Queens Valet

England, 1588. The Spanish Armada has been defeated, the realm is secure, and Elizabeth, Queen of England, sits alone at the height of her power. She is forty-eight years old, feared by kings, adored by her subjects, and profoundly, achingly lonely. The men who surround her are courtiers and politicians, creatures of ambition who see a crown where a woman stands. None of them have ever looked at her the way her two new valets do.Kofi and Juma arrived at court as a diplomatic gift from a West African trading partner, two men of exceptional bearing, quiet strength, and a physical presence that Elizabeth has found increasingly difficult to ignore during the long, tedious hours of courtly ritual. They are unlike any men she has encountered in forty-eight years of life and thirty years of rule. They do not want her power. They do not want her throne. When they look at her, they see only Elizabeth.On a night when the palace is quiet and the ladies-in-waiting have been dismissed, Elizabeth makes a decision that no queen of England has ever dared to make. She is done with the performance of power. Tonight, behind the heavy velvet curtains of her private chamber, she will simply be a woman.What follows is a night that will never be spoken of beyond those stone walls, a night of copper baths and candlelight, of damask rose and musk, of dark hands on pale skin and the extraordinary sensation of being truly, completely seen. Elizabeth has commanded armies and navigated the treacherous politics of the most dangerous court in Europe. Nothing has prepared her for what it feels like to surrender.The Queen's Valet is a sumptuously written work of adult historical fiction set against the opulent and dangerous world of Elizabethan England. It is a story about power, desire, and the woman behind the crown. About what happens when the most powerful woman in the world decides, for one long and extraordinary night, that she no longer wants to be powerful at all. About the particular hunger that comes from decades of denial, and the two men extraordinary enough to satisfy it.This is not a story about weakness. Elizabeth commands every moment of what unfolds. She chooses. She directs. She demands. And in doing so, she discovers a version of herself that the history books will never record.Richly atmospheric and unapologetically sensual, The Queen's Valet is written for adult readers who want their historical fiction with heat, their erotica with intelligence, and their queens with teeth.For adult readers only. Contains explicit sexual content.