Linda Needham (27 page)

“Christ, Caro!” But then a tickle came into his heart, a simple delight at the thought. A wish that he’d been there to see it for himself.

His princess, his love, stunning them speechless, showing them what true nobility was.

“I had to do it that way, Drew; in front of everyone at the ceremony, more than a thousand witnesses, and then in a meeting with the queen afterward, in which, well, I resorted to blackmail.”

“You blackmailed Queen Victoria?”

“Along with Archduke Franz Karl of Austria, Tsar Nicholas of Russia and the king of Denmark, to name a few who were there.”

Then he understood. “You keep quiet about their roles in your scandalous origins, and they leave Boratania alone.” Not a woman to cross.

“Exactly.” She set her mouth in a stubborn line, regal to the marrow, whether she liked it or not.

“You never said a thing to me of your grand plan, Caro.” He thought they shared a deeper trust than that.

She laughed lightly. “I didn’t know myself until I was in the midst of the procession. I was such a jumbled mess inside. I knew that accepting the title wasn’t right. That
I
wasn’t right. I’m not Boratanian. I’m English, to the soles of my feet.”

“But would you have told me, Caro, if you had known your intentions beforehand?”

“I don’t know.” She cocked her head at him as she
put her hand on the latch. “It was a matter between me and my conscience, Drew, between me and the citizens of Boratania.”

Not giving him a chance to react, she shouldered open the door, then swept madly against the wind and the rain.

Madwoman! He dragged her back inside and rammed the door closed with his shoulder, then leaned hard against the panel and stared at his windblown ex-royal, not sure exactly what the hell he ought to do next.

Because this particular assignment was obviously not finished.

“This is all very interesting, Caro,” he said, as steadily as he could, “but why did you come here?”

“Why?” Caro’s heart stopped and then dropped into her stomach. Of all the questions Drew could have asked when he found her on the doorstep of his cottage, that wasn’t the one she wanted to hear.

Where else would she come but to the man she loved? The splendid man who had so fiercely declared his love for her only a few days ago.

But now his eyes had grown dark and unreadable, his jaw squared and set, as though she suddenly meant less than nothing to him.

“Um, well…Drew,” she said, shifting her gaze to the floor, then sweeping lightly at the clean mortar between the flags so she didn’t have to face his disappointment. “I just…. well, I thought I should tell you myself about what I did after you left the chapel. Instead of letting you read about it in the
Times
.”

The scandal had been splashed all over every newspaper in the kingdom, not to mention Europe.

“Then you’re fortunate, madam, the village news
shop runs a good half week behind the rest of the country.” He reached for the door as though to open it and evict her, but only shot the bolt into the lock.

“Yes, I’m very fortunate, Drew.” Because it seemed he wasn’t going to toss her out into the storm! At least not yet. “And the last thing I want is to be a bother to you!”

In fact, she meant to be helpful. Indispensable to him. She had already swept the floor.

“A bother, madam?” That was definitely a sarcastic bellow.

Knowing just what to do next, she strode through the parlor into the kitchen at the back of the cottage, hoping Drew would follow her, hoping he would see how useful she could be.

“Have you a housekeeper, Drew?”

“Mrs. Peterson, when I’m in residence here. Why?”

Well, then, she couldn’t be his housekeeper.

He stopped at the door and leaned against the jamb, watching as she started swabbing up the puddles she had created around her bath tub.

“Have you a cook?”

“Also Mrs. Peterson.”

“How about a gardener?” She wrung out the towel into the sink drain then dropped to the floor again, feeling Drew’s gaze following her every move.

“In case you didn’t notice when you were out dancing along the cliffs, madam, the only thing that grows around the cottage is moss and heather.” He was suddenly kneeling in front of her as she scrubbed at the floor, frowning as he trapped the sloppy towel beneath her hand with his own. “What are you doing, Caro?”

“I’m just cleaning up the mess I made here.”

“Admirable, madam, but why?” He captured her hand between his own, not letting go when she pulled at it.

“Because it’s my mess. And since I’m no longer a pampered royal, I’m going to have to learn to take care of myself.”

He raised a wry brow, his eyes softening into the smile she loved so dearly. “You were never a pampered anything, Caro.”

