The Princess and the Pauper

by Alexandra Benedict

  She stood and looked out the window, awash with moonlight and raindrops. She could see Green Park from her vantage. Her former house was not too far away. A proper, aristocratic family lived there now. She had walked by the house only once since losing it, and the domestic tableau she’d seen through the window had nearly crushed her heart. Even now, the memory of it pained her.

  If she ever wanted to be happy again, she needed to be bold.

  Without another thought, she set aside the violin and reached for the top button of her dress. She unfastened it, not caring that the drapes were wide open.

  Emily knew the moment Rees noticed her. His steady breathing switched to a more quickened pace. He had once desired her. Might he still?

  Shivering with anticipation, she unhooked every button to her pelvis and slipped out of the garment. It dropped to the floor in a pool around her feet.

  Next she raised the hem of her chemise, exposing her legs. Without looking in his direction, she lifted her left foot and rested it against the chair’s cushion. Gently she rolled the silk stocking over her knee and down her calf. Her own touch hastened her pulse. Or perhaps it was the feel of his searing eyes on her. Or both.

  She removed the stocking and released it in an innocent manner before performing the same teasing exercise with her right leg. Finally, she uncrossed the laces of her chemise. She hadn’t worn a corset. There was no sense in propriety now that she was living with Rees. And that made her next step all the more liberating. She pinched the short sleeves of her linen chemise and pulled the undergarment off her shoulders, down over her breasts, belly and waist, and off her hips. It, too, flittered to the floor.

  Rees stopped breathing.

  She smiled.

  Lastly, she unbraided her hair and fanned it across her backside. For the first time in a long time, she felt powerful again. She had Rees captivated. His feelings for her were not all scorn and indifference. There was still something between them.

  His robe was draped over the back of the winged chair, and after a wonderful moment in the moonlight, she pulled on the fleece and tied the stays. Then, as if she hadn’t done anything particularly scandalous, she settled back into the chair.

  She could still feel his heavy gaze on her when she placed the instrument under her chin, but her nerves had calmed, and she was strengthened with hope. Though her fingertips were still sore, after a few moments, the music itself distracted her, and she fell into a trance.

  Emily didn’t know the name of the lullaby. She had heard it on the night she’d discovered Rees was her mystery violinist, on the night her world had changed forever. And she hoped the music would arouse lost, precious memories in him, as well.

  She closed her eyes and pushed away all other thoughts until she and the violin were alone in the room.

  “Stop!”

  Startled, she ended the play and blinked a few times. Looking over her shoulder, she found Rees upright in bed, struggling for breath.

  “What is it?” she asked, bemused.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded. “I want freedom, not torment.”

  “I—I don’t understand.”

  He bounded to his feet, reeled and knocked over the oil lamp on the bedside table, igniting the fuel.

  “Rees!”

  Emily grabbed her dress and smothered the flames. He, too, stifled the fire with a bed sheet before stomping out the blaze.

  Her bones shaking, her heart in her throat, she stumbled toward the window and pushed open the glass to let out the smoke.

  “Are you mad!” she cried and crossed the room, smacking him on the cheek. Her fingers quivered and ached. She couldn’t regain her composure. “You would burn us both alive?” She slapped him again. “Why? Why?”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  But she hit him again.

  “Enough.” He snatched her wrists and pulled her onto the bed, into his lap. “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to break the lamp. Are you hurt?”

  Strong arms embraced her. Tender hands cupped hers.

  “I don’t think so,” she said softly, still trembling.

  He fingered her wrists, palpated her palms and fingers as if searching for wounds. And then he pressed his mouth over her sensitive skin.

  Her breath trapped in her throat. He bussed her palms, her fingertips, and she shuddered with long suppressed want.

  “Rees,” she gasped.

  His kisses deepened, lingered, and she trembled even more. He lowered his head and pressed his ear against her breast, her thundering heartbeat. “Don’t ever play that music again.”

  “W—what?”

  He raised his head until his lips almost touched hers. “I play that music for you, princess. I play it for you. Do you understand?”

  No.

  No, she didn’t understand. She had not heard the piece in years. Would he ever play it for her again? Or did he mean for the music to die?

  She would not let it.

  “When you ask me to play,” she breathed, “I will play what pleases me.”

  She felt his every muscle grow taut.

  “I see.”

  He released her, pushed her off his lap and onto the bed. The room filled with cold air from the open window, and she sensed the chill even more when he left the bed, pulled on his boots and headed for the door.

  “Where are you going?” she wondered.

  “To find a more agreeable bedmate.”

  ~ * ~

  Grey sat in the luxurious armchair, watching Lady Hickox brush her long blonde hair. He hadn’t seen her in almost a month, and she ignored him now, intent on her reflection and beautification ritual. He didn’t mind the quiet, his gaze falling on the crackling fire. But soon the snapping flames reminded him of a pair of fiery eyes, flowing crimson hair and a burning soul.

  Grey.

  He heard the music even now. It welled inside him. He remembered her passionate fingers in the moonlight, dancing over the strings, conjuring the haunting lullaby from days past. Why had she played that sweet song? What had she meant to do to him? Other than torture him?

