The Winter Queen (16 page)

Rosamund's breath caught in her throat at his words, at the force of them. Anton thought her beautiful! Other men had said so—Richard, men of the Court. Yet they had seemed empty words, polite conventions that they said to every lady. Perhaps that was all it was with Anton, too—but his tone, his gentle smile, had the soft ring of sincerity. And the lure of all she had ever really wanted, despite the danger of reaching out to grasp it.

She had never thought herself beautiful at all, despite the gift of her fashionable pale hair. Next to vibrant women like Anne Percy, Lady Essex, and even Celia Sutton's dark mystery, she was a milk-faced mouse. But with Anton, she felt transformed, like a rosebud under the summer sun. Or a winter-fairy in the ice.

Would she shrink back inward again, when he was gone, back to Sweden?

‘Perhaps I never should have spoken to you, then,' she said. ‘I like the idea of being a beautiful winter-fairy.'

‘Nej,'
he answered. He suddenly faced her, taking both her hands in his. Holding them tightly, he pressed them to his chest. His heart thrummed against her gloved hands, flowing through her whole body, meeting her own heartbeat, joining their life forces as one.

‘A warm, human woman with a kind heart is far better than a cold fairy,' he said. ‘You have been a gift
in these English days, Rosamund, one I could never have expected.'

‘And so have you,' she said, leaning into his body, into the hot protection of his strength. She rested her forehead on his chest, sliding her arms around to wrap all about him, as if by holding tightly she could keep him from flying away. ‘I was so sad, so frightened when I came to Court. But that is all gone when I'm with you.'

‘
Alskling
,' he whispered, and lowered his head to kiss her.

Their kiss was slow, gentle, as if they had all the time they wanted. As if there were long hours to come to know one another, not the mere stolen moments they really had together.

He framed her face between his hands, softly pressing tastes to her lips as if she was the finest of wines, the most delectable of delicacies. Rosamund revelled in his tenderness, in being close to him. She wanted to memorise every moment, every sensation, store them up for that time when their moments ran out. She flattened her palms against his chest, the fine fabric of his doublet rubbing against her soft skin. She stared, fascinated, at the pulse throbbing at his throat, feeling the rise and fall of his breath under her touch.

Rosamund slid her hands up to curl over his shoulders, holding on tightly as the earth seemed to tilt under her. She felt so giddy, dizzy, with wild anticipation. She went up on tiptoe, leaning against him as he deepened their kiss. His tongue pressed hungrily, roughly, between her lips, suddenly greedy as if he, too, felt that knife-edge of need.

She wanted everything—
all
of him! And she wanted to give him everything of herself. Their tongues mated, clashing, unable to find enough of each other.

But then he drew slowly back from their kiss, from the fireworks building up between them, before they could explode in an uncontrollable conflagration. He rested his forehead against hers, his breath heavy, as if he was in pain.

Rosamund closed her eyes tightly, clinging to Anton as if he would vanish from her, as he well could very soon. He was from Sweden, and surely his errand here would end soon enough. He could gain his English estate, but, even then, persuading her parents as to the prudence of the match would be difficult—as would persuading the Queen, who so hated for her ladies to marry.

And, also, he had not talked to her of any tender feelings, any real intentions. Any plans or hopes for the future. She was a foolish romantic indeed. A romantic who put her love before all else.

Yet this moment, alone with him in the cold winter silence, felt right. Right in a way her hurried meetings with Richard never had been. The deep, dark passion was so very different, the urge to be with him, to know him. She had to absorb every tiny sensation of the now, of how he smelled, how his body felt under her touch. The wind swirled around them as if to bind them together.

This moment might be all she had. She had to make it count, make it a memory she could hold onto for the years ahead.

She tilted back her head to stare up at him. His face was etched in shadows, his smile as bittersweet as the feelings in her own heart. She smoothed back the wind-tossed waves of his black hair from his brow, framing his face in her hands. His skin was warm through the thin leather of her gloves, and with her fingertips she traced the line of his high cheekbones, his nose, the chiselled edge of his jaw. A muscle tensed under her caress.

She wanted to memorise every detail. ‘Some day, when I am an old woman huddled by my fire,' she murmured, ‘I will remember this moment. I'll remember a young, strong, handsome man who held me in his arms like this. I'll remember everything he made me feel, and made me know about myself.'

He reached up to take her hands in his, holding them tightly. ‘What do you feel?' he said roughly, his accent heavy. Usually his English was nearly impeccable, she thought wonderingly, but in moments of emotion the edge of his words turned lilting, musical.

‘I feel alive,' she said. ‘When I'm with you, Anton, I feel all warm and tingling with life. As if I could fly higher and higher like a bird, above these trees, above Whitehall and London and everything. Fly until I find my own place, where there is safety and happiness always.'

‘Oh,
alskling
,' he said, pressing her open palm to his cheek as he smiled sadly. ‘There is no place with happiness always.'

‘There is when you find your true home, your real place,' she insisted. ‘I have always believed that. It is just not easy to find, I fear.'

‘And what should one do when it
is
found?'

‘Hold onto it with all your might, of course. Fight for it. Never let it go.'

In answer, he kissed her again, pulling her up on tiptoe as their bodies pressed together. Their kiss was swift, hard, a deep caress that tasted of promise. Of hope.

‘Rosamund,' he murmured, hugging her close. ‘We will meet tomorrow, yes? I think we have much to speak of.'

And more kisses to share? Rosamund could only hope. Feeling absurdly happy, she nodded. ‘Tomorrow.'

 

Rosamund paused at the top of the stairs leading to the maids' apartment, peering down over the carved balustrade before she turned down the corridor after Anne and Catherine, who had already disappeared. Anton still stood down in the foyer with Lord Langley, laughing over some jest.

