by Nora Roberts
When he lifted her in his arms, her eyes opened in surprise. She hadn’t expected an old-fashioned, romantic gesture from him. There was much more he had to give that she hadn’t expected.
They lay together on the bed, naked, needing. But he brought her fingers to his lips, kissing them one by one. When she reached for him he lowered to her, but only for slow kisses, light caresses. Unlike the first time, this fire only smoldered, half tormenting, half delighting.
She’d thought he’d already shown her every point of pleasure her body was capable of. Now he showed her more, exquisitely.
Brie knew there was a restlessness in him. A violence. The first time they’d loved, she’d felt it, sensed it, wanted it. Tonight he brought none of it with him. This night was tender. Tenderness that brought a heavy, misty pleasure she hadn’t explored. This excitement was different, drifting, not soothing but sweet. She gave herself to it, willing, for the moment, to be led.
He’d taken her innocence. In some strange way Reeve was aware that she’d given a portion of his back to him. It hadn’t been something he’d looked for or wanted, nor was it something he could have prevented. Perhaps one day, when their lives separated and he had to deal with what he’d had and what he’d lost, he’d resent it. Tonight, when she was close, soft, giving, he only treasured it.
So he went slowly, gently. What passed between them this night would be something neither of them would ever be able to forget.
He nibbled, finding the long narrow bone of her hip fascinating. He knew just how strong she was. After all, he’d followed her through days of work and demands and evenings that were social, but equally taxing. Yet just there her skin was so fragile, so sensitive. She had the small, delicate body of a woman who lived her life in luxury. But she had the mind, he knew, of a woman who never took one moment of it for granted.
Is that why he loved her? Did it matter?
She could only sigh as his mouth traced lower, lower down her body. He was taking her places she’d never imagined. This world was dark, but there was no fear. Just anticipation. It drummed through her, to be joined by arousal, pleasure, satisfaction. One layered on top of the other.
There were night birds calling to each other, but the murmur of her name on Reeve’s lips seemed sweeter. The breeze whispered across her face, but his breath, skimming across her skin was warmer. The sheets were soft, cool only until they were touched with flesh that quickly warmed them. If she let her eyes open, she could see her own hand stroke over him. And triumph in it.
His tongue traced, teased, lingered, then invaded. Suddenly she was catapulted out of the dark, soothing world and into the light.
She wasn’t aware that her fingers gripped her bedsheets as she arched. She wasn’t aware that she called out his name mindlessly. But she was aware, all at once, that pleasure could be almost too much to bear. She knew, as he drew from her relentlessly, that he was giving to her, as well. Everything, all things, were there for her to take if only she had the strength. She’d find it.
Quiet thoughts vanished. Turbulent ones tumbled into her. To have him—completely, enduringly. To know that he was rocked by the power even as she was. To feel the shudder that told her he, too, was overwhelmed. That was enough to both ensure survival and to make survival unimportant. Though she trembled, dazed, he didn’t give her time to catch her breath before he drove her up and beyond again.
Then, when she thought there could be no more, he took her with all the fierce need he’d kept harnessed.
Chapter 9
Brie knew she shouldn’t have stayed with him through the night, but she found she wanted, needed, to sleep with him, even if it were only for a few hours. It had been so easy in the dark, quiet night to forget discretion and to take what lovers are entitled to. It had been so sweet to drift off to sleep with her hand caught in his. If in the morning there were consequences, they’d be worth those few hours.
It was Reeve who awoke first and roused her just before dawn when the light was gray and indistinct. This was the time between, when the night birds began to sleep and the lark awakened. Brie felt the light kiss on her shoulder, and merely sighed and snuggled closer. The nip on her earlobe made her shudder—but lazily, comfortably.
“Brie, the sun’s coming up.”
“Mmmm. Kiss me again.”
