“How Susannah melted the earl’s icy heart.”
She considered. “Shouldn’t it beHow Henry’s heartsomething, something? Then there would be all that delicious alliteration. And it should have your name. I shouldn’t be the hero of your story.”
He tightened his arms around her. “Yes, you should, love. You already are.”
First Epilogue
The concubine wished to give her king a gift. But what could she offer a man who possessed a kingdom?
After their shared pleasure that night, she donned one of his silk tunics so he would not be distracted by her breasts and sat cross-legged on the bed.
“Once upon a time,” she began.
—The Concubine and Her King.Unpublished MS.
“And then what happens?” Henry asked.
Susannah was sideways in his lap. Her bottom rested on his thigh, her legs draped over his other thigh, and her tiny nose nestled just under the angle of his jaw. She claimed it was her nose’s second-favorite place, the first being tip-to-tip or side-by-side with his own nose.
However, Henry needed the area in front of his own nose clear right now because he needed to see. His arms bracketed her, his right hand held a quill, and his left hand rested onhis desk, which was littered with pieces of paper covered in writing.
Autumn had set in, and the Earl of Ashthorpe was taking dictation from the noted storybook author Augustus Puddlewick.
But he needed to prompt his sweet Puddlewick.
“Love? What happens next?”
“Hmmm,” she hummed.
She had probably taken a bit too much wine with dinner. For her, that was a glass and a half. But Susannah was delightful when tipsy.
She was delightful all the time.
She answered him in a low voice. “You take me to our bedchamber and undress me and . . .”
This was an even more interesting story than the one she had been relating to him about Tommy and Willa tricking a dragon into giving them his treasure. Henry’s hand slipped off the desk and held Susannah’s knee.
“And?” he asked.
“Oh.” She sighed. “You kiss me and touch me and worship me.”
“What form does this worship take?”
“The most heavenly kind.” She pulled her nose away from its second-favorite place and craned her neck back so he could turn his head and look at her face.
She went on, “The kind that begins with your head between my legs.” Her eyes glinted. “And ends with you inside me.”
He dropped the quill and seized her rather roughly and stood, still holding her. She put her hands on his shoulders and laughed gaily.
“And is that the end of the story?” he asked, backing her against the desk.
“That’s not even the end of the chapter.”
“What is the end of the chapter?”
“Drifting off to sleep together, sated and warm and naked.”
“Sounds like a good end to a chapter.”
