“I would heed your words, Lorgin. There has always been truth in them.”
“Good—then I say you will go.”
They both knew Traed could not refuse the sacred trust. He was bound to go. Still, Lorgin had always had the ability to manipulate a situation to his liking.
Traed ran his finger down the edge of his blade, saying softly, “Since when did you get the idea you could order me about?”
Despite the ominous tone, Lorgin caught a glimmer of a smile on Traed’s face.
He raised a regal eyebrow. “Since I discovered I am the elder brother. Now, let me see what damage you have done to the babe’s only toy…”
Chapter Nine
London
She had no intention of “finding out,” as Prince Nickolai had so crudely put it.
Lilac gave herself one last cursory glance in her floor-length mirror. It was her wedding day.
The guests were below awaiting the bride’s entrance. Leave it to the Prince to get a special license! The banns hadn’t even been read. It was rather scary, the speed in which he moved. Once his Highness had made up his mind to be a groom, he was like a stampeding bull.
The analogy made her cringe.
No sense thinking of that.
No sense at all—because it wasn’t a white lacy veil she stuffed a stray strand of hair back under, but a motheaten cap.
Turning to view her backside, she looked over her shoulder at her reflection.
The stablekeeper’s son’s clothes fit her perfectly. Thank god the jacket was so loose—no one would suspect she was a woman in this getup. Except…did her hips look a bit rounded? Come to think of it, she had never seen a boy with such a curvaceous posterior. Lilac bit her lip.
“Oh, miss! I do wish y’ would reconsider!” Emmy stood behind her, wringing her hands. “Where will ya go? What will ya do? ’Tis a bad business, I tell ya!”
“Oh, hush, Emmy! I’m just going to disappear for a while.” Lilac was hesitant to tell even Emmy where she was going for fear the Prince would worm it out of her. It was only a pure stroke of luck and an unusual visit from Lady Harcorte last week that had saved her.
Seeing Lilac’s distress, the kind woman had offered to shelter her for a time. “Until this ghastly mess blows over,” she had said. Lilac was extremely grateful. To throw off suspicion, Lilac herself had invited Lady Harcorte to the wedding—much to Auntie’s horror.
She was downstairs at this very minute, ready to carry out the ruse of consoling the Prince when he was left standing at the altar. Lilac thought it had been a very clever plan of Lady Harcorte’s and commended her on it. Lady Harcorte had smiled, calling her a lovely, naive little girl, who was much too sweet for the Prince.
There wasn’t much time left. She threw the sash on the window up and gingerly grabbed for the wide limb of the oak tree outside.
Lilac had never actually climbed a tree before, but how hard could it be? Her cat, Rejar, did it all the time. With one last push, she launched herself out the window.
A strong hand grabbed her ankle.
“Emmy, what are you doing?” she whispered frantically. “Let go!” She tried to tug her foot free from the powerful grip. Instead of being set loose, she was inexorably being drawn back into the room.
There was only one person she knew of who was that strong.
She clutched at the windowsill, refusing to let go. Unfortunately, by this time, she was back in her bedroom in a rather horizontal position, parallel to the floor. “Unhand me at once!” she ordered.
“If you say so,” the deep voice drawled. He released his hold on her and she fell in a sprawl to the carpet.
Throwing him a venomous look, she sat up, rubbing her backside.
Rejar knelt down on one knee beside her. He reached up, removing the lopsided cap from her head. Her hair tumbled down in total disarray, strands flying every which way. A smile quirked his sinful lips.
“I like this outfit you wear to your wedding.” The dual-colored eyes flashed with more than amusement. Lilac could swear she saw a hint of anger blossoming in the depths of those blue and gold eyes.
She looked away for a moment, worrying her lip. Just what would he do if he got really angry? Would it be better to push him into finally losing his temper outright with her? He might call off the wedding then. Or, should she…
She wasn’t going to have the chance to do either, for Prince Azov simply stood up and tossed her over his shoulder.
