In a Treacherous Court (18 page)

T
he bells of St. Michael’s were ringing the curfew as Parker let himself into the house. The horse was brushed and stabled, and it was only ten o’clock on the longest day of his life.

“Parker?”

He whirled. Susanna stood in the doorway to his study, one hand pressed against the door frame as if it were the only thing holding her up.

He’d thought she would go to bed while he settled the horse. He’d wanted to ask her to wait for him, but one look at her pale, drawn face had quelled that impulse.

He had no more expectations of sweet kisses before the fire; the King and Boleyn had seen to that. But he would like to talk. He was too keyed up to sleep just yet.

“Is all well?” He could think of nothing else to say.

She nodded. “Thanks to you, all is well.” She stepped back into the study and he followed her. She had poured them wine and laid out a platter of food Mistress Greene must have left for them in the kitchen.

He let out a contented sigh.

She smiled, the first smile he’d seen since Boleyn attacked her.

“My sighs amuse you?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow, because he wanted the glow of that smile to keep warming him.

She did not answer, but her smile deepened and she sat beside him. For a while, they sipped wine and took slivers of cold lamb and sliced apple from the platter.

It was a balm to his soul.

“Will you be out of favor? After tonight?” She spoke quietly, as if the thought had been wearing her down.

“I was never in favor. Not with those wasps.” Suddenly he felt bone-tired.

“Why do you call them wasps?” Her voice seemed to come from a long way away.

“Not as nice as bees around the royal honeypot. They don’t produce anything useful, and they’ll sting you to death if they get the chance.”

She laughed, a delightful burst of sound that roused him from his half-doze.

“There are a few who think well of me. They will approve of my actions tonight. And the King gave me even more trust after tonight—and fortunately for me, he is the only one who counts.”

She leaned back in her chair, as if released of her tension, then reached out for the same piece of apple as he. Their fingers brushed, and his fatigue disappeared as quickly as morning mist under a hot summer sun.

He was fully, vitally awake.

He lifted his head to look at her, and found she was already staring at him.

“I thought …” His words were not as steady as he’d hoped. “After Boleyn—”

She leaned forward and placed a trembling finger on his lips. It was the boldest move she’d made in the dance between them, and he was seared by a lightning surge of heat. “Boleyn can go to hell,” she said.

Parker’s thoughts exactly.

He took hold of her finger and kissed the tip. Then he took it in his mouth and gently bit down.

She drew in a breath, sharp as the hiss of the sea on a sandy beach. The sound undid him.

He must have leaned over and lifted her into his lap. He only knew that she was suddenly in his arms, her thighs straddling him as he tasted her neck and her shoulder, as her hands moved clumsily to untie his shirt.

He jerked down the neck of her gown to release one hard, pink nipple, then took it in his mouth. As she arched back with a cry, he wondered, his heart stuttering at the thought, how he could ever let her go.

The Chiefe Conditions and Qualities in a Courtier:
To fellowship him self for the most part with men of the best sort and of most estimation, and with his equalles, so he be also beloved of his inferiours.

Of the Chief Conditions and Qualityes in a Waytyng Gentylwoman:
To have the vertues of the minde, as wisdome, justice, noblenesse of courage, temperance, strength of the mide, continency, sober-moode, etc.

P
arker was taking her to a place she had never been. The smallest movement, even the act of drawing breath, somehow drove the fever higher.

She heard her quiet, breathy moans as if they were coming from someone else, and reveled in the sound of them. They stoked the fire, along with Parker’s fingers under her dress, sliding between her legs, and his teeth on her neck.

Her head was back, too heavy for her neck to hold up, and she was panting, on the verge of some wonderful revelation.

She had thought to allow Parker a few more kisses this evening, but that was before Boleyn. Before she’d seen the look in Parker’s eyes in the antechamber.

“Parker?” Was that sob from her?

His hand no longer rubbed beneath her skirts, but when she saw it was to fumble with his breeches, she could think of nothing at all except that he hurry.

He muttered a curse and she lifted higher off his lap to give him room, wanting, wanting, more than she had ever thought possible to want.

A heavy knock on the front door froze her with shock.

Parker seemed not to hear it at all and, with a groan, tugged the last of his laces free. He grabbed her hips, and despite her fright, the feel of his blunt, hard head nudging her made her shiver with reaction.

“Parker. The door.” She tried to hold herself back, but somehow let him nudge in deeper.

“What?” He spoke as if in a dream.

“The door,” she gasped, wanting nothing more than to inch down, now that he was right there, where she needed him.

“Door?” He stiffened as the knock came again, louder and more frantic.
“No.”
He surged upward, sheathing himself deep inside her, and rested his forehead against hers, breathing deeply.

She was stretched, filled. Taken.

