His amber eyes glowed in the light, Anne almost thought they were unnaturally beautiful. His fingers were slow in curling over her small palm, each finger bushing over her skin as if it were the first.
He leaned across the table, lips parted, eyes attentive, warm breath like a dawn skimming across her. The bodice that constricted her lungs was not the only cause for her small draws of air, catching. “My lord,” she breathed. He smiled in ownership.
“Yes,” he answered, accepting. His fingers traced the flat brocade of her dress. His thumb danced along the cut of her neckline, flirting with the edge and the gap between the cloth and two divided mounds of flesh hardly covered there.
The embroidery had been of his own choice—a gown for his mistress in his colors, suggesting the outline of lions on each side of her abdomen. A long drape of gold suited her, he thought. It matched her eyes, and offset her hair. From the first time he had seen her in the port of Calais, he knew she belonged better in Northumberland, but he liked it anyways. Her hints of action, of romance, of challenge were sequestered it seemed in the pools of her eyes. There was an element to every part of her he pursued with a pious devotion.
The court had forced every ethnicity out of her she had brought from Chelsea. The fear he had seen in her eyes, the first moment she spent in court was an expression that he never saw in her again. She was her father’s daughter. He, of course, paid dearly for his display of ferocity to the king in court—Daniel could not be sure she would not meet the same fate.
Anne had been a rare exception to Daniel’s rule about the ladies of the court—he wanted her. Ahh, yes, he wanted her like he had not wanted any other of those perfumed rich bodies. She did not want acceptance. She did not want pity. She wanted power. Power through ownership, and though being owned. She wanted it not because her line demanded it, but because she had earned it. He had been an allowance for her, also. She made him earn her love not through wringing of his hands and dulcet begging of her attention, but through brute strength. She watched him in her morning rides with the Queen, watching the group ride out for the hunt—he was the only one worth watching.
He did not promise great boars to the ladies, or works of boast, he only came back with his prizes for himself. She admired a man who did not lobby for love like a commoner for an audience, and when the first day she arrived he saw her watching her, laughing at her fear she swore it would be the last. She hadn’t known who he was. Only that he was right to laugh at her, but not for long.
Daniel’s fingers were lightly roving over the pale slopes of her breasts, idly brushing her flesh with his tenuous digits. His head bowed, his face was dipped over her bare shoulders. He nuzzled into her neck in sensual admiration.
“My darling,” he confirmed, to himself. The copper of her hair tangled with the earrings he had brought her. He moved the strands away with his lips, her body pressing against him. “If I asked you to wait for me…”
“No,” She said. He smiled. He knew she would say that. “I will not wait for you, my lord.” His head rose to rest his lips on the line of her chin. “I will welcome you when you arrive.” It was the only utterance he had come to hear her say. They were the most important words that he had ever earned.