Early the next morning, she braided her hair and wound it about her head in a golden crown. She’d hardly put the last pin in when the guards came to bring her before the king. This time the throne room was filled with a bevy of lovely ladies. Each was more graceful than the last, their faces painted delicately to highlight their dazzling beauty.In the midst of this feminine bounty, the king lounged, large and masculine and isolated. His gaze immediately went to Meg.Without preamble, he asked, “Do you love me, my concubines?”As one, the ladies turned and, with various simpering expressions, said, “Yes!”…—from King LockedheartWhat had she done?Temperance stared blindly out of Caire’s carriage as it rolled through the bright London sunshine. She’d succumbed to the temptations of the flesh, had lain with a man not her husband—for the second time in her life. She should feel guilt and sorrow and perhaps panic, and she did feel all those things. But at the same time, there was a spark of joy deep within her breast that stubbornly refused to be quenched by all her doubts.
