by Julia London
They started up the grand staircase, moving to one side when a footman went barreling past them in the opposite direction.
“You’re leaving on the morrow?” she asked, as she tried to maneuver up the stairs holding her skirt and her coins.
“Je. For heaven’s sake, Caroline, please allow me to carry your winnings. You may count every coin when we reach the next floor and flog me if any go missing. But you’ll never make it up these stairs without the very real danger of falling and cracking your head if you don’t have use of your hands.”
“You’re right.” She turned to him, reluctantly pouring her coins into his palm, then carefully closing his fingers around them. Her hand lingered on his. “Don’t drop them.”
He covered her hand with his free one and squeezed. “I would rather die,” he said gravely, and with a soft smile let her hand go.
She gathered her skirts, and they resumed walking up the stairs. “When will you return to Alucia?” she asked as she looked up at a portrait of an ancestor glaring at them from above.
“I can’t say for certain, but I’d wager sometime after I’ve been catatumpously chewed up by England.”
“Oh!” she crowed with delight. “Catawamptiously, Your Highness.”
“Leo.”
“Pardon?”
He smiled at her. “I like when you use my given name. My close friends call me Leo.”
“Then I shall call you Leopold.”
He shook his head. “For the sake of quenching my curiosity...are you the most obstinate woman in this land?”
She giggled. “Thank you for your confidence in me, Your Highness, but I think not.” She leaned toward him and whispered, “I think Lady Norfolk can be rather obstinate when she’s of a mind.”
One of his brows rose above the other. “I had that feeling.”
She laughed.
“Why do you ask about my return to Alucia? Are you so eager for me to be gone?”
“Oh, in the worst way,” she said with a winsome smile. “And I feel it is my duty to warn Eliza when the time comes. I write her every week without fail. I tell her everything.”
“I certainly hope not everything.” He winked. And then delighted at her blush. “Why bother writing? Her sister can send her gazette, in which, I may vouch, no stone of gossip is left unturned.”
“You are wrong about that. There are always certain details left out of the gazette,” she said as they reached the next floor. “Details the three of us keep to ourselves.” She paused. “Would you like to know what they are?”
“I would.”
“I thought you might! But I can’t tell you.” She laughed and turned into a wide corridor.
“Can’t you? I might have to employ my technique of teasing information from the most reluctant beings,” he warned her.
“It won’t work. My lips are sealed.” She mimed locking her lips with a key and throwing it away.
A maid hurried by them, also in the opposite direction. They both paused in their walk and watched her practically jog down the hall. They looked at each other; Caroline shrugged.
They carried on.
“What sort of things do you write to Eliza?”
“Everything! I wrote her about my illness and how my funeral had all but been arranged, and that no one had thought to ask me what I should like to wear to my own burial.”
Leo laughed.
“I write her about you,” Caroline said with a saucy little glance at him.
“About what? Are you spying on me?”
She clucked her tongue at him. “Spying is hardly necessary. Everyone knows your news.”
“This may come as a shock, madam, but much of what you think you know of me is not true. Most of it, I’d wager.”
“Ha,” she said with a roll of her eyes.
“For example,” he said as they turned another corner into the wing where the guest rooms were situated. “I am not having an affair with your chambermaid, as you so ardently believed.”
“You brought her flowers,” Caroline pointed out.
“I brought those for you, Caroline. I thought you might like something to brighten your room.”
Her gaze narrowed skeptically.
“All right, I brought them to Beck to give to you, and he suggested that they would brighten your room. But as they were all occupied in the making of your soup, I took them up myself, because I wanted to look in on you and assure myself that my worthy opponent was not going to desert me.”
Caroline paused in front of a door to one of the guest suites. She turned her back to it and faced him. “What a lovely thing to say. I like the idea of being a worthy opponent. And I would almost believe your concern, but then you disappeared with Ann.”
She hadn’t missed a thing, even as ill as she was. “Je, I did. Only because Ann was acquainted with a Weslorian woman for whom I had a message. I needed to know where to find her. That’s all I ever asked of her.”
“And is that all you asked of her at Leadenhall?”
“That’s all, on my word. It required more than one meeting as she was disconcertingly reluctant to trust me.”
Caroline’s lips curved into a smile. She studied him a moment, then shrugged and tapped his hand. “My winnings.” She held up both palms.
Leo poured the coins into her hands. “There is something else you have wrong about me, if you’d like to know.”
“Oh, I highly doubt that, but please do try to convince me.”
He waited until she looked up from her hands and into his eyes. “I am intrigued by you, Caroline.”
She laughed. “Yes, I am well aware I have that effect on gentlemen.”
“I’m not talking about your looks, as fine as they are. I’m talking about you. There is something about you that...” He tried to think of the right English word to describe his esteem for her.
“That what?” she asked, frowning slightly.
“My English fails me. There is something about you that holds my attention in the most urgent manner.”
She blinked. A slow, uncertain smile appeared on her lips. Her gaze moved from his eyes to his mouth. To his neckcloth and chest. “Your English doesn’t fail you,” she said softly. “But I don’t believe you.”
