by Julia London
When she might live her life as she deemed fit, it was impossible to simply turn and walk away, to give herself up to a man she scarcely knew. She would be dishonest if she didn’t acknowledge that what Mr. Jones had told her had given her pause.
Yet still, with all her heart, she ached for him. She’d made him believe she didn’t love him. She may have been surprised by his offer, but it was clear that he had been equally surprised by her response, and perhaps even a bit unhinged.
She did love him. Whatever her thinking about her future, she loved him.
She glanced at the clock on her mantel. It was half past midnight—the servants had long retired and she could make her way to his study without being detected. She just wanted to talk, to explain her misgivings.
She donned a dressing gown over her nightgown and belted it tightly, then stepped into the slippers Mrs. Bowen had given her. She left her hair hanging down her back.
Having been around the castle long enough to know her way, she crept along in the dark. Her fingers trailed along the stone wall, and at certain intervals, she was aided by a bit of moonlight streaming in through windows.
Unfortunately, the prince was not in his study. The door stood open, the hearth almost cold. Greer debated going to his bedchamber. It was astounding, really, to think of how far and how rapidly she had fallen from virtue. From almost the moment she had stepped foot in that coach with Mrs. Smithington, she had stepped off some invisible cliff, tumbling past everything she’d been taught about ladies and decency and morals to fall into a pit of degeneracy. But this…this had to be the worst yet. She was contemplating stealing into a man’s room with the full intention of seducing him.
Then again, she reasoned, she had fallen so far that there hardly seemed any point in making a distinction now.
So she continued on, carefully making her way to the other side of the castle, moving slowly in those corridors she didn’t know as well, but managing to reach his suite of rooms without the slightest bit of trouble. Nevertheless, she felt a moment of frantic indecision at his threshold.
“Bloody late for this bit of conscience,” she whispered beneath her breath, and carefully, slowly, she opened the door and stepped across the threshold into a room that was, fortunately, somewhat dimly illuminated by the embers of a dying fire. The appointments in the room, not surprisingly, were rather austere: one fine leather chair and ottoman, a single table, and scarcely anything else. Greer walked across the thick carpet, pausing to glance at the books on the small table near the chair—a mixture of French and Welsh—on her way to the next door.
That door led to another room that was so dark that she had to feel her way along the wall. She was deadly quiet save for stubbing her toe on the door at the opposite end of the room and letting a tiny mewl of painful surprise escape her. But she quickly recovered, and with both hands, searched until she found the door-knob chest-high. Drawing a breath, she quietly opened it a crack.
She paused there, straining to listen. The fire was still burning, and while she could not see his bed, she realized she could hear his breathing. With a bit more confidence, she stepped inside the room—but was instantly shoved up against the wall, her body pinned by his arms and legs, his hand over her mouth.
She could smell the whiskey, could see it in the way he blinked his eyes, as if trying to clear the apparition before him. His shirt was open at the collar, the sleeves undone at the cuffs. His hair, thick and long, looked as if he’d dragged his hands through it to push it away from his eyes. His face sported the shadow of a beard, and a pained look circled his eyes.
When he at last realized it was her, he slowly eased up, pushing away from the wall and her, turning his back on her. After a moment, he turned halfway toward her as he tried to tuck his shirt into his breeches. He got the shirt only partially tucked in before he gave up and faced her fully.
Greer was reminded of the first night she’d met him, the night he’d kissed her, and how dark and predatory he had looked then.
He looked that way now, and she could not have been more aroused.
With a strangled cry, she lost her resolve and suddenly flung herself at him, into his arms, groping for him, desperate to feel the strength and comforting warmth of his body.
Rhodrick responded by catching her in his arms and pressing her back against the wall as he pressed his mouth hard against hers. She could taste the whiskey on his breath, could feel the wild pulse of his heart coursing through him as he cradled her jaw. She felt fragile in his arms, felt as if she could shatter at any moment with remorse and euphoria. But desire was sweeping her along on another tide and into his body.
