“So I understand,” Prufrock said. And then, obedient to some unseen signal, or unwritten code, he backed straight through the doorway and closed the door behind him.
“Damnation,” Piers sighed.
“How tricky can it be to lop off a limb?” Linnet said. “I would think it would be rather straightforward, like sawing a log, only messier.”
“Where’s your maidenly squeamishness?” Piers demanded. “You sound as if you wouldn’t mind holding one end of the saw.”
“I wouldn’t,” Linnet said, thinking about it. “I expect it would be interesting. You really must let me sit up. I’m sure Prufrock was horrified.”
“Prufrock? Nothing horrifies that man. Besides, you are my fiancée. We’re allowed to nuzzle each other.”
“Not without a chaperone somewhere in the vicinity,” Linnet said firmly.
“Pooh. I expect you never went anywhere without a chaperone during the season, did you?”
“Never.”
“And look where it got you . . . pregnant by a prince, and betrothed to a maniac.”
Since Linnet had often thought the same thing, she could hardly protest. So she turned her head, just a fraction of an inch, and caught his lips as they slid across her jaw.
His lips were unruly, demanding, not gentlemanly. She opened her mouth to him, allowing—nay, welcoming—him in all his lavish greed. In his kiss was an inquiry that she meant to refuse. They couldn’t do that again.
She tore away, her chest heaving. Only to find the beast laughing at her, his hands, both hands, clasping her breasts. Her bodice may not have had the claim to lasciviousness that Lady Bernaise’s had, but on the other hand, it was held in place by nothing more than a gathered ribbon. And Piers, deft, clever Piers, twitched the little bow on her right shoulder, causing her bare breasts to tumble straight into his hands.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered. His thumbs rubbed over her nipples. She actually squeaked aloud, it felt so delicious.
He had full possession of her breasts now, squeezing them almost roughly, bending his head . . .
Linnet’s back arched instinctively, and a kind of little scream flew from her lips. It woke her up.
“Prufrock, he’s just outside,” she stuttered, pushing at Piers’s shoulders.
He let go of her breasts only after her second shove. Linnet’s whole body thrilled again at the look in his eyes, the wild, uncontrolled desire vibrating from his face.
“We can’t do this,” she said, taking a deep breath. Which made her breasts rise in the air, and Piers’s eyes return to them like a drowning man sighting a rope.
“God, you’re perfect,” he muttered.
“You don’t think I’m too large there?” she asked, feeling stupid even as the words left her mouth. “My father said that I—that is, my governess once said I looked like a cow.”
“If cows looked like this . . .” Piers said, but he didn’t seem to be able to think of a second half of the sentence. Instead he reached out again, reverently this time. “Your breasts are perfect, Linnet. Every man’s dream.”
“Your dream?” she asked.
“I never dared to dream of someone like you,” he said, finally meeting her eyes.
She knew the smile in her heart had spread deliriously onto her face.
Instantly something changed in his. He reached out and pulled up her bodice, gently tugging on the ribbon and then tying it. She didn’t move, just sat watching his lowered eyes and wondering.
“Just because I never dreamed of you, doesn’t mean that I’m going to marry you,” he said finally.
“I know,” Linnet said, scrambling to put her wits together. “We aren’t suited. We agree on that.”
“Look, I brought you something,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a little muslin bag neatly tied with string.
“What’s in it?”
“Mineral salts. Take a long bath this evening, and you’ll be set for swimming tomorrow.”
She took the bag. “A second bath! The footmen will complain of hauling all that hot water to my bedchamber.”
He shrugged. “As you wish.”
Then he stood, grasping his cane with one hand and holding out the other to help her to her feet. “I must go.”
He seemed suddenly irritated, as if he were blaming her for something. She caught his arm. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“We were having a perfectly good time a moment ago, and now you’re stiff and unfriendly.”
He turned around with a little snarl. “A man never likes it when he almost loses his head over a woman.”
Linnet frowned at him. “I see no sign of your losing your head.”
“I made up my mind long ago that I wouldn’t marry,” he said, scowling back at her. “I can hardly take care of myself, let alone someone else.”
Linnet nodded. “That seems a foolish reason to abjure matrimony, but you did say so. I haven’t asked you to change your mind, have I?”
“No.”
“Then why are you blaming me for any errant thoughts that might have flown through your thick head?” she retorted. “I was not thinking of matrimony when you kissed me.”
A rough bark of laughter escaped his throat. “Neither was I.”
“Then why the fit of sullens?” She let go of his arm.
“Because I’m an ass?” he offered, relenting. “But I really must go assist with Sébastien’s patient, or he will be furious at me.” There was a smile in his eyes, so she took his arm and let him escort her from the room.
Just before he opened the door, he stopped and dropped a kiss on her nose. “If I were to marry anyone, Linnet, it would be you.”
“I always knew these breasts would come in handy,” she said with satisfaction.
He laughed at that. “If I were a different man, this would be a different story.”
“Imagine that,” she said. “I could be dallying with a fiancé who doesn’t turn on me like a viper when he has a fit of megrims.”
