“Did you tell her how you tossed up your nightgown and let me tup you good and long and hard on my library sofa?”
Her mouth opened, but no sound emerged.
“What I don’t understand is why. Why did you give me your virginity? Or was its loss just another adventure? One more daring thing for you to try in order to keep the boredom at bay?”
A chill swept through her. “You think you have me all figured out, but you don’t know me at all,” she whispered.
A wry expression crossed his face. “You’re right. I don’t. Not after tonight. The girl I made love to was sweet and kind and truthful. Her name was Emma. But you, Princess Emmaline, I don’t know what to make of you.”
She’d thought her heart was broken, but it shattered all over again. The man she loved, the man she dreamed of still, hated her. Even more, he disdained her, imagining the very worst things about her actions without giving her any chance to defend herself, without trying to see so much as a shred of good in her.
“Are you with child?” he asked suddenly, the blunt question taking her off stride yet again. “I at least deserve to know the truth of that.”
She could have punished him, she supposed. Refused to answer him either way. But she wasn’t the manipulative person he obviously imagined her to be and she would not deny his demand.
“No,” she said in a flat voice. “You may rest easy on that score, my lord. I am not carrying your child.”
She couldn’t tell if he was glad of the news or not, his features impassive and impossible to read.
“So all your flirting tonight is just that—flirting,” he said after a long moment. “Or are you in search of your next conquest? I’d be careful who you choose.”
The chill evaporated from her veins, replaced by a sudden fiery rage. “How dare you!”
“Then again, we’re alone.” He looked pointedly around the room. “If you’re just looking for a bit of slap and tickle, I’d be happy to oblige. We could christen yet another book room sofa.”
Her hand swung up without conscious thought, but he caught it before she could strike him, cradling her palm inside his own. Stepping closer, he slid his other arm around her waist and pulled her near. As he did, she caught the scent of alcohol on his breath. “You’ve been drinking,” she accused.
“That’s right,” he confirmed with an unrepentant smirk. “I dare say nearly everyone at tonight’s party has been doing the same.”
Still, she could tell he knew exactly what she was implying.
“So?” He nodded toward the couch. “What do you say?”
She stiffened against him. “I say that you’re vile and I don’t know how I could ever have thought otherwise.” She struggled suddenly, but he held her fast, showing her just how useless were her efforts. “Let. Me. Go!” she ordered.
But he only pulled her tighter, wrapping her inside the unbreakable bonds of his arms. His gaze locked on hers and he stared deeply, penetratingly into her eyes, studying her as if he might learn the answer to some unfathomable truth.
“Let you go?” he repeated.
The anger was abruptly gone from his voice, replaced by a strange introspection, the question asked as though he were speaking to himself. “I only wish I knew how.”
His mouth came down on hers.
She expected his kiss to be brutal, uncompromising.
That she could have handled.
That she might have been able to resist.
But his mouth was tender instead, his kiss searching, with a quality of almost quiet desperation and undeniable longing.
She wanted to push him away, but how could she when his touch felt so good, so right? When this act that might have been crude and cruel was suddenly beautiful instead?
She held on, letting him deepen their embrace, opening her mouth to invite him in so that more of their flesh could mingle, could connect.
Her anger fell away, pleasure flowing through her like a live current.
God, how she’d missed this.
Missed him.
Despite his hurtful words, she didn’t know how she would do without him again.
Suddenly she realized she couldn’t allow their kiss to continue. It would be much too easy to give in completely and let their desire carry them where it must not be permitted to go again.
She kissed him back for one long, blazing moment, then wrenched her mouth away, turning her head to the side when he would have drawn her back. “Stop,” she said brokenly. “We have to stop.”
“Why?” he countered. “You like it.”
“Yes. Too much.” Struggling again, she worked to break free of his hold.
This time he honored her request.
She took several steps back so that she was out of his reach. Then she wrapped her arms around her already aching chest. “You think I ran away for a lark, but you’re wrong. I ran away because I was scared and confused.”
“Scared and confused about what?” His dark brows furrowed with his own brand of confusion.
“My future. There is something else you do not know about me.” Shuddering, she drew a breath. “I am to be married. To a royal I have never met and of whom I know almost nothing. The marriage is one of convenience, of politics, arranged by my brother in order to secure our nation’s sovereignty.”
“What—”
She hushed him with a quick shake of her head, needing to get this out whether he chose to believe her or not. “I fled while Rupert was away, just as you supposed, while I might still have some chance of escaping. I planned to go to my old teacher’s house, to spend a bit of time away from my real life. And yes, to enjoy my freedom one last time. But then I met you.”
Moisture rushed unwanted into her eyes. She tried to blink it away, but more followed, a tear leaking down her cheek. “I wanted to tell you the truth about myself every day, but how could I when it would have meant the end? When I would have had to go away? I didn’t mean for things to go so far between us. I thought I could have a little fun without it causing either of us any harm. That I could have an adventure before I had to return home and do my duty as I must. But it became something entirely different, something that meant so much more.”
He stared at her, his skin unnaturally pale.
