by Julia London
“I beg your pardon, Miss Fairchild,” Lady Pool said. “We were speaking of your extraordinary journey from London to Llanmair in the company of Mr. Percy.”
“We were?” she asked weakly. “I didn’t think there was anything more to say of it.”
“How long do you intend to be at Llanmair?” Lady Pool asked.
Miss Fairchild smiled and folded her hands in her lap, then moved them to her knees. “Actually…I mean to be at Llanmair only until I’ve had the opportunity to visit Kendrick.”
Margaret all but came out of her chair. “Kendrick!” she cried.
“Yes,” Miss Fairchild said, nodding. “It is very near here, you know, and is quite a grand estate. I should like to see it.”
“Oh dear,” Margaret said. “Oh no. Kendrick is merely a poor remnant of what was once a grand old home. There is really nothing to see.”
“Are you certain?” she asked. “I saw it from the road and I—”
“I am quite certain,” Margaret insisted. “There is simply nothing there.” She glanced anxiously at the door. If Rhodi heard them speaking of Kendrick—“Do please take me at my word. Nothing good has ever happened at Kendrick. It is best that it remain empty and left alone.”
Miss Fairchild looked on the verge of arguing, but the door opened and the men rejoined them. Rhodrick’s eyes, Margaret couldn’t help noticing, sought Miss Fairchild the moment he entered the room. Lord Pool was speaking to him, and while he seemed to be engaged in the conversation, he was looking at Miss Fairchild.
And he smiled.
After a moment, Rhodrick said, “Miss Fairchild, would you do us the honor of playing the pianoforte?”
Miss Fairchild blanched. “Oh my lord, I play very poorly.”
“I beg your pardon, but I must disagree. I have heard you and you play beautifully. You must play for us. I had the pianoforte moved into the salon with the hope that you would.”
“Yes, please, Miss Fairchild,” Lady Pool said.
The young woman glanced warily at the pianoforte, stood hesitantly, and with a smile that seemed forced to Margaret, she made her way to the instrument and sat.
So did the men.
And as she began to play—Rhodi was right, she played beautifully—Margaret could not take her eyes from Rhodi. He sat very still, his gaze intent on Miss Fairchild. He was, Margaret realized, completely captivated.
Greer, however, was playing by rote, her thoughts miles away, at Kendrick. As her fingers moved through a piece by Handel she had played dozens of times, she could think of nothing other than how she might manage to go there, to see the place where her mother had been born. She felt strongly that she had to go there, as if an invisible tether was pulling her toward the place. The more she was told not to go, the more she felt she must go.
Tomorrow, then, if the sun held. She would walk if necessary, now that the roads were dry, but she had to see it.
It was another hour or more before the Awbreys and the Pools took their leave. Greer followed along behind them as they made their way to the foyer and trilled good night as they donned their cloaks. When the doors opened and the party stepped into the courtyard, Greer stepped back, intent on making her escape, but the prince caught her elbow and held it firmly. “Not yet,” he muttered.
With a sigh, she let him lead her out into the courtyard. She smiled and waved as boys with big lanterns ran ahead of the carriage to light its way to the road. And it wasn’t until the carriage had bounced out of the courtyard and the giant gates had swung shut behind it that the prince let go of her arm.
Greer instantly turned and strode back inside, the prince on her heels. As they walked inside, two footmen shut the thick plank of a door behind them, bolting it shut. Greer paused—the foyer was so dark that she would never be able to navigate her way to her rooms without a candle. The prince obviously had the same thought, for he picked up a flint box and struck a light, then lit the three candles of a candelabrum on an entry console and handed it to Greer.
“Thank you,” she said, and took it from his hand. But as she did, her fingers grazed his, and her body reacted—badly. She couldn’t help herself—she glanced up at his dark eyes and the scar that coursed his cheek. She was struck with the image of him holding her and kissing her. Why that image continued to plague her she could hardly guess.
He turned slightly, so that his scar was in the shadows.
