Nineteen
Monique watched Gregory stride to the door and lock it, shedding his coat and waistcoat as he returned to her. She knew this was madness—why this man? Why now, when her life was in upheaval?
But she also knew she wouldn’t regret it. For once she would take her pleasure where she could, and to hell with those who would keep her from it.
She watched with avid interest as he took off his shirt, revealing a chest that seemed sculpted of marble, all carved lines and beautiful symmetry. Even the smattering of raven curls over it turned her knees to jelly.
When he caught her staring at him, he gave a low chuckle. “Like what you see, Princess?”
“Perhaps,” she said coyly. “Though I want to see more.”
Heat flamed in his face like lightning on the sea, drying the very breath in her throat. “As would I.” Gesturing to her riding habit, which fastened in the front, he ordered, “Unbutton it.”
His tone of command sent excitement roaring through her, as did the idea of having him watch her remove her clothes. Though she fumbled a little in her haste, she had her riding habit off in a matter of moments, followed by her chemisette.
His gaze seared her as he surveyed her in her corset, chemise, stockings, and riding boots. “God save me,” he rasped.
That break in his usual control—and the noticeable thickness in his trousers—freed her to tease him. “Not even God can save you from me, monsieur.” With a coquettish smile, she lifted one foot and set it on the chair so she could unlace her half-boot and slide it off. Then she deliberately hitched up her chemise to expose her lacy drawers and garters.
She was rewarded by his harsh intake of breath. Just as she removed her garter and started to take off her stocking, he said hoarsely, “Let me,” and walked over to peel it slowly down her leg.
At the same time, he slid his other hand between her thighs and inside the slit in her drawers to find the place where she was already wet and eager for him.
It was her turn to strive for breath as he fondled her so deftly that it made her gasp and moan for more. With a smile that was half smirk, half pleasure, he pulled her foot off the chair, then hooked his hand behind her knee to lift the other leg so she could set that foot on the chair.
This time he was the one to remove her boot, garter, and stocking with a series of bold, hot caresses that ignited her senses. By the time her stockings were pooled on the floor at her feet, she thought she might melt into a puddle on top of them.
“Turn around,” he commanded her.
“Yes, sir,” she said impudently. “Whatever his lordship demands.”
His low laugh resonated deep inside her belly. “Whatever I demand? I’ll have to see that to believe it.”
She put her back to him. “Do you always order your paramours about like this?”
“I don’t have a string of paramours, as you seem to think,” he said, a trace of irritation in his voice. “They’re . . . inconvenient.”
Yet he had asked her to be his mistress. She told herself that it meant nothing. All the same, it felt like it meant something.
“Wives can be inconvenient, too,” she said, trying not to tremble like a silly schoolgirl as he loosened the laces of her corset, the brush of his hands over her chemise-clad back making her yearn for more than this one encounter.
“So I’m told.” He pulled her corset off over her head, then pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder. “I would give much to see you with your hair down, Princess.”
“You can’t,” she said with true regret, then added tartly, “unless you’re prepared to put it back up again.”
“Don’t tempt me to try it.” He ran his tongue along the nape of her neck. “Though I confess that having all of this exposed is enjoyable, too. It makes me want to mark you again.”
“Don’t you dare!” She swiveled to face him, only to find him laughing. “It’s probably a good thing we can’t marry,” she said petulantly. “You would be a most trying husband, I’m sure.”
“Probably,” he said, obviously not the least insulted. With eyes darkening, he reached for the hem of her chemise. “But there are advantages to marriage, too.” His guttural tone gave her pause. “Like being able to have the wife of one’s dreams in one’s bed.”
Her breath caught in her throat. “Would I be . . . the wife of your dreams?”
His only answer was to kiss her, hard and deep and so fiercely that her heart felt as if it might fly out of her chest. She told herself to not even hope for it. What good would it do to dream, when nothing could come of it? He would not give up his ambition for her.
But that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy their one time together. And she intended to do so, to revel in it and fix it in her memory for all her days.
