He kissed her again. She was eager, gauche, learning how even as he grappled for fortitude. She should know what this kind of loving did to a man. How her kind of enthusiastic seeking lashed him with passion. He was nothing more than a predator, a wolf who prowled among the lambs and took what he would. As all men were. She had to know that. Every woman knew a man’s true nature, to take and go, then return and take again. What madness made a soft and tender woman think she could ever tame the wolf, he didn’t understand.
“Dominic.”
She murmured his name against his lips, giving identity, blessing, to the lonely bastard he was.
“Dom, please.” She rose up on tiptoe, crowding back at him, trying to get closer when only their clothes separated them. Her fingers slid up his shoulders into his hair, stroking the strands against the back of his neck, finding the tingle of nerves as if they’d been lovers for decades.
A shudder rose up his spine. He feasted on her mouth, loving the textures, the scents, the pure unbridled pleasure of possessing her with his tongue. His hand lifted away from the tree and hovered next to her breast just beneath her upswung arm. A sensitive area, one that could lift this kiss from curiosity on her part to blind, binding abandon.
If he dared.
He grasped the tree bark again.
Only a stupid man would dare. Already this craving was too much, too deep, too powerful. He held on to control by a thread and to be carried away by such madness . . . well, it was not to be borne.
Gradually, he lightened the kiss, forcing himself by mere willpower to pull back, to lessen his domination, to give her a chance to reclaim the discipline of a princess.
Peasants and nobles roamed the meadow below and in the woods around. A tittering drunk or another pair of lovers could catch him and Laurentia. Their embrace would become a lesser thing, soiled by the amusement of gossips and the avid interest of Laurentia’s own people. People who thought they had the right to observe their princess and her courtship.
More important, the kidnapper could be lurking nearby, waiting to catch Dom unprepared.
Dom kissed her gently now, retreating as lightly as a thief.
Nothing left a man as vulnerable as fornication. He had used that knowledge to his advantage on many occasions, all the while swearing he would never be caught so unaware. Yet this time he dared not put his resolve to the test. The violence of his response to a mere kiss forewarned him that lying with this woman would rob him of sight, of good sense, of the very wariness that had kept him alive.
One part of him resented that—a woman who could rip his defenses away with only a kiss.
Another part of him wanted that—passion beyond price.
All parts knew he could not live with himself if he allowed Laurentia to be hurt. As she would be hurt when de Emmerich had his way.
Dom’s eyes sprang open as the knowledge slammed through him. She would suffer when he had succeeded in his mission. She would be alone, seduced and humiliated.
But he couldn’t contemplate that now. He would think about it later. Later, when her fingers weren’t still in his hair, rubbing through the strands as if the touch gave her pleasure. When her mouth was not still on his, accepting the softness of his retreat as if it were only a prelude to more.
“Your Highness,” he whispered, hoping formality would succeed where discretion had failed. When her title didn’t touch the haze of voluptuousness enshrouding her, he reached behind his head, grasped her wrists, and lifted them away.
Her eyes opened, and she gazed at him with sleepy dismay. Her hair had hooked itself on the rough bark behind her head, creating a dark and rumpled halo. Her mouth looked well kissed and passion’s flush stung her cheeks.
She would look just this way after he’d loved her to sleep, and woke her to love again.
At the thought, he dropped her wrists and stepped back so quickly he stumbled over a protruding tree root.
“Dom?” Her hands dangled, then lifted to cradle her shoulders as if she were cold. Bewilderment as transparent as hers could not be faked, although he almost wished it could.
Her wide mournful eyes and trembling mouth made him want to pull her back into his arms and assure her he wanted as much as she wanted. More than she wanted.
“Princess Laurentia.” He bowed jerkily. “Your Highness, I think we should return to the festival before Weltrude misses you.”
She stroked her lips with her fingertips. “I don’t want to go back.”