She felt a tremble deep within, a strange ripple, and moved, just once, against him. She bit back the scream that lodged in her throat as she convulsed in delicious shudders, and then again when Parker surged upward a second time on an explosive groan, shuddering himself.

When the eddies of pure feeling subsided, she lay limp against Parker’s chest.

The knock on the front door came a third time, this time accompanied by a shout.

“They’ll wake the house,” she muttered. As the reality of that struck her, she jerked up. “Mistress Greene,” she breathed to Parker, the thought of the housekeeper finding them like this mortifying.

She knew she looked a wanton. Her hair was disheveled, her dress up around her hips, her breasts overspilling her neckline.

But Parker moved languidly, his eyelids half-closed, his eyes drinking her in as he tucked her breasts back into her bodice, his hands lingering over the job.

She felt her skin heat under his gaze, her breasts responding to him all over again.

“Careful now,” he said as he lifted her off his lap, easing her off his cock slowly. She felt as if a piece of her was suddenly missing.

“Gods,” he whispered with violence as she stood weak-kneed before him, tugging at the skirts of her dress.

Susanna looked at him wide-eyed, saw he was retying his breeches. A tiny smear of blood, of her virginity, smudged his bare thigh.

“It should have been slower. …” He stood, his face anguished, but she shook her head. Hard.

“Regret nothing. I don’t.”

He looked her over, as if assessing their readiness for company,
and lifted a hand to her cheek, brushing her hair off her face with gentle fingers.

Then, as the knock came again, he turned with a vicious curse and strode into the hall to answer the door.

A
n icy wind blew in with Francis Bryan, like a premonition. It chilled the heated air of the study and leached the coziness from it.

Worse, Bryan knew he had interrupted a tryst. Susanna could see it in the way he slid sly glances her way.

He even seemed amused by Parker’s ill temper. He’d looked subdued when he first walked in, but his gaze had sharpened on Susanna, on her hair, and she saw the tension lift from his tight-drawn face.

She avoided his eyes and concentrated on the wine in her cup, swirling it in patterns and watching the red liquid cling to the sides.

“Your very life had best be in danger, for this interruption,” Parker said, and Susanna had to fight a smile, he was so furious.

“It is.” Bryan’s amusement faded. “Whoever slammed the door while you were with me was waiting at the side door to my rooms.”

“How did you escape them?” Parker had not offered Bryan a seat, and had not taken one himself. He crossed his arms, glowering.

“I am not without use as a sword arm.” Bryan sounded so offended that Susanna coughed on her wine.

Why was everything so amusing all of a sudden?

“No. You’re one of the best, but I was outside moments after you, and there was no sign of swordplay.”

“My passage does not exit through the side door, but the kitchen,” Bryan explained. “But I saw them lurking before I fled. They saw me too, and I assume tried to follow, but I know my neighborhood well.”

“Then let us get back to what you were about to say in your rooms.” Parker moved to stand behind her chair, as if he could not be away from her a moment longer. She twisted her head to look at him, but his gaze was on Bryan.

“A month or so back, I received a note at court to the effect that I would find information advantageous to me at the docks.” Bryan shrugged at his own stupidity. “The note told me whom to meet and where, and a man unloading a ship from France slipped me a heavy coin. It was two pieces screwed together, and when I opened it, there was a letter inside from de la Pole.”

He ran a shaking hand over his brow. “I almost perished on the spot when I realized how I’d been tricked into betrayal. My first thought was to burn it without reading it, but I wished to know what plan was afoot.”

“And what plan was that?” Parker leaned forward above her, his eyes locked on Bryan.

“De la Pole spoke of a new treaty allying France and the Pope against the Emperor Charles. He had King Francis’s assurance it would mean papal backing of his claim to the throne. He wanted to know if I would be with him, and he
named the titles that would be mine should I stand beside him.”

“Why would he take such a chance, if he did not know where your loyalties lay?” Susanna spoke for the first time, and she was aware of Bryan’s sudden, sharp focus.

“That is the beauty of this trap. Who would believe de la Pole would be so careless? No matter whom I showed the letter to, they would wonder the same as you—including the King. And where would I be then?”

“Your open contempt for the English court and your behavior with Francis all those years ago has come back to haunt you.” Parker spoke with no relish, but Bryan flushed crimson.

“Damn you, Parker. Have you never done something stupid in the high spirits of youth?”

Parker did not reply, which only enraged Bryan even more. He lifted his head and drew in a deep breath, trying to gain control of himself.

Something told Susanna that Bryan still did things he liked to put down to the high spirits of youth. The excuse was most likely beginning to wear thin.

“What will you do, Parker? I was told you had audience with the King this evening, and decided to throw my lot in your hands.” Bryan sat down in Parker’s chair, his hands shaking on the armrests.

Parker reached out and carressed the back of Susanna’s neck. “I seek whoever is trying to kill me and my lady.” His thumb brushed against her skin. “And I have vengeance in mind.”