Bound To You: Chapters 9 & 10
****Before reading, please note that this is a continuation of BOUND TO YOU, which is currently available in the Love Is In The Air Anthology. While you don’t need to have read any of the Broken Crown books to enjoy this story, you do need to have read BOUND TO YOU or you will be lost and confused, and that would be wicked sad.
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Chapter Nine
Blanche
A palace staffer sweeps past with a tray of champagne flutes and I snag one on instinct, barely pausing to turn away from the ballroom before tossing back the bubbly in one fell swoop. It’s just my luck that the gold band on my left finger catches the light, nearly blinding me with a heavy dose of reality.
I’m a bride.
A wife.
The goddamn Princess of Wales.
Hysterical laughter threatens to crack free.
Across the length of the room, far on the other end, stands John—my new husband. I watch him, unable to glance away from the powerful man who holds my future in the palm of his hand. He can crush me, if he wants. He can lock me up in this godforsaken palace and make sure that I never leave again.
Never live.
Never thrive.
The mere possibility churns my stomach violently.
Abandoning my empty flute on a nearby table, I don’t think twice before sidestepping the Earl of Rothbury to duck through the crowd. My chin never wavers. My spine never loses its straight-backed edge. Curious eyes track my every move, their bodies leaning in my direction like saplings caught in a heavy crosswind.
Someone stops directly in my path.
“Pardon me,” I mutter, moving to the right.
Undaunted, the man heads me off. “Not yet.”
At the roughened texture of his voice, and the undisguised note of familiarity in his tone, I drop my head back and let my gaze climb his broad frame. Up past a hard chest. Up past thick shoulders that strain the seams of his jacket. Up past a firm, square jawline that gives way to high cheekbones, a blunt nose, and the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen. Devil eyes. They stare down at me with a keen intelligence that would send a lesser woman fleeing with her tail tucked between her legs.
As it is, I slip my hands onto my hips. “You know me.”
“After today, everyone knows you . . .” His curt bow is mocking, the savage curl of his mouth even more so. “Your Highness.”
“They don’t, not really. But clearly you seem to think that you do.” Those green eyes flicker with awareness, then dart over his shoulder to look at John where he stands with the prime minister. Refusing to back down, I hold steady and ground my weight, half-expecting this mountain of a man to haul me over his shoulder and drop me at the prince’s feet like prized loot from a hard-fought battle. “Are you my new keeper?” I demand. “Sent over here to make sure that I don’t run out on my new husband?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Then maybe”—I touch a finger to his cuff—“you ought to take better care to hide that knife before I start thinking it’s a threat.”
Nostrils flaring, he jerks hard on his sleeve to shield the blade from view. “A spine of steel, he wanted. Looks like he chose the right bride, after all.”
John may have chosen the right bride, but I wear his ring only because I had no other option. From the moment Father strode into the Royal Box, marriage became the only outcome. The earl, the king, the prince all decided my fate before I even had the chance to drape my silk skirts back over my knees and rise to my feet. I’ve spent the last twenty-one days shouting into a void.
Unheard. Unseen.
Ignored.
Heart thudding with fury, I step to the right for a second time. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to have a discussion with my hus—”
An unrelenting hand wraps around my bicep. “No.”
The sensation of his calloused palm on my bare skin threatens to unmoor me. I allowed John’s touch because I asked for it, wanted it, even. But whereas the prince brought me pleasure, this man reeks of the same self-indulgent dominance that Father has laid at my doorstep for years now.
I lift my gaze to a pair of eyes so green, so unearthly, I’m surprised that I don’t turn to stone beneath their scrutiny. Refusing to draw any more attention than we already have, I cut him a swift, patronizing glance. “Release me or I’ll take that blade of yours and shove it so far deep in your gut, you’ll feel it in your spine.”
“Of all the woman in the world,” he murmurs, lowering his head so that our eyes are level, “he would choose you.”
“You disapprove?”
“I like my women submissive.” The hand on my bicep sinks downward to grasp my elbow, and his thumb finds soft flesh that cedes under the slight pressure. “Compliant.” At my startled hiss, he smooths the pad of his thumb in a small, taunting circle. “Biddable.”
“Then get a dog.”
He blinks.
And then the curve of his mouth deepens with jaded amusement.
“That brash tongue is bound to land you in trouble.”
I stiffen. “If you’re implying that you’ll be the one to dole out my punishment—”
“Your husband doesn’t share.” The stranger brings his lips to my ear and a shiver . . . Dear God, a shiver streaks down my spine at his nearness. “No, Your Highness,” he husks, rubbing his thumb back and forth across my sensitive flesh, “the man you married will mete out your punishment. Down on your knees or splayed out across his lap. Either way, your arse will be bare, your wrists bound. You’ll feel each lash of his palm against your skin, grow to fucking crave it. And if you’re anything like the others, well . . .”