“Megrims! You make me sound like a sour maiden aunt.”
“Megrims,” she repeated, giving him a saucy smile. And then, more reasonably: “You really do have to control your anxiety, Piers. I promise that I haven’t suddenly decided that you’re the spouse I always wanted, no matter how much I enjoy your kisses.”
He blinked, glanced down at his cane. “I’m a fool. A vain fool, in this case.”
“It’s not your leg,” Linnet said quickly.
But he was grinning, pushing open the door to the entryway. “My vile tongue, I assume?”
“A woman would have to take that into account,” she pointed out. “She might not welcome that vile tongue of yours making havoc at the breakfast table.” She hesitated and decided to just say it: “We’re playing. And I—I deserve to play, after all that has happened to me recently.”
He was nodding. “You do. And I’m a fool, just as you said.” And then, in front of the footmen and Prufrock and anyone else who might be in the entryway, he bent his head and kissed her, one of his lustful kisses that took no prisoners.
A demand.
And she gave, she gave instinctively, her hand clutching his coat lapel, her body swaying toward his, her lips clinging to his when he raised his head.
He leaned forward and said in her ear, so quietly that no one could hear. “You’re one hell of a playmate.”
Then he was gone, clumping up the stairs.
Linnet forced herself to meet Prufrock’s eyes. “I’d like a bath, if you please.”
He nodded to one of the footmen. “Of course, Miss Thrynne. I believe your maid is in your chamber, waiting for you.” He cleared his throat. “The mongrel who now goes by the name of Rufus has been washed and trimmed, though I can’t say it has improved his looks to any measurable amount.”
She’d forgotten all about that. “He can come to my room,” she said, with a sigh.
Prufrock did not approve. “The dog will b
e perfectly comfortable in the stables, or even in the boot room, if you insist.”
She shook her head. “I promised Gavan. He’s terrified that Rufus will run away during the night.”
“The boot room will prevent that.”
“I promised,” Linnet repeated. “If someone could deliver him after my bath, I would be most grateful.”
Of course, the butler was all business, as if he hadn’t witnessed their kiss.
But as she walked up the stairs, she could feel eyes prickling her shoulder blades. We’re in Wales, she said to herself. Wales. No one cares what happens in Wales. It’s not as if the servants can gossip with their counterparts next door.
What happens in Wales, stays in Wales.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Robert Yelverton, Duke of Windebank, sometimes thought with some despair that he had bequeathed only one characteristic to Piers, his son and heir: the capacity for addiction. Piers’s fierce, single-minded devotion to his work reminded him of nothing so much as his own benighted fall into opium use. Though whether it was possible to talk about work—even such laudable work as being a surgeon—as an addiction was unclear to him.
It perhaps would not have pleased Robert very much to realize that in fact he had given Piers more than a predisposition toward obsession; the scowl on his face as he pulled his erstwhile wife Marguerite out of the room was the duplicate of one often seen on his son.
“Alors!” Marguerite cried, trying in vain to twist her wrist from his grip. “Robert, you have no right to handle me in this rough fashion, you—you—” Apparently she couldn’t think of the right words in English, because what followed was a torrent of French.
Robert ducked into the library, towing her behind him. The minute they were inside he released her hand. She whirled in front of him, a vision of luscious breasts and fluttering skirts, and he felt such a pulse of longing that he almost fell to his knees. It wasn’t only her physical beauty that made his hands tremble: it was the dearness of her, the memory of the way she would smile at him over a cup of tea or a silk sheet, the lost joy of having Marguerite as his wife.
“You—you—cretin!” she cried, so furious her voice broke. “How dare you handle my person in such a manner! How dare you even touch me?”
“I don’t know,” Robert said. He was determined to be completely honest with her. “But I thought your performance in the drawing room had gone far enough, and that it was time for me to play a part.”
“There is no call for you to play any part at all in my life. I will select a man from the street—yes, from the gutter—before I would ask you to be near me again.”
“I know.”
She blinked, and a bit of the fire left her eyes. “Then why did you bring me here? We have nothing to say to each other.”
“I’ve changed, Marguerite. I am not the same man you married.”
“You were not the same man I married within five years of the ceremony,” she stated, turning toward the door.
“If there were any way—any way at all—that I could take back the hurt that I caused you and Piers during the years of my opium use, I would do it,” he said desperately. “I would cut off my arm. I would give my life to undo it.”
She paused, her hand on the door. Her narrow shoulders were rigid. A few, just a very few, strands of white gleamed among her bronze locks.
“I am not the man you married. Nor am I the fool who divorced you. I am older and far wiser,” he continued, praying that she would stay for a moment longer. “I did not understand then how much you were to be treasured.”
Marguerite turned around slowly, and then leaned back against the door. “There were so many times that you told me you would stop taking that drug. You promised so many times.”
“I know. I couldn’t keep my word.”
“But I gather you finally did stop. Piers says that you have not taken opium in years.”
“Seven years. Almost eight.”
“So you could not stop for me, but you stopped for—for what? What did you find that you loved more than that opium dream of yours?”
