At the Queen's Summons (18 page)

She paused, and silence hung in the room. Evening was deepening to twilight. Soon it would be time for them to go to the hall for supper, but neither moved.

Finally she spoke again. “So you see, I have no honor.
You cannot take from me something I never possessed in the first place.”

“Faith, Pippa, you have more honor than a legion of Sassenach nobles.”

“Don't ply that Irish charm on me. Words just get in the way. I want you, Aidan. All of you. Everything. But if I can have you for tonight only, then that is what I will settle for.”

He pulled his hands out of her grip. “You're asking me to hurt you.”

She caught the front of his tunic, twisting her fingers into the heavy silk. “Have you not heard a word I've said? I hurt
now,
Aidan! How much worse can it be?”

A curse of frustration erupted from him. He grabbed her and hauled her close, crushing her against him. He slid one hand down to cup her backside; the other hand he buried in her hair, tilting her head back until his mouth was a mere whisper away from hers.

“Is this what you want, then? Is this no worse than the pain you already feel?” Before she could answer, he plunged his mouth down on hers, tasting the wine she had drunk, violating her with his tongue, hearing her whimper and forcing himself to ignore the sound of her distress.

Her hands slid up over his chest. He expected her to try to push him away. Instead, she clung to him, pressed herself against him, mad with wanting, driving
him
mad. Somehow she had sensed that his rough embrace was only an act designed to discourage her. He had not fooled her in the least.

Somewhere, buried deep in a corner of his mind, was a reason he should not let this continue, should not build this emotional bond with her.

Deliberately he closed his mind to it.

And when she made a yearning, straining movement
with her hips against him, he could not even remember his own name.

Still kissing, still embracing, they moved like a pair of dancers toward the chamber door. It opened with a push of his foot, and they entered the bedchamber.

No candles had been lit. The twilight gleamed dully through the wavy panes of the mullioned windows. A few coals breathed faintly in a brazier.

He guided her backward until, with a sweet, surrendering sigh, she sank onto the bed. He leaned over her, watching the way the curls spilled around her face like the gilded petals of a flower.

The stark need in her eyes reached for him, caught at him. Ah, that need. It was the one thing he could not resist about her.

“Turn over,” he whispered.

She obeyed unquestioningly. He took hold of her bodice laces and tugged, then peeled away the stiff garment. Beneath, she wore only a chemise of fabric so thin that even in the dull purple light he could see the shape of her breasts, the darkness of the areolae.

He leaned down, brushed his mouth over her lips, and then leaned lower to nuzzle aside the chemise and kiss each breast lingeringly, trying to hold his own sharp need at bay while giving her the sweetest pleasure he could impart.

He lifted his head and looked at her. The sight of her bare breasts, moist and budded from his kisses, nearly made him come out of his skin with wanting her.

She shifted restlessly, and he caught the hem of her skirt, drawing the garment up and over her knees to reveal knitted stockings, hugging her shapely legs. These he peeled away slowly, with relish, kissing and tasting each bit of flesh he revealed. His hands blazed a tantalizing
path up her bare thighs, finding at last the treasure at their crest. Ah, she was ready for him, warm and moist and pulsing already, offering no resistance, only welcome. He bent his head and kissed her there, and grew drunk on the heady essence of her.

She lay as if frozen by shock, but then her hands clutched at his shoulders, and her breath came in thin, shallow gasps. She gave a startled cry and grasped at him, pulling him up and kissing him almost frantically.

He felt her tongue enter his mouth, and without volition, his hand went to unlace his codpiece, his only goal to bury himself in her, to ease the intolerable ache she created in him. He had never known a desire as piercing, as all-consuming, as this. She had lit a wildfire in his blood, and the heat surged through him until he lost all sense of who he was. Then her hand crept down to help with his codpiece, and against his mouth, she whispered, “If this be dishonor, then what is the point of honor?” She kissed him again, her mouth soft and moist, her body arching toward his.

What is the point of honor?

In the dimmest reaches of his conscience, a sense of guilt flickered dully. He forced himself to remember who he was. What he was. A chieftain. A foreigner. A husband.