“It’s your birthday.” He smiled at her, showing her he could be reasonable even while suffering from trousers that fit with uncomfortable snugness. “We can’t just disappear. People will gossip.”
Her forehead crinkled. She glanced down the path, her gaze lingering as if remembering their ascent. Was she considering vengeance? He would have been. But when she looked back at him, he found himself the object of a very thorough visual examination. “You could give me a gift. Right now.”
He took pride in understanding women, but not this one. An hour ago, he would have sworn she didn’t know one feminine wile, and now she actively taunted him! “A princess should be above vulgar speculation.”
She smiled a close-mouthed smile, almost as if she were laughing at herself. “There has never been vulgar speculation about me.”
She was being reasonable. He hoped his relief would transmit itself to a more rambunctious part of his body—soon.
She added, “It’s about time, I would say.”
Relaxation evaporated.
She pursed her mouth with a display of regal impatience. “But you’re right. Now is not our moment.” She shook out her skirts, lifting them as if trying to rehabilitate the crushed starch of her petticoats. Darting a glance at him, she lifted her arms and created a frame for her face. Brushing the clinging locks from her forehead, she said, “My hair needs to be put up again, but the pins are gone.” She turned her back to him.
Because she had contempt for him? Because she trusted him?
“Would you like to braid it this time?” she asked.
Reaching almost to her waist, the black strands glistened in the dappled sunlight, and as she gathered them in her hands and pulled them over her shoulder, she looked back at him, smiling so mysteriously it would have made Mona Lisa proud. “Don’t you want to braid it?”
That answered his question. Laurentia turned her back on him to tempt him. And doing a damned fine job, too. Her pink skirt flared across slender hips. Her hem, shortened for the outdoor activities, allowed him a glimpse of white-clad ankles and black ribbons from her slippers laced up to ... where?
Brusquely he said, “You do it.” Leaning over, he picked up the empty sack and wondered why he had ever thought he should try to teach her a lesson. “I’ll gather our things.”
“As you wish.” The little witch sounded submissive, and kept her back turned as she divided her hair into three parts and began the process of weaving it into a braid. The more her hair came under control, the more her figure was revealed, and the harder he searched for their belongings. He found her pocketbook, trampled and dirty, and dropped it into the sack. The pistol, when he lifted it, seemed no heavier than a toy, but he knew a bullet from its barrel would have punched a hole right through his chest. The fact that she carried it at all stunned him. He thought he knew everything about women like her. So how did she continue to surprise him?
He weighed it in his hand. “Do you always carry a gun?”
“Not at all.” She faced him, holding the end of her braid with one hand. “Do you have something I can tie this off with?”
He unraveled a thread from the loose weave of the sack.
“I like that in a man.” She smiled at him again. “No matter the situation, you know how to provide.”
“Yes.” If life had taught him one thing, it was to provide for those he loved. Brat and Ruby. He owed them. He would not forget about them and the deal he’d made for their sake.
Laurentia plucked the thread f
rom his hand, wrapped it around the braid, and tied it firmly. “His Majesty gave me that pistol some years ago, soon after my husband died.”
She continued to smile, but he detected a waver in her voice, a hesitation she had not ever shown before, and he again sensed a mystery.
“Of course I know how to shoot it,” she went on. “His Majesty taught me well. I’ve just never had occasion to carry it until now.”
“Until now?”
“Someone did try to kidnap me last night. While I believe you are a capable bodyguard, nothing is certain, and I refuse to be helpless in a fight.” She touched his shoulder lightly and smiled that smile. The intimate one that suggested they had shared— or would share—something more than a kiss. “You do realize I’m not stupid.”
His eyes narrowed on her. “I am starting to suspect it.”
“Good.” She tossed her braid over her shoulder and reached for the pistol.
Against his better judgment, he let her take it, but he questioned her anyway. “What are you going to do with it?”
“When I get back to my saddlebags,” she said, “reload it.”
“I’d like to see you shoot.”
