The Princess Stakes

by Amalie Howard

  “It did not sound like nothing,” he said. “It sounds wonderful. Will you play it again for me, Ravenna?”

  His sister brightened, relieved that she wasn’t going to get a scolding or perhaps even understanding that he was extending an olive branch. “Do you truly wish me to? It’s only the first measure of the song, but I’m certain that I can manage it now.”

  The duke nodded and moved to sit on the sofa beside Sarani. She held her breath, his very presence stealing the air from her shrinking lungs, every inch of her body acutely aware of every inch of his. Heavens, he smelled divine. Like salt and storm and pure male, as though he’d just stalked from the quarterdeck of his ship.

  Sarani fought the urge to breathe him in and commanded her body to be still. It was a losing battle. She could hear each inhale, feel every rustle of his clothing. If she listened hard enough, she was certain she could hear his pounding heartbeat. Or was that hers?

  Winding her fingers into her skirts, she’d just decided to make her excuses and flee the room—and his presence—when he spoke.

  “I’m sorry for what happened in the carriage. This, being both brother and duke, is new to me.”

  Sarani peered up at him. “Ravenna only wants to be heard.”

  “I know.”

  The sultry notes of the shehnai wound between them like silken drapes, teasing her already frail senses. She had to depart before she did something truly untoward…like climbing into his lap and sealing her lips to his.

  “I cannot stop thinking about you,” he whispered.

  She froze in place. “I beg your pardon.”

  “Since the ball, my nights have been torture.”

  Hers had, too, if she was being honest. Sleepless, restless…waking with the sheets bunched around her waist and her body drenched in sweat, she was plagued by dreams that bordered on indecency. She didn’t dare think of any of them, or her face would give her scandalous thoughts away.

  “Is that so?” she murmured, staring at Asha and Ravenna, who were lost in their own musical world and would not notice if the roof caved in over their heads.

  As if determining the same, Rhystan leaned toward her ever so slightly, the side of his muscular arm brushing the sleeve of her dress, and Sarani swore that sparks arced between them. Her cheeks flamed. Ducking her head, she attempted to compose herself. Goodness, she wished she didn’t blush so easily. Or that her body wasn’t so…weak where he was concerned.

  His ungloved hand came to rest beside her on the seat, and she lowered hers to rest beside his. Slowly, slowly, their small fingers touched, hot, bare skin sliding together. Sarani bit back a gasp as the barest graze of his finger ignited the ember of memory in her core that was impossible to ignore. Impossible to forget.

  “I want you, Sarani,” he rasped. “Will you come with me?”

  The pure need in his words preceded the storm, now brewing inside of her.

  A cyclone of desire and unfulfilled dreams.

  And heaven help her, she wanted to steer the bow of her doomed ship right into it. She wanted to give herself over to it, to let it take her to destruction or completion. She did not care which. Sarani needed to keep just one part of him when everything shattered around them. Because it would…eventually.

  Lies weren’t meant to hold up forever.

  For now, she wanted to embrace the fantasy. Even if it meant lying to herself.

  She gave the only answer she could. “Yes.”

  Nineteen

  She isn’t bloody coming.

  It wasn’t his first thought. His first thoughts had been gilded in elation. In bliss. In brilliant, fiery-edged desire. But the possibility of her not showing up gutted him. She’d seemed so willing in the music room. She’d said yes. But it’d been nearly an hour of him having a bracingly cold bath and then pacing a hole in the Aubusson carpets of the drawing room, checking his pocket watch every time the long hand moved.

  Maybe she’d run into Ravenna on the way or, God forbid, the duchess. Or perhaps she’d simply changed her mind. He could not—would not—blame her if she did. People were allowed to have second thoughts.

  God, she truly wasn’t coming.

  The tentative footsteps in the hallway had his heart pounding and his blood heating.

