by Julia London
The need for him struck her almost violently. The swell of adoration for him was so powerful it left her dizzy, almost like a waking dream.
His arms circled tightly around her, his tongue seeking hers. Her desire enveloped her like a blanket of torment and pleasure—her heart ached and swelled and pounded against her ribs. She felt as if parts of her were cracking open, and the heat of him was seeping into her marrow. She clung to his body, to his lips, and her thoughts deserted her.
Leo groaned from somewhere deep. He lifted his head, gripped her arms tightly. “Don’t, Caroline. I have reached a point where I can’t continue like this, not without...”
“I won’t stop,” she said, and eagerly sought his mouth as her fingers tangled in his hair.
Leo suddenly lifted her off her feet and moved to the settee. He dipped down to the hollow of her throat. “I haven’t forgotten what you said. That you will defend your virtue until you marry,” he said roughly, and shoved his fingers into her curls, pulling some free.
She pushed against his shoulder and made him look at her. “That’s not what I said. I said I wouldn’t part with it unless I was in love.”
Leo’s blue eyes darkened in that low light and he sank back. “Are you in love?”
“Do you really need to ask?” She cupped his face with her hands. “I love you, Leopold. I ardently admire you. I adore you. If you were any other man, I would beg you to ask for my hand.”
Leopold’s expression turned wild. He grabbed her hand and pressed her palm against his chest so that she could feel his wildly beating heart. The force of it surprised her. He looked almost pained as he caressed her face, her shoulder, his fingers trailing over the swell of her breasts. “I love you, Caroline. I don’t know how it happened, how you crept under my skin and into my heart. I don’t know how you inserted yourself into my every waking thought. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was never meant to be like this.”
“I know, I know, but I don’t care,” she said breathlessly. “I know I can’t have you, Leopold, but I can’t let you leave and not say or experience these raging feelings for you. I’m desperate with want. Aren’t you?”
“Desperate,” he muttered. He stroked her face, his eyes searching hers. But then his gaze fell to her lips. “Close your eyes.”
Caroline closed her eyes and lay back on the settee, giving in to her desire and to him. He moved his mouth over her skin, his touch burning a trail in its wake. She felt white-hot inside, desire thrumming and pulsing in her, anticipation and such incredible longing shimmering out through her toes and fingers.
He slid his hands down to her ankle, then his fingers beneath the hem of her gown and on her calf, and then up, to her thigh, to her sex. She skated her hands over his shoulders and his chest, insistent. She kissed him and pressed her body against him, wanting more, wanting everything about him.
His kisses turned blistering, and his hands were between her legs, stroking her. But it wasn’t enough for her this time. Caroline slid her hand down his body and stroked his erection. Leo grunted and pressed against her, so that she could feel how hard he was, how he wanted her.
It was extraordinary that desire could burn so fiercely in her that she could abandon the barriers she’d erected to keep her virtue. He had easily torn down the doors of her defense and made her his. All that Caroline knew was that she’d never felt anything as urgent, as imperative, as the desire to have him.
He filled his hand with her breast, kissed her chin, her throat and the spill of her flesh above the bodice of her gown. He moved down her body, kissing her stomach through her dress and her corset, then moved up, sank his fingers into her cleavage and released a breast. He suckled it, then rolled the tip between thumb and forefinger. Caroline gasped with pleasure.
“You must be sure,” he said, pressing his forehead against hers, his breathing as ragged as her own. “You must be certain this is what you want, because God help me, I am not man enough to help you decide. I am but a breath away from ravaging you. Do you understand me, Caroline?”
He was a good man. A decent man. She drew up on an elbow and kissed his mouth. “I’m not asking you to help me decide anything, Leopold. I’m asking you to take me.”
The light in his eyes seemed to shimmer in the darkness. He muttered something in Alucian and lowered his head to hers, kissing her tenderly, reverently. But the tenderness quickly gave way to heat, and his hands and his mouth were everywhere. He ripped the coat from his body, grabbed the shirt and pulled it over his head. Her hands touched the flesh of his chest for the first time and Caroline groaned.
