Tansy raised the flask to her lips, holding her breath as she poured another measure down her throat, hoping she wouldn’t regret her capitulation.
And somehow suspecting she would.
The actof sharing a flask had never filled Maxim with unadulterated lust.
Or, at least, it hadn’t until now.
But there had been something damnably erotic about placing his lips on the cool metal where Lady Tansy’s had been. And watching her as she attempted to prove her daring to him by choking down another swallow of his whisky was its own form of sensual torture. Because her defiance, her bravado…ye gods, they were mesmerizing. The quiet little lady-in-waiting possessed the fortitude of steel.
And he liked it.
Liked the sharp intelligence hiding in her eyes. Liked the way her shoulders went back and her spine stiffened before she met his challenge. Liked that she was willing to swallow hisfoulbrew, as she had called it, just so that he wouldn’t think her weak.
Likedher.
And curse it all, that was a problem. Because he wasn’t meant to like the lady-in-waiting of his future queen. He was meant to like the woman he would wed.
The one who was still presently missing.
Lady Tansy lowered the flask to her lap, wrinkling her nose as she swallowed loudly enough that the indelicate sound broke the peacefulness of the chamber.
“It’s still perfectly vile,” she announced with a moue of distaste.
He tried to recall the first time he’d ever tippled. It had been so long ago.
“I thought the same when I had my initial taste,” he told her and then wondered why the hell he was confiding in a woman he scarcely knew.
A woman he ought not to know any better. And yet, he couldn’t seem to help himself.
“How long have you been drinking it?” she asked, surprising him with her soft query.
With her interest in him as well.
No one asked him questions that were of a personal nature. At least, no one, save his rascal brother. But Nando was likely debauching a bored wife of thetonat this very moment. Perhaps even two at once.
Maxim reminded himself of Lady Tansy’s question, forcing his mind to return to long-ago days that seemed a lifetime away, days that were forever out of reach. “I was a stripling of fourteen at the time, and I’m a man of forty now. I reckon it has been a long time.”
“Fourteen seems terribly young for a man to drink such stringent spirits,” she said, still holding the flask in her dainty hand.
He could not tell if she was reluctant to return it to him or if she had forgotten she yet held it.
Likely the latter.
“My sire gave me the whisky. His mother was Scottish. A Graham.” The warmth fled him as he recalled the reason for the drink instead of the heritage that had supplied it on the far-flung, sun-drenched island of Varros. “We were at war with my uncle. I had just watched my first man die. His blood was yet on my hands when my father gave me the whisky and told me to drink, that doing so would help to numb the shock.”
Lady Tansy’s countenance had grown taut with compassion, her brow furrowed. “And did it?”
He shook his head. “No. It didn’t. That wasn’t the first lie my father told me, nor was it the last.”
Gods, why was he telling her this? He wasn’t even slightly soused. He had no decent excuse.
“I don’t remember my father,” she said, her voice small. “He died when I was quite young.”
And then she surprised him by bringing the flask to her lips and taking another healthy sip.
“I’m sorry, my lady,” he offered, knowing it was woefully inadequate. He had lost his father in the early half of the Varros Great War, and he had never entirely recovered from it. “I still miss my own sire,” he added, “though he has been gone these last twenty years.”
Lady Tansy nodded solemnly and extended his flask. “Loss doesn’t grow easier with time, does it? Everyone tells you that it will, that passing years soften the sting of the blow.”