“But now I’m completely without resources,” she said, standing up with the rag and wringing it out in the sink again, “So, I was thinking that if I can prove myself useful to you, perhaps you’ll let me stay on here when you’re not in residence.”

He rose slowly, shaking his head as though he didn’t understand or thought it was a completely unacceptable idea. “Stay on here, madam?”

“In exchange for doing your laundry or wood-chopping or—”

“You, Princess?” His eyes widened and then he laughed, long and low, as though he thought her incapable of a little hard work.

“Well! Then perhaps I can serve as your jester, Lord Wexford.” She tried to drag the tub closer to the drain in the floor, but it wouldn’t budge, so she grabbed the broom and started sweeping where she had just scrubbed. “Better yet, Drew, you can recommend me to the household of one of your colleagues.”

He’d sobered completely. “You’re serious?”

“I’m penniless.”

He eyed her. “And you want me to give you references?”

“That would be very helpful.” And a last resort, but
she was beginning to panic. “It’s going to take Palmerston years to forgive me. And I’d rather not ask the queen.”

He folded his arms across his chest, then studied her from beneath his dark brow. “Very well, Princess. I need a valet.”

Not sure she’d heard him right over her nervous sweeping, she leaned the broom against the cupboard door.

“Did you say ‘valet’?”

“I usually don’t employ a valet when I’m here in the village. And Mrs. Peterson isn’t really suitable.”

“But I
am
?” Most valets were men. All of them, in fact.

“Come to think of it, I could use someone to set out my clothes every day, and keep them pressed and clean.” He turned and wandered idly out of the kitchen, leading her into the parlor. “To tend to the fire—ah, you see it’s getting a bit low, Caro.”

“Oh, yes.” Valet didn’t seem a very good fit, but she ran past him to the stack of wood and quickly added a log to the flames.

“And to see that my breakfast tray arrives on the spot of eight, along with the latest issue of the
Times
, which you can pick up in the village the night before.” He waved the folded newspaper at her as he sat down in the big chair. He slumped casually, then raised his foot onto the hearth stool. “After dinner, I prefer two fingers of brandy. You’ll find a glass and a bottle of Napoleon’s best behind the cabinet door.”

“Here?” Caro followed the man’s lazy point, opened the cabinet, poured the brandy, then handed the glass to him.

“And, of course, madam, I will also need my
shoes removed—” he wriggled his foot back and forth.

It wasn’t until Caro had knelt and yanked off both of his shoes—

“And replaced by my slippers, which by the way, I keep on the floor of my wardrobe.”

—that she finally heard the amusement in his voice.

That she finally looked up into his face and found a smile tucked badly into the corners of his fine mouth.

The lout was toying with her!

“Blackguard!” She slapped his foot off the stool and would have grabbed her clothes off the drying rack so that she could go stay the night in the village, but he caught her by the upper arms before she reached the hearth.

“Caro, wait!” He was smiling broadly again, though his eyes were entirely earnest. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t believe I’m serious, do you?”

“About being my valet?”

“About being penniless, Drew. When I abolished the Boratanian monarchy I also abolished my income. Every penny of it! I need a job.”

His eyes had been so intense, his mouth so fierce. And now a kind of peace came over him, a wistful, wonderful smile.

“Then be my wife, Caro.”

“Your…” A howling wind must have come up just outside the cottage, because she suddenly couldn’t hear for the wild ringing in her ears. “What did you say, Drew?”

But now he was threading his fingers through her hair, his eyes sparkling, his mouth moist and nuzzling at her temple, the warm, brandied sweetness of
his breath sending shivers down her neck, through the thin linen of the nightshirt to the tips of her breasts.

“Will you, my love?” He nibbled and tasted and groaned as he came ever nearer to her mouth, touching his fingers to her lips, smiling down on her.

“Will I what?” And now she was shamelessly slipping her arms around his neck, tugging on a hank of hair at his nape, rising up on her toes to be closer to him, to his kiss, to the miraculous words he whispered against her lips, his gaze lighting on her eyes.

“Will you marry me, my love?”

Oh, she heard that! All of it. Saw the adoration in his eyes. “Oh, Drew…oh, yes!”

