Love Is In the Air Volume 1

by Susan Stoker

  “I have types,” I grit, allowing myself the brief, indulgent luxury of grinding against him, “of which you are one.”

  “John . . .”

  My name dies on his tongue when I angle his bristled jaw upward so that he has no choice but to look at me. His pupils are dilated, his cheeks red. I smooth my thumb over his bottom lip. “What we are, Godwin, are best mates. I don’t regret you—won’t ever regret what we’ve done—but there will be no sharing. When I take a vow, it means something.”

  “And I took a vow to—”

  “Protect me,” I manage tightly, “and not, might I remind you, to fuck me.”

  “As if you’d even let me.”

  Nostrils flaring, I make a point of exposing the slope of his neck with a finger to his chin. Henry may be the one with weapons holstered all over his bulky frame, but it’s me who holds the reins of control. He kneels at my command. He comes when I utter his name. And he doesn’t obey because I’m the future king. No, he submits because he likes relinquishing power—and God knows there’s nothing I enjoy more than bending all that strength to my will.

  “Then as your best mate,” he bites off, “know that your wife won’t be so keen on the way you fuck. I can handle the pain, Your Highness, but I doubt . . .” Beneath the heel of my palm, his throat trembles with a hard swallow. “I doubt she’ll let you warm her bed once she knows the real you.”

  Growling low, I shove off him and turn on my heel.

  Over the years, Henry and I have made bickering our religion. He gave me my first black eye when I was fourteen and he twenty. He was present, his broad frame acting as a shield by the door, the first time that I dropped to my knees and brought my lips to a woman’s cunt. He stood by my side, his hand rooted on my shoulder in solidarity, when my world turned upside down after Mother’s death two years ago.

  But this . . .

  I don’t stop moving until I’ve clasped the doorknob in one hand. Fury chases a path down my spine, and it’s that same surge of anger that guides my attention back over my shoulder to the man who has stood beside me all of my life. “We promised,” I utter, voice grim, “that us fucking would not ruin everything. I’m prepared to uphold my side of the bargain—I expect you to do the same.”

  His green eyes harden. “You know that I have no other choice but to obey.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “So says the prince who bends to no one but the king.”

  “One day,” I tell him, turning the knob, “I’ll be the king, and you’ll have the choice to bend the knee to me the same way you’ve done for my father. It’s a choice, Henry, and it will always be yours. But this marriage is my choice, my future, and if you stand in my way, I won’t hesitate to bury you where you stand.”

  2

  Blanche

  “I don’t need a husband.”

  My father, the earl of Essex, barely spares me a glance as he ushers me into the backseat of the town car. “You’ve no choice,” he mutters, allowing the driver to close the door once he’s settled in beside me. “It’s already been decided.”

  Those same words that I’ve been force-fed, day and night, for the past twenty years. It was decided that I’d be shipped off to boarding school at the age of seven. It was decided that I wouldn’t attend university. And, apparently, it’s been decided that I’ll marry a man best known for his impeccable bloodlines.

  If I gave a damn about bloodlines, I’d adopt Dianthus Buttons, the West Highland Terrier that won last year’s dog show at Crufts.

  As it is, I clasp my hands together in my lap, the fabric of my skirt pulling taut beneath the weight of my fists. “Mum will have something to say—”

  “Your mum,” the earl interrupts coolly, “has no say at all after she abandoned us for that American bastard.”

  “That American bastard has a name.”

  A strangled noise emerges from Father’s throat. “Language, Blanche, or I’ll—”

  “Use the switch?” Never pulling my gaze from the passing cityscape outside my window, I allow my lips to form a hollow smile. “I’m a little too old for that nowadays, don’t you think?”

  Silence reigns long enough that I know Father is deliberating on his next move. Once upon a time, I’d feared the earl—his wild tempers and his particularities for obedience and his ever-present need to put on a grand show for high society. That fear is long gone now, replaced with a dark emotion that tastes very much like rage.

