What if I kill him?
Damn. I didn’t even know if Kasimir was in there. And in any case, I hadn’t actually hit anyone since I was a child and fought with my brother and sisters. That had been childish temper. This was something else entirely, but I didn’t think I could hit the wretched gaoler unless he actually threatened me. Or his prisoner.
I set the stool back down again and straightened just as the gaoler stepped backwards out of the cell door. My heart tried to dive out of my mouth. I was afraid to breathe. It was the same man with the greasy hair and long arms I’d seen yesterday. Dieter, surely. His back to me, he continued to sweep his way down the stairs towards the room below. The door to the cell still stood open.
Without thought, I slipped inside and hid behind the door while I stared anxiously at the bed on my other side.
Kasimir was there, once more asleep, and manacled to the wall. But his sleep didn’t seem to be peaceful. A deep frown marred his brow, and his breathing sounded troubled and uneven. Dreaming, perhaps…
I moved instinctively towards him, just as the door slammed shut. I jumped, my head whipping around to face the door. To my horror, the key turned in the lock with an ominous screech.
Chapter Seven
The clump of footsteps echoed, going down the stone stairs. And then I heard the continuing swish of the broom.
I drew in my breath. So, I was locked in, but undiscovered. So, while the gaoler might still hear if I spoke to Kasimir, I decided to tend to his hurts. Taking the ointment jar from my pocket, I again knelt on the floor and spread the salve around his wrists. I thought, rather proudly, that they looked a little better.
Kasimir muttered something under his breath, but his eyes remained closed. When, finally, I withdrew my hands, his twisted and stretched out as if trying to stop me.
“Kasimir,” I whispered, grasping both his hands between mine. “Wake up. Quietly! I need to talk to you.”
His head pushed against the pillow and he muttered something that sounded like, “Don’t want to wake up. Dreaming…”
“Kasimir, it’s me!” I whispered urgently. I tapped his stubbly cheek, tangled my fingers in his hair, and gave it a gentle tug.
“Guin,” he said, smiling. The chains clanked as he moved, grasping my shoulder, and suddenly I was dragged onto the bed, not just beside him, but under him. “My sweet, beautiful Guinevere…”
I took hold of his shoulders to shove, but before I could either push or speak, his mouth covered mine, hot and urgent and deep. Like last night, only more blatantly sensual. A spark of shocked delight shot through me, melting my bones, even while I tried to move out from beneath him, to make him listen.
But my movement only elicited a growl from deep in his throat as his tongue wound around mine and his hips pushed me harder into the mattress. Something hard pressed through my gown against my pubic bone and slid lower. I knew what it was. I’d overheard my sisters’ warnings about wedding nights, and I’d grown up in the country surrounded by animals. Somehow I hadn’t expected my first encounter with such a thing to make me feel so hot, but it did, especially when he began to move, rubbing it against me while he kissed me.
His elbows leaned on either side of my neck, his chains on the pillow above my head. In desperation, I grasped his face between my hands and tried to speak.
“Kasimir, listen to me…”
“I’m listening,” he whispered, and kissed me again.
Somehow, it seemed churlish not to kiss him back, so I did. The heat of my body became like a furnace, helplessly blazing under his kisses and the caress of his long, lean person.
His open mouth moved across my jaw to my throat, sending shivers downwards to the heavy, tingling pit of my stomach and lower. Between my thighs was moist heat and need, ache and pleasure.
His lips glided lower to the neck of my gown. I tried to speak now that my mouth was free, only I seemed to have forgotten what it was I wanted to say. Kasimir moved his arms, spreading the cold chains across my breast.
“Damned things,” he murmured. “Why should I even wear them in dreams?”
That was it. Of course it was. “Kasimir, you’re not dreaming,” I whispered.
“I must be. You wouldn’t actually be in my bed.”
I gasped as the flat of his hand slid inside the neck of my gown, delving unerringly beneath my corset and shift until it closed over my naked breast. God help me, I burned. It was the sweetest caress imaginable, especially when his hand began to move, his palm stroking my aching nipple.
I swallowed, feeling my eyelids begin to close in bliss. Just before they did, I caught the avid smile on his lips before he fastened them to mine and softly kneaded my breast while he kissed me.
I was awash with overwhelming sensation, sinking into it, welcoming the strange build-up of pleasure between my thighs. I loved to feel his weight, his shaft there, yet I craved even more intimate caresses, comfort to my need.
He shifted again, moving his weight and under his demanding mouth, I made an inarticulate little noise of objection. He released my lips, plucked off my spectacles and hauled me into a half-sitting position. “I have to get you out of the gown,” he explained breathlessly.
“Oh no,” I said, catching ineffectually at his hands, which avoided mine. I felt them tugging at the back fastenings of my dress instead. “Truly, you don’t want to do that.”
“Don’t I?”
“No. It’s me, Guin.”
A warm breath of laughter brushed my naked shoulder. I felt the corset release. “Oh I know. I want you so badly…”
“You do?”
