Текст книги "The once and future queen"

Автор книги: Paula Laferty

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Текущая страница: 30 (всего у книги 33 страниц)

Lancelot’s chair scraped against the floor as he stood abruptly. “I would like to excuse myself as well.” He moved before anyone acknowledged him.

Vera started to follow, remembered that they were already suspicious of her, and settled back in her chair.

Arthur gave her hand a soft squeeze. “Go on,” he whispered.

She darted to follow, noting Naiam’s tight-lipped disapproval and feeling it on her back the whole way. Vera didn’t care. She slipped into the side chamber and closed the door. It was little more than a closet, a stone dungeon with no windows.

Gawain pressed himself into the corner. “I’ve signed my death warrant,” he said dully, though his eyes were wide and skin pale. “It would have been enough to tell our secret, but suggesting we sacrifice our gifts … I’ll be executed.”

“You won’t.” Lancelot took Gawain’s face between his hands, giving the mage’s roving eyes a focal point. “We aren’t going to let that happen.”

Gawain looked like he felt sorry for Lancelot. “The authority you have does not carry the power you think it does,” he said in a monotone.

Lancelot sighed, patting him on the cheek with an exasperated laugh. It set Gawain off. He pushed Lancelot’s hands away. “Did you not hear what I told you in there? About how we get our gifts? Stabbing in the heart. Lancelot, I have more than a thousand powers.”

“You’ve killed that many people?” Vera said quietly.

“No.” The animalistic urgency cleared from him, bringing back the Gawain they knew as he thought about the numbers. “More were—” His mouth twisted, moving soundlessly as his face reddened. “Shit. I’m not in the room. I can’t say it. I should have said it before.” He groaned and shook his head. “Over two hundred and fifty human beings have met their end looking into the whites of my eyes. Do you understand?” His voice rose frantically.

Lancelot reached for him. “You were only—”

“No,” he snarled, reeling away. “I am a monster. Look at me like I’m a monster.” Lancelot didn’t. Vera knew she didn’t either. Gawain stumbled back against the wall. “Fuck.” He crushed his hands against his face.

“What’s a Retention Spell?” Lancelot asked abruptly.

Gawain sighed. “It makes a gift impossible to steal on death, disincentivizing killing amongst mages. Viviane invented it. She had more gifts than most mages combined.” Had they known that alone … that those gifts weren’t won by her brilliance in the laboratory but by her willingness to end life, would they have ever trusted her? Would they have trusted any of the mages?

The door opened, and they all tensed at the combination of movement and noise, relaxing some when it was Arthur who entered the already crowded room. Gawain moved like he was about to kneel, but he wasn’t fast enough.

Arthur hugged him, muttering, “Thank you.” As he released Gawain, he said, “That was selfless and courageous to stand against all of your upbringing—”

“My upbringing but also my choice, Arthur. No one forced me to keep being a mage.”

“How old were you when you became a mage?” Arthur asked. “Did you have to kill to receive your earliest gifts?”

Gawain shook his head. “We’re all given our second power, marking the start of life as a mage. I was seven when Merlin gave me mine.”

“On receiving that, you were also inducted into the secrets you were magically bound to keep. Then there was war, and you did what we all did in battle.”

Gawain’s voice chirruped in the start of a protest that Arthur would not hear as he continued. “And you were made the youngest member on the high council of mages. And today, you stood against them as no one has ever done, and it just might save the kingdom and save magic for all of us. I’d knight you for a second time if I could.”

Gawain dared to look hopeful, searching Arthur’s gleaming eyes. “Did they approve—”

“Yes. They’ve approved the test.”

It was evident that the vote had not been unanimous, but it passed, and enough mages shared Gawain’s spirit of selflessness that they offered some of their own gifts to the cause. The ancient man and the quiet woman who had asked the best questions offered three gifts apiece, and, surprising to Vera, Ratamun offered up five of his own, so Gawain only needed to release nine to meet the agreed-upon number.

They gathered in the open space, the rest of the council and the royal party watching. Gawain passed his instrument to Arthur to hold.

“How do we do it?” the quiet mage, who Vera learned was called Phoebe, asked in her tiny voice.

“It’s exactly like when you would give a gift to another person, but focus on the earth … dirt or grass or trees,” Gawain said. “Whatever part of nature you need to call to mind, and then …”

“Release,” Phoebe finished for him.

Ratamun smirked as he rolled the sleeves of his robe up. “What if one of us lies and gives fewer gifts than we vowed?”

