The Warrior's Queen

by Cecelia Mecca

  “Then a toast to the happy couple,” Allie said, raising her cup. When none but Graeme moved to join her, she prodded them each individually.

  “Mother. Father. Gill. A toast.”

  When each of them had raised their mug or goblet, Allie smiled. “To a happy marriage, to salvation, and to peace.”

  If she thought it was an odd toast, she wasn’t alone. Her father frowned gruffly and said, “Salvation? And whose salvation are we toasting to, my dear?”

  Though his tone was softer than it had been with Gillian, he was clearly displeased by Allie’s choice of words.

  “Why, all of ours, of course.”

  Allie was up to something. Gillian suddenly knew it in her bones. Earlier, Allie begged, pleaded, for Gillian not to intervene, but she could not possibly want to marry the earl. So why did she seem so unconcerned about pacifying their father?

  “Allie?” she whispered into her sister’s ear after everyone had finally returned their attention to the meal. “What are you planning?”

  Allie grinned. “I told you to trust me, did I not?”

  Gillian glanced at Graeme, certain he was listening. But to her dismay, her husband simply smiled.

  “It seems you’re not the only one here with plans, my dear.”

  21

  “Don’t you dare tell me something is afoot, Allie.” Gillian used the “big sister voice” her sister hated. Deliberately.

  “So suspicious. Gill, I believe we should be getting back to the meal. No one, most especially your eagle-eyed husband, believes you suddenly felt faint. In fact, for as long as I’ve known you—”

  “‘As long as you’ve known me’ being our entire lives, Allie. Which is exactly why I know you’re planning something, and before I have another discussion with Father, I mean to—”

  “You spoke with Father?”

  Allie pulled her more deeply into the stone alcove. Though most everyone would still be dining in the great hall, the wagging tongues of errant servants had gotten them into trouble more than once before. At least, gotten Allie into trouble. Gillian usually managed to stay out of it.

  “Of course I did. Do you honestly believe I will leave Lyndwood knowing you are still betrothed to that man?”

  “Gill, please. Please, I’m begging you. Will you stay out of this?”

  She shook her head, not understanding. “No, I will not. It’s my fault you’re in this mess at all. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be betrothed to that man. And . . . what? Why are you looking at me that way?”

  Allie’s face, only partially visible courtesy of the wall torch, fell. She looked miserable. But not, oddly enough, because of Covington. Her sister really didn’t want her to intervene on her behalf.

  “Because I’ve never lied to you before today.” Allie took her hands. “Look at me.”

  Gillian did, wishing they could go back to simpler days. Conspiring to get out of their lessons. Walking to mass together, giggling as they tried to predict how long the hymns would be.

  “Do you trust me?”

  “Of course,” she said, automatically.

  “Then will you let me handle this on my own?”

  “Allie, I—”

  “Please, Gill?” Her sister squeezed her hand.

  “Will you at least tell me why you’re being so secretive? Why you can’t tell me what’s happening? Because I can’t do it, Allie—I can’t watch you marry that man—”

  “I’ve asked you to trust me. Does the rest really matter?”

  Allie had never looked more serious in her life.

  The chill that ran through her had nothing to do with the draft of the empty corridor. Her typically carefree sister appeared so much older suddenly. When had that happened? She was desperate to know the answer to her question, but ultimately it didn’t matter. She and her sister were similar in that way—when they gave their word, it meant something. As Gillian had told her so many times, they had precious little else to give.

  “Nay, I suppose it doesn’t matter,” she relented. “But that doesn’t mean my heart is whole. Not knowing. Or understanding.”

  “And not being the one to protect me,” Allie finished. “Trust me,” she repeated. “It will all be well in the end. Though I do worry for Mother and Father.”

  “But why should you worry for them?”

  “Losing Lyndwood will kill father. I did ask Mother once if it would be so bad to have the title stripped away. To live at Ashwood Manor, with a smaller staff. She admitted that it would suit her just fine if it meant neither you nor I would have to marry such a man as Covington.”

  Gillian was shocked. “Mother said that outright?”

  “Aye, she did.” Allie’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “And I believe her.”

  They should be getting back. But Gillian knew she and Graeme would be returning to Highgate in the morning, and the idea of simply leaving her sister here . . .

  Allie grabbed both of Gillian’s hands once more. “You’ve protected me our entire lives. We’ve learned to rely on each other. Can you not trust that meant something? Our late-night discussions under the stars, devising ways to please Father . . . pacify Mother. Understand our place in all of this? Trust me, Gill.”

  Gillian nodded. “I do.”

  “I will come to you as soon as I’m able to explain everything.”

  “Come to me? To Highgate End?”

  Allie smiled, this time in truth. “Aye. Now go back to that handsome husband of yours. He must be wondering where you’ve gone to.”

  “Not any longer.” The booming voice behind them startled both women.

  Graeme.

  “But I do thank you for the compliment, Lady Allie.”

  Her sister, never sheepish, simply smiled.

  Graeme turned to her. “Are you still hungry, my dear?”

  “Hungry? Nay, I’ve eaten plenty—”

  “Good. My lady,” he addressed her sister, “will you please give your parents our regrets? We will, unfortunately, be retiring early.”

