Marry the Man Today (32 page)

He lifted her hips and fit her better against the tip of him.
 
He thrust slightly and met a firmness that widened her eyes, then made her smile and catch her hands around his waist.

He thrust again a little deeper, encouraged again by her smile and the brightness of it, until she finally buckled forward and propelled him mindlessly all the way inside her.

Until he was buried to the hilt and quaking, and she was kissing him as though she were starving.

"You're very large, Ross, and very warm and, oh, how I want you here."

Elizabeth loved the way her husband was hovering above her, gazing down at her so possessively, his eyes as hot as his breath. His growl of pleasure rumbling through his chest and into hers. Into every part of her.

Oh, my, what all those unfulfilled husbands and wives of London were missing.

And then, as though they had formed a silent pact between them, she began to move with him in a spellbinding rhythm, meeting each of his strokes measure for bewitching measure. An earthy pleasure that built like a summer storm, bristling with bolts of blue lightning.

An urgent heat that leadened her limbs and lit up her fingertips. That centered on that splendid place where they were joined. Her husband kissing her madly, as though he couldn't get enough of her.

The rhythm increasing, surging like a wildfire, focusing its tension, coming faster and faster, lifting her up toward the clouds.

Until she finally felt herself splintering into bits of giddy light in an unimaginable bliss. Heard herself calling out his name against his mouth, catching his every breath, his every pulsing moan.

Until he caught her fiercely around the waist and lifted her against him and began to quake and shudder above her. His muscles turned to stone, his bellowing breath turned to grunting groans as he pulsed and drove into her, spilling his seed deeply, completely, inside her.

A blissful sharing so profoundly moving that she began to weep quietly and stroke his hair out of his handsome face.

"Well, my lord, did you find pleasure enough in my harem?"

His coal dark eyes took on a brilliant glint. "Not nearly enough, my lady. I'll be wanting more of this."

"Really?" She hadn't thought of that, but the very idea made her skin tingle. "You mean we can do it all again tonight?"

He lowered himself to her side, his breathing still coming in long drafts. "Technically, we're well into tomorrow. But since I'm all paid up for my night of pleasure ..."

She sighed and slipped her arms around him. "Delighted to oblige, sir. Simply delighted."

******************

Elizabeth had never in her life been treated so like a pampered fairy queen. Complete with a quaint, enchanted cottage. With a heaping sideboard of heavenly dishes delivered twice the following day, as if by magic. With an attentive husband who seemed to adore her.

Just as she adored him.

They took a walk on the grounds and ended up playing naked in the stream. They toasted chunks of bread in the fire and ended up drizzling warm honey and butter over each other's skin, snacking off the excess, and snacking and snacking. They arm-wrestled for erotic wagers, and he always lost to her questing f
i
ngers.

Always,
the lout.

And in the last rays of daylight, after feeding each other a delicious meal of thick beef stew and steamed asparagus, cucumber salad and fleshy fruit, all the while wrapped in a tangle of bed linens and pillows, Elizabeth found herself unable to stay awake any longer. She finally began to drift asleep, her dreams and her heart caught up in Ross's powerful arms.

And those splendid dreams spun out as she slept, tendrils of joy twining around every part of their lives. Happy children and meadowlands, acts of Parliament and games of whist.

Each new strand amazed her, because Ross was a husband right out of legend. The converse of each of her closely held prejudices against men and their arrogance.

Votes for Women, the signs still read.

And husbands still wielded their absolute authority over their wives.

Boys grew to men, girls to women, and still the cycle repeated.

And repeated.

And she felt the cliff begin to crumble out from beneath her shoes.

Felt herself falling, heard herself crying out into the darknes
s
—

"Ross!"

She woke with a shock, sitting bolt upright in the darkness. And alone. Chilled.

"Ross?"

No sound at all.

She slipped out of bed and into a nightgown, then wrapped herself in the silky counterpane and padded out into the main room.

She wasn't alone after all, but the reedy figure bending to the hearth wasn't Ross.

"Ah, Willie!" The young son of the caretaker who lived in the village and had faithfully delivered the meals from his mother's kitchen. "Don't tell me you've brought more food? As you can see, we're full up. And it's after ten at night."

And where was Ross?

"No, my lady. I brought a note to his lordship. Straight from London, it was. And urgent, said my ma."

"Where is he?"

"Left here on my horse 'bout a half hour ago, right after reading the note I brung him."

"And
he didn't tell
me?"

"Didn't want to wake you," he whispered, as though recreating Ross's exit. "Told me to stay here and keep guard over you."

Good grief. Was she never to move again without a pair of dutiful, male eyes watching over her, by command of her beloved, still overbearing husband?

"That's it, Will? I'm to guess why he's gone?"

"Oh!" Will jumped to the hob, plucked a folded note off the mantel then jabbed it at her. "Also told me to give this to you in the morning when you wake up. But I guess you're awake now, aren't you?"

"Quite." And disappointed beyond imagining. "Thanks, Will, you can go home now."

"No, my lady. I'm to stay here and kee
p
—"

"Guard over me, yes, yes, I remember," she said, unfolding the note and turning up the lamp at the side table. "Then relax. Have something to eat. Take a nap, lad. I'm sure I'll be awake for a while."

You have a lovely hand, husband.
His script was plain and clear and f
i
rmly struck.