He reached his hand between her legs and began to stroke her, moving his fingers inside her, helping her body to open. She was wild and uncertain what to do, or where to put her hands. Her breath was so shallow, as if she’d run for miles to him. She could feel the inevitable release building in her, and she grabbed his nape, pulled his head to hers, kissed his lips and bit the bottom one. “It’s time.”
“God, woman, you drive me to madness,” he said. “Be still now. Be easy,” he whispered.
She couldn’t be easy. She could be anything but easy. She closed her eyes, dug her fingers into his neck and chest, and allowed herself to sink into the pleasure he was giving her. His fingers slid deep inside her and back again in primal rhythm, as he moved his mouth over her cheek, her lips, her eyes, gliding so lightly that her skin simmered to the point she could scarcely endure even the whisper of his kiss. When he dipped his head to her exposed breast again, she felt herself sliding off a cliff and falling through space.
She knew he fumbled with his clothing. She gasped when he guided her to touch him. But nothing compared to the moment he slid the tip against her dampness. She was lost. It was pain, it was pleasure. It was a sensation beyond anything she’d ever known.
Leo dragged her hand up above her head and held it, then kissed her tenderly as he began to slowly, carefully, push himself inside her.
Desire and love intermingled and began to drum in her. She was inflamed by this intimacy, and despite a bit of discomfort, she would do this again and again with him. But as he moved deeper, pressing up against her maidenhead, she realized how profound this was, this moment in her life, with this man. She would never again feel so deeply for someone. Never in her life would she experience something so remarkable.
“Draw a breath,” he whispered, and as Caroline drew it, he pushed past her maidenhead. Her body tensed to absorb the discomfort, but then something remarkable began to happen—she could feel her body adapting to his.
He stroked her face, kissed her lips and began to move in her. He was whispering encouragement to her, but at some point, he stopped speaking. His breath deepened and he moved with more deliberation. Caroline began to move with him. It was as if her body knew what to do, how to reach the end with him, and all she had to do was ride along.
Her body raced toward release, her heart pounding in her chest. And then he put his hand between her legs and began to stroke her in time with the movement of his body. A moment later, her release poured out of her.
His followed—he pulled himself free of her at the last possible moment, then collapsed on top of her.
Caroline softly pressed her lips to his neck, her hand to his chest. She was speechless. She couldn’t imagine this with another man. She couldn’t imagine this with anyone but Leopold.
Which presented a bit of a problem, but one that Caroline would think about tomorrow. At present, she wanted only to revel in the feel of this man’s body with hers.
“I love you,” he said against her shoulder. “I need you to know it.” He lifted his head. “I love you, Caroline Hawke. And no matter what happens, I always will.”
It was too dark for him to see the tears in her eyes. “I love you, Leopold. I do, so desperately.”
They held each other for a very long time. But eventually, Leopold s
tood. He took a handkerchief and cleaned them both, then fastened his clothing. Her hair had come undone, and her beautiful gown was wrinkled and the overskirt torn in one place. She hardly cared.
He helped her up from the settee, then wrapped her in a warm embrace. “Caroline, I...” His voice trailed away, as if words had failed him.
“I know,” she whispered. She didn’t want to hear him say he had to go. She didn’t want to be reminded that they were hurtling toward the time he would leave her forever.
He kissed her cheek. Her mouth. Her hand. He kissed her lips and lingered...and then walked to the door. He looked over his shoulder, his gaze sweeping over her before locking on her eyes. She felt not of this earth. The candle had almost burned out, and he was in the shadows, like a dream. Her summer dream.
Caroline stood in the very spot he’d left her long after he’d gone. She couldn’t seem to make her feet move. She couldn’t seem to do anything but breathe, and scarcely at that.
