by Anne Gracie
How could any man not see what a treasure she was?
He looked down at the little, round-faced, snub-nosed, dusky-haired princess, scowling fiercely as she rubbed enough unguent into him to waterproof a boat.
Deep in the past, she stared blindly at his chest and rubbed unguent into his nipples.
Pain he could withstand in silence. This he could not. A soft moan escaped him. She took no notice and kept rubbing, circling the nipples with intense concentration, a faraway expression on her face. He moaned again and arched involuntarily.
She blinked and recalled herself. “I am so sorry you had to suffer in this way—”
“Hush.” Gabe put a finger over her mouth, pressing her soft, satiny lips together. “There is no need to fret. Mrs. Barrow was right. I do enjoy a good fight.”
She looked at the marks on his skin, now glistening with unguent. “How could you enjoy it? How could anyone?”
“It’s a—a form of release.” He could see she didn’t understand, so he added, “A bit like, er, congress.”
“Congress?” She gave him a puzzled look. “Like the Congress of Vienna?”
“No, marital congress. In the bedchamber.”
“Oh.” She dropped her eyes. “That. Yes I see.”
They fell silent for a moment. She stared at the mess of bruises on his chest and stroked the softened ointment carefully over and around them, long, delicate sweeps and soft butterfly touches. The sensations were both seductive and agonizing.
Gabe watched the emotions flitting across her face and realized she didn’t have a clue.
She didn’t know how seductive her touch was to him, that he was fighting for control, that the tension in the body under her fingertips was because he was fighting arousal, not pain.
It was obvious to him that she was a deeply sensual creature; the intensity with which she concentrated on massaging the pungent ointment into his flesh, her eyes dark and slumbrous, her lips full and pouting in concentration, the dark, silken brows knotted in thought—he’d wager of a place and time far from here.
She was becoming aroused, he was sure. Her soft breaths were coming shorter and faster, and she kept licking her lips, all unconscious. The moist dampness of her lips made him want to groan. If he just bent his head a few inches he could taste them, taste her. And she would taste him.
Deeply sensual.
He recalled the half-embarrassed, half-defiant relish with which she’d savored the bacon this morning, her way she’d fought against pleasure when he dried her feet, and then abandoned herself to it.
And yet she seemed ignorant of the sensual pleasures between a man and a woman.
Gabe stared at her luscious mouth in disbelief. Nine years of marriage and she couldn’t imagine how a good fight could give the same sort of release to pent-up feelings as…what did she call it? That.
Sensual but straitlaced. If she had any understanding of what her touch was doing to him, she’d be on the other side of the room.
“You have no idea, do you? Was your husband a monk?”
“Of course not,” she said. “I told you, he was a prince. And what do you mean, no idea? No idea of what?”
“Of this,” he said and pulled her into his arms.
Nine
He’d caught her off balance and unawares. She gasped and tried to pull back but his arms locked around her. Her hands pressed against his chest. She could feel the rhythm of his heart beating, faster than before.
One of his arms circled her waist, the other slid slowly up her spine, bringing slow shivers of heat with it. It stopped finally at the nape of her neck. He stroked the tender nape with one finger, lightly, rhythmically, causing prickles of sensation to flow up and down her spine.
“Wh—what are you doing?” she managed to say.
“Showing you.” His voice was deep and soft and sure.
“Showing me what?”
He didn’t respond, not in words, but she felt him shift his position and suddenly she could feel his hard, strong thighs bracketing hers. The warmth of his body seeped through her thin dress. The blended scents of the unguent on his skin intensified. It was bound to stain her dress, she thought, but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to move.
This close she could see that his eyes were not simply blue, but blue with tiny gold flecks, and ringed with a darker blue. The flecks were what made them dance, she thought. They weren’t dancing now. His irises were dark and large, and seemed to draw her ever closer, like the eye of a whirlpool.
