Soldier of Fortune: The King's Courtesan (Rakes and Rogues of the Retoration Book 2) by Judith James Page B

May Day and tonight was an informal private celebration for only his closest friends. To hold it at her lodgings was to acknowledge her importance to him in front of those whose opinion he valued most.
    She knew she wouldn’t have him much longer but she couldn’t help but love him for letting her enjoy the fantasy and pretend for one night, that she was his queen. He had left her to manage it, telling her to spare no expense, and she was almost bouncing with excitement waiting for him to see what she had done. She had worked day and night for two weeks to prepare, turning the house into a feast for the senses. A place to celebrate the summer to come in luxury, comfort and ease.
    The air was fragrant with scented candles and masses of flowers, many of which she had grown in her own beloved gardens under the tutelage of Charles’ gardener, John Rose. Green boughs decorated banisters, mantels and arches, while flower-covered arbors and miniature maypoles marked private grottos both inside and out. The serving girls wore floral garlands and the footmen—dressed in green linen—were painted as jack-in-the-green.
    Music drifted in the background from hidden alcoves, cheerful and unobtrusive, weaving into the happy hum of laughter and conversation as people flirted and gossiped and played at cards.
    The dining room played host to a more substantial feast. The crystal chandeliers blazing overhead reflected off side-tables sparkling with decanters of the finest wines. Should anyone feel hungry a long table draped in white linen stood ready, piled high with platters of chicken, mutton, lobster and tarts. She surveyed it all with a wide smile, confident it was a night everyone would remember. A night that would make Charles proud.
    They had invited about fifty guests in all. The king’s brother James, and His Majesty’s natural son—the Duke of Monmouth—had already arrived. Buckingham was busy at cards in the corner with Elizabeth de Veres, Lord Rivers’ lovely wife. Hope regarded her curiously. She liked the poet. He’d been kind to her, despite her lowly background, treating her as well as any court lady though it was clear he found her faithfulness to Charles amusing. How curious now to find him in love with his own wife. Charles admired her, too. What is it such men crave from these virtuous seductresses? Virtue is something no man will look for in me.
    All that was missing was Charles. A cheer made her look to the entrance. A dark-haired man wearing an ostrich-plumed hat tilted at a rakish angle and a gold-braided crimson coat swept through the door dwarfing most of those around him. Charles at last! Her face broke into a happy grin and her heart raced a few beats faster. No doubt he had the same effect on every woman in the room. But tonight he is mine.
    Her gaze sharpened and she looked with interest at the man who walked beside him. She’d never seen him at court before or she would have remembered. He might have walked straight out of one of her childhood fantasies. Lean-waisted, broad-shouldered, with a powerful frame, he topped Charles by a good two inches. He seemed solid in a way one seldom saw among men living the soft life at court. He moved like a swordsman, lithe and graceful yet there was something wolfish about him. He looks like a predator in a roomful of sheep . His presence dwarfed the confines of the room, making him seem somehow out of place. It was easy to imagine him strapped in armor atop a warhorse like some vengeful knight of old.
    She watched him with interest as she wove though her guests to greet Charles. He wore no adornments, other than the polished buckles and fine leather straps that secured his weapons, but his dark suit was finely made and of rich material, and crisp white linen showed at wrist and neck. In a room of gaily-bedecked courtiers he looked elegant and dangerous. It suited him well. Her heart sped up and a guilty flush warmed her cheeks.
    He turned to speak to Charles and she