  It was scandalous in the extreme what they were doing. An engaged couple could step out together alone, but not at night. If either of them got caught, a swift trip to the altar would be the least of it. But he’d dismissed Fullerton for the evening, and he knew for a fact that his mother had already retired. All that left was Ravenna, and she’d been angling to push them together for a while now. Any servant who saw them leaving Huntley House would hold his or her tongue on pain of dismissal without a reference.

  Rhystan cracked open the door of the salon, and she slid inside, the sultry scent of jasmine flowing in her wake and making his entire body clench with need. If he wasn’t careful, he’d slam her to the door, rip the cloak and gown from her body, and take her against the walls right then and there.

  “I thought you’d decided against joining me,” he ground out, reaching for his hat. He was holding on to his discipline by the thinnest of threads.

  “I considered it,” she said, eyes wide as though she could sense his struggle, though she did not retreat. In fact, answering desire flashed in that dark green-gold gaze.

  He groaned, nearly crushing the satin-edged brim of his hat. “Do you wish to go with me, Sarani?” he rumbled. “Because once we leave this house, I won’t let you out of my sight, out of my reach, until I’ve made you mine—ruined you—in every way.”

  She shivered, but feral bright eyes lifted to his as she whispered, “Ruin me, then.”

  This woman.

  Grabbing her hand, he led her down the stairs to where his coach was waiting. The door hadn’t fully closed before he was upon her, his mouth crushing hers. God, her taste! Like sin and summer nights, like spice and sunshine. The blend, uniquely her, did him in. Sarani did not hold back either. Her fingers sifted into his hair, breasts smashing into his chest and erasing what little space there was between them, parting lips and legs to receive him. She’d never held back, not with him. Even as a girl, her kisses had been passionate, her response without artifice.

  He wanted to see her come again, but this time not with his fingers.

  “I’m sorry. I need to—” Rhystan tore his mouth from hers as he crashed to his haunches on the floor of the carriage, kissing along her neck and tugging at the fastenings on her cloak.

  “Rhystan, what are you doing?”

  He opened the upper garment, only to growl at the sight of the gauzy white fabric that molded to her slim legs and had no business being outside a lady’s bedchamber. “What are you wearing?”

  “A night rail.”

  Hell. He was so hard he nearly spent in his trousers. “A night rail?” he mumbled incoherently.

  “Well, I was planning on going to bed.” He could hear the smile in her voice. “And then I got a more interesting offer.”

  His hands moved, caressing the skin of her lower legs to the silken texture of her thighs. “What offer was that?”

  “An offer from a man who once boasted to rob me of all speech.”

  He groaned. “Is that so?”

  “Yes.”

  Gathering the soft fabric in one fist, he yanked her hem to her waist, another voracious sound bursting from him. Hell. She was going to kill him. No drawers. Of course no drawers, his asinine mind corroborated. She’s wearing a sodding night rail made of ribbons and dreams.

  He looked his fill, her beautiful skin made even more golden by the lamp in the carriage. “You are perfect.” He skimmed up her inner thigh to graze her sex, the heart of her hidden by fine jet curls, making her whimper and her eyes grow hooded. “Your skin is like the smoothest silk, and here, you’re so damp, so ready
for me.”

  The scent of her was maddening. Intoxicating. Rhystan reached around to grasp her rounded hips with both hands, shifted her toward the end of the bench, and lowered his head. He couldn’t wait a second more before sating his deepest desire. He licked up her entire length, his instant groan and her moan merging in the silence.

  His eyes nearly rolled back in his head as the honeyed silk of her curled over his tongue. One taste wasn’t enough. Nowhere near enough. Growling his pleasure, he clutched at her hips as she knotted her fingers in his hair, and he settled on the sweet bud that made her writhe against him.

  Rhystan glanced up, the sight of her on the edge of coming undone making him as hard as stone. Her face was flushed with dark color, her hooded eyes fastened on him and what he was doing. Fascination burned with the lust in her gaze, its brownish-green depths almost gold with desire.

