Royal Regard (55 page)

He slowly reached his hand toward her,
misgivings uppermost. He searched her face, and smiled wryly when
he said, “Not my favorite, no.”

She swatted his arm. “You are shameless,
Sir.”

“Nick,” he reminded her, pulling her close.
“May we begin again?”

She sighed gladly, turning her face up to
receive his kiss. “Yes. With all my heart, yes. Oh, Nick, I am so
glad you’ve come. It has been far too long, and too many people at
variance on our behalf.”

When he rained kisses down her throat, across
the lobes of her ears, along the nape of her neck, her body became
languid and slack, breath quickened, and pulse throbbed. As she
fell more heavily into his arms, he whispered, “It’s been a
year…”

“Last month,” she confirmed with a breathy
moan.

“You are still in half-mourning,” he
observed, while his hand travelled up the front of her bodice.

“I haven’t the coin to replace all my
clothes, with stock to feed and no certain harvest.” The lines
between his brows were only seconds from beginning an inquisition
about her finances, so she grasped his arm. “I cannot seem to
believe you are here.” The rancor of months was overcome in a few
heartbeats by wonder at his return. “Where have you been all this
time?”

He ceased his shower of physical affection to
explain himself, doleful smile touching his eyes, which shone with
both regret for the separation and joy at the reunion.

“I’ve been traveling—
il conte
and
le marquis
, of course—trying to escape you, trying to
replicate whatever it is with you, but there was no escape, my
love. There is no replacement. You were in my thoughts every
minute.”

She reached her hand up to touch his face and
he trapped it at his shoulder, leaving a kiss in her palm.

“Upon my return a sennight ago, I was aghast
to hear Prinny and my solicitor had beggared you in my absence. I
came right away to make my amends. Your funds will be returned to
you forthwith.” He smiled ruefully, “It may interest you to know he
stripped me of both my baronies.”

“Leaving you only six titles.” She rolled her
eyes. “How that must wound.”

He laughed, “He should have taken everything
and left me to rot in a rookery. But it is providential he did not,
for your brother can now become Baron Ostelbrooke, and I can return
your stolen inheritance. You may resume the privileged life of a
wealthy countess, which was likely the king’s intention all along.
Once we were both properly chastised for our effrontery.”

He pulled back slightly and looked into her
eyes, brushing an escaped strand of hair from her forehead. “More
important than the money or the king, though, I didn’t want to miss
my chance.”

Her eyes dropped to his waist and she tugged
at the lapels of his coat. “Your chance?”

“If I do not pay heed, you’ll soon be
romanced away by a fortune hunter with an interest in shipping, or
a fat village squire with too large an interest in wine.”

“Romanced,” she snorted. “No one is romancing
me. You have starlings in the attic.”

He nuzzled her neck and whispered, “Good,
then I am the first.’ With a nip at her collarbone, he added with a
low rasp, “Again.”

She gasped just slightly at the memory of the
last first he had begot. She chided, “You needn’t pretend to be
romantic when I know you flirt by rote.”

“I will ever be romantic with you, sweeting.
I want you to marry me, Bella, and properly. You’ve done your time
mourning. No more. I will not stand for it. Off with the sackcloth.
New dresses and village dances forthwith.”

“You are shameless,” she teased. “Trying to
talk me out of my clothes first thing.”

He tweaked her nose. “Minx. I want the
courting, the flowers and poetry, the waltzes and stolen kisses,
the wedding breakfast and the banns and the church—all of the
things neither of us has ever had. Starting today. Right now.
Contracts be damned. Former husbands be damned. The king be damned.
Especially the blasted king, who would destroy the whole of England
to avenge a hapless word. It is the two of us now, sweeting, and I
want no one in between.”

She rested her cheek against his waistcoat,
lips twitching when she replied, “There is no room for anyone
between. Nor will be unless you loosen your hold to let me
breathe.”

“You may wish to become accustomed to not
breathing, particularly if you have made a habit of leaving off
your stays.” He squeezed her more tightly, then picked her up and
swung her around in a circle. “I will wait as long as I must for
your accord—though I hope you’ll agree it has been far too long
already.”

As her giggles floated through the rows of
vines, he kissed her again, then said, so seriously she found it
funny, “I have no expectation of sharing your bed until you are
properly my wife. I am happy to stay for tea and raspberry tarts,
but will begin paying you formal addresses when I collect you for a
picnic tomorrow at eleven in the morning. If you would care to join
me.”

“Country hours, Lord Lay-Abed?”

“When in Rome, one speaks
la lingua
italiana
. I have a room at the hostelry, but am told there is a
shack available where I may refuge for the nonce, recently vacated
by a fisherman lost at sea. I will lay claim if there is hope for
my suit.”

“Live in Caddis Bligh’s shack? Are you
mad?”

“Yes. Entirely.” Bella gasped when his tongue
touched a spot on the back of her neck that sent shivers through
her entire body. He repeated, “Are you free for elevenses, my
love?”

Her voice felt loose and unfocused, as though
she had no control of her words at all. “I can arrange to be free
tomorrow, but I hope you will not be so cruel as to make me wait,
when I have been craving your touch these many months. Have you not
read my letters?”

He stumbled where he stood. “Your letters,
Bella, oh, good God, your letters. But this is a country
village.”

She laughed, “Do you suppose we have good
names left to be ruined? Your trip to Cornwall is proof of my
wanton hold on you, and rumors must already be flying back and
forth to London by mail coach. If I am to be Countess Concubine,
ravished by the Dangerous Duke, I would at least have the enjoyment
of it. I am half-tempted to offer you houseroom.”