“More than into the air, you mean?” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “I’d like that, too.”
Now she made gunplay sound suggestive! He didn’t know what she was thinking, but whatever it was could only be hazardous.
She put her hand on his arm and rested it there. “Shall we go?”
He looked down at her hand, intimately warm. “You walk ahead. I’ll finish picking things up and be right behind you.”
“But you said I should stay within sight.”
“You will be.”
She released him with a show of reluctance. She smiled at him again. She batted her eyelashes. And as she walked away, she swayed her hips like a gypsy on the prowl.
He didn’t need this now. Not when his mind already struggled against his body’s urgings. “Have you got a kink in your back?”
Turning, she put a hand on her hip. “What?”
“It looks as if it hurts when you walk.”
Straightening to her full height, which was not much, she glared, then flounced away as he grinned after her.
Then his smile faded.
Where did women learn these maneuvers? And why was she using them on him?
He bundled their belongings into the sack, and glared at her as she made her way down the path, walking carefully down the steep parts, sometimes slipping on the fine dust and pine needles, once stopping and emptying a stone from her shoe.
Yet for all their suspected phoniness, he liked her smiles, and the small touches on his arm and shoulder. If he thought their kiss had healed the rift between them or even swept her into that other universe of rampant desire, he would be hard-pressed not to gloat. But she kissed like a girl, all awkward curiosity and eager interest. He’d been the one swept away, carried upward on a burst of passion so strong he’d had to struggle to escape.
His palms stung. He looked down at them.
His skin was raw from clutching the bark, and along the string of calluses just beneath his fingers ran a line of splinters dug deep into the skin.
Yes, he had suffered the sting of painfully explicit passion. She had barely noticed his agony and she had certainly not experienced overwhelming desire. He knew what that meant; a simpleton could make this deduction. Little Miss Princess had suffered a frigid marriage. Now she wanted to explore the heavens and, just as de Emmerich had so accurately predicted, she’d chosen him. Chosen him for his looks, for his air of danger and his suspected expertise. Chosen him for exactly the same reasons all the other women had chosen him.
So be it. He’d make it so good for her she’d beg to tell him her nation’s secrets. When they were done, he’d walk away heart-whole, a wealthy man, his honor intact and another piece of vengeance wreaked on the royals of the age.
He flexed his wounded hands.
Never mind that for a brief breathless moment, he had wondered if Brat and the farm couple were right, and he could be a better man—and the husband to a princess.
Chapter Fifteen
That had gone well Laurentia told herself bracingly. Coquetry wasn’t so difficult. She’d got him to kiss her, she’d teased him, she’d proved to herself he wanted her.
He wanted her. A grin broke across her face. A man she wanted, wanted her. During the time Beaumont had courted her, she hadn’t known what to look for, but she’d learned by observation in the intervening years.
Dulcie wanted her to take advantage of that desire.
Laurentia’s smile sagged.
She didn’t think she had the audacity to bed a man just because he was handsome. Especially a man she had just met, a man who had taken advantage of circumstances to finagle a place in her life, a man she didn’t trust. She had always thought she could never bed a man she didn’t trust.
Stopping, she shook a stone out of her shoe and glanced back. Yes, Dom still followed her, keeping her within viewable range.
Of all the virtues, trust carried the most weight for her. As princess, she had learned only too well how many people liked her only as long as they could use her. In her life, she truly trusted only four people. Her father. Francis. Dulcie. And Chariton, God bless his ubiquitous self. Her reliance on them had come only after years of their discretion and support.
She didn’t trust Dom. For all his openness, she sensed a mystery about him, depths he deliberately buried. Perhaps his secrets were no more than any other mercenary’s—surely those were bad enough— but prudence and well-developed instincts warned her to utilize caution around a man of his background. Her secrets, after all, carried an impact his never could.
