The sound of footsteps in the hall beyond shook them both from their idyll. Her brow furrowed, and she snatched her hand away, a look of wild fear entering her eyes that he’d give his very life to erase.
“We shouldn’t,” she said again quietly, catching her lip between her teeth. “If they suspect…”
“To hell with them,” he snarled, feeling irrationally bloodthirsty after the intrusion upon this rare moment of peace. “I’ll kill them all with my bare hands.”
“And where would that leave Varros?” she asked, shaking her head. “You don’t need to start a war.”
But starting a war was precisely why he had come to England. It was why he was marrying the princess he didn’t want. Because he needed to remove Gustavson from the throne. However, he didn’t intend to start the war by slaying all the usurper king’s guards.
“They’ll not dare to interrupt,” he reassured her, grimly resuming the task of positioning the bedclothes on the floor.
Maxim was careful not to tell her why. He didn’t reckon she would approve of his threatening the guards.
“And why not?” she asked, far too perceptive as always. “Have you done something, Maxim?”
A new smile was curving his lips. He liked that she was calling him by his given name. He liked, too, that she had returned his kisses with equal ardor, sucking on his tongue and kissing him frantically, her small hands clutching at hisshoulders and grasping at his coat as if she intended to tear it to shreds. He had hoped she might. The less clothing he was wearing in Tansy’s presence, the better.
“I’m the King of Varros,” he said simply instead of elaborating, plumping a feather pillow as if he were an accomplished chambermaid. “They’ll not dare to open the door after I’ve warned them against it.”
Hewasthe king, but on the battlefield, he’d had to attend himself in many ways. He hadn’t grown to manhood as a spoiled, cosseted royal. He’d come of age fighting for what was his, facing death without blinking. He felt more at home marching, on his aching knees, bedding down on the floor as he’d done for countless cold, dark winter’s nights, than he did luxuriating in the riches of his kingdom.
He felt more at home with Tansy than he ever had with anyone. Even here, in this stolen fragment of the day, with the fear of discovery looming over them and the somber specter of the future ominous before them.
“I suspect you’ve warned them with more than words,” Tansy said, on her knees at his side, smoothing the blankets with quick, efficient motions.
He realized that it was a task she had conducted many times, and that she was little more than a servant, waiting upon the whims of the disappearing Princess Anastasia. Anger coursed through him, mingling with the lust. The urge to demand that she cease acting as the princess’s lady-in-waiting struck him strongly. He almost blurted the order, as he would have to any soldier on the battlefield. But he held his tongue, knowing that it would only heighten Tansy’s determination to continue. He admired her defiance. It repelled him and enthralled him all at once.
“Perhaps,” he allowed then, studying her face, the hints of gold and red hiding in her mahogany locks. “Take down your hair.”
His boldness took her by surprise. Fine brows arched.
“Please,” he added gruffly. “I wish to see it unbound.”
“It is plain hair, no curl,” she protested. “The color of mud.”
Mud? Sacrilege. He’d seen more than his share of mud, and her beautiful tresses bore no comparison.
“It’s glorious,” he countered firmly, wondering if it was possible that she didn’t know. If her humility kept her from seeing her true beauty. “There are hints of gold and red hidden within it when the light catches. I have dreamt of running my fingers through it.”
He already knew it would be decadently soft. But he wondered how long it was. Wondered what it would look like draped over a pillow, wrapped around his fist.
“You have?”
Her hesitant question made him want her even more. She was far too humble, his spitfire. She’d been forced to hide in the shadow of a princess, but she had been born to be a true queen. How he wished, with a ferocity that would have knocked him to his knees had he not already been upon them, that he could make her his. That he could marry her in truth.
“I have,” he confirmed.
They faced each other, on their knees, the world beyond this chamber desperately uncertain. Danger, wars, unwanted marriages, assassins, wrongful kings, exiled princes, guards. None of it mattered.
Holding his gaze, Tansy reached for the pins holding her hair in its tidy chignon. One by one, she pulled, her eyes never leaving his. Fat tendrils spilled down her shoulders and back. And ye gods, it was longer than he had supposed. Thicker and richer. He reached for a handful that had fallen over her right breast,but his greedy hand cupped, weighing the fullness, finding her nipple hard and demanding beneath the layers of her garments and hair.
Fuck.
He had never surrendered on a field of battle. Not once in all the years of the Great War.
But he was surrendering now.
Surrendering to this small, mysterious woman with the fortitude of an entire cavalry brigade.