“If the instrument works, we should be able to count, and we would know,” said Gawain. “If it doesn’t work? Nothing will happen.”

Gawain went first. He steadied himself, closed his eyes in a silence that stretched on for long seconds, and then breathed the deliberate and sacred breath as he extended his hand, palm down before him. Nothing notably changed, but Arthur made a hum of approval beside Vera, and all eyes pooled on him.

A swirl of gel-like liquid bubbled up from nothingness into the tube. At first glance, it was all the same silvery sheen. But from another angle, there were sharp delineations and, indeed, nine separate and countable sections, each a slightly different color.

At that, the mages stirred. Naiam sucked in a sharp breath. One by one, the three mages who’d volunteered also released their gifts, and the tube slowly filled.

“The gifts are in circulation?” Ratamun said, moving closer to Arthur and the instrument.

Gawain’s hand flinched toward Ratamun as if to stop him, but the mage was out of his reach. “Yes,” he said.

Naiam did not look pleased. “So it appears.” She drummed her fingers on the desk as she scanned the room. “We will reconvene at first light to see what comes of this experiment.”

Merlin’s lips parted. He watched the instrument in Arthur’s hands in disbelief. Ratamun bent low over the globe, shifting his head back and forth between two angles.

“They’re all a different color,” he mumbled, eyes glinting. “Can you tell what each power is?”

Gawain shifted uncomfortably. “No,” he said sharply. “Only the number. There is no way to know anything more.”

The smirk never left Ratamun’s face. “As you say.”

It felt like a victory—until they got out of the Magesary and into the quiet of Vera’s chamber at the inn where she, Arthur, Lancelot, and Merlin convened. Merlin’s tight expression betrayed the anger simmering under the surface of his calm.

“Why didn’t you tell me this was your plan?” he said through gritted teeth.

“Because I knew you’d stop me,” Gawain said.

Merlin huffed. “Of course I would have. Even if you’re correct, this was an ambush. It was not the way. You’re going to be expelled from the Magesary at the least.”

“I know,” Gawain said. “But you know as well as I that if it hadn’t been an ambush—if the king hadn’t been sitting in that room, they would not even have entertained it.”

Merlin’s face filled with sorrow as he looked at Gawain. It frightened Vera.

“And Ratamun’s suspicion about your instrument?” Merlin said.

Gawain nodded. “He knows how it might be used.”

“How might it be used?” Arthur asked. He held the instrument cupped in his lap where he sat.

“Ratamun correctly guessed that this tool is the foundation to sense what gifts someone has and how many,” Gawain said. “I knew that was a risk in revealing it.”

“Not a risk,” Merlin corrected. “An inevitability.” He directed the next at Arthur. “Ratamun is one among us who believes in the great gifts. Immortality and invincibility are the two most sought-after. He, and others for that matter, would want nothing more than the ability to sense and track those gifts. And take them, no matter the cost: enemy, friend, family …”

Vera could imagine the danger of such a power, but not in Gawain’s hands. He would never use the gift that way.

“Why is that a problem?” she said, eager to pull them all away from fear and back into the hope they’d felt mere minutes ago. “The device is made with your magic, Gawain. They can’t use it without you. Isn’t it your living magic that powers it?”

Merlin’s frown deepened.

Lancelot sat with knees spread wide and elbows on his thighs, leaning forward to listen. It wasn’t a strange posture for him, and he looked at ease, except for his hands, clasped tightly. “That puts you at risk, doesn’t it? They’d need the device, and they’d need you to be able to use it.”

Gawain’s eyes were full of a thousand words he didn’t say as he met Lancelot’s gaze.

“Or they’d want him dead,” Merlin said, dropping into the seat next to Vera. “All of this is precisely why no one can know the truth about you, Guinevere. The draw of the power I used—time travel, restarting a human life—is irresistible. Some would stop at nothing for it, and if they couldn’t have it, they’d want to be sure no one did.”

Vera blinked. She turned to Gawain, who smiled sadly at her.

“Goddammit, Gawain,” Lancelot mumbled at the floor. “You altruistic son of a—”

“Look!” Arthur cut him off, his voice hushed with awe. He held the instrument up for them to see. A paper-thin swirl of silvery liquid covered the base of the glass bulb. It hadn’t been there before.

Gawain nearly knocked over his chair, scrambling to Arthur to take the instrument. His mouth went slack, and his eyes glimmered as he stared at the tiny pool with reverence.

“A child was just born,” he said, hardly more than a whisper, “and one of my gifts is now theirs.”