* * *
CAROLINE WAS STILL abed the next morning when Martha came in and told her she had callers. Caroline groggily sat up. “Who?”
“I don’t know, miss. Garrett sent me to fetch you.”
Her heart started. Was it Leopold? She grinned and threw off the covers. She dressed in a simple day gown, left her hair hanging down her back in a tail and hurried downstairs, eager to see him. But when she burst into the drawing room, the very room where she’d experienced something so very profound just hours before, she didn’t see Leopold at all. It was Mr. Drummond, from the office of the foreign secretary, and a very green Beck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
An intimate supper party at the home of a newly appointed lord erupted into chaos when a maid new to the household was discovered to have run away in the middle of the evening. The party was quickly disbanded. In the following days our intrepid hostess and family departed for the country for the rest of the summer and has not been heard from since.
Ladies, for the bit of dust in corners that does not come away with a good feather duster, balling up a slice of brown bread and dabbing in the corner will do the trick.
—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and
Domesticity for Ladies
AMBASSADOR REDBANE CALLED on Leo in the common room of the Clarendon Hotel quite unexpectedly the morning of the Farrington supper. He seemed agitated, as if he’d been chased by a pack of wolves.
“Good morning, Redbane,” Leo said, looking up at him from the morning papers. “Is everything all right?”
“Your Highness,” Redbane said, clutching his hat. “It is imperative you leave for Alucia on tomorrow’s outgoing tide. The royal ship stands at the ready.”
Leo froze for a moment. “Tomorrow? Why?”
Redbane removed a letter from his pocket. “The British foreign secretary has requested it. They have some outrageous idea that you may be plotting with the Weslorians against the king, or involved in something even more nefarious. They have come to me, asking that the king remove you from England at once.”
“I beg your pardon?” Leo tossed the paper aside and stood up. Redbane handed him the letter.
Leo quickly scanned the contents. It was a formal request to be presented to his father that he be removed at once for reasons of “poor conduct.”
“Poor conduct?” Leo asked.
“It is a more palatable excuse for their accusations that you are plotting against your father. They want no trouble, Your Highness. They can’t have any sort of plot being hatched here.”
“I am not plotting against my father,” Leo said. “And if anyone suspects that is so, they need only follow me back to Alucia, where I will reveal the truth about my activities here,” Leo said curtly. He rubbed his eyes. “Has a dispatch been sent to my father?”
Redbane nodded.
Well, this certainly put a damper on things. Leo suspected his father would give no credence to the talk of treason, but he knew he’d give quite a lot of credence to the charge of poor conduct.
“It is in the best interest of Alucia,” Redbane added.
“Fine, I understand I must go. But on Monday.”
“But Your Highness—”
“There is nothing that will sway me, Redbane. There is one last thing I must attend to before I go.”
Redbane pressed his lips together.
“Is there anything else?” Leo asked.
“No, Your Highness.”
“Then you may go,” he said irritably, gesturing the ambassador away.
He was made distraught with this news. He still didn’t know where one of the women was, and he didn’t know what would happen this evening. But it was the thought of losing Caroline that made him feel so ill. He’d known this moment would come, that he’d have to say goodbye, but he’d fought to keep himself from dwelling on it. He had to face it. She’d come to mean so much to him. She’d come to mean everything to him. She was the light his soul needed. How could he leave? He didn’t know how he could go on, knowing that he wouldn’t see her for a very long time, and when he did, it would be in Alucia and he’d likely be married. If not to Eulalie, then to someone else.
His mood soured over the rest of the day as he tried to think his way clear of this dilemma. He dressed for the night, but he had that odd feeling again of not fitting right in his own skin. As if this new person he’d become didn’t fit his body. As if loving a woman was something he wasn’t built to do. He burned for her. He did. He even lifted his shirt, half expecting to see a mortal wound there.