  Allie looked back and forth between her and Graeme, her smile understanding. Although how it was so Gillian would have to ask her sister later. Beyond the maids’ gossip, neither of them had much experience with men.

  “My pleasure,” Allie responded. And then she disappeared.

  Gillian spun toward her husband. “I’m not yet tired, my lord. And would very much like to have finished—”

  “Conversing with your parents?” He took a step toward her. “Pacifying your father?”

  “How dare you!” Her frustration with the situation, and with the promise she’d made to Allie, bled into the words.

  “I dare much, my queen.”

  When he pulled her toward him, Gillian did not for a moment consider stopping him to resume their conversation. She was angry still, mayhap more so now, but she also craved this man’s touch more than she did food and drink.

  His arms encircled her, strong and warm. His lips descended, crushing her with their urgency. She met his tongue thrust for thrust, needing to lose herself in the familiar, welcome feel of him.

  When he moved down her chest, leaving a trail of kisses and fire behind, Gillian clutched onto him, only vaguely aware of their surroundings.

  “We should retire in truth,” she managed under his wicked onslaught.

  “Mmm.” Instead, he continued, his hands reaching forward to cup both breasts. He squeezed gently and then slipped his hands inside her gown.

  “Graeme! What are you doing? You can’t—”

  Her words, cut short by the shock of his next action, stuck in her throat. The man actually reached inside her bodice and managed to free one of her breasts. If anyone walked by them now . . .

  If that was not shocking enough, her husband actually touched his tongue to her breast, circling her nipple but never quite touching it. In the corridor!

  “Shall I stop?” he asked, circling still.

  “God, no.” Was that even her voice?

/>   Chuckling against her breast, he finally took it in his mouth, simultaneously pressing his body against her. The evidence of his desire for her, coupled with the feel of his mouth now alternatively suckling and teasing, made her legs go weak. She could hardly stand.

  Graeme must have sensed as much, for he spun them around so that Gillian’s back was pressed to the cold stone wall behind her.

  If they were caught . . .

  But he had resumed his ministrations, and Gillian threw her head back, reveling in the sensations, desperate for him to continue the onslaught. Graeme licked and gently bit on her nipple, his hand holding her breast up as if it were a revered treasure.

  When the throbbing began, Gillian tried to stop it. She couldn’t allow herself to succumb to her pleasure here. But Graeme had a funny way of reading her. He must have sensed she was close to the edge because he pressed against her in exactly the right place.

  “Yes,” he whispered.

  “Not here,” she managed, but it didn’t seem to matter. The throbbing came quicker. Intensified. She looked down, grabbed a fistful of his hair and let go.

  Somehow she didn’t scream, or even make a sound. Her hands clenched around him and then her body went limp. Luckily, Graeme held her up, because Gillian would easily have slipped to the ground and lain there, content, until discovered.

  Wouldn’t that give them something to talk about?

  Realizing she was still clutching Graeme’s head, Gillian released him. He stood then, and she looked up into his eyes as he reached inside her gown and pulled the material over her breast. Without speaking, she grabbed her husband’s hand and led him into the hall and then toward her bedchamber, marveling all along that she was the kind of woman who would do such a thing. Lead a man through these halls, having just been thoroughly ravished, with the intent of making love to him. She would have giggled at the absurdity of it, but a voice behind them stopped Gillian cold.

  22

  “Gillian.”

  She turned slowly. Had he seen them together in the alcove?

  “Aye, Father?” Though she tried to steady her voice, Gillian was sure the effort was unsuccessful. Graeme looked at her as if she’d suddenly sprouted wings.

  “I hope you’re feeling better. You said you wanted to speak to me earlier?”

  She wasn’t fooled. Her father’s calm demeanor was for Graeme’s benefit. He was no more amenable now than he’d been since Covington came into their lives.

  “I did.” What could she say? She doubted she could lie to him, and surely he wouldn’t believe her if she said she was content to let the situation unfold.

  “I would like to speak to you as well,” her father said.

  “You would?”

  Gillian couldn’t hide her shock. Lately, the only time her father wished to speak with her was to admonish her for something. But what could she possibly have done wrong now? Other than marrying Graeme, of course.

  “I am not leaving her side,” Graeme interjected.

  The men glared at one another.

  “Father?”

  He finally shifted his dark expression to her.

  “I’m not angry,” her father said. “Your husband hates me. Has a right to, in fact.”

  Graeme did not disagree.

  “But I would not want to think my daughter does as well.”

  She looked back and forth between the men. Though he struggled to keep his expression neutral, Graeme did indeed appear as if he wanted to murder her father.

  “I regret how events have transpired. And I know you don’t agree with your sister’s betrothal—”

  “Father, how could you?” The words burst out of her, regardless of what she’d promised her sister.

  “I have no choice.”

  Gillian broke away from her husband and went to the man who had raised her.

  “Of course you do. The title—”

  “Title? You think I’d marry your sister off to Covington to retain a title?”

  His voice echoed against the stone walls of the corridor.

