Tom was waiting for her when she came to the house. She was on time, which surprised and delighted him. He let her open the door and come in before he snatched her close. After an initial gasp, she chuckled into his chest.
Drawing away enough to see her face, he raised a brow. “And what, madam, is so amusing?”
“You are. You did what I wanted to, but I would never have done it if you hadn’t led the way.” She glanced around. “This is a small house.”
“It is. And a family of six plus servants all led a comfortable existence here before they left for pastures new.” He followed her gaze to a row of prints depicting the king and his ministers. He grimaced. “I had no time to redecorate.”
“They left everything?”
“Not quite everything. They took their personal belongings. I gave them a good price for the rest.” They had taken rather more than they were entitled to, but they’d left most of the furniture. The house was stripped of ornaments, paintings, rugs, and all but the most basic china and kitchen utensils. Not that Tom cared. The prince had disdained to stay here, but Tom had a use for it. “This is our house now.”
The notion thrilled him. On a day when all he wanted to do was hold her and soothe his exhausted spirit, he was surprised at how easily his body responded to her. “Should we retire to the parlor and discuss politics over tea, like civilized people?”
“No.” She bit her lip, so he kissed it, persuading her not to abuse that lovely morsel. “I want—”
“What do you want, sweetheart?”
“Madness. I want madness.” She lowered her face, and he let her, knowing shyness swamped her. “I want to touch you. I wanted it before, in the pavilion, and at the ball. We have only met twice. I should not want this.”
“Plenty of time for lust to take hold.” He’d had women within an hour of meeting them, and he rarely had to pay. “But I will not dishonor you. Don’t ask it of me.” He knew how far he would take her. His Helena was all fire and spirit, and he would have a hard time keeping to his resolve.
“It depends what you call dishonor. Is there a bed in this house?”
Holding her so tightly, he could not miss the increased beat of her heart. It pounded in her chest like a bird fighting to leave a cage. “Sweetheart, you cannot mean it.” He had anticipated private conversation and kisses, no more.
“I do. Who knows how long we’ll have? Today, I have two hours. Madame is at this moment discussing the possibility of altering some of my existing gowns with me. Madame plied my maid with so much good wine she has fallen asleep. She snores, my maid. I want this, Tom. So much I can hardly think for it.”
She had described his situation exactly, although half an hour ago he was prepared to kiss her and then call a hackney to take her back to the mantua-makers’. “You should not tease me so. A man can take only so much.”
“I want to feel your skin against mine.” Roughly, she pulled at her delicate kid gloves. She’d tear them into shreds if she carried on that way.
He stilled her hands by clamping them together and then enclosing them with his. She looked up.
“I want the same. But I meant what I said. I will not dishonor you, or take what is not mine.” He would keep to that resolve if it killed him.
The trusting expression in her eyes killed him already. He would not let her down, he would not take her honor, even if she offered it. The exhaustion of staying up all night melted away as if it had never existed.
Taking her hand, he led her up the first flight of narrow stairs, the worn wooden treads creaking under their feet, to the floor that held the main receptions rooms, and stopped. He turned to her and took her hands. “Are you sure?”
She nodded, her cheeks flushed, her mouth full.
Tom groaned. “You’ll be the death of me.” They ascended another flight of stairs to the next floor. Opening the nearest door, he led her into the bedroom.
Gauzy drapes at the window shielded them from view but gave enough light. Heavy velvet curtains were held back by faded worn cords. The bed was modest by their standards, but it filled most of the room, an old-fashioned four-poster with green silk hangings shredding with age and use. But the sheets were new, crisp and clean, and the bed cover was new too, a dark green that he considered, when he’d bought it, would be adequate for royalty.
It would never see royalty. “Let’s pretend we’ve just come from church,” he said. “We married at nine, and we have come back from a modest celebration at a nearby inn with our closest friends and colleagues. We’re Mr. and Mrs. Fisher, moderately well-off silk merchants, and we are in love.”
Her expression relaxed. “Yes. I’d love to be Mrs. Fisher.”
They could say no more, but he wanted to tell her so much. Three days? Three years, thirty years, it didn’t matter. He would not change his mind. Every time he met her the certainty hammered itself home. And now they were here at last, in the bedroom they would share as Mr. and Mrs. Fisher.
There might be a way they could do this.