He kissed her again, this time on the lips, until he was sure she was awake. “The servants will be up and around soon,” he told her as her eyes half opened. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Worried about your reputation again?” She yawned and wrapped her arms around his neck.
Reeve grinned and comfortably cupped her breast. She made him feel so … at home. Had he just noticed it? “Naturally.”
Pleased with herself, she twined his hair around her finger. “I suppose I’ve compromised you.”
“You did come to my room, after all. How could I risk refusing a princess?”
She arched a brow. “Very wise. So …” She touched her tongue to her top lip. “If I commanded you to make love with me again, right now—”
“I’d tell you to get your buns out of bed.” He kissed her before she could object. “Your Serene Highness.”
“Very well,” she said loftily, and rolled aside. She stood, naked, and shook back her hair. He thought then that she was no Sleeping Beauty just coming to life, but a woman who already knew and accepted her own power. “Since you cast me aside so easily, you’ll have to come to me next time.” She picked up her discarded robe, but took her time about putting it on. “That is, unless you’d like to be tossed in the dungeons. They are, I’m told, very deep, dank and dark.”
He watched her slide one arm in a sleeve. “Blackmail?”
“I’ve no conscience.” She drew on the other sleeve, then slowly crossed and tied the robe.
No, she was no Sleeping Beauty, he thought again. She was a woman who deserved more than promises. “Brie …” Reeve sat up, pulling a hand through his hair. “Alexander and I had a talk yesterday.”
Brie kept her hands on the sash, though they were no longer relaxed. “Oh? About me, I assume.”
“Yes, about you.”
“Well?”
“That royal tone doesn’t work on me, Brie. You should know that by now.”
As if it were vital, she smoothed out the satin of the sash. “What does?”
“Honesty.”
She looked back at him, then sighed. It was an answer she should have expected. “All right, then. Alex and I did our own share of talking—arguing—yesterday. I can’t say I appreciate the two of you getting together for a chat about me and my welfare.”
“He’s concerned. I’m concerned.”
“Is that an excuse for everything?”
“It’s a reason for everything.”
Her breath came out slowly. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be unfair, Reeve. I don’t, though it might appear differently, even mean to be ungrateful. It just seems as though while everyone’s so concerned, so worried, everyone continues to make demands.” She began to walk as she spoke—to the window and away, to the mirror and back again, as if she weren’t quite ready to face herself that morning. “They want me to go along with Loubet’s plan about covering up the amnesia so that there’s no panic and the investigation can go on quietly. They want you and me to go on with this deception about being engaged. I think—I’m beginning to think that bothers me most of all.”
“I see.”
She glanced up, unsmiling. “I wonder if you can,” she murmured. “On one hand I get sympathy, concern, and on the other, obligations.”
“Is there something you’d rather do? Some way you’d rather try?”
“No.” She shook her head. “No. What did Alexander conclude, then?”
“He decided to trust me. Have you?”
She looked at him in surprise, then realized how she must have appeared. “You know I trust you. I wouldn’t be here with you if I didn’t.”
He made the
decision instantly. Sometimes it was the best way. “Can you clear your schedule today and come with me?”
“Yes.”
“No questions?”
She moved her shoulders. “All right, if you want one. Where?”
“To the little farm.” He waited for her reaction, but she only watched him. “I think it’s time we worked together.”
She closed her eyes a moment, then crossed to the bed. “Thank you.”
He felt his emotions rise and tangle again. They always would, he realized, with her. “You might not be grateful later.”
“Yes, I will.” Bending, she kissed him, not in passion, but in friendship. “No matter what.”
The corridors were dim when she left Reeve’s room to go to her own. But her spirit wasn’t. She had hope again. This wouldn’t be a day where she just followed the schedule that had been set for her. Today, at last, she’d do something to bring the past and present together. Perhaps the key was at the little farm. Perhaps with Reeve’s help she’d find it.
Quietly Brie opened the door to her bedroom, anxious to begin. Humming a little, she walked to the windows and began pushing aside the curtains so light could spill in.