“Life. I was near death, I think. And I found, to my surprise, that I wanted to live.” He was revealing his saddest truth to her. He walked a little closer, just enough so that a hint of her French perfume reached him. They stood there for a moment looking at each other, two middle-aged people with years of anger and regret between them.
“You’re as beautiful as ever,” he said, clearing his throat.
“You were always one to talk about beauty, and see only what is superficial in a person.” But the fury had drained from her voice.
“Was I?” He couldn’t remember. “I loved you for more than your beauty. I admired your strength, Marguerite, and your intelligence. The way you stepped into the role of a duchess and did so gracefully, and the way you dealt with my mother. The way you raised our son.”
“So you say now.”
“I do say now. And I’m sorry that I never told you then how greatly I admired you. There has been only one woman in the world whom I admire as I admire you, love as I love you.”
“Who?”
“You.”
“Oh. My English is a bit rusty. I did not follow.”
He chose his words carefully. “I know that you would never consider being my wife again after the pain I caused you and Piers. But if you could ever forgive me for what I did to you—” He stopped, swallowed, kept going. “I expect it is unforgivable, but I think of little else.”
She gave a little shrug, an entirely Gallic gesture. “Alors, Robert. I am long past the point where I wish to kill you for ruining my reputation, or even for loving that drug more than me. But what happened to my baby, our son . . . That I cannot forgive.”
Robert took a step closer to her. “I would not expect you to.”
“Yet I think he needs to forgive you,” she said, her eyes troubled, not seeming to notice that he now stood just before her. “Piers is more harsh with you than he ought to be.”
“I know. Perhaps . . . someday.” But he didn’t really want to talk of Piers, and he couldn’t stop himself. His hands came up of their own volition and cupped her face. And swiftly, before she could refuse him, he bent his head and kissed her. He put everything into that kiss: his regret, his love, his longing. The long, cold years of sobriety, when she was married to another, and he had nothing to contemplate but his own stupidity.
For a moment—one blessed, exquisite moment—she kissed him back. She tasted like apricots: at once sweet and tart, and heartbreakingly familiar.
But then she put her hand to his chest and pushed him away. Without a word, she turned, pulled open the door, and walked out, leaving nothing behind but an elusive thread of perfume in the air.
Still . . . there had been something in her eyes, in the way her lips yielded to his . . .
To hope was to put himself at risk. In all likelihood, his hopes would turn to dust, to rejection and pain. He hadn’t dared such a foolish emotion in years. But hope billowed from some secret place in his heart all the same.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Linnet was rather hoping that an irascible doctor with a cane might burst into her bedchamber at some point during the night, but no. He was there in the morning, though, dripping warm chocolate on her face.
“What are you doing?” Linnet gasped. She licked at the chocolate.
“Giving you the look of someone with pox,” Piers said. “One more drop on your left cheek. Yes, you’re a proper horror now. Did you know that Queen Elizabeth was badly scarred by pox?”
“Ugh,” Linnet said, grabbing a handkerchief and rubbing her face vigorously. “How beastly of you!”
“Why?” Piers said, leaning back against the bedpost at the foot of her bed. “Would it be so terrible to have scarred skin after the pox?”
“Of course it would,” Linnet said crossly. “Is my face clean again?”
“Blooming. Why would it be so terrible?”
“Because,” she replied, nonplussed. “It just would.”
“But many women aren’t as beautiful as you, and they live perfectly happy lives,” he pointed out. “Even the scarred ones.”
“Yes, but—”
“Queen Elizabeth had a fine time of it, by all accounts,” he added.
“She never married, did she?” Linnet took her hot chocolate away from Piers and took a sip.
“There’s no rule that says women with bad skin can’t marry.”
“Yes, but there are all sorts of unwritten rules about what makes a woman desirable. Beautiful skin being paramount.”
“And you have every single criterion, haven’t you?” He narrowed his eyes, looking as if he were examining her minutely for faults.
She didn’t answer. Anything she said would leave her open to mockery.
“I wonder if it’s worse for an ugly woman to get the pox or a beautiful one,” Piers said.
“A beautiful one,” Linnet said without hesitation. “She has more to lose.”
“I can’t go swimming this morning,” he said, changing the subject. “Sébastien has to operate on that patient who appeared last night, and I need to stand by and harangue him.”
Linnet felt her mouth droop. “Oh, of course.”
“I thought we might go in the afternoon instead.”
“That would be acceptable,” she said demurely. He wasn’t looking at her, but was concentrating on poking the pile of novels on the far bedside table.
“What’s the pleasure in knocking them over?” she asked.
“I’m not knocking them over. I’m seeing what percentage of the top book has to overhang the rest before they all fall.”
They fell.
“Around forty percent. I told Prufrock that I want the guardhouse refurbished,” he said, getting up from the bed.
She blinked at him. He stepped forward, and then swooped down for a kiss. “Mmm,” he said, “essence of Linnet with a dash of chocolate.”
Linnet sat looking at the closed door, her cooling chocolate in hand. He told Prufrock that—and why?
But she knew why. Her burning cheeks knew why. The little tremble that went through her thighs knew why.