His heart in his throat, he turned to her and curved his hands around her upper arms. She was so delicate, and yet great strength lived in her. She would not bow to pressure. “Are you sure? We could wait.”
“What for?”
Not yet. He couldn’t tell her yet. She might bolt. He longed for this taste of her, to make her his as much as possible. No, that was wrong. His mind churned with possibilities and the one clear fact that would not move. Nor did he want it to. “Do you know how lovely you are?”
Lifting his hand, he gently loosed the first of her hairpins. She’d worn her glorious hair in a light style today, topped by a pretty confection of lace which the fashionable laughingly called a cap. She might have dressed plainly, but she had not dressed cheaply.
“What are you smiling at?”
“You’re going to cost me a fortune in lace, Mrs. Fisher.”
“I will do my best to economize, sir,” she replied in the prim tone of a good wife.
He laughed, surprising himself. He’d been deeply unhappy when he arrived here, but she had changed all that. He continued to work on her hair, carefully laying the lace and pins on the small dressing table that stood by the window. “You probably have a much larger one in your room at home. But this will suffice, will it not?”
She gave the piece of furniture a glance before she turned her smiling face back to his. “Indeed. And I have a great deal more pots and powders, which I rarely use and my mother frequently replenishes. The night of the ball, her maid tricked me out like a doll, but I scrubbed it off.”
“I’m glad you did, but if you think that would have deterred me, you are mightily mistaken, madam.”
Her laugh enchanted him, but then everything about her did that. He shrugged off his coat and tossed it over the chair by the narrow window. Outside, carts and carriages rattled past, and a church bell rang, a reminder of life going on, but here, the sound was hushed.
When she put her hands to her bodice, he moved them away and laid them on his waistcoat. “I need your hands on me. Touch me, Helena.”
He shuddered when she unfastened the first of the buttons, but roused enough to unhook her bodice. Six hooks and eyes led him to paradise. The gown fell apart, revealing her pretty stays, thin red-striped silk sewn into the myriad tucks and bones that a woman had to endure. Not for much longer, if he had anything to do with it.
While he undressed her, he kept careful watch on her face. When she was down to stays and shift, he stopped. He had shed everything but his shirt and underwear, so that would suffice him. Disappointment edged his joy in having her to himself for two whole hours. “We don’t need to go any further, if you wish. Lie with me.”
Her answer was to turn around. “I can’t lie down comfortably in my stays.”
More practiced than he cared to admit at the moment, he unlaced the garment and eased it off her. She slipped the straps down and let it fall away. Her knee-length fine lawn shift hid little, and he took a moment to admire the sweet curve of her bottom and the glorious dip above. “You’re divine,” he murmured. “Come, sweetheart.”
He guided her to the bed and turned the covers down for her. The view as she climbed in nearly undid him, as her flesh glowed through the fine white of her shift. Her garters peeked cheerfully at him as he joined her. When he held out his arms, she snuggled into them, and he could kiss her. Deeply and sweetly, reminding them both of the pleasure they found together.
“You taste like no one else,” he murmured as he gently lifted his head away from her. He rose on one elbow, the better to look at her. The darker pink of her nipples marked the fine cloth, their peaks creating puckers of fabric.
“I wouldn’t know,” she said, mouth pursed. “I don’t want you kissing anybody else.”
“I will not. I swear.” That would not be difficult to fulfill.
“Do you have a mistress?” Her look of anxiety nearly killed him.
He kissed the fine lines between her brows. “No.”
“Do I count?”
“No. You are not my mistress, nor will you ever be. I shall never have another while I am with you.”
“You promise?”
She must be mad if she thought he’d want anyone else. Seeing her here, lying next to him, her shining hair spread over the pillow, he could not imagine anything more perfect.
Well, perhaps one thing. She should have his ring on her finger.
He pushed the thought away. Bending, he kissed her, keeping the caress gentle, loving the sensation of his body against hers. He leaned back and took her free hand, pressing their palms together and keeping his fingers straight. He kept her gaze while he spoke. “I swear that I will never use what we have here for any other purpose. I will tell nobody and I will not embarrass or constrain you outside these walls.”
She gave a slight nod, but didn’t look away. “I swear to do the same.” Her mouth relaxed into a smile. “I don’t want to tell anyone. It might break the spell.”