Air comes fast and thin through my nose. “Well, what?” I whisper.
“You’ll beg.”
As if I’ve stuck a finger in an electrical socket, my entire being jolts to life at the roughly uttered words coming from a man who’s nothing but a stranger. It’s madness that turns my head so that I can meet his bold stare and it’s madness that drives the impulsive words from my tongue: “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Seeing me humbled and broken and desperate for approval from the man who married me?”
I twist my arm out of his grasp and plant my left palm on his chest, my newly ringed finger splayed directly over his heart.
The organ beats as fast mine.
No, it beats even harder.
His lips part, and the puff of breath that strikes my mouth is jagged with stifled aggression. Strong fingers encircle my wrist, squeezing with just enough force that my own fingers curl reflexively into my palm. “I would love nothing more,” he growls tightly, never severing eye contact, “than to watch you fall.”
I sneer at him, all teeth. “Then read my lips when I say this—I don’t beg. I will never beg. And if you watch anything at all, it’ll be the moment when I ban you from ever entering—”
“Take your hands off my wife, Henry.”
Chapter Ten
John
Murder streaks through my veins.
And yet I battle down the metallic rush, shoving it deep, before I do something rash in the middle of my own wedding reception—like plow my fist into my best mate’s face in front of the six-hundred guests packed inside Buckingham Palace’s ballroom.
With tension heavy in my limbs, I keep my expression perfectly neutral. “You will let my wife go,” I utter quietly, for Henry only, “and meet me in my study. Do you understand?”
“John—”
“The correct answer is yes.”
His jaw cinches tight, his gaze bouncing from me to Blanche. It doesn’t return to me. “Of course, Your Highness.” The stern line of his mouth turns up in a hollow smile, and he dips his head in a derisive nod. “Twenty minutes.”
Without another word, he turns on his heel and disappears into the thick crowd.
The ghost of him, however, lingers like a hand wrapped neatly around my throat. Potent. Suffocating.
Goddamn you, Henry.
I shove a closed fist into the pocket of my trousers. “I’ll take care of him,” I tell Blanche, even though she’s barely spared me a second look since Henry walked away.
Until now, that is.
Cool amber eyes land on my face. “I don’t even know who he is.”
I could pour over a dictionary, front to back, and still never find a way to describe my connection to Henry Godwin. Bodyguard. Friend. Lover. How do you settle on a single word to describe the other half of your soul?
That man loves you in ways that you will never return.
I can’t . . . Christ, I can’t stay here. In this ballroom stuffed to the gills with the world’s most influential people all hoping for a word with me, the Prince of Wales. In this damned city that expects me to put King and Country before heart and soul every day of my fucking life when all I want to do is breathe.
“Two hours.”
Blanche blinks up at me. “Sorry?”
“I’m giving you two hours to round up whatever you need and then we’re leaving.”
“But we weren’t supposed to . . .” Her elegant fingers flutter at the collar of her satin gown, and the sight of her wedding band scrapes a hundred different emotions through my chest. Possession. Lust. Fear. She visibly swallows. “The honeymoon isn’t scheduled for another week. Did you have the itinerary changed?”
More like I’ve decided to set the itinerary on fire and watch it burn.
Aware of the countless eyes that follow my every move, I touch my fingers to the back of Blanche’s hand and gently turn it over. Her skin is like silk, so goddamned smooth that I want to rake my teeth over the shadow of her veins just to prove that she’s mortal.
Just like me.
Instead, I fall into the role that I’ve held for twenty-seven years now—the consummate gentleman, just like Prince Phillip in Sleeping Beauty—and drop a soft kiss to the inside of her wrist. Beneath the hum of the orchestra and the chime of raucous laughter, I hear my wife’s sharp intake of breath, feel it reverberate against my lips like a hymn.
“Two hours,” I tell her, squeezing her hand before letting go, “and not a minute longer.”
Her teeth sink down into the pillow of her lower lip. “And where exactly are you taking me?”
Home.
“Scotland. I’m taking you to Scotland.”
I find Henry leaning against my desk, ankles crossed, with a filched cigarette clamped between his lips. At the sight of me, he takes a long drag like he needs the fortitude to have this conversation.
He’s not the only one.
Immediately, I head for the sideboard and pour three fingers of whisky into a crystal tumbler. No ice. I down it in one go, welcoming the burn of spice and amber smoke. Then, and only then, do I turn to face the man who has been by my side for seventeen long years.
“We can’t do this anymore,” I say.
His rugged features don’t even twitch.
“Did you hear me, Henry? We can’t do this anymore.”
“I was giving you time to speak with the prime minister.” Lowering his gaze to his polished leather shoes, he takes another pull off the fag. “You’ve been angling to discuss the Criminal Law Act with him, and I made sure that you—”
“Lie to the rest of the world,” I growl, “but never to me.”
