A VERY TUDOR CHRISTMAS (5 page)
Chapter Six
“Surely they will be missing us by now,” Meg murmured
as she stretched luxuriously and curled back into Robert’s arms. Their little
prison chamber was chilly with no fire, but his lean, muscled body was warm
wrapped around hers. She couldn’t quite care that someone missed them, not with
him so close to her.
She couldn’t quite care if she ever got out of that room at
all.
Robert’s fingers toyed lazily with her loosened fall of hair,
wrapping the strands over his throat and his naked chest. “I doubt it. Peter
snatched away my costume for the masque, which I was carrying when he and his
ruffian friends shoved me in here. I’m sure he and your cousin have found
replacements for you in your part.”
Meg laughed. Surely one Knight of Apollo or Hour of the Night
looked the same as another behind the gilded masks. “Then we must have another
hour at least before they release us and explain their behavior.”
“Are you sorry not to have your moment of glory before the
queen?”
“Moment of glory?” Meg propped herself up on her arm to gaze
down at his face in the dying candlelight. How handsome he was, her knight,
gilded golden in the light, his hair tousled and his eyes lazy and smiling. She
could never have dreamed they would end up in such a place. “I would rather stay
here forever than face another moment in such a crowd. I’ve had my fill of such
‘glory’ over the last few years.”
Robert reached up to trace his fingertips over her cheek. “Do
you not like your court life, Meg?”
“I like it well enough sometimes. The people can be amusing,
and I enjoy the plays and the music,” Meg answered, thinking back to how she had
lived since she last saw him. “But for all the time—nay. It grows wearisome
then. There is no place to rest or think.”
“I want to hear about everything you have done,” he said,
drawing her back down against his shoulder. “The people you have met, everything
you’ve thought and dreamed of...”
Meg laughed. “My life has been dull indeed compared to yours. I
want to know all about your travels. Such strange lands you have seen.”
Robert grinned down at her lazily as his fingers traced a light
pattern over her bare shoulder. “’Tis true I’ve seen much. Golden palaces in
France, streets made of water in Venice. Snow as deep as a man’s head in
Muscovy. I have enough tales to bore you for many evenings to come, Meg. When we
are old and gray by our own fire.”
Many evenings to come? Did he, could he, mean that? Meg
scarcely dared hope. “I want to know...” She suddenly remembered something he
had said, a few vital, fleeting words before they were parted in the great hall.
She sat up straight, drawing the edges of the blanket around her shoulders as
she stared down at him. “What was that about a letter, Robert?”
He sat up beside her, bracing his forearms on his knees. His
face looked solemn. “The letter I sent you three years ago, the night my parents
came to Clifford Manor. I have cursed myself a hundred times since then for
being such a coward as not to tell you those words myself. But I feared if I saw
you again, I would never be able to leave you. And I had to prove myself to you
first. Prove I was worthy of you. My family had no money, you see, and I had to
make our fortune.”
“Worthy of me?” Meg whispered, bewildered, hopeful, scared. “I
never got such a letter. I’ve spent so long trying to forget your kiss. Trying
to tell myself I could not be worthy of you.”
Robert’s hands suddenly clenched into fists, his jaw growing
tight. “Then I am a double-damned fool, Meg, for what I did. All this time we
would have known, planned...”
“Nay!” Meg reached up to press her fingertips to his lips,
stopping his words. A surge of pure, warm, summertime joy flooded through her,
washing away the misery and loneliness. “Surely it is enough that we know all
now. And, with thanks to our interfering cousins, we have had this night.”
Robert took her hand in his, holding it as tenderly as if it
was the most fragile, precious jewel. “Is this one night all you want, Meg?”
“It is more than I ever thought to have,” she said. “I know the
truth now, and I can be free. So can you.”
“I never want to be free of you. Not for a single night again
for the rest of my life.” His fingers tightened on hers, and his eyes closed as
if he struggled with his words, with the flood of emotions rushing over them
both. Just as she did. All she could do was hold on and let it carry her
away.
Meg was sure all of it was a wonderful dream, too perfect to be
real. Yet their touch, the warmth of his body close to hers, it felt so very
real. So true. Just as she had imagined it in her most secret fantasies.
“I can make a home for us now, Meg,” he said. “The queen is to
give me an estate of my own. A place only for us, where we can belong together.
Where I can spend years making up for my foolishness three years ago. If you
will only let me try.”
“Let you?” Meg felt the tears she had held back for three long
years fall free, warm and healing as they dropped on their joined hands. Like a
benediction for their future. “Oh, Robert. All that matters is now, you and me.
Everything that we can do together.” She gave a choked laugh. “All the evenings
you will bore me and our children with tales of your travels.”
“Then, Mistress Margaret Clifford,” he said solemnly, with a
catch of tears in his own voice. “Will you do me the honor of giving me your
hand in marriage?”
Meg looked up into his brilliant blue eyes. She had prayed for
just such a moment when they’d first met, but she knew that only now could it
have been so very right. So perfect. They’d had to be ready for each other, and
now they were. It was perfect.
“Yes, Robert Erroll,” she answered. “I will marry you. At
last.”
Robert laughed and swept her into his arms. “Then I can tell
you one more secret.”
“No more secrets, I beg you!” Meg cried, holding on to him very
tightly.
“Oh, you will like this one, my love,” he said with a wicked
grin. He reached down into the folds of his doublet and pulled out a shining
brass key. “I have had the key to this room all along....”
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ISBN-13: 9781460322161
Copyright © 2013 by Amanda McCabe
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