“YOU WANT TO BE MY MISTRESS. THERE’S ARROGANCE FOR YOU! I ONLY HAD ONE
TUMBLE IN MIND. HOW DO I KNOW YOU’D BE
ANY GOOD?” HE TAUNTED AS HE PULLED HER INTO HIS ARMS.
“Since I am untouched … I’d be only as good as you made me.”
Her words sent a surge of hot lust through his body. He raised an eyebrow at her. “Untouched? Unused? Unsullied?” He paused, then whispered maddeningly, “Untrue!”
She answered him in kind. “Unwilling! Unyielding!” She paused, then whispered her challenge: “Untamed!”
“Life is a game,” he said softly, caressing her silken skin. “This is a game between us, Sabre, but if you want to play you’d better know all the rules. In every game there is risk. In every game there is a winner and a loser.”
“If you think I’m not going to win you are badly mistaken!” She hated him with a passion, her breasts heaving with her agitation.
“Take off your clothes and let’s see how you show,” he dared her.
Books by Virginia Henley:
THE BORDER HOSTAGE
THE MARRIAGE PRIZE
A WOMAN OF PASSION
A YEAR AND A DAY
DREAM LOVER
ENSLAVED
SEDUCED
DESIRED
ENTICED
TEMPTED
THE DRAGON AND THE JEWEL
THE FALCON AND THE FLOWER
THE HAWK AND THE DOVE
THE PIRATE AND THE PAGAN
THE RAVEN AND THE ROSE
Dedicated to two ladies who really know their stuff.
My editor, Maggie Lichota—the best in the business,
and Kathe Robin, who never abuses her infinite power
Chapter 1
Cheltenham, 1586
Spring had not yet arrived. Icicles hung by the river and the horses’ breath formed frosty clouds upon the air as the two young riders playfully raced the last hundred yards before reaching the stables.
Inside, the warmth enveloped them and the tang of horse, leather, and hay heightened all their senses in a most disturbing fashion. The young man, so fair, took both hands of the vibrant beauty into his own and drew her toward him. He knew he must taste her or go mad. “Sara.” He breathed her name raggedly against her lips, before covering them in the kiss they had both been anticipating for weeks.
Now that they were finally fused, they had no strength to pull apart. Her arms were lovingly entwined about his neck and his hands caressed her back and slowly moved to cup and fondle her breasts. He moaned low in his throat and sank down into the hay, pulling his beautiful tormentor with him.
Sara was tempted, tempted badly. She had never felt like this before. It was as if her bones wanted to melt with the delicious languor that was stealing over her. “Andrew, no, we cannot.”
“Please, Sara, please. I’m going to offer for you.” And once more he covered her protesting mouth and fumbled with the buttons of her riding dress. He had managed to undo three before she found the strength to tear herself away from him.
It wasn’t that she didn’t believe him. She knew he was as good as his word and that he would certainly offer for her. But others had offered for her and nothing had ever come of it. Now she held his hands firmly to keep them in check. She laughed up at him lovingly. “You haven’t even proposed to me yet!”
“Sara, darling, will you marry me?”
She heard the words echoing in her mind, then the scene dissolved in a shimmer as she gazed through the window, unseeing. She forced back unshed, unwanted tears before anyone ever suspected she was crying. She would rather die!
Witches! thought Sara Bishop, barely hanging on to her infamous temper. She set her teeth and faced her four half sisters in the beautifully appointed family room. The two older ones from her mother’s first marriage were dark, sleek, almost smug from their secure position in the family hierarchy. The pair younger than herself, from her mother’s third and present marriage, were pretty and blond, spoiled and selfish to the core.
They had gathered to organize the details of the upcoming wedding—to make lists of potential guests, to word the actual invitations, and to choose material for their gowns. Their gently bred mother, Mary Bishop, had already retired with a headache; never had she been capable of coping with her daughters en masse.
“’Tis a conspiracy!” Sara stormed, and her hair, the color of pale molten copper, flew about her shoulders. “You know damned well that deep rose pink makes me look hideous, and ’tis precisely why you always choose it.”
