Royal Regard

by Mariana Gabrielle

  “So says the married woman on my lap, kissing me in the library with the door closed.” Face suddenly white, she tried to scramble away, but he held her tight. “I’m teasing, love. No one here will tell our secrets.”

  At that, she did squirm away, twisting her body like a fox escaping hounds, a comparison Allie had warned him outright not to encourage. Bella nearly ran to place herself on a chaise longue halfway across the room, red satin with a gold pomegranate pattern, a near perfect match to her dress, while Nick made every possible effort to leash his animalistic nature.

  “I’ve heard you have dozens of secrets. You’ve brought them here? Your servants are trained to look away?”

  He rubbed his hand over his face and through his hair, realizing the riband had been lost, long curls now falling across his face and into his eyes. Things were going famously, finally, and now she wanted to trot out all of his prior indiscretions? He would never understand women.

  “What would you like me to say? I’ve lived a rake’s life. That is no secret. I don’t intend to indulge the tendency once I’m married.”

  He had thought long and hard about his lifelong habits, which had seldom involved infidelity on his part. His longest relationship had been almost two years, most lasted less than six months, but his dalliances only rarely overlapped, and he never made false promises. He found it maddening to try to keep track of more than one woman at a time, and none of the others had disturbed his sensibilities so completely as Bella.

  Never before had he felt the world would end if he weren’t joined to a woman. Never had he met one with whom he wanted to talk every day, all day, for as long as she would allow. Every woman he had ever known was tedious by comparison. It was as though the entire female population of England—minus his Bella—had suddenly turned as dull and flat as old parchment.

  “And why not?” she demanded. “Why would someone like you marry someone like me without intending to seek comfort in some other… some prettier woman’s bed? My husband is paying you to take me off his hands, and as soon as you have his money, I’ll be left at Wellstone and forgotten.”

  If this were the tack she was taking, he would never win by simply professing his sincerity—too many titled men professed, but never kept, such promises. In fact, a few months ago, had he been inspired to court one of Allie’s candidates, he might have considered exactly that course.

  But not today.

  The very idea of being away from Bella most of the year was agonizing; trying to replace her with another woman was at best tiresome and at worst nauseating. Keeping her in London, where she was always so unhappy, made him feel the worst kind of lout, so he had already begun staffing Wellstone again, to prepare for the duke and duchess to take up residence year-round.

  But, to convince her of his intent, he would have to use what everyone agreed was a last resort. Quite possibly the only way to render her completely speechless long enough to bring her around, but it might, under some—no, most—all—circumstances, set off her penchant for autonomy, and might easily be twisted by female logic—if there were such a thing—into one more reason to defy his wishes and her husband’s.

  “You honestly believe I want to marry you for money? Do you have any idea of the arrangements I’ve made?”

  She turned up her nose. “All contracts can be broken.”

  “Have you ever seen a contract written by the Earl of Huntleigh?”

  Apparently she had, as she unbent a little, tipping her head with a tinge of curiosity, well covered by continued disdain of the same type she had been leveling at him for weeks.

  Well, he could stand another hour or so of that if need be. This might yet be managed by letting her yell at him for the many advantages he was offering to share with her.

  “Darling, I have seven generations of family wealth, more money than Huntleigh many times over. I have no need of his fortune—your fortune. The only provision involving your money says you keep the lot of it, down to the last shilling, and you may do anything you like with it.”

  Her head snapped toward him, shocked to the bone, but surprisingly, not suspicious. She quickly regained the disdain, however. “You cannot promise to defy the law.”

  “No? Have you any idea what a duke and an earl can accomplish between them with a team of the king’s solicitors in place? Even after your marriage—our marriage—feme sole, suggested by the king and already approved by private session in The Lords. Unless you’d like to brabble about it with Prinny and Parliament, of course.”