“I fear it’s a spell akin to madness,” he said, “but it’s our madness. There are any number of reasons why we should not be here, should not even consider what we do, and only one good reason for doing it.”
“That overpowers everything else.” Her voice shivered in the quiet space. “Because we cannot stop. If we did, we would be committing the greatest of sins.”
He folded his fingers, threading them between hers. “That is the reason.” He bent, but before he kissed her again, he murmured the word against her mouth. “Love.”
This time he deepened the kiss. Tutored by him, she opened her mouth slowly and accepted his tongue, sucking on it slightly. Freeing his hand from hers, he slid it around her waist. A rush of sensation forced his shaft into hard, aching need. He’d considered it primed and ready before, but now he was on the edge of pain. Her skin was soft, and as he slowly slid his hand up to her breasts, the heat of her body increased.
She arched into his hand when he covered her breast, her nipple pressing into his palm, a sublime invitation to carry on. She curled her hand around his neck and tickled his nape in the way he had come to love, and he groaned into her mouth.
The sheets rustled as he moved, rolling over her, careful not to give her his full weight, holding himself steady on knees and elbows.
Helena shoved his shoulders. Immediately he broke the kiss and moved away, but she grasped his waist, holding him in place.
When he quirked a brow, she said, “Naked. We should be naked.”
“My dearest one, are you sure?” The suggestion sent him into a fever of imagining, but the control he would have to use—it would be worth it.
She nodded.
He rolled off her enough so they could he could tug the linen up her body. She sat up and held up her arms so he could draw it off and away. He let it fall where it would, never taking his eyes off the bounty before him.
Her breasts were soft cushions of elegance tipped with deliciously uptilted rose-pink nipples. Her neat waist framed a gently rounded belly and hips designed for his hands, her thighs luscious invitations to sin. The hair covering her most intimate parts was silvery, with a little more gold in it than the hair on her head. Unusual and utterly enchanting. He covered it with his hand. “Mine,” he said, because he had to.
She gasped. “Yours,” she agreed. Her glance clearly told him that it was his turn to disrobe.
She pulled the knot of her garters undone while he unfastened the buttons at his cuff and the one at his neck so he could pull his shirt over his head and toss it aside. Then he rid himself of his drawers. Sitting back on his haunches, he let her look.
Her lovely blue eyes went wide and she swallowed.
“It’s still me,” he said helpfully.
“It’s more of you, though,” she answered, her gaze roaming over him from his neck to his knees and everything in between. “All of you.”
”All of me,” he agreed, smiling. “And I see all of you.”
She nodded and reached for him but then snatched her hands back.
He caught them and drew her closer, pressing her hands on his chest. “Touch me,” he said. “Please.” He would die if she didn’t.
Her smile returned. “Warm and hard and strong.” She ran her hands down his chest, as far as his navel, and stopped.
“It’s all me. All yours.”
“While we’re here.”
“Forever,” he said, and meant it.
But she only smiled, and continued her tactile exploration. To his disappointment she reversed direction, smoothing her hands up to his chest again and touching his nipples. “Why do men have nipples? They can’t feed babies.”
Gasping, he managed, “So that women can touch them.”
“It’s hard.” She wasn’t referring to his nipples. Her gaze was elsewhere.
His shaft was straining to get to work, the end shiny, the tiny opening emitting a bead of clear liquid.
“It is. It wants you.”
“Then it must have what it wants.” Drawing closer, she made to straddle his thighs, but he stopped her, his hands on her waist.
“No, not yet.” Not yet meant no, although she could not know that. If she did, she would make him do it. He knew her that well, at least. “Come here. I want your skin against mine. I’ve dreamed of this. The first time I saw you, I wanted to touch you, to have you touch me.”
“Yes.”
The need in her eyes was echoed in his body. He urged her back down against the sheets so she was lying on her back. He could control their lovemaking that way, make sure they didn’t pass what he’d deemed acceptable. But this he could take. He climbed over her, tucking his erection against her stomach, pressing into her soft flesh. He moved from side to side, groaning when her heat made his shaft as close to unbearable as he could ever remember. But the torture was so sweet. He never wanted it to end.
He claimed a kiss. It felt like their first, but better, because he knew her taste and what she liked. Dotting small kisses around her lips, and then to her ear, he savored the different tastes and textures. Her skin was warm silk, her arms welcome bonds he never wanted release from.