No one slept well that night. They already knew the experiment’s outcome. Vera’s chamber was the most spacious, so the knights dragged extra mattresses from nearby rooms. While the others took turns standing guard, Vera and Gawain attempted to sleep—but mostly, they watched the instrument. Watched as magic was born into brandnew souls.

By the time they gathered at the Magesary, only the visible signs of two gifts remained in the tube. The visual of it was powerful. Even the mages who had expressed doubt the evening prior, Naiam included, were transfixed by the pool gathered in the bulb, filling it past the halfway point. It didn’t hurt that, as they looked on, the instrument vibrated in Arthur’s hands, and one more bit from the tube bubbled into the larger dome.

Before their eyes, magic transferred. Phoebe, the quiet mage, blushed, and her eyes clouded with tears. That had been one of her gifts. Gawain explained that to Vera last night. He could feel it when a transferred gift had been his. Evidently, so could the others. Ratamun’s conceited smile fell. His gifts had been reassigned, too.

Merlin did most of the talking. He convinced the council that the liquid in Gawain’s instrument had been accidentally discovered. There was no formula for it, no replicating it. And that the instrument itself would only work one time. It would be useless after this.

Gawain had argued against this tactic, afraid that without the instrument to hold them accountable, the work of releasing a considerable number of gifts wouldn’t be done.

“But you will have the instrument,” Merlin reasoned, “and plenty of ability to monitor it. We can address logistics later. For now, we need to get you safely back to Camelot, and that means they have to believe that it can’t be replicated.”

The mages had ever presented themselves as a religious order seeking peace and the protection of magic. The nature of their powers was disconcerting. Arthur was especially dismayed that the threat within the mages’ own ranks was so dire. The council had transformed from a shining beacon of hope for the kingdom to its biggest liability over-night—and they knew it.

Vera was sure it was a driving factor as the mages charted a road map for proceeding with this new information. Their immediate priority was to track Mordred and either kill him or, preferably, bring him in to face justice. Naiam assigned ten pockets of mages, one from the council with five lesser mages, to go on the hunt for him. And on the matter of magic, each mage on the council was asked to release ten gifts. Gawain would have preferred a more aggressive approach, plainly written in his furrowed brow, but Merlin silenced him with a sharp glare.

They were on the right track.

Naiam officially adjourned the mages, and Arthur’s party did not linger. Their horses were ready just outside. They bid polite but terse farewells and made for the road, even though it was nearly dark when they set out. Neither Merlin nor Gawain wanted to linger in Oxford for questions that might get closer to the truth. They’d travel ten miles to stay within the Mages’ Cloak of Oxford, where Naiam arranged for a secure camp with extra magical protection.

Vera steered her horse next to Gawain’s. “Did Viviane know about this?” she asked him as they rode west, chasing the setting sun toward Camelot.

He frowned. “If anyone could have figured it out, it would have been her. She was the most brilliant mage I ever met.” It shook Vera that his voice shone with admiration for Viviane. “She didn’t have to lay any curse on the kingdom—just steal enough magic and convince us to do the same until it all began to run dry,” he mused. “We cursed ourselves into vulnerability.”

“How did you know?”

“I wouldn’t have without Mordred’s last attack. I suppose that’s the silver lining to it. There was no other way we could have seen a concentration of magic theft and its immediate impacts on the earth. He did us a favor in that way.”

“And that was what I knew?” Vera asked.

Gawain pursed his lips. He shook his head like he didn’t believe it, though he said, “It must have been.”

It was over. Gawain had figured it out, and her memories weren’t even needed.

Her memories weren’t even needed.

Merlin need not have saved her. Lancelot need not have some broken version of Guinevere’s blood on his hands. Arthur need not have witnessed Guinevere die three times over. She turned her head to watch Arthur riding behind them.

She’d known she loved him since the day of her jousting bout, but Lancelot’s saying the words aloud had uncaged her feelings. And in the tumult since then, it had become an inner roar. Vera was and would remain completely and entirely Arthur’s.

His feelings, on the other hand, did not reach so deep. He was a loyal man. He’d promised to be Vera’s friend, and he’d honor that, but it was magic and magic alone that enchanted him to desire her. The sooner she could accept their feelings’ disparity and start dismantling her own, the better.

Gawain lay his hand on Vera’s shoulder, pulling her from the spiral she’d tumbled into. “When we get back to Camelot, I’ll focus on figuring out this hold magic has on you. We’ll get the barrier dismantled, and we can take our time.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Will you go back to your other home after that?”

