Royal Talisman

by Cooper-Posey, Tracy

  “And to many others too,” she said lightly, trying to keep her voice steady as his warm lips trailed across her breasts.

  “I don’t care,” he muttered and his hands slid around her waist more firmly, holding her steady. She could not help the little hitch of breath that escaped her as the tip of his tongue swept across the sensitive flesh of her breast, just above the line of her dress.

  His head lifted at the sound and his eyes narrowed. “At last,” he said and his voice was hoarse.

  She swallowed. “You believed I was indifferent to you, Lord Sutherland-Bruce?”

  “After so many others have had the privilege of calling you ‘Princess’?” The corner of his mouth quirked upwards. “Yes, I believed you were.”

  She did not correct his assumption. She could not afford to. Instead, she gave a small laugh. “You would have me play the hunter? Is that not an unusual role for you? The hunted?”

  He didn’t laugh but his smile traveled to his eyes and lit them up. “Perhaps I just want you to believe you are the hunter. You’ve heard of the fox lying as if he were dead until his prey is close enough to leap upon?” And his hands gave her waist a squeeze, drawing her closer to him.

  “You don’t like being hunted, do you, my lord?”

  “My father is the lord,” he said, suddenly irritable. “I am Stuart.”

  “You would avoid my question with such a miserable change of subject?”

  He took a deep breath. She could see him reaching for calmness and that more than any word he had spoken told her that she had jolted him badly.

  And suddenly, she felt a sadness she could barely explain. Why should she feel sad when she was succeeding?

  “Why do you insist on hunting me?” Stuart whispered.

  “I thought you could use a change in roles,” she said truthfully.

  “Is that what you’re doing?” He shook his head, as if to clear his thoughts. “Who are you? I don’t know you at all!”

  “When you are the hunter, do you take time to make sure your quarry knows you?”

  “For love, I would take that time.”

  Silvery surprise – breath-robbing surprise – slithered through her.

  And Stuart’s eyes widened, as if what he had said shocked him, too.

  Bian could feel her heart thundering in her chest. He was too big, too close. All she could think of was the need to have his lips on her breast one more time. But this…this...was not part of the game.

  She trembled, for she knew they had both strayed onto territory neither of them could afford to travel. She had to find the exit for both of them. The security of the country she loved would be in danger if she did not.

  With reluctance tugging at every syllable, she made herself speak lightly. “A love match? Stuart, you’re too much the cynic to believe in love.”

  “A cynic?” Suddenly, he had turned her loose and swung away from her. “I suppose you could call me that. The type of hunting I prefer usually is the sport of cynics.”

  “Can it be the sport of anyone but a cynic?” she asked.

  “If it is purely a sport, no.”

  She could see his sigh even standing behind him, for his wide shoulders lifted and fell with it.

  “And if it was not purely a sport, what else might it be?” she prompted him.

  “A distraction.” His answer was soft but without hesitation.

  “A distraction from what?” She did not move toward him, or dare breath unless it broke the moment and his answer would be lost.

  His hand curled into a tight fist. “Duty. Duty without love.” He looked over his shoulder at her. His expression was bleak and he suddenly looked much older. “I don’t know who you really are but I already know you are more free than any other person here this evening. All of us but you are bound to marry and multiply in the appropriate manner.” His smile was sour. “Is that not a wonderful irony?”

  She grasped his arm and turned him to face her again. “Stuart, no. That isn’t true, even of you. There is always a way…” She bit her lip, for to explain further would bring them both back to more forbidden territory. So instead, she reached up to hold his face in her hands and draw him to her.

  His lips were gentle but there was strength there and a warmth that gave lie to the cold, cynical hunter he professed to be. Even though he allowed her to control the kiss, his arm curled around her waist and lifted her to him.

  “Perfect,” his lips whispered against hers. “My perfect princess.”