  “Shall I continue?” he whispered with another wicked lick.

  Her cheeks bloomed, her eyes fluttering shut, her thick black lashes fanning her cheekbones. Her nod was jerky, even as her fisted fingers yanked him closer. Grinning, he continued his onslaught, his own body responding to her soft moans and sighs and threatening to tear through the fall of his trousers.

  “Don’t stop, please.”

  He didn’t plan to, not until her beautiful body shattered on his tongue. The taste of her was like tangy, salted ocean breezes and redolent tropical nights spent in a hammock. Sweet with a hint of fire. Here was his mistress. His shrine.

  His queen.

  Settling himself between her legs, he lapped and sucked and drank from her delicious body until she was writhing beneath him, reveling in the soft cries leaving her lips that made him mad with desire. Rhystan slid a thick finger into her wet passage, watching as she shuddered with satisfaction, eyes popping wide with surprise.

  When her legs started to tremble with tension, he redoubled his efforts, alternating long drags of his tongue with shorter licks at the apex of her sex. Inside her, he curled his finger toward him, and she cried out.

  “Rhystan,” she whispered.

  One decadent swipe, and then she was there, hurtling over the edge into the paroxysm. She came like the evening tide, her body going still and then shuddering beneath him in small, intense waves, bursting on his tongue like the sweetest of fruit.

  It was like watching a shooting star bursting through the night sky over an endless ocean. A force of nature. Fucking beautiful. Rhystan wrung every drop of her release from her until she was limp against the squabs, eyes hazy with passion.

  Putting her clothing to rights and fastening her cloak, he climbed back up her body and kissed her lips. “You are magnificent.”

  “What about you?” she asked, eyes darting to the painful bulge in his dove-gray trousers. Her cheeks turned dusky rose in the light, and his stare followed hers down. A wet spot had gathered on his fly. His arousal, not hers.

  “That’s what you do to me.”

  Blushing hotly, Sarani reached for him, palm curving around his nape. For a moment, she looked uncertain, unsure, gnawing that plump lower lip between her teeth and making him want to kiss her again. “Should I? You need to…”

  His smile was wolfish. “Oh, I’ll have my turn, don’t worry. When we get to my residence, I plan to take you to bed and ravage you until you can’t speak your own name.”

  * * *

  Rhystan’s filthy promises only made her want him more. She loved seeing the aloof, put-together duke stripped down to this raw, fundamental version of himself. He was savagery swathed in velvet, the jagged edge of danger tempered by decorum. A puzzling enigma that she was powerless to resist. She wanted him bare.

  Sarani flushed. Did that make her a brazen hussy? She was a lady, but this man had always incited the devil in her. Twice now, he’d brought her to completion—first with his fingers at the ball and then with his mouth.

  Oh, sweet heavenly stars, that mouth.

  Even now, her body still quaked with tingling aftershocks. The fact that he had kissed her there had been utterly wicked. She’d opened her mouth to protest, but the only thing that had emerged when his hot, wet tongue had touched her body had been an unbecoming moan. And then her brain had ceased to function.

  A part of her wanted to feel ashamed, mortified even, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. For the first time in months, she felt alive. Sarani had no doubt that what she was doing was what no lady in her right, decent mind would do with a man, much less a duke. But happiness wasn’t guaranteed. Life could be taken at the blink of an eye, with the slash of a blade. She’d already lost so much, and now she had a chance to keep one thing for herself.

  She was aware of the absurdity. She would be losing the only thing she had left to lose—her precious virginity. Her calling card to respectability. A woman’s innocence…so valued and yet a commodity to be traded to the highest, most titled bidder, even if it was against her wishes.

  She wasn’t naive. She knew that if she did this, if she let Rhystan into her body without the sanctity of marriage, in the eyes of society, she would be ruined. She did not care. If they had any inkling of who she was, this society would not welcome her anyway. Not truly. What did she need their approval for? And besides, Rhystan would be gone back to the sea soon, the agreement between them fulfilled.

