At the Queen's Summons by Susan Wiggs

Author:Susan Wiggs
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIRA
Published: 2009-09-27T04:00:00+00:00

She lay awake that night, trying as hard as she could to die of a broken heart. It wasn’t working. She was beginning to think these things happened only in tawdry love ballads.

Even when she pictured Aidan, glorious and mysterious as a dark angel, turning from her and leaving her cold, she could not will her heart to stop or to shatter or to do whatever it was hearts did when someone broke them.

When she thought of the way he had held her and whispered in her ear, when she remembered his intimate kisses and caresses, she wept, but she did not die.

She took out her brooch, fingering the warm gold as she thought about her plan to find her family. What a foolish notion, to fancy she could accomplish such a feat. Even her own mother had abandoned her. Why should Aidan be any different? And how could she have thought an Irish chieftain could love a girl off the streets?

By dawn she had decided that she was going to survive after all. The question was, what was she going to do with herself?

She got up and stepped over the clothes she had left in a heap on the floor. After Aidan had—What had he done? Made love to her? No, it was something more controlled and cold-blooded than that, for he had refused to give her the one thing she needed—his heart.

Just for a moment, he had opened a window into his heart. But before she could truly peer inside, he had closed back up, shunted her away.

“Damn your Irish eyes, Aidan O Donoghue,” she muttered, stepping into her petticoat and skirts. She could not avoid remembering the way he had helped her dress, laughing at the absurd complexities of Sassenach clothing. She tugged on her bodice, defiantly lacing it in front, and then she went to the basin and bathed her face in cool water.

In the stableyard, she found Iago. Just the sight of him, putting a horse through its paces, was a balm to her heart. He had become that rarest of treasures, a true friend.

He tugged at the lunge rein to stop the horse. “What happened to you?” he demanded. “You look terrible.”

“Thank you,” she said mockingly. “How very kind of you to point that out.”

He led the palfrey over to a drystone wall and tethered it. “You were with Aidan last night.”

“Yes.” To Iago, she could deny nothing. “But he…didn’t stay.”

The mare sidled restively. He patted her neck with a soothing hand. “Ah. I feared—” He suddenly seemed very interested in inspecting the horse’s bit.

“What?” She leaned her elbows on the rough wall and scowled down at him. “What do you fear?”

He took his time adjusting the bit. Then he regarded her with placid melancholy. “That Aidan’s conscience and his sense of duty would get the best of him. He ignores the call of his heart.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It is not my place to explain. Soon, we will all go back to Ireland. None of this will matter.

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