His wound ached and burned and throbbed as he made his way to the screen and the awaiting chamber pot across the room. Thus far, he had been making use of the bowl by his bed whenever he had a moment’s privacy. But he was tired of remaining abed. He’d been shot in the arm, damn it, not in one of his legs. He was alive, and the wound had yet to fester. If he wasn’t going to be graced with the privilege of Eleanora Brett’s company, then there was no reason for him to remain here at Tierney’s town house.
Nando relieved himself and completed some hasty ablutions, thinking it a mercy that he’d been shot in the opposite arm of his dominant hand. Otherwise, he might well have required Bruno’s aid in holding his cock. And how lowering that would have been.
He had just finished carefully blotting his face with a cloth single-handedly when the door to his room opened and closed beyond the privacy screen.
“Damn it, Bruno,” he growled. “I thought I told you to be gone. Why have you already returned?”
“Why are you out of bed?”
The crisp, feminine demand that reached him decidedly did not belong to Bruno. And Nando would recognize it anywhere. He dropped the cloth and stepped around the privacy screen, warmth already sweeping over him.
“Eleanora,” he greeted, offering her as elegant of a bow as he could muster, given the state of his wounded arm.
As it was, the action left him grimacing as agony tore through him when he tested his stitches. He hoped she would be polite enough not to comment upon it.
“You are in pain,” she said, instantly dashing his misplaced optimism, her lips tightening into a thin line of disapproval. “What are you doing out of bed so soon, Your Royal Highness?”
Had he expected anything less than her taking him to task?
If he had, he ought to be ashamed of himself. But her cold tone and stiff shoulders had his cock waking up for the first time since his wounding, and that pleased him greatly—he hadn’t lost his voracious appetite for the fairer sex. Not, of course, that the confirmation pleased him as greatly as the sight of her in his chamber did. For nothing could compare.
She washere.
And she was lovely.
And he wanted her more than ever.
Best of all, she hadn’t come because he’d demanded it of her. Rather, she must have ventured to him of her own free will.
Like a seasoned general watching his enemy’s flank disintegrate before him, Nando seized the advantage, charging.
“Perhaps you might be willing to tuck me back in,” he suggested smoothly.
Pink washed over her cheekbones, and he didn’t miss the way her gaze dropped, taking in his dishabille. “Your Royal Highness, you are utterly without compunction.”
He grinned. “I’m without anything that keeps me from what I want most.”
She stared at him, for once apparently having been left speechless. Nando might have reveled in the brief victory, but a sudden, brilliant idea had occurred to him. A means of keeping Eleanora close even after he left this town house. She still hovered hesitantly at the door, as if she would flee at the slightest provocation. He couldn’t have that.
Nando moved toward her slowly, trying to make his actions appear nonchalant rather than calculated. In truth, he was ahunter stalking his prey, each footfall on the rich Aubusson bringing him nearer to his quarry.
“I should take my leave,” she muttered, almost to herself.
And yet, she didn’t move.
“Nonsense,” he countered softly. “You should remain precisely where you are. I’m pleased you’ve come to me, my dear.”
“I merely wished to inquire after your recuperation,” she said, fingers twisting in the fall of her muslin skirts at her sides in an obvious show of her inner turmoil. “Where is Mr. Dimitrius?”
Mr. Dimitrius.For a moment, Nando didn’t know who the deuce she was speaking of, until he realized Bruno’s surname was Dimitrius.
“I sent him to the kitchens to fetch me something reasonable to eat,” he explained, skirting a table as he approached her. “I’ve been given nothing more than bone broth and gruel. I feel like a prisoner.”
She pursed her lips. “Surely Her Royal Highness and Mr. Tierney have instructed the servants to follow the directions of the physician who attended you.”
“Perhaps,” he allowed, stopping almost an arm’s length from her, near enough to catch the faintest hint of her scent. “But I have no wish to starve to death. If I’m to heal, I require sustenance.”
And you, preferably riding me.
