The Prince Kidnaps a Bride (17 page)

“Yes, we can tell.” Grandmother Sancia hugged Ora. “She has gained a little since the twins were born.”

Ora dimpled again and hustled away, out the door after her wedding costume.

Oh, well. It wouldn’t matter if the costume didn’t fit; the marriage wasn’t real anyway.

“Bring down the tub,” Tulia called.

At that point, it seemed to Sorcha she lost control of her actions—although later she realized she’d lost control the moment she met Arnou.

The women of the village stripped her, washed her, shampooed her hair, dried her, and dressed her in Ora’s wedding costume—a long red skirt, a loose black blouse, a vest embroidered with colorful flowers, and a ring of dried flowers for her head. The waist was a little loose, the bosom a little tight, but it fit better than Sorcha expected.

Grandmother Sancia handed her a bouquet of fresh flowers; they were small, winter-stunted, and obviously scavenged from pots around the village, but the ribbon that bound them was silk and the women who looked at her beamed with gratification.

“You look beautiful.” Tulia wiped proud tears from her eyes. “Beautiful! Like a princess.”

Sorcha looked at her in horror, then decided she meant nothing by her comment.

At sunset, they surrounded her and herded her out of the inn, through the square, and toward the church.

Events rushed at her and reality developed fuzzy edges. Men lined the path, but her sight seemed blurry and they wavered like seaweed in a summer storm. She heard laughter and joking she didn’t understand.

She did hear one comment: Tulia exclaimed about “the bride’s serenity.”

That made Sorcha smile. This wasn’t serenity. This was disbelief.

As the women entered the chapel, she clasped her bouquet so solidly she found the hidden rose thorn and bled a little bright red drop of blood. She focused on it, frowning at the pain and worried it would splatter on Ora’s costume. Grandmother Sancia placed her at the back of the church facing the altar. Sorcha concentrated her gaze on the flickering branches of candles.

Someone took her arm.

She turned to look; it was Arnou.

He looked... triumphant. The kerchief he wrapped over his eye was clean.
He
was clean, his hair damp, his chin shaved, and he was dressed in someone’s best wedding suit. His shoulders strained at the seams. He led her down the aisle as if the fears that challenged her never occurred to him. And knowing Arnou and his simple mind, they probably hadn’t.

He kissed her cheek. “Stop frowning. Everything is just as it should be. Trust me.”

“I do trust you,” she murmured. She needed to remember that. She trusted Arnou more than any man she’d ever met.

He led her toward Father Terrance.

The service started with a mass, and for the first time in years, she participated in the ritual at her own church. Father Terrance spoke English, but even so she immersed herself in the familiar worship.

Then Father Terrance performed the wedding ceremony, and as she recited her vows, the intensity of her feelings for Arnou dazed her; when had he become the man she could swear to love and honor, and mean every word?

And he—when had he learned to speak in such a deep, marvelous voice, to gaze on her as if he needed her above all else, and kiss her lips with such reverent intent? In front of the whole church, he claimed her with his mouth. He tasted clean and warm and intimate, and she lost herself in a world consisting of nothing but Arnou and Sorcha and the memory of yesterday in the fairy circle and tomorrow...

“Hurrah!”

The blast of joy from the people of New Prospera made her jump in surprise. She had forgotten they were there.

Arnou turned her to face the congregation, on their feet and shouting their delight.

Sorcha couldn’t help herself—she broke into a smile.

And together they went into the town square.

The villagers seated Sorcha and Arnou at an elevated table. They served them ale and wine, lamb and herbed potatoes. A fiddler and a drummer played while the newlyweds danced. Then everyone joined them.

It was a celebration like none Sorcha had ever attended, without the pomp of the castle or the solemnity of the convent. She thoroughly enjoyed herself—until the moment the women lifted her chair from the table and bore her away to the bridal chamber.

Then she looked back at Arnou.

Hands on his hips, he stood watching her, and he looked not at all like the appealing, puppylike, exasperating Arnou she adored.

He looked like a stranger and a predator.

And he was her husband.

A
s they climbed the stairs to the inn’s second story, the men, flushed with drink and celebration, shoved Rainger to the front of the group. He winced at the jabs and the sharp elbows, but everyone in the village wanted to say they’d helped him do his duty.

In elaborate pantomime, the men shushed each other, then rapped sharply on the door of the bedchamber.

“Who is it?” a woman inside trilled.

“The bridegroom,” Mr. Montaroe boomed.

The door opened. The women were giggling, bright with the pleasure of a celebration and overcome with the honor fate and their prince had allotted them.

“The bride is ready,” Tulia pronounced.

With a roar that sounded like a hundred bears, the men shoved Rainger inside the room.

Tall beeswax candles flickered on stands beside the carved wooden bed mounded with blankets. White starched curtains hung by the windows. The fire painted the room with a combination of red light and black shadows.

Sorcha stood by the mattress, clad in that lacy sheer white gown the prostitutes had given her—the gown that had haunted his memory. And he saw the thing he’d imagined, wished for, dreamed of—the shimmer of her unbound hair liberally laced with tiny white blossoms.

His body responded with instant and absolute excitement.

