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touch.

      Celia gasped, and he used that small movement to slide his finger into her mouth, over her tongue. She jerked her head back, but she could still taste him—salt and wine. She wished she could pull away from him and snatch her dagger from its sheath on her thigh, plunge it into his heart so he could not touch her heart again.

      “That will never happen,” she said.

      “Nay? I think it will in my dreams tonight,” John answered. “But perhaps you want me on my knees to you instead?”

      Before she knew what he was doing, he’d deftly twisted out of her grasp and arched his body back from hers. The hand that had been at her mouth slid all the way down to her skirts and drew up the heavy fabric until her legs were bare. The white stockings glowed in the darkness.

      As Celia watched in frozen shock he fell to his knees before her and let those skirts fall back over him. She tried to kick him away, but his strong hands closed over the soft, bare skin of her thighs above those stockings. He caressed her there, on the tender inner curve of her leg, and pressed her legs further apart.

      Then she felt his hot breath soft on the vulnerable curve of her, light as a sigh, just before his tongue plunged inside.

      God’s blood. Her eyes slammed shut and her palms pressed hard to the wall at the trembling, burning rush of sensation that shot through her body. Oh, dear heaven, but she had forgotten how it felt when he did that!

      Just as she had remembered how he liked to be touched, he remembered how she liked to be kissed there. He licked up—one languorous stroke, then another—before flicking at that tiny, hidden spot with the tip of his tongue. She felt herself contract at the pleasure, felt a rush of moisture trickle onto her inner thigh, and he groaned.

      How she wanted him. How she had missed him, missed this, the feeling of being so wondrously, vitally alive. It had been so long. She had been dead inside for so long …

      For just an instant she let herself feel it, let him pleasure her. This was John. The only man who had ever touched her heart. But then his hand closed hard on her thigh, just above the dagger, stroking her there so tenderly. So deceptively—just like before.

      Before he’d destroyed her.

      With a ragged sob she jerked herself away from him. She pulled her skirts from above his head and sent him toppling to the floor. But she also lost her own balance, and fell heavily on her hip against the wall. She leaned onto the cold stone for support and tried not to cry. Not to feel.

      But his heat was still around her, and the musky scent of their arousal, the heated swirl of her feelings for him. She had to escape from it all.

      John found his balance on his knees again, lithe as a cat. In the shadows she saw the frown on his face, the darkness of his eyes. He started towards her. “Celia …” he began.

      But she stopped him with the sole of her shoe planted on his chest. She knew he could easily sweep any of her barriers away, yet he stayed where he was, watching her. She dug the heel of her shoe in, just enough to hold him there as she had with his balls in her hand.

      “Celia, what has happened to you?” he said quietly.

      She gave a hoarse, humourless laugh. How could she even begin to answer such a question? She gave him a slight push with her foot, and when he sat back on his heels she lurched upright to her feet. She ducked out of the hidden embrasure, and this time when she ran he did not follow.

      Curse it all! Every instinct within John shouted at him to run after Celia, to catch her in his arms and hold her to him until she broke open and gave him all she had. All those dark secrets in her eyes. He wanted to strip away her clothes until she was naked before him, every pale, beautiful inch of her, and drive into her.

      But he was too angry, and she was too brittle and fragile. She would surely shatter if he pushed her too hard, and the way he was feeling now he could not hold back. He braced his palms against the cold stone floor and let his head drop down, his eyes close as he struggled for control.

      It was that damnable nickname. Fairy queen. His fairy queen. He could see her as she had been that day, her midnight-black hair loose over her bare shoulders, her grey-sky eyes gleaming an otherworldly silver as she looked up at him. She’d lain on a grassy, sunny spot in the woods, the light dappled over her skin, and John had never seen anyone so beautiful and free, so much a part of the nature around them. A fairy queen who had cast her magical spell over him. His wild youth had been forgotten when he saw her—the first time he’d felt such a rush of tenderness, dreamed of what he couldn’t have. All because of her.

      There seemed nothing of the fairy left in her now. She seemed instead an ice queen, encased in snow. But when she’d touched his manhood, when he’d tasted her, his Celia had flashed behind her cold eyes.

      And, z’wounds, but she tasted the same as he remembered—of honey and dew. She had become wet when he’d kissed her there, the silken folds of her contracting over his tongue. Not so frozen after all. Did she remember too?

      But still so far away from him. He remembered the panic in her eyes when she shoved him away, the way those walls in her eyes had slammed up again. It hurt to know she was so wary of him, even as he knew he so richly deserved it.

      It was good she had run, for he obviously had no control at all when it came to her. Had he not resolved that very afternoon to stay away from her? To forget their past? Not to hurt her again, and not to torture himself with what he could no longer have? Only hours later he’d been on his knees under her skirt.

      John pushed himself to his feet and automatically reached down to adjust his codpiece. He felt again her slender fingers on him, caressing him just where it was calculated to drive him insane. Pleasure and pain all mixed up in a blurred tangle.

      When he emerged into the corridor Celia was long gone. The music from the ball floated back to him, echoing off the walls, mocking him with its merriment. He could feel someone watching him, and spun around to find Marcus leaning against a marble pillar with his arms crossed over his chest. He arched his brow at John.

      “Are your balls frozen off, then?” Marcus asked with a grin.

      John shot him an obscene gesture and turned to stride away down the corridor. His friend’s laughter followed him.

      It was certainly going to be a long and wretched journey to Edinburgh. Or were they all headed into hell instead?

       Chapter Four

      “Is this all of it, Mistress Sutton?” the maidservant asked as she fastened shut the travel chest.

      Celia glanced around the small chamber. All of her black garments and his meagre personal possessions had been packed and carried away, and the box containing her few jewels and Queen Elizabeth’s documents was tucked under her arm. She had no more excuses to linger.

      “Yes, I think that is all,” she said. She glanced in the looking glass. She wore a plain black wool skirt and velvet doublet for travel. Her hair was pinned up and held by a net caul and tall-crowned hat. She looked calm enough, composed and quiet, but part of her wanted to hide under the bed and not face the inevitable.

      The past few days had passed in a blur of meetings with the Queen and Lord Burghley to learn more of her tasks in Scotland. She was to befriend Queen Mary, who was said to chatter freely with her favourite maids, and try to gauge her marital inclinations and report back to Elizabeth. To try and persuade Mary that an English marriage of her cousin’s choosing would be best for her. To watch and listen, which Celia had become very good at. A wary nature was always cautious of what would happen next.

      But Elizabeth said Mary should wed Lord Leicester, and Burghley said Darnley. Celia wasn’t sure whom to incline Queen Mary towards—if the Scottish Queen could be “inclined” at all.

      There

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