He pushed me back. I felt a tug on my skirts and then his weight upon me once more. “Of course I do,” he said against my mouth. “You know that. You felt it in my kiss…”
The chains were over my naked breasts, strange and cold as he lifted them higher over my nipples. God help me, I responded even to that touch, although when he bent and kissed my breast instead, I thought I would die of pleasure.
I hung on to reality by a thread. Throwing my arms around him, I said, “You’ve drunk the tea, haven’t you? They’ve drugged you, and you think you’re dreaming, but you’re not. You’re awake, and I’m really here. The man locked me in.”
Slowly, blissfully slowly, he released my delirious nipple. As if he couldn’t help it, he licked it once before lifting his gaze to my face.
“That’s my conscience speaking. But I really escaped and went to the ball.”
“Yes, and—”
“And I kissed you.”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“You kissed me back.”
“Yes,” I admitted.
The smile I remembered flickered across his hot eyes and his lips. “I’m building a lot on a kiss. But God help me, I wish this was real. Give me permission. Let me make love to you.”
The chains clanked, his mouth covered mine as his hand swept up my thigh, dragging the chain in its wake, and closed between my legs. I cried out into his mouth with shock, or perhaps just with the sheer sharp intensity of the pleasure.
“Hush, it will be sweet,” he whispered against my lips, and kissed them some more while his fingers spread amongst my secret folds, exploring and stroking with impossible intimacy. When his finger slid inside me, my hips lifted right up off the bed. I made a sound like a sob I didn’t recognize as mine. He released my mouth, watching my face with hot eyes as he caressed round and round the little bud of pleasure he shouldn’t have known was there. His fingers glided over it, and I whispered a moan of bliss that grew and grew. There was nothing but his intense, burning eyes and his wonderful hand and the joy rising up from my toes to consume me.
He smiled as the ecstasy broke. I reached up blindly for his mouth, barely understanding what I was doing, and he gave it, holding me as I shattered.
But he wasn’t still.
As his hand withdrew, he slid over me, settling between my legs which were spread out with abandon. Something much larger than a finger slid inside me.
My eyes flew open at last.
“There’s more,” he whispered, giving a little thrust of his hips that pushed him farther inside me. I gasped with shock more than pain. “More and better…”
“Better?” I repeated with disbelief as he pushed and pushed again. “Oh dear. Oh… Oh!”
With every thrust, the shock of his invasion lessened until I felt the sweetness of the friction, the new, wonderful places within that he’d found to stroke. My scrabbling hands worked their way under his thin shirt to stroke his undulating back. I loved the play of his muscles beneath my fingers, though I felt scars and weals too, and knew the abrasions of his manacles, the bruising on his chest and shoulders, were not the only hurts he’d had to endure. I wanted to weep for that, and yet holding this man in my arms gave me a profound happiness I’d neither known nor imagined before. I wanted to comfort him and give him what he’d given me. I wanted to feel it again. I wanted more…
I got it. His hands in my hair, the cold chains occasionally brushing against my temples, he moved above me, within me, bringing me inexorably closer to a deeper, stronger pleasure. I followed him, eager to learn, to give. But he seemed pleased with whatever he found. His clouded face was suffused with a pleasure he made no effort to hide. His thrusts grew faster, harder, just a little wilder. He lowered his head, whispering in my ear.
“Give me it all, Guin, give me it all…” He stretched himself inside me and out and groaned, seizing my mouth as if to cover the sounds of his joy. I seemed to burst into flames around him, burning up with a wild, new pleasure that caught at the embers of my first climax and brought it back, dragging it along and sweeping me with it.
I clung to Kasimir, who was shuddering and groaning on top of me, adding yet more wonder. I’d given him joy.
His mouth slid free, and he buried his face in the pillow, gasping.
“Goodness,” I said when I could find my breath. “That was impressive too.”
His shoulders shook as if laughing.
Slowly, he reared up on his elbows once more, the smile dying on his lips and in his suddenly anxious eyes. “I’m not dreaming, am I?”
I shook my head, swallowed the sudden lump in my throat. I couldn’t bear him to regret this, and yet I should be the one doing so. “No. I tried to tell you.”
“Then I have just debauched a noble young lady, the duchess’s virgin sister?”
“Debauched,” I repeated. I rather liked the word. “Yes, I believe you have.”
He frowned. “But you really did kiss me last night?”
“And today.”
The frown vanished. “Then maybe I’ll debauch you again before Dieter comes back. Where is Dieter?”
“He went off downstairs, sweeping. I sneaked in, and he locked the door. He didn’t see me, but maybe now would be a good time for both of us to escape…”
“There’s plenty of time to savour the debauchery. He won’t come back until evening. I should be asleep. In fact, I should warn you, I probably will be very soon. They forced an extra-large dose down my throat because of last night.”
His words brought a lot of urgent matters tumbling back to the front of my mind, yet what spilled out of my mouth was, “You don’t regret this at all, do you?”
“What? Debauching you? No. I would if you were outraged, but you don’t seem to be.”
“I should be,” I realised. “I must be very depraved.”
He smiled at me and kissed me. “No, you’re very sweet and desirable, and I want you again.”
“Do you?” I said breathlessly, and not a little hopefully.
“Yes, but I won’t do it. I suspect I’d hurt you.”
“You might not.”
