The Earl Takes A Bride (Elbia Series Book 2)

by Kathryn Jensen

  Diane gulped down two more breaths, turned on her heel and dashed down the long hallway. If she still couldn’t find her way back to the central part of the castle, she would wait until one of the staff happened by. No way would she go back to Thomas for directions!

  Thomas collapsed on the edge of his bed, tossed the gold-framed photo in the vague direction of the pillows and dropped his head into his hands. For days he had fought the desperate urge to see Diane again. He had made himself scarce from the family’s private rooms where he might run into her. He had risen early for work and stayed at his tasks late. When forced to join the royal family at a meal, he’d handled it by involving Jacob and Allison in complex business conversations Diane would be unlikely to participate in.

  But when he found her standing beside his bed, where no other woman had ever been allowed, studying his most private possessions—he’d totally lost it.

  What right did she have to intrude on his life and analyze him? If he’d been able to be a different sort of man, he would have been! Since he couldn’t, he’d learned to accept being alone, except for an occasional brief affair with a beautiful woman. This was as close to happiness as he deserved or dared reach for.

  But Diane had torn away the barriers of cold logic he’d so carefully constructed. She stood brazenly beside his bed and told him he wasn’t his mother. For a brief moment a flicker of hope had lightened his heart before fading away to leave him once more in torment.

  Diane knew that the night of the grand ball marking the height of Elbia’s festivities would be the most difficult of her life. Even though the castle’s ballroom would be packed with guests, orchestra, serving staff and select members of the press…Thomas would also be there. It broke her heart that this might be the last time she’d see him, for she’d decided to cut her vacation short and return to Nanticoke as soon as Jacob’s plane was available. That might be as early as the next morning.

  That night she dressed carefully in the champagne satin gown Allison had helped her choose from among those designed by a seamstress in town. Diane couldn’t imagine a more beautiful dress. The fabric gleamed softly. Panels formed elegant gores from the hips to the hem, widening to a graceful flair, lending the skirt a fluid motion when she walked. The off-the-shoulder style settled perfectly over the curve of her upper arms. The dress was sleeveless, and the seamstress suggested long, fitted gloves of the same fabric to mold her slim arms from fingertips to elbows.

  “After the formal reception line, you can take them off,” Allison told her, then added in a whisper, “It’s much easier to dance without gloves. They make my hands sweat.”

  Diane didn’t suppose she’d do much dancing that night, but when the time came she was surprised to find how many gentlemen were eager to whisk her in a romantic waltz or swirling polka across the polished parquet floor. Yet no matter how many times she whirled beneath the blazing crystal chandeliers on the arm of one distinguished partner or another, she was still acutely aware of Thomas’s presence in the ballroom. He seemed rarely without a lovely, admiring female in his arms. And those who didn’t get a chance to dance with the dark-haired man who stood two heads taller than most everyone else in the room flirted shamelessly with him.

  Diane wished she could feel justified in the irritation she felt whenever a pair of sparkling blue eyes nailed him. But, she sadly thought, she had no more claim to him than any other woman in the room.

  At last the pain of watching him and knowing that after she left he’d have no trouble finding another companion for picnics in the meadow became too much for her. She told Allison she had a bad headache and took herself off to her room to be alone. She had packing to do. As soon as she finished tossing clothing into suitcases, she would turn out the light and try to sleep. Although only a little after ten o’clock, she felt as if she hadn’t slept in an eternity.

  Even from her room in the east wing, she could hear the elegant strains of the violins, the sweeping rhythms of the Viennese waltzes…and she could still see in her mind’s eye Thomas in his dashing tuxedo, his wide shoulders rising above the rest of the guests as he held a woman in his arms who should have been her.

  She felt infinite sadness. Deep loss. But there is no fighting destiny, Diane told herself.

  She sadly unzipped the satin gown and stepped out of it. It drifted to the floor with a soft whoosh. She left it there while she washed up and pulled a cotton nightshirt over her head. When she came out of the bathroom, Thomas was standing in the middle of the room, the gown in his large hands.

  Diane swallowed and wrapped her arms around her ribs, as if to shield herself from his piercing gaze, even though she was already modestly covered. She couldn’t speak. The fire in his eyes left her speechless.

  “Why are you leaving?”

  “I had a headache. I told Allison I—”

  “Not the ball…Elbia!” he snapped at her. “Allison said she thought you were planning to return home soon. And here are packed bags. Why?”

  “There are things to be done,” she said simply.

  “It’s because of us, isn’t it?”

  “I wasn’t aware there was an us.”

  He tossed the gown on the floor and strode forward. His hands were around her waist before she could run for cover. “In the meadow, in the jet, in your house…and before that, in my soul. Yes, there was an us. It’s still here. I wanted to make it go away. I tried!” He ground out the words. “I can’t control what I feel for you, Diane!”

  “It must be arduous work, all those beautiful women in your arms, trying to forget me.” She raised a brow at him. Humor was her only defense now. If she didn’t laugh she would dissolve in tears.

  He shook his head violently. “I must have been a different man to see anything in them.”

  She smiled, pleased despite the bittersweet nature of his compliment. What, after all, did it matter now?