  “You know as well as I do that Lyndwood is on the verge of being lost. And do you know how it came to be in this family?”

  “Of course,” she replied. “My great-grandfather was granted it on the battlefield—”

  “Aye. And do you know what your great-grandfather was before becoming a knight?”

  She thought back to her lessons. To the stories her father had told her about the family that had held the borders for three generations. “I don’t believe I do.”

  “He was a blacksmith.”

  Her mouth dropped open.

  “A commoner. Who forged his own sword, practiced with it day and night. Saved enough coin to purchase armor, though not enough for his own horse. That”—he frowned—“he stole. So I suppose you could say he stole his knighthood, and this land grant, though he never apologized for it.”

  “A blacksmith?”

  She turned back to Graeme to see what he thought of this revelation. But he was gone. Nay, not gone. He’d retreated to give them privacy, but she could see his shadow just ahead.

  “I retain a legacy, not a title, Gillian.”

  “If you’re asking for me to condone this marriage, I cannot,” she said. “Though I understand your motives, you are condemning Allie to . . .”

  She’d almost said, “your life with Mother,” but stopped herself.

  She watched his face for any hint of understanding. But there was none. Still hard. Still stubborn. Still very much her father.

  Gillian sighed.

  “I see you will not be convinced. Go,” her father said. “We’ll speak again in the morning.”

  Was there anything left to talk about?

  “You are really not angry about Graeme?”

  He raised his brows. “Are you happy with him?”

  She almost said, “I will be.” Her deep, dark hope was that Graeme would come to love her. That she had not, after all, been mistaken about the feelings developing between them. But she would not say such a thing aloud. To her father. Or to anyone.

  “Aye, Father,” she said instead. And had to contend with the fact that even though her father still refused to budge, he’d done something this eve she could not ever recall him doing before.

  He’d explained himself.

  Which was exactly what she needed her husband to do tonight. An explanation for his dismissive behavior earlier. But she owed him something first.

  Graeme watched his wife sleep, wondering if he should wake her.

  She’d said she wanted to talk, but they’d not had much of a chance to do so. After the impromptu visit from her father, his no-longer-so-proper English wife had explained in no uncertain terms that they would have a serious discussion “afterward,” and then she’d taken it upon herself to seduce him.

  Once Gillian made her intent clear, he was like a man possessed by Eros. It had been the singularly most passionate bout of lovemaking he’d ever experienced. Perhaps it was because Gillian had initiated it. Perhaps it was something more he wasn’t willing to examine.

  Exhausted, Gillian had promptly fallen asleep, which he should have done long ago. But sleep did not appeal to him. Watching her now, he fought the drab darkness of slumber in favor of seeing the candlelight flicker across her face. He touched the faint freckles on her cheek, perhaps his favorite feature of hers.

  Graeme closed his eyes, planning to rest for just a moment, and startled awake to light streaming through a sole arrow slit. So he’d slept after all. A good thing since they would travel back to Highgate this morn.

  He rose from the bed as silently as possible and dressed. Before he could leave the room, he heard a small voice behind him.

  “Graeme.”

  Turning, he nearly was brought to his knees by the sight of her. Would he ever be accustomed to watching her rouse from sleep? She lay there with tousled hair and a smile that would make the devil himself grin.

  He returned to the bed, sat on
its edge, and smoothed Gillian’s hair away from her face. “Much better.”

  “We need to talk.”

  He braced for whatever was coming next. Their overnight truce had come to an end.

  “I don’t like being dismissed—”

  “Dismissed?” he asked. “What are you speaking of, Gillian?”

  She sat up, pulled her hair to the side, and began to braid it.

  “When we spoke of my sister. You didn’t listen. Or even consider my words. Instead, you insulted me by assuming I am completely ignorant.”

  That had not been his intention at all. He reached for her hand.

  “I am sorry you felt that way. I don’t believe you’re ignorant.”

  She frowned.

  “You are the lady of Highgate End. My wife. Why would I dismiss you out of hand?”

  “Because that is what husbands do.”

  She looked so sincere, Graeme forced himself not to smile. “So you’ve been married before?”

  Gillian rolled her eyes. He really should not find such a gesture endearing.

  “Of course not. But I’ve witnessed husbands and their wives. I know how it goes between them.”

  “Your parents?”

  “Aye, my parents. Among others.”

  “Well, my own parents were . . .” He’d almost said in love. “. . . happy together.”

  “Do you suppose we will be?” she said in a small voice.

  “Happy?”

  He wanted to say, “Aye, of course.” But Graeme also knew his next words would displease her, mayhap even infuriate her.

  “I hope so,” he said. “But Gillian, we cannot take your sister with us.”

  He braced himself for the storm that never came. Instead, Gillian stared at him, made a sound very much like, “Hmm,” and got up from the bed on the other side, away from him.

  And so it began.

  “While I do not believe you are ignorant to the situation, neither are you privy to all of the facts. Blackburn and your father set us back. Even now, rumblings of the broken truce are picking up traction. If our allies choose to boycott the next Day of Truce, then Clan Scott will be forced to take sides. And this is without stealing the Earl of Covington’s bride from—”