Seducing Anne (24 page)

George nudged her over into the king’s path.

“Was your journey taxing?” she asked him, slipping her arm in his.

When she did it, her book crashed to the ground.

George bent over and took it for her.

She obediently followed after them—was cordial through dinner, listening to Harry’s retelling of his trip and proceedings, but her mind and eyes kept wandering to Guy seated down the table.

George was sitting in Guy’s previous spot.

Guy was relegated to the end of the table with her loose-lipped ladies.

He spoke with them animatedly and he ate his food without once looking her way.

When it was all done, Harry escorted her back to her quarters.

“Are you well, Anne? Are the bad humours a thing of the past?” He gripped both her shoulders and peered into her eyes.

“Yes, Majesty. I am well now. It was just a bad spell. I probably ate something that disagreed with me. It has happened before,” she lied.

Her stomach was usually steady.

It was rare that something made her stomach roil—other than this man standing before her.

“That is a relief.” He propelled her toward her bedchamber, and once he had her through the door, he was stripping off his doublet and yanking on his breeches.

“Please, Harry—you are tired,” she pleaded, pushing him toward the door.

“I am tired only because I have lost the will to wait for our wedding night.” He removed his doublet entirely. “Anne. My birthday is in a little over a fortnight. This is my very own gift to me. The greatest gift my love can give.”

“Then we should wait until we are both refreshed and of a vigorous constitution,” she said, excusing herself.

She yawned and pretended to be beyond standing.

“Please, darling. Lie with me tonight. I can be slow—I will bring you minimal discomfort. Just let me inside your skirts.” He snatched at her, cupped her breasts. “Lovely, round duckies. They make me yank and fondle my manly flesh at night when I think of sucking on them at my will and pleasure.”

“
Harry
,” she groaned. “Such talk.”

“Such talk about you on my shaft because it is all I want for my birthday.” He stepped into her, wrapped his hand around her neck and hissed in her face, his eyes pinching tight into a monstrous glare. “Never you forget that I am the one who put you on the throne and gave you all that Catherine owned. I can take it away faster than you received it.”

“And you never forget that what I possess between my legs is only for my husband.” She flickered her ruby ring in his face.

He batted it away.

“Sleep, then, if you will. Lock your doors tight to protect what you think you can keep from me,” he sneered, then ducked out of her room.

She exhaled in a rush, bent over and braced herself with her hands on her bed.

For the next hour she paced and cried, struggling to get herself into her red dress.

Not that she could go in search of the man she truly desired.

After her disagreement with Harry, he might keep a watch on her door.

And she could not allow Guy inside. Harry all but promised he would be back tonight, trying to find his way into her bed.

She cursed herself, knelt in prayer and wished for a way out of this imprisonment.

Rap, rap, rap, rap.

She stood, roamed over to her door and opened it without looking.

“Can you come with me?” Jane asked so quietly, Anne almost missed her words.

“Why would I go with
you
?” Anne’s chest tightened, and a wisp of air leaked out of her in a purulent breath.

“I know not—only that the king commands it, and I fulfill all his wishes.” Jane gave a sparkling smile with a look of triumph in her eyes.

Anne pushed past her, her blood boiling with Hell and fire.

“Where does he wish
me
to be?” Anne enunciated each word clearly, emphasizing that she was still mightier than this woman.

“In my chambers. I am to sleep here in yours,” Jane answered.

She curtsied and handed Anne the key to her apartments.

Anne huffed and left in a rush.

This was nonsense.

She walked so fast, she almost tripped several times on the train of her red dress.

When she unlocked the door to Jane’s chamber, strong hands gripped her the second she was inside and pressed her up against the wall.

“Harry, what are you—”

Her bleating was interrupted by possessive kisses and hoarse breathing. “Fuck—you wore it,” he whispered.

She took a deep whiff of him, and she was inundated by citrus and Guy.

“You orchestrated this? But how?” She tossed herself into his arms.

“I wrote the note to Jane. Harry’s scrawl is poor, so it was easy to make the note out to be his. He will bed Jane tonight. I instructed her to have no fire, no lights at all. He will not see who he touches or know who he kisses. And when he realizes who he shared his seed with, he will be forced into action.”

Tears, solid and true, slid down her cheeks.

“Oh God—you
do
love him.” His words struggled out of him.

She shook her head. “Thank you, my gracious lord. You are too kind to this lowly creature before you.” She sagged until she was on her knees before him. This night could have been horrendous, with Harry forcing his cock inside her against her will. Guy had saved her.

“This is not a complete plan yet. He could treat her as a mistress and not put you aside for her.”

“The fact you are willing to try is all I need to know.” She bent down and kissed his boots.

“God, Anne.” His fingers were in her hair, massaging her scalp again. “I may not even get to the claret. Already I want to fuck you on the cold hard floor.”

“I am for that. You have been away from me for a sennight. I thought you had set me aside.”

He grabbed her and picked her up, dragging her back to the bedchamber.

“You and your sennight are laying down on this bed and are going to receive me. All of me.” He stroked his cock over his breeches.

“You make it sound like a religious experience, my lord,” she said, her face heating.

“With you—it
is
, lavender. Absolutely. Now, spread. Your. Legs. And fuck your sennight because I am fucking you right now.”