“I—Yes.” That was another piece she hadn’t been able to process. This meant she could go home and be with her parents. She could help her father get better, and she did want that. But … she was Guinevere. She didn’t belong in the future. But Vera didn’t exactly belong here, either.

She must have been quiet for some time, lost in her thoughts, before Gawain eventually asked, “Are you done talking to me now?”

Vera shot him a look, only to find Gawain grinning.

It was well after dark when they bumbled into their rather luxurious camp. Five tents were laid out like a circle of wagons around a crackling campfire—only these were fantastic, brightly colored silk tents three meters tall. The mages each had their own. Then, there was one tent for the soldiers and the two knights and one each for Vera and Arthur. She’d heard Arthur discreetly make the request to Naiam. She hated it. She’d have given anything for the comfort of his arms tonight.

Lancelot stood outside the soldiers’ tent, painstakingly suspending his orb with Merlin’s magical aid as Vera eyed him with a cocked eyebrow.

She laughed. “He can do that himself, Merlin.”

But Merlin glanced up from his work, bewildered. “What do you mean?”

“The orb—” Vera said, then she stooped. Lancelot shook his head minutely behind him. “Erm. I thought you were—never mind. I was confused.” She was eager for Merlin to clear off so she could ask Lancelot what the hell that was about when a hand on her elbow turned out to be Tristan’s.

“May I visit you this evening?” he asked quickly.

“Oh, erm.” Vera tossed a glance at Lancelot, who was pretending not to listen as he tied his tent flaps back. “I can’t tell you about what happened with the mages,” she said apologetically, steering him farther from Lancelot.

“I know,” Tristan said. “I’m used to this job: here to be chivalrous muscle, and they’ll tell me more if it’s pertinent for me to know.” He laughed. “I wanted to give you some company. Only if you want it.” He squeezed her elbow, trailing his thumb in a circle there as he had on her thigh the other night.

“All right,” Vera heard herself say.

“All right,” Tristan echoed. “I’m going to get cleaned up a bit, and then I’ll come by.”

He trotted off, leaving Vera with Lancelot’s disapproving stare. He was quickly distracted by Gawain, who crawled out from behind the tent nearest them.

“Gawain, what on earth are you doing?” Lancelot asked.

The mage lowered his face to the dirt, examining it closely. “Checking the boundary line of our camp to be sure it’s safe.”

Lancelot sighed and shook his head, chuckling with Vera, his judgment apparently forgotten. He strode over to Gawain and offered him a hand up. “Come on, sir mage, I’ll bunk up with you tonight. Your own private security detail.”

Gawain stared at his hand disdainfully. “You are helpless against magic,” he grumbled.

Lancelot lay his hand over his heart and frowned. “That hurts my feelings. Hey!” He said more brightly. “Nobody’s ever died in battle next to me, remember? Didn’t you and Percival think that was my magic? There you have it. That’s that sorted. Now …” He shook his offered hand at Gawain, who glowered and reluctantly accepted it.

“Aw, there he is! That’s the Gawain we love!” Lancelot slung an arm around his shoulder and steered Gawain toward his tent, calling to Vera over his shoulder, “Let’s run tomorrow, Guinna. How often will we get the privilege of running under the Mages’ Cloak?”

She marveled at the nonsensical yet also somehow perfectly logical fit of them.

Vera went to her tent, on the other side of the soldiers’. Merlin’s was beside hers and then Arthur’s, directly across the circle. His tent flaps didn’t stir.

At least she could overthink things in comfort, Vera thought as she pushed through the entry. The camp set by Naiam put the finest glamping to shame. Lavish rugs carpeted the floor from one end to the other beneath furnishings as fine as any inn could offer. The bed (and it was a bed, not a cot, with a frame and ornately carved wooden headboard) only took a fraction of the space. There was a sitting area with wide-armed chairs and even a fireplace (did the tent have a chimney? She’d have to check in the morning), a desk like back in Camelot—and both hers and Arthur’s bags had been neatly piled by an armoire made from the same cherry oak as the bed’s headboard.

Arthur’s bags. Damn. Whoever delivered them hadn’t gotten the memo that the king and queen kept separate quarters. Vera sighed as she hefted his two saddlebags over her shoulders, partly glad for a reason to go to him, partly dreading another perfectly friendly and all-business encounter.

When she turned around, Arthur was already standing in her entry, framed in the light of the orb.

“Looking for these?” she said, with a cheeriness she didn’t feel. Arthur hurried to her side, taking the bags from her shoulders. Warmth rushed through Vera when he set the bags down rather than leaving immediately.

