“Men think so, at least in youth. I understand our passion becomes more controlled in later life.”
She nodded, slanting her head against the armrest, and reached out her hand again, less tentatively this time. She stroked, he jerked again, but her hand stayed firm. He didn’t move, all of his senses concentrating on that one questing finger.
But he couldn’t stop thinking, not yet, realizing he could not find completion from the stroke of that one, tantalizing finger. And he needed satisfaction, badly. When her finger had stopped trembling, and she had even begun to meet his eyes, he wrapped his fingers gently around her wrist, then moved his fingers up to her palm and beyond, gently making a fist of her own hand and molding it around his cock as best he could.
“You’ve closed your eyes,” she said, squeezing gently.
“You’ve no idea how good that feels.” He wanted to move his hips.
“Of course I do. It’s how you make me feel.” She kept moving her hand but the pressure was too light. He moved his hips, but then she pulled her hand away. “I’m not satisfying you, am I?”
“It’s perfect.”
“No, it isn’t. I’m no fool, Edward. How can I please you?”
With reluctance, he pulled her hand away, and captured her other arm, lifting them both above her head while leveling himself over her body, until his hips landed between the cradle of her thighs, protected from his body with the hem of her chemise.
“What are you going to do?”
“Pretend to ravish you.”
“How?”
“Shhh.” He pulled her arms higher. Her entire body extended, rubbing against his shirt. “Spread your legs apart.”
“That’s indecent.”
“You’ll still be a maiden when I’m done, I promise.”
Their eyes met. “We could never do this in the dark. I wouldn’t be able to see your face.”
Keeping one hand around her wrists, he slid the other one down, sliding along her armpit and up again, until he caressed her jaw. “When you have a true lover, you won’t mind if it’s light or dark.”
“I was not raised to expect a true lover to come along.” She grimaced. “At least not until I was wed and delivered of a couple of heirs for my husband.”
His breath caressed her ear. “Stop thinking. Just let me move, and feel.”
“Edward,” she whispered.
He covered her mouth with his hand and positioned himself. Mostly likely, the result would be a few blemishes on the skin of his cock, but he could think of no other way to satisfy himself on a maiden not yet ready to welcome his naked flesh. He pressed his hips against the juncture of her thighs and began to move. When he decided she had given up speech, he removed his hand from her mouth and took one of her thighs. Not pliant at first, after a few moments she allowed him to lift her leg around his back.
“This will feel good for you too, if you let it,” he muttered.
“I don’t know,” she said, placing her lower lip between her teeth again.
He put his mouth to hers and teased her lip free. Distracted this way, she didn’t protest when he found her other thigh and lifted that leg, too, to wrap around his lower back. Soon, he found a rhythm to suit them both, ignoring the chafing in the same way he’d ignored his sore feet after a day of walking in bad boots. Her breath caught and he could feel her chemise dampen as she warmed.
“It feels good,” she whispered.
“This is a mere parody of the real thing.” He groaned into her hair as she tentatively lifted her hips to rock against him. “Do that again, sweetheart.”
She complied, rocking with him. He forgot the bizarre location and his clothing in the scent of her hair, the touch of her lips on his neck, the clutch of her hands on the back of his trousers. All too soon, he felt his completion near, the consequence of too long denial. He captured her mouth in a fiercely carnal kiss and emptied himself into the cradle of her thighs. She stilled beneath him, then froze and shuddered. Her legs went slack around him while he panted against her mouth.
“You will be the end of me, Princess.”
“I will never know how to be happy once you are gone from my life.”
Did she really mean her confession? He did not want to be her destruction. Thoughts fractured in his well-pleasured brain. All he wanted to do was hold her, this long, supple woman, but they were on a narrow sofa in a palace parlor, without so much as a can of water and a rag to clean them. An awkward situation that a lesser man would dine out on later, telling his tale to a table of raucous drunks.
