Royal Renegade (39 page)

Devlyn waited patiently until she had told him about every gift that had arrived throughout the day, the case of champagne from Captain Tregier—"He wrote on the card that it was for our wedding night, but I hope he doesn't expect us to drink it all in one night!"— the silver service from the queen. "I have never seen so many packages, and so beautifully wrapped up in gilt paper," she finished in reverent tones. "The countess wouldn't let me open most of them, for she thinks they make a lovely display in her Chinese drawing room." She raised her hand as high as it could go, above Michael's head. "We built a pyramid this high of packages, all silver and gold. I suppose," she added thoughtfully, "that a pyramid might be more appropriate in the Egyptian salon. Perhaps we should transform it into a Great Wall."

Tatiana tilted her head to discover why Michael was chuckling. "I don't think I saw a package from John, however, because I know I would have opened that immediately."

"His gift won't fit into a package, or even the countess's Chinese drawing room. Dryden gave us the Coronals."

"But Michael," she whispered so that no one else could hear her reluctant criticism of her beloved, "if you are truly a lamentable sailor, as he always says, whatever will we do with such a big boat—I mean, sloop?"

Tenderly Michael traced the little frown between her eyes. "Just for two weeks, then we have to give it back. He's taking me back to Portugal—with you."

Tatiana subsided against him, happy beyond words. For the single dark spot on the vista of her happiness had been Michael's departure only one week after the wedding. She knew why he had to leave, but still the prospect of losing him so soon was almost unbearable. And Captain Dryden, in his cool, quiet way, understood that. "Will you take watch each night?"

"I had other plans for each night, my sweet."

His low, intimate tone, more even than his words, made her color up, and she hid her face in his waistcoat. Another fortnight with Michael—but it would not be enough. "Can't I stay with you in Portugal?"

"No." His voice was quiet, but she understood now why his troops obeyed him so readily. "I wouldn't be able to concentrate on my work and staying alive if I were worried about you. No, I want you here in England, making a home for us." His arms curved around her, and she could feel his chest rise and fall with every breath. "Devlyn needs a woman's hand. It needs furnishing, as you might have noticed. I've never gotten around to that. And the tenants are prosperous enough, but I'm certain they would appreciate a school for their children."

Reluctantly, the princess agreed. "I asked Buntin to stay with me until you return. I hope you don't mind. She's been so concerned with getting me shot off—I mean, wedded—that I think she hasn't given any thought to what sort of life she would like to lead here in England. So staying with me she will have the chance to consider the issue. And I am certain we will find projects to keep us busy. But you cannot complain then, if you return to a Palladian keep done entirely in an Egyptian mode," she warned through a painfully tight throat. "With a fifty-foot pyramid in the front garden and a sarcophagus in the bedroom."

"I shall have to rely on Buntin's good taste. Of course, the fact that you are here in my arms the night before our wedding does not augur well for her regulation of your wilder starts."

"I shall be a married woman," Tatiana said, very much on her dignity. "I shan't allow even you to regulate my wilder starts."

"Good." His kiss was searching, intense, and finally she had to draw back to see his eyes. They were cloudy with desire, silver with love. "Ah, Tatiana, I don't know that I can leave you."

"They say," she replied with some difficulty, touching a button on his waistcoat, "that absence makes the heart grow fonder."

"My heart can't get any fonder." He touched his lips to her forehead, leaving a tingling trace behind. "But I'll be home on leave before we know it. For now that I've learned to manipulate and lie and twist arms I intend to get every hour of leave that's due me. And soon we'll have chased the French right out of Spain and I'll be home for good."

"Won't you be bored then?"

His callused finger was tracing her full lower lip, teasing her into a smile. Then he kissed the dimple he cherished so. "Bored?" he whispered. "No. When I'm home I'll be busy all day. I'll have breakfast in bed every morning—Tatiana in bed every night. Morning, too," he added after a moment's consideration.

"Michael, you're so wicked," she murmured. How deliciously errant her knight had become under her tutelage.

"Only with you." He cupped her chin in his hand, regarding her seriously. "You know that, don't you? I will never love another woman, I will never think of another woman, for as long as I live. I have given my heart to you and you alone."