He dipped down, so that his eyes were level with hers. “Why not?”
“I think I... I think that...” She looked down at the coins she held in her hands, frowning thoughtfully. “What I think is...that you...”
She was babbling. He’d surprised her, which, frankly, he would have not thought possible, but she was clearly unable to find words for the first time in their acquaintance that he could recall. Leo couldn’t help but smile. “Holy mother, you’re speechless.” He reached around her and turned the knob on her door and pushed it open.
“I’m not.” She stepped backward, into her room. He stepped forward. “I’m wary,” she clarified. “I think there is something you don’t know about me, too,” she said as she took another step backward, deeper into the room. “And you ought to know it.”
Leo moved across the threshold. “I am desperate to know what.”
“I will not part with my virtue, not entirely, no matter how you might tempt me. I will not part with it until I’m in love. So don’t think you can take it because you’re a prince and you’ve flattered me so expertly.” She took another step backward.
“You presume too much, madam. I would not dream of it.” Oh, but he would dream of it. He would probably dream of it tonight. He quietly shut the door at his back.
Caroline stepped to a table and kept her gaze locked on his as she deposited her coins. “If you would not dream of it, then why are you stealing into my room?”
“Stealing?” He glanced around him. “I walked in as you stood there. But if you like, I will go.” He prepared himself to be shown
the door before he could touch her.
He desperately wanted to touch her.
He would start with the soft hollow of her throat. Then her shoulders. Her chest. “Say the word, and I’ll go.”
Caroline folded her arms. “I do want you to go.”
His entire body stifled his groan of disappointment. He mustered some sort of face-saving smile and bowed his head. “Very well.” He turned toward the door. “As you—”
“But I don’t want you to go, Leopold. I want to despise you, and I can’t seem to do it.”
His heart filled with hope. He slowly turned back. “Then don’t, Caroline.”
She bit her lower lip, as if biting back words. And then she sighed heavenward. “There is no point to this,” she said gesturing between them. “None at all! It only causes me to desire things that I can’t possibly have and shouldn’t want.”
“Why shouldn’t you want it? What is the harm in wanting?”
“Are you mad?” she asked with disbelief. “Yearning is nothing but agony.”
“That’s not true,” he said, stepping closer. “Yearning can result in extraordinary pleasure. But you don’t have to yearn or want, Caroline. We can be friends. I am a very good friend to those I care for.”
She clucked her tongue. “Robert Ladley is a friend. Even Mr. Morley is a friend. You are not a friend. You are a rake, and you’ve always been a rake. You are something else entirely than a friend.” Her gaze slowly slid down the length of him. “I don’t know what you are.”
In that particular moment, he was indeed a rake, because he was raging with desire. “Would you like to know what I think?”
“No,” she said, but then impatiently gestured for him to speak.
“I think an undeniable physical attraction between us has presented itself and has begun to flame. Personally, I find it increasingly difficult to ignore. But I’ve no desire to ruin you, Caroline. I’ve no desire to go against your wishes in this. I think too well of you to attempt anything crass. What I want, more than I want to kiss you or...” His gaze drifted down her body. He swallowed. “Or to touch you, is to spend time in your company. I want to discover what makes you so confoundingly original.”
One of her brows rose skeptically. “You do?”
“I do.”
She smiled dubiously. “I don’t trust you, Leopold Chartier.”
“So you’ve implied. You’re very cynical,” he said with a lopsided grin.
“You would be, too, if you were me. I’ve been lied to and flattered by more than one gentleman.”
“Ah, well, I can’t defend my sex. Men are such singular creatures when it comes to women. We are ruled by lust. But Caroline, if I wanted to lure you into my web, I would do it. I would entice you with riches and promises that I didn’t intend to keep. I would drape you in flattery. I would gift you with baubles. I’ve done none of those things, you may have noted. I’ve not promised you a thing, have I?”
She seemed to consider this a moment. “True...you’ve not gifted me any baubles and you certainly haven’t flattered me.”
He laughed. “You don’t need to be flattered. You need to be loved.”
Her lips parted and she stared at him, as if she hadn’t heard him properly. And then she looked at the door and rubbed her nape, as if rubbing off a chill. “Friend or foe, Leopold, it’s dangerous for you to be here in this room. My brother is downstairs with the duke.”
“Your brother is always close by.” He took another step closer to her. “This is a bit like gambling, isn’t it? How boring life would be if there was no danger to it?”
Her green eyes sparked with delight. “You do listen to me,” she said. This time, she was the one to move closer to him. “It would be impossibly boring, I should think. If one doesn’t gamble, one must be content with imagining what might have happened.”
“What do you imagine might happen?”
“This,” she said, and reached for him.
“I knew it,” Leo said as she drew him to her. “You like the danger.”
“Don’t talk—we haven’t much time.”
This was the second time she’d urged him to get on with it. Lord, but the woman was intimidating without even trying. A lesser man might have been cowed by that command, but Leo was not a lesser man—he was eager and captivated. He put his arm around her waist and pushed her onto an armchair. Caroline landed with an oof and a giggle. He landed awkwardly on top of her, facing her, his knee braced against the floor and somewhere between her legs, he thought, although the volume of her gown made it hard to judge.