Stopping himself from making love to Pippa was like keeping the waves from pounding at the shore. His passion flooded in all directions, exploding through him until he nearly surrendered. What stopped him was no loyalty to his married state, but a thought of Pippa. She trusted him, admired him, even. He could not bring himself to shatter her image of him, to disappoint her as she had been disappointed all her life.

He forced himself to lighten their kiss, all the while cursing inwardly. Very gently, he lifted his mouth from hers.

Her eyes fluttered open. “Oh, Aidan, Jesu, that was…we…you…”

He smiled, touched her cheek, tried to ignore the ravaged state of his body. “I know, lass. I know.”

A tiny frown puckered her brow. “How can you know?
I
had all the pleasure.”

His smile broadened. It was amazing that she could make him smile when an inferno burned inside him. “There you are wrong.”

“You mean you…we…”

He brushed a tendril of hair off her temple. “For someone who talks so much, you seem to be at a loss for words. There is more than a little enjoyment in this for me as well.” With hands both discreet and tender, he drew her bodice up and her skirts down.

Her eyes narrowed. “I think you're lying.”

“And I think,” he said, “that you have failed to understand something. You matter to me. Your pleasure matters to me. Giving you pleasure is my reward.”

“Well, then, what about
my
reward?” She reached for him.

He laughed softly and stopped her. Before tonight, he had no idea it was possible to be as hard as bog oak and still be able to laugh. “Don't get greedy on me.”

“I said I wanted you to dishonor me,” she said. “I don't feel dishonored yet.”

Her words froze his blood. Suddenly the whole world rushed back at him. He was no longer detached, remote, free. For he remembered it all now, remembered why he had no right to be here, with Pippa, taking joy in her joy.

With stiff movements, aching as he did on the day after a battle, he pulled away from her and stood.

“You're wrong,” he said, passing a weary hand through his hair. “We are both dishonored.”

 

She lay awake that night, trying as hard as she could to die of a broken heart. It wasn't working. She was beginning to think these things happened only in tawdry love ballads.

Even when she pictured Aidan, glorious and mysterious as a dark angel, turning from her and leaving her cold, she could not will her heart to stop or to shatter or to do whatever it was hearts did when someone broke them.

When she thought of the way he had held her and whispered in her ear, when she remembered his intimate kisses and caresses, she wept, but she did not die.

She took out her brooch, fingering the warm gold as she thought about her plan to find her family. What a foolish notion, to fancy she could accomplish such a feat. Even her own mother had abandoned her. Why should Aidan be any different? And how could she have thought an Irish chieftain could love a girl off the streets?

By dawn she had decided that she was going to survive after all. The question was, what was she going to do with herself?

She got up and stepped over the clothes she had left in a heap on the floor. After Aidan had—What had he done? Made love to her? No, it was something more controlled and cold-blooded than that, for he had refused to give her the one thing she needed—his heart.

Just for a moment, he had opened a window into his heart. But before she could truly peer inside, he had closed back up, shunted her away.

“Damn your Irish eyes, Aidan O Donoghue,” she mut
tered, stepping into her petticoat and skirts. She could not avoid remembering the way he had helped her dress, laughing at the absurd complexities of Sassenach clothing. She tugged on her bodice, defiantly lacing it in front, and then she went to the basin and bathed her face in cool water.

In the stableyard, she found Iago. Just the sight of him, putting a horse through its paces, was a balm to her heart. He had become that rarest of treasures, a true friend.

He tugged at the lunge rein to stop the horse. “What happened to you?” he demanded. “You look terrible.”

“Thank you,” she said mockingly. “How very kind of you to point that out.”

He led the palfrey over to a drystone wall and tethered it. “You were with Aidan last night.”

“Yes.” To Iago, she could deny nothing. “But he…didn't stay.”

The mare sidled restively. He patted her neck with a soothing hand. “Ah. I feared—” He suddenly seemed very interested in inspecting the horse's bit.

“What?” She leaned her elbows on the rough wall and scowled down at him. “What do you fear?”

He took his time adjusting the bit. Then he regarded her with placid melancholy. “That Aidan's conscience and his sense of duty would get the best of him. He ignores the call of his heart.”

“I don't understand.”

“It is not my place to explain. Soon, we will all go back to Ireland. None of this will matter.”

