The Prince

by Katharine Ashe

  “Eight years in Alexandria. Two at sea. Seven here.”

  More bits and pieces of him. They did not satisfy her.

  “Won’t you tell me what has happened today?” she said.

  He said nothing as firelight played in his eyes.

  “Have you done my drawing yet?” she said.

  “No. My apologies, madam. I shall at once.” He rose.

  “You needn’t go. I have paper here, and as I would very much like to watch you draw, yet you have barred me from your studio, you must remain here and draw it.”

  “Must I, tyrant?”

  “Oh, yes.” She grabbed a sheet from the desk and pen and ink, but when she turned he was already at her shoulder and setting the lamp down on the desk.

  “Here,” he said, taking the items from her, and their hands brushed. Neither of them jerked away. “This table suits.”

  “I am glad you haven’t done it yet,” she said, pulling another chair to the desk. “I have decided I don’t want the entire body. Only the hand and forearm. In detail.”

  He dipped the pen into ink. “Why the change?”

  “Do you object?”

  “To drawing a hand and forearm instead of an entire figure?” He looked aside at her, a single brow lifted.

  “You needn’t look at me as though I am insane.”

  “Forgive me. I am delighted to draw whatever you require. Left or right?”

  “Please draw the left. Yours, specifically.” A swirl of nerves went straight up her center.

  He laid his left hand, palm down, on the desk. Pen met paper and a line of subtle grace appeared.

  “You do not object to this either?” she said, her pulse quick.

  “Why should I?”

  “To me possessing a picture of you?”

  “You already do.” The pen moved swiftly across the paper, with utter confidence, the lines clean and sharp.

  “I do not,” she said.

  “The picture of the marketplace in your bedchamber is of the market in the neighborhood in Alexandria in which I spent my youth.”

  “The black-haired boy?” The one she touched each day—the touch that had become a requirement from the first day she had come to this house. “It is you?”

  “It is.”

  “Who is the other boy?”

  “Joachim. He was my closest companion, nearly a brother to me, to the horror of my mother.”

  “What about him was horrifying?”

  “Joachim’s family was Christian. My father had always been a man of expansive mind and spirit, and welcomed all men of faith into his friendship. After we escaped we settled in a Christian quarter of the city in order to better hide. But my mother feared for her children.”

  “You had siblings?”

  “Have. A sister.” He set down the pen and pushed back the chair and stood.

  “I beg your pardon,” she said quickly. “Please don’t leave. I won’t pry any further.”

  “I am not leaving.” He pulled off his coat and hung it on the back of the chair. “Unless you wish me to?” he said with a partial smile. He wore a waistcoat of midnight blue that fit snugly to his torso, and his shoulders stretched the fine linen shirt.

  Libby shook her head.

  He sat, folding the left sleeve to above the elbow. There was only dark skin and muscle and, on his forearm that was corded with strength, black hair. Again he took up the pen.

  “Did your mother fear that you would be discovered by the courtiers who had betrayed your father?”

  “No. At that time we were far from home and well hidden.”

  “Then what did she fear?”

  “That we would be converted to the faith of our protectors. She needn’t have had concern for my sister. Aairah’s faith was immoveable as a mountain, even then.”

  “You draw so swiftly yet with such accuracy,” she said almost levelly. “Your talent is astonishing.”

  “A gift from the creator of which this servant is not worthy.”

  “Obviously your mother needn’t have worried about your faith either. Though I suppose Christians attribute such gifts to God too.”

  He smiled, but did not look away from his drawing.

  “Who taught you how to draw and paint?”

  “The uncle of Joachim. Joachim’s father was a guardsman for a dignitary and had little time for us. But his uncle was a humble man. He owned a shop in the market where he sold icons for the pilgrims. From the roof of it Joachim and I would spy on the washerwomen at work.”

  “Why would you want to spy on washerwomen?”

  “They rolled up their sleeves to work, güzel kız,” he said, the movement of his pen precise. “When a boy is dying of thirst, he will revel in even a single drop of rain.”