But, oh, there was a world of trouble in the contents.

My dear Elizabeth,

Forgive me for not waking you with a farewell kiss, but I hadn't time to risk that a taste of your honey would keep me from my sudden call to action.

As I feared, and warned you, wife, the monstrous kidnapper struck again late last night.

"Again? But that's impossible." Lydia wasn't due to make her escape until the end of next week. Surely her assistants hadn't advanced the schedule without telling her.

This time he has not only abducted the wife of the Russian deputy ambassador, but he has taken her from her own chamber in the Russian Embassy.

"Dear God, no!" Not Lydia at all. But a stranger! A completely innocent woman.

As you may know, an embassy and its grounds are considered sovereign soil, its fences as sacred to the home country as its own borders. The mere act of breaking into an embassy can be considered an invasion. Abducting one of its citizens at the same time can precipitate a declaration of war.

I've been called back to Whitehall to help smooth over the situation with the Russians before it becomes an international incident which might force us into an unwanted, unwinnable war. I'm also to use all my resources from the investigations into the previous abductions.

Oh, but Ross, you have it all wrong!
Whoever kidnapped the hapless deputy ambassador's wife was using her own methods for his evil deeds!

To misdirect everyone! Ross and Scotland Yard and the Foreign Office! The press and the public!

"Dear Lord, what have I done?" Thanks to her, they were investigating the wrong crime.

"Anything the matter, my lady?" Willie must have been watching her the whole time, listening to her babbling. His eyes were wide as the moon and worried for her.

"Uh
m
, well, Willie, it's nothing I can't handle."

As long as I can get to London in time to save that poor, helpless woman from my own bloody foolishness.

"Good, my lady, because his lordship wanted me to be sure not to let you leave before he comes back for you."

She'd been afraid of that. Her overprotective husband and his ever-present henchmen. Though a nicer henchman she had never met.

I'll send my carriage to pick you up at noon. In the meantime, love, stay abed in our honeymoon cottage and think of me.

Your adoring husband,

Ross

Well, she'd be thinking about him, all right, but while speeding into London, not while lying abed.

Chapter 19

All tragedies are finished by a death, All comedies are ended by a marriage.

Lord Byron,
Don Juan,
1819

“I
understand the need for haste, Clarendon," Ross said as patiently as he could manage, "but I can't make a definitive pronouncement to the ambassador about our investigation until I know something more."

"Can't you go back there now and do a little diplomatic lying?" the man asked, scraping his bent knuckle across his unshaven cheek. "Just stir the facts a bit, muddy them if you must. You saw Brunnov. He looked positively apoplectic."

"My lord, the only thing I can tell the Russian ambassador at the moment is that we haven't a clue as to who abducted the three women before he got the princess. Only that the criminal is getting bolder with every attack."

"He might listen t
o
—"

"Bloody hell, sir! If I do anything to lead him to be
l
ieve that we're incapable of finding Princess Len
k
a, we'll be at war come morning. Look, I've surrounded the place with my operatives. I've covered every railway station, every dock in every harbor. I've set the world in motion. That will have to do until we've got more solid evidence. Besides, it's nearly three in the morning."

"Damn, damn, damn." Clarendon yanked off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. "I'm going home to bed. Though I doubt I'll sleep a wink. Just find the bloody princess, Blakestone. Alive, if you please."

"I'll send word the moment I have anything for you, sir."

Clarendon gave a final scowl, then clapped his hat down on his head just a bit too far, wrinkling folds into his brow. "Good night."

A better night would have been another one in Grousemeade Cottage with his unbridled wife. And with a miracle or two, he would be back there tomorrow night.

But in the meantime, he had a long night of research to do down in the Factory archives.

"Good God, Ross, you're supposed to be dallying with your wife in your wedding cottage." Drew was standing at the club room door, bleary-eyed and yawning, scratching the top of his head.

"Don't bloody remind me." Ross lifted the box of evidence he'd collected at the embassy and started toward the back stairs. "Let's see what we can do about getting us both back to our brides."

The guard held open the door that led into the security vestibule of the Factory, leaving Drew to stalk down the stairs after Ross.

He led the way into the evidence lab and put the box on one of the examination tables, feeling older than dirt and completely at a loss. Blind where he normally could see through stone.

"What the hell is going on here, Drew?" Ross dropped onto a ta
l
l stool and tossed his nearly useless pad of notes into the middle of the table. "I've never seen anything like it. Four abducted women, four identical crimes."

"What's all this?" Drew peered into the box.

"Besides a folded white handkerchief doused in chloroform and a man's leather glove, nothing."

"No bonnets this time around?"

"The princess was sleeping. Hardly the time for bonnets. The rest of this is all for the benefit of the embassy officials. I had to do something. The whole delegation was in an uproar. Brunnov was bellowing for satisfaction. Dueling pistols at dawn. And he didn't care if his opposite was Aberdeen or Prince Albert, or the queen herself."

"So you collected a clock?" Drew lifted it partially out of the box.

"Someone heard it ticking in Princess Lenka's room sometime in the night."

"Lenka? Oh, hell." Drew hitched his hip onto the table. "The moment Caro hears about this one, she'll be beating down the Factory door."

"A second cousin?"

"First."

"Well, what could it hurt if Caro joined the fray? She's damned good and certainly no stranger to the secret operations down here."