She watched as he kissed her throat, and then down to her breasts. He knew because he checked often, needing to be sure she was enjoying this—enjoying him.
She wound her hands into his hair, what there was of it, for he kept it cropped short. “It’s almost black,” she said, “but there are glints of red in it.”
“So there are.” That was right; she’d never seen him without the trappings of his rank, the wig, the fine clothes, the arrogant manner. He was naked, completely stripped, exposing himself to her. He would allow nothing to come between them. Nothing, he thought savagely as the memory of all that did lie between them hit him again. He shoved it aside. It didn’t matter here. Nothing but Helena and Tom and lovemaking.
He was dark, his hair, the hair on his chest and at his groin. She was fair, an angel to his devil. But he would have her and he would keep her.
She shivered when he kissed her nipple. “You taste wonderful,” he told her, and sucked. She cried out, but not in pain, even though he gave her a playful nip before he moved to the other peak of perfection. “I have never known anything so soft.” He had not imagined living tissue could be so silky, but with a firmness that invited him to taste even more.
Farther down he encountered her navel. “I want to taste every part of you, learn how different you are.”
“What do I taste like?”
He growled against her belly. “Woman.”
She laughed, her skin vibrating against his mouth.
He’d never had a virgin in his bed before. He had to take extra care, not just for her but for himself, to guarantee her pleasure, to learn what she liked along with her.
Helena was no passive participant. She stroked him, curved her hands around his shoulders, ran them over his muscles and back to his throat. The touches sent shudders of delighted awareness all the way through him.
He reached the hair curling between her thighs and nuzzled it. The scent of her arousal wove around him, as intoxicating as the best French brandy but far more heady and unique. Thirst dried his throat. If he didn’t taste her now, he’d die.
“Open your legs,” he murmured against her thigh. After a short pause, she did so, lifting her knees and setting her feet on the sheet. Groaning, he took his first lick.
“I didn’t know you could—oh!”
He loved her little gasps and sighs. Carefully, he worked her up toward her arousal, licking, sucking, and kissing, absorbing her into him. He lifted his head and met her gaze, impossibly intimate. “Don’t hold back. I want it all.”
Her eyes were round with wonder, but they sparkled, and her skin was flushed adorably. “Yes.” She moistened her lips.
He went back to his delicious task. He caressed her inner thighs, keeping his touch light, and then moved to her stomach and her breasts, rubbing his thumbs over her nipples, urging her to let go, but not using words.
A sharp jerk indicated the beginning of her peak. He concentrated on enhancing her first orgasm, pushing her as far as he could. Tucking his hands under her buttocks he raised her, drinking from her like the finest cup of wine, giving no quarter until she screamed.
The sound was better than any music he’d ever heard. The dying notes rang around the small chamber. He didn’t stop until they had subsided into sobs and then ebbed away to small whimpers, but by then he was past thinking, because he’d experienced something he had not gone through since he was an untried boy.
He had no thought for himself, but scooted back up the bed to hold her and share the last tremors. She made sound that was distinctly like a purr and curled into him, nestling against him. Drowsiness suffused him, but he could not sleep. That would be far too dangerous. But if she slept, he’d hold her and keep her safe.
“I didn’t know that was what all the fuss was about,” she murmured, but he heard her clearly enough.
“Neither did I.”
The drowsy, sleepy kittenish expression on her face when she raised her chin nearly undid him. She clearly expected his kiss, and he obliged, sealing their mouths together in their first kiss after making love. She tasted him this time, licking into his mouth with a delicate stroke of her tongue.
She pulled away, smiling. “Is that what I taste like? My oath, it’s not too bad, is it?”
“It’s wonderful.” He kissed her again. “Utterly perfect.”
“You’ve tasted women before, of course.”
“You’re not supposed to ask that.” He shook his head slightly. She was quite something, his Helena. Not the sweet virgin she was supposed to be, but something far more exciting and precious. She’d eagerly accepted and encouraged him in all he did. Had he not come, he might have transgressed, crossed the line he’d promised himself he would not take.
She laughed, totally carefree. He’d give anything to keep her that way, but he feared it was beyond his powers.
“I love you, Helena.”
She stilled, the smile gone, her eyes pure. “I love you too.”
He replaced her smile with his own. “After three days?”