She rushed on again before she let herself say too much. “But none of that matters now. Whatever was between you and me is over, truly done.” She hugged her ribs even more tightly. “It’s probably better if you think I am a heartless, spoiled temptress. Keep thinking that, Nick, and leave me alone. Hate me, my lord, and regard me as a stranger, because that is all we can ever be.”
Before he had a chance to react, she turned and ran, her feet flying as if all the hounds of hell were nipping at her heels.
Chapter 18
“Princess Emmaline, another bouquet has arrived for you!”
Emma glanced up from her place on the drawing room sofa the following afternoon, the novel she had been pretending to read lying momentarily forgotten in her hands. She watched as one of her ladies-in-waiting carried a huge vase of pink hothouse roses into the room, the flowers’ sweet scent adding to the perfume of other fresh bouquets already adrift in the air.
“Who is this one from?” Sigrid inquired, tipping up her head from where she sat bent over her embroidery.
With their two blond heads, Emma imagined how she and her sister must look, like a pair of matched songbirds perched at opposite ends of the sofa.
Rupert completed the golden grouping, comfortably relaxed in a nearby chair. He held a carefully ironed copy of the London Gazette, the newspaper folded open to some article whose content clearly displeased him based on his periodic harrumphs of annoyance.
“The card says they are from His Grace, the Duke of Lymonton,” Baroness Zimmer said. “Quite some of the loveliest blossoms you have received today, Your Highness.”
The attractiveness of the duke’s floral offering notwithstanding, Emma frowned as she tried but failed to recall the man. For the life of her,
she had no memory of him. Had he been the dark-haired one with the quizzing glass or the fellow with the wine stain on his cravat?
Or neither?
Truthfully, all the gentlemen she’d met last night had blurred together, each one more forgettable than the last.
The evening as a whole was a bit hazy, she realized, the only memorable moments those she had spent with Nick. Her encounters with him were emblazoned in her mind’s eye with excruciating clarity, each detail vivid and indelibly stamped upon her. If she lived to be a hundred, she knew she would still be able to recall every moment, be able to recite each word and relive the bittersweet glory of his kiss.
After parting from him, she’d gone to the ladies’ withdrawing room, where she’d composed herself enough to return to the ball—or so she thought. But after only ten minutes, she’d known she could not continue. She’d had no difficulty convincing Sigrid that she had a headache, her sister happy to call for the coach so they might return to the estate and nurse Emma’s megrim.
Once inside her bedchamber, Baroness Zimmer had offered Emma a sleeping draft, which she had been more than willing to take. But rather than being lulled into a deep slumber, she’d lain listless and miserable, unable to rest as tears slid wetly over her cheeks, unstoppable as a tide.
Sometime not long before dawn, she’d finally fallen into a doze, her dreams more troubled than her thoughts as her mind replayed her confrontation with Nick over and over again. Her memories of their embrace taunted her as well, letting her experience his touch once more before he was viciously snatched away.
She’d been wan and listless at breakfast, unable to eat more than a bite of toast and take a sip of tea. When Sigrid suggested calling a physician, however, she had forced herself to shake off the worst of her lethargy. A quiet day at home was all she required, she assured her sister. The excitement of the evening before had simply been too draining.
So there she sat with her siblings, acting as if she were reading when she’d really just been flipping the same two pages back and forth in an endless rhythm. It wasn’t as if she weren’t trying to read; she was. But each time she attempted to concentrate, the words would swim out of view and she would find herself thinking of Nick once again.
How he’d looked.
What he’d said.
And the way she’d run from him there at the last.
But he hadn’t followed, and she presumed he would not attempt to contact her again.
A shiver trailed over her skin like an icy breath as she remembered his shock, his rage. He’d been livid, the look in his eyes one that would have made a grown man quake with fright. But she’d held her own, refusing to be bullied or intimidated.
And she’d told him the truth, even if he had not cared to hear it.
But none of that had mattered. Maybe it was for the best that he despised her now, just as she’d said, because for them there could be no happy future.
Becoming aware that Baroness Zimmer was still waiting, clearly expecting her to offer some reply to her remark about the roses, Emma forced herself to gaze at the mantel where the older woman had placed the flowers.
“Lovely, yes,” Emma said. “And such a beautiful color.”
“How many is that now?” Rupert asked as the countess left the room. “A dozen bouquets each for you and Sigrid?”
“Eleven for Emma,” Sigrid informed him. “And eight for me. A widow of my years can only expect so much attention.”
Rupert arched a brow. “Of your years? You sound as if you’re about to enter your dotage. Shall I open the dower house once we return to Rosewald?”
“Don’t you dare,” Sigrid said, sending him an exaggerated pout. “As you know already, I shall be more than content with the summer cottage, despite its size.”
The summer cottage, as Sigrid called it, was more in the way of a manor house with forty-five rooms and a staff of sixty.
Rupert made a noise under his breath as if this were an ongoing debate between the two of them. “Just don’t let any of your would-be suitors get ideas in their heads. I’ve met no one here with whom you could make an advantageous marriage. As for Emma, it seems pointless for her to invite the attentions of these English when she is already promised.”
