Suzanne Robinson Read Online Free Page A

his hand on a diamond button. Abruptly he was reminded of Oriel Richmond in her simple wool gown, her hair flying about as if mussed by pixies. Claude’s beauty was as full-bodied and rich as her chateau, and her hair was her best feature. Pale gold, silken, and gently curling, it lay in cascades about her shoulders, for she had purposely left it undressed.
    “You have ignored me for so long,
mon ami
, that I thought you had forgotten me.”
    Blade freed himself from her arms. It wouldn’t serve to show eagerness, for Claude had at least twenty noble French fools capering about her feet.
    “Indeed, madame, I had thought myself far too unimportantto cause you even a moment’s unease. I have been in Italy visiting an old friend.”
    Claude waved her hand, then began pouring wine into crystal goblets. “When one is out of France, one is cast from heaven. Did you have company on your journey?”
    “Claude, in faith, I think you pry to see if I’ve a mistress.”
    “La, I already know that.”
    Blade sipped his wine to cover his wariness. He ran his tongue over his upper lip to distract Claude, and once her gaze was fastened on his mouth, he answered.
    “Know you my habits so well?”
    “The whole court knows your habits. My friends make a great game of tracing the antics of ladies and their lovers. The Vicomte de Tallart wagered that you would fly from Louise St. Michel to Marie de Bourbon within three months. I have confounded him.”
    “Then I am a wager.”
    Claude set down her goblet and placed her hand on his cheek.
“Non
, my sweet, you are the prize.”
    She pulled him to the bed and sank down upon it, drawing him with her. He didn’t leave it until late that night when the chamber was cast in darkness except for the unsteady light from the fireplace. He rose and wrapped himself in a silk cover from the bed. Then he padded across the carpet to crouch before the fire and stare into the yellow flames.
    He’d used his body in the service of his queen and country many times before, but never had he experienced this weariness of spirit. Apart from the first year, when he’d been enamored of the pleasure and intrigue, he had grown to view this aspect of his missions as the most draining. Making love where there was no affection wasn’t making love at all. More and more he felt as if his body was a thing apart from himself, an instrument.
    He’d found it was an instrument much desired at theFrench court by women, and ofttimes by men, as well. Yet each woman who succumbed transformed herself in his mind into a tool much like himself, though none were aware of his thoughts on the matter. So, as the new year progressed, he conceived of a desire for something more. What this might be, he couldn’t guess. He knew a discontent that burned in his chest, a heavy molten chain surrounding his heart.
    He looked at the bed, but Claude was still sleeping. Soon, perhaps in a few days, he would lead her into conversations she would consider gossip. The gossip would eventually light upon Charles de Guise, Cardinal of Lorraine, uncle to Mary, Queen of Scots. His friend Christian de Rivers, and Cecil, Queen Elizabeth’s chief minister, discounted the cardinal’s ability to make mischief in England. Blade knew better. The cardinal’s spies infested every court in Europe, and in spite of being occupied with persecuting French Protestants and scheming to control the French boy king, he hadn’t given up on putting his niece on the throne of England.
    Neither Christian nor Cecil understood Charles de Guise. Blade had understood him ever since he’d watched the man laugh at the antics of a Protestant heretic dancing on the charred stump of a leg in the flames that burned him alive. The cardinal at once combined bigotry, blind faith, a love of great art, and unmatched desire for power. Elizabeth counted upon the cardinal’s desire to wrest power from Catherine de Medici, the queen mother, and the religious wars of France to keep