“So.”
She jolted, whirled, then swore under her breath. “Nanny.”
The old woman straightened in the chair and gave Brie a long, steady look. If her bones were stiff, she gave no sign. Brie felt the patience, the disapproval, and felt the blood creep into her cheeks.
“Well you should blush, young lady, tiptoeing into your room with the sun.”
“Have you been here all night?”
“Yes. Which is more than you can say.” Nanny tapped a long, curved fingernail against the arm of the chair. She saw the change, but, then, she’d seen it days before when Brie had come back from sailing. When a woman was old, she was still a woman. “So you decided to take a lover. Tell me, are you pleased with yourself?”
Defiant, and amazed that she felt the need to be, Brie lifted her chin. “Yes.”
Nanny studied her—the tumbled hair, the flushed cheeks and the eyes where the echo of passion remained. “That’s as it should be,” she murmured. “You’re in love.”
She could have denied it. It was on the tip of her tongue to do so, when she realized it would be a lie. Just one more lie. “Yes, I’m in love.”
“Then I’ll tell you to be careful.” Nanny’s face looked old and pale in the morning light, but her eyes were ageless. “When a woman’s in love with her lover, she risks more than her body, more than her time. You understand?”
“Yes. I think I do.” Brie smiled and moved over to kneel at Nanny’s feet. “Why did you sleep all night in a chair instead of your bed?”
“Perhaps you’ve taken a lover, but I still look after you. I brought you warm milk—you don’t sleep well.”
Brie looked over and saw the thick cup on the table. “And I worried you because I wasn’t here.” She brought the woman’s hard little hand to her cheek. “I’ m sorry, Nanny.”
“I suspected you were with the American.” She sniffed a little. “A pity his blood isn’t as blue as his eyes, but you could do worse.”
The diamond weighed heavily on her finger. “It’s still just a dream, isn’t it?”
“You don’t dream enough,” Nanny said briskly. “So I brought you milk and found you’d looked for a different kind of comfort.”
This time Brie laughed. “Would you scold me if I said I much preferred it?”
“I’d simply advise you to keep your preferences from your father for a while yet.” Nanny’s voice was dry and amused as Brie grinned up at her. “Perhaps you have no more use for the other comfort I brought you.” Reaching beside her, she pulled out a plain, round-faced rag doll in a tattered pinafore. “When you were a child and were restless in the night, you’d reach for this.”
“Poor ugly thing,” Brie murmured as she took it in her hands.
“You called her ‘Henrietta Homely.’”
“I hope she didn’t mind,” Brie began as she ran a hand over the doll’s hair. Then she went stiff and very still.
A young girl in a small bed with pink hangings, pink sheets, pink spread. White frills on a vanity table. Rosebuds on the wallpaper. Music drifting up from far away. A waltz, slow and romantic. And there was a woman, the woman from the portrait, smiling, murmuring, laughing a little as she leaned over the bed, so that the emeralds in her ears caught the low light. Her dress was like the emeralds, green and rich. It rustled musically as the best of silks do. She smelled of apple blossoms, of spring, of youth.
“Gabriella.” Nanny put a hand to Brie’s shoulder and squeezed. Beneath the thin robe, she could feel the skin, icy. “Gabriella.”
“My room,” Brie whispered as she continued to stare down at the doll. “My room when I was a girl—what color?”
“Pink,” Nanny said haltingly. “It was all pink and white, like a pastry.”
“And my mother.” Brie’s fingers dug into the rag doll, but she didn’t know it. Sweat pearled on her forehead, but she didn’t know that, either. As long as she pushed, as long as she held on, she could see and remember. “Did she have a green silk dress? Emerald green. A ball gown?”
“Strapless.” With an effort, the old woman kept her voice calm and quiet. “The waist was very snug. The skirt was very full.”
“And her scent was like apple blossoms. She was so beautiful.”