  She stared at his forearm.

  “His uncle’s talent was prodigious,” he continued. “It was wasted on those pilgrim icons.”

  “Not to the pilgrims, I suspect. Nor you.”

  Now he turned his smile upon her. “Indeed not.”

  “You are almost finished already,” she said. “But I would like another.”

  “What other could you want? An icon, perhaps, of yourself slaying the dragon as you have so valiantly done these past weeks?” His gaze was moving over her face as it did sometimes, as though he saw not her features but the art he could make of them.

  “Movement,” she said. “I would like a series of pictures—”

  “A series?” His quiet laughter spread warmth in her. “You are demanding.”

  “Four or five pictures.”

  “Ah, the tyrant seeks to take advantage of me now.”

  “Take advantage?” she said a little unsteadily.

  “Mustn’t you demolish another of your rules before receiving another prize?”

  “Recall that originally you agreed to draw an entire figure.”

  “That I did, reckless fool that I was. So be it. What movement exactly do you wish to study?”

  “This.” With the tip of her forefinger she traced the ridge of muscle the length of his forearm.

  He went entirely still.

  “This muscle,” she said, stroking slowly. The texture of his taut skin made wild pleasure inside her. “I wish to have a detailed study of its movement beginning with the fingers extended to the hand fisting.”

  After a moment he said quite low, “The hand.”

  “Your hand,” she said. “Your hand that I felt pressed over my heart when I would have torn out every strand of my hair had you not been there, when I would have locked myself in my bedchamber and beaten at the walls until I collapsed from exhaustion, for the thoughts would not quiet no matter how I tried.” Her fingers climbed past his wrist. “This hand that for days bore marks from the scratches I put there with my fingernails when you held me together, which you never spoke of,” she said, running her fingertips over his smooth skin. “How sorry I am to have treated you so, and how grateful that you—”

  “You mustn’t be sorry.” He spoke roughly. “And it is I who am grateful that you have trusted me to help you.”

  “I only wish—”

  Lifting his head, he met her gaze and the restraint always present in the depths of his dark eyes was gone. Entirely gone. Only longing shone there, and desire.

  “Ziyaeddin,” she whispered.

  Reaching to her face and curving his hand warm and strong around her cheek, he bent his head and kissed her.

  Chapter 22

  The Fire

  It was as simple as that, as though their lips were meant to touch and their breaths, though trembling, mingle with intoxicating certainty.

  His lips coaxed and it was so easy to respond, to do as he bid and let him taste her lips, her mouth, and take tastes of him in return. The scent of his skin and cologne and paint filled her senses now, his flavor of brandy and heat delicious, exhilarating. She met each caress of his lips with hers, flattening her palm to the table to push up toward him, to be closer. It was remarkable how she
felt his kiss in her mouth and throat and chest and belly. Everywhere.

  The tip of his tongue swept along her lips. Moaning, she opened willingly, hungrily, and reached for him with both hands.

  Grasping her waist, he pulled her onto his lap.

  She had no thoughts, only him—his satiny hair and the evening’s stubble on his jaw and his hard thigh and his hands spread on her back, holding her so tightly, and his mouth doing delectable things to hers. He was hot and hard, thoroughly alive and full of strength and touching her.

  Need swelled in her, sweet and hot in her breasts and stomach. She needed to be even closer, pressed to him entirely.

  His thumb stroked down her jaw, then over her chin, urging her lips apart. She complied, willingly, eagerly, and felt the caress of his tongue against hers. Lust jolted between her thighs. She tried the caress herself, and a sound of satisfaction rumbled in his throat. He delved into her.

  It was an answer finally to all the frustrated confusion and yearning of months, he was kissing her and she never wanted it to end.

  And she wanted more—more of his heat and strength and the glorious pleasure of touching him.

  Sliding her hand down his neck and over his chest she felt the hard power of his body beneath linen and wool. Seeking his mouth even more closely, she slipped her palm over the fall of his trousers.