“Ahhh! Put me down! You crude lout! You barbarian! Do you hear me?”
The entire assemblage heard her.
Lilac screamed and ranted down two flights of stairs, bouncing on the Prince’s broad shoulder.
Every head looked up to watch this unprecedented spectacle.
It appeared Miss Devere was to arrive at her wedding with her backside bouncing in the air, wearing a lad’s clothing, and shouting like a dockside whore.
The Prince, on the other hand, calm and collected, appeared impeccably groomed in a black cutaway coat, black pantaloons—which, the ladies noted, clung snugly to his muscular limbs—and a white frilled shirt protruding from the deep V of his gold waistcoat. As was his style, the Prince was without his cravat. His gorgeous hair, of course, hung free.
The scene in its entirety was more than the spectators could have hoped for. Invitations for the wedding had been zealously coveted amongst the ton. It appeared his Highness was not going to let them down. This wedding would be talked about for ages.
“Don’t know why she picked him over me,” Lord Creighton sniffed.
Leona Harcorte glanced at the gangly lord out of the corner of her eye. “Incomprehensible,” she murmured in a sarcastic undertone that was completely lost on the obnoxious lord. She knew for a fact it had been the Prince who had done the choosing, but she had no intentions of sharing that actuality with anyone. Not that she would need to—anyone with a decent set of ears could plainly hear Miss Devere’s viewpoint on the subject.
Everyone except the nitwit next to her.
As Rejar passed by with Lilac howling from his shoulder, Creighton waved his lace-edged hanky in the air, affecting a laissez-faire attitude. “C’est la vie!” he shouted merrily at the pair. He thought the gesture combined with the fashionable french verbiage displayed him to great advantage.
Lady Harcorte snorted behind her fan.
When she regained control, she eyed Prince Nickolai’s broad back with interest. He was hefting the girl about, barely exerting any effort, holding the chit firmly with one well-placed palm. Leona sighed at the sheer beauty of the masculine picture he presented. Ah, well, she reasoned, it shouldn’t take long for a man like that to get bored to tears with his provincial little wife. And when he did, she would be there—to reinstate excitement into his poor, passionless existence.
Leona Harcorte would have been mightily depressed if she had a glimpse of what was on Rejar’s mind at that moment. Rejar was thinking he liked his soon-to-be mate thrashing wildly against him; it signaled to him exactly how passionate Miss Devere was going to prove herself to be.
In just a few short hours, she would be thrashing under him. And alongside of him. And on top of him. And in front of him…
Rejar displayed a wicked smile.
Flipping her upright, he deposited her before the minister, positioning her to the appropriate place with a guiding clamp of his hands to her shoulders.
She was still reeling from the sudden change of perspective when he clasped her hand solidly in his own and took his place beside her.
Rejar nodded to the minister, a small, shadow of a man.
The minister swallowed once, then reluctantly began the service. In all his days, he had never seen such a spectacle as this. It didn’t appear the lady was quite willing. Perhaps he should…
One searing look from the towering foreign Prince with the two different colored eyes and the minister speeded up his recitation of the vows. In fact, he was going so fast, no one could understand h
im. The guests turned bewildered faces to each other. Whispers of “what did he say?” flew about the room.
Agatha briefly thought of telling the gudgeon to slow down, but remembering her niece’s mutinous face, reconsidered. Best this was over with quickly.
When Rejar’s low, fluid voice said, “I will,” Lilac came to her senses. She threw Prince Azov a fulminating glare of disdain. Does he really think I’ll agree to this?
Rejar watched her speculatively from under lowered lids. The man who was marrying them had asked Lilac the question Jackie had warned him about—the question which must be answered in a positive manner for the ceremony to be completed. What an annoying requirement! he brooded. The men of his world would never tolerate such a loophole.
Lilac clamped her lips together, remaining stonily silent.