It was an awesome gift, an awesome trust, and she accepted it humbly. "I know, darling. And I shall never give it back. For we've suffered so much for loving each other that we will always cherish our happiness too much to risk it. I know—" she had to stop, for there weren't enough words in all the languages she knew to explain. She saw understanding in his eyes, but still needed to put into inadequate speech what she felt. "I know what a treasure I have in you, Michael. I know how strong and true you are, that you will never abandon me or betray me. And I could not love you so much if you weren't so very honorable, for now I realize how precious it is to trust you so entirely and to know you are entirely worthy of my trust. And now I just want to live with you and make you happy. Are you happy?"

"I'm drowning in happiness, Tatiana." He gathered her to him, resting his head against her hair, and whispered with wonder, "I don't think I've ever lived before, not really. I kept myself entirely in abeyance, waiting for you. Every moment with you I live more than I lived in all the years before I met you."

Tatiana's lips sought his, her hands slipping around to entwine behind his neck. She tangled her fingers in his curly hair and closed her eyes under the sweet intensity of his kiss. She lost time for a moment or for an eternity, drowning in their passion. But then his mouth left hers, and she felt his chest rise in a sigh.

"You're trying my trustworthiness mightily, Tatiana," he whispered against her cheek. "I don't even trust myself at this point." With a firm hand on her shoulder he pushed her away, then, with a sigh, he took her back in her arms. "Tatiana, I shouldn't have to be trustworthy always. I don't want always to be the careful one, the one who sets the limits and enforces them."

"But if you don't, Michael, who will?" she replied sensibly. "We haven't any chaperone here, I made sure of that."

"I meant you, my little wanton." His stern tone made her chuckle; his nearness made her a bit dizzy. But she frowned, trying to attend to what he was saying. "Just once, I would like to give up that watchfulness and let you draw the line and pull me back from it. Try it, just this once, my love. You stay in control." He smiled wryly at her dubious expression. "Just think how titillating it might be to reverse roles occasionally."

"If it's only occasionally, I think I could do it." Tatiana considered for a moment, then brightened. "I'm sure I can. I have only to be stalwart for a short while, anyway, for we'll be married tomorrow. Let's try it now."

"Now?" Devlyn looked around at his library, as if realizing for the first time that they were quite dangerously alone. "You're sure?"

Her answer was to raise his hand to her lips. The blisters raised by rowing them out of the Gulf of St. Malo were healed now, but those calluses still tantalized her sensitive skin. She felt newly strong, very much in command of herself and him, excited by her power.

He took her in his arms again and lowered his mouth to brush hers. She closed her eyes, tantalized, then opened them to find him regarding her warily. "Do you promise?"

"I promise," she said breathlessly. She pulled his head down, meeting his kiss with a very controlled sort of desire. Then his lips trailed fire across her cheek and down her neck to her bare shoulders. His hands were firm on her back, moving to caress her naked arms and the gentle curve of her hips. In a haze, she realized those hands had moved to her jaconet bodice, and were busily, expertly undoing the tiny pearl buttons.

"Michael, you shouldn't—" she protested weakly, but he silenced her with another kiss. She moaned slightly as his lips traveled down her throat to her breast, now almost freed from her gown. Dimly recalling her promise, she touched his face gently, trying to push him away but unable to muster the will. "Oh, we must stop, Michael. Please stop."

"I can't. And I shan't. We are to be married tomorrow, and one day won't make a difference."

It sounded eminently reasonable to Tatiana, especially when he spoke with such urgency. So she made no resistance as he pressed her down on the couch. His eyes glowed brilliantly, like starlight, and she could hardly bear their radiance. She felt suddenly liberated as his fingers undid three more buttons.

But then his breathing slowed and his progress down her body stopped. "Tatiana!" he groaned. "You promised!"

Hazily she opened her eyes to see him shaking his head in amused exasperation. "I knew you couldn't do it. Somehow I knew I'd be the one to call a halt."

"But Michael," she said faintly. "You are right. We are going to be wed tomorrow. What difference will this one day make?"

