretched her arms above her head, her whole body laid out for him. She closed her eyes and arched her back, sensual as a cat. “I was dreaming of you.”
“Of me? And what exactly was I doing?” He bit at her hip, making her gasp again, and slid lower to kiss the inside of her thigh, just above her knee.
“Oh—something much like this, I think. Only a wee bit higher.”
“Ah. Like here, mayhap?” He traced his tongue in a light pattern over the seam between her thigh and hip. Her legs fell fu
rther apart and he felt her fingers twine in his hair as she drew him closer.
“Or—here?” he whispered, and blew out a soft breath over her damp pink folds.
Celia moaned and her fingers clenched in his hair. “Aye, there!”
“You drive me mad, Celia,” he groaned, tasting her sweet essence with the tip of his tongue. He needed her so much, felt so much. “The more I have of you the more I need you.”
“I know, I know. Oh, John, I—”
Her words were broken off at the abrupt sound of a knock at the door. John reared up on his knees and automatically reached for the dagger under his pillow. Celia had gone perfectly still beneath him.
“John?” he heard Marcus call, as he knocked again. “I have to talk to you now. I know you are there.”
John bit back a filthy curse and let go of the dagger. His friend had always had wretched timing. Even now his body ached and vibrated with lust, at the smell of Celia’s arousal on his skin, her gasp in his ears.
But he also knew Marcus would not have come here if it was not vital. He would be off with Lady Allison or one of his many other women. John looked down at Celia, who stared back at him with wide eyes. She nodded and pushed herself up on the pillows, drawing the bedclothes over her nakedness.
John tore himself away from her and leaped from the bed. He scooped up his clothes, tossing her the shirt as he slid into his breeches. He drew the curtains around the bed before opening the door.
“What?” he growled.
Marcus’s face was etched with concern, but as he glanced over John’s shoulder at the shrouded bed he grinned.
“I thought you might have been making a jest about seeking out Mistress Sutton,” Marcus said. “Yet here you truly are.”
John seized his friend by the shoulder and pulled him into the room. “What has happened?”
“And it had best be something very important, Lord Marcus,” Celia called from the bed.
Marcus’s grin widened. “Indeed it is. But I could be persuaded to delay my news if I did not know that my friend never shares.”
John almost hit Marcus, but then he heard Celia laugh. She yanked the curtains aside, and he turned to see she knelt at the end of the bed. His shirt fell almost to her knees, covering her body even better than her satin gowns in folds of soft voluminous linen. Yet her black hair tumbled free down her back and her cheeks were pink, and he found he wanted no one else to see her like this. Ever.
Marcus was quite right. He did not share. Especially not Celia. He had no claim on her. Not really. But he wanted to. He wanted her to belong only to him.
He covered his emotions by tossing her the surcoat she had left on the floor. As she draped it over her shoulders he leaned against the bedpost and crossed his arms over his chest, glaring at Marcus.
“I don’t care to share either,” Celia said, far too calm for his taste. “And we are rather occupied at the moment. What has happened?”
“I was rather occupied myself,” Marcus answered. “But I thought you should hear this.”
“What is it?” John said.
“We have known all along that despite her strange infatuation with Darnley Queen Mary has been reluctant to make an English marriage. Now Allison has discovered someone is in the pay of Mary’s Guise uncles and has been pouring out persuasions to accept their candidate instead—a certain Comte de Mornay. And Mornay has no love at all for the English. He would destroy any alliance, any chance of peace between the Queens.”
“And there would be war with Scotland again,” John muttered. “Even bloodier than under Marie of Guise.”
“Who is this traitor?” Celia asked. “And how did Lady Allison find out?”
“She has become friendly with a certain Monsieur d’Alblay,” Marcus said. “And that gentleman is not smart enough to guard his secret papers as he should. Allison is adept at reading codes. As for the Englishman taking French coin—it is Lord Knowlton.”
“What?” Celia cried.
John swung towards her to see the flash of shock on her face, and he remembered that the man wanted to marry her. It made a spark of some dark emotion catch inside of him, thinking of her as another man’s wife. “You are surprised about your suitor?”
“He did hint to me that he would soon be much wealthier,” she whispered, as if to herself. “So he could take a wife.”
Another spasm of anger passed through John’s body. “And he wanted you.”
“He admires you, Mistress Sutton?” Marcus said. He looked at Celia with a speculative glint in his eyes. “Perhaps he would talk to you frankly? Confess?”
“Nay!” John nearly shouted. “She will not be involved in this.” She would not put herself in any more danger. He would not allow it. He would keep her safe.
