my lips, my teeth, against her soft, white throat.
“You think that I am brave? Why?”
“If I were in Cecil’s employ, showing me that letter would be either very brave, or very foolish. I prefer to think that you are brave,” I said. She was dazzling, the firelight burnishing her coppery hair, turning the hazel of her eyes into sunlight on forest pools. Sunlight— she seemed drenched in it, golden as honey in harvest time, and I had not even known that I missed it until now. Her next words brought me out of my reverie with a thump.
“You were his lover, weren’t you? Before you went to France, and when he joined you there? No, he said nothing, but I knew.”
“You must hate me, then, and how hard it must have been for you to confront me!” I breathed, trying to pull away, but she held me fast.
“Oh, no! No, my lord, I—I found that I was envious—of you both!” She turned her face away to hide her furious blush. I turned her face to mine, and slowly bent to kiss her, to kiss the sun that I had been so long denied, but ready to pull back if she shied. She returned my caress, first bashfully, then ardently, setting the roots of my canine teeth to aching. My lips drifted to the vein throbbing in her throat, and I felt her shiver against me as my teeth pierced her skin. A scant moment later I raised my head, licking her sweet salt blood from my lips before kissing her mouth again. I rose from the settle, leaving her drowsy and relaxed. I bent to kiss her forehead, whispering “I will save him then, if I can, for both our sakes,” and saw her smile as her sleep deepened. I stepped to the door and opened it a crack, watching the members of this maladroit compact file in. I slipped from the house, melting into the shadows of the dark London streets, the taste of Libby still sweet in my mouth.
She was waiting breathlessly the following night. The disorder in the room told me how she must have paced her small parlor, catching up her needle then tossing it away, picking up the lute and striking a few chords, and setting it down. As I surveyed the mess she laughed without humor and told me that every time she’d heard a step in the passage she had flown to the door to peek out, only to find that it was always someone to join the gathering about Hal. Then, when I’d opened the door and stepped into the little room, she hadn’t heard me until I softly spoke her name. She’d spun around, dropping the heavy curtain at the window, holding out her hand. I crossed to her, gathering her into my arms and kissing her. She flowed against me, and I could hear the wild beating of her heart, feel the blood pulsing in her veins against the skin of my hands. She pushed herself away, and my dark gaze followed her, puzzled, until she locked the door and turned laughing, unfastening the buttons of her surcoat, letting the rich velvet fall crumpled to the floor as she stood in her shift of sheer lawn, like the sun veiled by the thinnest of summer clouds.
I saw that she had pulled the cushions from the settle and made a nest before the fire. There was food and wine, and the sweet faintly balsamic scent of the wax candles was like incense. She fumbled at my clothing, her slender hands shaking. I caught them in my own, pressing a kiss to each before dropping them to her lap and slipping off my doublet and shirt. She traced the silvery scars on my chest while I removed the rest of my clothing, then raised her face and kissed me. I took her there before the fire, slaking her lust, and drowning my own appetites in her body and her blood. I left her before the departure of Hal’s guests at midnight, promising to return soon. We continued to meet thus once or twice a week, whenever Hal was preoccupied with his own intrigues.
Not many weeks passed before Geoffrey felt the need to interfere. He sent for me to attend him at Blackavar, and I rode through the December gloom in a mood as foul as the weather. My cloak crackled with frozen sleet as I dismounted in the icy courtyard and strode