one tell a woman that she wasn’t his choice, that a political union was a matter of state for the purposes of breeding heirs? Why hadn’t she been told from the beginning?
Edward was not a cruel man. He spared her as much as he could, but he had no intention of changing his behavior. “I am no different than any other man, Eleanor. You have nothing to fear. You are my wife and I care for you deeply. I admit I’ve not been faithful, but the others mean nothing to me.” He set the goblet on the mantel and took her hands in his. “Rest assured, my love, there is no one in my kingdom who has a greater claim on this heart than my wife.”
“What about outside your kingdom?”
Edward looked startled. Where had she come by that bit of information? Certainly not Thomas. He was the soul of discretion. “Don’t be absurd, Eleanor. I haven’t been outside of England for two years. Acquit me of that, at least.”
She managed a watery smile. “You are right, of course. Forgive me, my darling. Shall we join the dancers?”
He smiled down at her, grateful that the crisis was over. “By all means,” he said, tucking her hand under his arm. “The music is especially fine tonight.”
“Will you dance with me?” she asked pleadingly.
Edward sighed. He despised dancing but no more than he hated the wounded expression on Eleanor’s face.
“Of course,” he said, drawing her across the room, into the circle just forming. He took his position in the outer ring and turned to face her. Her cheeks were flushed. She looked youthful, almost girlish. Edward grinned and waited for the music to begin. As custom ordained, Eleanor inclined her head in a brief curtsey.
The slight movement was enough for Edward to catch a glimpse of a slender, black-haired figure on the other side of the circle. She faced away from him, toward her partner. From the back he could see that the woman was tall but fine boned. She wore a scarlet gown and carried herself with the dignity of a queen. A memory, long repressed but never forgotten, awakened inside him. A tingling sensation started in his toes and traveled upward. His heart thundered in the prison of its chest. Unconsciously, he rubbed his perspiring hands on the soft fur of his mantle. Sweet Jesu, it couldn’t be, and yet he knew of no woman at court with hair of such color and thickness.
By their own volition, his feet moved to the music. With an intricate flip of the wrist, he moved Eleanor to her next partner and bowed low before his own. Again and again, he bowed and circled, bowed and circled, until he stood next in line to the black-haired beauty.
A boneless sensation weakened his legs. His feet still moved in their mindless rhythm, but the hands he held out to her were blocks of ice. He stood before her, the woman he had tried for so long to forget. She looked directly at him. There could be no more doubt. The light-filled eyes that had haunted his dreams for two long years looked at him now with such naked joy that his blood sang. Happiness filled him. He was a boy again with the world at his feet. “Mairi,” he whispered.
She smiled, and his breathing altered. Perhaps there had been other women in Edward’s life who were as lovely as Mairi of Shiels, but all memory of them vanished. There was room only for this woman, standing before him in a crimson gown, her head held high, her heart in her eyes. Too soon she moved on, he to the left, she to the right. His gaze followed her as she smiled and held out her hand, curtseyed, and circled and turned about in her partner’s arms. The scent of roses wafted through the air. His stomach clenched. He could barely curb his impatience. When would this infernal dance end? He ached to be alone with her, to hold her, to taste her, to run his hands—
Awareness, like the blast of winter wind, stopped him in mid-stride. He stumbled, apologized to the woman whose toe he had crushed, and found his step again. He was Edward, king of England, and for the first time in his life, the very thought of what that meant made his blood run cold.
The music ended. He looked around for Mairi. She stood near the banquet table with a lean, dark-haired man he