“Sabre Wilde, stop that swearing instantly,” hissed Jane, who at twenty-two was the eldest.
“Don’t you dare to call me Sabre Wilde! You lot are enough to make a saint swear,” shouted Sara in exasperation.
“Saint?” They hooted with laughter.
“Saint?” echoed Jane. “Devil’s spawn, more likely, Sabre Wilde.” She emphasized the name derisively.
“You earned the nickname for yourself,” smirked Ann, the youngest. “Jane, is it true that when her father died she trailed his sabre about the house for weeks and even insisted on sleeping with it?”
“’Tis true, and she was only four years old. She had such a dangerous temper, she ruled the household, terrorized poor Mother, and was so willful she attempted to wound the servants with that sabre.”
“I’ll go and fetch the bloody thing now if you don’t shut up!” Sara threatened.
“If you swear again, I shall report you to father,” Jane threatened as she rose from the writing desk now littered with the forgotten lists.
The room seemed stifling to Sara. The spring weather had been unusually sticky and oppressive, and now that her blood was up, her cheeks flushed and she tried to breathe deeply to calm herself. Her beautiful high, round breasts quivered with her great agitation and her older sister Margaret eyed them enviously and said with great malice, “The color of Sabre’s hair screams so loudly, she would be a disaster in any shade we chose. We all know ’tis not the color of the bridesmaids’ dresses that has angered her, but the fact that sweet little Beth has received an offer of marriage and she has not.”
“’Tis not fair!” cried Sara. “Andrew was supposed to be my husband. After Jane and Margaret were married, I was supposed to be next. I’m almost twenty years old! Beth is only fifteen.”
The sisters were greatly amused at this. “You are living in a fantasy, Sabre Wilde. You will never receive an offer of marriage. Your Irish father left you without a dowry and everyone for miles about knows you for an eccentric,” Jane pointed out.
Reverend Bishop threw open the door of his study, where he had been trying to compose a biting sermon for next Sunday. The girl was causing trouble again. She had been the only thorn in his side in an otherwise perfect marriage. His tall shadow fell across the doorway just as Sara shouted, “My Irish father, let me point out, was the only one of her husbands my mother married for love! The first she married for money, the last she married for respectability. You are four jealous witches!”
The girls’ father issued a one-word command. “Apologize!”
Sara spun about with fear in her eyes. Then, determined to defy him, she drew herself up to her full height and said softly, “I’m sorry…. I’m sorry they are jealous witches.”
His mouth curved downward cruelly and he issued his orders without hesitation. “Fetch her in here. Put her across the table.”
She was livid to be handled so and would have successfully fought off her two older sisters, but their father cruelly clamped a hand to the back of her neck and reached for his cane. They held her down gleefully to receive the beating they had never had to endure. The thin cotton of Sara’s gown and petticoat was scant protection against the
sting of the cane wielded so heavily by the reverend. She felt the blood rush to her head but she would be damned if she’d give them the satisfaction of seeing her faint.
“Go to your room, mistress,” the reverend finally ordered. “She has the devil’s mark upon her.” The words followed Sara up the stairs and were like a spark to gunpowder as her temper exploded and she swore to be even with them all.
Sara slammed her chamber door and without stopping opened her window, climbed down the huge hawthorn tree, and ran for the stables. She grabbed a bridle, didn’t waste time with a saddle but mounted Sabbath and, bending low over her palfrey’s neck to protect her sore bottom, rode off toward the beautiful Cotswolds like the wind. She usually took great pleasure in the flowering trees and gamboling spring lambs, but today tears blinded her to the beauties of the countryside.
She rode a direct path through the woods, which were carpeted with bluebells, to the edge of the small secluded lake. Slipping down from its back she tethered her horse where it could reach the sweet green grass and stroked its muzzle lovingly. It had pleased her stepfather when she had called the colt Sabbath. The corners of her mouth went up in a secret smile. How furious he would be if he knew the animal’s full name was Black Sabbath.