Unperturbed, Rejar’s eyes flashed with sudden mischief. Anyone who knew the Familiar usually became instantly wary when he displayed that particular expression. It meant Rejar was up for some sport.
While smiling innocently to the minister, he sent Lilac an offer she could not refuse in the form of a thought.
{Do you wish me to put a stop to this?}
Lilac, who had been staring straight over the minster’s head, naturally assumed the Prince had spoken out loud to her. “Yes, I do!” she yelled, stomping her foot in outrage.
“Then by the power vested in me,” the minister droned, “I now pronounce you man and wife.”
Lilac’s mouth dropped. “I wasn’t talking to you! I was talking to him!” She nodded in the Prince’s direction, but neither man seemed to be paying any attention to her. The minister dutifully told Prince Azov he could kiss his bride. Lilac tried to tug her hand free from his powerful grip.
He turned to her.
She was relieved when he released her hand, but her relief quickly turned to apprehension when his large hands cupped the sides of her head. Strong fingers sifted through her hair to commandingly tilt her face to his.
She expected his kiss of ownership.
What she did not expect was that she would become captivated by the arresting look in his beautiful, compelling eyes.
Those spiky, long lashes…His eyes seemed to capture her into their spell until she did not think she could turn away even if he should let her. She stared up at him wordlessly, caught by his intense regard in a spellbinding moment.
All of a sudden, his scent seemed to envelop her, the cinnamon-bayberry scent she had come to associate with him. And that other more exotic hint underlying the overtones. The wild, provocative subtlety that sizzled her blood and heated her skin.
He lowered his face close to her own.
His spicy warm breath drifting across her, he spoke almost against her lips. The words he proclaimed seemed to vibrate with his personal eroticism.
“This Familiar takes you And discards all others.
This Familiar will give himself only to you And no other.
This Familiar unites with you now forever For him there is no other.”
His strange, enigmatic eyes dilated. The silken lips parted slightly and descended in what seemed to her, captured and captivated by him, a ritual of some kind.
Her eyes widened as those softest of male lips pressed lightly against her own.
And took her breath from her.
She could not breathe! Panicked, she clutched his shoulders, not sure whether she meant to throw him off or bring him to her. But he held her immobile beneath him, his mouth to hers. She grew faint in his arms from lack of air; black spots swam dizzily before her eyes. She thought it likely she would die of asphyxiation right then and there.
Then he breathed into her mouth. A warm, surging gush of air. Filling her lungs with life.
And somehow she knew in her deepest heart that this breath he gave back to her was not her own.
Lilac stood in her bedroom staring at the oak tree outside the window with a woebegone expression.
It had seemed such a perfect plan. What had gone wrong? How had he found out? Come to think of it, how did he find out everything about her? Where she was going, what she was doing, who she was with, what birthmarks she had. It was uncanny.
The meal had been a nightmare for her.
Byron held court at one end of the table, Brummell at the other. Each tried to outdo the other by spewing forth questionable remarks and obscure references regarding the forthcoming wedding night. Most of their meaning was lost on her, thank goodness, but others at the table found them wickedly amusing, snickering into their cups as they looked knowingly between her and the Prince.
On top of this, that idiotic fop, Creighton, had snuffled his way through the meal, inappropriate French phrases dropping from his lips like je ne sais quoi; while Lady Harcorte barely took her eyes off of Nickolai.
The worst, worst part of it was having to sit next to her hus—him the entire evening while he made a great show of being ever so solicitous of her needs. Filling her plate with the choicest morsels. Inquiring if she would like more wine. And when no one was looking, placing his hand on her thigh under the table in blatant ownership, his challenging, laughing eyes meeting hers.
When she finally had been able to excuse herself, she had rushed headlong back to her room only to find that her only refuge had been marred by the sheer, white, lacy nightgown Emmy had left draped across her bed. It waved at her like a white flag on the battlefield of defeat.