“Yes.” Nanny’s strong fingers held her shoulder firmly. “Do you remember?”
“I— She came to see me. There was music, a waltz playing. She came to tuck me in.”
“She would always. First you, then Alexander, then Bennett. Your father would come up if he could slip away, but they’d both come to the nursery before they went to bed. I’ll go get your father now.”
“No.” Brie pressed the doll close. She couldn’t hold the image any longer. It left her weak and breathless. “No, not yet. That’s all there is. Just that one picture, and I need so much more. Nanny …” Eyes brimming, Brie looked up again. “I did love her. Finally I can feel it. I loved her so much. Now, remembering that, it’s like losing her again.”
With her old nurse stroking her hair, Brie lay down her head and wept. The bedroom door opened no more than a crack, then shut soundlessly.
* * *
“So you’re going for a ride in the country.”
Brie stood in the main hall, looking at her father. Her face was carefully made up. The signs of weeping were gone. But her nerves weren’t as easily concealed. She twisted the strap of the purse she wore over her shoulder.
“Yes. I told Janet to cancel my appointments. There wasn’t anything very important—a fitting, some paperwork at the AHC that I can see to just as easily tomorrow.”
“Brie, you don’t have to justify taking a day off to me.” Though he wasn’t certain how he’d be received, Armand took her hand. “Have I asked too much of you?”
“No—” She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Never has it been more difficult for me to be both ruler and father. If you asked …” His fingers tightened briefly on her hand. “If you wanted, Gabriella, I’d take you away for a few weeks. A cruise, perhaps, or just a trip to the cottage in Sardina.”
She couldn’t remind him that she didn’t know the cottage in Sardina. Instead she smiled. “There’s no need. Dr. Franco must have told you that I’m strong as a horse.”
“And Dr. Kijinsky tells me that you’re still troubled by images, dreams.”
Brie took a breath and tried not to regret that she’d finally told the analyst everything. “Some things take longer to heal.”
He couldn’t beg her to talk to him as he knew she talked to Reeve. Such things had to come from the heart. Yet neither could he forget how often she’d curl into his lap, her head on his shoulder, as she poured out her feelings.
“You look tired,” he murmured. “The country air will do you good. You’re going to the little
farm?”
She kept her eyes level. She wouldn’t be turned away from what she had to do. “Yes.”
He saw the determination, respected it. Feared it. “When you come back, will you tell me whatever you remember, whatever you felt?”
For the first time her hand relaxed in his. “Yes, of course.” For his sake, for the sake of the woman in the emerald dress who’d tucked her in, Brie stepped forward to brush his cheek with her lips. “Don’t worry about me. Reeve will be there.”
Struggling not to feel replaced, Armand watched her walk down the long length of the hall. A footman opened the door wide, and she stepped into the sunshine.
For a long time Reeve said nothing. He drove at an easy speed along the winding, climbing, dipping coast road. Turmoil. It was quickly recognized, though the source wasn’t. He could wait.
The city of Cordina was left behind, then the port of Lebarre. Now and then they’d pass a cottage where the gardens were carefully tended and the flowers bloomed in profusion. This was the road where she’d run that night, escaping. He wondered if she realized it.
She saw nothing familiar, nothing that should make her tense. But she was tense. The land was lovely in its windswept, rock-tumbled way. It was quiet, colorful, idyllic. Yet she continued to worry the strap of her bag.
“Do you want to stop, Gabriella? Would you rather go somewhere else?”
She turned to him quickly, then just as quickly turned away again. “No. No, of course not. Cordina’s a beautiful country, isn’t it?”
“Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?”
“I’m not sure.” She made her hand lie still in her lap. “I feel uneasy, as if I should be looking over my shoulder.”
He’d already decided to give her whatever answers she needed without frills or cushions. “You ran along this road a month ago. In a storm.”
Her fingers curled. She made them relax. “Was I running toward the city or away?”