He drew back to drag her chemise over her head, then gaze on her naked as if it were his right. And it was. She’d given it to him.
His eyes smoldered a hot blue as they scoured her naked body. “You may never be queen of Belgium, ma chérie, but you are a queen nonetheless.”
“In appearance, you mean,” she said, faintly disappointed.
“In everything. Diplomacy. Intelligence.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Talent in the theater.” As that made her smile, he filled his hands with her breasts, thumbing her nipples to fine points. “And in bounty of bosom. Most assuredly.”
She laughed in spite of herself. “For a fellow who strategizes his every move, you are still such a man.”
Eyes gleaming, he pulled his hands from her breasts so he could work loose his trouser buttons. “Shall I show you how much of a man I am?”
“Oh yes.” She’d never actually seen a man naked, except on statues, and that could hardly be the same.
He shoved off his trousers, then swiftly divested himself of his drawers. And that’s when she thought better of her plan to lose her virtue to him. Because that massive engine thrusting out from between his thighs like a cannon headed for war was far more daunting than she’d expected. It was as arrogant as he, with ballocks the size of plums.
“Sacrebleu,” she couldn’t help whispering.
That made him falter. “You have done this before, haven’t you?”
She considered revealing the truth. But then he would put a swift end to this. He was a gentleman, and he had some insane notion that she might end up a princess one day.
“What do you think?” she said, perversely not wanting to lie to him.
Thankfully, he came to the obvious conclusion and drew her into his arms. She ought to be insulted, but she was merely glad that he would do as she wanted and take her to his bed.
Or at least figuratively, since instead of leading her to his bedchamber, he hoisted her onto his desk and murmured, “Good. Because I can’t wait any longer to have you, my sweet.”
Then he was parting her legs and finding that soft, silky place that yearned for him and sliding up inside her as if heading home.
She choked down a gasp. My, my, but that was . . . not what she’d expected. Did every woman have to endure that large verge pressing up into her? More importantly, did every woman find it pleasurable?
Perhaps she was merely the exception. He seemed so thick, so intrusive.
“You’re as tight as a virgin,” he whispered, before taking her mouth in a leisurely kiss that roused her blood and made her less tense down below.
She tore her mouth free of his. “And how many virgins have you deflowered, monsieur?” she asked with forced nonchalance.
“None.” He kneaded her breast so silkily she gasped, which brought a self-satisfied gleam to his eyes. “I don’t believe in taking a woman’s innocence outside of marriage.”
Then he began moving inside her, and all thought of having lost her virtue to a man who didn’t actually believe in taking a woman’s virtue faded. Because this wasn’t what she’d expected at all.
Yes, his hard verge inside her was still uncomfortable. But the more he drove inside her and the more his clever fingers caressed her breast and her minou at the point of their joining, the more she found herself moaning and shimmying against him, trying to gain more of the delicious sensations he provoked.
“Monique,” he whispered in a ragged voice. “My dear, sweet princess. I could die happy inside you.”
She could die happy with him inside her, too. Because a hunger unlike any she’d experienced was building within her. She wanted to eat him up, to absorb him into her, to have him be part of her as no man ever had. And the more he lunged into her, the more she ached to have him deeper, further, more thoroughly hers.
Her cravings grabbed her by the throat, making her arch up into him, strain against him in search of more pleasure as he thrust inside of her.
“Ah, yes.” He spread kisses over her cheeks and throat and shoulder. “Show me what you want, my dearest. And I will give it to you, I swear.”
“I want you,” she murmured, hating herself for the admission. “Please, Gregory . . .”
With a growl, he increased his rhythm. His fingers thrummed against her where they were joined and the craving intensified until she was clutching him close and moaning and aching for something she couldn’t fathom . . . until it rose inside her like a phoenix lofting toward heaven.
“Gregory . . .” she moaned against his mouth. “My God, Gregory!”
And she catapulted into the sky, her body shaking and her heart feeling as if it might shatter into a million stars.
Then he drove hard and cried out something as he spilled his seed inside her. She could have sworn he’d said, “My love,” but that was impossible. He didn’t seem to believe in love.
