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I do not own Merlin or the characters, neither do I own Wicked In Your Arms.
Arthur stared at the closed door that Miss Gwen Davies had departed through as if the hounds of hell were on her heels.
He scratched his jaw in bemusement...
'Gwen, Gwen, Gwen...'
He let the name roll around in his head. What kind of name was that anyway?
He could visualize his grandfather grimacing at the sound of it. It was so very...common. Not like Igraine. Or Catherine. Those were queenly names... Names all of former Camelotian queens.
He caught his blurry reflection in a mirror and scowled. Why was he even thinking about her name?
He stared at the door again, imagining the swish of her skirts as she fled the room. And why wouldn't she flee him?
He'd been his most boorish towards her. But there was no help for it. She was an exceedingly unsuitable female, no matter how interesting he found her.
The best thing to do, was send her running.
He rose from the bed and strolled aimlessly about the chamber to give her several more moments to find her way back to the ballroom, before following.
It would not do to be spotted too closely in her wake.
What he'd said was true... Wagging tongues wouldn't harm him.
But what he hadn't said, was that he did not wish for her to become fodder for the gossip mill.
He imagined, with her shady pedigree she already endured a fair share of censure.
And contrary to what he'd shown of himself, he did possess a heart. Even if only a small, charred bit of one.
It was the only thing left of him after the last ten years of war... Years of watching his family and comrades die all around him, and his kingdom dwindle and wither like something rotting on a vine.
He needed to make a good match... It was as simple as that. It wasn't a matter of want... This needed to be done.
Unbidden, the image of Miss Davies rose in his mind once again...
He saw her flushed cheeks when she'd stumbled from the armoire, and a smile pulled at the corners of his mouth.
She was quite correct in her accusations... He had not needed to touch her so intimately.
He hadn't needed to, though he had. But he'd been unable to stop himself.
She smelled of brisk, wild winds and verdant hills. She reminded him of home. The hills and mountains of Camelot.
And her skin had been as soft as silk. His fingers twitched at his side in memory.
However, the smile slipped from his mouth as he carried that memory further.
She'd rebuffed him. True, he'd not been his most charming, but his crown alone usually had women throwing themselves at him.
He shook his head as if to clear it of thoughts of her... This was frustrated desire, nothing more. She plagued him because his tryst with Lady Barclay had been interrupted.
He was simply suffering from unfulfilled lust. Nothing more.
There was nothing about Gwen that would normally attract him... She was not at all his sort of woman.
Not her sun-browned skin, not her waspish tongue, and especially not the unfortunate circumstances of her birth.
These all combined to make her a female beneath his notice. At the least, she should be far from his consideration.
Some English nobleman in need of funds might deem her acceptable, but not a future king of Camelot.
And yet, she had his full notice...
She was precisely the sort he'd put up as his mistress and keep in one of the family's seaside estates, a safe distance from court... If he was here to find a mistress.
Rather...if she would entertain such an offer.
He knew his duty. He would not fail. He'd find the perfect bride. One to fill his coffers and fill the nursery. A female who would breathe life back into his kingdom.
The needs of his heart or body did not bear consideration.
"Well, let's hear it. How was your evening? Anything interesting to report?"
Gwen covered her yawn with her hand and stared bleary-eyed at her father, a man she had only recently come to know.
The faint tinge of dawn painted the air that crept in through the carriage curtains. Now she understood why the echelons of Society slept the day away...
They didn't fall into bed until sunrise.
Her father didn't look the least tired as he gazed at her with bright, expectant eyes. No, in fact he looked invigorated after a night spent with the aristocrats among whose ranks he so badly wanted to be counted.
She frowned...
Enough so that he suddenly decided his illegitimate offspring was worth acknowledging.
However, Gwen glanced at her half sister. If either of them could gain this man access to that glittering world he desired through their marriage, then they were suddenly worth something in his eyes.
She was no fool though... She didn't look to the older man seated across from her and anticipate he would harbour a soft spot for her.
Essentially he'd bought her presence in his life. He hadn't been struck with sudden tender feelings for the daughters he never knew. She accepted that.
And she, in turn, would never hold a warm place for him in her heart, either. Because his love was not something she had spent her life missing.
She'd had a father... The man her mother married after Reginald Davies had tossed her aside... The man she had called Papa.