  This was for her.

  Her choice, even if the consequences would see her fall entirely from grace.

  The coach stopped and she met Rhystan’s burning eyes. Goodness, he was so incredibly handsome. He made her want to leap across the carriage like a hussy and demand that he take her to the stars again. And again.

  Something of her thoughts must have been evident in her eyes because a growling rumble broke from his chest. Sarani hadn’t even taken a breath before she was swept into his powerful arms and ferried up the steps into his residence. He paused, letting her down to throw off his hat and coat, left her cloak in place for modesty’s sake in light of what she wore beneath, and then she was scooped up once more.

  Sarani didn’t take in a full breath until they’d bypassed another flight of stairs and she heard the soft snick of a door closing. She had no time to push to her feet before she was tumbled gently onto a soft mattress. Rhystan stepped back to speak to someone at the door, presumably his valet, and dismissed him for the evening. Sarani blushed. She was sure the man would know that his master had a woman in his chamber. Despite surely turning a closed eye to their arrival, in her experience, there was very little that servants did not know.

  She turned her attention back to the chamber. Several lamps lit the space and the counterpane on the bed had been turned down. A small fire burned in the grate to ward off the evening’s slight chill. She’d met Harlowe briefly, and the man was efficient to a fault. No wonder he’d been on their heels ready to enter just before.

  Her gaze took in the details of the tastefully appointed room—the huge bed she sat upon, the plush armchairs near the window, the intricately carved wardrobe and matching furniture. It was a handsome bedchamber. Rhystan’s bedchamber. She hadn’t seen it in the handful of hours she’d been at this residence when they’d first arrived in London, but she recognized the decor that matched the adjoining room.

  For the lady of the house. The woman who would one day be his wife.

  The one who wouldn’t be her.

  Her heart stuttered against her rib cage, and Sarani tamped down the emotion. She had known from the start that this was a pretense, and she’d tried to keep her heart guarded as well as she could. But this was Rhystan. In truth, she’d given her heart to him five years ago and she’d never gotten it back. Her body, in comparison, was inconsequential. Secondary.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked, watching her. “Do you wish to return to Huntley House?”

  He would do that, no questions asked, she knew.

  “No, quite the contra
ry.” She let her gaze wander over his face, from his disheveled hair to his glittering steel-blue eyes and that wicked masculine mouth that had pleasured her so skillfully. Her breath caught on a wave of molten desire and she let it show. Boldly, Sarani licked her lips, letting her stare drop. He’d discarded his boots and waistcoat, and the sight of him in shirtsleeves, untucked from his trousers and all rumpled with desire, did delicious things to her insides. “What I wish for is for you to take off the rest of those clothes.”

  His full lips parted. “Do you now?”

  Sarani unfastened the ties of her cloak, seeing his eyes darken as the light in the bedroom revealed what the dim lamp in the carriage had not. The design of the night rail was truly outrageous. It wasn’t anything she would ever choose for herself but had been included in the order for the full wardrobe she’d placed with a celebrated local modiste. Panels of sheer silk and organza, edged with lace, were held together with scraps of ivory ribbon. The thing was scandalous, barely covering her intimate parts.

  And by barely covering, she meant not at all.

  Rhystan stared, his throat working, hands arrested over the knot of his necktie. Sarani didn’t dare glance down, knowing she would see the tops of her pale-brown nipples peeking through the lace. Fighting the heat that shot up her neck and into her cheeks, she jutted her chin. If she didn’t faint from apprehension, soon he would see her in much less.

  “You’re staring,” she whispered.

  “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in all my life.”

  The duke prowled toward her, the cravat dangling from one finger and falling carelessly to the floor. His shirt went next, over his head, joining its fallen comrade. Sarani gulped. Great goddess of fertility, he was pure, sinful, masculine perfection. He was a man who led by example, which meant he pulled his weight with his crew, hauling cargo and hoisting sails.