  She apparently lost her tongue—thankfully—at the idea she had been discussed and her future decided in The House of Lords. Recognized as an independent woman of property by the highest legal body in the land, beholden to no man for her support nor obligated to share her wealth. And she hadn’t been consulted.

  Nick knew that had been a bad idea, but her husband had said the more input she was given into the terms, the more difficult the negotiations would become. He had agreed at the time, assuming Huntleigh knew her well enough to make the decision, but her face now made him wince.

  “How dare—”

  Stop her before she gets started, Huntleigh had said. Charlotte’s suggestion had been more instructive: Cut her off at every turn, before she gathers momentum. Once she gets going, she won’t stop for days. As if he didn’t know that by now.

  Nick held his hand up and interrupted her pointless objections. “On top of control of your own fortune, you will receive a quarterly allowance of three thousand guineas, an independent coastal estate in Cumbria in the event you can’t abide me, all of the various accoutrements appropriate to your position—carriages, jewels, gowns, and the like—the usual one-third jointure, and the deference due the chatelaine of any and all of my houses, numbering eleven currently.”

  “You have eleven houses?”

  “At present. Ten once we are married and Whitecove is transferred to you, though I will pay the upkeep and manage the property on your behalf.” At the censorious look, he corrected, “Upon your request, of course.” When she nodded her approval of his deference, he continued, “Two of the houses are more reasonably classified as castles, but most are shuttered, and most properties have no ducal residence at all.”

  She was utterly speechless, which, as it was the point, he encouraged by continuing his diatribe: “You know about Wellstone, of course, and now Whitecove, but Rathemore, in Málainn Mhór, has just been closed, with Goraidh Caisteal outside Edinburgh soon to follow. The Taillebois manor house in Annecy was not even grand enough to be burned in the Revolution, and my crumbling palazzo in Venice is currently rented to an even more minor aristocrat. Estates in Hanover and Portugal operate under stewards, as do working plantations in Bermuda, India and—”

  “Does the list of houses include your property on Harley Street?”

  He had in no way expected this question. First, while it was known he owned such a property, typically not where it was located, the better to keep jealous husbands away. Second, Huntleigh had pointedly told him to keep it from her, Charlotte had agreed, and he didn’t know anyone else close enough an acquaintance to mention it. Third, even had she known, he was sure he shouldn’t let his wife discuss such things, even if he had no idea how to stop her.

  His nostrils flared as he responded in his ducal register, “It does not. Your husband requested I divest myself of the property, and I have done so. I will be restraining myself to but one married woman and she will be living in my bedroom suite.” Her face flushed, but her smile was smug, nothing at all like the tortured grimace he was sure he displayed. “Do you have further impertinent questions about mistresses, or may I carry on enumerating your future wealth and influence?”

  “Pray, continue.”

  “You will also keep Huntleigh’s cottage in Saltash and the estate bestowed by the king, but if it pleases you, I intend to make our home in Bristol. I grow too old and too cynical to spend my days at Court, and it is time there should be a Wellbridge at Wellston
e. I will send my proxy and spend my time with you and any children we might have.”

  She said then, even more tentative than when she asked about his Harley Street house, “You want an heir.” It wasn’t a question, but needed an answer anyway. He was not yet certain how to respond, although he had talked through the problem with Huntleigh and Charlotte and his sister until he was sick to death of the entire topic.

  “I have an heir. You may choose children or no; I would have a happy wife.”

  When she sought his eyes, he shrugged. “I will absolutely insist on my conjugal rights—as will you, I can assure you,” he said, with a licentious undertone he used to stroke like fingertips between her thighs. “But as to children, it is entirely up to you. There are measures—well—there are ways to—”

  “I understand.” She looked down at her hands, but her smile broadened. Nick let out a silent sigh of relief. Of all the subjects in this conversation, he had never expected that one to be the simplest.

  “Much of my fortune is entailed, either to Alistair Northope or the young Marquess of Abersham, should an eldest son materialize, which is why Huntleigh could wring no more from my pockets. But, my dear, that is not to say he didn’t try. No one is taking you off anyone’s hands.”