Unfortunately, she was beginning to. Because she realized, as she held him close and tried not to cry over the glory of it, that she felt something for him she’d never felt for any man.
Could it be love? She hoped not. Because love was dangerous and wretched and made one hurt the way Maman had been hurt by Papa. Love cut one off from one’s family the way Grand-maman had lost hers.
She simply couldn’t go through such pain.
Gregory couldn’t seem to let go of Monique. He should have pulled out before spilling himself inside her. At the very least, he should have hunted up the French letters he kept somewhere in his bedchamber.
But he’d been afraid to ruin the moment, to lose his chance. And some part of him was sure that if he’d lost his chance, he would have regretted it all his days.
He drew back to stare at her. “That was . . . miraculous. I shall not forget it for years to come.”
A tentative smile curved her lips. Her luscious, tempting lips. “Nor will I.”
His softening cock slipped from her as he pulled out of her embrace, reminded that the duke and Lady Ursula were still in the house somewhere. As he bent to pick up his drawers, he noticed the blood staining not only her thighs but his cock. He stared at it, hardly able to believe his eyes. “Did I hurt you?”
She glanced away with a veiled expression. “No, of course not.”
Suddenly he remembered what she’d said that first night in London—I must be chaste when I marry. He’d assumed it was part of her role, but what if . . .
Oh, God. The evidence was hard to ignore—the tightness of her quim, the way she’d embraced every pleasure as if it were entirely new . . . the blood smearing her thighs.
Half in a trance, he took out his handkerchief and wiped the blood from his cock before pulling on his drawers. Surely he hadn’t . . . Surely she wasn’t . . . “Were you chaste before I took you?”
Avoiding his gaze, she murmured, “Why does it matter?”
He caught her head between his hands. “Because it does.” He stared her down. “Answer me. Were you a virgin?”
She shrugged. “I suppose you could put it that way.”
He’d deflowered her. He’d taken the innocence of the future Princess de Chanay without a thought for the political consequences, all because he couldn’t stand the idea of not having her.
Damn it all to hell. How could he have done that? “Why didn’t you tell me beforehand?”
“Would you have bedded me if I had?”
“Of course not!”
A rueful smile crossed her lips. “That’s why I didn’t tell you.”
He couldn’t comprehend it. If she’d told him, he would never have dishonored her. But he’d assumed . . . “I don’t understand. You’re an actress.”
Her temper flared as she slipped off the desk to move away from him. “That doesn’t mean I’m a whore.”
“I wasn’t implying—”
“Of course you were,” she said irritably. “Everyone assumes that actresses are whores.” Her voice lowered to a murmur. “But it isn’t necessarily true.”
The enormity of what he’d done hit him. He’d taken the innocence of a princess, who might one day rule in Chanay, even if she didn’t end up doing so in Belgium. It was unconscionable.
“We must marry,” he said baldly.
That seemed to catch her by surprise. Ever practical, she picked up her petticoat, though her expression remained shuttered as she returned to where he stood by the desk. “Why must we? Nothing has changed from before.”
“Everything has changed. I took your innocence.”
“No,” she said firmly. “I gave it to you of my own volition.”
“In hopes of keeping me silent about the masquerade, or convincing me to let you stay, or—”
“Merde,” she spat, his first clue that he’d stepped far awry with that remark. “I desired you. That is all.” She used her petticoat to wipe the blood from her thighs and his desk with furious motions. “Though I don’t know why, given that you are the most arrogant, infuriating . . .”
A string of French slurs followed, none of which he blamed her for. The words I desired you sounded in his head, as tempting as her nudity. “Monique, forgive me. I did not mean—”
“To insult me? To imply that I am some sort of seductress trying to trap you into marriage?” Still fully nude, she faced him and planted her hands on her hips. Her lush, very distracting hips. “And why on earth would I marry you when you clearly think me a blackmailer and manipulative putain?”
“I do not think of you as a whore,” he snapped. “And pardonne-moi, chérie, but you did offer me your body for my silence only yesterday.”