“That is precisely why—”

“Are you a rake or no?” she asked archly, her
smile meant as a caress. “Am I flirting poorly? I have been
thinking of witty and seductive things to say if ever you turned
up, but only speaking them to my pier glass, I cannot know if they
are enticing or only silly.”

“Of course you are—I am, no, not—
I am
trying to do the right thing.
”

“If you take me to bed as soon as we are
behind a locked door, I will arrange to have the banns called next
Sunday, and you may court me as a gentleman should before we are
wed three weeks hence. If you make me wait longer than an hour from
now to enjoy what I have been imagining for so long, I will lead
you a merry dance for months before I agree to a wedding night.
Will you have me now or much later?”

His voice rasped, “Now, Bella. Heaven help
me. Now.”

“So I thought.” She held out her hand.
“Perhaps on the walk back to the house, you can tell me what sorts
of licentious things I can expect in a marriage bed with the
Murderous
Marquis
and Cutthroat
Conte
.”

“The verses are un… tell you
what?
”

She tucked her hand under his arm and steered
him back down the row of vines toward the house. “During my
travels, I attended Court in Paris, Venice, the Two Sicilies, and
the Papal States, though I am sure I never crossed paths with the
Conte di Pietranego or the Marquis de Taillebois. He is, I
understand from correspondence and my recent visits to France, a
deliciously dangersome romantic hero, never married, but
inexplicably without a paramour against all efforts to the
contrary.”

“You have been asking after me,” he noted,
adding, “I have managed to ignore the
on-dit
.”

“Conflicting accounts of everything, of
course. Do you wear a black armband under your jacket to mourn me,
or is it a hair shirt? Have you kept my betrothal ring on a chain
close to your heart, or did you throw it into the Seine
,
cursing my name? Will you appear, next Season, back in the marriage
mart, or will you rusticate and ever be a bachelor from now
on?”

“Please do not take gossip as truth, and I
will afford you the same.”

She agreed to nothing, but continued her
rambling description. “It is said not opera singer nor actress nor
high-priced courtesan could tempt him. He even resisted the
considerable allure of the married Marchesa di Maraccini, who has
not been rejected in living memory, and the twin nieces of the
Comte d’Auginierre, who offered up their identical maidenheads for
his delectation, only to be sent away unmolested.”

“Is that what—? There were no maidenheads—no
delectation! There was no delectation at all!”

“How prudish you have become, Nick,” she
teased, “but I admit, I much prefer it to drunken and dissolute. I
am most curious to know: Did you buy the
Château de Fouret
just to burn it to the ground, or did Malbourne’s ghost conjure up
lightning on All Hallows Eve?”

“I was in Milan on All Hallows Eve,” he said,
but then growled, “And granite will not burn.”

She faltered slightly at the first rumor to
be confirmed, but rather than waste precious time with the man she
loved, she grasped his arm again, pulling herself close, walking in
step, and continuing to goad him.

“The only thing sure is the Dangerous Duke is
untouchable, impervious to women of high rank and low morals,
nursing a broken heart for the Cup-Shot Countess, who cannot show
her face in London. Do you harbor a
tendre
for me, Sir?”

“A
tendre
? I’ve not—
Are
you
cup-shot?”

“As a relative innocent in my younger years,
I can only imagine what decadence I overlooked on the Continent,
but one hears the most tantalizing stories of disreputable young
nobles visiting the Royal Courts of Europe. The hedonistic lives of
wealthy gentleman at leisure…”

She managed to sound fascinated, earnest,
guileless, and alluring when she asked, “Have you become enamored
of the debaucheries of the Gallic tribes? Will you require
indecencies of your wife, Sir?”

“Indecencies—? Am
I
cup-shot?”

“Because I must confess, my lord duke,
mon
marquis, il mio conte
…” Bella ran her hand down the side of his
face, gently tugging the hair at his nape to pull him into a kiss,
murmuring, “the decencies of England begin to rankle.”

1823: Dalrymple House,
London, England

Ending the day in the library an hour after supper,
Bella set up the board for a game of backgammon while Nick shuffled
through a pile of cards on a silver tray on his desk. Darkness had
fallen, so on his way to the card table, he turned up three of the
Argand lamps that had been installed during their time abroad.

Waving a stiff card in her direction, he
said, “We have an invitation from the Palace.”

“Of course we do,” Bella sniffed, popping a
pair of dice into a cup. “We cannot possibly come to London without
His Majesty making much of us.”

She pulled the blue woolen shawl closer to
keep out the chill that seemed so much colder after two years in
Italy. When he saw her shiver and rub her stocking feet together
under the ladder-back chair, Nick made sure the curtains had been
drawn tight and stirred the fire, certain his warm legs would soon
be providing her toes more heat than he wished.

“Does he not care about the
on-dit
?”
she asked.

“On the contrary, my love,” Nick said,
dropping a kiss on the top of her head. “He hopes to see what
kettles he can stir to boiling. It will please him best if we fan
the flames.” Taking a seat across from her, he placed a few more
notes and letters on the table next to the board. “As to whether he
knows the
on-dit
…” Nick looked down again at the invitation
with a raised brow. “‘His Majesty requests the company of the
Dangerous Duke and Depraved Duchess of Wild, Wicked Wellbridge.’ We
are summoned to Windsor Castle on Friday evening at ten o’clock for
an informal repast
among friends
to mark our auspicious
occasion and long-delayed return from the Continent.”

“Really!” Her lips drew up like a drawstring
bag as she rolled a die against him and won the first turn. “He is
the very limit. Is it not enough we—”

“We cannot deny him the amusement. We owe him
much this day.” Nick laughed, but in a sudden shift of mood, all
but chided, “Not least we still have friends in London, and will
not be torn apart by a mob of long-nosed aristocrats.”