  As he finished the conversation that had, remarkably, cut her objections off like an adze through a tree trunk, she turned her face away, only quietly replying, “Myron only said ‘equitable agreement.’”

  “I’m sure he wished to leave me ammunition for the next occasion you began harping about how you aren’t pretty enough for a man like me. Which, incidentally, bothers me more every time you say it. If you do not desist, I will cry off, contract or no.”

  She wasn’t quite ready to give up a refrain she had been spouting since childhood. “But I’m not pretty enough. Look at you. Listen to you! Your fortune alone… Every woman in the ton wants to—”

  He voice rose and his simmering temper began to boil. “I don’t give a tinker’s damn what every woman in the ton wants. Only you, Bella. Heaven help me, only you, the most obstinate woman in England.”

  “But—”

  He scrubbed his hand across his face again, then his head popped up, intention glowing so brightly, he could imagine it burning through her clothes. Predatory smile firmly in place, he walked slowly across the room until he could see the reflection of himself in her eyes, a cat considering how best to pounce.

  To hell with his sister and her ideas of propriety. His animal nature had always been his best means of seduction, and only a fool would ignore his best tools.

  Bella’s hands fluttered and her knees twisted back and forth in the chair, seeking a position that wouldn’t force her to look him in the eye. Still, she couldn’t help being drawn in. Perfect.

  She swallowed hard, but could only whisper, “What are you doing?”

  He kept moving forward, holding her gaze. “I am about to demonstrate exactly how pretty you are, and while I am at it, I will pull my name from your lovely lips if it takes all day and night.”

  “All day and—?” An involuntary squeak caught in her throat, and her papery voice wavered, “How do you expect to do that?”

  “In ways that will categorically invalidate my contract with the Earl of Huntleigh, and give you every reason to honor it anyway.”

  Chapter 23

  Nick stood over her in the chair, and before she could object, he leaned down and kissed her, hands behind his back, never holding her down. As she didn’t object, and almost came out of her chair to follow him anytime he pulled away, he knelt down in front of her, deepening the passionate embrace until he was possessing her without using anything but his lips and tongue. She held on to the back of his neck with both hands.

  Once she was weakly whimpering, trying to drag his hands toward her, he gave free rein to his mouth, dragged his tongue along her jaw, down her throat, licking just underneath the gathered lace trim of her bodice, finding one of the spots on which she used lavender oil, sending his tongue in between her breasts to taste the scent of her. He was drunk on it, and on the feel of his hands on her thighs, through muslin and satin and the forty-seven layers of linen he was sure she wore.

  “I think you have worn this dress and left off your corset to try my honor, and I find I have none. Did you choose pretty petticoats, too, when you dressed for your visit to me?”

  He hoped they were white with pink ribbons, like a maiden on her wedding night, not scarlet to match the dress, though he had never craved even the semblance of virginity before.

  She was somehow shy even as she looked him right in the eye, biting her lip. “How do you…? A man should not notice petticoats.”

  He wanted to chuckle at her, but she was too earnest to tease. He smiled instead and kissed her briefly, a wordless “thank you” for the petticoats, his hands firmly stroking up and down her sides, his thumbs swiping the sides of her breasts, the stomach that drew in when she gasped, the back that arched whenever she whimpered.

  She looked down and whispered, with the barest hint of the voice she used when she was trying some new bit of flirtation as she had learned how to hold her own in London: “Charlotte made me.”

  “I am in her debt. Tell me about the layers I will remove sometime in the next few hours.”

  She whimpered, “Hours? We—I—” as Nick rubbed her thighs atop her gown and its overskirt, underskirt, petticoats, chemise, and anything else she might be wearing to defend against him, fingertips inching ever closer to her center, but not close enough, and not inclined to slide up under even one layer of fabric, no matter that he had maneuvered himself between her knees, leaving her legs spread immodestly around his waist.