“Yes! Offered! From the beginning! I did not give it to you in hopes I could make you pay for it later, and then try to be so wicked as to demand that you—”
“Enough,” he said, suitably shamed. “You’re right. I should not have said that.”
That seemed to mollify her a little. Sullenly, she dragged on her chemise, then pulled her loosened corset on over her head. “I do not understand why you would offer marriage when you think such awful things of me.”
“And I don’t understand why you would give me your virtue. Especially now that you have possibilities.”
When she merely put her back to him and said, “Will you tighten my laces, my lord?” he muttered a curse under his breath and went to do so.
He regarded the back of her head and the stretch of skin he’d only half-jokingly spoken of marking. Even now, he wanted to suck her skin, taste her quim, be with her again and again.
His damned cock roused at the thought. “Please, chérie, tell me why you would behave so recklessly.”
She was quiet another long moment as he tied off her corset. Then she sighed. “Perhaps I just wanted to make sure that my first time was special. I knew I could trust you to make it so.” Turning in his arms, she faced him with a wistful smile. “And you did.”
He fought the surge of satisfaction that those words roused in him. “All the same, you see now why we must marry.”
“So you may throw your future away on a French putain?”
“Don’t call yourself that,” he said sharply. “Never again.”
She stroked his cheek. “It is what the world will call me, mon coeur, once it learns that I have been an actress for years. That I have been lying to everyone about who I am.”
He gritted his teeth. She was right about that. “We’ll find a way around . . . exposing your past. Somehow.”
Her mocking laugh echoed in his ears. “I would love to hear how you intend to do that. It’s impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible,” he said in true annoyance. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Have you no faith in me?”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with you.” A weariness spread over her features. “I simply know how the world works, mon coeur.”
It was the second time she’d called him my heart. It should alarm him. Instead, it made him want to whisk her away somewhere safe and make her his yet again. “What if I don’t care about my career?”
She snorted. “Then you are lying to yourself. We both know you care very much. And if I took what you love away from you, you would come to resent me.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I could not bear that.”
Those words revealed that she cared more than she let on, and the realization struck him down deep, in the place where he kept all his darkest secrets. He wondered if she, of all people, might understand what he’d done in his youth and why. That she might accept his past and not judge.
The idea tantalized him, made him want to explore it. He reached for her, but before he could drag her into his arms, a knock came at the door.
Bloody hell. He’d be very happy to have all of this over, so he could sort out his feelings for Monique and his insane wish to have her as his wife, though it would surely mean the end of his career.
“What is it?” he called to the intruder, only too aware that he was naked except for his drawers.
With a frown, Monique left his side to continue putting on her clothes.
“My lord, the constable is coming up the drive,” came the voice of his most trusted footman.
Damn. “I’ll be right there,” he called out.
“Very good, sir,” the footman said.
As soon as the servant’s footsteps receded, Monique murmured, “You have many responsibilities. You must attend to them.”
And leave her be? With this matter unresolved? “I don’t care about my responsibilities. I care that I just deflowered—”
“I do not wish to gain a husband who is forced into marrying me.” Her gaze was direct and rather chilling as she gestured for the door. “Go speak to the constable and see if he might know who is trying to kill me. Go uncover all the many secrets you excel at revealing. I don’t expect anything of you.” She cast him a wan smile. “All I want is to finish out the masquerade so I can take care of Grand-maman.”
The words carved a guilt on his heart that was nothing like the one put there by his murder of his father. Because she obviously didn’t expect him to behave as a gentleman in this matter and accept his responsibilities. He’d never had a woman think so little of him, and it chafed at him.
“This discussion is not over,” he said. “Don’t think that it is, ma chérie.”
“You should put some clothes on,” she retorted, very much like a wife. She pulled on her chemisette and then her gown, and fastened the latter up hastily.
He shook his head. Despite all the political difficulties involved in this affair, she would actually make him a very good companion. Perhaps it was time to explore ways out of this mess that could result in his wedding her.
“I’ll take care of the constable,” he said. “You might wish to go to your bedchamber and make sure that you are . . . presentable before the prince arrives.”
