Read Online White Rose Rebel by Janet Paisley - Free Book Online Page A

feeling banked in her would break into rage.
    ‘Let your hair loose.’
    ‘It will get in the way.’
    ‘Not in mine.’
    Now she was angry. She swept the long plait round, tugged the white ribbon from it, the last rosebuds falling, ran her fingers through the coils to loosen them, threw it over her shoulder and shook her head. The weight of hair swung, tumbling down her back, over her breast, falling to her hips. She glared at him but, paused in that stilled, watchful energy, he didn’t seem to care. Then the heat of his skin was on hers, the strength of his arms holding, lifting as he put her and himself into their marriage bed, his body covering hers.
    Even there, he seemed in no hurry to give himself to her, sothere was nothing to deny and then nothing she would deny. He knew, as she had not, that the skin between her fingers, and in the palm of her hands, was more sensitive to touch than her breasts; that words murmured against hot skin aroused as much as stroking. So she let go, and went with him. All he prevented was when her hands, or mouth, or his own urgency might husband him too soon.
    It was a long, slow coupling until, finally, he held her when she cried out for him to, as she shuddered in the dissolution of pleasure. It was only then, in the washing away, that he moved into her again, slow strokes changing quickly to deep, hard thrusting. Clenched to him, she was consumed, not by her own pleasure now but by his.
    ‘ Mo ghaoil , my love,’ she whispered, when he groaned her name, juddering as his seed came out of him into her, lost in wonder. She felt tears come just holding him, vulnerable as he was, unguarded now, while stillness washed through the weight of him.
    ‘Are you crying?’ he asked, raising himself to look into her eyes.
    ‘No.’ And, in truth, she wasn’t now, because her belly quivered, but with laughter.
    He smiled, chuckled and rolled over on his back. They lay together, hearing the dancers call outside, the jig on the pipes, her head on his sweat-damp chest, fingers tracing the softer rise and fall of his abdomen, the smell of sex about them.
    ‘How can you know all that?’ she asked.
    His head rose, looking at her, brows drawn together, then he grinned, broadly, threw his head back on the pillow laughing, a deep, throaty laugh which he would not explain though she pushed her fist into his ribs and threatened to fuck him again, but it was far too soon and they had to wait a while.
    Reluctant to rejoin their guests, at least before morning or even the day after, they let the afternoon drift on to evening. They ate and drank from a tray the girl, Jessie, had left at the door. It was when dark fell, when pipes and celebrants grew silent, that theenormity of marriage struck Anne. She would sleep the night beside him, rise in this bed next day.
    ‘And wake making love,’ he smiled, though his eyes were shut, near sleep.
    ‘In the morning?’
    ‘I don’t think the English have passed a law against it yet,’ he said.
    ‘Then they must mean to tax it,’ she said. And they laughed again, together.

SEVEN
    A grey drizzle of rain hung over London, barely penetrated by the rising sun. In his chambers at Kensington House, the Duke of Cumberland splashed cold water into his face. At twenty-four, he already had the bulbous look of an English bulldog. His defeat at Fontenoy still smarted, the return home ignominious, leaving the French in victorious possession of Flanders. Behind him, a servant held his red coat ready. The Duke dried himself, threw the towel down beside the china bowl of water and slid his arms into the waiting sleeves.
    ‘Cope! Hawley!’ he called.
    The door opened and General Hawley, a skinny ancient spider of a man meticulously dressed in black, came in.
    ‘Your Highness,’ he bowed. ‘All’s well with the king?’
    ‘My father is –’ Cumberland hesitated ‘– concerned. Where’s Cope?’
    ‘It’s morning,’ Hawley shrugged. It was well known in the army