  Grey.

  And then he remembered her beautiful, naked body in the window, the taste of her fingers in his mouth, and his muscles hardened again. Torture. There was no other reason for her performance tonight. Savage torture.

  “Grey!”

  He snapped his gaze toward the vanity and the woman in the chair, but damn, hers was not the face he’d wanted to see. He shut his eyes and rubbed them, trying to banish the sensuous memory of a princess in his bed.

  When he looked toward Lady Hickox again, she eyed him with unreserved umbrage. At forty-four years of age, she maintained a radiant complexion. Her robe was partially opened, revealing the cleft between her lush breasts. And those breasts rose and fell steadily with each sharp breath.

  “I called your name three times,” she said, heaving with anger or desire or both, he couldn’t tell. “Why are you here?”

  Because another woman tormented his senses, his mind, his very soul.

  Instead, he murmured, “I’m here for your amiable company.”

  “You desire my amiable company, do you? After so many weeks away?”

  At the crispness in her voice, he sighed. “I was composing.”

  He hoped to mollify her with the half truth, for he had been preparing for his concert at the Royal Albert Hall, but it was not the entire reason he had stayed away from her. He had also stopped desiring her. She, more and more, wanted to revel in a glittering world of excess, a world that had recently lost its charm and now repulsed Grey. He wasn’t even sure why he had come to her tonight, other than to escape Emily—and the suffering she’d provoked.

  “And here I’d thought you’d found yourself another mistress.”

  “And why would you think that?” he drawled.

  “Gossip, of course. I’d heard you’d acquired a lightskirt, paid a king’s ransom for her.”

  His heart rapped with quickened beats, and he
envisioned breaking Woodward’s neck. Synonymous with discretion, indeed.

  “I wouldn’t listen to gossip, if I were you,” he growled.

  A seductive smile entered her eyes. “I thought it rubbish, of course.”

  But as soon as she dismissed the gossip as rubbish, his heart tightened until he ached for breath. “I didn’t say that, my lady. I only said I wouldn’t listen to the gossip, if I were you.”

  The amorous light in her eyes darkened, turned vicious, in truth. “I see.”

  Grey didn’t know what the hell had possessed him to give the rumor credence, but when faced with denying Emily, even in such a superficial manner, he couldn’t . . . he just couldn’t do it.

  “I think we’ve talked quite enough for tonight.” The fervid spark in her eyes returned, burned brighter. “Shall we have a little fun?”

  ~ * ~

  Arms folded across her chest, Emily stood in front of the window, gazing out at the misty city.

  Rees had left over an hour ago to find a more “agreeable bedmate,” his mistress, she assumed. If he were a stranger, she wouldn’t care who he visited or where he went. She’d know as little as possible about the man and not feel anything a’tall. But he was Rees. And she couldn’t separate her feelings from him, however much she tried.

  She flexed her hands, the imprint of his kisses still etched on her skin. For one hopeful moment, she had believed she might reconnect with him. For just a little while, she had dared to dream a future might sprout from the ashes of their past. But she’d been foolish to hope. Like the singed nightstand and her charred dress, there remained only ruins.

  Turning away from the window, she dropped onto the bed and wrapped her arms around his pillow, inhaling his scent. She’d achieved her goal, she thought ruefully. She’d roused his emotions with music. Clearly, though, she’d stirred prickly memories, not the affectionate ones she’d intended.

  I want freedom, he’d cried. Freedom from what? The past? How would he attain that freedom by listening to her play?

  Haunted by his cryptic words, she burrowed her fist under his pillow. She was sure about one thing, though. He wasn’t keeping her in the house to rekindle their friendship.

  Her fingers touched crumpled paper, and she frowned. “What is this?”

  She pulled out the sheet and unfolded the corners. Squinting in the dim light, she scanned the hand-scrawled lines. Her eyes skipped over dates and company names. But her heart stopped when she read the name “Wright.”

  Scrambling off the bed, she sprinted toward the window again. As white moonbeams settled over the crinkled note, she realized what she was reading—an overview of Papa’s life, in particular his business deals. The letter wasn’t in Rees’ hand, but it was his letter. Why else would it be stuffed under his pillow? He was studying her father. No, investigating the man. He wouldn’t let the past rest. He would never let it go, she thought bitterly, not until he was satisfied, not until he’d had his . . . revenge.

  Is that what he’d meant by freedom?

  She tore the paper to pieces, into the tiniest scraps, and released the debris so it rained like snow. What did he want from her? She had already lost everything. Her father. Her home. Her life. What more could he take? Her memories? Her heart? Her soul?

  A sob wracked her breast. She picked up the violin she’d played and hurled it against the wall. A loud dong filled the room as the wood splintered and the strings snapped. Spurred by an overwhelming sense of gratification—and no remorse—she reached for another violin and smashed it, too.

  She knew Rees didn’t care for the instruments. He treated them like rubbish. He treated them like he treated her. And knowing that had her reaching for yet another neglected violin.

  She wrecked it, too, but her resentment still raged, and she grabbed another case. This case was locked, unlike the others, and it took the aid of a nearby dinner knife to pry apart the halves.

