Reckless. Yes, there was another fine word to describe him. Eleanora couldn’t deny it. Nor could she deny that she harbored some misgivings of her own regarding Nando and their marriage.
“Do you suppose he will change his mind?” she asked, her tone sharper than she had intended, for the frantic thought had occurred to her more than once.
The princess appeared pensive, her lips flattened into a thin line. “I do not doubt that he is serious about marrying you. However, I find myself wondering what will happen after you are wed.”
Eleanora managed a thin smile. “That makes two of us.”
“Oh dear.” Stasia’s expression shifted, sympathy lining her lovely countenance. “You need not marry him, you know.”
“I want to marry him,” she said, shocking herself with the vehemence of her own words.
Because she realized the veracity in them. Shedidwant to marry Nando. Even if she regretted it later and despite all the concerns and worries crowding her mind.
Perhaps she was every bit as reckless as he was.
CHAPTER 15
Marrying in London was damned annoying.
Marrying in Londonin haste, however, was nigh impossible.
But after what had seemed an eternity of waiting with limited patience as Nando’s future bride was held captive by Stasia, it was done. Propriety, she had claimed, and he had only relented when she had mentioned the damage it would do Eleanora if he did whatever he wanted.
Nando excelled at doing what he wanted. In all things. Denying himself Eleanora for five more days—procuring a special license as a scapegrace foreign prince was unfortunately not as easy as he had hoped—had been torment, pure and simple. And now, at long last, that torment was coming to an end.
Because he had what he wanted—Eleanora, hiswife—in his carriage.
She was wearing a gown he had never seen her in before, and for the first time, it was one that suited her lush figure instead of hiding it. Fashioned of a pale blue that made her eyes seem so much more vivid, the gown also had a daring decolletage that put her breasts on display without the hindrance of a fichu. Silkroses festooned the full skirt and bedecked the smart bonnet on her head. She was bereft of ornamentation aside from a sapphire parure he had gifted her with.
Too dear, she had claimed. But he had asked her to wear it for their wedding day, wanting to see her looking the part of a princess—hisprincess—even if she remained reluctant to assume the role. Her wrap had slid from her shoulders as the carriage swayed over a bump. Flimsy and nearly transparent, it was the most imprudent garment he had ever seen her don.
His hands itched to tear it off her, along with the beautiful gown and every other stitch of misbegotten muslin and silk and lace that was keeping him from her delectable bare skin.
“Is something amiss?” she asked him, color rising on her cheeks.
Ye gods, she was fetching when she was discomfited. But then, she was lovely, no matter the occasion. Upbraiding him icily in a dour gown. Trading barbs with him as she hid her lustrous hair beneath a hideous cap. Laughing, smiling, frowning most ferociously. Regardless of the occasion or the garments, Eleanora Brett made his cock painfully hard, and he suspected she always would.
It was almost alarming, this monstrous amount of feeling inside him where she was concerned, growing and blooming greater by the day, the hour, the minute. Why, he was far more than halfway in love with her. He truly ought to have realized it before now. What a dullard he was.
“Nando?” she pressed, making him belatedly realize that he had failed to answer her quiet question.
“Yes.” He reached across the carriage and snatched her from the squabs she occupied in one swift motion, hauling her into his lap. “You were too far away.”
“Your arm,” she protested, attempting to straighten herself into a more suitably demure position.
The weight of her soft, supple curves in his lap was so entrancing that for a moment, he could not speak. All he could do was hold her, this mysterious, wonderful woman he had married a mere hour ago that morning. Eleanora Harriet Merritt, as it happened. That was her true name in its entirety.
“My arm is still attached,” he told her mildly, slipping a hand up to cup the fullness of one breast.
An arrow of pure need shot through him. He thought he might catch flame there on the Moroccan leather, sending the entire carriage up as well. Her stays were impeding him from the joy of her hard nipple, but he knew it was there, waiting for his mouth.
She squirmed in his lap, clearly vexed by his lack of concern for his healing wound. “What if you tear your stitches?”
He chuckled. “Darling, I am going to be engaging in far more strenuous activity than holding you in my lap as soon as we reach my town house. At present, I don’t give a damn if all the stitches tear and I bleed to death on the floor, so long as I’ve had you first.”
“You must not speak of something so horrid,” she chastised, frowning at him in that way she had, that made him want to kiss her.
Her bodice gaped, giving him an indecent view down it, and he was nearly unmanned by so much pale, creamy skin and the way she continued to wriggle on his lap.