“Are you satisfied?” she asked suddenly. “I am most decidedly ruined—there is no pretending otherwise.” Indeed, she could feel the heat of her shame flood her cheeks as she recalled the way Mrs. Awbrey and Lady Pool had looked at her, the censure in their eyes when she’d so foolishly tried to claim a relation to Percy. Ava was right—she was a wretched liar.
“I can only imagine what your friends must think of me—the circumstances of my travel sounded absurd even to my own ears,” Greer said bitterly. “You have succeeded in making me the laughingstock of Wales.”
“That was not my intent,” he said quietly.
Not his intent? “Then why, in God’s name, did you force me to attend?” she cried. “What did you suppose might happen? Did you think no one would wonder how an unmarried woman came to be living in your house? I know your opinion of me, sir, but I cannot understand why you insisted—”
“Because I have lost my mind!” he snapped. “Because I can no longer rely on my good judgment to tell me if you are lying, if you deceive me, if you mean to defraud me of four thousand pounds, or if you are the most naïve woman I’ve ever met and deserve my pity. That is why.”
She laughed derisively. “I don’t want your pity or your four thousand pounds, my lord. If the price of having what is rightfully mine is my complete ruin, then you may have the money, for in the end, it hardly matters if a woman can feed herself or put a roof over her head—the only thing that matters is her virtue,” she said angrily, and moved to walk past him.
But the prince caught her arm, forcing her to stop and turn around. “I did not ruin your virtue, Miss Fairchild,” he said coldly. “You managed to do that on your own, the moment you put yourself in a carriage with Owen Percy.”
“Yes,” she said, nodding fiercely, biting back tears of frustration. “That was indeed the moment. If only I had possessed a crystal ball to know it!”
He clenched his jaw and dropped his hand.
She felt desperate to be away from him, to be alone, but at the same time, she felt a powerful surge of angry curiosity about him. “It must be easy for you to pass judgment on me. You have never found yourself in a quagmire with no clear way out. You have done everything perfectly in your life, haven’t you?”
“What in God’s name are you saying?”
“Your marriage, my lord! An impeccable match with a lovely woman by all accounts! You made no mistakes in that regard!”
The prince’s expression turned darker; she had clearly struck a nerve. Inexplicably, the knowledge made her feel powerful.
“Yes, Miss Fairchild, I had a wife. I thought you were well acquainted with that fact.”
He was angry and strangely restive. In a saner moment, Greer would have stopped there, would have begged his pardon for prying. But none of the old rules seemed to apply any longer, and she said, “I am. But I did not know that you loved her so.”
He looked as if she had struck him. He suddenly whirled away from her, his hand on his nape, the other hand at his waist. “And what did you expect? Has London jaded you to the possibility?”
“No,” she said, although she was uncertain as to what she thought of the possibility—she’d never loved a man before. Worse—far worse—she had not expected to be so affected by the knowledge that he had loved before. It was beyond her comprehension why it should matter to her, why she should even care. But she did care, she cared more than she could even admit. “I merely found it fascinating. It is not what one expects to hear about one’s captor.”
“You are not my captive,” he said hotly.
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�Frankly, I didn’t think you were the sort of man to actually love anyone. Not even a poor wife.”
He whirled around so quickly that it startled her. He grabbed her by the arm, forcing her back against the wall, and said harshly, “You are young, Greer Fairchild, so young that you cannot possibly begin to comprehend what I have loved and lost. Do you think I do not experience all the mortal desires?” His gaze moved up to the crown of her head. “Do you think I do not feel the anticipation of being with a woman? The arousal? The seduction? The passion that only a man and woman can share in the most intimate of circumstances?”
“I…I—” She fumbled for an answer as his gaze raked over the features of her face, lingering on her lips. “What more would you know? If my wife could bear to have our union consummated in our bed? If I lay my hands on her naked breasts? Or my head between her thighs? What more?”
He was so angry and forceful that it confounded Greer and, inexplicably, aroused her, to the point of danger. She pushed hard against him and whispered, “Do you miss her?”