He dragged his mouth across her cheek to her hair, his breath heavy in her ear as he grabbed a fistful of her hair. “’Rwy’n dy garu di. Love me, Greer,” he whispered harshly.
The desperate want in his voice made her heart flail. He didn’t have to ask—she did love him, fiercely and deeply, and still it was not enough, it could never be enough. She buried her face in his collar, breathing his scent, as he grabbed her dressing gown and roughly tore it open.
“Love me,” he said again, as he pushed her against the wall and moved down her body, lithe and powerful. With a sob, she threw her head back against the wall as his mouth closed over the thin fabric of her nightgown, around the tip of her breast. She grabbed his shoulders, kneading them as he continued his trek down, his mouth dragging over her nightgown as he descended to his knees. His mouth sought her sex through the fabric of her gown as his hand sought the hem, pushing up her cotton gown in thick folds until he could close his mouth around her flesh.
Greer whimpered with delirious pleasure as he pushed her legs apart and thrust his tongue between the folds of her sex, circling around the hard crest of her need, sucking and nibbling and swirling around until she thought she would go mad. She pressed against him, held aloft by her hands on his head and shoulders and the strength of his arms.
But just when she felt herself plummeting to release, he rose up, picked her up so that her body hung the length of his, and twirled around with her, depositing her just behind the chair before the hearth. He grabbed her face between his hands and kissed her passionately, then dropped one hand to his trousers. When he had freed himself—she could feel the hot length of him through her gown—he kissed her eyes, her forehead, her mouth, and roughly turned her around, so that she was braced against the back of the chair.
He pulled up her gown, pushed his thigh between her legs, and snaked his hands around her body, one on her breast, one on her sex, his fingers sliding in the place he’d left slick and hot. She could scarcely breathe; she turned her head toward his, grinding her body against his hand.
He kneaded her breast, his fingers squeezing the nipple as his mouth devoured her neck. He pressed his hardness against her, spreading her thighs open with his, and then guiding himself into her from behind, pushing into her with a low cry. As he began to move inside her, he stroked her. Greer instinctively arched against him, shamelessly indulging in the flaming sensation that seeped through her veins and into her groin.
As his strokes grew more frantic, both inside her and on her, her fever turned rabid. She could feel herself moving as wildly against his hand and his body as he moved inside her, allowing herself the freedom to feel him, to submerge herself entirely in the pleasure he was giving her.
They moved with such wild abandon that it felt almost animalistic—she burned in every place he touched her, and when he put his hand at her nape and urged her to bend at the waist, she was possessed by unimaginable desire, obsessed with the need to feel him hard and deep within her.
She braced against the chair and met each of his thrusts with a surprising strength of her own. He bent over her, his mouth in her hair and on her neck, his fingers moving magically against her flesh.
“Bloody hell, I have wanted you like this,” he whispered hoarsely. “I’ve wanted to take you like this, to have you feel me like this.”
Greer panted with pleasure; her body was raging now, wanting the release he sought to give her. This was nothing she’d ever dreamed a joining could be—it hardly mattered what had gone on between them, for it had all been vanquished by his open and unbound passion for her.
“Tell me you want it, too,” he said breathlessly. “Tell me you want me.”
“I want it,” she said huskily. “I want you, Rhodrick.”
He made a low, animal-like sound and the conflagration inside her suddenly erupted. She cried out, soaring and foundering all at once. He cried out, too, his groan dark and deep as he thrust into her once more, his body shuddering with the strength of his release.
With his forehead on her shoulder, he snaked his hand around her waist, anchoring her to him as they both fought to catch their breath. When his body began to slide away from hers, he moved slightly, dislodging himself, then wordlessly turned her around and picked her up in his arms, carrying her with his odd gait to his bed.
He crawled in beside her, spooning her, his hold ironclad, as if he feared she would leave him while he slept.
