Always a Princess (21 page)

She stopped crying long enough to kiss him back, her lips moving hungrily under his. When her hands went to his jacket to push it over his shoulders, her intention became clear. This encounter was headed into very pleasant territory, indeed, and his sex immediately sprang to attention in his trousers.

The two of them fought for supremacy as though they’d called a contest for who could get whom naked the fastest. After she’d removed his jacket and waistcoat, he managed to get his hands free to undo the fastenings at the back of her dress. Soon, he’d freed one breast from her corset cover and could take the nipple into his mouth and feel it harden against his tongue.

“Oh!” she cried. “Good. So good.”

The laces of her stays would not cooperate as he fumbled with them, but eventually, he had them loose enough to free her. Clothing flew in all directions. His shirt, her petticoats, his shoes, her stockings. When nothing stood between them but his pants, her small hands against his member made him grit his teeth for some control. When even his trousers were gone, shucked down his legs and finally off, she petted the length of him, from the sac at the base to the tip. His eyes half closed in pleasure as he watched her fingers feather over his shaft and linger at the head.

Then, still gripping him, she lowered her head. He watched, enraptured, knowing what she planned and knowing even more that he should stop her. But when her lips closed around his flesh, the world dissolved into pool of lust.

“God, Eve,” he gasped. “I love you.”

She kept on, her head bobbing as she took more and more of him. He swelled until he could scarcely fit into his skin, and his member turned a furious crimson. No more, or he’d burst.

Before he’d have to surrender and lose himself, he caught her up and flipped her onto her back. Spreading her legs, he found her pearl where it peeked out from between the lips of her sex. Now, he took his turn pleasuring her. He teased the hardened nub, now rolling it and then flicking the tip of his tongue against it.

Her breath caught on a sob, this time of pleasure, and her hips moved so that he had to grasp her thighs to hold her against his face. She tasted like caramel—hot and sweet—as he drove her harder.

“Philip.” She let out a keening cry. “I need…please…now.”

She wanted him. He didn’t need to hear anything more. Rising above her, he stared down into her face. Her lips were parted as she worked for breath, her eyes glazed with lust. Lust he’d created. Lust for him.

As he poised himself to enter her, the tip of his cock at the entrance to her body, she sighed with pleasure. “I love you.”

“And I, you,” he whispered back, as he pushed his hips forward and filled her.

Lord, but she was tight. Gripping him. Wet. Her head tipped back as he began to thrust, and her legs wrapped around him, holding him.

Helpless against the rising arousal, he plunged in and out of her. He should go slower, make the moment last, but the feel of her sex around his drove him into madness. Her breathing turned to gasps and then cries as her hands moved along his sides and over his back as if she couldn’t get enough of him.

When she twisted her hips, he let her turn him onto his back, never breaking their connection. Now, she raised herself onto her fists by his side and moved with him, sliding her sweet puss along his length. Up and down, squeezing him. Grasping her hips, he guided her in the rhythm he wanted. Soon, their bodies were slapping against each other as the pleasure grew to unimaginable levels.

In the end, he had no choice but to roll her back against the mattress and plow into her like a madman. In truth, he had lost all reason. He was going to climax, and his body wouldn’t let him stop or even slow. God help him, he couldn’t last.

She came first, miraculous creature. She tensed and shuddered beneath him, and her voice rose on a high, soaring note. When her sex convulsed around his, it took him with her. The orgasm started at the base of his spine and shot through him, coursing along the length of his cock. Semen shot out of him in waves. Again. Again. As if it would never end.

It finally did, though, leaving him limp. He managed to roll off Eve and pull her against him. Eventually, reason returned and with it the feel of the duvet beneath and the warmth of the woman he loved curled up next to him.

“God couldn’t let this be the last time,” she whispered. “He couldn’t be that cruel.”

“I don’t know about the Almighty, but I won’t let it be the last time,” he said.

“What are you going to do?”

“Keep you with me. Always.”

“Foolish man. You need a wife and an heir,” she said. “I can’t pretend to be a princess for the rest of my life, even if I wanted to continue fooling your mother and father. Which I don’t.”

“We’ll solve that problem somehow.”

“How?” she demanded.

“I’ll think of something.”

She snuggled closer to him. “You’re impossible.”

“I know. For now, we’ll worry about keeping me out of prison. The princess thing will take care of itself.”