A bit roughly he pulled her up into a sitting position and began to button her gown. If his fingers occasionally strayed to the soft golden skin under the fabric, he still accomplished the task in good time, leaving her feeling bereft and a bit foolish. "The difference is, my love, that in twenty years our daughter, no doubt a brazen minx like you, will say rather scornfully, 'But surely, before your wedding, you and Papa gave into temptation, and you will say—"

'"I did my best, darling, but your papa wouldn't let me.'" Still a little stung by his abrupt withdrawal, Tatiana moved primly to the edge of the settee, just beyond his reach. "You are the most maddening man I have ever met," she added, then stopped, for her breath was still coming unevenly and her lips still tingled from kissing him.

Michael, of course, was more composed. As far as she could see (of course, she prudently kept her eyes on his face), the only evidence of his recent passion was a hint of high color in his bronzed cheeks and, on his forehead, a lock of dark hair that she had disarranged with her seeking hands. He sat back, propping his boots on the table, and reached out a hand to her. With a sigh, she took it and came to nestle against the starched linen of his shirt. For a moment, she just listened to the steady beat of his heart, then she murmured, "If we do have a daughter, would you like her to be like me?"

"Almost exactly." He twisted a red-gold curl around his finger and touched it to his lips. "Of course, I will keep her locked up in her room from the age of twelve."

"She will escape," Tatiana predicted, her fingers tracing idle circles along his straight jaw.

"I'm sure she will. But the effort will be character-building."

She thought of this prospective daughter, who would no doubt be as willful as her mother and as strong as her father. Such a most formidable young lady would probably scorn a mother who gave into temptation so easily. "We could try again, Michael. The effort might be character-building for me also."

"But you have just shown us both how entirely enslaved you are to lust." He did not sound truly displeased to discover yet another flaw in Tatiana's character; in fact, he smiled at her with a possessive pride that thrilled her.

But she was goaded by his smugness—he, of course, was too strong to be enslaved even by lust. "I just needed a bit of practice before I gathered the necessary resolve. Now I am truly ready."

"I will give you one more chance, my darling, and if you fail, I'll have to pack you off home." Michael put his stern face back on again, his straight brows lowered, his mouth set. She sighed with total contentment, for he was so very appealing when he was strict. She traced that hard mouth with a tender finger, then mimicked the action with her lips, and very soon he no longer appeared the least bit stern.

One more chance, she thought through a haze of sensation as his adroit fingers tugged at her buttons again. One more chance. Her hand untangled from his hair and fell back, coming to rest on the end table. Her fingers closed on a smooth, round object, hefty, near-lethal.

"If you—" But her voice come out a sigh, and she had to take a deep breath to infuse some strength into her words. "If you don't unhand me, Michael Dane, I will cosh you with this paperweight."

He looked up to see the militant light in her eyes, the stern set to her sulky mouth, and hesitated with his hand on her bare shoulder. Experimentally, he slid his hand lower, but stopped when she raised the paperweight above her head. "Oh, Tatiana, I'm so proud of you," he whispered, though he never removed his hand from her shoulder or his arm from around her waist.

Tatiana glowed at his praise, knowing that she had truly earned it. "Oh, Michael," she murmured, "you are so good to me."

And he whispered, "No, my darling, you are so good to me." Fortunately, the more maudlin they became, the less articulate their speech, and finally they left off speaking altogether and made do with loving gazes and tender kisses.

Then Tatiana sank back against the cushions, touching Michael's cheek with her free hand, pulling him down to meet her lips. His roughly gentle caress left her shoulder to travel down her arm, exploring its slimness, its softness. His fingers collided with hers and intertwined there. The dislodged paperweight fell to the carpet, striking without a sound to roll, harmlessly under the couch.

The End

HISTORICAL NOTE

Tsar Paul I was the son of Catherine the Great, but his legal father, Tsar Peter III, was probably impotent and never acknowledged paternity. Many historians believe the Romanov dynasty actually ended with Paul's accession to the throne. He was a tyrannical leader and loathed by his own family and court. A group of courtiers sympathetic to his son Alexander arrested Paul in 1801 and tried to force him to abdicate. When he refused, he was strangled. Both Alexander and the British ambassador were implicated in the palace coup. But Alexander proved to be a popular tsar, and except for the exile of a token few conspirators, the murder was never punished. Alexander, however, became obsessed with a mystical form of the Orthodox religion, perhaps seeking to expiate his guilt for the regicide.