The Neglected Queen's Shadow

Isabella sat motionless on the carved oak chair that passed for a throne in the lesser hall of the Tower, spine straight as a blade despite the leaden weight pressing on her chest. The year was 1325, and England rotted from within. Torches sputtered along the stone walls, casting long shadows that swallowed the few loyal barons willing to attend the King’s table. Most found excuses to remain on their estates. She didn't blame them.

At the center of the high table, Edward laughed loud, his once-handsome face slack with wine and indulgence. His light hair clung damp to his forehead. His hand, soft and unscarred by honest labor, rested on the thigh of Hugh Despenser the Younger. The favorite leaned into the touch like a cat seeking strokes, oiled black hair gleaming, sharp features set in practiced devotion. A ruby the size of a pigeon’s egg glittered at his throat, a gift from the royal treasury yesterday.

Isabella’s lips thinned. She wore midnight silk tonight, fabric so fine it whispered against her skin with every breath. The neckline plunged enough to display the swell of her full breasts, yet Edward hadn't glanced at her once. Not when she entered. Not when she took her seat. Not even when young Edward, their son, asked his father a question about the hunt and received only a distracted wave.

He looks at Hugh the way a man should look at his queen, she thought, words bitter on her tongue. And I warm a bed colder than the Thames in January.

The feast dragged on. Minstrels played. Dishes came and went. Despenser made a sly jest about Frenchwomen and their tempers. Edward roared with laughter and fed his favorite a sugared plum from his own fingers. The gesture was intimate and careless of witnesses. Heat flooded Isabella’s cheeks. Not desire. Shame.

She rose without excusing herself. The movement caused a ripple of uneasy silence.

“My lady?” Edward asked, blinking as though he remembered her existence now.

“I find the air stifling, my lord husband. I retire.”

He shrugged, turning back to Despenser. “As you wish.”

The dismissal landed like a slap. Isabella kept her chin high as she swept from the hall, raven hair swaying against her back, hips swaying even in retreat. Servants bowed. None met her eyes. They'd learned long ago the Queen’s gaze cut deeper than any blade when displeased.

In her private chambers the fire burned high. Two waiting women rose to attend her, but Isabella waved them away with a flick of her wrist.

“Leave me. All of you.”

The heavy door thudded shut. Then she let her shoulders sag a fraction. The room smelled of lavender and beeswax. Moonlight spilled through the narrow windows, silvering the tapestries that depicted her father’s victories in France. Victories. The word felt distant now.

She crossed to the tall standing mirror of polished silver and regarded the woman trapped within it. Thirty years old. Beautiful, more than the girl who crossed the Narrow Sea to wed a reluctant English king. Porcelain skin flushed at the throat. Full breasts rising and falling beneath silk. Curvaceous hips that bore four living children. A mouth made for kisses and commands.

Yet untouched. Unwanted. A shadow queen.

Isabella’s fingers rose on their own, tracing the line of her collarbone. The touch sent a shiver down her spine. She watched herself in the mirror as though the woman there were someone else, someone who possessed desire. She drew the silk from her shoulders. The gown pooled at her feet like spilled ink. Beneath it she wore only a thin chemise. Her nipples tightened against the linen.

She cupped one breast, thumb brushing the aching peak. A soft sound escaped her. In the quiet chamber it sounded obscene.

If he will not touch me, then I touch myself.

Her mind supplied the fantasy she returned to often of late. Not Edward. Never Edward. She imagined strong hands, callused, scarred, certain. A warrior’s hands. They slid down her ribs, over the dip of her waist, beneath the chemise to the dark curls between her thighs. Isabella mirrored the vision, dipping two fingers into slick heat. She was wet. Shamefully wet.

She circled her swollen pearl, hips rocking forward. In her mind the warrior knelt before her, green eyes lifted in reverence and hunger. He wouldn't beg. He would take. He would spread her on the royal bed and claim her thoroughly, every neglected inch of her body remembering who it belonged to.

Her breath hitched. The fantasy shifted. Now the warrior wore a crown. Not Edward’s. Hers. She pictured herself astride him, riding hard while he groaned her name like a prayer. Power and pleasure braided together until she couldn't tell one from the other.

“God’s bones,” she whispered, French accent thickening with arousal. Two fingers plunged deeper. The heel of her palm ground against her clit. The tension coiled tighter and tighter.

A soft knock shattered the moment.

Isabella froze, heart thundering. She snatched her hand away, cheeks burning, and dragged the chemise back into place. “Enter.”

Her most trusted lady, Lady Joan, slipped inside carrying a small iron casket no larger than a man’s hand. The woman’s eyes flicked to the Queen’s disheveled state but revealed nothing.

“A fisherman brought this from the coast at risk, Your Grace. It bears the seal of Lord Mortimer.”

Isabella’s pulse, frantic, redoubled. Roger Mortimer, the bold Marcher lord who dared defy Edward and Despenser both. Exiled two years past, first imprisoned, then escaped to the continent. His name was a whispered curse at court and a secret hope in darker corners.

