by Cheryl Bolen
"Since you have traveled so far I must not turn you away without offering refreshments," she said.
His gaze flicked to a silver tray full of crystal decanters. "I would be honored to drink a toast to your Royal Highness's health."
She nodded.
"Allow me to fetch us wine," he suggested.
"As you vish," she said, then plopped onto a sofa made of lime green silk.
A moment later he returned and handed her a fine crystal goblet of port.
"You have permission to sit next to me," she said as she took the drink and patted the cushion beside her.
A thousand times more confident than he had been that day in the regent's throne room, Jack sat beside her. And was grateful for the sweet smell of roses. She had obviously doused herself with perfume. A smile sprang to his lips when he remembered Daphne's scent. Spearmint. A most peculiar smell for a most peculiar lady. Not that there was anything wrong with being peculiar. At least not if that peculiar lady was Daphne Chalmers.
Princess Caroline took a lusty swallow of the dark liquid then addressed him. "You must tell me vair you have been to have become so tan."
"I've sailed the oceans blue, your royal highness, from Portsmouth to India and to many a port between the two."
Her face shone with amusement. "You knew Admiral Nelson?"
He nodded. "It was a singular honor." Of course it was a lie.
She eyed him. "Vie a handsome man like you not married?"
His agreeable appearance should be an accepted fact, but when others acknowledged it, he never failed to be stunned. He gave her another simmering look. "I have the misfortune of falling in love with ladies who already have husbands."
"Zen you admire mature women?" Her hazel eyes shimmered.
He gave her a slow nod. "They make the best lovers."
Leaning into him, she giggled. "You must have a voman in every port."
"The only woman who counts is the one I'm with at present."
Her pale lashes fluttered. "By ze present, do you mean zis week--or zis moment?" she asked.
He brushed up against her. Her breasts flattened into his upper arm. "This moment," he said in a low voice. He forced his glance once more to her bulging bosom, then gave her a heated gaze.
"Zen I must be honest with you, Captain, and tell you my marriage is not like other marriages."
"How could it not be, your Royal Highness? You're a future queen. Your husband is ruler of the most powerful country on earth."
"Zat is not what I mean."
He raised a brow.
She placed a gentle hand on his forearm. "I have not shared a bed vid my husband for almost twenty years."
Daphne, once again, was right. The princess did find him appealing. A pity he could not take pleasure in the victory. How could he find satisfaction from the exploitation of another? He trailed a seductive finger along her exposed shoulder. "You've taken lovers?"
"Vut do you think?"
"I think a woman as sexually appealing as you needs lovers."
"Zen you and I are in perfect agreement, Captain."
His index finger touched her full mouth.
Then she did a most startling thing. She sucked his finger into her mouth. And continued to suck on it as if it were a phallus!
If any other woman had lapped at him so greedily, he would have an instant erection. But not with her. Even when he tried to picture another woman--a pretty woman--no noticeable stiffening occurred below his waist.
Not that he needed an erection, actually. Not for all the tea in China would he make love to the corpulent Caroline of Brunswick. Not even to save the life of his sovereign.
Still . . . what if the lusty lady decided to go probing his anatomy? How would he explain her failure to levitate that one, non-insignificant appendage?
Sighing, he drew away from her. "Pray, your Highness, I feel as if I'm in an inferno." His glance flicked to the window. The leaden clouds had passed. "On my way here I saw the heath and was possessed of a strong desire to walk it. Would I be presumptuous if I asked you to accompany me?"
Her brows lowered. "To ze heath?"
"Yes, your Royal Highness. You will notice the clouds have passed."
She gazed out the window. "A vok vould do me good." Then she shrieked out a servant's name, and a footman appeared. "Have my maid fetch my pelisse and bonnet," she commanded.