Greer closed her eyes and dreamily relived every extraordinary moment, her life held at bay for a time, the shadow of reality held at arm’s length by the warmth of his body.
She had all but drifted to sleep when she felt his hand on her head, brushing her hair from her temple. “I love you, you know,” he said, his voice low and hoarse with emotion. “I have loved you always.”
She opened her eyes, staring into dark space as the gravity of those words filtered into the sated fog on her brain.
It was minutes later—almost a half hour later, perhaps, when his breathing had gone deeper with his sleep—that she carefully rolled over, facing him. “I love you, too,” she whispered faintly.
Twenty-six
R hodrick woke Greer well before dawn, bundled her up, and escorted her back to her room. Greer, as beautiful when she was sleepily cross as she was when she’d had a good night’s sleep, did not want to go. But Rhodrick insisted—he’d not have the servants gossiping about her any worse than he suspected they already were.
After he watched her stumble into her bedchamber, wrapped in one of his flannel dressing gowns, her hair wild about her shoulders, he shut the door and leaned against the wall for a moment.
They’d made heart-stopping love, and Rhodrick felt as if a shackle around his heart and mind had been broken, as if he had burst through some invisible barrier to freedom.
The minx simply had no idea of the power she held over him—and it was indeed a palpable power. In years past, the sight of a woman’s body, the scent of her hair or her sex, or a whispered word of encouragement had always been enough to engage him completely. With Eira, he’d been too fearful of hurting her or alarming her to let himself enjoy her completely. He had not, until now, until Greer, understood how explosive making love could be with a woman he loved. He had not known that it had the power to draw the very essence of him all the way from the curl of his toes and release it into the heavens. He had not begun to fathom how his heart could be as much a part of the act as his body.
And last night, as he had watched her sleeping, he vowed to himself that he would never know lovemaking any other way but this. To engage in sexual intercourse without these extraordinary feelings now seemed to him to be a rather mean substitute for true pleasure.
Rhodrick made his way back to his room and his bed. Lying on the linens that smelled of her and their lovemaking, he closed his eyes, his mind’s eye full of the image of their joining. But as he drifted to sleep, Greer’s image faded and he was at Kendrick once more.
The house had fallen into disrepair; there were cracks in the mortar and the roof tiles were crumbling. The woman who haunted him stood at the door, beckoning him forward. Rhodrick’s blood ran cold—he tried to turn and leave, but the next thing he knew, he was in the woods again, just like he’d been several years ago, following behind a dead woman, just as he had years ago. But this time, when he reached the end of the path, it was Greer he found lying lifeless.
The dream vaulted him awake. He was sweating profusely and it took him several moments to regain his composure. What in God’s name would bring that ghost to him again after all this time? He feared now—as he had then—that the recurring dreams of her signaled his descent down a path of madness.
Lulu woke Greer far too early the next morning with a cup of hot chocolate. She looked curiously at Greer’s hair, but then bustled off to tend the fire at the hearth.
Greer put her hand to her head, imagining the sight of it after last night. She sat up, feeling a familiar soreness in her body, and glanced sidelong at Lulu, wondering if she, along with all the servants, suspected Greer was now the master’s mistress.
If she did, she gave no sign of it as she tidied up the room.
“Shall I help you dress?” she asked cheerfully as Greer sipped her hot chocolate.
“I, ah…I don’t know what I shall do today,” Greer said uncertainly.
“I’d advise you to dress warmly, miss. Cook feels snow in her bones, and they say she’s not been wrong once.”
“Oh,” Greer said, her brows rising with surprise. “Far be it from me to ignore her bones. The dark gray wool, then, Lulu.”
“Shall you breakfast with his lordship?” Lulu asked.
Greer stilled, her cup almost to her mouth. “Did…did he ask for my company?”
Did she imagine it or did Lulu give her a look? “No, miss, not that I am aware.”