“The time doesn’t matter.”
He pressed her closer, giving her a tight hug. “We can say that here. We can say anything we want to, but we don’t have to mean it once we’ve returned to the world outside.”
She shook her head. “I won’t change my mind. I won’t tell anyone, but only because they would hurt you if I did.” She glanced down at their bodies. “I would like to sleep with you. To sleep with you and wake up with you.”
Rolling on his back, he groaned and pressed a thumb and finger either side of the bridge of his nose, pressing in, as his nurse used to when he’d suffered nosebleeds as a child. He’d grown out of the bleeds, but not the gesture. “I’d like that too, but we cannot.”
“Perhaps in time we can. Tom, I want you.” She lifted up, her breasts touching his chest. Her nipples were still hard. “Nothing matters more than this.”
“We should give ourselves more time.”
“What time do we have?”
He tried to remonstrate with her. “You’re twenty, love. We have plenty of time.”
She snorted. “Lives pass while people think that. No, I won’t have it.”
“Another month, dearest one.” He pressed a kiss to her lips. “Give us that. When is your sister-in-law due to give birth?”
“A week, perhaps two. She says any day, but Julius says maybe not.”
“He would know,” he said dryly. He tucked his arm behind his head and kept a firm hold on her. This part, the after part, had never appealed to him before, but with Helena he could stay here all day. “So we have some time.” He smiled. He had the feeling he would always smile when he saw her, although he might not always show it. “This house is ours, Helena. To use as we see fit. I’ll never sell it. Whenever you need sanctuary, whether I’m in town or not, come here.”
“I’d like that.” She smoothed her hand down his chest, pausing at his waist. “A place that is totally our own. But won’t we need maids?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Fisher live in a cozy villa by the Thames.” He stared at the bed canopy. He could see the place. “When they began to prosper, they moved out of town, as people do. But sometimes they have to stay in London, so Mr. Fisher bought this house. They don’t have live-in maids, but someone comes in once a week to clean when they’re not in residence.”
She wriggled against him, lifted her leg, and draped it over his. “Mrs. Fisher likes to be with her husband. She loves it, in fact. They have been married for two years. He saw her across the room at a Guildhall dinner.”
“And fell instantly in love,” he said, because that was what he’d done. What he felt for Helena was more than lust. He’d seen her and wanted her, but more than that. He’d wanted women before, but he’d never wanted to care for them so strongly. Never wanted to claim them. But instinctively he’d known that Helena was his.
Helena was ethereally lovely, as well as lively and intelligent, but although he enumerated all her assets, something else lay there, just out of his reach. Perhaps he would never find out what it was. He wasn’t sure he wanted to.
“We need time, sweetheart. If we take steps to be together, we will hurt the people we love. We can’t do that.”
“We might have to.”
From the gravity of her tone, he could tell she understood what he was saying. They must be completely sure. In the meantime, they would manage.
“I can ask for more fittings at Madame’s. Men are lucky,” she continued in a disgusted tone. “They may go wherever they wish. I will dismiss my maid and ask for another. That will give us more time, too. My mother will complain.”
“Does she complain much?”
She paused. “Yes.”
Turning his head, he kissed her. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I should not pry. Here’s another rule, if you wish to accept it. Anything we say here goes no further.” Because he longed to tell her what he’d done. As if reminded of his long night, he stifled a yawn.
“I thought you looked tired,” she said.
“Nothing would have kept me away from you.”
“She traced an imaginary pattern on his chest. “Have you been carousing?”
He laughed. “No. Far from it. I was at the docks in the early hours of the morning. They delayed the departure of the ship with the prince, and I had to wait to make certain he left—” Startled that he found confessing his secrets so easily, he opened his eyes wide and stared at her.
“We said nothing leaves these walls,” she said softly, and kissed him. “We knew the Pretender was here. That is, Julius knew, and he told me.”
“He trusts you.” Tom was not surprised. Helena possessed gravity far beyond her years. “So do I. But you know he hates me.”
“He hates your family.”
“And my brother.” He grimaced. “William is fully convinced that the prince will return. I am not. The world is moving along, and it rarely goes back. But that doesn’t mean I’ll turn my back on my family.”
“Of course not,” she said quietly. “And I will not betray mine.”
“This is neutral territory.”