Somehow. It would have to. Because if he’d learned anything in the last twenty minutes, it was that he’d never be parted from this woman for the rest of his life.

“Constable Chumley has arrived,” Mobley announced.

“Very good,” Philip said. “Send him up.”

Philip’s mother glanced with some alarm at Dr. Kleckhorn, where he sat on an overstuffed armchair, and then back toward Philip. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to invite all these…” she hesitated and then gave Kleckhorn an uncertain smile, “…people here this afternoon?”

“I agree. I have better things to do with my time than talk to the likes of Chumley,” Philip’s father grumbled.

“And the princess doesn’t look at all well,” his mother said, placing a hand over Eve’s as they sat together on the settee. “Would you like to go lie down, my dear?”

Eve didn’t answer but merely gave a high-pitched, uncomfortable laugh. Exactly what she’d been doing ever since Kleckhorn had arrived at Philip’s invitation.

“There, you see?” his mother said. “I’m going to take her to her bed straightaway.”

“Please don’t, Mother,” Philip said. “I want her to be here while the constable interrogates me.”

His mother put her hand over her bosom, and her eyes widened to perfect circles. “Interrogates you?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so.”

“I say, is that strictly necessary?” his father asked.

“Father, please bear with me.”

His mother put her arms around Eve’s shoulders. “You’re being very horrid, Philip. You and the doctor have upset the princess terribly.”

From the terror-stricken look on Eve’s face, he could only assume his mother was right about that. He didn’t want to frighten the woman he loved, but if he’d told her his plans ahead of time, she might have bolted to who-knew-where. Besides, in her fear, she appeared more than a little distracted, and that illusion would only work to their benefit this afternoon.

Mobley appeared at the doorway. “Constable Chumley.”

The butler stepped aside, and the constable entered the room. He took one look at the doctor, and his face assumed a very sour expression. “Kleckhorn.”

“Chumley,” Kleckhorn said, not appearing a bit happier for Chumley’s presence than the constable was for his.

“How utterly delightful,” Philip said. “All of us back together again.”

“Well, well, get on with it, son,” his father said. “The day’s wasting.”

“Ja, doch.”
Kleckhorn agreed in his native German. “Anything the constable has to do can be over quickly. I’ve already concluded my examination of you and the princess.”

“And a very thorough examination it was, too,” Philip said. Of course, the idiotic man had managed nothing more than to scare Eve out of her wits. Philip would pay for that, no doubt. But with any luck, by the end of the afternoon all her problems would be over.

Chumley twirled the end of his mustache and studied the doctor with narrowed eyes. “And what did you discover, Doctor?”

“I’m sure he’ll only confirm what I’ve already told you, Constable,” Philip said. “That I’m the Orchid Thief.”

His mother gasped audibly. “Philip, no.”

“Good God, son, what are you saying?” his father added.

“I can’t stand to have this on my conscience any longer,” Philip said. “Especially now that I’m to become a married man.”

Eve made a noise in her throat that was part laughter, part gasp and part hiccup. His mother gave him a look that said she thought him the world’s prize idiot. Perhaps he was. They’d know soon enough.

In contrast, Chumley looked positively triumphant. He continued twirling the end of his mustache, and his eyes gleamed. “I never doubted it. All the pieces fit into place from the beginning.”

“The thefts began shortly after I returned from my travels a year ago,” Philip said.

“Exactly,” Chumley said.

“And they continued until I confessed to you yesterday.”

“Precisely,” Chumley volunteered.

“I had invitations to all the finest houses and a glasshouse full of orchids to obtain the flowers used in the robberies.”

“What I’ve been saying all along,” Chumley said.

“I’m not surprised you knew it was me,” Philip said. “I should have known better than to put myself up against anyone as clever as you, Constable.”

“Thank you, your lordship,” Chumley said.

“Philip, you don’t know what you’re saying,” his mother wailed. “This is all a mistake.”

“I’m afraid not, Mother. I’ve been terrorizing London, and it’s time I paid for it.”

“An honorable sentiment, my lord,” Chumley said. “Now, if you and the princess will please come with me.”

“No!” his mother shouted. “Oh, Farnham, do something.”

His father rose from his chair, looking quite regal despite his short stature. “Chumley, I must ask you to leave my house. This instant.”

“Not without the thieves,” Chumley said.