A moment later he and the princess were strolling the heath, her arm tucked into his. Now that a woolen pelisse covered her heaving bosom, she looked more ladylike. Not ladylike like Daphne, though. While Lady Daphne Chalmers might not have an eye for fashion, her judgment was unerring, especially in social situations. She was far more fit to marry royalty than Princess Caroline.
"You've lived in Blackheath long?" he asked.
"Since seventeen ninety nine."
"Then you must like it here."
She shrugged. "I prefer Kensington Palace, but my opinions are never solicited."
"Still, it's a nice situation you have here. Did your house belong to the Prince Regent?"
"No. It vuz the Duke of Montagu's. It is still called Montagu House."
"The duke had very fine taste. Like your husband."
"The house vus empty when I first leased it. The king was kind enough to loan me plate--and other zings."
"Then you're to be commended upon the decoration of Montagu House."
He wondered how long they would be able to walk before rain--or even snow--began to fall. The day was blustery and turning colder by the minute, the skies darkening even as they spoke. For as far as he could see across the heath's treeless, gently sloping expanse, green had been stripped from every blade of grass, replaced by a wheat color. The trees on the heath's perimeter were barren. It was not a day to inspire warmth.
He gave her a sympathetic look. "A pity your husband does not satisfy your most basic need." There was only one way his statement could be interpreted.
"It iz not a pity. I have no desire to lie wid him. He's fat!"
Now that was the pot calling the kettle black! Perhaps there was something to the attraction of opposites. Since the princess was plump, she was attracted to men who were not. Which made him recall Lord Sidworth's remark on Jack's fitness. A smile came to his lips when he remembered Daphne's quick response in telling her father that Jack promulgated sunshine activities. He cast a glance at his companion. "I daresay walking as we are now doing would do the Prince Regent much good."
She gave him a quizzing look. "Vie?"
"Those who walk are not only healthier, but they're also more slender."
"Is zat so?" Her eyes sparkled.
"I would be honored if you would allow me to come walk with you every day."
"Every day?"
He gave her a seductive look. "Every day."
"All the vay from London?"
"A small sacrifice for a great reward." Though Princess Caroline was not an admirable woman, Jack still did not like deceiving her.
She eyed his naval uniform. "Vill you have to return to sea soon?"
He cleared his throat. "Once my injuries have healed." He was rather pleased that he had hit on the idea of having injuries that prohibited him from engaging in sexual relations.
"Vut injuries?" she asked, lowering her brows.
"Injuries that I cannot mention in a lady's presence, your Royal Highness."
Her face sagged.
"In a few more weeks my . . . virility should return."
Once they had recrossed the heath and began to return to her house, he patted her gloved hand. "Will you allow me to come again tomorrow?"
"I should like to further my friendship vid you, Captain."
* * *
It was dark by the time he returned to London. With every churn of his phaeton's wheels he regretted the situation he found himself in. Spying against--even killing--a known enemy seemed so much more honorable than ingratiating himself with a lonely, pathetic woman who may or may not have murderous
intentions toward her philandering husband.
Jack would be damned glad when he could return to the Peninsula and do an honest day's dishonest work. For king and crown.
Though Lady Daphne had requested that he come to her immediately after seeing Princess Caroline, the time was not right. He refused to interfere with the Sidworth family supper, especially since he would be accompanying his bogus fiancé to a rout at the Winthrops' later that night.
* * *
Not once during the long afternoon had Daphne's thoughts been free of Captain Jack Dryden. Would he truly give the princess the same seductive look he had given Daphne in the park yesterday afternoon? The very memory of it sent her pulses pounding. For the first time in her life Lady Daphne Chalmers was profoundly affected by a man. In the normal course of things, this would have given her entire family cause to celebrate. But nothing about Captain Sublime fell into the realm of normalcy. Especially not his extraordinary looks. And even if the disparity in their appearances had not been so pronounced, the disparity in their stations was an insurmountable obstacle.
Ever pragmatic, she had known that no amount of crying and begging on her part could have persuaded her father to allow his favorite daughter to marry anything less than a wealthy diamond mine owner.