But he, no, he smelled the blue cornflowers in a pot on the table next to him, and the scent of beeswax in the tapers in the chandelier above them, and knew they, and this act of loving, needed to be secret and sacred.
“Will you be coming to Windsor?” she asked in a sleepy voice.
“What?”
“I meant to ask before, but I forgot. The court will be moving there soon, in a week or so. Will you be hiring rooms?”
He thought of the money he’d so casually given her, all but everything he had yet again. Between the bracelet and the coins, she was milking him dry, however unintentionally. Leveling himself up on his arms, he kissed her brow then left the couch, attempting a discreet clean up in a corner with a handkerchief.
“Edward?”
“No, Princess, no rooms in Windsor for me.”
“It’s a long ride. We won’t see each other if you don’t.”
“You won’t be there forever.”
“The queen might insist you return to your regiment before the end of the month. This could be the end of our privacy.”
His tone was harsh as he shrugged into his waistcoat. “We both must have a part in ensuring that does not happen, Princess.” He turned to her. She had sat up on the couch and smoothed down her damp chemise. “Do you not agree?”
She clasped her hands together between her breasts. “Yes. We cannot alter course now.”
He nodded. “We had better separate, lest rumors begin about our behavior.”
Her cheeks colored. Schooling himself to impassivity, he brought her stockings and corset and laced her in while she rolled on her hose.
“Do you know what cornflowers mean in the flower language?”
He tied her laces. “No, what?”
“Hope in love.”
“Then I shall believe in the power of sisterly love, and work toward making my hopes for my family come true.”
She was silent, and reasonably so, since he knew he hadn’t responded as she wanted. But he couldn’t give her everything, not today. He felt much too unsettled by her revelation of the move to Windsor. Surely it had been in the paper. He needed to make a daily duty of a trip to Lemuel and his free newspaper.
~
On the way back from Kensington Palace he stopped in at the bookshop. He paged through the papers pinned to the wall, irritated by the necessity to do so. Most men would be at their club, or at least a coffeehouse, doing the same in congenial company with a beverage at their elbow. Him, he had to slink around someone’s place of business.
“How is Pickwick going?” Lemuel asked when the bookshop cleared of customers. “Ready for Oliver Twist yet?”
“The part I just read had me ruminating on life in debtors’ prison,” Edward said, repinning a paper and walking up to the counter.
“Afraid you are going to end up there?”
“More like on a ship back to Canada. I’ll never spend the fare, at least. It’s tucked away.” The fare wasn’t enough to take rooms in Windsor for the time Victoria was at the castle.
“It’s hard to believe toffs like you can ever be so deeply in debt as to go to prison, but it happens all the time,” Lemuel observed.
“In Pickwick, the rich parents disown the newlyweds, leaving them without funds.”
“It’s good your family sent you off to soldier. No point in leaving a man without some kind of work.”
“Very sensible,” Edward said, glancin
g at the boy, who had deep circles under his eyes. “You look exhausted. Been up all night with your French book?”
Lemuel tapped a finger on the side of his nose. “I’m not much one for French, and it’s a pretty old book with archaic language, so it’s slow going.”
“I expect, like most young men, you spend most of the time with the illustrations.”
Lemuel grinned, shame-faced. “How about you and that princess? I’d rather hear true lusty tales than read a dusty old book.”
Edward crossed his arms over his chest. “You understand a gentleman never tells.”
“A gentleman who had nothing to tell would say so,” Lemuel said, puffing up his thin chest. “So you have had some success in that quarter.”
“I have had ruinous success,” Edward drawled. “Such as to leave my pockets entirely to let.”
“Never buy a woman presents you can’t afford,” Lemuel said. “Advice from my father.”
“I wish I’d had one to listen to,” Edward said, leaning over the counter. “I gave her most everything I had, every shilling but a week’s housekeeping. I may have to ask you for a position.”
“My father wouldn’t hire you, when he has me for free.”