Lilac had tossed it out the window and proceeded to don her heaviest night rail. It dragged on the floor and buttoned up to her chin.
Lilac eyed the door to the connecting room warily. She had no intentions of sleeping with the lout even though he had informed her earlier that he had no intentions of sleeping in the connecting room. Uncivilized oaf! Who ever heard of a man and a woman sharing the same room! The same bed.
Well, she just wouldn’t do it!
He had tricked her! She hadn’t figured out how yet, but she would. Her shoulders slumped. Lilac honestly admitted to herself that she had sorely underestimated his capabilities. The man was exceedingly clever. It wasn’t sporting of him to hide all that cleverness under that beautiful facade.
His stunning looks had thrown her off; she wouldn’t make the same mistake again. As soon as he showed himself, she intended to toss him out—right on his taut, compact little rump! Lilac slapped her hands together as if the distasteful job was finished. She had worked herself into a fine lather. Just let him try to—
He stood in the connecting doorway.
He was leaning against the frame, arms crossed over his wide chest, idly watching her while she paced the room muttering to herself. A red silken robe and nothing else clung to him.
My word.
Irrationally, she fumed at how good he looked. There wasn’t a woman on the entire planet who could deal with that! The thought that he might be wearing the infamous robe written about in the Morning Post flickered across her mind before sanity returned. Under the circumstances, an offensive attack was best.
She whirled on him.
“You have what you want now—my property, my things, my house! Get out!”
Rejar viewed her calmly.
“I have no need of your property, your things or your house. But you are right”—his eyes did a slow survey from the top of her head to the tips of her pink toes peeking out from under the voluminous gown—“I have what I want.”
His blatant action made her blush to her pink little toes. Lilac threw her arms up in the air. “Why are you doing this?”
Because I cannot look upon another woman without seeing your face; because your scent follows me even into my dreams, because I want you beyond everything in my life. And because, my wife, you belong to me as I belong to you. He only replied, “I told you before—I have my reasons.”
As an answer, Lilac deemed it insufficient. A vase came hurtling towards his head.
He didn’t even blink.
Pottery crashed against the wall not two feet from his head. Not one
muscle in that sculpted physique moved.
This infuriated the woman of logic all the more.
She clenched her fists. “I don’t understand you! I don’t understand any of this! How did you know all those things about me?” She gritted her teeth to ask the unaskable. “How did you know of the birthmark on my…thigh?”
His eyes sparkled devilishly. He blinked twice, those ridiculously long lashes fanning his cheekbones. A dimple curved his left cheek. “Meow,” he whispered to her.
Lilac hesitated. Was he mocking her? Making light of her upset? How dare he! Another vase crashed against the wall followed by a screech of outrage.
Downstairs, Emmy raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Cor, what a racket! Is that ’er cat a screechin’ like that?” she asked Jackie.
“Naw—’t’is the mistress-ship ’erself.”
“Is ’e killin’ ’er then?” Emmy worried.
Jackie snickered. “Yes, but a ‘little death’ ne’er ’urt no one, eh, Emmy?” He elbowed the plump maid in the side.
Emmy smiled knowingly at him. “Listen—it’s gone quiet up there now.”
A first edition of Lady of the Lake sailed by him, landing on the carpet with a dull thud.
Rejar was getting tired of this particular game. It was time to enlighten her on the facts of life and move on to the next level of play.
“Have you ever wondered why you have never seen your ‘precious’ cat around me?” He asked in a detached mien. “For that matter, why you have never seen us together? And why do you suppose it is that we both have the same eyes—one of each color?”
Lilac’s brow furrowed. What did this have to do with anything? “Not really. I will admit when I first met you I thought it an odd coincidence that you both had similar—”
“Not similar. Identical.”
“What are you saying?” she asked sarcastically. “That you knew my every move because you have some kind of strange communion with my cat?”
“No. I am saying, my Lilac, that I am your cat.”