  “You may doll me up like a princess,” I murmur, digging my nails into the soft flesh of my palms, “and you may pretend that selling me off to the Prince of Wales will make you untouchable, but it must kill you to know that Mum still left you for—”

  The air leaves my lungs as a hand wraps around my throat.

  Ah, there he is.

  The ninth earl of Essex.

  An ambitious, coldhearted bastard who had no business ever having a child.

  “We wouldn’t want to damage the goods now, would we? Not when Prince John is about to see me for the first time.” I feel my lips curl at the corners, even as I dart a glance at the stiff-lipped driver. Father can barely pay our mortgage, but he always manages to scrounge up enough blunt to keep the staff silent. “First impressions and all,” I add.

  The earl’s stare lowers to his hand. I’m a twin copy of my mother—the white-blond hair, the amber-colored eyes—and I know, with every fiber of my being, that when he looks at me, he sees only her.

  He yanks back to rub his palm over his thigh, displeasure furrowing his brow. I don’t give him the satisfaction of touching my fingers to my throat. Later, I’ll let the tears fall. Later, I’ll remind myself that my time of being locked away in my proverbial ivory tower, like a good little girl, is almost at an end.

  This marriage is Father’s “compensation” for Mum’s deception. It’s for power and wealth and all the connections that it’ll afford a man who has spent every last coin on horses and women and gambling since the day Mum left five years ago. It might be my name on the license and my body that swells with the next heir to the throne, but this marriage has never been about me.

  And I’ll be damned if I sell my soul to a prince just to appease the devil who birthed me.

  3

  Blanche

  “Would you like some more while you wait, my lady?”

  Teacup already in hand, I meet the staffer’s gaze. “That would be—”

  “Blanche.”

  I stiffen. Father sits beside me, his profile lined with disapproval. But even if I were seated across the room, there’d be no missing the reprimand in his voice—a woman should be seen and not heard.

  And he wonders why Mum leapt at the first man who showed her any bit of kindness.

  Wordlessly, the staffer tops off my tea and throws a sharp glance at the drawing room door. Before I can get in another word, just to spite Father, he sets the pot down and backs away to stand against the far wall—like there’s a real chance of him blending in with the décor when the entire room is bathed in gold accents.

  Buckingham Palace is an ornate prison that I’ll never escape.

  “Smile.”

  At Father’s gritted command, I clutch the teacup so hard that I’m surprised the delicate porcelain doesn’t snap. My lips creak into a pained grimace just as the door swings open and five men saunter inside, their voices pitched at a low hum that fails to smother the sound of my heart thudding erratically in my chest.

  Without warning, Father hauls me from the sofa.

  Shite.

  A stifled hiss batters my throat as tea splashes over the rim and scalds my fingers. I whip around, prepared to abandon the teacup, but Father’s hand is already leveraged against my shoulder, nudging me across the room like a lamb to slaughter.

  “Your Majesty!” Father booms. “We’re just”—another hard nudge that has tea spraying the air—“so incredibly thrilled that this day is finally here. And might I add how ecstatic I am that you’ve chosen my daughter as a
bride for His Royal Highness?”

  The king sends me a swift glance. “I didn’t choose Lady Blanche, Essex.”

  “Of course you did.”

  “I can assure you,” says King Alexander, “that I didn’t.”

  Punishing fingers squeeze my shoulder. “If not you, then—”

  “I chose her.”

  Dark.

  Ominous.

  Silken.

  Like the rest of England, I’ve heard that voice broadcasted over the radio. I’ve seen footage of his royal tours on the television, short glimpses of him shaking hands with American presidents and of his broad, handsome smile while twirling some foreign dignitary’s wife around the dance floor. But nothing—and I do mean nothing—could prepare me for seeing Britain’s prodigal son in the flesh.

  As Moses once parted the Red Sea, so too does Prince John part the men who trailed after the king into the drawing room.

  They slink away, heads bowed, their eyes locked on the floor in subservience to the Prince of Wales, who moves with a brisk confidence that’s impossible to ignore. His hands remain tucked in his trouser pockets, a casual pose that strikes a hard contrast with the undercurrent of power that clings to him like a second skin.