His gaze pierced hers and he leaned close. “Why such curiosity, Greer? What of you?” he breathed angrily. “Have you ever loved? Ever felt the anticipation and arousal of it? Ever been seared by a mere look or wholly seduced by the taste of passion and the desire to consummate it?”
His grip of her arm, the intensity of his gaze, those green eyes boring through her, along with the heady mention of arousal, seduction, passion—it was all swirling together inside her, making her feel flushed and light-headed.
The candelabra suddenly felt heavy in her hand; he must have noticed for he took it from her hand and set it on the console beside them, then straddled her skirts with his legs, holding both her arms now. “Tell me, Greer,” he whispered hotly, “have you ever experienced love?”
She did not respond, just dropped her gaze to his lips, dark and moist, and God help her, she wanted to taste them again.
“Was it not love you shared with Mr. Percy on my settee?”
“No.” She’d never felt with any man, and hardly Percy, anything quite like what she was feeling now.
The prince leaned in so that his mouth was just a hairsbreadth from her cheek, his breath warm on her skin and his gaze burning her everywhere it touched her. “That is because he did not understand a woman like you must be seduced.”
Greer had every intention of protesting that she was above seduction, but she could not seem to find the words as he leaned down and kissed her lips. It was not a tender kiss, but one that was blistering with desire. He nipped at her bottom lip, then swept his tongue inside her mouth as he lifted his hand to her face and splayed his fingers along her jaw, tilting her head so that he could kiss her more thoroughly.
The vague whimpering she heard came from her, from the back of her throat as he pressed his body against hers. He let go his grip of her upper arm and slid his palm down to her hand, his fingers tangling with hers, before slipping his hand to her waist and around to her hip, squeezing it, pushing her into his body.
Greer felt the fire stir in her groin, felt it kick up and begin to lick at the doors and windows of feelings she had never experienced—at least not like this, not as urgently as this. She felt hot inside her velvet gown, had an insane desire to put both hands to her bodice and rip it open for air. The mere thought alarmed her; yet she did nothing to stop the prince, and if anything, she pressed against his hand at her breast and against his hip bone.
He dropped his hand from her face to the flesh of her bosom, caressing it with his knuckles, then digging his fingers into her cleavage, pushing deeper, until he was able to free her breast from the low décolletage.
He took the tip of her breast in between his thumb and forefinger, rolling it, and Greer gasped, jerked her head away from his kiss, and looked wildly into the foyer. “What—”
He did not allow her to finish, but with one hand around her waist, easily lifted her off her feet, twirled her about, and pushed her into a small alcove, deep in the shadows. He lowered her until her feet touched the ground, and kept moving down her body, brazenly taking her breast into his mouth, nibbling at the peak, lashing it with his tongue. She pressed the back of her head against the cool stone, licked her lips, and opened her eyes. In the large mirror that hung in the foyer, she could see him, his head at her breast, his big hands on her body, and another, stronger surge of wanton desire rifled through her.
Greer’s breath turned quick and shallow as he ravaged her breast. She closed her eyes, scarcely realizing that she dug her fingers into his hair to hold his head tightly against her. She could think of nothing but the feel of his body on hers, the damp pressure of his mouth and tongue, the stubble of his beard on her skin, which incredibly, aroused her even more.
Her head lolled against the wall, her eyes closed as an unquenchable thirst began to build inside her. A damp heat pooled between her legs, and Greer pressed harder against him, drawing her leg up and bracing her foot against the wall so that her knee was at his waist.
The prince caught her leg, slid his palm down to her ankle, and grabbed the hem of her gown. Once again she had the weak thought that she ought to protest, to tell him to stop this madness before it was too late, but she couldn’t find her voice. His hand moved up her leg, to her knee, and she inadvertently flinched. The prince stilled at her breast, then slowly let it go and rose up, his hand riding up her leg as he sought her mouth again.
He kissed her with all the anticipation and desire she felt at her core as he pushed yards of fabric above her knee, trapping her gown between their bodies and leaving her exposed, and she had no desire to stop him.