He'd comforted her and shielded her as best he could from the cruel world that would punish a child for being illegitimate.
Her mother's husband had taught her to ride and fish and shoot. He'd never treated her like another man's daughter. He'd treated her like his own.
She rubbed fiercely at the center of her chest, feeling a pang there at the memory of her Papa. He'd been gone almost three years, but she still missed him.
If he was still alive, she was certain she would not find herself here, sitting in a carriage with Reginald Davies, complicit in his scheme to see her wedded to some blueblood and convinced that it was the answer to all her troubles.
"Well?" her father prompted. "Tell me. Who did you charm this night?" He rubbed his thick hands together as if she had already succeeded in snaring an aristocrat.
Gwen turned at the sound of her sister's sigh...
Elizabeth managed a wan smile for her even as she slumped against the side of the carriage, waiting for her to take the lead as she usually did with their father.
In the month they'd resided with him it had been a constant whirlwind of routs, balls, fittings with the modiste and nights at the opera.
They'd scarcely had time to breathe between each event.
Her father, too, was apparently waiting on her. He said her name with heavy emphasis,
"Gwen? Have you nothing to report about tonight?"
He'd made his expectations clearly felt. As the oldest, she should wed first.
"The evening went well," she lied.
"Well?" His lips puckered around the word as if it was something distasteful.
"Yes. Very...fine," she amended.
"Fine?" He frowned, spitting the word out. "Merely...fine? That doesn't sound very heartening. Did you win no hearts tonight? I thought you wanted to snare a husband, my girl. A fine evening doesn't sound like you were working towards gaining a proposal."
Gwen looked helplessly at her sister, who arched an eyebrow as if to remind her, that she did spend a good portion of the night hiding behind a fern.
Moistening her lips, Gwen finally said,
"It's not as easy as you think. Most members of the ton find our lineage less than impressive."
Her father waved a thick, meaty paw...
"Nonsense. I've made it clear the extent of the dowry placed on each of your heads."
'Your heads,' Gwen thought. Like they were scurrilous outlaws.
"Since your sister Matilda married that partner of mine, I've withheld her share, so there's more for the two of you. I've made that known as well. Trust me, there's plenty of interest out there. Just make yourself obliging and you'll have a proposal within the fortnight." His eyes narrowed ruthlessly and she was reminded of what her father was... He'd made his wealth through crime and at the misery of others. "Unless you aren't obliging. Unless you don't want to be here..."
"I'll be obliging," she replied, feeling oddly hollow inside at the bitter realization that she had to do very little to attract a husband.
If her father was to be believed, she need merely be obliging and she'd soon have a proposal. Her father did it all, everything, by offering a king's ransom to the man who would marry her.
It was humiliating when considered in that light.
Unbidden, she lifted her gaze back to her sister and read some of the same disillusionment in her gaze. They were sacrificing any hope or any dream of a man marrying them for them.
For affection.
For love.
Unwanted, the image of Prince Arthur rose in her mind. At least he'd been attracted to her. Even if his manner had been wholly offensive, he'd made no attempt to hide that he'd found her desirable.
Could she even expect that from her future husband?
She sighed and closed her eyes, pressing at the backs of her eyelids with her fingertips, where they ached.
Yes, Gwen could freely admit, that the rewards would be great if she should snare a husband... She'd have respectability, security, comfort in home and hearth, and in knowing a roof would forever be over her head.
Having lived on the brink of poverty and hunger, she and Elizabeth both knew that these things were essential in life. And they did not take such things for granted.
"I'll be more obliging next time," she promised, meaning it. She had agreed to this venture. So she might as well go about it in earnest. No more dragging her feet.
"Very good. I expect to see an improvement." Her father nodded. "We leave tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" Elizabeth sat up straighter, suddenly alert. "For where?"
Mr. Davies puffed up his chest a bit.
"The Dowager Duchess of Sussex has graciously invited us to her country seat for a week. Along with a few other feted guests. It's a great honour. Not many among the ton are gifted with an invitation to a house party at Pemberton Manor."
'A house party? There would be no escape this time,' Gwen thought. She swallowed... She wouldn't be able to hide behind potted plants or in her rooms for the week.
A small shudder racked her before she summoned her resolve once again. This was for the best. She was no coward. She'd set herself on this course, and she'd see it through.
