“Open the box,” Arabella commanded her servant.
The girl complied and then said, “There’s another parchment, and…ohhh! Oh, ‘Bella! ‘Tis the most beautiful strand of pearls I’ve ever seen!” She held up a long rope of luminescent pearls, just faintly tinged with pink, from which hung a carved heart of red-gold studded with smaller pearls.
“Oh my!” Arabella exclaimed, surprised. She had hardly expected such a gift. Then her common sense took over. “Open the parchment,” she instructed Lona, “and let me see it.”
When Lona held out the parchment, Arabella scanned it carefully. Jamie Stewart had more than kept his bargain. Not only had he written to King Henry regarding her plight and requesting the return of Greyfaire for his young kinswoman, Lady Margaret Stewart, as the copy Lona was holding attested to, he had enclosed a second message to Henry Tudor introducing his fellow monarch to Lady Arabella Grey. There was no way the English king could avoid seeing Arabella without giving offense to his fellow ruler in the north.
“I am now deeply in the king’s debt, Lona,” Arabella told her serving woman with a gusty sigh. “Put these away, for they are important, and then scrub me well. The king, I am told, is offended by those who do not bathe.”
“Perhaps, then,” Lona replied with a giggle, “you shouldn’t, m’lady.” She replaced the parchments in the box and set them aside before taking up a cloth to soap it.
Arabella could not refrain from chuckling, but then she grew serious again. “Oh, Lona! I am so confused, for I know not if what I do is right, and yet I cannot help myself! It is as if the very stones of Greyfaire cry out to me.”
“‘Tis done now, ‘Bella, and it seems to me you have little choice left. I suppose you could tell the king that you had changed your mind, but I suspect that it would anger him greatly. We both know that you must keep your bargain, and that being your father’s daughter, you will. Best to put a good face on it. My father always said that those who show weakness will be to those who don’t. You’ve been strong all along, m’lady. This is not the time to grow weak.”
Arabella nodded. “Aye,” she said quietly, and then standing up, she stepped from her tub.
Lona took a towel from the rack by the fire where it had been warming and briskly rubbed her mistress down until her soft skin was dry and glowed with good health. “I’ll get ye a clean silk shift,” she told her mistress.
“She will nae need it,” the king said. He was standing in the secret door, which had opened silently. “Ye may go, lassie,” he told Lona. “Yer dismissed for the night.”
Without a word Lona curtsied to the king and departed the bedchamber, closing the door behind her as she went.
“I do not like being taken unawares, particularly before I have finished my toilette,” Arabella said coldly, “and in future, my lord, I will dismiss my own servants.”
“Proud,” the king said. “Proud and beautiful. Such pride must surely be inborn that the heiress of a tumbled-down stone keep would have it in such measure.” His blue eyes swept slowly over her, examining her carefully with a connoisseur’s practiced eye. “Damn me, madame, but you are even lovelier than I could have possibly anticipated. Methinks our bargain is a poor one that I must let you go after only three nights of bliss.”
Naked!She was standing naked before a man other than her husband, Arabella thought, and yet she was not in the least embarrassed by her situation. It was most puzzling indeed. “A bargain, my lord, is a bargain,” she said calmly, “and if I remember correctly, there was no guarantee of bliss. You agreed to intercede with King Henry on my behalf, and I agreed to allow you three nights in my bed, but there was certainly no discussion of bliss.”
The king chuckled. “Do ye nae think, madame, that we are capable of gieing each other bliss?” he said, casually removing his silk shirt and his hose, which were the only garments that he had been wearing. He stood before her naked, and seeing that Arabella’s gaze was somewhat fixed somewhere past his right shoulder, he chuckled again. “I am said to be a fine figure of a man, sweetheart. Would ye nae look at me? I am certainly enjoying looking at ye.”
“I did not think you had come tolook,my lord,” Arabella answered archly, annoyed at having shown such cowardice before him. She turned her cool gaze upon the king, her green eyes sweeping boldly over him as if she were quite used to perusing naked men. He was, as he said, a fine figure of a man, big and tall, with long limbs that were well fleshed and a long torso that was lightly covered with auburn hair matching that upon his bush and upon his head. She willed herself not to blush as her glance moved over the most intimate part of him. He was certainly most well-endowed, but then as her husband was always reminding her, the Stewart men were.