“Leave it.”

Joan set the casket on the table, curtsied, and withdrew.

Isabella waited until the latch clicked before she approached. The seal remained unbroken, Mortimer’s wolf’s head pressed into crimson wax. Her fingers trembled as she broke it. Inside lay a single sheet of fine vellum and a small gold ring etched with a running horse. She slipped the ring onto her smallest finger without thinking. It felt warm.

The letter appeared in a strong, slanted hand.

To Isabella, by the Grace of God Queen of England, from Roger Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore, presently in France.

Word reaches me that the realm suffers beneath the tyranny of lowborn favorites. That a king who once showed promise now squanders his people’s love on creatures unworthy even to kiss your hem. If these reports prove true, know that you stand not alone. I have men. I have gold. Most of all I have the will to see justice done.

I remember you from the days before my exile, a queen of fire and ice who deserved better than the cold bed she received. Should you find the courage to reach across the sea, you find a man ready to serve both your crown and your pleasure. Burn this letter if you must. Or let it become the first spark of a greater flame.

Yours in defiance,

R. Mortimer

Isabella read it twice, then three times. Each pass sent fresh heat spiraling low in her belly. The words were treasonous. They also proved the most arousing thing she'd read in years. Your pleasure. The arrogance of the man. The confidence. She heard his gruff voice shaping the syllables, imagined the breadth of his shoulders filling a doorway, the thick muscles earned in battle rather than tilting at quintains.

She sank onto the edge of her bed, letter clutched in one hand. The other slipped beneath her chemise. This time she didn't tease. Two fingers sank deep into her soaked channel while her thumb worked tight circles over her clit. Her hips jerked. The fantasy returned sharper now, Mortimer’s face replacing the vague warrior. Dark curling hair. Intense green eyes. A scarred, powerful body pressing her down.

She imagined him speaking those words against her throat while he thrust inside her. I have the will to see justice done… and to fuck you until you scream my name instead of prayers.

The climax crashed over her. Isabella bit down on her own wrist to stifle the cry, thighs clamping around her hand as waves of pleasure tore through her neglected body. For long moments she shook, the letter crumpled against her breast, Mortimer’s seal branding her skin.

When the tremors eased she lay back against the pillows, breathing hard. The ceiling blurred above her. For the first time in years she felt awake.

The door to her chambers opened without a knock.

Edward stood there in a fur-trimmed robe, cheeks flushed with wine, hair more disheveled than before. Despenser’s scent, myrrh and clove, clung to him like a confession.

“Wife,” he said, word slurred. His gaze traveled over her bare legs, the chemise rucked high, the flush staining her throat. Interest flickered in his pale eyes. “You left the feast early. Perhaps you missed me after all.”

Isabella sat up, drawing the chemise over her thighs with dignity. She tucked the letter beneath the pillow. “I missed nothing, my lord.”

He stepped closer, loosening the tie of his robe. Beneath it he stood half-hard, slender and pale. Once, long ago, she'd tried to desire him. Tonight the sight stirred revulsion.

Edward reached for her breast, squeezing with the careless touch he used on his hounds. “Come. Open your legs. Months have passed.”

She caught his wrist before he pawed between her thighs. The contrast between his soft, perfumed skin and the rough, callused hand she'd imagined moments earlier proved laughable.

“No.”

Edward blinked. “What did you say?”

“I said no.” Isabella rose, regal even in disarray. She stood nearly as tall as he. “I will not be mounted like a broodmare you remember when your favorite grows bored. Go back to Hugh. He seems eager to play the mare for you.”

Fury mottled his face. “You forget yourself, madam. I am the King.”

“And I am the daughter of the King of France,” she returned, voice silk over steel. “I gave you four children and more patience than any saint. I give you nothing else tonight.”

For a moment she thought he might strike her. His hand twitched. Then he stepped back, retying his robe with jerky motions.

“You have grown cold, Isabella. French ice in your veins. Perhaps that explains why no man stomachs you for long.”

The words should have hurt. Instead they landed like sparks on dry tinder.

Edward turned to go, pausing at the threshold. “Despenser asked for the revenues of your dower lands. I grant them. A queen who refuses her king needs no income.”

He slammed the door behind him.

Isabella stood motionless until his footsteps faded. Then she walked to the window and flung it open, cold night air rushing over her heated skin. Below, the Thames glittered like a blade. Somewhere across that water, across the sea itself, Roger Mortimer waited.

She unfolded the letter and read the final lines by moonlight.

Should you find the courage… you find a man ready to serve both your crown and your pleasure.

A slow, dangerous smile curved her lips. The neglected queen ended. Something sharper, hungrier, stirred in her blood.

She lit a candle, held the letter to the flame long enough for the edges to blacken, then blew it out. The wolf’s head seal remained intact.

Tomorrow she would begin drafting her reply.

Tonight she would read his words once more, slip her fingers between her thighs, and let the first sparks of rebellion lick across her skin like the promise of a lover’s tongue.

The She-Wolf woke.