“How aggressive of you.”
“You are the sort of woman a man must aggress.”
Her smile deepened into two dimples. “That’s not a word.” She shoved her fingers into his hair.
“You should be my tutor,” he muttered, and kissed her. The dam burst inside him, desire flooding through him, hardening his cock. There was desire, and there was desire that raged, and his was a raging river in his veins.
He moved to her neck and kissed a path from her neck to her décolletage, kissing the swell of her breasts, sliding his fingers under the fabric to touch them.
She giggled as if it tickled her, but Leo didn’t care. He kissed her again, demandingly, his tongue dancing with hers, his body pulsing with hers. He felt feverish in his skin, too hot. He was piteously aroused and exceptionally ravenous. He maneuvered a perfect breast from the bodice of her gown and drew the nipple into his mouth and felt himself lose a bit of control when Caroline moaned with pleasure. She dragged her fingers through his hair again, traced a soft line around his ears. “Tell me something, Leopold,” she asked breathlessly.
“Anything.”
“What would you do to me if I allowed it?”
Oh, madam. He glanced up from his attention to her breast. Her eyes had taken on a sheen that he hadn’t seen before, but he knew instinctively this was the deep light of desire. She may hold her virtue in high regard, but she lusted, just like him. Something primal and deep kicked hard at Leo. He braced his elbow against the armrest and brushed a curl from her temple, tucking it behind her ear. “If you allowed me, I would fill you up completely. I would carry you with me on an expedition the likes you’ve never experienced.” He kissed her cheek and whispered, “I would make you sob with pleasure.”
Her lips parted with the draw of her breath. Her fingers curled around his arm. “And then, perhaps, I would do the same to you?”
He was mesmerized. Provoked. Her smile was dangerous, and he could imagine how easily he could fall under her spell if he desired it.
She twisted a curl of her hair around her finger. “What’s wrong?”
“You,” he said. “Everything about you is wrong, and yet there is not enough of you.”
She sighed. “How odd that I would feel the same way about you.”
He ran his hand along her shoulder, over her collarbone and breast, down her side, and down one leg, to her ankle. He dug his way under her skirts until he touched the smooth silk of her stocking. She made a sound in her throat and wrapped her arm around his neck, rising up to him. Leo sank into her and shifted slightly so that he could follow a path up her leg beneath her dress, skimming over the silk, then sliding onto the bare skin of her inner thigh as he kissed her.
Caroline shifted lower in the chair, her legs a little farther apart, and Leo slipped a finger through the slit of her drawers and into the damp folds of her sex.
“Oh,” she said, as if she’d just heard something quite interesting. She closed her eyes as he moved his fingers on her. He could have pleasured her there, but it wasn’t enough. He kissed a path down her dress as he slid the hem of her dress up and over her knees. Caroline didn’t stop him. She grabbed at the fabric and petticoats, holding them there. She was as eager as he was, and knowing that aroused him even more. He took her by t
he waist, pulling her forward in the chair, then dipped his head beneath her skirt and brushed his mouth against the spring of honey curls.
Caroline was panting now. Leo nudged her legs farther apart and slipped his tongue between the lips of her sex. Caroline gasped with surprise, her fingers groping for his shoulders, gathering her skirt higher and higher. As he began to lave her, she groaned with the pleasure he was giving her, causing his blood to pound hotly.
He explored her thoroughly. She moved against him, panting for breath, the little cries of pleasure coming quicker and quicker as she neared her release. He stroked her, sucked her, nibbled as if she were a delicacy until she found it, crying out without regard for their privacy, her hands clutching at him, exalting in the throes of release.
And when it was over, she said, quite breathlessly, “Extraordinary.”
Extraordinary.
Leo sat up and delicately dragged a finger across his lips. He adjusted his clothing and watched with not a small amount of pleasure as her eyes skimmed over his erection. He carefully pulled her skirts down over her legs. There were desires and feelings he wanted to convey, emotions he wasn’t entirely sure he understood himself. The words that came to him were Alucian, and he couldn’t think how to say those feelings in English. So he said, “You are remarkable, Caroline Hawke.”
She laughed softly and sat up. “I know. But I didn’t know that so are you.”
Leo grinned broadly. He reached for her hand and pulled her to her feet, kissed the back of her hand as if they’d just finished a dance, then her mouth, lingering there. “I should go.”
“You should.” She brushed something from his cheek, his hair from his forehead. She didn’t ask him any questions. She didn’t ask when she would see him again. She said nothing and smiled that catlike smile, looking sated and happy and in need of a nap. “Good night, Leopold.”
“Good night, Caroline.” He bowed. She curtsied as she bit back a laugh. With one last tug of his clothing, he carefully opened the door and looked out, then stepped into the hall.
He strolled quickly away from her door, but when he turned a corner, he encountered another maid hurrying toward him, this one carrying linens. It seemed an odd time of night for linens, but Leo had no notion of how these things were done. “Pardon, miss.”