“That you bedded three women at once,” she continued. “That you cuckolded an earl, a baron, and a marquess.”
“Deus,” he muttered. “That is enough. Apparently, I have proven quite the fodder for London scandal broth.”
“I’m afraid you have.”
He smoothed a stray tendril of hair from her cheek. “Little wonder you scorned me so when you first met me. I am not proud of my reckless ways. But all that is in the past. I am a different man now.”
Her brow was furrowed, her look pensive. He could see her warring with herself, and he hated that his past had the power to hurt her, to come between them.
“Princess Anastasia told me you are known for your recklessness,” Eleanora added. “She warned me not to marry you because of it.”
His spine stiffened, outrage boiling up within him. “The devil she did.”
He had thought he was on friendly terms with Stasia. To think that she’d had the nerve to warn Eleanora not to wed him. It was infuriating. Maddening.
But then, how could he blame her?
Eleanora shifted in his lap so she could face him fully. “I didn’t listen.”
“Why didn’t you?” he asked hoarsely, needing to know.
Ye gods, she ought to have run as far and as fast as she could in the opposite direction of him. He was selfishly glad she had not.
“Iwantedto marry you,” she said softly, her words falling over him like a velvet caress. “Her concerns weren’t enough to dissuade me.”
Disappointment laced through him. What had he expected from her? A declaration of love? Of course not, but he knew why she had wanted to marry him, and it didn’t have anything to do with tender emotion.
“Because I’m a prince,” he said, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.
She shook her head. “No, Nando.”
“For my looks?” he guessed next, for he was well aware of the effect he had upon the opposite sex.
Women found him very handsome indeed, and it was simply an incontrovertible fact, much like his title.
Eleanora tucked her chin, biting her lip as she shook her head again. “Because you’re you, and I like you for who you are, regardless of whether you’re a prince.”
Her words stunned him. Humbled him.
Shook him.
His hand trembled as he cupped her cheek and kissed her, swift and hard before retreating. “Thank you. No one has ever said that to me before.”
Women had wanted him for his power, his wealth, his looks, the pleasure he could give them. But none of them had ever wanted him simply for himself. For Nando, imperfect and flawed, reckless and lost, and now, because of the woman in his arms, found.
“Then I am honored to be the first,” she said, cupping his cheek in a fond gesture that had him hardening beneath her.
All she had to do was touch him. Sometimes, it was as simple as her appearance in a room or the faint trace of her scent where she had recently been. Yes, he was thoroughly besotted. Maxim would laugh at him.
Perhaps Nando would take her with him to Varros sooner than he had supposed. And perhaps there was a chance that hecouldearn her love. It was a chance he was willing to take.
“I think that perhaps Benvolio ought to go to bed,” he told her.
Eleanora laughed, wriggling her bottom in a way that nearly had him spending in his trousers. “It certainly feels as if he should.”
“Minx,” he said tenderly, awed by her, and took her lips again.
She kissed him back, and he reveled in the decadent taste of her, the gentle play of her tongue with his. He had never been happier than he was in this salon, Eleanora in his arms, her mouth on his.