“Thief, singular,” Philip corrected. “The princess had nothing to do with the robberies.”

“She was with you whenever a jewel was stolen,” Chumley said.

“Not every time.” He’d stolen several gems before he’d met Eve.

“She accompanied you to Lord and Lady Harrington’s party,” Chumley said. “And she disappeared at the same time you did, as did Lady Harrington’s diamond necklace.”

“True and true.”

“She was with you when Lady Linwood’s tiara was almost stolen,” Chumley said.

“But, you caught that Cathcart fellow,” his father said. “He’s the thief.”

“Really, Father. Arthur Cathcart?” Philip said.

“Lord Wesley’s quite right,” Chumley said. “The man’s simply not a criminal mastermind.”

“But, I am.” Philip glanced at where Eve clutched the arm of the settee, a look of abject horror in her eyes. “So much so, in fact, that I’m responsible for the sorry state of the princess today.”

“Philip, lad, have you lost your mind?” his father demanded.

“The princess happened upon me as I was stealing Lady Harrington’s necklace, you see,” Philip continued. “I had no choice but to force her to escape with me across the Harringtons’ roof and into the night.”

“But you said that the two of you had spent the night in a Greek Orthodox church,” his mother said.

“I lied. I took the princess to an inn, and may God forgive me, I terrified her.”

Eve let out a little yelp of a laugh at that ridiculous lie, but she didn’t utter a word, thank heaven.

“I convinced her that if she turned me in to the authorities I’d have my henchmen kill her,” he continued.

“Philip!” his mother exclaimed. “You have henchmen?”

“Of course not, but the princess didn’t know that. My plan to frighten her worked too well. As you can see, I’ve driven her mad. To atone for my sins, I’ve vowed to marry her and care for her the rest of my life.”

“Rubbish,” Chumley declared.

“Not rubbish at all, Herr Constable,” Kleckhorn said. “Any fool can see that the woman has lost her reason.”

“Eastern European royalty and all their inbreeding,” Philip added. “Makes them high-strung.”

The doctor crossed his legs and studied the constable with some disdain. “As I said, I’ve just examined both the princess and Lord Wesley, and everything is as Lord Wesley says it is. The princess hasn’t uttered a word for the entire time I’ve been here. She’s quite insane. As to their characters, as measured by the bumps on their heads, there’s only one thief here. And he’s Lord Wesley.”

“Oh, Philip, Philip,” his mother moaned. “How could you?”

His father walked to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll hire the best barristers in England. You won’t sit in jail more than a day.”

At that, Eve whimpered, too. Good God, but they were all playing their parts to perfection.

He turned toward Chumley and lifted his chin. “I’m ready to go with you, sir.”

Chumley gestured toward the doorway. “This way, if you please.”

He walked to the settee and bent to place a kiss first on his mother’s forehead and then on Eve’s. That done, he straightened and headed toward the doorway. After a step, he paused. “There is one thing I should mention, Constable.”

“And what might that be?” Chumley asked.

“I’ve returned all the jewelry,” Philip said.

Chumley’s eyebrow rose. “You have?”

“Butlers all over London are opening mysterious packages as we speak.”

“I’m sure that will help you with the court,” Chumley said.

“The Lords,” Philip corrected. “As a peer of the realm, I’ll be tried in the House of Lords. Where my father sits.”

Chumley glanced at Lord Farnham, and Lord Farnham glared back at him.

Chumley cleared his throat. “Quite. Shall we go now?”

“Of course.” Philip paused again. “I don’t suppose I’ll strike the Lords as exceedingly dangerous, having returned the spoils of my thievery.”

Chumley didn’t look at all impressed by that statement but only gestured toward the door again. “A thief’s a thief, my lord.”

“A very repentant thief with a sick wife to care for,” Philip replied.

“I’m sure they’ll think you a capital fellow,” Chumley said. “Now, if you please.”

“And I don’t suppose Her Majesty will be too very upset at the turn of affairs.”

“The queen?” Chumley asked.

“Nor Mr. Gladstone, either, I imagine.”

“What do the Queen and the prime minister have to do with this?” Chumley demanded.

“Well, you see, Constable, it just happens that Valdastok is England’s staunchest ally in that troublesome part of the world. I’ve already had the bad taste to drive their princess mad, and now you plan to imprison me, her husband, before I can make her well again.” Philip sighed loudly. “I don’t think they’ll take that very well at all.”