  “White or a color? Silk or linen? Ribbons or tatting? Buttons or laces?” He ran the tip of his tongue along the whorl of her ear as he asked, “How many layers between my hand and your thigh?”

  She choked, “You certainly have intimate knowledge of women’s undergarments.”

  “I will have intimate knowledge of yours once you have told me what they look like.” When he slipped the sleeve of the siren’s gown off her shoulder, he was sure Bella thought he wouldn’t make her say it, but he took the strap of her chemise with the dress; her shoulder was completely bared, and he still had no idea what color the slip might be.

  “It is white—” she gasped when his mouth brushed her collarbone. “—linen.”

  Her face could be no warmer than the rest of her body, and her voice low and husky in a way he had never heard before. Her eyelids fell as he followed the curve of her shoulder with his lips, placing soft kisses on every inch of skin as he bared it.

  “With ribbons,” she added, as he reached the sleeve and slowly moved across the neckline toward her breast. “Very like a debutante.”

  “Very like an untouched maid I will soon despoil.” He separated her chemise strap from the gown, and ran his tongue along the ribbon woven into the fine linen. “Pink. Perfect.”

  Her antique-gold hair was falling, so he slowly removed the pins, running strong fingers through the straight locks, tangling the fine mass that fell past the middle of her back, tugging her head back for another series of passionate kisses.

  His shoulders seemed to be her life raft as she drank him in like the last water left in England. When he loosened the buttons holding her bodice closed, she pushed herself toward him like a wave surging toward a pier. Chuckling, he kept the two sides of her dress from falling completely open, baring only the pink ribbon ties of her chemise. Through thick layers of satin and linen and lace, he ran his thumb in circles nearer and nearer the stiff peaks of her breasts and used his teeth to tug the pink ribbon free of its knot.

  “Oh!” she gasped. “Oh, Your Grace…”

  He pulled one hand away and used the other to steady her shoulder, delighted she was losing her equilibrium. “Ah, ah. No more until you say my name.”

  She tried to drag his hand to her breast again, then his mouth to kiss her. Her whole bod
y squirming, she groaned when he placed his hands on the seat and said, “I could kiss you all night, Bella, and that is all I will do if you call me ‘Your Grace’ again.” His fingertips trailed along her bared shoulder underneath the chemise strap, under the neat edge of the neckline. He grinned, “Was there something you wanted?”

  “Oh, please, Nick, please.”

  “There it is,” he murmured into her ear, and gooseflesh erupted on her arms. “You cannot know how it arouses me to hear.”

  Tugging gently at her open bodice, he used his teeth to remove the ribbon from her chemise. With each movement, her gasps grew ever so slightly wispier, only gaining volume and depth when he took her linen-covered nipple between his lips, suckling gently, wetting the fabric, scraping his teeth and rough tongue against the sensitive point. Pressing her slowly down onto the velvet chaise.

  Between arching herself toward him and writhing against the sensation, the only way she stayed on the chaise was his body keeping her there. This meant she was unknowingly rubbing against him in ways that might end the encounter long before he was ready. When he rubbed back, sliding his aching manhood against her, even through fifty-seven layers of fabric, her moans grew louder.

  Sending up prayers of thanks to Charlotte that Bella’s drawers had gone the same way as her corset, his hand slid up under her pretty skirts. Nick’s fingertips found her inner thighs slick and wet, a state probably completely foreign to her, but which sent an electrical charge from his hands to his wild imagination and then to his throbbing groin. He shifted his mouth to her other breast, tickling the tender flesh around her nipple until her hands took hold of his hair and forced him to fulfill the tease.

  Far be it from him to deny a lady.

  Before she could object, he pushed the dress, chemise, and thin petticoat up over her bared thighs. Taking half a moment to run the palms of his hands from her ankle to her knee, he murmured, “The most beautiful legs I have ever seen. Your ankles, Bella…your ankles have been driving me mad.”