How she did love it when he laughed! When he looked so young and happy. It made the whole room seem to blaze with the light of a thousand torches, and warmed her own heart more than any fire could.

If only it could be thus all the time.

He glanced up to find her watching him, and his smile widened. Rosamund waved, laughing, and ducked away.

Perhaps it would not last long, she thought, but surely it would be glorious while it did. She saw now what drove people like Katherine Grey and her secret husband to dive headfirst into foolish passion—it was a force impossible to resist. It was like a sonnet, brought to vivid, unruly life. She did not want to put her reputation, her family's opinion of her, in danger again. But she could not seem to help herself.

She drew off her gloves, holding them carefully as she remembered how she'd touched Anton's face. How she'd felt the heat of him through the leather. Then she laughed at her silliness. Soon she would be pilfering his cap-feather or eating-knife, making a treasure of them!

‘Lady Rosamund,' she heard someone say, startling her from her giddy romantic fantasies.

She looked up to find Celia Sutton emerging from one of the chambers. She still wore her mourning colours, a black-velvet surcoat trimmed in dark fur over a violet and black gown. She smiled, yet it seemed tense, unsure, as if she did not often use it.

‘Mistress Sutton,' Rosamund answered. At home, they had sometimes called each other Rosamund and Celia when they'd met, but now that felt too strange. ‘How do you do this day?'

‘As well as one can be, in this crowded, cold city,' Celia answered. ‘I look forward to the day I can return to the country, as I'm sure you do too. You must miss Ramsay Castle.'

‘Of course,' Rosamund answered. ‘But Court has its own attractions, I'm finding.'

Celia's smile stretched tauter. ‘Like the Court gentlemen, perhaps?'

‘They are handsome, I believe. And fashionable.'

‘And clever? Unlike our men of the countryside.'

Rosamund remembered Celia's late husband, Richard's elder brother, who had seemed to be a man who'd enjoyed hunting and hawking and not much else. His conversation at local weddings and banquets had always revolved around how many stags he'd killed on his last outing, how many pheasants bagged, or the new hounds in his kennel. A good-looking man, but a dull one.

Everyone had been secretly surprised when he'd married Celia, the granddaughter of Sir Walter Leonard, a landowner of old and distinguished family from another county. It seemed an uneven match, especially once they met Celia and found she was a dark beauty, well-educated for a lady and very elegant.

It had proved to be a match that did not last long, as the husband had died in a hunting accident a few months later, leaving Richard heir to the family's lands. But it seemed Celia still mourned her husband.

And, Rosamund suddenly remembered, Sir Walter Leonard must also be Anton's grandfather. How strange
to think the two of them related. They were so very different—both mysterious, yes, but there was a light edge to Anton that was missing in Celia.

‘Court is not
better
than the country,' Rosamund said. ‘Merely different. I am finding the experience—educational.'

‘Will you stay here, then, and continue that education?'

‘I will stay as long as Her Grace requires me. Or until I am needed at home.'

‘Home?' Celia said quietly, and Rosamund remembered why she was here at Whitehall—the dispute over the estate.

She also remembered that the Queen had asked her to speak with Celia about the matter.

‘I am surprised you travelled all this way in the winter,' Rosamund said. ‘Especially when you are still in mourning.'

‘I had not the time to have new Court clothes made,' Celia answered. ‘But I did not mind the journey. It was a chance to be quiet with my thoughts, away from my husband's parents.'

Rosamund knew the feeling, the inexpressible ache to be alone, to be able to think clearly again. Her own journey to London had taught her so much. ‘And will you stay here long?'

‘As long as it takes for my petition to be addressed,' Celia said. ‘Do you know if the Queen has yet read it?'

‘I fear I don't know. She never talks to her ladies of state matters. But she has been quite distracted of late.'

‘Oh, yes.' A tiny, humourless smile just touched the corner of Celia's lips. ‘The Lord of Misrule and the hanging poppet. What will happen next this Christmas, one wonders?'

‘Nothing at all, I hope,' Rosamund said sharply. Only fine things could happen this Christmas; if only there was not that edge of worry constantly hanging over her, over the whole Court.

‘Well, what can one expect with a Court full of Scotsmen? Not to mention Austrians—and Swedes. They all have their own scores to settle, their own interests to serve.'

‘Just as you have yours?'

‘And you yours, Lady Rosamund.' Celia's dark eyes, so like Anton's, narrowed. ‘You seem to enjoy my foreign cousin's company.'

Rosamund frowned, slapping her gloves against her palm. ‘He is quite charming. I am sure if you came to know him…'

Celia cut her off with a wave. ‘I do not
wish
to know him. My grandfather sought to cause a great family mischief in leaving him Briony Manor, but I will soon see things set right. Even if I have to fight here at Court, on my own, to do so.'

‘Oh, Celia, he
is
your family. Perhaps you need not be on your own here! If you would talk to him, perhaps an accord could be reached.' Families should surely always be united, whether they were Anton's or her own?

Celia shook her head. ‘Lady Rosamund, you cannot understand. You have always had the protection of your family. But I have always been on my own, have always had to fight for my very place in the world. My own father sold me in marriage, and he is now dead. My husband's family cares naught for me now that I am a widow and they owe me my dower rights. My brother-in-law has not even been seen in months—he is probably spending the last of my dowry!

‘I will not now throw myself on the uncertain mercies of some foreign cousin. I am not so foolish as that.'

Rosamund knew not what to say. After the sweet delight of her afternoon with Anton, to be faced with Celia's bitterness was saddening. It reminded her too much of the clouds hanging over her own life.