Under her fingertips his heart thudded in an insistent beat. It echoed in her mind, in her body. She could feel the rhythm of the beat through his thighs, his chest, in the muscles of the arms locked about her, in the heat of him pressed against her stomach.
She stared into his eyes, mesmerized. The way he was gazing at her made her nervous and oddly weak. She could hardly breathe. Her breath was coming in shallow gasps.
Her lips were dry. She moistened them with her tongue and his gaze dropped to her mouth.
And with agonizing, unbearable slowness he bent his head and lightly, shockingly, licked her on the mouth. Barely a touch, it shuddered right through her, coming to pool, achingly, somewhere deep inside her.
“Your lips are so soft, so silky,” he murmured and began to feather all around her mouth with tiny, tantalizing kisses. “Amazing, considering what you do to them.”
“I don’t do anything to them,” she managed, shivering deliciously as he planted kisses along her jawline.
“Oh, but you do,” he breathed, and she could feel the warm breath of him on her moist lips, like an echo of a kiss, moonlight after sunlight. “You’re always chewing or biting them.”
She couldn’t think of a thing to say. It was all she could do to stand. She clutched his shoulders for support. Broad, smooth, and rock hard. Her hand slipped on the sticky remains of the unguent.
“And if you must bite them,” he went on, his deep voice vibrating against her skin. “This is how you should do it.” He nibbled at her lips until they parted, then he took her lower lip very gently between his teeth and bit down on it softly, over and over, laving and sucking between each bite.
With each tiny bite, sensations coursed through her body, arrowing in wave after wave, straight to the core of her. Her knees buckled and she felt herself jerk and shudder helplessly in his arms, as if she’d been taken over by something. Or someone.
The moment he released her lips she pulled back, shocked at herself. She shoved at his chest and he let her go. She staggered back, there was something wrong with her knees. She found a chair and sat down with a thump, gasping for breath, for some vestige of control.
He gave a soft groan.
She stared at him. “Did I hurt you?”
“Yes.” His chest was heaving, his voice ragged. His eyes bored into hers, a dark, midnight blue.
She scanned his body. Who knows what she had done to him? She’d been completely out of control. “What did I do?”
“You stopped.”
She didn’t understand. “How could that hurt?” Her emotions were in turmoil. What had just happened?
He stroked a finger down her cheek. “He wasn’t a very good husband to you, was he?”
She blinked at the abrupt change of subject and jerked her head away from his hand. Even the stroke of one finger sent shivers through her. “Rupert? Yes, he was. He gave me Nicky. And he protected us.” She took deep breaths and gathered the shreds of her composure together.
“But you weren’t happy.”
“Of course I was. I was the crown princess, the highest lady in the land. Every girl wants that.” She was much calmer now that she was back on familiar territory. As long as she didn’t look at him. Or touch him. Or smell that unguent. She wiped her hands on her skirt. It was ruined anyway.
“Not you. You don’t care a snap of your fingers for that.”
“How would you know?” She wished he would stop looking at her. Even though she had her hea
d turned away, she could feel the warmth of his gaze.
“A girl who cared for position wouldn’t let someone like Mrs. Barrow call her lovie. Wouldn’t let her precious son make friends with a scruffy little fisher boy. Wouldn’t leave it all behind her without a thought.”
She said nothing. She was calm and back to herself, she thought. She must never let him do that to her again.
“Being the princess didn’t make you happy, and I don’t believe he did, either.”
“You’re wrong,” she flashed. “I was happy. And I did love my husband, I did.” She’d promised to on her wedding day and she had, she really had. With all her foolish sixteen-year-old heart.
“I see, so it was love’s young dream?”
Her mouth wobbled and she jerked her back to him. She marched to the fire, seized a poker, and jabbed the fire savagely with it. Smoke gushed into the room.
After a few minutes she put the poker down. “We will leave in the morning,” she announced.
He sighed.