  He caught her hand in his grip and with a groan tore it away from him.

  “No.” His hand came around the back of her neck. “Elizabeth.” Her name was a harsh whisper against her lips. And then the words came to banish any doubt of what he meant by no and Elizabeth. “You mustn’t. We mustn’t.”

  She broke away. Pushing off him, she stumbled to her feet.

  Walking across the room on unsteady legs, she ran her fingers over her hot face and tender lips, and thoughts tumbled over each other, cluttered with lust and anger and guilt.

  “Fine. Yes.” She faced him and lifted her chin. “Fine,” she repeated. There were too many other words wanting to be said, and she refused to give them rein. “Would you care for tea? I think tea would be a good idea at this moment. I will put the kettle on.”

  Biting down on confusion, in the darkness she went to the kitchen.

  Her hands around the kettle and pump were steady, and they were steady as she lit the stove and a glow of light plumed in the room. She was a person of science with a life that no other woman in the world had. She was not a widgeon to melt at a man’s touch as though she had no structure inside her to support her.

  She went to the cabinet and reached for a cup and saucer.

  He came to her, making no effort at silence, his footsteps like a hammer striking every one of her vertebrae. Grasping her waist, he turned her to him.

  She lifted her face, and he captured her mouth beneath his.

  It was right, perfect and delectable, and when she grabbed his shoulders he dragged her against him. Solid muscle met her—his thighs and hips and chest. Fingers threading through her hair, he kissed first her lips, then her throat and neck. The need rocking through her body was overwhelming, powerful, but honest and good.

  Gripping his arms, she pressed herself to him, wanting to feel him everywhere on her, flesh to flesh, all of the skin and bones and sinews and muscle that made him beautiful on the outside.

  “I did not understand it could be like this,” she said.

  His fevered gaze covered her features. “I knew it would be.”

  Stroking his thumb down her neck, he skimmed the edge of her bodice. She felt her body quivering, waiting for more, wanting more. His hand surrounded her breast.

  “By all that is—” His voice caught. “Elizabeth,” he whispered, and his thumb slipped across her arousal. She gasped and pressed into his hand. It was luscious. Deliriously good. Clinging to him she accepted his kiss and his touch and this new and perfect pleasure.

  “Haw there!” The shout from the doorway echoed across the kitchen.

  They broke apart.

  Mrs. Coutts stood on the threshold, arms laden with parcels and mouth agape.

  “Mrs. Coutts?” Libby exclaimed. “What are you doing here on a Saturday night?”

  “Interruptin’ a ravishment, by the looks o’ it!”

  “It was not ravishment,” she said.

  “An’ no’ a moment too soon.” She cast him a dark glower.

  “Why are you actually here, Mrs. Coutts?” he said.

  “I’ve come to cook the lass dinner for the morrow. Now she’s feedin’ again I’ll no’ have her skippin’ a meal an’ wastin’ away, no’ under my watch! An’ I’ll no’ have any man takin’ advantage o’ her, weak as she still be, no matter how fine a man,” she said with a wag of her fingertip at the man who stood a head taller than her and paid her wages.

  “He was not taking advantage of me,” Libby said. “Rather the opposite.”

  “That statement is not accurate,” he said, running his hand over the back of his neck and making Libby ache to touch him there too. She wanted to touch him everywhere.

  “Oh ho! That’s how it be? Each o’ you takin’ the blame for the other, now?” She shook her head, then pinned him with a hard stare. “Sir, you’ve a party to attend tonight.”

  “I do not.”

  “Aye, you do. Dr. Hope’s supper party.”

  “Dr. Hope?” Libby said. “Dr. Thomas Charles Hope, vice president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh? The renowned physician and chemist! Yet you did not mean to attend?”

  “I had another matter to attend to,” he said in a tone that made heat ripple up through her.

  “If he knows what’s best, he’ll go now,” his housekeeper warned.

