the night was cold, he wore no cloak. The crimson velvet doublet he worn at dinner was carelessly unfastened, hanging open over a white shirt that was unlaced halfway down his chest. His hair was tousled, falling over his brow in soft brown waves.
Celia had to turn away from the sight of him before she devoured him with her eyes.
“I should have known you would find me here, John Brandon,” she said as she stared out blindly into the night. “You do seem intent on tormenting me.”
“I would have said you were the one doing the tormenting, Celia,” he answered. “Though I would have been here much sooner if I’d known this was where you were hiding. I merely wanted to escape the cursed snoring of the other men in my chamber.”
Celia smiled faintly at the disgruntled tone of his voice, glad he could not see it. “And I came here to escape Lady Allison’s incessant prattling. The woman has an inordinate store of gossip.”
“Then we can be quiet here together,” John said.
She heard the soft fall of his boots on the flagstones as he approached the wall.
She stiffened, but he stayed a few feet away from her, leaning his arms on the low wall as she did and looking out into the darkness. Slowly Celia relaxed and listened to the soft rhythm of his breath.
He didn’t look at her, but he said, “Your hair is down.”
Celia shifted, and self-consciously touched the loose fall of her hair over her shoulder. “I didn’t think I would see anyone here. The pins were giving me a headache.”
“You confine it too tightly.”
“I can hardly parade around with it hanging loose like a girl,” she said with a laugh.
“But you don’t have to torture it either,” he said.
He shifted his body towards her and reached out to lay his fingertips lightly on her hair. He traced a strand all the way down to where it curled under at her elbow. He only touched her hair, but Celia could feel his heat on her collarbone, the soft curve of her breast, the angle of her ribs under her cloak.
She thought again of a predator tormenting its prey, freezing it with the glow of its eyes so it could not flee. Didn’t even want to flee.
He slowly wrapped the hair around his wrist, holding her with him. “You have the most beautiful hair I’ve ever seen. It’s like the night itself. I used to dream of it—of touching it, kissing it, wrapping it over my chest as you leant over me …”
Celia gasped at the jolt of heat that went through her at his words, at the flashing memory of how he had once done that. Drawn her hair around him as she’d straddled his hips and bent down to kiss him. A wave of the greatest tenderness swept over her. She tried to pull away, but his hand tightened.
“Tell me about your husband, Celia,” he said, his voice soft and yet utterly unyielding.
His voice held her even more than his fingers in her hair.
“He doesn’t matter now,” she said, fighting to keep her own voice steady. Not to lean into him, wrap her arms around his shoulders. “He is dead.”
“For how long?”
“Above a year now. There was a fever that swept through the neighbourhood. My parents died of it as well.”
His hand slid up her hair, twisting it around his fingers, caressing it over his skin. His blue eyes glowed down at her in the night, as bright and unyielding as ice. Celia closed her eyes, and she felt his other arm slide around her waist above the cloak. He turned her so her back was against his chest. She wanted so much to give in to him again, not to be alone. To know only him.
“Were you not taken ill?” he asked.
Somehow behind her closed eyes, because she could not see him, with his hand soothing against her skin she felt strangely free. Her careful guard slipped just a bit.
“I was ill,” she said, a frown fleeting across her brow as she remembered those terrible days. His touch brushed it away before sliding back to her waist. “I had the fever too, though I remember little of it. Only nightmares and that dry, burning heat, a thirst that could never be quenched. I do remember they wanted to cut off my hair, and I drove them away.”
“Thank God for that,” John muttered, and she thought she felt the press of his lips on her hair. “It would have been a terrible crime to lose this hair.”
“I was the only one who caught the fever and lived.”
“That is because you are the most stubborn person I have ever known. The devil himself could not drag you down to hell.” He sounded so angry, so desperate—just as she felt.
Celia smiled bitterly. “He has tried.”
John’s hand pressed to her hair. “And when you awoke you found your husband was dead?”
“Aye.”
“What did you do?”
To her shock, Celia found herself telling the truth. “I got on my knees in the chapel and thanked God, or the devil, or whoever had done it, for the merciful deliverance.”
John’s hands suddenly closed on her shoulders and spun her round to face him again. She opened her eyes and looked up to find raw fury on his face, with no polished cloak of civility to hide it. His hands were hard where they held her.
Celia tried to pull back, frightened, but his grasp immediately gentled and his face went blank. He slowly drew her closer, until she was cradled to his chest, and his palms slid over the back of his head to hold her there.
“Why did you marry him?” he asked tightly. “Surely your parents …?”
Celia shook her head fiercely even as she buried her face further into his chest, the soft linen of his shirt. She breathed in deeply of the scent of him, and curled her fingers into the loose fabric.
“I had no choice, and neither did my parents,” she said. “After you—left …” She paused to draw a deep breath and her hands tightened into fists against him. “You surely know what happened to my family then? Everyone knows.”
His muscles tightened under her touch and he went very still. “Your brother?”
Aye, her brother. Poor, stupid William, caught up in matters far beyond his understanding. “He was a traitor. Part of a Catholic conspiracy to overthrow the new Queen.” That had been the strange part—their family was not religious, beyond attending weekly services at the Protestant church, and her brother had never shown the slightest interest in such things. But he had chosen to go along with his equally foolish friends when they’d conceived a notion to replace Elizabeth with her cousin Mary on the throne, no matter what. And his choices had affected her life too.
“They were obviously quite incompetent at conspiracy,” she went on, in the numb, quiet voice that held it all at a distance. “They were caught quite handily and justice was swift. He was dead within a fortnight. And even though my parents retained their estate the fines were crippling. When they died the estate was