“Yes.” She lowered her head, but when she lifted it again, her eyes were sparkling. “So what is he like?”
He stroked her back, the supple skin smooth under his palm. “The prince? Charles is not as handsome as he once was. Culloden destroyed him. He should never have turned back at Coventry. I have no idea why he did that. If he’d taken London, the impetus might have taken him through. He will not have that chance again. The defeat broke something in him, and he is chasing the path to perdition. Women and drink mainly. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, am I?”
She shook her head, her curls tickling his chest. “My brother keeps an eye on him. As do others in the family. Last night Julius confessed the Pretender was in the country.”
It did not surprise Tom to know that the perspicacious Earl of Winterton had discovered as much. “He is no longer here.”
“You sent him away.”
“I put him on a ship from the docks in the early hours of the morning. He did all he came to do. There was no reason for him to stay.” To say any more might put others in peril. Certainly he didn’t want to compromise General Court. Having someone he could talk to in government saved a great deal of time and expense. The prince had not wanted to leave, but his propensity for strong drink had eased the way for Tom to get him on the ship and away.
“So you’ve been up all night,” she said.
He nodded.
“I’ll go and leave you here.”
His chivalry would not allow that. “Who will lace your stays?”
She laughed. “You can lace stays?”
“I wasted much of my youth.” He drew her closer for a kiss, and she came to him willingly. With her body wrapped around his, Tom was in danger of forgetting everything except her. Helena surrounded him, her taste, her delectable body, and he could wish for nothing more.
But he must not take her, could not make her irrevocably his. He had to keep his head enough to do that. She was not his to claim, however much he might wish it.
* * * *
Tom returned home to find his father demanding his attention.
The Duke of Northwich spun around to face his son, the skirts of his dark green coat whirling, gold braid catching the sun. “The prince has left the country.”
“I know. I helped him.”
“You did what?” his brother Will thundered.
“The prince wanted to leave the country. I merely helped him.” Suppressing his grin of triumph, Tom faced his brother and let his eyelids droop, as if the matter was of supreme indifference to him.
“Without referring the matter to me?” his father demanded.
Tom folded his arms, tucking his hands into the warmth of his coat. “The prince was ready to leave. I had a ship in port, so the matter was done.”
His father growled and then uttered a curse so inventive Tom memorized it for future use. But his father never knew when to stop, and he proceeded to more earthy but less inventive phrases. Tom waited. His father had a fierce temper, but it never lasted for long.
“You should have consulted with me.”
Will’s face turned red. “Why did you not try to stop him?”
Tom ignored him and addressed their father. “Would you have wanted me to?” Tom shrugged. “What more good could he have done? The authorities could have taken him.”
The duke paused near the window, the thin autumn sun streaking his snowy wig. It must be well fixed on his head to cope with the duke’s sudden movements. Anything unlike a stately and dignified ducal presence was hard to imagine. He made a sound at the back of his throat, something that would be better suited to a wild animal than a duke, and then he turned and paced.
Good. Soon he’d see reason. Tom only had to wait him out. Too wise to interrupt his father mid-flow, Tom settled into a waiting pose. He’d have leaned against the wall, but he was not close to it.
Tom tried not to care that his younger brother was his father’s favorite, but he could understand the preference. William shared his father’s idealistic views, even appeared more nearly like him than Tom did. Will was of a height with his father, while Tom towered over them, and he had the distinctive broad-browed, narrow-chinned face shape, where Tom’s face was longer. He took after his mother’s side of the family, or so his grandmother claimed. His mother had died in childbirth, leaving five children and deep grief.
Tom saw nobody but himself when he shaved every morning and stared into the mirror. No family echoes lay in his face. His brother had the deep blue-gray eyes of his father, too.
No matter. Tom would start a new tradition of brown eyes and unconscionable height. He had long since ceased trying to make himself unobtrusive, trying to stoop to conceal his height. Now he stood tall. “Father, do not distress yourself.”
“He did not want to leave.” Will glared at Tom. “The night before his departure, he spoke of storming Parliament.”
Tom’s blood ran cold. “He did? How could he do that?”
“He had supporters. We were arranging a council meeting.”
The duke whirled around and seized a piece of paper from the stack on the side table. He shoved the paper under Tom’s nose, though how he expected Tom to read when the hand holding the paper was quivering with rage he was not entirely sure. “Look at this!”