As she knelt by the edge of the lake and bent down to cup a handful of cooling water to bathe her face, she caught sight of her reflection. “I’m not ugly,” she said defiantly, then sighed as she thought of her half sisters’ beauty.
In reality she was far more fair of face and figure than they, but years of being disparaged had taken their toll. While her sisters were attractive, by comparison she was exquisite. Her hair was all molten flames and fire, her mouth voluptuously curved, and her green eyes were highlighted by dark brows and long dark lashes. Beside her left eye, on the very tip of her cheekbone, was a beauty spot. Tentatively she put her finger on the tiny black mole her family referred to as the mark of the devil, then obeying an impulse that was as old as Eve, she undressed quickly and slipped naked into the cool, soothing water.
She smiled as a pair of ducks paddled madly away to the safety of the reeds, and as her body and temper cooled and relaxed, her attention was caught by the iridescent colors of the hovering dragonflies. Mayhap she was wicked, she mused. Hadn’t she forged a letter in her mother’s hand to Lady Katherine Ashford at the queen’s court? Kate was sister to her mother’s first husband. She had made a brilliant marriage with Lord Ashford ten years ago and now held the lofty title of mistress of the queen’s robes. She moved in heady circles indeed! Sara, pretending to be her mother, had written reminding Kate that she was the mother of five lovely daughters and was begging for a position at court for one of them, no matter how lowly. She intimated how difficult it was to find suitable husbands for them all and hinted that surely among Elizabeth’s court of sixteen hundred gentlemen a husband might be found for just one of her sweet, pretty-mannered girls.
It had been over two months since Sara had sent off the letter and she would have to keep a sharp watch to intercept an answering message from Lady Ashford.
Her imagination soared deliciously as she floated in the water. She saw herself dressed in a pale green ballgown fluttering a jeweled fan at a gentleman who would not quite behave himself. The brilliant room was lit with a thousand candles as she watched herself go into the man’s arms for the dance.
Suddenly a shot rang out and she cried out in alarm for the poor duck that, having risen up from the lake, had dropped back to the water stone dead. The man heard her and came to the water’s edge. It was Margaret’s husband, John.
“Sabre! God’s bones, you’re naked!” He licked his lips and felt himself harden in response to his delicious sister-in-law.
“Bugger off!” she swore.
His retriever swam after the downed waterfowl, but John only had eyes for the nymph before him. He was a handsome young man and he smiled slyly as he realized the compromising situation of his quarry. “There’s one way of making sure my lips are sealed, sweetheart.”
“Go home to your wife!” she said coldly.
“You should have been my wife, Sabre. I offered for you first.”
“Piffle! You soon grabbed Margaret when you found out I was penniless, but she was mistress moneybags.”
“Our parents arranged it; I had little choice in the matter. Be kind to me, Sabre, you know you broke my heart.”
“I’d like to break your head, you lecher!” she cried.
“I’m coming in.” He grinned wickedly and bent to remove his boots.
Though fear gripped her and her heart pounded frantically inside her breast, she would not let him see her fear. “John Thatcher, my lips will not be sealed if you make one more move toward me!”
He hesitated for only a second. “You wouldn’t dare let the worthy reverend know you’d been cavorting naked in the woods.”
“What could he do to me? Thrash me? I’ve already had one beating today,” she retorted bravely.
He finished disrobing and plunged into the lake. Sabre quickly ducked beneath the surface and swam underwater, not surfacing until she reached the grassy bank some thirty feet away. She flung on her petticoat and dress and was in the saddle almost before he spotted her.
“Sabre, help! My legs are tangled in the weeds,” he called, and she could hear the irritation in his voice.
She laughed as she dug her heels into Black Sabbath’s haunches. “I hope you never untangle them!”
Sara thought she had gotten away with her escapade when three days had passed and the wrath of God had not descended upon her. She grabbed an opportunity to go into Gloucester so that she could collect the mail for the church and priory. Her mother and Beth, the bride-to-be, were traveling into the city of Gloucester to select bed linen and deliver the wedding invitations to the aunts and uncles and cousins related to them through Mrs. Bishop’s three marriages.