She seized the opening. “Would you like to sit for a minute?” Vera gestured awkwardly to the sitting area.

Arthur smiled. “I’d love to sit.”

He took the chair across from her, resting his elbows on his knees as Lancelot had done last night. It was funny to know them both so well now. One didn’t bear any resemblance to the other, but they were so similar in mannerisms, kin in a hundred tiny ways.

“How are you?” he asked.

She exhaled a laugh. “I don’t know where to start. Thank God for Gawain.”

Arthur nodded emphatically, his face serious. “Without him, I’m afraid you would have gone ahead with the memory procedure.” He smiled fleetingly and seemed to take an interest in the rug between his feet. “I’m glad it’s not on your shoulders anymore, and we can get you back home soon.”

“Oh,” Vera said. “Right. Yes, that’s good.” Her throat tightened. She willed her chin not to quiver as tears threatened from the back of her eyes.

“I should go … let you enjoy your evening how you wish.” He stood and collected his bags. His words were perfectly cordial, but Vera felt the meaning. Arthur meant Tristan.

“Stop,” she said before he’d made it more than a step. “I don’t—” Her voice caught and broke.

Arthur settled back into his seat and leaned toward her. “What’s wrong?”

Vera shook her head, questing for what to say, for how to cover this moment. A strange clarity took her. Arthur saw it and sat up straight, bracing himself. The stone mask slid into place across his features. Her tears cleared from her throat, and she began speaking before she had a chance to think better of it.

“I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want Tristan. I want you, and it is driving me mad that you can be not fifty feet away and believe that I’m fucking him and be—” she gestured frantically at him, “and be fine with it!”

He listened to her, keeping his eyes trained on her and his face unreadable, barely moving a muscle. She had to watch closely to see his chest rise with his breath.

“Is that what you think?” Arthur asked in a whisper.

Vera nodded.

“Do you want to know what I think?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. A tear found the corner of her eye and slid down her cheek. She flinched toward brushing it away or trying to hide it but stopped herself.

Arthur rose and pivoted away from Vera, his hand rubbing hard over his mouth. He turned back to her abruptly, and his face had transformed. No longer were his features the pool of calm. His face grew dark, clouded with an intensity of rage and passion.

“I am not fine with it,” he growled. “I did not sleep the night I thought you might be with him. I paced the room, and it took every ounce of control within me not to burn all that kept me from you to the ground.

“And the next day, I smiled at him when I wanted to rip his throat out for even daring to think of being with you. I promised never to trap you, but I’m a selfish fool, and I cannot let you go.”

Arthur knelt in front of Vera and pinned her forearms to the chair’s arms with his hands. “I want you with every breath that enters my body. I want—”

He stopped, tilting his chin down. Vera turned her arms underneath his hands so that her palms faced upward and clasped his wrists.

“Tell me,” she whispered, hope igniting a spark in the depths of her belly that she hadn’t dared to let herself entertain.

There was fire in his eyes. “I want to untie your dress without pulling my hands away when they touch your skin. I want to rip your gown from your body without looking away. I want to hold you without pretending to be asleep. I want,” he paused and leaned closer, his eyes boring into her, “to please you and to hear your pleasure on your lips. I want to take you right now and throw you on that bed and make love to you until the sun rises.”

Vera’s insides leapt, though she hardly had a thought to spare for her elation. It all crushed together in a swell of desire. She freed one of her hands, sliding her fingers up his arm and further along his neck into his hair, delighting in how the bit of curl at its ends twisted around her fingertips. He closed his eyes at her touch and turned to catch her palm with his lips. This kiss sent a ripple through Vera’s body.

“Why don’t you?” she asked.

It nicked the tension enough for Arthur to exhale a laugh which, on his features, burning with passion, made him look so young. “We’ve made it this far and kept your mind intact. I won’t risk that.” Arthur slid his hands to her waist, dropping his forehead into Vera’s lap. Her fingers roved back into his hair, massaging his scalp as she pulled him tighter to her legs.

She could just barely feel his hot breath on her thigh through her skirt and swallowed to keep herself from sighing with pleasure. It was Arthur whose sigh emerged as more of a moan. He lifted his head. “Though don’t misunderstand me, Vera. I want to. Very badly.”

A bell chimed from Vera’s tent door. She and Arthur’s eyes both snapped in that direction. She hadn’t realized the tents had doorbells. Who could possibly be coming at this time of—

“Oh. Shit,” Vera said as she remembered the plans they’d made. “It’s Tristan.”