“Sweet Caro!” And then her magnificent warrior, her courageous protector, the man of her dreams, covered her mouth with his, completely, absolutely, dizzying her with a hungry, driving moan that rose out of his chest and filled her belly with brilliant sparks that sizzled along her ribs to the center of her.

Drew was sure he was dreaming a very erotic dream. Must be a dream because Caro was here in his cottage, wrapped in his arms.

No longer a royal, no longer forbidden.

And she’d just said yes.

Had just slipped the tip of her tongue between his lips to dance with his own.

She was lush and warm and clinging to him as though she couldn’t get enough of him. Squirming her hips against him as though testing the shape of his rock-hard penis.

“It’s lovely, Drew.” As though she knew that she had caused it.

“Is it?”

“Oh, yesssssss.”

Which only made him harder, only deepened his need for her. A need that he’d spent the last month denying, suppressing after it had become an undeniable truth, fighting to do right by her with every fibre of his soul.

Now she was his. His Caro. His miracle.

His breath and his blood.

“Are you sure, Drew?” She had somehow managed to climb up onto the hearth stool, which brought him closer to her delicious mouth, to her wanton, greedy kisses.

“Sure of what, love?” He was only slightly conscious of her question, yet fully aware that in a single roll of her shoulders she had shrugged out of his silk robe completely and was now standing in front of him, clad only in his linen nightshirt.

A very thin garment, never used so well.

Tempted beyond his will, Drew fit his hands against her lithe little waist, stilling his thumbs when they wanted to explore the flat of her belly, the curves and the valleys.

She suddenly caught his face between her hands, her eyes bright, her cheeks aglow with the firelight. “Are you sure of all this, Drew? Of me?”

His heart was thudding against hers. “Love, I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.”

“Nor have I!” Her smile was glorious, her kiss consuming, luxurious.

“Oh, Caro!” He heard himself groan again as she slid the tip of her tongue along the line of his jaw and caught his earlobe, tugging, sucking, turning his groan into a throaty gasp, and his need for her into a living thing.

He found that his aching hands had drifted upward on their own over the nightshirt and along her ribs, until they fit perfectly just beneath the gentle rise of her breasts. Perfect and sweet. Soft mounds that he wanted to touch, to kiss and taste.

“Your hands are so warm, Drew, and wonderful!” Her breath brushed against his ear in a long, melodious sigh. She writhed against the length of him, flushed with pleasure, her eyes half lidded.

He had been fiddling dangerously with the flat pearl buttons that ran down the front of the nightshirt.

Flirting more dangerously with the irrational idea of undoing them one by one.

“Do you suppose, Drew…” Unable to resist another moment, Drew slid his thumbs over her nipples. “Oh, Drew, that’s, ohhh…” Her eyes flew open, she grabbed his shoulders and she arched against him, then mewed and swayed and laughed low in her throat.

“You were asking, love?”

She smiled coyly, raking her fingers through his hair. “Only wondering, really. If I’ll be as good a wife as I was a valet?”

He clutched her bottom, ripe and firm, pulled her closer against him to catch her squirming full on. “Better, I hope, madam.”

“I was that bad?” She stepped back from him, a sly lift to her smile that made him want to tease right back.

“That inexperienced. As a valet.”

“Then let me show you what a fine valet I would be, should you hire me on as your wife.” Her warm fingers began unbuttoning the front of his shirt, one button, one succulent, exploring kiss beneath it, teeth
and tongue. “I’ll do your buttons every morning and every night, my lord.”

And he damn well wasn’t going to stop her from her exploration.

“Have you any references, madam?” Not that she needed any, not with the way she played her fingers against his chest, a button at a time until she had shoved his shirt off his shoulders.

“I was a princess once upon a time, my lord.” She was working on his cuff now, nibbling at his wrists, trapping him in his shirt, still brushing her belly against him.

“Were you a good princess?” he asked, gasping as she reached for the buttons at the front of his trousers. “Christ, Caro! That’s…”

Marvelous! The lightest brush of her fingers across the taut fabric where he bulged and throbbed and ached for her was an ecstasy.

“I tried to be a good princess, my lord.” She nuzzled at his neck as she shaped her hand over the length of his erection, took his gasp and his groans into her kiss.