“Why did you not come to me all these past nights?” she asked, eyes on his breeches, now lowering.

“Because I was ensuring I would be able to come to you many times in the near future without fail.” He set her on the bed.

She extended her limbs out, and he appraised her with his eyes washing over her hungrily.

Before she knew what was happening, he had his hunting knife out, and he was slicing her red dress off her body in small strips of fabric.

He kissed her as he went, wherever he deemed worthy.

Once she was surrounded by the ruinous dress, he stripped out of his own clothing and climbed atop her.

“This is to be mine. This is to be my way.”

She smiled, nodded and beamed at him. “Sir—I have wanted nothing more than this for you.”

He dropped down on top of her, stroked her body to life with ease.

In no time she was panting and nearly ready to spill her seed into his hand that was playing at her opening and arousing her clitoris fully.

Right as she was about to explode, he surged forward and she gasped at the quick impalement.

“Mine! My lavender I make love to when I please. No one else can have this.” He was furious in his manic pace.

She held his shoulders tight, then remembered how he usually removed her hands off him, so she wrapped her arms behind the pillow under her head instead.

“Very good girl. You shall be rewarded.” He leaned over and bit her nipple only hard enough to make her flinch for a second, but then her effusive cry strangled out of her, for she was unable to wait for him.

Would they never share their seed simultaneously?

She spasmed beneath him, clenching her inner muscles down on his cock.

He moaned louder than she had ever heard him, and then he was pouring his seed inside her.

He did not pull out this time. He completed the action.

She cried out with an obscene grunt and then yelled for the first time ever, “Guy! Oh, love, I am yours!”

He wrapped his hand over her mouth. She bit his finger playfully, and he chuckled as his pulsing motions slowed.

“Offer me your wrists as a sign of your subservience to me,” he said, pulling his cock out of her with it still slightly erect.

She could not help but get an eyeful of his glistening length before her.

“Those are our seeds,” she said, her voice quaking with glee.

“Yes, and these are mine.” He gripped her right wrist, kissed in the center of it and then she gave him the other.

His eyes went over them as if inspecting for something in particular.

“I am going to bind you. We are not done. Do you trust me to make this as comfortable as possible?”

She blinked twice, and her sluggish brain failed to comprehend why he sounded so uncertain.

“Yes, of course. Dear Lord, what do you have in mind now?”

“Bondage first. Questions second.”

She gave him her wrists, and he lashed them together, then secured them to the top right thick cherry wood bedpost.

“I need you to take heed. If you scream, I will gag you because I need you to listen to all of what I have to say.”

“I was not afraid before, but I am now.” She wiggled her legs.

He sat between them cross-legged and stroked her calves.

“We have to leave here before September first,” he began.

“What is special about that date?”

He swallowed, and his eyes were a pool of regret. “Sweetheart, that is when he makes you Marquis of Pembroke. Once he does that, there may be no turning back.”

She licked the center of her top lip and then pressed them together.

He gave her an assessing look, then kept going. “That month is also when he will start work on refurbishing the Tower of London in preparation for your eventual coronation. See why we must leave before that point?”

“Yes, I do, but—”

He shook his head as a signal that she needed to cease, so she sealed her lips together.

How did he know these things?

“I am not who you think I am. You have asked few questions, thank God, but I am fully aware you realize there is something off about me. I am odd in small, almost indiscernible ways. There is a reason for this.”

He turned around and lifted the hair off the nape of his neck.

There was a ghastly gash mark there that was crusted over with some black, dried blood on it. That was not nearly as horrifying as the black thread that looked as if it was holding the skin together like the laces on a vest.

She gasped and pointed in terror. “What happened?”

“There was a device there that took me to this place to be with you. I have two of them. The other is on this side.” He pointed to the mirror spot on the other side of his neck.

“Did someone take it from you?”

He faced her. “I did it. I only need one to get back home. I gave you the other one. It is lodged in the topaz setting on your collar. That is why you must constantly wear it. Once you are with my child and you voice it, I will be pulled back to that place.”

“Where is it you are from? Will you tell me?” She kicked her legs, wanting to sit up.

He silenced her will by caressing her calves once more.

“It is a complex question. Let me talk plainly. Let me speak in my language,” he said, dropping his head but looking at her through his lashes.

This was a well-guarded secret—
this
she was certain of.

“French? You will tell me where your accent comes from?”

He sighed, and his shoulders slanted forward. “No, not French, though I enjoy speaking it regularly.”

He squeezed both her legs.

“Tell me, please,” she whispered.

“Anne, I’m American.” She shook her head. What was this? He kept on. “I’m from the future. I live in the year 2023. I’m sent back in time repeatedly to ensure key historical figures are impregnated with particular people. You’re going to have sexual intercourse with Henry in December and get pregnant in January with his child. Her name’s Elizabeth, and though she’s a girl, she rules for a really long time in what’s described in the annals of history as the golden age of England. She never marries, never has children and she is the last of Henry VIII’s issue to be on the throne.”

Her heart clenched so tight, she choked on the air for a moment. “Why are you saying these things to me?” Tears coursed down her cheeks. “This cannot possibly be true!”