Her father pointed a finger at each of them...
"I expect one of you to snare the youngest grandson, the viscount. And while we're there, it wouldn't hurt to focus some attention on the duke as well."
"You said the dowager told you he was not for us," Elizabeth reminded him as their carriage slowed before their father's Mayfair home. It was an obscenely large monstrosity that perfectly summed up the ambitions of Reginald Davies.
He shrugged...
"So, use your wiles. He's a red-blooded man." He waved at each of them. "He can just as easily fall for one of you as any other woman. You're more comely than some of those horse-faced hags the ton boasts, anyway."
A groom opened the door just then and Mr. Davies clambered down from the carriage. Then he strode up the steps and into the house, leaving them to descend the carriage with the help of a groom.
Arms linked, Gwen and her sister advanced up the steps side-by-side.
"It will be a small group," Elizabeth voiced, and Gwen wasn't certain who she was trying to reassure...her or herself. "No mad crush of another holiday ball or soiree."
"There is that," Gwen agreed.
"And we'll be away from town for an entire week," her sister ended.
A smile curled on Gwen's lips all the way up to her bedchamber. The thought of fresh air and trees and unfettered winds lifted her spirits.
She wouldn't have to visit Hyde Park for a ride on one of her father's placid mares. The next time she climbed atop a horse she would race the wind.
The breeze would tear at her eyes. And she'd feel the pins tug loose in her hair...
A short while later, a sleepy-looking maid arrived and helped her from her gown into her night rail. But when the girl offered to help her with her hair, Gwen waved her away, unaccustomed to being waited on hand and foot.
Sitting at her dressing table, she removed each pin one by one, until a mass of black hair fell past her shoulders.
She smiled at several curling wisps which framed her face, that refused to grow as long as the rest of her hair. Next, she ran her fingers through the thick strands, massaging her scalp.
Picking up her brush, she tackled her hair until it gleamed in the low glow of firelight. Then she paused, staring at her reflection... Even in the dim light, the brown freckles spattering her nose and cheeks stood out clear as day.
"So what if I'm brown?" she muttered to her reflection. Her tone was defensive, as if she was addressing one of the gossiping biddies from tonight who'd blatantly called her dusky.
It simply was, that all the ladies in the ton preferred a paleness usually reserved for the dead. While she liked colour in her skin.
"And I'm not old," she finished.
She set her brush down with a clack and climbed into bed, immediately sinking deep in the center of the soft mattress and wondering why thoughts of a certain prince still plagued her.
Her cheeks washed hot and cold at the memory of him...
The stolen moments in the wardrobe playing so vividly in her head.
It was almost as if he was right here beside her...
Whispering his taunts and touching her with hands that were far too bold and too callused to belong to a blue-blooded prince.
She'd never reacted to Thomas this way...
Rolling onto her side, Gwen allowed herself to think about her former employer, careful that she did not collide into any of the humiliation that usually accompanied thoughts of him.
He'd been her best friend since childhood, comfortable and constant. He'd even stood up to those who would bully her.
She thought that they would've spent the rest of their lives together...
His kisses had been nice...but apparently, that hadn't been desire. Not true desire. She recognized that now.
Because after what she'd felt tonight in that armoire, she knew she'd been wrong.
It was rather appalling when she considered the prince had not even truly kissed her. But her belly had never filled with butterflies before tonight.
And her lungs had never felt so tight she couldn't draw breath.
Her cheeks warmed as she imagined what an actual kiss from Prince Arthur would feel like.
So she curled into a small ball, drawing her legs tightly to her chest and let her imagination take over...
Gwen closed her eyes, visualizing Arthur's face as close as it had been earlier. Only in her mind his mouth closed over hers, his lips moved, caressed...
Her eyes flew open on a gasp...
She had no business entertaining such fantasies. Certainly not for a wicked man who thought her beneath his regard, save for a quick tryst.
Eyes wide, she stared around her bedchamber. And suddenly, the night loomed endlessly.
She watched as snow started to fall in fat wet flakes, licking at the windowpanes, so she rearranged the pillows behind her head and settled back.
Slipping a hand beneath her cheek, she watched the flurries of white outside her window, letting the sight block out everything, everyone...and especially her fleeting glimpse of Prince Arthur's smile.
Stay safe!