  “Mr. Smart,” he said, and bowed. “Good night, Mrs. Coutts.”

  Then he was gone from the kitchen, and Libby felt as though her internal organs were sucked out the door with him, which was ridiculous.

  The discovery of so many new sensations was bewildering. Also instructive. She understood now why Constance, a noble heiress, had forced her father to allow her to wed a man who taught fencing for a living, and how Amarantha and the duke had sailed across oceans to find each other. And she finally understood why a woman and a man would find an empty room at a party and make love on an uncomfortable sofa. The need to follow Ziyaeddin now pressed outward beneath her skin like a fever. She felt at once excited and lost.

  “Now, lass,” Mrs. Coutts said. “We’re to have a wee chat about the terms I put to the master for stayin’ on in his employ when you came to live here.”

  “Oh. But you don’t seem the overly pious sort. That is, you don’t object to me living here.”

  “Aye, when I thought you’d nothin’ in your head but those books.” Her own head wagged from side to side. “He’s as fine a gentleman as I’ve e’er known. An’ to be sure he’s changed his habits since you’ve come to live here. But, lass, he’s no saint.”

  Libby could not misunderstand Mrs. Coutts’s meaning.

  “Yet he lives so austerely,” she said.

  “Aye. But you’ve seen his paintings.”

  Full of depth and movement, they were all passion and beauty. And longing, she realized now.

  “Dinna believe the man he shows the world to be the truth o’ him.” Moving forward, she took Libby’s hands into both of her own big, callused hands, and clasped them warmly. “I know you’ve a good heart, lass. Only take care. He’s no’ a subject for you to study.”

  Disengaging, Libby backed up.

  “Thank you for your words of wisdom, Mrs. Coutts. And I am very grateful for you coming here tonight to cook. I appreciate everything that both of you have done for me, more than I can express.”

  Snatching up a candle and leaving the room, she turned toward the door to his quarters. It was open and she went in.

  He was gone, to the party or somewhere else. It hardly mattered. That he had kissed her, touched her, and then left her so easily only proved Mrs. Coutts’s words. He had told her again and again to stay
away from him, and she had pursued her desire anyway, because that was what she did when any desire pressed at her.

  Now she could not return to the parlor where the drawing still lay on the desk. Running up to her bedchamber, she turned her eyes away from the painting of the marketplace, dragged her favorite medical tome to the window seat, lit a lamp, and settled in to read.

  It was a futile effort. She thought of him caressing her and she ached for it.

  Jumping up from the window seat, she went to the marketplace painting and touched her fingertips to the boys’ running feet.

  She returned to the window and curled up on the seat.

  After a time she heard Mrs. Coutts bustle into the foyer and depart. Turning down the lamp’s wick, Libby peeked through the drapery onto the street. The cobblestones glistened with moisture and a lamp at the corner showed the Scotswoman marching homeward. The clouds had parted to reveal a canopy of stars, and the moon cast soft gray stone in a silvery glimmer.

  Of every place she had lived—all the grand estates to which her father had been invited over the years—she felt entirely at home here in this city of medicine. This fantastical life she was now actually living had been her dream forever. And she was succeeding, despite the charade she lived and the competition and the constant fear of discovery.

  Yet she could not cease thinking about him and wanting him.

  You haven’t even a moment of time to devote to satisfying idle curiosities.

  She stared into the sparkling night and thought that her wishes had conjured him from the darkness. But it was in fact him passing beneath the streetlamp with his silver-headed walking stick and handsome shoulders and uneven gait. Her body filled with yearning. And happiness. For the first time in months, beneath her breasts she ached with happiness.

  As she watched he slowed at the edge of the streetlamp’s aura, then halted.

  A cloaked figure stepped away from the opposite building and then, pushing off the hood, moved toward him.

  Coira?

  It could not be a coincidence that Coira had come here to this street and was speaking with him now. Closing the curtain, Libby ran down the stairs.

  “Sir?” A woman approached him.