“You’ve grown cruel with time, love.”
My heart thunders at the word, but I say nothing as she leads me deeper into the library, through shelves of art books and leather-bound literature, and deeper still to a chaise longue in the darkest shadows of the room. Here no windows can spill light. The most precious of books are in a glass case, and across from it is the chaise, covered in a currant-red cloth, as is all the library furniture.
Isabeau gestures. “Please. Sit.”
I perch on the edge of the chaise, and she gently lifts my leg onto the long chair. I let her guide me, so I am half reclining.
“Take off your mask for me, love.”
“I can’t.”
Isabeau bends down and kisses me again, and my hands grip her hair, mussing it with my fingers and holding her to me.
She pulls back just enough to look at me. “Is kissing what you want from me then? I can kiss you until years pass if that’s what you want.” Isabeau pauses between words to kiss along my throat and the bared skin of my décolletage. “I will gladly kiss every bit of you.”
I tilt my head and shift so she has more skin in reach. “Isa ...”
“Tell me you haven’t craved anyone else’s touch like this,” Isabeau demands. She pauses and drops to her knees to stare into my eyes. “Tell me that you still think about me.”
“No one but you.”
“Then why will you not take off the mask?” Isabeau slides my shoe from the foot that is on the chaise longue. Then she trails her fingertips over the silk stocking that covers my calf, pausing at my knee to raise the skirts and drop a brief kiss there.
“I want you. I have never stopped wanting you, Isa. Isn’t that enough?”
Isabeau pushes up my dress, the petticoat underneath, and the chemise under that. The only remaining barrier is my stockings, which stretch slightly above my knee. We’ve never crossed this line, although I’ve thought about it.
“You are everything I’ve wanted,” Isabeau confesses. “This moment. This precious gift ... means everything.”
I shiver at the reverence in her voice, or perhaps because Isabeau peppers kisses on my bare skin above where the stocking was fastened.
Isabeau pauses. “May I touch you higher?”
My voice trembles as I tease, “If you are seducing me, you definitely should. If not, I suppose you ought not.”
Isabeau laughs. “I want to seduce you. I think I have always wanted that.”
“Carry on then,” I say in a thready voice.
Isabeau licks along the edge of a scar just above my knee. “You are lovely.” She kneels on the floor, leaning forward so she is in between my bare legs. The position puts her face-to-chest with my bosom. I watchher stare at my chest the same way she did years ago, as if she is about to pray. She gently cups one breast. “I thought I’d never touch these again.”
Then she leans closer and kisses my throat, right over my pulse, and whispers, “Does your heart thunder because I kiss you?”
“Your touchdoesfeel magical,” I admit.
“I want to spend days touching you, talking to you, dancing with you,” Isabeau confesses. “I would treat you like my own personal goddess for all my days.”
“Isabeau ...” I stroke her neck and cheek. “You don’t need to lie to me. I’m not asking for forever. I just want—”
“Maudite!” a voice calls through the door. “Are you in here?”
Isabeau glares at the door. “Occupied.”
The laugh at the door is loud enough to be barely muffled. “Her Majesty does not care. She ordered us to tell you to fasten your trousers and attend the ceremony.”
I scoot back out of reach. “Tell them you will join them so they don’t come in here! If we are seen ...”
“If you are compromised, you’ll be mine.” Isabeau growls as I try to shove my dress into order again. “You would have to agree to marry me.”
