The First Crown

Secrets in the Sunlight

Lilliana

The first touch was his hand on my thigh.

I gasped softly, the sound swallowed by the pillows, as his fingers traced higher, slow and unhurried, calloused and sure. His size loomed over me, his shoulders broad enough to block the morning light until it broke around him like a halo.

The early sun spilled through my bedchamber window, catching on the dark waves of his hair, gilding them as though dawn itself had been made to crown him. His jaw was shadowed, rough from the night, his mouth set in a line of aching focus as he looked down at me.

Gods, he was handsome all hard lines and quiet strength, the cut of his tunic stretched across a chest I’d once only dared imagine. His thighs bracketed mine, solid and warm, caging me in place without cruelty but with the unmistakable promise that there was no escape not that I wanted one.

When his fingers brushed higher still, my breath stuttered, the heat of him pressing into me through the thin space between our bodies. I thought, wildly, that no sculpture or courtly song could have captured him as he was now all that power bent only to me.

“Reade,” I breathed, almost a plea.

He smiled against my neck, his mouth warm as he kissed the hollow beneath my jaw. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, voice rough and reverent. “Do you know how I think of you? How you haunt me?”

I shivered. His hand slipped higher, parting my thighs. The world shrank to the press of his chest against mine, to the ragged sound of our breathing, to the unbearable ache that had lived inside me since the first night under the apple trees.

When his fingers slid where I ached for him, I moaned into the pillow. His other hand caught my hip, holding me still as he kissed down my throat, my collarbone, slow and consuming, until the tension coiled so tight inside me I thought I would break.

“Let go,” he whispered against my skin, and when I did, it was like falling and flying at once. I clutched at his shoulders, trembling, the sunlight too bright, the world too much... And then it was gone.

I blinked hard, my breath still ragged, my body shuddering with the echoes of something that had never happened. The bed was empty. My hands were fisted in the sheets, not his shirt. The only sound was my own unsteady breathing.

Heat flooded my cheeks as the full weight of what I’d done or rather, what I’d imagined sank in.

“What is wrong with me?” I whispered to the empty room, though the small, secret smile tugging at my mouth told me I knew exactly what was wrong. Or right.

I bathed and dressed slowly, still warm and languid, the memory of the fantasy making my fingers clumsy at the ties of my gown. When I finally descended to the solar, Evelyne was lounging in a shaft of light like a cat, filing her nails.

She glanced up, one brow arching delicately. “You look positively radiant this morning,” she said, her tone sly but amused. “Did you discover a new prayer to the saints?”

Maren snorted from where she sat cross-legged by the hearth, plaiting her hair. “She’s been walking around like that for days. Smiling at nothing, humming when she thinks no one’s listening.”

My heart skipped, but I only smiled and moved to the window seat. “I’ve just been happy. Is that so strange?”

“Yes,” Maren said bluntly. “It’s strange when you don’t tell anyone why.”

Evelyne’s grin widened, sharp as a fox’s. “Secrets, sister?”

I forced a laugh, though my cheeks were warm. “Not all thoughts are meant to be shared.”

“That’s what people say right before they do something scandalous,” Evelyne said airily, examining the curve of her nail.

Maren’s mouth turned down, her usual good humor replaced with something tight. “You don’t spend time with us anymore. You skip the embroidery circle, you vanish from the halls for hours. Father might not notice, but I do.”

The words stung, more than I wanted them to. I crossed to her, kneeling so we were eye to eye, and took the plait from her hands. “I haven’t forgotten you, Maren. Or Evelyne. You’re both my heart.”

“Then act like it,” Maren said, though some of the tension in her shoulders eased.

I kissed the top of her head, smoothing her hair back. “I will. I promise.”

Our father entered not long after, and the room stilled as it always did when he appeared.

He was already dressed for travel, his green-and-gold cloak fastened with the crest of Lockwood, his sword belted at his side.

“I am riding for Lord Ferin’s estate within the hour,” he announced without preamble. “Trade disputes wait for no man, and the Ferin harvest was poor last year. I expect to be gone several days, perhaps a week.”

Maren’s face lit with delight. “No lessons?”

Father’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “I will leave word with your tutor to review your letters. If you return to me unable to recite the creed of our house, you will regret it.”

“Yes, Father,” she said meekly, though her grin remained.

Evelyne looked positively gleeful. “May we entertain while you are away?”

He shot her a sharp look. “No visitors after dark. And you will keep the peace in my absence.”

“Yes, Father,” she echoed, her tone just shy of innocent.

I kept my eyes lowered, willing the quick leap of my heart not to show on my face. A week. A whole week without Father’s constant watchful gaze. Without being summoned to the hall or inspected for my manners.

A week where the orchard would be mine.

Briallen found me alone later, standing near the open casement, watching the yard below where men readied the horses.

“A week is a long time for mischief,” she said softly.

I turned, smiling despite myself. “You think too little of me.”

“I think exactly of you,” she said, coming to adjust the fall of my sleeve. “Walls still have ears, Lillie. And secrets have a way of growing louder the more often you whisper them.”

“I’ll be careful,” I promised.

She sighed, but the corner of her mouth quirked. “You’d better be. I’ve no wish to answer to your father for letting you turn the keep upside down while his back is turned.”

When the riders finally gathered in the yard, I stood with my sisters at the top of the steps. Father swung into the saddle, the sun catching on the silver hilt of his sword.

“Mind yourselves,” he called. “When I return, I expect to find this keep exactly as I left it.”

“Yes, Father,” we chorused.

I scanned the line of guards until I found him.

Reade sat tall on his bay gelding, helm under one arm, the other hand steady on the reins. His face was carved of stone, his gaze fixed forward but as though he could feel me looking, his eyes slid to mine. The smallest flicker of a smile curved his mouth, gone before anyone could see it.

Heat rushed to my cheeks. I clasped my hands before me and managed to stay still until the riders thundered through the gate and down the road. When the yard fell quiet, I turned back toward the keep.

“Lady Lilliana!”

I jumped. The voice carried up from the yard, firm but familiar. Reade.

He stood near the stables, one hand lifted. “You dropped something.”

My heart thudded painfully. I glanced around, but no one else seemed to have heard. Evelyne and Maren were already skipping back toward the solar, chattering about sweets.

I descended the steps quickly, skirts whispering around my ankles. Reade waited at the bottom, his expression unreadable, though his eyes held the smallest glint of warmth. He held out a folded scrap of parchment, sealed with no wax, only a pressed edge.

I took it from him, my fingers brushing his for the briefest, most shocking instant.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“My lady,” he said simply, before stepping back into the shadow of the stables.

I turned toward the keep, the letter clutched to my chest. By the time I reached my chamber and broke the fold, my hands were shaking.

Tonight. Same place.

My breath caught, and a smile broke over my face, unstoppable.