What had he done? Had he taken the virtue of a woman he truly loved only to leave her? At the time, it had seemed imperative, the only thing that was right between them. Today, with this banishment hanging over his head, it seemed entirely wrong and selfish.
He glanced at Freddar, older than him by twenty years. “What do you say, Freddar, are you ready to return to Alucia?”
“Je, Your Highness. I miss my family, I do.”
Leo didn’t miss his family. He would miss Caroline more. So much more.
* * *
HE WAS GREETED at the door of the Farrington house by Lord Farrington himself. “Welcome, welcome, Your Highness. Thank you for coming,” he said as Leo handed his cloak to the waiting footman. “I hope you won’t mind that we are a small group tonight. I look forward to speaking with you this evening, as I’ve been working very closely with Mr. Vinters of Alucia.”
Leo paused as he removed his hat. “Have you?” he asked. That was the name Lysander had given him. His father’s most trusted adviser and peddler of human flesh.
“He’s a clever man, that one. I think we might find numerous avenues of cooperation between our two countries. Trade, naturally. But in the arts, as well. I’m very keen on that idea in particular.” He smiled broadly.
“A noble pursuit,” Leo muttered.
He followed Farrington into a large drawing room that seemed to have been recently decorated, judging by the smell of plaster and the pristine condition of the rugs and drapes. He was greeted by Lord Ainsley, and Lady Katherine Maugham and her mother, Lady Maugham. Lady Katherine would not meet his eye.
Hollis and her father, Justice Tricklebank, had come, and he was introduced to Mr. Edward Hancock and his wife, Felicity Hancock. And of course, Caroline and Beck. Oh, but he was a poor actor—he couldn’t keep the smile from his face when he saw her. She wore yet another beautiful gown of shimmering green. “A lovely dress, Lady Caroline,” he said politely as he bent over her hand.
“Do you like it? I made it myself.” She smiled coyly. “We’ve not seen you in two days, Your Highness. Have you grown weary of us?”
“Quite the contrary. Unfortunately, I’ve been too well occupied.”
“All right,” Beck said. “If you please, Caro, go and keep the judge company, will you? I should like a word with the prince.”
�
��Really? What word?” she asked.
“Does it not stand to reason that if I wanted you to know, I would invite you to stay? Go,” Beck said, fluttering his fingers at her.
She cast a brilliant smile at Leo and walked across the room to join Hollis and her father.
Beck indicated with his chin a corner of the room.
“Is something wrong?” Leo asked when they had separated themselves from the other guests.
“You’re being watched,” Beck murmured, his eye on the others. “Gentlemen from the foreign secretary have come round. They seem to think Caro might know something about a plot to steal your father’s throne.” He shifted his gaze to Leo. “They think you may have confided in her. What the devil is going on, Leo? Why do they think my sister might know of your plans? What are your plans?”
“Beck,” Leo said. “I don’t have plans. I’m not plotting against my father, for God’s sake. I love him. I don’t even know my uncle.”
Beck looked dubious.
“It is something else entirely.”
“What?”
Leo considered what he ought to say. “It has to do with betrayal in my father’s ranks, but I really can’t say more. I’m asking you to trust me, Beck.”
“And Caroline?”
Leo swallowed. He would not lie to his friend. “She has helped me meet some people who were useful to know.” It wasn’t a real answer, Leo knew, and judging by Beck’s dark frown, he didn’t think so, either. But Leo wouldn’t say more. He would not risk implicating Caroline to anyone.
Beck pressed his lips together and looked across the room to where Caroline was standing. “Look, I don’t know what this is all about, but these men were serious. My advice is to depart Britain as soon as you can.”
“I plan to leave this week,” Leo said.
Beck put his hand on his arm. “Listen to me, Leo. It doesn’t matter what is true—it matters what they perceive. And people perceive you to be rotten at the core.”
“I understand.” He did. The people behind this would look for any scapegoat to keep their profits. How the devil had he gotten himself in this mess?
