Chapter 3: The Mistress and the Ghost of a Princess
The fire in James’s chambers had burned down to a red-gold heap of ash, but he felt no cold. Only a restless, prickling heat beneath his skin. The silence after his own command—lock your door—still rang in his ears. He’d issued it like an order to a subordinate, but the taste of her, the fierce, unyielding pressure of her mouth on his, lingered like a stain no wine could wash away.
He poured another whisky, the sharp peat-smoke scent doing nothing to clear his head. The tapestry of the Scottish lion seemed to watch him, its embroidered eyes accusatory. Tomorrow, he would stand before God and country and bind himself to the English princess. To her defiant eyes and sharp tongue. To the political knot that would either secure his border or strangle him.
He needed to cleave himself from the last remnant of a simpler time. He needed a final, clean break.
“Send for Lady Mary,” he said to the shadows where his manservant waited. “Tell her to come quietly.”
She arrived like a phantom, a cloak of dark wool over her nightshift, her blonde hair loose. Lady Mary Ross knew the passages of Edinburgh Castle as well as any rat. Her face, usually soft with affection, was set in hard, understanding lines.
“So,” she said, letting the cloak drop to the floor. The fine linen of her shift was transparent in the firelight, outlining the full curves of her body—a body he knew intimately. “The last night of freedom.”
“Don’t,” he said, his voice flat.
“Don’t what? Call it what it is?” She stepped closer, the scent of lavender and female warmth cutting through the whisky. “You’re sealing the tomb tomorrow, James. Let’s not pretend otherwise.”
Her hands went to the laces of his breeches, her movements practiced, efficient. There was no seduction in it, only a grim finality. He let her push the fabric down his hips, his own hands hanging at his sides. His cock, heavy and half-hard, stirred in the cool air. A physiological response, disconnected from his mind.
She guided him to the bed, a massive thing of dark wood and fur throws. She pushed him onto his back and climbed over him, hiking her shift up around her waist. No words now. Her eyes were dark pools of resentment and a familiar, desperate hunger.
She took him inside her in one smooth, sinking motion. She was wet, ready—a courtesy, he knew, not passion. She began to move, a steady, grinding rhythm of hips, her hands braced on his chest. Her head fell back, a curtain of honey-blonde hair swinging.
James stared at the canopy above. He felt the tight, welcome heat of her, the friction, but it was a distant thing. Like hearing a battle from far away. He placed his hands on her hips, their movement mechanical. Her breath came faster, little gasps that filled the quiet room. Her nails dug into the muscle of his chest, scoring red lines.
He closed his eyes.
The blonde hair in his mind’s eye darkened to a rich, almost black cascade. The soft, accommodating gasps sharpened, becoming breathy, defiant moans bitten back behind clenched teeth. He saw not Mary’s pliant body, but Kate’s arched back, resisting even in surrender. He saw the challenge in those intoxicating blue eyes, the flash of temper, the shocking vulnerability when Howard had intruded. His hands on her hips tightened, imagining the feel of Kate’s narrower waist, the tense strength in her thighs.
Mary’s pace became frantic, desperate. “James,” she whimpered, seeking a connection that wasn’t there.
Beneath his lids, it was Katherine he was fucking. Katherine, pinned beneath him, her sharp tongue silenced by his mouth. Katherine, taking him with that same furious passion she’d shown in the kiss, a battle woven into the act itself. The fantasy coiled his gut tight, a fierce, unspeakable heat building in his core that had nothing to do with the woman actually riding him.
His control snapped. With a rough growl that was all frustration and self-loathing, he surged upward, his release tearing through him. He spilled inside her, his hips bucking, driving deep as the pulses racked him.
In the blind, shuddering peak, as the pleasure-pain ripped through the numbness, a name escaped him on a hot, ragged breath. He whispered it against the hollow of her throat, a sacred curse.
“Katherine.”
The word hung in the air.
Mary went utterly still atop him. The only sound was their ragged breathing, the crackle of the dying fire.
Slowly, she pulled back. She looked down at him, her face a mask of shattering clarity. The sheen of sweat on her skin glistened. The disgust in her eyes was immediate, total, and colder than the castle stone.
She climbed off him, letting her shift fall. The physical connection severed, a damp, ugly truth left between them.
“You bastard,” she said, her voice quiet and venomous. “You utter fucking bastard.”
He said nothing, already retreating behind the wall of his own shame.
“All this time,” she continued, gathering her cloak with stiff, jerky movements. “I was just a warm hole to you. I knew that. But to be her ghost? To have you spend inside me while thinking of that… that English cunt?”
She spat the last words, her cultured grace gone.
James sat up, pulling his breeches up, avoiding her eyes. The room felt foul, tainted.
“Get out, Mary.”
She laughed, a brittle, broken sound. “Oh, I’m going. Enjoy your political whore, Your Highness. I hope she fucking gutters you.”
She was gone, leaving only the faint scent of lavender and sex, and the echoing curse.
James stood alone in the center of his chamber. The emptiness was absolute. He looked at his hands, then at the empty flask. He had sought numbness, a final taste of a uncomplicated flesh. Instead, he had found only a deeper, more intricate entanglement. The ghost of Princess Katherine Tudor was already in his bed, between him and any other woman, and he had just proven it to himself in the most visceral way possible.
Tomorrow, the ghost would become flesh. And he had no idea if he wanted to strangle it or worship it.