  The case split. She started, expecting an instrument to fall out, but folded papers dropped to the floor, instead. Cherished love letters from his mistress, she thought. Or musical admirers. But when she noticed the familiar handwriting, she dropped to the ground herself.

  “No. It can’t be.”

  She gathered the papers. These were her letters. The letters she’d written him from Switzerland. The letters she’d begged him to burn after reading so Papa wouldn’t find them. But Rees hadn’t burned them, even after all these years.

  Hope spilled back into her heart without limit. If Rees truly wanted freedom from her, he would have destroyed the letters. Instead, he’d kept them. He’d kept her. A part of her, at least. The best part, even, when she had lived with joy.

  The door burst open.

  Emily whirled around to witness the groomsman and butler carrying a bruised and bloodied Rees. They set him on the bed as more servants followed, holding lamps and fretting.

  “What’s happened?” she cried, scrambling to her feet.

  “We found ’im on the front steps like this,” a kitchen maid sobbed. “E’s dead!”

  A groan from the bed confirmed Rees was no such thing.

  Emily instantly recovered from her shock and ordered, “Fetch water, linen and the physician.”

  “Aye, miss!”

  The staff rushed out in obedience.

  Emily crawled onto the bed beside Rees. “What have you done to yourself?”

  His eyes were swollen shut, his cheeks bruised. She couldn’t see what damage had been done to his body, but she imagined it as gruesome as his face. And then she noticed his bloody knuckles.

  “Your hands!”

  She gingerly cupped his battered fingers.

  “They’ll heal,” he said in a dispassionate voice.

  “And if they don’t? How will you play?”

  “Do you worry for my sake or yours?”

  “Mine?”

  He must have thought her question an answer, for he replied, “Don’t worry, princess. I’ve plenty of money to keep you in comfort, even if I never play again.”

  She frowned. Did he really believe money, and the need for it, the whole of her character? Yes, she needed funds to support herself, but he had to know she was more than the spoiled princess he’d first met ten years ago.

  A maid returned with a bowl of water and strips of linen. Emily couldn’t refute his hard-headed misconception now, not in his condition, and she set his hand back on the bed before carefully cleaning his wounds.

  He breathed roughly and moaned whenever she touched a more sensitive spot. She needed to see what was under his clothes and told the milling servants to leave the room. They needn’t gawk at their employer in his poor condition.

  As soon as the door closed, she lifted his shirt and exposed his battered belly. When she touched the side, a feathery stroke, he hissed.

  “Your ribs might be broken,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “I thought as much.”

  But his cavalier attitude didn’t mask the real pain he suffered, and she wondered again, “What did you do? Fight a bear?”

  “It’s not your concern, princess.”

  She pinched her lips before scooting off the bed and reaching for her carpetbag. She pulled out another day dress. The linen was creased and unsightly, but she wasn’t particular about its condition and shrugged out of the robe, slipping into the other garment.

  When the physician finally arrived, he examined Rees and determined his ribs weren’t broken just badly bruised. He was bandaged, propped up on pillows, then told to rest and take a tonic for sleep and pain. Emily was actually given these instructions, for she’d asserted herself his nurse.

  Soon the room was quiet again, and she found herself staring at the injured musician with inexplicable earnest and dread.

  She’d been prepared to shatter every violin that bound her to him—until she’d found the letters he’d been brave enough to keep. She had burned the notes he’d written her, fearing someone would find them, read them. She
had always feared her feelings for Rees. And more. She had also feared admitting them.

  Even now, she trembled at the thought of being truthful. She was an orphan, a social outcast, yet still she hesitated to let her feelings free.

  Her heart pounded as she approached the bed, and a new apprehension came over her—a vulnerable, quivering hope of being with the man she’d once trusted with her life, but didn’t trust anymore . . . only hoped to trust again.

  Emily eased onto the bed and rested beside him, listened as he talked to the ghosts in his dreams. The tonic had dulled his mind and muscles, and he’d quickly fallen asleep, but he murmured about music and damned princesses, and even called out for his grandfather.

  Her throat welled with tears when she heard his grandfather’s name, and she nuzzled into his shoulder. He sighed and stilled, and she kept a hold of him for the rest of the night.

  CHAPTER 6

  Grey stood in a field of lavender, watching the rising sun. The brilliant light warmed him like nothing else before, and the heady lavender both spurred and comforted him. The moment might have lasted a thousand years—there was no stormless place more restful, and he grimaced with regret when an unnatural weight settled over him and darkness covered the sky.

  As Grey opened his sore eyes, pulsing pain spread through the rest of his face and across his chest. He struggled to breathe. For a few confused moments he thought he was suffocating.

  He closed his eyes again and steadied his irregular heartbeat, and as his breathing evened and the room focused in the morning light, he sensed a peculiar heaviness on his shoulder.

  Rolling his head to the side, his mouth and chin brushed against a mass of red hair.

  Emily.

  She was dreaming, so peaceful, curled alongside him in the bed. His skin heated as his heartbeat hastened again and blood surged through his veins. He didn’t remember her coming to him in the night, couldn’t think why she was there. He only knew he didn’t want to disturb her untroubled sleep . . . or separate from her.