  “I’m going,” she said softly. “I can’t stay here and keep up this pretense of cool civility. I don’t think you can, either.”

  He looked at her, his dark eyes pleading, begging her for another solution while knowing there was none. Slowly, his hands slipped from her waist.

  She could think of nothing more to say. She wanted him more than her next breath. Or the one after that. She wanted his body, his heart, his very soul.

  “You’re not touching me,” she murmured, “but I can still feel your hands. It’s like that all the time.”

  He hung his head and closed his eyes. “Every night, I lay awake, aching to come to your room.”

  “I wish you had,” she whispered.

  He squinted and looked away from her, as if her brightness hurt his eyes. “It will end when you leave. It has to.”

  “I know.” She drew a slow breath for strength. “You’d better go now.”

  For a long moment neither of them breathed and neither moved. The world seemed to stand still. Even the distant music fell silent. She could almost hear the castle settling around them, centuries of stone closing them off from the world.

  Abruptly Thomas stepped forward and swept her into his arms. He kissed her deeply, devouring her, savoring her—a man bereft of nourishment, desperately trying to replenish himself and store up for the long fast ahead. His hands moved over her, through the cotton nightshirt, reminding himself of favorite places, making her crave again all that he had given her before and more.

  He backed her up against one foot post of the bed, and she felt her spine lengthen against the smooth wood, accept its support. Her insides melted as he slipped his hands beneath her nightshirt to shape her bottom. She lifted her knee gently, running it up the inside of his trouser leg, and watched his eyes widen with anticipation as she cautiously nudged him. She could feel the heaviness of him and she pressed a little harder, delighting in his wide-eyed reaction.

  Gripping her hand, he guided it beneath the sleek black cummerbund of his tuxedo. Her fingertips met him—hot, long, full. She caressed him, cupped him lovingly, d
elighted in the glorious weight of him in her palm, ran her hand up him again. She touched the tip of him and smiled, letting him know that she knew how close he was to the edge.

  Her smile hadn’t fully ripened to a grin before he was pulling off his clothing. She wanted to say something sophisticated, sexy, devil-may-care, but the words wouldn’t form on her lips. In the next second he swiftly rid her of her nightshirt.

  The room was cool, even in the summer. She gasped softly as the air hit her skin. He smiled and wrapped his body around her. The thick black fur of his chest shaded to less dense patches across his stomach and a reddish nest around his manhood. She couldn’t recall a more breathtaking sight. She touched him. Everywhere.

  And watched him swell still wider as he took a small foil packet from the pocket of his trousers and handed it to her. She removed the smooth latex disk, and although her hands were shaking, she managed to roll the thin protective layer down over him.

  She couldn’t imagine how she’d accommodated him the last time. Yet somehow she knew she had. And would again.

  Diane gazed questioningly up at Thomas, and the wild look in his eyes softened, tamed by the trust in her eyes.

  Slowly he lifted her and, cradling her to him with one arm, he reached down and pulled back the heavy woven bedspread to reveal pristine white sheets. She looped her arms around his muscled neck and held on as he bent to place her in the bed. Smiling down at her, he stretched his body over hers.

  “Given the choice,” he whispered, “I’d make love to you for the next three hours or until exhaustion. But I’d be missed in the ballroom.”

  “I suppose so,” she murmured, capturing his wonderful eyes with hers as he moved her legs apart with his wide knee.

  “I wouldn’t want anyone to come looking for me and find us here.”

  “No,” she agreed.

  He shifted his hips closer but tested her first with his fingertips.

  She arched her back and chuckled low in her throat. “You don’t have to worry about my being ready, m’lord. We crossed that bridge a long time ago.”

  “Good.” His voice was gruff with emotion. He brushed himself across the sensitive outer lips of her feminine core.

  She let out a whimper. “Don’t tease.” She was throbbing with hunger for him. “Please, now…”

  “As you wish, m’lady.”

  His slide into her was long and steady and purposeful, his eyes flashing with black fire. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down to kiss him as she curled her long legs around his hips and brought him deeper still.

  Burying his face in the pillows above her shoulder, he smothered a primal bellow of satisfaction, and she took her pleasure along with his.

  Seven

  Thomas drew Diane close and kissed the top of her head, then her lips, gently parted in slumber. “Stay here,” he whispered as she stirred and he reluctantly disentangled himself from her long, silky limbs. He would have given anything to remain beneath the sheets with her, but he’d been gone from the celebration in the ballroom for over an hour. If both of them remained absent for much longer, someone might put one and one together.

  “Where’re you goin’?” she slurred drowsily.

  “To check on Jacob and Allison. As soon as I’m able, I’ll come back.”

  She cracked open one pretty eye. “Maybe I should—”

  “Forget it, Sleeping Beauty. I’ll make your apologies, if necessary. You told Allison you had a headache, right?”

  She nodded and rolled over with a blissful sigh.

  Thomas tucked his shirt into his trousers and ran her brush through his hair, smoothing it back from his face, which was still flushed. He didn’t know what to do about that. Maybe a few fast waltzes and he could claim his raised color was due to the dancing.

