“How long were you in that room with her, Jamie Rayburn?”
“Two, three days? ’Tis hard to say. I stayed until the madness passed.” When he caught her expression, he raised his hands, palms out. “I could not leave and let myself loose on the rest of womankind in the state I was in.”
“How chivalrous of you. The absolute height of chivalry, to be sure.” She got down from the bed, flung her robe on, and pulled it tight around herself. “You should go now.”
“You are angry?” he asked, his eyes wide and blinking. “Come, do not tell me you are jealous of a woman who had to drug me to get her way with me.”
“Jealous? Why would I be jealous?” she snapped. “I had lovers, too.”
It was almost true. She had very nearly done it. She’d wanted to. She’d meant to. She would at her very next opportunity!
Jamie dropped down from the high bed and grabbed her by the shoulders. The anger in his eyes was most gratifying. But whatever he was about to shout at her, he bit it back.
“You will follow our agreement?” he said with an edge to his voice. “No other lovers during our affair.”
How dare he accuse her after what he’d just confessed? She twisted away from his grip and glared at him.
“If I do take another lover,” she said, “I’ll be sure to claim he slipped a potion into my cup.”
Linnet was so angry Jamie could almost see the steam rising off her as she stood, arms folded and eyes blazing. He had to work to hide his smile. Ha! She was jealous of a woman he went to bed with more than two years ago—and against his will.
If that was not a good sign, he did not know what was. Of course, he had wanted to shake her until her teeth rattled for that remark about her other lovers. That had scalded; he still felt the burn of her words in his belly.
He sucked in a deep breath. He could not change her past. What mattered was that he would be the last lover she ever had.
Because, by God, she would never have another.
Jamie pulled her into his arms. She was stiff as an iron pike, but he stifled her protests with a kiss. A moment later, her arms went around his neck, and she melted into him like butter on hot bread.
Aye, she was his for good. She just did not know it yet.
Chapter Fifteen
Joanna Courcy, the boldest of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting, grabbed Linnet by the wrist and pulled her into the privy chamber behind the screen in the Great Hall.
“You must speak to her!” Joanna said, her voice high and shrill. “We are all at our wits’ end.”
Joanna could be speaking only of Queen Katherine.
“I shall help if I can,” Linnet said. “What is it that troubles you?”
“The queen and thatWelshman,” Joanna hissed in her ear.
With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Linnet asked, “Has she been indiscreet?”
“She is all a-twitter over him,” Joanna said, her hands fluttering in the air. “And he, a lowly commoner.”
Which was entirely beside the point.
“We have dropped quiet hints, but she ignores them,” Joanna said. “None of us can speak to her as you do.”
Linnet hid her misgivings and patted the woman’s arm. “Do not fret. I shall speak with Her Highness at once.” And she would give that Owen Tudor a good tongue-lashing as well.
The journey from London had been long and tiring. All she wanted to do now was change her clothes, settle her things into her chamber, and then go off somewhere with Jamie. After the freedom they had in London, it had been hard to sit next to him for hours on the barge and not be able to touch him as she wanted to. The most she could do was occasionally touch her fingers to his arm.
But the queen needed her, so she would have to wait to have time alone with Jamie. Without stopping in her own chamber to change, she went to the queen’s apartment.
Queen Katherine greeted her with a warm smile that lit up her eyes. “My dear Linnet,” she said, taking her hands, “ ’tis good to have you back with us.”
