“Impossible,” he bit out.
She hauled the gown over her head and stuffed her arms into the sleeves. “Good day, Your Royal Highness.”
With what she knew could scarcely pass for a curtsy, Eleanora fled from the chamber and the temptation of a prince who could never be hers.
CHAPTER 12
She’d left her fichu behind.
And his raging cock, begging for release.
The latter had been Nando’s own fault. He had decided, drunk on the sweet elixir of Eleanora’s cunny, that he would wait to take her. That he would make their first time together about her and her pleasure instead of himself and his own selfish needs. He had intended to take himself in hand after she fled his chamber as if it were Hades.
But then Bruno had arrived with Benvolio, and his plan had dispersed like a flock of startled fowls. Because Nando could not milk his cock until he came whilst he had an audience of a gray-and-white cat who possessed a tendency to curl up on his chest whenever he was lying in bed. Thwarted, he had enjoyed a happy reunion with the feline he had rescued from the London streets and who had been his constant companion ever since. He’d spent the remainder of the evening frustrated and sullen, attempting to sleep, Benvolio’s fur stuck to his cheek and making his nose ticklish.
He had risen this morning with a desperate cockstand and no means of sating himself until later that evening. Supposing Eleanora would be persuaded to come to him again, that was.Which, given her ability to avoid him thus far today, seemed increasingly less likely. She’d been conspicuously absent at breakfast, which he had taken below instead of in his room. She and the princesses had then enjoyed luncheon an hour before the rest of the household. And now, it was approaching dinner, and he was roaming the halls like a starving wolf desperately attempting to scent his next meal.
Pathetic, really.
Nando didn’t chase women. He didn’t need to. They fell into his lap. But here he was, chasing shadows on the Aubusson, hoping for the slightest glimpse of Eleanora’s figure enrobed in whatever hideous muslin frock she’d chosen for the day.
“Just the man I was looking for.”
Damnation.
At the sound of Archer Tierney’s voice behind him, Nando halted and spun about.
“Well, if it isn’t my beloved jailer,” he said, not without a hint of bite, for even if he was beneath the same roof as Eleanora, he was growing weary of his host’s insistence upon keeping him here.
It was indeed beginning to feel just a bit like a gaol.
“Your protector is a much more apt descriptor, Highness,” Tierney countered, unperturbed. “Since you appear to be in full possession of your faculties this fine evening, perhaps you will join me in my study.”
He was referring, no doubt, to the laudanum Bruno had insisted upon pouring down his gullet.
“My wound is healing nicely. No need for laudanum at present.” He smiled as if he didn’t have a care.
In truth, laudanum might be required if he couldn’t soon rid himself of the nettling urge to ease his sensual frustration. Not even the sight of a frowning Tierney and the notion of enduring another interview with the man was enough to entirely assuagehis lust. It was damned disconcerting. He didn’t recall ever being in such a state.
But perhaps that was because he had never previously encountered such obstacles in quelling his need. Certainly, he couldn’t remember ever having wanted a woman as badly as he wanted Eleanora. She made him desperate for her.
“Excellent news,” Tierney said, jolting Nando from his thoughts. “This way, if you please.”
The man had the same way of commanding a room that Nando’s older brother Maxim possessed, but Archer Tierney was no king. It was rather annoying.
“Is that a request or a command, Tierney?” he asked, his voice emerging harsher than he had intended.
After all, the man had extended his hospitality. And all indications from the reports Nando received from Bruno suggested that Tierney had the investigation into his attempted assassination firmly in hand. Nando himself didn’t care to contemplate such troubling matters. The notion of his own mortality was disconcerting. He far preferred to distract himself with pleasure and indulge his whims rather than contemplate the finite nature of his time on terra firma.
Tierney raised a single brow, his countenance haughty enough to resemble any king’s. “Mayhap it’s both, Highness. Test me and see.”
With that, he turned his back upon Nando and began striding away.
No one turned their backs upon the House of Tayrnes. The slight was no doubt intentional. And then there was the distinct and intentional abbreviation of his address—Highnessinstead ofYour Royal Highness. Setting his molars on edge, Nando followed in Tierney’s wake, joining him in a dark-paneled room that smelled distinctly of tobacco and smoke and looked far less regal than the rest of the town house. It was, he knewinstinctively, a chamber that was Tierney’s domain. No hint of a feminine hand here as was evidenced so plainly in all the other rooms with their abundance of flowers and lovely gilt-framed paintings and sumptuous furniture.
The chair upon which he sat was bloody hard.
“Whisky?” Tierney asked. “Cheroot?”