“Where do you get your funds for French sex manuals, then?”
Lemuel blushed.
“Some secret vice? Are you a betting man?”
“I’m an artist.”
“You actually draw or paint something that is salable?”
Lemuel nodded. “Tattoos,” he said in a very quiet voice.
Edward blinked. “That crude sailors’ art? Tattoos?”
“Yes.” Lemuel’s voice strengthened. “Tattoos. I draw them for select clients. I’ve done it for two years.”
“Do you do the actual work of transferring them to the body?”
Lemuel nodded, and bent down. He returned with a small leather-bound book and thrust it at Edward. “See?”
Edward opened the cover and began to peruse the pages. “You have quite a talent for lettering. I’ve never seen a mermaid with this level of detail.”
“You can see why I needed the French book,” Lemuel said. “I need to understand anatomy better. I do get requests for certain female parts at times.”
Edward shook his head and returned the book to Lemuel, who stashed it away. “Lot of money in the field?”
“No, not really, but then I don’t do it as a trade.” He shrugged. “Just a pastime that brings in some small amount of money.”
“I need something like that,” Edward decided.
“You need a protector, one who gives you money, instead of taking it.”
“Very shrewd,” he agreed. “The truth is, I’ve taken money from my rich aunt, my rich sister, and my rich cousin. But it was all small amounts, quickly spent.”
“Can you get more?”
“Yes, but in the end I’m a bottomless pit of need, at least until I’m back with my regiment again. The princess needs even more money. I cannot afford to procure for us both.”
Lemuel leaned forward. “I thought you were buying her gifts, not giving her cash! Have you lost your mind?”
He thought of grinding himself against her yielding pelvis, feeling her thrashing underneath him as she found her pleasure. “I believe I have, and I never would have expected I’d be the man to lose that particular organ.”
Chapter Twelve
“I cannot believe it,” the queen tittered, holding Dash on her lap and Charlotte’s hand in her own plump, beringed digits. “Lady Amy is enceinte!”
Charlotte glanced around to ensure no one was in earshot, then bent her mouth close to the queen’s ear. “Are you certain? It is a serious charge.”
The skin around Victoria’s eyes wrinkled in merriment. “Both of the doctors said so. She was most reluctant to disrobe, of course, in her shame, but that is what they said in their report. We banished her from court this morning and she is meant to return to her family home in Scotland.”
Charlotte shook her head, feeling almost sorry for the woman, even if she was the instrument bringing the truth to life. The queen’s obvious glee troubled her, for all she realized Lady Amy had been a torment to Victoria for years. “I am grateful to Colonel FitzPrince for bringing the situation to my attention.”
The queen set Dash on the floor and stared at Charlotte. Her smile vanished. “The colonel?”
It was time to give Edward his due. “Yes, ma’am. It was he who told me of witnessing an assignation between Lady Amy and Sir John at the theater. I do hope you can rid the court of your nemesis as well.”
The queen poked at her skirts with her free hand. A marmalade stain was visible on one panel. “It will not be so simple. The colonel could not attest to any definite evidence of complicity in the unhappy event, could he?”
“He didn’t hear any speech between them, just witnessed the loving looks of Lady Amy.”
The queen nodded. “It seems the colonel has taken the morality of our court to heart.”
Charlotte’s cheeks heated. If only the queen knew. She found her thoughts increasingly consumed by the man. His touch, his harshly handsome face, his strong body, all intoxicated her. “He is proving himself valuable, ma’am. A sharp eye there.”
Victoria grimaced. “We have heard back from Lady Abigail McChase on the matter of his military career’s origin.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Lady Abigail was most insistent that Linsee forever went his own way and would not have taken our father’s wishes into consideration. The colonel committed some youthful indiscretion and that led directly to his commission.”
Charlotte frowned. “What does that mean, ma’am?”
“That our father did not necessarily intend the colonel to be exiled. Still, I believe he would have placed his sons in the military, as he was a soldier.”