Damn. If a single glimpse of her brought his cock up and his balls tight, how was he going to make it through his seduction? He had a plan—could he carry it out?

But he had to. She was a virgin. She was a princess. She believed their marriage ceremony to be invalid. She knew she needed to marry a prince—and everything he’d done and said had assured her that he was not that prince. Rather, he was the court jester.

“We should undress the groom,” the men shouted. “So the bride can see that she has made a marvelous union and we can make sure he’s up to performing his marital duties.”

“Up to performing his marital duties.” Mr. Montaroe, drunk as a lord, fell sideways laughing and tumbled to the floor. “That’s rich!
Up
to performing!”

Everyone laughed with ribald excitement, but still with respect and genuine joy. All of them, men and women, saw in this union the end to their exile. All of them wanted for this marriage to bear fruit and secure their future.

Rainger appreciated that, but he was determined they would leave him alone with his bride to conduct his seduction as he wished.

Turning to face the crowd, he blocked the view of Sorcha. He wanted to tell them that when he had retrieved their country, and his, from the evil grasp of Count duBelle, they’d be welcomed with all honors to his capital. But he walked a tightrope—he dared not say too much or Sorcha would realize she’d been duped. And that moment needed to be postponed until the moment he deemed proper. “Thank you, good people, for your kindness and generosity. Sorcha and I will never forget it, or you.”

They cheered, overcome with emotion and ale.

“Go and rejoice, and leave us to celebrate in our own way.” He grinned a knowing, brash grin, one that made the women giggle and the men grin back. Then he shut the door with a soft, definite click, locked it with a strong movement that made the sound of the latch echo in the corridor, and waited until he’d heard the sound of many feet descending the stairs and the laughter and conversation fade.

Turning back to the room, he found Sorcha had turned her back on him. Her arms were raised, the curves of her body gleaming softly through the sheer material of her nightgown.

She had gathered the glorious fall of her hair and started to make a braid, her fingers moving frantically. “I’m so sorry.” Her voice held a chagrined breathlessness that successfully drove out what little sense remained in his head. “I tried to tell the women this wasn’t necessary, but they found the nightgown and after that there was no stopping them. They assume we really are married, which of course they would, so they wanted to make you feel desire. But believe me, I didn’t want to make you feel desire. Since you told me it’s painful for you when you’re unsatisfied, I’ve done everything to make sure I’m not the cause of any pain for you. Have you noticed?”

He grunted, because she was crushing the blossoms as she worked, and a sweet, wild scent filled his head.

Was the scent the flowers... or Sorcha?

“If you’ll give me a minute,” she said, “maybe turn around to save yourself distress, I’ll dress and we can prepare for bed.”

Passion and need blasted through him. He found himself beside her. He glimpsed her wide blue eyes sparkling with a sheen of embarrassed tears. Catching her wrists, he removed her hands from her hair. “Don’t imagine I don’t want to look at you. No matter how much pain I suffer for you, I’ll always want to look at you. You were made for me, and right now all I want to do is sink my fingers into your hair.” He did, and reveled at the silky sensation as he freed each strand from its incipient prison. “I want to sink my tongue into your mouth.” He did, tasting the mint she’d chewed to cleanse her breath and, beneath that, the flavor of bewildered passion... and of Sorcha. “I want to sink my body into yours—” Catching her buttocks in his hands, he brought her close and rolled his hips, putting a pressure against his erection that heightened his passion and did nothing to ease his desire.

A startled gasp escaped her, and he remembered—she had never seen a naked man, must less seen him aroused as a bull.

Too much honesty! Too blunt! This wasn’t the way he’d meant to play it!

His fingers trembled and they felt like a stranger’s as he forced them, one by one, to release her.

The blood that normally circulated to his brain was elsewhere, so falling to his knees wasn’t difficult. Nor was the bowed head, for when looking down he could see her feet, one atop the other as she tried to warm them, and her ankles, slender and graceful. Taking the hem of her nightgown, he lifted it to his lips—he caught a quick glimpse of shapely calves—and said, “Your Highness, I shouldn’t have said those things. I should never have touched you. I’m a humble man before you. But your beauty sings to me and I’ve never wanted a woman... ” The words he’d rehearsed poured from him with far too much sincerity. He couldn’t seem to help it. He forgot her feet, her ankles, her calves. He forgot that he could artlessly run his eyes up and see through her nightgown to the body beneath.

Instead he lifted his gaze to hers and in all candor, said, “I’ve never wanted a woman the way I want you, with all my heart and all my soul, and I meant every word of our wedding vows.”

Her eyes became a dark blue, the kind of blue that reminded him of a stormy sea and the violent currents that could drown a man. She took a long breath. She straightened her shoulders. Slowly she extended her hand; he had never seen her look more like a princess. “You have no reason to be humble. You’re kind—and so brave. You never hesitated when I told you I was in danger. I know that you made your vows with all sincerity. I felt your emotion, for I feel this way also.” Then she covered his eyes with her hand.

Damn. She didn’t want him looking at her. She didn’t want to tempt him with what she had decided he couldn’t have. He would have to go to his next plan of seduction, and in his present desperation he couldn’t even remember his next plan.

