“Or gain something far more important than playing chaperone to wealthy hoydens and teaching them how to waltz.”
She stared at him, looking stricken. “It’s not as wretched a fate as you suggest. There are worse situations for women such as myself.”
“Oh yes, I am sure you wake each morning positively thrilled by the notion that you must don ill-fitting gowns and subject yourself to the whims of your employer,” he drawled.
“I have witnessed what can become of—” she began, her voice taking on an impassioned quality he’d never heard before, but then halting, shaking her head. “Never mind. It doesn’t signify.”
He couldn’t shake the feeling that he had just had his first glimpse of the true Eleanora Brett, the woman she kept hidden beneath her dreadful muslins and fichus and caps and her icy, proper façade. He wanted more. He wanted to know about her. He wanted her darkest secrets, every facet of her past, all that had happened to make her as she was, an enigmatic woman who never showed anyone the true Eleanora Brett.
He wanted to be the man she revealed her true self to, not just the man she gave herself to. The realization shook him; he had never felt such a deep bond with a woman as he did with her. It went beyond the physical.
Deus.
When had he ever wanted more from a woman than a tup?
“I must leave,” she added, shaking him from the stranglehold his own thoughts had taken upon him.
Damn it, he couldn’t lose her. Not now.
“Not yet.” He drew her against him, and to his relief, she didn’t stiffen or push away but came willingly, her softness pressing temptingly into his hardness. “Tell me, Eleanora. Finish what you were going to say.”
Nando could see her warring with herself.
He lowered his head, nuzzling her temple, breathing in the clean, pleasant scent of her to further torment himself. “I want to know your past, your secrets, what you think about late at night when you’re lying alone in your bed.”
Her hands had settled on his shoulders again, her fingers gently gripping him in a hold that was as tentative as it was delicious. “You want too much from me.”
He smiled, kissing her temple. “I want everything from you, sweetheart. But only when you are ready to give it to me, and not a moment sooner.”
She tipped her head back, and she studied him with an intensity that was almost blistering. “That is the problem. I want to give you everything. But I know too well how this tale ends.”
For a wild moment, he thought about how their tale wouldn’t have to end at all. He could marry her. Make her his. Bed her witless. Watch her grow heavy with his child, again and again.
His prick thickened. He had never been so crazed with lust to consider matrimony, nor having a child. Although he was a devoted rake, he took care to prevent unwanted entanglements or, worse, diseases. Now, the notion of Eleanora Brett in his bed at home in Varros, of filling her with his seed whenever and wherever he wished, was enough to nearly make him come in his trousers.
He inhaled sharply, casting those ludicrous thoughts from his mind, knowing he could never remain constant and that she deserved faithfulness instead of a devil-may-care rake who couldn’t even be trusted with the particulars of his brother’s kingdom.
“You came to me today,” he said instead, capitalizing on her own reckless desire, which was so strong that it surpassed her need to protect herself.
So strong that it brought her back to him, time and again.
So strong that it was inevitable.
“It was a mistake.” But despite her words, she had pressed her face into his throat.
“It doesn’t feel like one to me, Eleanora.” He kissed her ear, caught the shell in his teeth.
What he wanted to do to her.
His injury scarcely even concerned him. A twinge here, a stab of pain there. It was nothing compared to the ability to hold her like this, to have her where she belonged.
His.
Damn it, this woman washis, and he knew it to his marrow. She would know it soon enough if she didn’t already.
She shivered. “Your Royal?—”
“Nando,” he interrupted, his lips grazing her throat as he kissed his way lower. “You called me by my given name once, and the world did not end.” He raked his stubble against her skin, one hand coming up to snag that inglorious fichu, pluck it away, and send it to the floor. “Try it. I’ve longed to hear it on your lips every second that has passed since then.”