The broad line of his shoulders hitch, and I feel that hard breath catch in own my lungs. Damn it all to hell. I plow my fingers through my hair. Tug restlessly on the strands while Henry maintains stubborn, unbreachable silence. It pains me, this growing distance between us. Guts me and leaves me with only a sense of mounting dread.
“Say something, Godwin.”
He taps the cigarette on the ash tray that I always keep around for him. “You don’t want to hear what I have to say. Trust me.”
“You think that I can’t handle the truth?”
“I think,” he replies, his low baritone edged with bitterness, “that the truth will bury you.”
“Don’t be vague.”
Hard, cynical laughter tears from his throat. “You don’t even know the meaning of the word. You live a life where the whole world falls at your feet. They pander to you, their beloved prince, and I—” Almost viciously, his green eyes cut to mine and I feel the force of his fury like a lash breaking virgin flesh. “The truth is waiting in the shadows while you charm every person with a goddamn pulse. The truth is watching a closed door while I’m forced to listen to breathy moans and that sound you make just before you come. The fucking truth, John, is that I had to stand aside this morning as you promised to love and cherish someone who isn’t me!”
Vision blurring, the room swims in a kaleidoscope of sunlight, spilling in through stained-glass windows, and a vibrant green that seeks to drive me to my knees. Unable to stand upright, I stumble away from the naked vulnerability in his expression.
My spine collides with the wall.
Henry doesn’t soften or bend when I breathe his name. With an impersonal twist of his fingers, he puts out the lit cigarette in the metal ash tray. Then his feet begin to move in my direction. Once step, then another. Two more. The backs of my shoes tap the baseboard and oxygen turns sparse when he stops before me, lifts his muscled arms beside my head, and claps his hands down on the wall.
“I wanted to meet your lovely bride,” he says with his nose a hairsbreadth away from mine. “I wanted to stand before the woman who’ll be your queen and see for myself what drove you to say I do.”
“The king demanded that I marry.”
He smacks his palm against the wall so hard that my eyes involuntarily slam shut. “Don’t lie—isn’t that what you just fucking told me?”
The truth will devastate him.
No, worse. The truth will destroy us.
It’s easier to place the blame on my father. The king demanded that I take a wife, so I found a woman to bear me an heir. The king told me that I marry by month’s end, so I stood before a thousand guests and pledged my body and soul to a bride. The king told me to give up Henry, and so I thrust my best mate aside without thinking twice about how it would ruin him.
Easy.
So. Bloody. Easy.
But the truth?
It’s hard, messy. Crippling.
Because I’ve never been a coward, I let the back of my head hit the wall as I open my eyes. Henry hasn’t moved. He invades my space like he owns every bit of air that I dare to draw into my lungs. The scrape of his blunt nails against plaster is all I need to know that he’s grappling for control—and failing.
“If I didn’t just meet her, I may have believed you. But I did, and you know what I saw?” Perpetually bruised knuckles fill my vision a second before he grazes them over my jaw. The gesture is tender; the rage brewing in his green irises is not. “I saw a woman who fears no one, not even a prince. I saw a soul starved for love, and I hate—” Hot air wafts over my chin as he gives a rough laugh. “I fucking hate that when I cornered her, I saw the seeds of a queen who’ll bend this country to her will, and all because she dares to fight when all expect her to break.”
The woman has claws.
Even now, the memory of Blanche fisting my hair as she lowered my face to her cunt is enough to stir my cock. For weeks I’ve dreamt of the Royal Opera, of what might have happened if I’d dragged her off the velvet armchair to straddle my hips instead of stroking myself to orgasm like a pubescent boy.
You know what would have happened.
Ah, Christ, but I do.
I would have ground her against me, her bare pussy drenching my length as I worked her against my erection, back and forth, just to see her tremble with need. I would have rolled her onto all fours, then forced her to watch the ballet while I fucked her from behind, my fingers anchoring her hips to me for every punishing thrust. Depraved. Wicked. Every cry that peeled from her lips, every moan that I silenced with my palm, would have been heaven for a man who’s spent the last twenty-seven years chained to the expectations of wearing a crown.
The king may have demanded that I marry but I chose Blanche for me.
Heat washes over my skin, only for guilt to follow swiftly on its heels. I don’t want Henry to see the truth. Fucking hell, I don’t want to saddle him with any more pain than I’ve already unwittingly caused.
“She’ll make a good wife,” I mutter, feeding the lie with a decisiveness that rings false, even to my own ears. I’m sure Blanche will be a brilliant partner, but it’s not why I proposed. It’s not what’s kept me up at night for three weeks and counting, my hand clasped around my cock. “A protective mother, too.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“Henry, just—”
“Spit out the words, John. Say them.”