Then the weight of her nightgown fell onto his wrists.

He didn’t understand.

She removed her hand and he, like a fool, looked down at his hands. They clutched the nightgown. The whole nightgown. She stood over him... and she was nude.

He dropped the nightgown as if it burned him.

She stepped back. Stepped out of it.

Did she
mean
for him to look at her? Because he couldn’t help it. For the rest of his life, she was all he ever wanted to look at—the long flanks, the gently curved hips, and the fine curly down of fiery red hair between her legs, the tiny waist, the breasts, so perfect, so round, her arms, strong and muscled from gardening and riding, her face... he loved her face. She smiled at him uncertainly, as if she didn’t know whether he would enjoy the view. And he needed to reassure her, but his breath was caught somewhere in the vicinity of his chest and he couldn’t find his voice.

So he extended a tentative hand, a gesture designed not to frighten her, and lightly stroked the outer curve of her hip.

She sighed, a sigh of simple pleasure.

That was all the encouragement he needed. He ceased vacillating. He rose, slipped his arm around her waist, and kissed her again.

He’d kissed other women, but now he wondered why. With Sorcha in the world, why had he bothered with other women at all?

She broke the kiss, buried her nose in his throat, and took a long breath. “I love the way you smell. I love the way you kiss... If we could do nothing but kiss, I’d be satisfied.”

He winced.

Against his skin, he felt her grin. “For now. I would be satisfied for now. Because it doesn’t seem to matter how close I stand to you, I want to stand closer. I want to be closer. I want to be part of you, and I don’t know how.” Lifting her head, she gazed at him, her blue eyes wide, her black lashes fluttering. “Can you show me how?”

Lifting her in his arms, he placed her on the bed on the clean white goose-down coverlet. She sank into it as if she relished the simple pleasure of its embrace. The scent of flowers rose around them. Totally without consciousness, without fear, she smiled at him.

That smile held such sweet and wanton seductiveness. She’d lived among nuns. She’d been with the prostitutes for less than two hours. Where had she learned such a primal feminine gesture of enticement?

And how could he resist?

As she moved her legs, lifting her knee, wiggling her toes, he caught glimpses of the softest part of her and realized—he couldn’t wait.

He needed to take off his clothes. He needed to be as bare and free as she was.

He stripped off his shirt.

She gasped and sat up straight. “Arnou, what happened to your back?”

Damn. He hadn’t meant for her to see the stripes that crisscrossed his flesh. “The sea is a rough master.” Not a lie, but not pertaining to him, either.

“Come here.” She made him sit with his back to her and with light fingers she traced the stripes Count duBelle had placed on him. “This is cruel.” She kissed the ridges where white scars met pink skin. “This is wrong.”

“There’s no pain now.” Turning, he took her hands. “It was over long ago. I barely remember it.” Amazingly enough, he meant it. Right now he could think about one thing, and one thing only—and it wasn’t his back.

She smiled. What a smile she had! Saucy, sexy, taunting, knowledgeable. She managed to look like a woman who knew how to give a man pleasure.

And damned if he didn’t believe her.

She stretched her arms over her head.

He removed his shoes and his hose.

She pushed her fingers through her hair, collecting two satin strands, then carefully arranged them to cover her breasts.

His face felt as if were set in stone.

It must have looked that way, too, for teasingly she glanced at him, then glanced again with widened eyes. “You look like my sternest tutor when I played instead of learning my algebra.”

Leaning over her, Rainger placed his fists on either side of her shoulders. “Did he spank you for teasing?”

“No.” Her lips were wide and moist and pink. “Are
you
going to play a game with me?”

“What kind of game?”

“The kind of game Madame Pinchon’s ladies said men like to play. Are you going to pretend to be my tutor and spank me?”

Damn her. Her words brought up the image of her pale body stretched across his lap. His hand would swat her once, but only once, and then the real punishment would begin. He’d sit her up facing away from him and plunge inside her. He’d make her ride him until—

She brought him back to the present with her palm kneading the bulge of his bicep. “I can be very, very bad. So are you going to spank me?”

The surge of blood to his groin almost drove him forward.

He fought the impulse to hold her down and take her. Sweat broke out on his forehead. Because he
would not
take her in a rush. He had her trapped in marriage. Next he must snare her with passion, so that when she discovered the truth, she’d be so head-over-heels in love with him, she’d support him and his goal to regain his kingdom.

Slowly, barely, he conquered the desperation.

Picking the strands of hair off her breasts, he said, “No. I’m going to do this.” Placing his lips on her nipple, he sucked strongly, bringing it into his mouth and working it with his tongue.

She gasped. Her hands went to his bare shoulders, and her fingernails dug into the skin.

He exulted in the small pain, knowing it was a sign she had lost herself in passion.

He lightly scraped her with his teeth, then blew on the moisture his mouth had left. Goose bumps covered her skin. Her chest flushed. Her nipple tightened to the size of a berry.

She responded to him so readily, he was both flattered and touched. And it was because she trusted him. She’d said so time and again. She trusted Arnou and, unknowingly, she trusted Rainger. That was all to the good, for Rainger intended to take very good care of her.