In the back of her mind, Pippa had always known Aidan O Donoghue did not belong here in London amid the littered streets and wreaths of smoke and pervasive sewage smell. She envisioned him in his native Ireland,
a place as dramatic and wild as the O Donoghue Mór himself.

Ireland was his home. He was never meant to be here, never meant to pick up a penny player from St. Paul's and steal her heart. It should not have happened, but it had.

The mare nickered and stamped the ground.

“In all my wandering years,” she told Iago in a surprisingly steady voice, “I have learned one important thing.”

“What is that, little one?”

“To leave first. So I am not the one being left.”

He touched her hand, ever so gently, and his tenderness made her weep inside. “That is not such a bad plan.”

She gave him a tremulous smile. “You're supposed to talk me out of it.”

“That would only postpone the inevitable.”

She dragged in a shaking breath and patted his hand. “I suppose so. But now the question is, where do I go next?”

His smile flashed like silver in sunlight. “
Pequeña,
I thought you would never ask.”

I
worry that the nine-fingered courier seen taking ship out of Dingle Bay is up to some mischief.

At least, though, I have a smidgen of happy news to record. By now, the O Donoghue should have received my letter about the marriage, saying he is a free man, and a high praise be to all the saints and angels for that blessing.

The question that plagues my poor soul now is, can the damage wrought to his heart ever be mended?

—Revelin of Innisfallen

“S
he left?” Aidan stood with Iago outside the Crutched Friars glassworks, where they had gone to fetch a gift for the queen. He had commissioned it from the glassblowers, but Iago's news made him forget his purpose.

Pretending only idle curiosity, he had asked after the whereabouts of Pippa, who had been conspicuously absent last night at supper and this morning at breakfast.

“Yes, my lord,” Iago said evenly, “she has departed.”

Aidan stopped next to a hive-shaped glass forge and tried to absorb the shock of losing her. It was not supposed to matter to him, but somehow she had embedded herself in his heart, and her absence left a gaping void.

Especially now. A message had come from Revelin, claiming the ordeal with Felicity was over. Aidan felt cautious, though, and would not believe the truth until he was certain.

In a brusque voice he said, “I should have known Pippa would leave, inconstant female.” A fiery ache started in his heart and then rolled outward along his limbs to his hands and feet and head. If he did not know
himself to be in good health, he would have thought the sweat was coming over him.

He choked out a curse and turned away from Iago, clenching his teeth and pressing his palms together on the plaster outer wall of the hut. The forge heated the wall, but not enough, not nearly enough to warm the cold empty place carved out by Pippa's departure.

When had he begun to love her, he wondered, and how had he managed to deny it for so long?

Images of her shone like sunlight in his mind. He remembered his first glimpse of her, insolent and exuberant upon the steps of St. Paul's. He remembered her belting out a bawdy song as she took her first bath, banishing the maids with heartbreaking pride, diverting the queen's wrath with reckless courage. And finally, begging him to make love to her—begging him and then recoiling in the face of his rejection.

“She went to court,” Iago said quietly.

Aidan stopped breathing for a moment, then started again with a great heave. “To court.”

“That is best for her, no? She will live in decent quarters, will be safer than she was scrounging about St. Paul's.”

He closed his eyes and pictured her at court, moving with perfect ease amid nobles and diplomats and jurists. Perhaps she would find another man to charm, a protector who could give her his heart as Aidan never could. He pushed away the intolerable thought. “If anyone can succeed at court,” he said, “Pippa can.”

“Indeed. And of course, she might actually find her family, just as you suggested.”

Aidan gave a bark of humorless laughter. “I merely suggested it to dissuade her from risky living among thieves and pimps.”

“I think she believed you, my lord. I think, in her
heart, she dreams she will find her family. She needs to know she is loved.”

A shiver passed like the winter wind over Aidan. “She needs me,” he said, half to himself.

Iago made a
tsk
ing sound with his tongue. “But what of the future? Can you give her the constancy she needs?”

Futile rage boiled up in Aidan, and he pushed away from the hut to glare at Iago. “I cannot. You know that.” In the wake of the rage came a gray tide of bleakness. “Do you ever just want to turn your back on it all? To simply let go of everything and walk away?”

“I have done that.” Mischief gleamed in his eyes. “Only in my case, I swam.”