  The whispered words seemed to unlock a deep well of hidden need. It exploded through her, in a scalding rush that left her trembling. “More,” she demanded of him. “Please…more.”

  All she could think of was the need for ultimate pleasure. The tips of her breasts were sensitive to the point where she could feel them chaffing against the linen of her under-dress. The folds of flesh between her legs were throbbing with it.

  She coaxed his head to her breasts, where they swelled against the low cut bodice. Why had she worn a corset this evening? She could give him no easy access and she longed for his hands and lips to scald their imprint upon them.

  As his tongue seared across the flesh of her upper breasts, she almost wept with the small frustration.

  He grew still against her. “Shhh…” he warned.

  She heard the sound of people moving through the conservatory, somewhere behind them. “They are far away,” she dismissed and turned so her back was to the central path. Her skirts pushed up against the iron bench and a solution flared in her imagination. She lifted her foot and rested her shoe on the curving iron of the bench, being careful to keep her knee thrusting forward.

  “Are you proposing what I think?” Stuart whispered.

  “Come here,” she insisted, reached for him.

  Puzzled, he stepped closer to her, so that his leg was pushing against her inner thigh, trapping the layers of gown and petticoats between their limbs. She pushed the layers aside impatiently and drew his hand beneath. She rested the long fingers over her bare thigh, just above the garter of her stocking. The touch of his flesh against hers was almost shocking and she caught her breath.

  “How brazen is your hunting, my lord?” she breathed. “You were not above proposing an unmarried lady meet you alone, on the corner of a public street.”

  “Challenge me and you will lose,” he breathed and his thumb stroked in a maddening little circle across her inner thigh. His eyes looked directly into hers and appeared more intensely blue than ever she had seen them.

  “Oh, I hope to lose most handsomely,” she said and caught her breath again as his hand slid higher under her skirts. She was acutely aware of his thumb’s proximity to her privates. The little nub of flesh at the very centre gave a pulse of anticipation.

  “We are merely conversing,” she told him, her voice unsteady and her words hurried. “My back is to the path and they will see that your hands are not on my waist.”

  “You have courage, my lady. I give you that.” His own breath was as uneven as hers. His gaze remained locked on hers as his hand stroked its hot way to the centre of her. As his fingers slid into the core, the shudder of pleasure she could not voice made her clamp down on him. As his fingers worked inside her, his thumb slipped through the heated moisture to her nub and stroked it.

  She could not look away from his steady gaze, even as she clamped her jaw against the groan that pushed at her lips. “More…please,” she whispered, when it had passed.

  “At once, my lady,” he breathed.

  The others were nearly there. She could hear their voices, even individual words. There were at least three of them and two were women. But she could not spare attention to learn what they spoke of, or even care that they drew nearer. For the wonderful peak of pleasure was building in her. She recognized from her own solitary adventures of the flesh that she had reached a point of no return. In a few seconds it would be upon her.

  She gripped Stuart’s jacket, holding herself upright
, as her legs trembled. Her eyes wanted to close, yet she struggled to focus on his gaze.

  “Yes, close them. Let me see the pleasure take you,” he whispered and his voice was hoarse and thick with excitement. Hearing the heavy note in his voice evoked a thrill that swept through her and brought her pleasure to a swift, hard climax. She fought to hide the spasms as his fingers refused to spare her. With each stroke, he delivered another jolting, searing peak.

  Her body clamped around his fingers, her pleasure soaring, fizzing, exploding in bright hard waves that bloomed and flowered again and again.

  The others were directly behind her but she hardly cared. She was a slave to her own exhilaration and could barely control the external signs of it. Her breathing was shallow and jagged.

  Not until the others had turned the bend in the pathway and were out of sight did Stuart spare her. He withdrew his hand and held her upright as she recovered. Her trembling was so severe that she could barely manage to return her skirts to proper order. She let herself lean against him and closed her eyes. His heart beat was no less frantic than hers.

  He simply held her, remaining silent.