She frowned. “What?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. It is just that I had hoped to be here when Harry arrived. The day after tomorrow.” He slanted a look at her.
Callie stared at him, unable to believe the effrontery of the man. No doubt that’s why he’d kissed her like that, to soften her up. “Let me get this clear,” she said. “First you lock my luggage away to force me to delay my departure, then you foist your company on me—unwanted!—for the journey, and now you have the gall to suggest I wait another two days?”
He nodded, his blue eyes dancing. “That’s it, in a nutshell.”
“Because you want to meet your brother.”
“Yes.”
She glared at him.
After a moment he added, “He’s a very nice brother. I’m fond of him.” He seemed not the least bit abashed.
“I’m not surprised you survived the war,” she said at last.
His mouth twitched. “And why is that?”
“Because you were clearly born to be hanged,” she told him. “Or throttled. It does amaze me that nobody has throttled you. That you’ve escaped hanging doesn’t altogether surprise me—government authorities are so rarely efficient, I find. You can wait for your brother as long as you like. Nicky and I will leave first thing in the morning.”
Gabe watched her sweep from the room, his mouth drying at the sway of her hips. His body was aching and aroused and he felt simultaneously frustrated and exhilarated.
He shrugged on a shirt, then sat down at the writing desk in the corner, pulled out a quill, and began to sharpen it with a small pearl-handled knife. His mind kept reliving that kiss, but he forced it instead to consider what he’d learned about her.
He hadn’t meant to distress her, hadn’t meant to stir up painful memories. But his questions had produced such revealing answers he could not regret asking them.
Most fascinating was her answer to the question he hadn’t asked. She’d answered it with such vehemence, too. I did love my husband, I did.
Was it the truth? Or, to paraphrase the Bard, had she protested too much?
And did it matter anyway? After all the man was dead.
It was bizarre, Gabe reflected. He’d known her such a short time and knew so little about her, yet, somehow, she had become so important to him. And it wasn’t just lust, though he was beset with lust the entire time he was with her. That mouth of hers would be the death of him yet.
He groaned just thinking of how she’d tasted, her sweet, frantic response. She’d almost dissolved right there in his arms. Had they not been standing, she might have been his yet.
But he’d been in lust many a time before, and it had never caused him to panic at the thought of the woman leaving. He’d never panicked in his life, let alone over a woman. But the feeling in his chest when she’d declared she was leaving, he was pretty sure that had been something akin to panic.
The soldier in him had reacted immediately to secure his position; he’d taken her luggage prisoner. Held it hostage until she gave her parole. Not one of his more glorious military moments.
It was only afterward that he’d analyzed his actions. It had shocked him to realize it, but there it was, as large as life in his consciousness.
After so short an acquaintance he had no business thinking the thoughts he was thinking, or making the plans he was making. But he seemed to be making them anyway. He couldn’t seem to help it.
All unknowing, like a sniper in the dark, she’d taken him neatly in the heart.
He’d had no idea it could happen like that. He’d never had plans to settle down, had never once considered marriage.
Marriage? Surely he wasn’t. He couldn’t be.
Marriage was for family men, for eldest sons who needed to get heirs, for men in need of an heiress, or for fools who fell in love.
Gabe was about as far from being a family man as he could imagine; he’d never met his father, never once been to the family home. He’d met his two older brothers twice in his life that he recalled. It might be three times. Those occasions had been stiff and uncomfortable, and none of them had made a push to see each other since they’d become adults.
His father had died while he was away at war and his brothers hadn’t even thought to inform him. He had been informed of his mother’s death a short time later—not that he’d seen her since he was a child. Great-aunt Gert’s death had affected him the most; the degree of grief he’d felt for the stern old woman had shocked him with its intensity. His most distant relative, she’d been his closest family member, apart from Harry. So no, he was no family man.
He had no need of an heir, either. As the third son he was surplus to requirements, so any potential heirs of his body were even more so.