The Swan Inn was the posting house where the coaches brought the mail up from London. Sara quickly sorted through the papers that were addressed to the rectory and church and her heart skipped a beat as her fingers closed about the long-awaited reply from Lady Katherine Ashford in London. She stuffed it down the neck of her gown and wriggled it inside her busk, where the long-anticipated message it might hold almost burned her breasts. She then took the rest out to the coach and turned it all over to her mother.
Her heart was singing with such joy that even a dreaded visit with the cousins could not quell her happiness. She closed her ears to the incessant chatter of weddings. Beth was wearing a pale blue silk afternoon dress with a fetching little pelisse in the same shade. Her blue satin slippers also matched and she sat crossing her ankles so that her pale blue silk stockings could be glimpsed by all.
Sara’s thoughts were diverted from the letter when one of her cousins said, “That dark wine gown doesn’t become your odd coloring, Sabre. It looked much prettier on Margaret before it was handed down to you.” Beth and her cousins all giggled.
Sara answered sweetly, “But I fill the bodice out better, don’t you think?” Then she pointedly looked at each girl’s small breasts.
The name of the game was spite as her cousin asked, “You must be very upset because Beth has had a proposal. Before we know it, Ann, too, will be betrothed, and you will be left a spinster.”
God, how she hated them all. Her cheeks flushed and she said loftily, “I’m not in the least upset, for I shall very likely be going to court shortly.” She could have bitten her tongue the moment the words were out. She had such a habit of saying the first thing that came into her head, and it usually landed her in hot water.
Beth laughed and said, “Why, Sabre, that’s an outright lie.”
Her cousin, instantly jealous that there might be a grain of truth in Sabre’s remark, said to Beth, “I’m afraid Sabre suffers from delusions of grandeur. There are many locked up in the Gloucester Asylum with such afflictions.”
“Is it your habit to visit asylums? Amazing they don’t
mistake you for an inmate and detain you,” replied Sara lightly.
“If you don’t watch your tongue, Sabre Wilde, I’ll get Daddy to give you another beating,” threatened Beth.
“Beating?” asked her cousin breathlessly.
“We held her down across the table while Daddy took his cane to her bottom!”
Somehow Sara’s teacup slipped through her fingers and its contents ruined not only Beth’s blue silk, but the afternoon visit as well. Everyone watching would have sworn it was an accident, yet they knew better. Beth was in tears, incoherent, then hysterical, and there was nothing Mrs. Bishop could do but gather her two daughters and depart quickly amid a flurry of apologies for the disastrous turn of events.
Mary Bishop leaned her head back onto the velvet squabs of the coach and closed her eyes. Sara felt guilty, for she knew her mother had a delicate constitution. Beth was carrying on ridiculously, so Sara had no alternative but to fix her with a penetrating look. “If you don’t shut up instantly, I’ll thump you.” Beth sat back quietly and sniffled, for without the backing of her cousins or sisters, she was gutless.
When the coach arrived back at Cheltenham priory, Mrs. Bishop ushered Beth into the house to repair the damage to the blue silk and Sara stayed with the coach as it was taken to the stables. She reached into her busk and drew forth the treasured letter.
With eager eyes she scanned the contents, skipping over the flowery salutations and small talk. Ah, here it was…. As mistress of Her Majesty’s wardrobe I do indeed have need of many assistants and I would be pleased to take one of your gentle daughters under my wing, should you decide to send her to court I know that you will appreciate this great opportunity I am offering and assure you that a gentlewoman with manners and breeding may receive many offers of marriage which would be otherwise closed to her. We are at Greenwich until the hot summer months make London an unhealthy place, at which time we go on progress, so I urge you to hasten your daughter’s departure and rest assured I shall welcome any child of yours wholeheartedly. All I ask, dearest Mary, is that you do not saddle me with the little redhead of the volatile temper. I need a girl who is both amenable and biddable, and we both know that the “Wilde” one is neither.