He wasn’t sure why he’d said that until she glowered at him. And then he knew. He’d wanted to be certain she was his and no one else’s. That given the choice, she would choose him.
And now he had his answer. Astonishing how gratifying he found it.
Oh yes, he had a new purpose. Somehow, he meant to make sure that she could be his wife . . . and that he could keep his career safe in the process.
Because any other choice was rapidly becoming unthinkable.
Leaving the room, he headed downstairs to meet with the constable in the drawing room. He gave the man the same story he’d given the duke—someone had shot at him in London and now in the country.
The constable took careful notes. “I’ll look into it, m’lord, but there’s so much mayhem going on, what with today being Guy Fawkes Day and all, that it could have been just ’bout anyone. You’re sure it was the same fellow as what shot at you in town?”
“I’m sure. One of my guests, the Duc de Pontalba, saw the man from behind and the description matched. He tried to go after him, but the fellow escaped toward Canterbury.”
“Then I should like to speak to this duke, if I may,” the constable said.
“Of course. I’ll have him fetched.”
Gregory opened the door to the drawing room only to find that the prince had arrived, along with, oddly enough, Danworth. Perhaps Lady Ursula had been right about the two men being friends.
“Fulkham!” Prince Leopold called to him. “Thank you so much for the invitation, old fellow. Given that the conference is leaning toward Princess Aurore as a candidate, I confess I was rather surprised to be asked here.”
“We decided to make it a more international group,” Gregory said blandly. “Besides, with your relation Lady Ursula and your good friend Danworth attending, it only made sense to have you as well.”
Gregory noticed that Danworth looked suddenly uncomfortable.
The prince smoothed his features into nonchalance. “Of course, my relation and my . . . er . . . friend.”
“I suppose that’s why Danworth went to meet you on the road?” Gregory queried.
“Not at all,” Prince Leopold said. “I merely happened to spot Mr. Danworth as I was passing through your quaint village on my way here.”
“And not the others?” Gregory pressed him.
The prince blinked. “The others?”
“I went into Canterbury with his lordship’s mother and the count this morning to shop,” Mr. Danworth said hastily. “But we got separated.”
Hmm. He would have to ask Mother exactly when Danworth had left them. “Well, I do hope my mother and the count return in time for dinner.” He glanced at the clock. “It’s getting late, and I would hope—”
“Lord Fulkham!” said a voice from the doorway of the drawing room. “May I speak to you a moment?”
The way Danworth blanched at the sight of the constable gave Gregory pause. “Of course.”
He walked over to the constable, who whispered, “That fellow there is Tom Smith.”
Gregory fought the urge to glance at Danworth. “The one in the blue coat?”
The constable nodded. “He’s the one who asked about your father’s death.”
His heart thundered in his chest. “Thank you,” Gregory said. “Please speak of this to no one. I will handle it. Do you understand?”
The constable nodded, albeit a bit reluctantly.
“The duke will be down soon to speak with you. So please take a seat.”
Again, the constable understood his meaning. “Of course, my lord.”
Gregory returned to his guests, his mind reeling. What reason could Danworth have had to ask about Father’s death? Unless this was part of an investigation into Gregory’s suitability to become secretary of the foreign office.
But why would such an investigation be mounted by the party leaving office? Could Danworth have found a way to move on to the opposition party, the same way Gregory had?
The arse seemed to have gathered his composure. “Who is that fellow, Fulkham?” Danworth asked in his loftiest tone.
Gregory forced a shrug. “The constable from Canterbury. We had an incident this afternoon, which I had to report.” He waved his hand dismissively. “You know how these locals are during Guy Fawkes Day. Very reckless.”
Danworth’s face showed no reaction that might indicate he’d been part of the shooting. Then again, he worked for the prime minister and knew how to play the game.
No matter. Tonight Gregory would confront him with what he knew and demand an explanation, about both “Tom Smith” and the attempts on Monique’s life.
And if Danworth was behind the latter?
Gregory would eviscerate him.