A pity she had come to admire the real captain so excessively.
Her thoughts flitted back to the way his dark, piercing eyes looked when he practiced his seductive methods on her. She had been possessed of the oddest feeling that the sublime captain found her--skinny, bespectacled Daphne Chalmers--sexually attractive. She tried to tell herself the man had merely been rehearsing for his important mission. She tried to tell herself the princess would be just as convinced as she that the captain found her . . . desirable. She tried to tell herself he was likely a practiced flirt.
But the words rang false. Jack Dryden was no flirt. He was an honorable man. The necessity of feigning an attachment to Princess Caroline revolted him--and not as much because of her physical repugnance as much as the repellence of adultery. Even adultery with a woman who was excessively fond of fucking men who were not her husband.
Daphne smiled to herself as she thought about Captain Sublime's stodginess. It was so terribly refreshing.
Chapter 10
His aversion to feigning an attraction to Princess Caroline did not extend to feigning an attraction to his faux fiancé. Indeed, he was beginning to enjoy playing the devoted lover to Lady Daphne. When he fawned over her before they got in the carriage he brought the blush to her cheeks. During the carriage ride to Lord and Lady Winthrops', his marked interest in their daughter delighted Lord and Lady Sidworth, who sat across from him and Daphne.
"Have you missed me, my dear?" he had asked, pressing closer to her in the dark carriage. "It's been more than four and twenty hours since we were last together." While he spoke, his thumb stroked the back of her slender, gloved hand.
"Dreadfully, dearest." She did not sound sincere.
To his delight, his attentions succeeded in making the supremely confident Lady Daphne Chalmers uncomfortable. "Green becomes you," he said in a husky voice, whisking his gaze over her.
She stiffened. "My dress is not green, dearest."
He should have known better than to try to comment on women's clothing. "What color would you call it?"
"It's aqua blue. Some call it aquamarine."
"Blue. Green," he said, shrugging, "They're much the same."
"Right you are!" Lord Sidworth agreed, patting his wife's hand. "Red's red, if you ask me. Not fuchsia. Not claret. Plain and simple red. Pity women don't see things as we do, Rich."
"Indeed," Jack agreed.
Once they arrived at the Winthrop rout, Jack did not leave Daphne's side. They paired up for two games of whist before being whisked off to the conservatory where they were obliged to listen to the younger Chalmers sisters sing. Throughout the night, he and Daphne conversed with many whom Jack had not previously met, but most of them were ladies of Daphne's acquaintance and did not impact the investigation. He and Daphne also renewed their acquaintance with those whom Jack had met. Lady Carlton was in attendance, as was her lover, Reginald St. Ryse. But her daughter was absent. Also absent was Daphne's duchess sister, but her twin--Lady Virginia--came with her husband, Sir Ronald.
Remembering that the twins were the closest to Daphne in age, Jack was struck by how much closer Daphne and Virginia were to one another when Virginia's twin was absent. Daphne easily filled Cornelia's void as the two shared whispered declarations most of the evening.
St. Ryse greeted Jack as if they were old friends. "Care to make a fourth at our table?" he asked Jack.
Daphne's hand tightened on Jack's arm. "I fear, Lord St. Rhys, that I must claim Mr. Rich for myself. There is a matter of great importance we must discuss."
St. Ryse's flashing eyes skipped from Daphne to Jack. "Another time perhaps."
Not removing her possessive hand from Jack's arm, Daphne took leave from her sister and urged Jack downstairs.
Lady Daphne Chalmers's patience, he knew, was at an end. Her hunger to know what had occurred between him and the princess that afternoon could not be ignored for another moment. "But, my dear," he teased, "I would much prefer to dance with you."
Her eyes narrowed. "No one can hear us, Captain. You don't have to feign such devotion."