He buried his face in her neck, kissing her neck and ear as he moved his fingers along the inside of her thigh, moving so lightly that she could not suppress a tickling shiver. She pressed her hands against his arms, dragged them up, and gripped his shoulders tightly when he slipped one finger into the slit of her drawers.
“Oh,” she whispered as her head fell back against the stone wall, her eyes closed as his finger slipped into her damp heat. This should not be happening. But it was happening, and it was an extraordinary sensation. She turned her head away from his, her body focused intently on his hand and the arresting, heart-stopping burst of sensual pleasure that suddenly erupted within her. When he delved into those folds more deeply, she dug her nails into his shoulders and groaned with ecstasy. “Oh God,” she whispered.
The prince increased the pressure and rhythm of his hand while he caressed her skin with his mouth. He moved deep inside her, slipping over wet flesh, moving softly but urgently, touching her in places that sent staggering shocks ripping through her.
He was stroking her beyond the hope of salvaging her virtue, pushing her headfirst into a pool of stunning pleasure and Greer could not—would not—stop him. Her body moved hard and imperatively against his hand as she tried to keep from melting.
His fingers danced about the hardened core of her, then slid deep inside her and back again. His mouth moved over her skin, over her cheek, her lips, her eyes, gliding so lightly that her skin simmered to the point she could scarcely endure even the whisper of his kiss. When he dipped his head to her exposed breast again, Greer’s pulse beat so hard that she feared her heart could not take the stress. It felt as if she were sliding uncontrollably down a slope toward something warm and utterly explosive.
He lifted up, took the lobe of her ear into his mouth as his hand moved faster. “Let it come,” he whispered gruffly.
She suddenly felt the pitch, felt the world turn upside down as she slid off the slope completely. With a gasp, she opened her eyes, her gaze landing on the large mirror in the foyer. And as the world fell away from her, she could see their image—his dark back, his head pressed against hers, his hand between her legs.
The image was stirring, provocative, and with a sob of pleasure, she dropped her head back hard against the wall, and closed her eyes as the life drained from her body, leaving her a limp shell of what she’d
been only minutes ago.
The fury of his hand changed then, slowing dramatically, easing the pressure against her flesh, and finally, he removed his hand altogether and helped her lower her leg. Her limbs felt weak; it was a moment before she was able to stand on both feet. It was the prince who smoothed her skirts, straightening them.
Greer had yet to move from the wall, had yet to draw a steady breath. The fog of pleasure was leaving her, and the realization of what she’d just done was rising up like bile in the back of her throat. A thousand questions filled her brain, and she moved awkwardly to return her breast to the confines of her gown.
When she was at last convinced she was put back together, she shakily pushed aside a thick strand of her hair that had worked free of her coif. He watched her, his breathing a bit ragged, too. But in his eyes, she saw something that surprised her.
She had expected to see a look of triumph, of cold, hard reality staring back at her. But what she saw was quite unexpected. His gaze was warm and full of…something. Hope?
Whatever she was seeing, it gave the prince an air of vulnerability she would have thought impossible.
Greer would never know what possessed her, but she impulsively touched the scar that ran down his cheek. He flinched as if she had stung him, and instantly covered her hand with his, pulling it away from his face.
She did not speak. Still feeling the extraordinarily ethereal pleasure she had received at his hand, she moved carefully to her left, her gaze never leaving his, moving slowly until she was at the console, where the candelabra provided an eerie light to what had just happened between them.
Greer picked up the candelabra. There were no words to describe the myriad emotions that filled her in that moment. She felt queasy and giddy all at once, and wrapped her arm around her middle. What had she just done? What madness had invaded her? Was it possible that she could be feeling such ragged, unchecked feelings of desire—of affection, of esteem—for this man?
“Greer,” he whispered.
The whisper of her name startled her into the present. Such feelings were insupportable given her situation, and she guiltily dropped her gaze. “I don’t understand what has happened between us,” she said. “I don’t know what is happening to me.”