His eyes burned into mine. He moved inside me, making me catch my breath, and then forced himself to stillness. “Temptress,” he murmured, and began to look about him. “Where are my damned drawers?”
His manoeuvre to pick them up made me gasp and wriggle.
“Hold still,” he said with a mock frown. “This is a delicate operation.”
As he began to slide out of me, holding his drawers beneath us, I realised he was catching his seed, no doubt to hide the evidence from his gaoler.
“Oh no,” I whispered. “I must have bled.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll open a wound to account for it.”
His casualness took my breath away. Was he so used to pain that it meant so little?
He pulled me onto my side, breast to breast with him. “No, we’re saved,” he said flippantly.
I frowned. “There was no blood? My sisters are all agreed there should be blood. Maybe we didn’t do it correctly?”
His lips twitched. “Oh we did. You may trust me on that score. Not all women bleed when losing their virginity. The hymen can be broken by other things, including horse riding, medical examinations, self-exploration….”
I flushed and decided attack was the best tactic here. “How come you know so much about women’s matters?”
He shrugged. “I suppose I’ve listened to women, whenever I’ve had the opportunity. They used to bring me girls from the town, one of whom was particularly illuminating. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t say such things to you.”
I didn’t mind about that, but his words did bring reality lurching back into my bubble of happiness once more.
“The duke said he’s thinking of a permanent solution to the problem, to you,” I blurted. “I think he means to kill you somehow.”
“It won’t happen while he’s anywhere near me,” Kasimir said. “Even though no one knows I’m here. He has layers of cover and excuses, and he won’t risk it by anything hasty, just in case word somehow gets out.”
“Word of what? Kasimir, who are you? What have you done to offend him so?”
“Existed,” Kasimir said in surprise. He searched my eyes. “Didn’t you find my portrait in the library? I’m Kasimir, the rightful Duke of Silberwald.”
Chapter Eight
I sat up so quickly, I felt dizzy, propping my back against the cold stone wall of the cell. Unfortunately, I’d forgotten I was naked. Kasimir’s gaze darkened as it fell to my breasts, and without warning, he leaned over and began to kiss one, flickering his tongue across my nipple.
I closed my eyes, holding his head to me for just a moment. Then I tugged at him until he released me and sat up beside me. “You’re that Kasimir,” I said carefully. “I thought he died.”
He sighed. “I didn’t. It was thought better that people believe I was dead rather than in an asylum for the insane.”
My lips fell apart. “Were you?” I asked hoarsely.
“Briefly,” he admitted. “I’m not quite…normal.”
“You don’t seem mad, though.”
“Well, who’s to judge? Maybe seeing the world differently is enough to count against you. In any case, when I was sixteen, Leopold persuaded my father they should put it out that I’d died in some accident and keep me out of the way. I think he said ‘care for’ me.”
“And then they kept you in chains?” His own father had done that to him?
“Well, I suppose they had to. I was furious, and the asylum treatment hadn’t done much to improve my…oddity. I probably was pretty mad for a bit. Which played into Leopold’s hands. He was desperate to succeed my father, convinced him a lunatic like me would only rile the people to revolution.”
“But the revolution happened anyway.”
“They rose up against my father. He died, from the shock, probably. That was when I escaped.”
“What happened?”
His eyes slid away from mine, but not before I’d seen the pain. “Lots of things,” he said vaguely. “But to cut a long story
short, I agreed to come here to meet Leopold and discuss things. He betrayed me and captured me and put me back in here.”
“But did no one see you while you were out? Did people not realize you were still alive?”
“My mistake,” he said. “But to be fair, the revolution was not a great time to be shouting about being the duke. Not without an army at your back like Leopold.”
For the first time to anyone, I said, “I don’t think he’s a very good duke.”
He turned his face back to mine, his eyes steady. “Why do you say that?”
“I’ve only the tiny area around the castle to judge by, but the people here are poor and unhappy. Shouldn’t they be much better off where the duke and the court reside?” Since he didn’t answer, I added, “I know it hasn’t been long since the recent war—”
“The war just added another layer of resentment and discontent, a year of starvation and all that follows. The government supplied only minimal relief, while appointing the odd minister or member of parliament with supposedly liberal ideals. And Leopold married the daughter of a supposedly liberal British earl to improve his credentials. In fact, everything is geared towards tyranny. No one elects the assembly he agreed to. He appoints members as he appoints ministers, from his sycophants and cronies.”
I blinked. “You would do it differently? Give up the sovereignty of Silberwald and unite with the other German states in liberal brotherhood?”
A smile flickered. “Cynic. Of course not. I’ll keep my dukedom and the sovereignty of my country. But parliamentary democracy is good. Land reform, industrial reform. We could be a modern, wealthy country.”
Remembering the notebooks hidden in the library, I regarded him with fascination. “You’ve thought all this out, haven’t you? You’ve strategy planned, draft laws in your head.”
His smile widened. “Sort of. I haven’t had much else to do.” He moved, hooking his hands and the chains over my head, and drawing me back to lean against his chest. “Maybe, once I’m duke, you’d like to marry me.”
The Prisoner of Silverwood Castle Page 9