Neither one of them saw Helen standing in the corner of the room.
17
“Mistress? Please, you must awaken.”
Katherine sighed. She was in bed, her face buried in her pillow, and she was snug and warm beneath blankets and furs. She did not want to awaken, not yet—she was so tired she could hardly move. Indeed, she felt drugged. Helen called her again. Katherine rolled away from her maid and, in a single blinding instant, recalled the night before.
She stopped breathing. Liam. Oh, God, Liam had come to her room, and they had made love, in a manner of speaking—oh, yes. It had been wicked and wonderful and she was still a virgin, quite miraculously. She began to smile. She wriggled her toes, contracted her muscles, thinking of how he had loved her not once but twice—and the second time so endlessly, so thoroughly, so perfectly, she had finally had to beg him to cease. Her cheeks were hot.
Katherine stared at the stone wall while, on the other side of the room, Helen moved about. He was gone now. She had fallen asleep sometime before dawn and had been unaware of his leaving. Realizing that he was gone made her feel bereft. When would she see him again?
Her soft smile faded, and so, too, did her joy. She was mad, mad to be sad over his departure, mad to be remembering their heated encounter in such a dreamy, wistful way. She was mad. He was a notorious pirate. She was anoblewoman. She’d had no right to do the unspeakable things that she had. No right—none.
Katherine did not move, frozen now with dismay. How wrong she was. She’d had every right to play the whore, she now recalled. Her father had so recently asked her to take on that very role.
Katherine closed her eyes. Although Gerald would have approved of what she had done, she could not be pleased with her own behavior. She was ashamed. Especially as she did not want to play Gerald’s game, did not want to become O’Neill’s wife. Yet she had played the whore well, far better than her father would have ever asked her to. Her true nature was far darker, far less genteel, than Katherine had ever dreamed.
Perhaps men looked at her and discerned her sensual nature. Perhaps they all saw through her, Katherine thought miserably. Was that why Hugh Barry and the earl of Leicester, two very noble men, wished to make her a mistress instead of a wife? Could a man look at her and see that forbidden passion stirred in her veins?
How ironic it was. Hugh Barry and the earl of Leicester wanted her to be their whore, but Liam O’Neill wanted her to be his wife.
Katherine hugged her pillow. Perhaps Gerald would succeed in marrying her off to O’Neill. It was certainly becoming more possible, as a result of her recent behavior, and the fact that she could not seem to resist the pirate’s embraces. But Katherine, although well aware of her duty to her father, had been hoping that Liam would not return to court, that he would leave her alone, disappear from her life, so she might resolve her own future in a satisfactory manner. But it seemed now that Gerald might actually get his way one day.
But would it be so terrible?
Instantly Katherine was horrified with her wayward thoughts.
“The queen wishes to speak with you, mistress,” Helen said, cutting into her disturbing thoughts. “Really, you are a slugabed this morn.”
Katherine sat bolt upright, the covers dropping to herwaist, oblivious of the fact that she had slept without her nightgown. The queen! “God’s wounds! What time is it? Why did you not wake me sooner?” Katherine had not slept more than a few hours, but she leapt from the bed, as naked as the day she was born.
“’Tis almost eight, and the queen wishes to speak with you before the mass. I did not wake you because you appeared near dead, so tired were you from last night’s excesses.”
Katherine froze, meeting Helen’s wide blue eyes. But Helen only smiled sweetly at her, her gaze innocent of any hidden meaning. Of course she could not know. Of course she only referred to the celebrations that had taken place in the hall below. Despite the scent of man and woman which wafted from the bed, despite the fact that Katherine had slept without her nightclothes.
“Hurry, mistress, you must not annoy the queen.” Helen was holding out Katherine’s undergarment. Katherine needed a bath, but would not have a chance until the evening and she nodded. Damnation, she thought, at once uneasy and irritable. She stepped into her linen drawers. “The queen wishes to speak with me? Whatever for?”
Helen shrugged, helping her with her chemise and farthingale. “I do not know, mistress. She sent Lady Anne to summon you. I told the lady that you would be forthcoming immediately.”
Katherine was ready to jump into her dress now. She was supposed to be at the queen’s side at a quarter to eight, as were all her ladies, even though it was the ladies of the bedchamber who helped the queen to awaken and dress. She rushed into her dress, then froze, espying a parcel wrapped in red silk and tied with a red ribbon on the coffer at the foot of the bed. “What is that?” she murmured.
Helen shrugged, handing her the parcel. “I know not. It was here this morning when I came to awaken you.”
It could only be from Liam. Katherine glanced at Helen, but the maid’s gaze was blank as she fetched Katherine’s coif from the table. Her heart pounding, Katherine tookthe gift and tore it open. Her eyes widened. “Why—what is this? How beautiful it is!”
She and Helen stared at the fragile web of white fabric, which was sewn in intricate patterns, so intricate, in fact, that in places mere threads seemed to hold the material together. “I have never seen anything like this before,” Katherine cried in real delight.
“I have,” Helen said, her tone hushed. “’Tis Spanish lace.”
Katherine looked at the airy, white material. “Spanish lace,” she murmured, envisioning it as cuffs on the sleeves of her gown or frothing at the neckline of her dress. “’Tis wonderous and beautiful at once.”
“Aye,” Helen said as reverently. “Even the queen has yet to obtain this stuff. The Spanish ambassador has taken to wearing thislacerecently,” Helen said. “Everyone remarked it. The ladies will be green with envy when they learn you have this.”
Katherine sat down on the bed, her gown yet unbuttoned, unfolding the fabric. A small sealed missive fell out. Katherine’s pulse rioted and she pulled the seal apart. There were but two single scrawled words upon the parchment—Enjoy, Liam.
Katherine held the paper to her breast, thinking about the mad passion they had shared last night. It was wrong. Despite her father’s instructions. But what was truly unbelievable, was her behavior, not his. And even now, her body warmed from thinking of him.
Katherine crumpled the parchment, standing abruptly. On the room’s single table was the flint used to light the tapers and oil lamps. She struck it and set the note aflame. When it began to burn, she dropped it into the pewter bowl containing her wash water.
