power!
You can still save the others, Geoff. They're nothing to me, anyway. I'm a civilized man now, a gentleman, and the island a lifetime ago. Why, I'm not even going to personally bloody my hands on even you, for those violent days are gone. Just give me the Empress and it's over, my revenge ends with you. You have my word on it."
Only an idiot would believe the man. An idiot, or a man Edmund believed to be desperate, broken, totally without options. Edmund's flaw, his failing, like Machiavelli's, had always been in overestimating his own brilliance, underestimating the resolve of his opponents. Like Machiavelli, Edmund adored the twists and turns, the intrigues, the machinations…forgetting that one too many twists and you've tied yourself in a knot.
Ainsley reluctantly nodded his head, and then launched his own plan, his own twist and turn. "Very well, I agree, as I can see no other option than but to trust you. I can…yes, that's what we'll do. Tuesday evening should give them enough time. I'll need to speak with someone from my family again, to arrange matters, and that someone will bring the stone to the gaol on Tuesday evening. I need that much time to have the stone retrieved from its hiding place and brought here, as long as you promise whoever brings the stone safe conduct, along with the rest of my family and crew. You can manage to have me kept here for three more days before moving me to Dover Castle, can't you, Edmund? A powerful man like you?"
Edmund looked at him for a long time, his mind working, his intelligence competing with his greed. With Edmund, Ainsley knew, greed always won. And then Beales nodded. "I've waited nearly twenty years, Geoff. I can wait a few more days. Very well, I'll arrange to have you kept here, in Dymchurch, until then. Have your daughter bring the Empress."
"No," Ainsley said, outwardly panicked, inwardly elated, looking at Beales and seeing a dead man. "You gave me your word, Edmund. Unless you promise to leave my daughter alone, the Empress stays where she is, forever out of your reach. My daughter will not be involved. Give me your word."
"Given. And as the fine English gentleman I have become, my word is, of course, my bond," Edmund purred, getting to his feet, crossing to open the door leading to the hallway. "Congratulations, old friend. You've saved a great many lives. Just not your own. That was always your failing, Geoff, your Achilles' heel. Unselfishness is
not
a virtue. Thibaud! Take him back to his cell!"
* * *
COURTLAND SLIPPED INTO Callie's room shortly after midnight. His heart was pounding but his hand, thankfully, was steady as he turned the knob.
He stepped inside, closed the door, locked it behind him. Took a deep breath, told himself yet again that he could leave at any time, that he wouldn't pressure her if she'd changed her mind, that sometimes circumstances caused people to think things, believe things, they wouldn't ordinarily…
"Court?"
He turned to see her standing in the middle of the small chamber; barefoot, wearing a virginal white dressing gown, her masses of curls falling loose past her shoulders, looking darkly golden in the candlelight. The room was warm, a fire burning in the grate, and it smelled of violets and spring on this chilly November night.
"Cassandra."
No. He wouldn't be leaving. Some things just weren't possible.
He walked over to her. "You're so beautiful." He raised a hand to her face, cupped her cheek.
She turned her lips against his palm.
The world was outside, clamoring for his attention. And the world could wait. His world was here, with Cassandra.
He slid his fingers into her curls, put a hand to her slim waist, drew her closer. He could feel the rapid beating of her heart.
She sighed, closed her eyes.
He bent his head, kissed her temple, trailed his lips down the side of her face, to the silken skin of her throat. Whispered the words into her ear. "I would die before I hurt you."
Cassandra raised her head, her eyes open now, and clear, without a shred of fear in them, without a whisper of doubt. Now it was she who traced her fingertips down his freshly-shaven cheek. "I know," she answered quietly. "I know…"
He lifted her against his heart and carried her to the curtained bed in the corner, where the covers had already been turned down for the night. He laid her down on the fresh sheets brought with them from Becket Hall, his breath catching in his throat as her curls spilled across the pillow. As she smiled, raised her arms to him.
Damning himself to hell, Courtland reached for Heaven….
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CASSANDRA ROUSED HERSELF slowly, the warmth of Courtland's body, so close against hers, bringing a small smile to her face as she realized she felt very near to purring, like a contented cat.
So this was what it felt like to be a woman.
She could think of worse fates.
Courtland put a finger beneath her chin and lifted her head from its comfortable spot, pressed in the small dip just below his bare shoulder. How very considerate of him, to have that lovely little hollow, fashioned just for her comfort.
"Callie? Are you laughing or crying?"
"Hmm?" she said, pushing against him so that she could lever herself up higher and look into his wonderful face.
"I felt your shoulder shake there for a moment," he explained, pushing himself up also, so that he was now sitting with his head and shoulders against the pillows.
"Oh. I wasn't laughing, not really. I just was thinking of how well your body fits mine."
He raised one eyebrow as she felt hot color run into her cheeks. "I beg your pardon?"
"No, no, I didn't mean
that,
" she said quickly. "I only meant that you…you make a lovely pillow."
"My one aspiration in life, fulfilled," Courtland teased back at her. "To be a lovely pillow. Are you all right?"
She settled herself against him once more, her arm across his waist. "If you ask me that question again, no, I won't be all right. I'm fine, Court. Wonderful."
"The first time…it isn't always…pleasant for the woman."
Cassandra rolled her eyes, although she was careful not to let him see her. "It was very…
pleasant.
"
And it had been. Very…pleasant. Yes, there had been some pain, but she felt certain that Courtland had felt it more than she. What it hadn't been was what Morgan had said it would be. Magnificent. Explosive. Incredible.
But it had been lovely. Courtland had been so…gentle.
Morgan had never mentioned
gentle…
Courtland cherished her. Cassandra knew that. As he'd said, he would die before he hurt her.
Well, the
hurting
was over, wasn't it?
"Court…?"