  In that warm, mutual silence, Bian realized what she had done and because of it, what she must do now.

  She took a deep breath and pushed herself away from him. She gave herself the necessary seconds she needed to gather her courage, by fussing with the lace at her shoulder. Then she managed to look him in the eye without flinching. “Good evening, my lord.”

  As she turned away, she caught the surprise in his face but she made herself walk away.

  And not look back.

  * * * * *

  It took long minutes of ringing the bell and knocking on the door before her summons was answered. Finally, the fluttering glow of a candle showed in the glass panel beside the door and the door itself opened a crack. The candle was thrust through the opening to bathe light upon her.

  “Bian, my God!” The door was pushed fully open to reveal Patrick, who had answered the door himself.

  Thankfully, Bian allowed her polite mask to slip. “Patrick, I’m so sorry…but I could not return home. He would find me there.”

  The door was pushed fully aside. Patrick wrapped his gown more firmly around him and reached for her arm. “For the love of…” He helped her inside but she could make it no further. Finally, the trembling she had been holding back leapt to its full strength. Bian let herself fall back against the wall to prop herself up. But it wasn’t enough. Slowly, she sank down to the floor.

  Patrick sat upon the lower steps of the stairs and rested the candlestick beside him. “Would you like some brandy?”

  She shook her head and tried to remove her gloves. It was impossible. She gave up and wrapped her arms around her. “I just need…to rest a little.”

  Patrick gripped his hands together. Twisted them. In the flickering candlelight his face was full of shadows and concern. “It was him, wasn’t it?”

  She barely had the strength to nod.

  “What happened? Did he hurt you…?”

  “Not physically,” she whispered. Her answer set her trembling again.

  Patrick’s hands grew still as he studied her. “You’re becoming personally involved with him, aren’t you?”

  She couldn’t bear to answer. To answer would be to confirm that she had become weak.

  “Bian,” Patrick said chidingly, “It’s not like you to confuse business with pleasure.”

  “Is that what it is?” she shot back. “Pleasure? If it’s such a pleasure, then why is it that all I can feel is pain?” She unwrapped her arms and grabbed at her chest, over her heart. “Here.” She squeezed her temples. “And here.”

  Patrick was like a statue. “He betrayed his country, Bian. Your country.”

  Hot tears squeezed from her eyes and scalded their way down her chest. They were not a release. The ache that accompanied them made her believe her heart might seize from the pain of it. “I know,” she told him.

  Patrick gave a little helpless gesture with his shoulders and hands. “What are you going to do, then?” he asked. After all, she had always known what she was going to do. It was strange for him to even be in a position where he doubted she knew her way forward.

  “I don’t know,” she told him truthfully.

  Chapter Four

  Bian avoided her townhouse for the next three days. It was an easy enough matter—she spent most of her time in the bed she had borrowed from Patrick and slept whenever her mind would quiet enough for her to do so.

  Patrick’s staff were all blessed with a very English lack of curiosity and left her alone.

  By the third day both her body and her mind were screaming in protest at the lack of activity. She wrapped Patrick’s over-sized robe around her and joined him at the breakfast table. As he read The Times, she buttered a crumpet and poured herself a cup of tea. When she bit into her crumpet, she saw that Patrick was studying her over the top of the broadsheet.

  “And does Britannia still rule the waves, or did the world as we know it disintegrate while I slept?” she asked.

  He folded the newspaper and put it aside. “Have you decided what to do next, Bian?”

  “There is no decision to be made. Richard charged me with certain duties.” She glanced at the maid standing at the door. “We both know what those duties are,” she said carefully. “I must go back.”

  “To him,” he said flatly.

  “I’ve spent three days wrestling with it, Patrick. Please don’t make me go through it again. I must do this. It is my duty.”

  Patrick pursed his lips, considering the matter. “And this is the life you chose,” he muttered. “Does it always tear you apart so, Bian?”

  “Never,” she declared.

