Chapter 39: He Has Not Yet Rung
Livia nodded once more, the word yes forming easily on her lips even as her mind spun with everything that could go wrong.
Tomorrow night loomed large and uncertain. Would she hold him? Would she fail? Would she try too hard, too obviously, and watch him pull away again?
Or would she stop trying altogether, undone by his hands, his voice?
*****
Princess Madeleine, following Sophia’s advice, dressed before sunrise and made her way to the king’s apartments while most of Whitehall still lingered in that grey hush between night and morning. She had chosen her gown carefully: elegant, soft in color, impossible to call vulgar, but tailored well enough that no man with functioning eyes could mistake the effect. Her hair had been arranged, it took entirely too much effort to achieve. Sophia had insisted this was the better strategy. No threats, no killing.
Madeleine was not entirely convinced beauty had ever been enough for men, but she was willing to try.
The corridors were quiet as she approached the king’s chamber, save for the distant shuffle of servants beginning their day and the faint crackle of torches surrendering to morning light.
She found Stephen stationed near the entrance.
"My lady." Stephen bowed at once, proper and composed as ever.
"I would like to see the king."
Stephen straightened, and Madeleine immediately disliked the look of resistance that settled over his face. "He has not yet rung, my lady. It means His Majesty is not awake. I am also waiting for his call."
Madeleine glanced toward the closed door, then back at him. "I think this is the perfect time for me to see him, then."
"My lady," he said carefully, "protocol—"
"Protocol," Madeleine cut in, "is a convenient word men use when they wish women to stay where they are put."
Stephen kept his expression neutral.
"Stand aside, Stephen."
"I cannot, my lady."
Madeleine drew herself up. Two weeks. Two weeks of smiling through dinners, enduring the queen mother’s veiled insults, and waiting for Henry to act as though marriage to her were more than a diplomatic suggestion gathering dust in some council chamber. And now she was being denied by a servant at a doorway.
"Well, I am going to walk past you into the king’s chamber," Madeleine said, "and I assure you, if any one of you lays a finger on me, you will answer not only to this court, but to France as well. Have I made myself clear?"
Stephen felt the miserable sensation of a man who had just discovered a problem far above his rank, salary, and desire to remain employed. One did not manhandle a princess. One also did not permit unannounced entry into the king’s private apartments. Between those two facts stood Stephen, who briefly considered whether feigning sudden death might be an acceptable professional choice.
Instead, he gave the smallest nod to the guards. Madeleine took it as victory at once. She swept past him, and pushed open the doors.
The king’s chamber lay in the pale half-light of early morning, the shutters not yet fully opened, the fire in the hearth burned low to red-gold embers. Heavy curtains enclosed the great bed, though not entirely, and there Henry was, one arm flung carelessly across the coverlet.
How easy it must be, she thought bitterly, to rest so peacefully when everyone else bent themselves into knots around your indecision.
Very quietly, she loosened her cloak and let it slip from her shoulders to the floor. Then she crossed to the bed and slipped beneath the coverlet beside him, moving slowly enough not to startle him awake.
Madeleine turned toward him and let her fingers rest lightly against his chest. Henry stirred.
A low hum escaped him, no more than the sound of someone drifting between dreams and consciousness. Madeleine ran her fingers down his naked torso, brushing on his abs for a bit before reaching further down, fingers tracing the outline of his cock through his pants.
He moved slightly on the pillow, mouth parting. Then, more audibly this time, with the rough softness of a man not yet awake, Henry sighed.
"Livia... God..."
He smacked his lips faintly, still lost to sleep. Madeleine’s brows rose sharply.
Livia?
Who the hell was Livia?
A woman’s name. Some other woman occupied his thoughts.
The audacity of it.
A hot, furious pride rose in her chest and washed away whatever caution she had brought with her.
If another woman could haunt his dreams, then Madeleine would make herself impossible to ignore in waking.
With a suddenness born less of seduction than temper, she pulled her dress over her head, got to her knees and straddled him, the movement abrupt enough to disturb the mattress and drag him fully toward consciousness.
Henry’s eyes opened.
For a moment he only blinked, dazed and disoriented, still caught halfway between dream and waking.
"Madeleine?" he said at last, confusion cutting through the last haze of sleep.
"Your Highness..." She had imagined this differently. In her mind he would awaken at once to admiration, to hunger, to the simple inevitability of her presence.
"What..." He stopped, glanced toward the chamber doors, hoping this might somehow be a very elaborate misunderstanding, then looked back at her. "What are you doing?"
She caught his wrists and pressed his hands insistently against her breasts, forcing intimacy where none had yet been offered.
"What does it look like?" she asked.
"I..." His voice faltered from genuine bewilderment. "I do not understand. Why are you here?"
"I am to be your queen," she said. "And I have needs."
Henry’s eyes widened so suddenly that, Madeleine thought they might truly leave his face altogether.
"Nothing is set in stone yet," he said, the last dregs of sleep gone at once. "Which is precisely why you should not be here."
His hands caught her by the waist and lifted her aside, setting her back against the bed rather than beneath him or against him or in any of the positions her pride had imagined.