Arthur dropped back onto his heels, creating space between himself and Vera. His eyes flicked from the doorway to her. “It doesn’t matter, and it’s not important,” he said. “And I have no right to ask—”

“I didn’t sleep with him,” Vera said, and she knew from the way he had to work to suppress his relieved smile that she’d correctly assumed what the question would be. “I’ll … tell him to go, shall I?” She squirmed free from her chair to go to the entry.

“No,” Arthur said from behind her. “I’d like to speak to him.”

She glanced back. Vera recognized that blasé tone. She pursed her lips as she held the tent flap back for Tristan to duck inside. He greeted her warmly with a squeeze of her elbow. His head flinched back slightly as he raised an eyebrow. “Were you running? You look flushed.”

Vera must have blushed three shades of red. “Erm, no.” She glanced at Arthur, who, she realized, matched her appearance with his hair mussed and eyes alight. Tristan followed Vera’s gaze and had the decency to look embarrassed as he took a quick step away from her. He wanted to be anywhere except for in this tent right now.

Tristan stared down at the ground. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll—”

“Tristan,” Arthur cut in. He crossed the tent to stand next to Vera. “You’re a good knight. And I need you to go back to Camelot at once.”

Vera and Tristan both gaped at Arthur.

“Sire?” he said.

“I need a trustworthy messenger to ride fast ahead of us and bring word that we’re coming,” Arthur said. Vera released a relieved breath. But then he continued. “But truthfully, it’s because you haven’t done anything wrong, and I might kill you.”

Tristan’s eyes went wide.

“You’re in love with my wife, and you actively want to bed her,” he said with a calm that somehow made it that much more alarming. “So I might end up killing you if you stay.”

Vera’s eyes darted back and forth between Arthur and Tristan in silent shock. She should not find this hot, but she absolutely did.

Tristan retreated another step. “Your Majesty—”

Arthur stopped him with a raised hand. “There’s no need. And we won’t speak of it again.”

Tristan opened and closed his mouth twice before looking at Arthur as if he’d spent the whole time interpreting a language he barely knew and only just understood. Arthur nodded curtly.

Tristan bowed, avoided Vera’s eye, and left quickly.

“Arthur,” she said, letting her mouth hang slack with a laugh barely contained.

His dangerous calm slipped into a sheepish grin. “Would you like to get ready for bed?” he asked.

“I would,” she said, butterflies exploding in her chest. She turned to let him untie the laces of her dress.

“It seems like it’s the body memory of our intimacy that’s been a trigger for whatever curse is on you,” Arthur mused as he worked his fingers through the laces. He didn’t pull away when he got to the base of her back. He slipped his hand between the fabric and her skin, wiggling his fingers around her torso to loosen the bodice, and bent his head low, so close to her neck that his breath raised goosebumps down her spine. He kissed her neck, dragging the inside of his lip across her skin.

Vera closed her eyes and tilted her head back.

“What if there was something your body can’t remember?” he whispered in her ear.

She shivered as a warm ache of need awoke between her thighs. Vera looked at Arthur over her shoulder.

His eyes glowed with hunger. “There is one thing we never did.”

Vera could have cried out as he slid his hands off the skin at her middle, but Arthur took her hand and led her to sit on the edge of the bed. For the second time tonight, he knelt in front of her. This time, he lay a hand on each of her ankles and slowly ran them up the length of Vera’s legs, pushing her skirt up until all of it gathered above her waist. Having helped her change out of gowns countless times, it was no surprise to Arthur that she wore knickers. He made eye contact with Vera and asked the question without breathing a word. She nodded.

Arthur hooked his fingers beneath the elastic waistband and pulled them down in a fluid motion. He took Vera’s hips and pulled her with ease, dragging her closer to the edge of the bed.

Her heart thundered, eager but trembling in her vulnerability. Arthur kissed her knee as he slid one hand into hers and held it tightly. With his mouth, he traced the line of the muscle up her thigh, working slower the closer he came to the top. Vera’s head dropped back.

He paused just shy, the scruff of his chin biting at the tender skin of Vera’s upper thigh. “Shall I stop?”

“No.” She’d barely said the word before his lips plunged onto her, and she fell back onto her elbows with a moan.

Arthur released her hand and held her thighs apart as his tongue dipped inside Vera. Her back arched, pulsing her hips toward him, her mind going blissfully blank as everything save for this disappeared from existence. His lips closed around Vera’s most tender point, and she yelped.

“Is this all right?” Arthur asked, pausing only long enough to utter the phrase.