  “You forget. I saw you three nights ago.”

  She dropped her gaze to the Wedgwood plate. “Until now,” she amended. “But it makes no difference. I must go back.”

  “And how are you going to re-insert yourself into Sutherland-Bruce’s life, now you have disappeared for three days?”

  That was the only pleasing fact she had. “I took the trouble to make sure he thought me unpredictable. So…” She shrugged. “I just had to go shopping. I was so bored with my winter wardrobe and besides, it is from last season. And Worth had a showing in London these two days past…”

  “He did?” Patrick said blankly. “How on earth do you know that? You’re one of the last women I know to be interested in fashion and you’ve been buried beneath my quilt, besides.”

  “It’s on the back of the paper you were reading,” Bian told him. “Tight sleeves are de rigueur again.” She rose from the table. “Can your man collect some things from my townhouse for me? I’ll write a note for my maid.”

  Patrick smiled. “If you insist on such an absurd story, then you’re going to have to go shopping, you realize? It’s simply unheard of for a woman to come home from a two day shopping venture without a single hatbox or dress box to show for it.”

  Bian stiffened, staring at him, feeling a genuine horror curl through her. “Perhaps I could say I was lost at sea, instead?” she suggested.

  Patrick threw his head back and laughed.

  * * * * *

  Stuart watched the paper burn, adding to the small pile of ashes already sitting in the middle of the dining table, trying to come to grips with the black lump of putrid energy gnawing at his insides.

  “Bloody hell, are you trying to set the house on fire?” Aiden rounded the dining table, his expression one of amazement. He was carrying his overcoat, gloves and hat. Clearly, Peggoty had not caught him at the front door.

  “Where’s Peggoty?” Aiden demanded. “And why isn’t she reaming you out for destroying the dining table? What is going on here?”

  “I wish I knew,” Stuart replied. He dropped the last tiny corner of the telegram onto the pile of ashes and rubbed the tips of his fingers together to rid himself of the last of the unwelcome news.

 
Aiden dropped his coat and gloves onto the seat of one of the dining chairs and hooked his hat over the corner of the back of it. “Is it that woman you were chasing at the opera a couple of nights ago?”

  “Chasing?” Stuart could feel the corners of his mouth trying to curl into a hard grimace. “Is that what I was doing?” Bitterness gnawed at him. He pointed to the pile of ashes. “You’re looking at the world’s worst hunter, brother.”

  “Ah.” Aiden leaned down, both hands on the table. “She’s gone to ground, then. You overstepped yourself somehow.”

  Stuart shook his head. “That’s not it. I didn’t step anywhere.” He threw himself to his feet with a growl that sounded irritable even to him.

  “What does that mean, then?” Aiden asked, straightening up.

  Stuart pushed his hand through his hair, and studied his brother. They were close, but he hesitated to reveal this much. Aiden would see it as a weakness. But in three days of trying to find Bian once more, Stuart had just about run out of options. She had completely disappeared.

  He needed help. He needed a clear head, and he knew without doubt that his was not clear. Not anymore.

  Bian had done that.

  Stuart scrubbed at his hair once more and sighed. “I let her do the hunting,” he said carefully.

  Aiden’s brows rose, but he remained silent while he considered the matter. Then he pointed to the ashes once more. “And now you can’t find her.”

  “No,” Stuart said flatly. “And it doesn’t make sense at all. Not after that night.”

  Aiden smiled. Then he laughed, a long low bellow that shook his entire frame.

  “What?” Stuart demanded. “For god’s sake, what is it? Stop laughing and tell me. I’ve no patience for this, Aiden.”

  Aiden wiped his eyes. “I can’t believe you didn’t see it straight away, brother.” He spread his hands. “She’s still hunting. She’s toying with you. Lying in hiding, waiting to spring the next trap.”

  Stuart could feel his jaw loosen. Shock circled through him. “No,” he said flatly, shaking his head. Denial.