He kissed the top of her head. "Uh-oh. I've heard that tone before, and ignored it to my peril. What impossible thing are you going to ask me for now?"
She pushed herself up and onto her haunches, holding the sheet against her breasts, for the candles still burned, low in their holders, and the fire still cast a soft glow over the small room…and she'd only just become the woman Morgan had told her she'd be once she'd been taken to her marriage bed, and not the
wanton
Morgan had advised her to become for her husband.
Not that this was her marriage bed…
"I…what we
did…
and it was wonderful, truly," she said, wishing she could stuff the sheet in her mouth and not say anything else. "Well…isn't there
more?
"
"More?" Courtland repeated, looking at her rather owlishly. "By God, I think I've just been insulted."
"No! I didn't mean…I certainly wasn't saying that— Oh, stop laughing at me!"
"Truly, Callie, I'm not laughing at you," he told her, and then laughed again. "Why do I sense the fine hand of the Countess of Aylesford in this conversation, hmm? Mariah might give you advice on how to get me to do whatever she thinks is best for me, and Julia would encourage me to tell you my every secret. Eleanor, dear Elly, would explain that a man must be provided every comfort— which is why Jack is always smiling, I think. But Morgan? I imagine her advice, whispered in her youngest sister's ear, has always been more…earthy."
"Yes, but you'll notice that Ethan is always smiling, too," Cassandra said, allowing the sheet to slip, just a little bit.
Courtland's gaze slipped a bit, as well, to her half-exposed breasts. "You know, Callie, I still can't believe I've…I always promised myself that I'd…would you for God's sake keep a grip on that sheet?"
Her heart had begun to pound. "So there is…more."
"Callie, I'm not teaching you how to ride a horse, or sail a skiff in the Channel, or— Yes. Yes, all right. There's…more. But I knew I'd hurt you, might even frighten you, and I only wanted to be— "
"Gentle," Cassandra finished for him. "But now you've been gentle, and I thank you for that. Could you please not be gentle now? Morgan smiles all the time, too, you know."
And she let the sheet drop just as Courtland took hold of it and ripped it down toward the bottom of the bed.
He sat up, laid his hands on her shoulders, looked deeply into her eyes, and she felt something vaguely familiar begin to curl, low in her belly.
She lifted her chin, waited for his kiss.
But he didn't kiss her. Instead, he slowly trailed his hands down her arms, then moved them to her waist before inching upward, cupping her breasts, lifting them, running his thumbs across her nipples until she involuntarily arched her back, slowly moving her head from side to side, imagining she could actually feel her blood beginning to heat.
He teased her then with his mouth, his teeth and tongue. Slipped a hand between her thighs, touching her in a way that told her this might be her body, the one she had lived with for all of her life, but she'd never really known it. Known what it meant to be a woman, to be touched like this, brought to the brink of something that kept building inside her, this tension that couldn't possibly be sustained, not without her heart exploding inside her.
Courtland took her to that unknown brink, that precipitous cliff, and with a final touch flung her over, to fall, fall, fall…
…but then catching her as she fell, catching her cry of surprise and delight with his mouth, pressing her back against the pillows and then covering her, becoming a part of her as she held on tight, as he moved inside her. Faster, deeper.
Gentle became a memory to cherish, a testament for how much Courtland cared for her. But this? This! This was how he
felt
about her!
A rainbow of brilliant colors seemed to burst behind her closed lids when he thrust one final time and their bodies sang together, making the most beautiful music in the world.
Now, she thought, as he held her tightly, as she clung to him, her breathing as ragged as his, her body still singing…
now
I am a woman.
* * *
COURTLAND WOKE JUST AS the false dawn replaced the glow of the now dying fire, to feel Cassandra's hands on him, her lower body covering his as she explored him with her fingertips, lightly tracing over his skin, the sprinkling of hair in the center of his chest.
"Callie, what are you doing?" he asked, looking down at her, seeing her tangled curls as they tickled his skin in delightful ways.
"I couldn't sleep," she said, lifting her head, blowing away the corkscrew curls that had fallen into her eyes. "And…and you're very interesting. What's this?" she asked before pressing her lips against a scar low on his hip.
It was a hell of a thing, blushing like some callow youth, but he could feel the heat rising in his cheeks as she bent her head once more, to continue her investigation. "A gift from the man some would have called my father. It's old now. Faded both on my skin and in my memory."
She shot him a quick look, her expression as pained as if his father had inflicted the wound on her instead of him, and then traced the scar over his hipbone, along his side. "How far does it go?" she asked him, tears welling in her eyes.
"Leave it be, Callie."
But she was pushing at him now, urging him onto his stomach. "Please, Court? Let me see."
He turned onto his side, his back to her, and closed his eyes. The whip had crisscrossed his back so many times that new scars had built upon older scars. His skin crawled slightly as Cassandra traced some of the worst of them, silvery lines against his tanned skin.
She pressed her lips against his shoulder blade, and one of, he knew, the worst scars. "Oh, Court…"
He rolled onto his back once more and she laid her head against his shoulder, held him tightly as he felt a tear slide onto his chest. "It's all right, sweetheart. We all carry scars from our time before we were Beckets. Mine just happen to be visible."
"You loved my mother very much, didn't you, Court?"
He nodded, her question momentarily robbing him of speech. "She didn't care that I was…different. I didn't speak, not for a long time. I kept waiting to be sent back to my father, unable to believe that I was safe, that I wouldn't put a foot wrong, a word wrong, and be banished from this glorious place where no one hit me or called me stupid or— Again, Callie, it was a long time ago. It's enough that I finally realized I was loved, that I was safe." He ran his fingers up and down her arm, not even realizing he was doing so. "And then you were born, and everything else…everything else just seemed to fall into place. I had a
