Royal Regard

Chapter Thirty-Five, Part 3

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."