Aidan forced a smile. At the same time, his errant heart led him to a decision. “Go and fetch the queen's gift. I must get myself dressed.”

“Diablo!”
Iago said. “Do not tell me—”

“Yes.” Aidan started back toward the house. “I am taking the gift to court myself.”

 

“…and so,” Pippa said with a confidential wink at the queen, “the brewer's daughter could only make one choice. To poison the keg!”

Queen Elizabeth's smile was slow and filled with pleasure. Other listeners took their cue from the queen and chuckled.

Pippa curtsied and surreptitiously released her breath. Her Majesty's moods were capricious. Stories she found amusing one moment might land the teller in the stocks the next. So far, Pippa had been lucky.

Of course, it was only her second day as the royal fool. Thus far, the queen had made no decision regarding the O Donoghue Mór, but Pippa kept an ear cocked for any whisper of his fate.

“Well told,” the queen said. “In sooth, virtue and innocence do not always triumph, do they?”

“Not nearly so often, ma'am, as old age and cunning,” Pippa blurted out, then froze.

The queen stared at her for a long moment. Her face, already smooth and pale with its coating of ceruse and powder, seemed to whiten even more. Then she let out a hoot of laughter, and the courtiers joined in.

“You are a tonic, my poppet,” she said. “I am pleased indeed that you petitioned me for a player's warrant. I do like to nurture talent. And you are well rid of that foreign chieftain.”

“Ma'am.” Hiding her regret, Pippa sank to one knee and snatched up the hem of the queen's gown. “I am so humbly grateful.”

“Yes, yes.” Faint impatience underscored the queen's words. “Do stand up and let me look at you.”

Pippa stood. The queen's bird-black eyes flicked over her, and she said, “That gown is familiar to mine eyes.”

“I am told it belonged to Lady Cheyney,” Pippa said baldly, knowing the truth was safer than lying and then being found out. “But here's the fact, ma'am. The gown does not a fool make. I have worn this for two days and have not felt the slightest urge to invite a gentleman to my chambers.”

The queen tapped a long finger on the arm of her chair. “You are a fool in name only.” Her smile tightened. “Still, you should consult the master of revels for the proper mode of dress. My sister Mary, of honored memory, did make her fool shave her head and wear striped garb.”

Pippa lifted a hand to the curls escaping her coif. “There are worse things, madam, than shaving one's head,” she said bravely. Still, she felt a heavy disappoint
ment. Her hair was finally beginning to grow out to a more becoming length.

“Fear not, for I—” The queen glanced at the distant doorway of the Presence Chamber. “Yes?” she called.

“The O Donoghue Mór, Lord of Castleross,” intoned the majordomo.

Elizabeth waved away the other courtiers clustered round the canopied throne. Pippa found herself standing next to the Contessa Cerniglia. Of the many people Pippa had met at court, Rosaria was her favorite. Fair and tall, she had a pleasantly cynical view of life and a keen ear for gossip.

With her heart pounding wildly, Pippa trained her gaze on the door. Aidan!

Why had he returned? Part of her prayed he had come for her, while another part dreaded seeing him again, feeling that twist of raw wanting and the sting of his indifference.

She stood as still as a marble pillar and waited.

With the dramatic suddenness of a darkening storm, he filled the doorway, flanked by Donal Og and Iago. Looking like mythical giants, they made their unhurried way down the center of the room.

He wore his princely garb, the stone-bedecked tunic and rich blue mantle. He knelt before the queen. Iago and Donal Og did likewise; then simultaneously the three of them stood.

“We bring gifts, my queen,” Aidan said formally. He kept his gaze straight ahead, but Pippa had an uncanny sense that he was aware of her in the room.

“Ah, and he speaks English today,” Elizabeth said with wry humor. “We are making progress.”

Iago and Donal Og placed the gifts at her feet. One was the most elaborate salt cellar Pippa had ever seen, a
tall fantasy of spun glass. It resembled a stylized castle, its slender turrets reaching upward, the tiny chamber where the salt was held surrounded by thin threads and coils of glass.

The other gift was a bracelet of cut amethyst that caught the light and seemed to shine from within. Pippa remembered wearing the matching necklace, remembered the magic of that night, and she blinked back tears.