"As it happens, I do prefer dancing with you above all others." Oddly, he meant it. Despite her considerable height, she was a graceful dancer. In fact, it had been his observation that she excelled at whatever she did. Except singing. He had no reason to doubt her claims that the cry of a dying bird was indistinguishable from her own attempts at singing. He believed her because Daphne was always scrupulously honest.
Unless she was promulgating Mr. Rich's abundant attributes to her father and family.
She gave him a pensive gaze. "And I with you. I appreciate a dancing partner who's taller than I, and I daresay you appreciate a partner who doesn't incessantly giggle as do most Pretty Young Things in search of a husband."
His hand nudging the back of her waist, he chuckled. "How well you're coming to know me, my lady."
They reached the bottom of the stairs and their feet began to tap against the gleaming marble of the house's broad entry hall as they made their way toward the French doors at the back of the house, whisking past three couples the age of her parents who were deep in conversation.
"I declare, Mr. Rich," Daphne said for their benefit, "I shall faint straight away if I don't fill my lungs with fresh air immediately."
In his wildest imaginings, he could not conceive of a situation where the supremely confident, none-too-feminine Daphne Chalmers would faint. "Pray, my dear, allow me to fetch your shawl," he said. "It's beastly cold out there."
"I'll be fine. We'll only be there for a moment."
Just long enough for him to impart to her the occurrences at Blackheath that afternoon. He held open the French door as she rushed past him.
There was just enough moonlight for him to see that no one else shared the Winthrops' small, walled courtyard with them. Damn, but it was cold! Shivers began to rise in Lady Daphne until she trembled almost convulsively. He pulled her into his chest and closed his frockcoat around her, drawing in her familiar spearmint scent.
Instead of stiffening as he had expected her to do, she sagged against him, limp as a rag doll. A smile leaped to his lips. At least his faux fiancé was growing comfortable with him.
"Pray, Captain, you must tell me when you're to see the princess again."
He chuckled. Did Lady Daphne never err? "How can you be so certain the lady even saw me today?" he asked.
"I've told you before. I know human nature. I know how the female mind works. And . . . " She paused. "With my spectacles, I'm possessed of very good vision."
"What does your vision have to do with anything?"
She hesitated a moment before answering. "I can see, Captain, that you're uncommonly handsome."
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So he'd been told most of his life, but hearing it on Daphne's lips was utterly incongruous with the lady's personality. She did not seem the type of lady who would take notice of handsome men. One who knew her only casually would think she was a confirmed spinster with no interest whatsoever in the opposite sex. Didn't her careless disregard for her own appearance attest to that?
He, too, had thought her disinterested in men when he first met her.
But now he knew differently.
"I refuse to acknowledge that," he said. "The princess is, after all, old enough to be my mother."
"I pray that you don't point out that fact to the lady."
He smiled. "I didn't."
"Then you did see her!"
"I saw her," he said with resignation.
"And?"
"And it pains me to admit that you were right."
Now she smiled up at him.
Both his arms closed around her. His heart drummed when she continued gazing into his eyes. It was all he could do not to settle his lips on hers. But, of course, he could not allow himself to do that. Theirs was a business relationship, and he must not do anything that might jeopardize it, anything that would cause him to lose her respect.
"She flirted with you?" Daphne asked.
He hated to admit it. It made him sound conceited. He nodded.
"You must tell me everything."
He shrugged. "There's nothing to tell. She asked if I was returning to sea--where I told her I'd known Admiral Nelson--and I told her that I would return. . . as soon as my injuries healed."
Daphne was silent for a moment, then she broke into a giggle. Not a giggle like the Pretty Young Things's. More of a guffaw, actually. "I can see that my plan has been wildly successful," she eventually said.
"What makes you so confident?"
"You obviously 'invented' your injuries to keep from having to have sexual relations with the princess this very afternoon." Daphne's eyes narrowed. "Did you not?"
The lady who melted into his chest was entirely too perceptive. Was she always so deuced right? And how in the hell could a virgin know so damn much about pleasures of the flesh?