  Thomas quietly closed her door behind himself and followed the faint sounds of music and laughter, back through the twisting stone corridors. Many were less stark than they had been two years ago. Allison had left her delicate mark on the crystal palace, brightening the decor, bringing treasured heirlooms out of vaults and into the light of day despite the worried cluckings of insurance underwriters and some of the older members of the court. She was a very popular queen, beloved by the people of Elbia. Jacob had chosen well and happily. Thomas had to admit he’d never seen his young friend so utterly at peace with life as during the days since his marriage.

  Thomas stopped beneath the lofty arch that separated the formal dining room from the ballroom and took in the spectacular array of couples dancing to Strauss. The swirl of colors and glittering lights might have been a painting by Degas. But his mind was on other things.

  Marriage, he mused. Why did men like his father, who so viciously protected their independence, even bother with the institution? The Earl of Sussex had never been a true father to his sons. Even today the man tolerated only the briefest visits from them. Christopher, the youngest, lived in Scotland now. Matthew, the middle son, had emigrated to the United States, having given up all hope of becoming close to his father or his brothers. And Thomas had found his surrogate family in another country.

  He wasn’t unhappy with the arrangement, Thomas decided as he watched Jacob and Allison, seated on the dais, their hands clasped lightly as they observed their friends, neighbors and subjects in celebration. The royal family needed and appreciated him, treated him as warmly as if he were Jacob’s brother and their children’s uncle. But something was missing. Thomas had known that for a while now. Something was definitely missing from his life, though he hadn’t been able to put it into words.

  Never mind, he thought. All that mattered tonight was getting through the next few hours. After the guests left, he could return to Diane’s bed. He thought of his own bed, which had always felt perfectly adequate although no one but he had ever slept in it. He’d never allowed a woman to even enter his room. He changed his own sheets, kept the place scrupulously clean. It had been his sanctuary.

  But now that Diane had invaded it, the places she’d walked and things she’d touched would always remind him of her.

  Thinking of her in this way, he felt compelled to go to her. Yet he had to stay. He tried to think of ways to make the time pass faster.

  The dream became reality sometime in the very early hours of morning. One moment Diane was lying alone in the antique bed in her room. The next, a splendidly naked Thomas was enfolding her in his corded arms, turning her to face him as easily as if she were the single petal of a flower. She felt tiny and vulnerable beside him, but at the same time safe from all harm. Her head was still foggy from sleep, yet she felt every touch of his hands, his mouth, his desire as if her senses were hyper-attuned. She pushed aside all concerns for the future and simply experienced him. And when they had finished making love for the second time that night, he kissed her throat and murmured sweet utterances in her ear as she drifted away.

  Never had she been happier.

  It was not yet light when he stirred, making her aware of his presence again. His lips closed over hers before she could do more than crack open her eyes. “I need to go,” he said. “Before the house awakens.”

  “I know.” Diane sighed and lifted her arms from around his shoulders. But he hesitated. Curious, she reached down and touched him, then giggled. Amazing, she thought. “Have you informed the rest of your body that you’re leaving?”

  He rolled laughing brown eyes. “It’s not listening to reason.”

  “Will it accept an IOU?”

  “With great reluctance.”

  “Promise it a good time tonight.”

  He grinned at her. “Come to my room then. You know how to find it?”

  “Yes.”

  He kissed her breasts and she felt a flame reignite within her. But he forced himself off the bed, and a few minutes later, dressed again in his formal wear, his tie hanging loose, tuxedo jacket flung cavalierly over one shoulder, he slipped out her door with a parting wink.

  Diane lay in t
he tangle of mussed linens for another half hour. She felt deliciously drained of all tension, delightfully lazy. But she was getting hungry, and she knew Cook would have fresh pastries and steaming coffee waiting on the sideboard in the cozy family dining room. The thought of food set her stomach gurgling with anticipation.

  “All right, all right,” she told it. “I’m up.” It took her another twenty minutes to wash and pull on casual, white drawstring pants and a summery pastel jersey. When she walked into the dining room, only Allison was there.

  “Good morning,” Diane called out cheerfully. It seemed the entire world glowed with a golden aura this morning. Through the expanse of bright glass along one wall she could see the royal gardens. Blossoms in red, blue and pink shot up through waves of green foliage. A burst of lavender wisteria followed a curve of white trellis.

  Allison smiled at her. “Is your headache better?”

  “Yes, much,” Diane said quickly as she tried to choose from among the delectable arrangement of breakfast breads. “I was sorry to miss the rest of the party.”

  Her sister nodded and took a bite of almond croissant. “We missed you,” she murmured after swallowing. “Particularly since you’ll be leaving us so soon.”

  At first the comment didn’t make sense to Diane. Then she remembered that only yesterday she had told Allison she would soon be returning to Connecticut. How quickly things changed. This morning she couldn’t imagine leaving Elbia, ever. “Maybe I could stay just a while longer,” she whispered, and chose a fat cinnamon bun dripping with icing.

  “It’s difficult, I know,” Allison said slowly, “going back to a house you shared with Gary…. And then there’s Thomas….”

  Her words hung ominously in the air, and Diane swung around to face her. “What does Thomas have to do with whether or not I stay?”