“Yes, but since the betrothal will not be announced for another few weeks, they must be allowed to hope, even if their efforts prove to be in vain. Emma deserves a bit of fun before she must take her vows, gentlemen with whom she can dance and converse and gain a last measure of polish.”
Drawing her needle through the fabric, Sigrid paused to send Emma a smile that Emma knew was meant to be reassuring. But her sister’s words only made the present situation worse and her future sound like a prison whose cell door would soon swing closed behind her.
“Well, if I am to put up with such nonsense as hopeless suitors,” Rupert stated, “the least you ladies can do is remove some of the outpourings of their devotion. Damned room is starting to smell like an undertaker’s parlor.”
“Language, Your Highness,” Sigrid said reprovingly. “I don’t care for such talk.”
Rupert’s blue eyes gleamed, since he knew Sigrid’s late husband had made an art of cursing—even among the ladies. Although perhaps that was the very reason she objected. Forgoing further comment, he refolded his paper into neat quarters, then resumed his reading.
Emma tried to follow his lead, but met with the same dismal results, the printed words still unable to hold her attention.
At the opposite end of the sofa, Sigrid continued to sew.
Five minutes later, the baroness announced herself yet again with a light tap on the door. “More late arrivals, Your Highnesses. Red carnations for the Duchesa—”
“Oh, do bring them here,” Sigrid chimed, setting aside her embroidery. “I’m longing to see who else counts himself among my admirers.”
From behind his newspaper, Rupert gave a quiet snort.
Sigrid ignored him, taking the mass of blooms in hand with a delighted smile.
The baroness turned toward Emma. “And these were sent for you, Your Highness. A rather… unusual selection, if I might be frank.” She held out a small nosegay of flowers, her upper lip tight with disapproval for what she clearly believed to be an unworthy offering.
Emma accepted them, holding the little arrangement inside her grasp. Rather than another huge vase overflowing with lavish, overly dramatic flowers, these were simple, even ordinary. As she gazed at the cheerful purple and yellow petals, her heart began to pound.
Violas.
“Are those heartsease?” her sister remarked, dragging her attention away from her own bouquet long enough to take a look at Emma’s gift. “How quaint. Whoever would send you those?”
A long-ago conversation filled Emma’s mind, and in her thoughts she found herself seated once again across the dinner table from Nick while he plied her with questions.
What is your favorite color?
Favorite book?
Favorite season of the year?
And hidden somewhere amid those twenty questions he’d asked about flowers, surprised to learn that she loved common wildflowers the best and that violas—heartsease—were her very favorite.
But they couldn’t be from him, she realized with a sinking sensation. He loathed her now. He certainly would not be sending her flowers. Yet she couldn’t resist the impulse to pretend, even briefly. Cradling the nosegay in her palms, she lifted the delicate blossoms to her face and brushed the velvety petals against one cheek, then the other.
“Well? Who are they from?” Sigrid asked again. “Is there a card?”
The illusion shattered at her sister’s question. Emma opened her eyes on a resigned sigh. “I do not know.”
Aware she had no choice but to check, Emma inspected the white silk that bound the stems. She discovered that there was indeed a small card tucked inside. Withdrawing it, she bent her head to read.
To Princess Emmaline,
In honor of finall
y making her acquaintance.
N
Her heart gave a jagged double beat, her fingers trembling ever so faintly against the stiff vellum. Contradictory emotions poured through her like a dam unleashed: pleasure that the flowers were from Nick, after all, and chagrin over the cutting sentiment of his words.
To anyone else, what he’d written would seem no more than a simple gesture of politeness, but Emma knew better. Her cheeks warmed as she reread the sentence, hearing the cutting, carefully veiled sarcasm of his honey-smooth voice. Abruptly she was assailed by a new rush of emotions, unsure whether to be glad or sad or angry and chagrined to find herself all three at once.
Then, from the corner of her eye, she caught her sister watching and saw again the baroness’s inquiring gaze. Even Rupert had lowered his newspaper.
“Well?” Sigrid urged.
Emma fought not to let so much as a shred of her inner turmoil show, giving a seemingly indifferent shrug instead. “I have no idea. Someone named N, whoever that might be.”
She placed the card back inside the silk, then handed the nosegay to her lady-in-waiting as if it were of absolutely no more importance to her. “Put it with the others, would you?”
The baroness took the small bouquet and crossed the room to add it to the collection, setting it where it would not be readily seen.
Emma forced herself to turn away.
“N?” Sigrid mused aloud as she once again picked up her sewing. “Who could N be? I cannot think of anyone we have met who would style themselves in such a manner. Lord Nightmather comes to mind, but considering that he’s married and old enough to be your grandfather I find that unlikely. Hmm? Very puzzling.”
Emma shrugged again. “Honestly, I cannot recall half of the people to whom we were introduced last night, so it’s really of no moment.” Pausing, she waved a hand toward the collection of flowers. “Later, I suppose we should do as Rupert suggests and dispense with these. My bouquets at least, although I do not wish to speak for you, Sigrid. Perhaps the servants might enjoy some of the roses to brighten their dinner table and bedchambers.”
Sigrid smiled. “What a generous idea. Mayhap I shall donate a few of mine as well.”
The Princess and the Peer Page 22