He didn’t need to marry an heiress, or earn his living. Great-aunt Gert had left him the Grange and most of her fortune, with a list of stipulations, bless the tyrannical old dear. None of the stipulations had included his marriage.
As for being one of those poor fools who fell in love, he’d never imagined it could happen to him. Had planned never to allow it. People in love could do terrible things to each other, and innocents suffered when they did. He and Harry had both experienced that firsthand, though in different ways. Bad enough to ruin each others’ lives, but children became pawns when things went wrong in a marriage…
Gabe pulled out several sheets of writing paper, slightly yellowed, untouched since Great-aunt Gert’s day. He had watched love happen to others time and time again and thought himself immune. He wasn’t even sure it had happened to him now.
All he knew was that every time he looked at her he wanted to touch her, taste her, hold her. And every instinct he had was screaming at him not to let her go.
He shook up a pot of ink. Those instincts had kept him alive throughout eight years of war. He wasn’t going to start ignoring them now.
The last of the sun’s rays touched the octagonal bow window and slid away. It would soon be dark. She had not yet conceded defeat, but she’d given him a reprieve. He had one night. He needed at least two more. It would take the others that long to get here.
Once she was on the road, she was that much more vulnerable. He hadn’t wanted to alarm her any further, but if he’d been Count Anton and his quarry had slipped though his fingers, he would put men on each of the main roads leading away from Lulworth and at several of the main coaching inns on the London road. A lone woman and a small boy with a limp would be easily traced.
When she finally left for London, Gabe decided, she’d be accompanied by four of the best—the Duke’s Angels or, as some had called them, the Devil Riders: Rafe, Harry, and Luke. And, of course, himself.
Harry was already on his way, bringing horses.
Rafe was at a house party at Aldershot, trying to nerve himself to do what his family expected—nay, urged him to do, no matter how much the idea of it stuck in Rafe’s throat—marry an heiress.
As for Luke, he was in Lo
ndon, but the Lord knew what he would be doing—anything that could blot out memories of the Convent of the Angels. Poor Luke. Of all of them, he was the most haunted by the past. If he didn’t learn to master it, Gabe feared he would go mad. It would be good for Luke to have a real problem to worry about, something in the here and now, a woman, a child he could protect.
Gabe dipped the quill in the ink and began writing.
Dinner that evening was served in the small breakfast room and once again, Mrs. Barrow used the boys as waiters, only this time she sought Callie’s permission.
She’d feed the boys in the kitchen first, she explained. “Young Jim’s manners not being fit for company, Your Highness. Your Nicky now, he’s that correct a little gentleman that it practically hurts to watch him, so I reckon Jim’ll soon pick up the way to behave.”
Callie was not surprised by what Mrs. Barrow had said. Nicky was painfully correct, it was more noticeable here, where everything was more relaxed.
At home, whenever they’d dined en famille, Rupert had directed a nonstop barrage of instruction and criticism aimed at his son—at his manners, his bearing, the way he broke his bread, his attempts to respond to the conversational gambits his father shot at him.
Rupert had been a good enough man, she thought sadly, but he’d been determined to forge his son into a prince worthy of the name. His methods were crushing to a small, sensitive boy.
It was something she needed to redress.
Perhaps being the kitchen role model in manners for Jim might give Nicky a little of the confidence he lacked.
“Very well,” she agreed, knowing how much Nicky had enjoyed waiting on table this morning. “But after dinner, send him to join me in the drawing room, please.” It had been a big day, and she wanted to talk to her son, to hear his thoughts, and to reassure him if necessary.
She was also a little worried about the way he’d taken her announcement earlier that they were leaving. He’d said nothing—he was invariably obedient and well behaved—but his face had fallen with utter dismay.
It was hard for him, she knew. He’d taken to this place like a duck to water, and even seemed to relish Mrs. Barrow’s brusque bossiness. He’d hunted leeches, had his first-ever fight, and made a firm friend from it—males were strange creatures.