Yet he had saved Monty from the crushing weight of the cart. She loved the evidence of his fiery emotions. And ... although she trusted Francis, she didn’t care to bed him, and for a few moments up there on the hill, she had definitely—
She heard Dom shout right before someone tackled her and knocked her sideways.
She hit the ground hard. She slid through the pine needles, weighed down by a heavy human form. Massive, sour with the stench of bad teeth and piss.
The kidnapper.
She tried to catch her breath. She swallowed a lungful of dust and coughed.
He shoved her off the path into the woods, out of sight.
Dom. Where was Dom?
He had said to scream. She screamed. She tried to strike out at the kidnapper.
He struck back, a thump on the head hard enough to knock the sense out of her. As her head bobbled, he hefted her over his shoulder and started running through the woods, uphill, away from the celebration.
Dom. Where was Dom? He should have caught them by now.
Her face stung. The running jarred her belly where it met the kidnapper’s shoulder. Her head throbbed from the blow. She wanted to vomit.
Instead she lifted her head and looked around.
Behind her she could see the primitive track they followed. She could see broken branches from their passing.
She should be able see Dom, tracking them relentlessly.
She could not.
Her suspicions were correct. Dom had planned her abduction all along. What other reason could there be for his charm and his kisses? He knew she couldn’t marry a bastard, and no man in his sane mind would court her unless lured by the promise of riches. She had been a fool. Again.
Dom wasn’t coming. She had no one to depend on except herself. So she would free herself, or die trying.
She didn’t have bullets in her gun, thanks to Dom and his fake kidnap attempt. Was that why he had done it? To scout out her defenses?
Tears trickled from her eyes, sliding over her forehead, and she dashed them away. She would not think about Dom. She had to free herself.
This kidnapper was big and brutal, but also lumbering and awkward.
As a child, her ability to run, escape, and hide had gotten her out of ma
ny a lesson and many a function. If she could do that now ...
In a thicket, he set her down on the ground so hard her spine vibrated. She got a glimpse of wide, frantic eyes in the kidnapper’s broad face. A huge horse, seventeen hands high, stood almost right on top of her, its hooves restive and menacing.
She didn’t even think of flight, only of avoiding those hooves, but when she tried to roll away her kidnapper grabbed her arm in a crushing grip.
“Keep still,” he muttered.
She couldn’t place his accent. Right now, she didn’t care. She just wanted to live through this. “You won’t get paid if that horse kills me.” For a woman quaking in fear, she produced a fair imitation of fury.
“They won’t care if ye’re hurt a little. They’re just goina hurt ye more.”
“They?” He wasn’t on his own. He had been hired—and that, she knew, meant a conspiracy. Dom had warned her... She cut off the thought. “Who are they?”
“Ye’ll find out soon enough.” The brute shook her arm, bruising her more. “Don’t move or I’ll hurt ye m’self.” Letting her go, he stepped back slowly.
She bent her head to her chest, gathered her skirt in her hands.
He kept watch on her as he untethered the horse and led it out of the embracing thicket to the well-worn trail. It wasn’t the gelding she had first assumed, but a stallion with all the inherent flightiness of the male of the species. Each slap of a branch brought a snort and a defiant prance.
With her hand, she surreptitiously scrabbled in the dirt until she found the right rock: heavy, jagged. Weighing it in her hands, she waited. When the stallion stood sideways and only a few branches blocked her shot, she tucked her feet under her.
“Don’t move, bitch,” the kidnapper warned again. “Don’t—”
Standing, she threw at the horse’s flank, threw as hard as she could. The stone bounced, the stallion reared, and she ran. She heard a crashing behind her, a howl of pain or fury, but she didn’t stop. As she dashed along, taking the easiest route, underbrush tore at her skirts and at her skin. A branch snagged her; she jerked free. She slowed only when she heard nothing but her own breath. She looked behind her— no one. Then she crept along, concealing her tracks as best she could. She feared to head toward the meadow or even the palace, sure Dom, or someone, would be watching for her. Instead, she looked for a hiding place.
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