Celia slid from the bed and came to his side. Her hand was soft on his arm. “I am involved, John. That is why I was sent here by Queen Elizabeth—to help protect her interests here. I confess I understand little of our true purpose here, and I have not done much to be assistance. It’s obvious that Lady Allison is far more useful. But I can meet with Lord Knowlton. If I hint that his feelings are returned perhaps he will tell me more of the French plans.”
“An excellent idea, Mistress Sutton,” Marcus said. “It would make that part of our task much easier.”
John nearly drove his fist into his friend’s face. “Nay, it is no idea at all. You should stay away from Knowlton, Celia.”
“He cannot hurt me here,” she argued. “I won’t let myself be entirely alone with him. I merely want to discover what he is doing in return for his newfound wealth.”
“And we will stay near her, John,” Marcus said. “No lady has ever been harmed in our care.”
John stared down into Celia’s grey eyes. She looked so calm, so cool and composed. Once she had been deeply hurt by him—more than once. He could not do that again. Not when he had vowed to keep her safe. Even from himself.
But her hand tightened on his arm. “I promised the Queen,” she whispered. “And she will only help me if I help her. This task is small enough.”
He remembered what the Queen had promised Celia in return for the task—a rich marriage, a secure future. All the things his own actions had stolen from her.
He glanced at Marcus, who watched them warily. If John did not agree to Celia doing this he knew she would just go with Marcus and do it anyway, without him knowing or being able to protect her. He looked back to Celia. She was cool-headed, calm. He knew she would keep her wits about her.
And talking, questioning—it was far less than he had done on missions in the past. He and Marcus would watch over her.
“No talking to him without us being near, even if it’s in hiding,” he said roughly. “And not until you are ready.”
Celia nodded. “Of course.”
“Excellent!” Marcus said with a grin. “Shall we meet tomorrow, then, on the ramparts? I will just leave you now to resume your—occupations.”
He slid out of the door, and John and Celia were alone in the silence again. They merely stared at each other for a long moment and he tried to read her thoughts in her eyes. He could see nothing until the grey went smoky and a slow smile curved her lips.
She stepped back from him and let the surcoat fall from her shoulders. Never looking away from him, she reached for the hem of the shirt she wore and slid it over her head. She shook back her hair and stood before him naked, the light glowing on her skin, the rosy tips of her breasts pebbled.
All anger and worry fled as his stare avidly took her in, and all knowledge of the truth he would soon have to tell her. All he could see, all he knew, was her. Celia. Within reach of his arms. This had always been easy between them—perfect, fiery and full of delicious forgetfulness.
He reached out and wrapped his hands hard around her waist to drag her up against his body. He buried his face in the curve of her neck, smelling her, tasting her. His Celia. His. She would always be that, even when she hated him again. Eve
n when she was gone from him.
“We still have the night ahead of us,” she whispered, her fingers twisting in his hair. “However will we fill it?”
John growled in answer, and lifted her in his arms to carry her back to the bed. Her laughter echoed like the sweetest music in his ears.
Chapter Twenty
Celia slowly paced to the end of the lane, keeping close to the stone wall, and turned to walk back the other way. She hadn’t expected to feel so nervous. After all, this was what she had come to Edinburgh to do—to deceive, discover. Yet her hands felt icy cold even in her gloves.
She drew her cloak hood closer over her head and tried not to glance at the doorway where John and Marcus, along with a young apprentice of Marcus’s named Nathan, were meant to be hiding. The street was narrow and shadowed, quiet. So quiet she thought she could hear the snowflakes drifting to the ground. She felt so terribly alone.
She turned and walked slowly back to the end of the lane. She was meant to meet with Lord Knowlton under the apothecary’s sign there, but what if he did not come? What if she failed before she even began?
Nay, she could not fail. She would have nowhere to go then.
“Mistress Sutton,” she heard Lord Knowlton call.
She spun around to see that he had appeared at the end of the lane. He was also wrapped in a cloak against the cold, and for an instant there on the deserted, snow-dusted lane he looked ominous. Like a crow in a churchyard.
But he smiled as he reached her side and took her hand in his, even as his eyes flashed with a puzzled look. “I was surprised to receive your message,” he said as he kissed her hand.
Celia shivered at his touch. Not with delight, as when John kissed her, but with something that felt strange, wrong. A surreal sort of haze seemed to come over her mind, as if she was not there at all.
“Not an unpleasant surprise, I hope?” she said. She managed to give him a smile.
He smiled back, but still that something flashed in his eyes. He tucked her hand in his arm and led her over to stand by the wall. “Not at all. You must know I’ve wanted to speak with you alone, without the distractions of the palace.”
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