He had been pushed into the army at sixteen because of their marriage. Poor Edward, though he would never see himself that way. “Probably not in Canada, however. My understanding from Princess Sophia is that your father wanted to be here in England himself, during his long years of service.”
“Canada is very grateful for my father’s state-building efforts there,” the queen said, almost in a monotone. “I suppose we must do something about the colonel.”
Yes, please. “Like what, Your Majesty?”
The queen clicked her teeth. “I have no idea. Offer to make him an ambassador, perhaps?”
Charlotte blinked. The queen suggested something so entirely unexpected. “He’s trained as a soldier. Surely a position in the Household Guard would be enough for him?” Edward wanted to be close to Victoria, after all. An ambassadorship would be another kind of exile.
The queen tilted her head to Charlotte. “Charlotte dear, you must not have your head turned by him. He is all but penniless. I suppose we could have him sell out, and he would have money then, whatever he could obtain from the auction. We could make him ambassador to Scharnburg.” She tittered.
Charlotte didn’t find the idea amusing. Send him there, with her here? Would she never be able to have him? The thought of his strong body over hers, warm and potent as he searched for that thrilling rush of pleasure, his face tight against her neck, had haunted her for two days. “Will you offer him another audience to discuss the matter?”
“Yes.” The queen waved a hand. “Dinner tomorrow. You may write the letter, since you are so fond of him. I will offer him an ambassadorship in exchange for him dropping his silly case for the throne. He must know he has no hope. What evidence can he have that the Crown does not? His mother should have contacted the relevant parties immediately on our father’s death.”
“Yes, ma’am. I shall do so immediately, ma’am.”
With the queen’s permission, she went to the writing desk as Victoria picked up an embroidery hoop, and penned a letter inviting Edward to Buckingham Palace the next night. She was afraid her hopes for him made her handwriting too shaky to be read, but she’d been tra
ined in statecraft her entire life, and her pen remained steady enough. If only they could see each other to strategize together before the meal, but she had a full schedule of activities the next day.
~
Edward wore his uniform to dinner the next night. The party was small, consisting of Victoria, two of her ladies, the prime minister, assorted junior men, a visiting middle-aged princess from yet another small German state, and him. The prime minister took the seat of honor and Edward had the two princesses as dining partners, which kept him from any kind of meaningful dialogue. His German was tested to the extreme by the new princess, and Charlotte did little but make eyes at him.
Not lustful eyes, unfortunately, but desperate ones, as if she needed to tell him something. Whatever it was would have to wait for after dinner. At least they ate well, course after course of beautifully seasoned food. He noted his sister dined enthusiastically and he predicted corpulence similar to that of their uncle, the late George IV, if she did not rein in her appetites.
For himself, his mouth went dry every time he looked across the table and saw Charlotte. His lips and tongue wanted to dine on her curves, not mignonettes de boeuf marchand de vin. After several courses, the ladies left the room and the men focused on the serious business of drinking and cigar smoking, though Edward knew they would keep it brief due to the queen’s presence in the drawing room. He could scarcely believe he sat in such opulent quarters with the prime minister of England. A dream come true, for however short a time. If only his brothers weren’t still in Quebec, or even in Montreal, since he’d heard rumors they were to be moved there, and his pockets were not empty of anything but return fare.
“The queen has had a report of you from your aunt,” the prime minister said. His hair, still thick and curly despite the outline of gray, draped boyishly over his forehead in curls. His sideburns were steel gray, however, covering his face to his chin, which was shaved clean. His eyes, not faded by age from a vibrant blue, looked imperiously, or at least so it seemed due to thick eyebrows, at Edward.
“A good one, I hope, for all that she has not seen me in eleven years,” Edward replied, setting down his glass and shaking his head at the footman offering a box of cigars.
The Princess Dilemma: A Victorian Royal Romance Page 17