“It’s a simple case of jewel theft,” Chumley said. “I don’t see how it can become an international incident.”

“More like war, I’d say,” Philip replied.

“War?”

“The Valdastokians are a very fierce and proud people.”

“Oh dear,” Chumley mumbled.

“They could never defeat the Empire, of course. It will probably only take five or six regiments to prevail over them. Minimal loss of English life.”

“Ten regiments at the minimum,” his father added, bless him. “And a long and bloody winter campaign.”

“So, you see,” Philip said cheerily, “all you have to do is get me convicted in the House of Lords and then explain to your superiors why you’ve started a war over some jewels that have already been returned.”

Chumley didn’t answer that. In fact, he didn’t look at all well—as though someone had punched him in the stomach when he wasn’t looking.

“I’m ready to go now, Constable,” Philip said.

“Perhaps that won’t be necessary, my lord,” Chumley said after a moment. “It does appear that you’ve learned your lesson.”

“No truer words were ever spoken,” Philip said. And he meant that with all his heart.

“If I have your assurance that you won’t steal anything…or anyone…else, I’ll be going.”

“You have it.”

“And mine, too,” his father added.

“Good day to you, then.” Chumley turned and left the room, and Philip took his first real breath since he’d thought up this desperate scheme.

“I’ll be on my way, too, then,” Kleckhorn said, rising from his chair. He walked up to Philip and leaned toward him in an almost intimate manner. “I’d very much like to examine your betrothed further. I have quite an interest in the nervous disorders, and she’s an interesting case.”

“No doubt,” Philip replied. “If we need you, Doctor, we’ll send for you.”

He also exited, leaving Philip alone with his family. And his intended. And only one more obstacle to overcome—his parents’ approval to marry.

His father walked up to him and put a hand on his shoulder again. The grip was very strong. “Lad, at that expensive public school we sent you to, did they ever cane you?”

“More than once.”

“Then, by God, I’d like to send you back for another thrashing. What in bloody hell was that all about?”

Philip laughed. With the main danger gone, he couldn’t help himself. “Father, some night when we’re both in our cups, I’ll explain it to you.”

“Philip,” his mother asked, “was there any truth to that preposterous story?”

“Some. I really am the Orchid Thief, and I really did return all the jewels.”

“Then that only leaves one mystery.” His mother turned to Eve. “Who is this young lady?”

“Mother, Father, allow me to present Miss Eve Stanhope.”

At the sound of her name, Eve emerged from the nightmare she’d been living for the last hour. All three Rosemonts were staring at her. Dear God in heaven, they all appeared to find her a vision of something very pleasant if she could judge from the expressions on their faces.

“How do you do, Lady Farnham. Lord Farnham,” she said.

“How do you do, Miss Stanhope,” Lady Farnham replied. “Eve. What a lovely name. It is lovely, isn’t it, Reginald?”

“Lovely,” Lord Farnham repeated.

Eve blinked several times. The world, this room, hardly seemed real. The whole matter of the thefts had cleared without any chance she’d go to prison. Both the constable and the doctor had gone away and were no longer a threat to her. Perhaps most amazing, the earl and his wife seem to have accepted her. For heaven’s sake, they’d known they had an imposter in their house, but they didn’t seem to care. And, Philip stood, adoring her with his eyes.

He’d said he planned to marry her, and his parents appeared to be agreeing with him.

“…my dear?”

Eve shifted her gaze to Lady Farnham. “I’m sorry?”

“I wondered if you’re one of the Somerset Stanhopes,” Lady Farnham said. “Are there Stanhopes in Somerset, Reginald?”

“I wouldn’t know, my dear,” Lord Farnham said.

“I’m not,” Eve said, the fog still clouding her brain. “My mother…”

She let her voice trail off and looked up at Philip. He didn’t nod, grimace or do anything to hint at what he wanted her to say. He just smiled at her evenly, as if he’d happily accept anything that came out of her mouth.

“You couldn’t have known my parents,” she said finally.

Lady Farnham patted her hand. “Well, no matter. I’m sure we’ll sort everything out before the wedding.”

Philip stopped staring at Eve and finally had the good sense to look confused and rather embarrassed. “Do you mean to say that you’ve known all along that Eve wasn’t a princess, Mother?”