They knew. The entire staff knew how the relationship between her and the prince had changed these last few days. That made a decision imperative. She was silently debating her options when a knock was heard at the door. Lulu went to answer it, and returned a moment later with a note.
“Demetrius, the footman, miss,” Lulu said. “He’s brought a message from the prince. He asks that you join him and Mrs. Awbrey for luncheon today.”
Oh really, must she? There was no time for luncheons! If Cook’s bones were to be trusted, she needed the day at Kendrick before it became impossible for her to travel the six miles there. But she managed a smile in spite of her disappointment. “Of course,” she said.
Margaret Awbrey knew snow was coming the moment she saw Rhodi walk out of the main castle door to greet her—his limp was pronounced and he had trouble hiding it.
“Meg, a lovely surprise,” he said as he helped her down from the coach. “I was pleased to receive your note this morning. I had not expected to see you again so soon.”
“I know very well you hadn’t, but since your visit yesterday, I’ve been positively frantic about your soirée, sir,” she said, linking her arm through his. “Do you realize that in order to do it justice, we must begin planning straightaway?”
“I confess I did not,” he said with a brotherly smile.
“It is fortunate you have me about, then, isn’t it?” she asked with a wink. “Will Miss Fairchild join us?”
He smiled warmly at the mention of her name. “I believe so,” he said, and covered Margaret’s hand with his.
Rhodrick escorted her to the main salon, and as they entered, Margaret was pleased to see Miss Fairchild. She was waiting for them, looking quietly beautiful in a gray wool gown, exquisitely made and simply adorned. Miss Fairchild was the sort of woman, Margaret thought, who did not strike one as a great beauty upon first glance, but upon closer acquaintance, her beauty and grace were undeniable. She could easily picture Miss Fairchild as mistress of this house.
Miss Fairchild smiled and curtsied—as did Margaret—who stole a glimpse of Rhodi.
Thomas was right, of course. To the casual observer, Rhodi looked as commanding and princely as he ever did, quite unfazed by the company of two women. But she, his dearest friend, could detect a different energy about him. He reminded her of a cat waiting to pounce, his eyes surreptitiously following Miss Fairchild as she moved in the room.
Even more telling was the way he slowly clenched and uncl
enched his left hand at his side, giving off the impression that he ached to touch her.
Their talk turned to the soirée. Miss Fairchild mentioned a Christmas soirée she had attended in London that interested Margaret, and as the two of them began to speak more animatedly about it, Rhodi removed himself with the excuse of having some correspondence that could not wait another day. As he mentioned it, he glanced at Miss Fairchild and exchanged a look so intimate that Margaret felt compelled to look away.
When the door had closed behind Rhodi, Miss Fairchild cast a rather self-conscious smile at Margaret.
“Please do forgive my unexpected call today, Miss Fairchild,” Margaret said, “but Rhodi and I have never stood on formality.”
“I am pleased to see you, Mrs. Awbrey,” she said graciously.
“He’s so good, our Rhodi,” Margaret continued, watching the younger woman. “Such a dear heart.”
She detected a bit of a blush in Miss Fairchild. “He has been very kind,” she said. “I fear I would not have been as kind were our situations reversed.”
“Oh my,” Margaret replied with a laugh. “I daresay there was a time Rhodi might not have been as kind…but he has suffered far more than most through the years, and it has softened him.”
That certainly gained Miss Fairchild’s attention. “What…if I may be so bold as to inquire…has the prince suffered?”
“Well,” Margaret said, settling back, comfortable in her role of Rhodi’s confidante. “Certainly the untimely death of his wife, Eira, and their newborn daughter. And that awful riding accident would have left a lesser man lame. I am certain you have noticed his limp?”
“Once or twice,” Miss Fairchild admitted.
Margaret nodded and looked at her hands again. “And his looks, of course, which I believe have been hardened by the unkind words of others. Really, some of the things said of him are unconscionable. But I’ve always believed that if people knew the man beneath the skin, they’d see him very differently,” she said with a tinge of bitterness.