Royal Blood. Rona SharonЧитать онлайн книгу.
inch to the left and Anne would be caressing the magic scepter, Renée fumed, disgusted with Anne’s wanton, sabotaging flightiness. “Pray excuse us,” she told Michael. “We would not want the battle to begin without us.” She linked her arm with Anne’s and dragged her away.
Armed with flowers, fruit, and sweets, Templar knights and Saracen ladies blasted at each other across the chamber, their ebullient laughter drowning out the accompanying music. Their identities effectively concealed with half masks and cowls, some of the participants, ladies and knights alike, jumped on the tables and were slinging their ammunition with ribald accuracy.
Renée could not recall laughing as heartily or indulging in such frivolity. For a few precious moments her worries dissolved, banished by mirth and mayhem. Regrettably the combatants ran out of sugared darts all too soon. The king’s fool, presiding over the romp as Lord of Misrule, pronounced the ladies victors. With shrieks and bounds the Saracen sirens herded the vanquished Templar army to the center of the hall and ordered them to line up for a volta.
Sobering, Renée sought the king and Anne among the disguised. Anne’s curvaceous figure was identifiable, but there were several knights who matched the king’s physique. As the ladies chose partners, she saw Anne move toward one of the king’s look-alikes. Was he the king? He was too lean, too tall…Oh no! The pie-goose would ruin everything! Certes that was what Anne wanted, to hoodwink her brother with impunity. Would you say he is as tall as our king? How could Renée have thought Anne a want-wit? She was the witless one. She should have read the signs—the interest, the aggressive flirting—and realized Anne was netting a scapegoat. After the deed was done and the victim was unmasked, Buckingham would be hard put to accuse Anne of trickery.
Disregarding the rules of decorum, Renée hurled herself at Anne’s chosen dance partner. There was no mistaking his identity when eyes the color of the sea in Marseille touched hers. Then the heavy-lidded eyes slid toward Anne. No! Choose me, Renée implored silently, and in an act of despair took her boldness to a new zenith. She stepped closer to him and gripped his hand.
Michael’s hand was large, gentle, and very warm. Transfixing her with the force of his gaze, he opened her palm to his kiss. Heat filled her belly, swirling, tumbling, doing strange things to her mind and body. Then, wordlessly, apologetically, he let go of her hand and took Anne’s. No! Renée was in turmoil. She could not allow this to happen. She gripped his arm, rose on tiptoe, and whispered harshly in his ear, “Do not dance with her, you fool! He will kill you!”
“I know,” he murmured, clouding her with his heady scent. He craned his head until their lips nearly touched. Her heart pounded. There was steel in his eyes. “Forewarned is forearmed.”
Renée stumbled back in shock. He was rescuing the king. He was using Buckingham’s trap to ensnare the traitor—and there was nothing, absolutely nothing she could do to stop him.
The musicians struck up a volta. A Templar knight whisked her to the dance. She performed the sinkapace perfunctorily, right, left, right, left, all the while chasing Anne and her partner with damning eyes. Her perfect opportunity was lost. She would have to start scheming afresh.
A murrain on them both!
On the fifth count, all the knights grabbed hold of their female partners’ hip with one hand and the hard waistline edge of their busk with the other, closing the position for the spring, and Renée, feeling numb with defeat, put her hand on her partner’s shoulder and presented him with her masked profile, as was the rule of the dance. The step before the leap was the most sensual of the volta, when words of love and desire were whispered. She felt her partner’s humid breath on her temple, his lips almost touching; then he boosted her into the air and held her up with his hands, his thigh under her thighs. She stared down at him as he turned and slid her along the length of his body to the floor, and knew who he was: Sir Walter Devereaux, Norfolk’s man.
Feminine laughter rang hard by, Bessie Blount delighting in her chosen dance partner, a tall, robust knight with broad shoulders and an authoritarian posture—King Henry.
The dancing continued with no end in sight. Tired and dismayed, barely able to stand on her aching feet, Renée saw no point in her waiting for the unmasking. Hence, when the dance ended, she thanked her partner and turned away from him, but his arm insinuated itself around her waist and drew her back up against his chest. “You owe me a kiss of peace,” he murmured in her ear.
“Let go of me, sir.”
“And let us part as enemies? I think not.”
She saw a couple sneak out of the chamber—Anne and Michael—and felt the familiar tug of curiosity propelling her after them, but her dance partner was holding her put. Better this way, she thought. I cannot be caught lurking. As the couple vanished, so did her last drop of strength. Oh, it would have been so easy, if the fools had not decided to extemporize. She turned around in a swish of skirts and glared up at Sir Walter. “Make it brief.” Or you shall live to regret it.
A gleam entered his brown eyes. Oh, he most definitely had plans for her. “Aye, madame.” Placing a finger beneath her chin, he tilted her face up and touched his lips to hers. His kiss was adequately civil. “Do remember what I said, Princess. I am yours to command in all things.”
With a humphy toss of her head, Renée took her leave of him and strode out of the room.
“Come away!” Anne dragged Michael by the hand along the dim hallway. He followed her tamely, aware that they were being followed. The bay behind the Venus tapestry, the Duke of Buckingham had said. When they reached it, Anne snatched back the arras and dragged him into the snug dark recess with her. Facing him, she curled her free hand around his covered nape and pulled his mouth down on hers. Their visorlike masks compressed as their kiss grew hotter, but he dared not unmask, not before his would-be assassin made his attempt. The assailant was close. Any moment now a blade would plunge into his back from behind the tapestry; that was the plan.
Abruptly Anne tore her mouth away. There was an edge of panic in her voice. “Leave!” she blurted urgently. “I beg you. Leave now!”
Michael went still. She had set him up and was now alerting him to the danger. Her change of heart surprised him—but did not elate him half as much as the French princess’s forewarning. She, too, had realized Anne’s ploy and tried to talk him out of his heroic undertaking. For a brief moment he had been violently tempted to forget the plot and choose Renée instead. Ultimately his brain had made the selection, as Lord Tyrone was wont to say: “Dare to be wise and leave the rest to the gods.” Yes, he was very wise. Disgustingly sensible. He deserved a trophy.
“Hush.” Michael put a finger to Anne’s lips when she grew hysterical, imploring him to flee. He sensed the assassin creeping closer to the tapestry. Excited and tense, the man—the duke—reeked of sweat. Michael heard his heavy breathing. He waited, keeping Anne’s back to the wall inside the recess, his back exposed to the arras. The duke could not suspect his sister of betraying him. Michael needed to react to something—a noise, a movement—rather than anticipate the assault. His senses signaled that the duke was directly behind him. Tension sizzled through his taut body. He heard the soft rasp of a dagger sliding from its sheath…. He stepped out swiftly.
The masked assailant jolted and thrust. Steel flashed against Michael’s abdomen. He caught the wrist wielding the blade and knocked the hand against his knee. As the dagger clanked to the floor, he grabbed the duke by the throat and sent him crashing against the opposite wall.
The guised Duke of Buckingham sank to the floor with grunts and invectives. Michael was already towering over him, the dagger in his hand. In the dying light of the gallery’s cressets, his form loomed as a sinister hulking shadow. “Go off! Or I will hack you, my word upon’t.”
Groaning with pain, the duke looked up at him. “Who the pox are you?”
“Your worst incubus, if you do not remove yourself hence.” He watched the duke push to his feet awkwardly and stumble out of sight. He sheathed the duke’s dagger in his sword belt and returned to the dark alcove behind the wall-hanging. He