  Power, I realize, that feels like chains clamped around my wrists when he pins me in place with nothing but his gaze—a startling blue that leaves me bare, stripped naked, as though my secrets are his to unravel, my hope his to destroy, and all my dreams nothing but the mud caught beneath his leather soles.

  With a resolve that’s been sharpened over years’ worth of backbreaking disappointment, I give voice to the rebellion heating my veins: “Funny, Your Highness, because I didn’t choose you.”

  The fingers on my shoulder clamp down mercilessly.

  The king’s jaw slackens.

  And the prince, whose attention never once wavers from my face, only inclines his head like a wolf who’s caught scent of its prey. “And whom do you choose, my lady?”

  Not who, but what.

  Freedom. Happiness. A life owed to no one but myself.

  Refusing to reveal even a sliver of anxiety, I hold his stare. “I choose no one.”

  “No one,” he echoes softly. The dark, glossy strands of his slicked back hair catch the light as he scrapes his teeth over his lip like he’s tasting rejection for the very first time. Nerves kickstart in my belly, and he must hear my breath catch because his eyes narrow and he takes a single step forward.

  On instinct, I retreat.

  He follows, one foot planted in front of the other, until we’re angling past Father and the king in a chase that feels primal, ancient. Dangerous. Back and farther back I withdraw, until my spine jams against a wall with a jarring thud. There’s nowhere to go, nowhere to escape. An inner strength drives my chin north. “You could have any woman in the world,” I breathe hotly, fingers clenching hard around the teacup. “No one would tell you no.”

  His hand finds the wall above my head. “I could.”

  “And yet, you’ve chosen the one woman alive who doesn’t want anything to do with you.”

  “Then let me ask again—who do you want?”

  “You’re assuming that there’s another man.”

  “Is there a woman, then?”

  When he merely watches me, his expression inscrutable, a blush fights its way to my cheeks as his meaning sinks in. “Even if there were,” I mutter, refusing to cower before him, “it wouldn’t be any of your business.” Lifting an arm, I push against his solid chest with my free hand. “If I marry one day—and, trust me, it’s my goal to avoid that hell at all costs—it won’t be to someone like you.”

  “A prince?”

  “No, a man who will do everything in his power to break me.”

  The hand positioned above my head lowers and, beneath the escalating voices across the room, I hear Prince John’s palm scrape against the wall seconds before his fingers find my jaw. A calloused thumb applies pressure to my chin, tilting my head back so that I have no choice but to meet eyes so blue that I feel scorched down to my soul. “You only risk breaking if you willingly hand over your heart.”

  “That is the most highhanded, ignor—”

  “And,” he continues gruffly, his voice trampling over mine, “we both know that you will never love me.”

  Startled laughter catches in my throat. “If that’s meant to be a proposal, Your Highness, I’m here to tell you that it’s woefully inadequate. And that’s coming from someone who has no intention of saying yes.”

  Prince John doesn’t respond.

  Instead, he clasps one large hand over mine. Any chance of escape disintegrates when his lean fingers curl around my wrist. With a tug, he winds me in, and his subtle cologne floods my senses—earthy, a hint of spice. He smells like sin, like bedsheets and lust and desperate, all-consuming need, and I’m . . . Oh, God, I’m shaking.

  With adrenaline, I hope.

  In anger, I pray.

  But not—oh, bloody hell—please let this not be anticipation.

  As if sensing my sudden desire to run, he dares me to stay with his hand on mine. Silent pressure from his fingers lifts my teacup upward until I’m pressing the porcelain to his lips, an offering that feels too intimate to share with a complete stranger. And from the gleam in his eyes, he knows it, too, the bastard.

  I want to yank away.

  Hell, I want to spit in his face.

  But I’m mesmerized by the way his Adam’s apple bobs as he drains my cup dry, as if he has the very right to help himself to everything that once belonged solely to me.

