“For your honesty. For trusting me with your secrets.” He kissed her softly, quickly, chastely—a gesture of gratitude rather than an attempt at seduction. “I don’t care about your past, Eleanora. Your future is what I covet. You, in my arms, in my bed. I want you to be mine.”
As the last word left him, he almost shuddered at the rightness of it, the potency. What a giddy feeling. His cock went hard again at the notion—Eleanora,his. He had never, in his storied career as a rakehell, had a woman who had been his alone. And that this magnificent one could be made him feel more powerful than he ever had. How he had imagined he could take her as a lover, bed her a few times, and then excise her from his blood, was a mystery to him.
“Marriage,” she repeated, sounding dazed. “How shockingly bourgeois of you.”
“Have I ever given you the impression that I take myself seriously?” he teased gently. “If so, I must offer my most sincere apologies.”
She laughed, a true laugh. More like the giggle of a carefree young girl, the same way she had laughed when they had danced together and he had suggested Princess Emmaline needed pianoforte lessons. He felt as if he had emerged from war the victor.
“You are mad,” she said.
And she was not wrong.
Nando kissed her again, needing that laughter on his lips. Her response was to wind her arms around his neck and sink her fingers into his hair. She clung to him as if he were a tree she intended to climb. And her mouth opened without any coaxing from him, her tongue darting hot and wet against his. He moaned, wanting her more than ever, his prick raging with need as he cupped her arse and pressed her more fully against him.
He kissed her and kissed her, until they were both breathless. His wound was paining him, but he didn’t care. He was intent upon the woman in his arms.
When at last he lifted his head, her mouth was dark and swollen from his kisses, her eyes slumberous with desire. And he knew he had won her at last.
“What say you, Eleanora? Will you marry this mad prince?”
She was silent for a heartbeat. “Yes.”
Eleanora woke as was customary,alone in her narrow bed as the faint strains of dawn began to paint the London sky with color. For a moment, she lay there, silent and still, convinced that the recollections of the night before flooding her mind had been nothing more than the fanciful imaginings of her dreams.
But no.
As the traces of slumber fled and she rose in her nightgown to stir the embers in her hearth to warm the cool morning air, she realized it had been real. Nando had asked her to marry him. And she had agreed, after which he had kissed her soundly and then bundled her off to her room.
She had been too confused by the unexpected developments of the evening to offer much protest. They’d walked silently, hand in hand, through the darkened halls, and he had lefther with another kiss before urging her to get some rest. She had somehow expected more, his continued expert attempts at seduction. But he had disappeared into the shadows, and she had been left to undress in a state of shock.
What had she agreed to?
Had he been truly serious?
He hadn’t felt feverish. He hadn’t seemed delirious. He hadn’t smelled at all of spirits, so he had not been in his cups. He had appeared perfectly rational even as he had made her an utterlyirrationalproposal.
Eleanora prodded the coals and then straightened, her mind still whirling. Marriage. She had never thought it a possibility for herself. And certainly not with a prince. For so many years, she had banished all thoughts of husband and family from her mind. Longing for that which was impossible had only made her circumstances more dire.
With shaking hands, she set about donning her stockings and chemise. How was it possible that the life she had yearned for had somehow fallen into her lap, given to her by a silver-tongued rakehell prince? What manner of husband would he make—or, for that matter, father? If she were fortunate enough to have children, would he love them?
Her own father had been present only occasionally during her youngest years. Her memories of him were faded like a dyed cloth left too long in the sun. He had been an important man, Mama had warned, and they mustn’t ask for too much of his time. Their few visits had been dour and unsmiling. The man who had sired her had observed her as if she were a strange new insect that had appeared before him and he wasn’t certain whether he should squish it beneath his boot or capture it for further study.
Then one day, Mama had asked the servants to pack up their belongings and leave the elegant town house that had been theirhome. They had left in a hired carriage and never returned. Her mother had taken a role that returned her to the stage and a new lover, although Eleanora had not understood who the gentleman who paid calls upon her mother had been at the time. As she had grown older, she had come to understand why the gentlemen visited Mama and why they moved so frequently. No town house was ever a home for more than a year, and not all of them had been as luxurious or stately as others.
Eleanora sighed heavily, smoothing wrinkles from her chemise. How could she expect a prince to be any different from the sire she had scarcely even known? She drew on her stays, tightening them so much that they bit into her sides, but she scarcely noticed. Was she making a dreadful mistake?
And how would she tell the princesses that she was leaving them?
Where would Nando expect them to live? In Varros?
The questions that had kept her awake, plaguing her through the night, returned with a vengeance. She took up her petticoat and gown, finally finishing her toilette with a modest fichu and a cap over her hair.
Nando had shown kindness to the cat he had rescued from the mean streets of London, she reminded herself. Benvolio had certainly seemed to adore his master. Surely that was a sign that he would not be a cruel father to any children they might have one day.
Eleanora left her chamber, no more certain of her decision by the light of day than she had been the night before. She wasn’t even certain when she and Nando would marry. He wanted her to go with him when he left the town house this morning, but that was a scandalous suggestion. She could not live with him until they were wed.
She didn’t have to go far to find Princess Anastasia, who came upon her in the hall, wearing a look of unabashed concern. “Miss Brett, just who I was looking for.”