“That is lovely.” The queen held out her hand for the bauble and lifted it to spin on its gold chain in the light.

“The jewels were mined by Irish hands in the Burren,” Aidan said.

“Indeed. For that honor, I thank you, my lord.” She spoke pleasantly and smiled, yet at the same time her small, slippered foot pushed at the base of the salt cellar.

Pippa gaped in horror as the perfect glass tower shattered on the flagstone floor. Tiny shards and needles of glass scattered every which way.

The O Donoghue Mór did not flinch. The bright, wasted glitter covered the floor all around his feet.

“Such a pity.” The queen fixed her black-eyed stare on Aidan. “You see, my lord, when a man builds a castle without proper consent, accidents are bound to happen.”

The Contessa Cerniglia gave a soft murmur of dismay. Delicately she plucked at her skirt. A small cut marred her ankle. Instantly Donal Og knelt at her feet and touched the tiny bright bead of blood that seeped through her stocking. The lady's dismay changed quickly to romantic interest as she gazed down at Donal Og. She had large bosoms, which she displayed proudly with a low-cut, jeweled bodice. The effect was not lost on Donal Og.

“It is also a pity,” Aidan said, “that accidents are capricious by nature. Sadly, it is often the innocent who
suffer.” He directed a meaningful look at the blond contessa.

“Sometimes the strong suffer, too.” The queen rose from her throne. Leicester and Hatton moved in fast to escort her out of the Presence Chamber. Before she left, she said, “My lord of Castleross, I trust you'll join us at supper and revels tonight.”

No.
Pippa tried to will him to refuse. It was dangerous for him here. The queen was playing some cruel game with him. He ought to leave while he had the chance.

The O Donoghue Mór bowed from the waist. “Madam, I am most humbly honored.”

 

The revels that night consisted of wild, skirling music and a troupe of Italian acrobats. Donal Og and Iago watched with rapt attention.

Aidan watched Pippa. She sat at one of the lower tables amid minor officials and the queen's lesser ladies. Court, he noted with a pang, agreed with Pippa.

She laughed with practiced charm and wielded her fork and knife as if she had dined at table for years. Though he could not hear what she said, he guessed that she was in rare form. She looked animated and flushed. Everyone nearby listened to her and laughed.

Yet he began to notice an almost feverish desperation beneath her chatter. Her gaze darted about the hall and searched every noble face.

He knew what she was looking for. The mother and father whose image she had tended so lovingly in her imagination. When, he wondered, would she realize the futility of her dream? Not only had he hurt her, but she was bound to suffer when her impossible quest failed.

As soon as the dancing began, he sought her out. She
was standing beneath the musicians' gallery with Donal Og and the Venetian contessa, urging them to dance the volta.

Aidan could not help smiling at the picture they made, giant Donal Og gazing in helpless adoration at the blond beauty.

Pippa shooed them out onto the dance floor, then watched them with a satisfied air.

“In Ireland,” Aidan said softly, coming up behind her, “we do leave matchmaking to crones and tanists.”

She turned and caught her breath. He stopped walking toward her, wanting to freeze the moment, to hold this image of her forever in his heart. She had that look of timeless beauty, her face smooth, eyes wide with a startled look, a crown of curls gleaming in the rushlight.

How had she done it? he wondered. How had she managed to stay so winsome and innocent when every day of her life had been a struggle to survive?

Finally she spoke. “I'm sorry about the salt cellar.”

He smiled. “Revelin used to say ‘When you sup with the devil, you need a long spoon.'”

She laughed and said something, but her words were drowned by a brassy blare of trumpets from the gallery above.

“Come with me.” He steered her by the elbow toward a side exit. Within moments they had gone through a low-ceilinged passageway and emerged into a garden. At the end of the sloping yard, the river gleamed with starlight. Aidan took a deep breath of the cool night air. “That is better,” he said.

“No one is supposed to depart until the queen gives leave,” said Pippa.

“Is that so? I wonder how I dared.”

“Must be your long spoon. Aidan—”

“Pippa—”

They both spoke at once, both laughed awkwardly.

“Go on,” he said. “What were you going to say?”

She strolled down a walkway, her slippered feet silent on the path. Then she stopped and turned to him, leaning back against the rail of the knot garden. “I wanted to explain why I left.”