  His gaze never leaves mine.

  His thumb caresses my burnt knuckles.

  Pressing the empty teacup to my collarbone, that smooth voice greets my ears on a husky murmur: “Not once in my life have I ever been no one. I was born to rule and you, Lady Blanche, were born to kneel—”

  “How dare you—”

  “—but the chase is just as sweet as the conquest. So run, little wolf, and see how far you get before you realize that No One will always catch you in the end.” His mouth brushes the shell of my ear, his cheek a soft rasp against mine that drives a shiver down my spine. “And when you kneel before me on our wedding night, just remember that I would have walked away had I not seen the fire in your eyes.”

  Swallowing roughly, I jerk back to meet his stare. For the first time in years, words fail me completely, and the prince . . . He only smiles.

  It’s dark and tempting and sends my entire world teetering on its axis.

  “I don’t want a biddable wife,” he growls, “and you damned yourself to a life with me the moment you showed me your claws. You will be mine, Blanche, whether you want me or not—and I’ll be yours until death do us part.”

  4

  John

  “Lady Blanche turned you down.”

  I meet Henry’s gaze in the mirror as I straighten my cuff links. “I suspected she would.”

  “So what, you purposefully chose a bride who’d tell you to piss off?” Tossing a glance at the closed door leading back into the Royal Opera House, he threads his fingers through his dark hair. “You’re out of your goddamned mind.”

  Before I can reply, the door to the loo swings open and two men enter, their steps stopping short at the sight of me. “Oh!” the taller one exclaims, his waist nearly snapping in two in his haste to bow—despite it being a custom that died years ago. “Oh, Your Highness, I didn’t realize . . . I mean, we didn’t—”

  “We had no idea that you love the ballet,” the other finishes with an eager smile. “Do you, Your Highness? It would make sense that you do, considering that you’re here. Good God, you’re here. Just standing right—”

  “Don’t make bloody fools of yourselves.” Henry clamps a hand on the door, keeping it ajar, and jerks his chin in a terse order for me to get moving. “Sir, we need to get you back to the box.”

  If Henry had his way, I never would have left to begin with.

  Stopp
ing before the two men, I lower my hand to the taller bloke’s shoulder. “My mother never missed an opening night,” I tell him, ignoring Henry’s impatient stare. “I find myself here more often than I can say now that she’s gone.”

  Wide brown eyes sweep up to my face as the man straightens. “The queen, she was . . . She was loved, Your Highness.”

  A heavy weight settles on my chest. “Yes, she was.”

  “Sir.”

  “Enjoy the show, gentlemen.” With a small nod, I turn on my heel and bypass a simmering Henry. As always, he follows like a guard dog whose only purpose is to keep its master safe from lurking predators.

  “You’re going to drive me to an early grave,” he grunts, his shoulder knocking against mine as he storms ahead. “You use the public toilet instead of the one provided to you in the Royal Box. You stop to talk to every person who stumbles into your path. There isn’t a single day where you aren’t putting yourself in harm’s way just to—”

  “I chose Lady Blanche because she has a spine of steel.”

  His stride grinds to a halt. “What?”

  “Essex’s wife left him years ago. He’s drowning in debt, his properties are months away from being snapped up by the bank, and Lady Blanche—”

  “How do you know about the properties?”

  “You aren’t the only one with secrets.” Inching up the hem of my sleeve, I check my grandfather’s gold-faced Rolex. Almost time. Swiftly, I move past my oldest friend, the same man who’d rather lock me within Buckingham Palace for the rest of my days than see me walk the streets of London on my own. “I know everything.”

  “You know only what the king tells—”

  His mouth snaps shut when I catch the front of his shirt in my fist and jerk him close. “Don’t mistake my silence for ignorance, Godwin,” I growl, his breath hot on my face. “I know all about Lady Blanche just as I know all about Phillipa.” When he flinches, I offer him a thin smile. “The irony, really, of you demanding the right to share me when I wasn’t offered the same opportunity.”