No.
Tightening my jaw, I shake my head.
The rage glimmering in his gaze banks, like a fire ruthlessly dampened by an unexpected storm. Then, “I’m bringing in Guthram. Today.”
It takes a full thirty seconds for his words to register. Although it’s not the first time that Henry has recruited some of the younger Holyrood agents to step in for training with him, he’s never done so on such short notice. And he’s certainly never sprung the news on their start date.
Trying to unscramble my brain, I scrub a hand over my mouth. “Then you’ll need to get him ready quickly. I’m taking Blanche to Edinburgh, and I won’t wait around for—”
“You misunderstand me.”
Something in his tone turns the blood in my veins to ice. And when I look him in the eye, it’s as if he’s bowled me over with a right hook.
Regret. Grief. Resolve.
It all darts across his hardened features, one after another like a streak of lightning in a midnight sky. The strength in my legs weakens, but, somehow, I remain standing. Barely. “What are you saying?”
Guiltily, he averts his gaze.
“Henry,” I rasp, feeling a sharp ache burrow beneath my skin, “don’t do this.”
“Robert Guthram is young, but he’s got fire and a drive that’s unmatched.” The muscle in his jaw pulses, big hands flexing down at his sides as he steps back. “You won’t catch him chasing pussy, not when he’s on the job, and he’s scored damn-near perfect on everything that we’ve thrown his way in the last two years. He’s ready.”
“I won’t have anyone but you.”
“Unfortunately, Your Highness, I’m no longer available.”
Slowly, my palm finds its way to my chest. I rub the pectoral muscle with a firm hand, desperate to kickstart my heart when I’m pretty sure that the damned thing has stopped ticking. “You can’t quit on me.”
“I won’t watch you fall in love with her, John.”
Blood roars in my ears, a shrieking wail that muffles everything but the sound of my ratcheting anxiety. Thud-thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud. “I won’t fall in—”
“You will.” He moves backward, just a half-step, but I feel the distance like a knife raked over my spine. “Only, this time,” he says gruffly, “I refuse to be a shadow waiting for a scrap of hope. I won’t stand outside your bedroom door, bound by an oath to protect you, when every second tears at my fucking heart. And I won’t be the man who pressures you into breaking a vow, just so you can be mine for the length of time that it takes for you to come down my throat.”
I can’t speak.
Fucking hell, I don’t even think that I can breathe.
Between the two of us, I’ve always been the one to take control in my fist and bend Henry Godwin to my will. But it’s with a sharp rendering in the vicinity of my dead, useless heart that I realize I’ve sunk to my knees, a beggar prostrating before his lord. The thought of him leaving . . . Panic overrides all rhyme or reason, and I hear myself snarl, “I could have you removed from Holyrood, no matter who the fuck your family is to the Crown.”
“You could.”
When he doesn’t rise to the bait, the panic morphs into something uglier. Terror. “I could strip you of everything—your wealth, your freedom. Everything you are belongs to me. And if I decide to throw you in prison for treason, there’ll be nothing you can do to stop me.”
Those green eyes glitter with resentment as they skate down the length of me. “Good men don’t wield power like arrogant, godless bastards. I taught you that—or did you forget?”
He did.
Everything I am, everything I’ve become, has been shaped by him.
Seventeen years of staring into Henry Godwin’s rugged face and knowing that I don’t stand alone. Seventeen years of friendship and brotherhood and, more recently, the kind of lust that leaves you limp and satisfied and sticky with sweat. There is no John without Henry, no prince without his spy, no mercy to be found without his conscience.
“Don’t walk out that door.” Mouth dry, throat working, I shove to my feet. “Don’t you dare fucking walk out that door without me.”
“I’ve always put you first, but this . . .” He walks backward, his muscled limbs tensing like it takes every scrap of self-restraint to drive himself away from me. “I can’t do it, John. And if you care for me at all, you won’t ask it of me.”
I try to draw air into my lungs.
I try to find compassion in my heart for the man who has owned half of my soul since I was ten years old, completely friendless, and instantly curious about the grim-faced teenager assigned to watch over me.
When his fingers grasp the doorknob, intent on escape, I break with a haggard whisper. “What’s happened to us?”
He pauses at the grit in my voice. “You know what happened.”
“Give me the words.” I swallow, roughly. “I want to hear you say them.”
A flush works its way across his cheeks. But he doesn’t slouch in embarrassment and he doesn’t tear his gaze away from my face. Like a knight facing down his final foe on the battlefield, he stands there with his chin tilted north and his shoulders thrown back. And when he gives me his confession, it’s both sweet and tragic, all at once:
“I fell in love with a prince. Only, in this fairy tale, there is no happily ever after.”
__________
Duh-duh-duhhhhh. More will be coming next week!
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