She had great strength, James Stewart thought, watching her face carefully as she looked her fill at him. He would have almost thought her a woman of vast experience had not the most delicate blush of pink stained her cheeks. He doubted that she herself was even aware of the blush, for it was so faint. Walking over to Arabella, he pulled the tortoiseshell pins from her hair slowly, one by one, watching with delight as her pale gold tresses tumbled to the floor, cloaking her like a silken mantle.
James Stewart reached out and took a handful of her hair between his fingers, feeling the wonderful texture as he rubbed those fingers together. He raised a handful of hair to his lips, kissing it, tasting it, inhaling its wonderful and elusive fragrance. “Magnificent,” he said with deep and sincere feeling. “Never hae I seen such magnificent hair! Its beauty is such that I want to bathe in it!”
“Bathe in my hair?”she mocked him. “My lord, what nonsense you speak.”
“Nay,” he said. “Take yer beautiful hair, sweetheart, and rub it all over my body. I must feel yer hair upon me!”
Tavis had loved her hair, Arabella thought sadly. He, too, had liked to take her hair and rub it over his skin, but he had never said that he wanted to bathe in it. It was, however, what he was doing, she considered, catching up her hair in her hands and stroking his skin with it. “Like this, my lord?” she murmured softly.
“Aye,” he said, almost purring, his eyes closed for a moment as he enjoyed the double sensation of her hair and her hands upon him. Then after a while his blue eyes opened and he looked down into her face. “Kiss me, Arabella,” he commanded her, his hands tightening about her waist as he lifted her up level with him.
She had never kissed another man but Tavis, she thought, as a wave of panic suddenly swept over her. Not like this. Not intimately, but triumphing over her tumultuous emotions, she put her lips upon his. After a moment, however, the king pulled away from her, laughing softly.
“Why sweetheart,” he said gently, “yer shy of me. ‘Tis most charming. Perhaps I ask too much of ye. ‘Tis I who should be instructing ye, for other than my uncle, ye really are an innocent, aren’t ye?” Swinging her into his arms, he carried her over to the bed and set her down upon it.
“I have known no other man but Tavis Stewart,” she answered the king honestly. “I am no wanton, my lord.”
Again James Stewart felt a prick of guilt, but he pushed it away. He was a king, and kings had certain rights over their subjects that other men did not. Arabella’s decision to divorce her husband had been her decision. He had certainly not asked it of her, nor had it been necessary to their liaison that she do so. “Nay, Arabella,” the king agreed, joining her upon the bed, “yer nae a wanton.” He lowered his head so that their faces almost touched. “Open yer mouth to me, sweetheart,” he bid her, and when she obeyed him, he put his lips upon hers even as his tongue reconnoitered forward to surprise hers. She stiffened at its touch and sought to draw away from him, but he would not let her. “Nay, sweetheart,” he said, raising his head from her that he might speak. “Gie me yer wee pink tongue that mine may love it. Watch them as they entwine and play wi’ each other.”
His words had a strange, almost hypnotic effect upon her. Her eyes followed the erotic ballet that their two tongues were performing. She could not for the life of her look away. His tongue was strong. It seemed to master hers, and she shivered even as she felt a thrill of excitement race through her. It had not occurred to Arabella before this moment that she might actually respond to the king’s lovemaking. She had honestly believed that good women respond only to the love of their husbands. Perhaps she was not really a good woman, or perhaps this was simply some sort of temptation that she must resist. Yet if the king was displeased with her, he might take back his aid. She could not be certain that he had actually sent a letter to King Henry. To her decided embarrassment, a small moan escaped her.
“Aye, sweetheart,” the king encouraged her, “dinna be fearful of me or of the passion I will raise in ye.” He began to cover her face with hot kisses, nibbling upon her dark gold eyelashes as he did. Her head fell back, and he kissed her throat. Then his tongue began to lick slowly over the slender column, savoring the silky texture of the faintly perfumed flesh.
Arabella shivered once again, suddenly clearly aware that when the king had made his pact with her he had not, as she believed, meant their three nights to be so quickly over. James Stewart did not want merely to futter her and be gone. He did not intend to use her like a common whore. He wanted all of her, and the thought was terrifying. No man, Arabella instinctively realized, had the right to demand that much of any woman.