Tom took the paper. It was a letter sealed with red wax but with no significant seal impression. He read. It was not from the prince but from one of his advisors in Lunéville, where the prince currently resided with his mistress, the Princesse de Talmond. “His highness is not pleased. The Princesse displays the bruises of his displeasure every day. He accuses her of not loving him enough and then sends her to her room, where she writes him impassioned letters pleading for mercy. The woman loves him, or so she claims.”
The report disgusted Tom. Charles had taken out his bad mood on a woman, one he should be cherishing, not abusing. Tom could not imagine doing that to any woman.
A memory flashed into his mind, of Helena as he’d last seen her. Tom much preferred to see her laughing. Or crying out in delight, as he loved her.
He wanted her badly. Even more so now he knew what lay under the silks and laces she wore. Something far more costly, and far more precious. He was in a fever for her.
They had not fully consummated their relationship, although he had touched her everywhere and brought as much joy to her as he could without compromising her. He feared he had done too much already. Any man taking her to bed would know she was not completely innocent.
But he could no more stop than he could stop breathing. He had soared past want, straight into need.
The words on the page danced before his eyes, and he was glad to have something to look at until he reined in his self-control. “Does it matter that the prince is a woman-beating drunk?” He asked the words mildly, and it was a genuine question.
“If he were on the throne, then no,” his father replied.
At the same time Will cried, “How can you talk of our rightful monarch that way?”
“He’s the Regent.” Tom was too used to his brother to allow any irritation from that direction. “Not the crowned monarch.”
Will waved a beringed hand. “You have the right of it. But we cannot speak of him in those terms.”
“We have to,” Tom said. “For God’s sake, Will, can you not admit that the Stuarts will not win the throne by conquest?” Frustration seized him by the throat. He had not meant to lose his temper, but it was done. At least he was still capable of rational thought, although his blood was up. “They will not gain it by inheritance, either, if the Hanovers continue to breed the way they do.”
He faced two men, one white-faced, the other with a ruddy tinge to his handsome features. He had said too much. They would not agree with him.
His father spoke first, interrupting Will, who had begun to shout invective. “Quiet, Will! I had not thought you had so much sense, Tom.”
Tom stopped, his mouth open in shock. He’d thought his father’s anger was directed at him, for not informing him about the prince’s departure. But perhaps meeting the man again and realizing what he was had brought the duke to a sense of reality.
The duke continued, “We cannot expect conquest to win the day, not any longer. With the Peace of Aix, Europe shifted its allegiances. Unless the Prince breeds and soon, the Stuarts are lost. The Prince of Wales has bred a nest full of children, and he is well thought of.”
Tom tried to recover from his father referring to the Hanoverian Frederick as “The Prince of Wales.”
His father caught his son’s startled gaze and grimaced. “I have to accustom myself to using the words. You think I have not been thinking about our situation? This visit from the Prince brought matters to a head, and I have spent some time doing what I should have done long ago. I have brought myself to see reason. We cannot lurk in the shadows any longer. We’ve done all we can to rebuild our title and the land, but now we have to move further into the light.”
“So we are turning coat?” Will said bitterly. He flung himself across the room, his coat flying behind him. “How can you think so?”
“We have to.” His father turned to Tom, effectively dismissing Will. “You two can marry into the old families and the new. Develop our connections. We may continue to work for the restoration of the rightful monarchs, but we have to do it in a different way. Become as powerful and successful as any other family of our rank and prepare to welcome the king when he returns. We should think of building a strong foundation for them, somewhere they may return to. The king will not win by conquest, but if the will of the people have it, he may be asked back. Why should they not realize their mistake?” The duke glanced at his desk. The big old-fashioned piece of furniture had papers scattered over its worn surface. He selected one and handed it to his oldest son. “I’ve drawn up a list. Next season, you two will go a-courting.”
They would what? “So our new ambitions include wives?”
“They have to,” the duke said.
“What about you?”
“I have done my duty. If I marry again, it will be for entirely personal reasons. But believe me, I will not marry to disadvantage. I would rather not.”
“You married for love the first time.” Tom remembered his father in gentler times, when the duke had smiled more and laughed often.
“I did. I was fortunate.” He reeled off a few names. “They are comely lasses and ripe for the picking. They have fortunes and useful alliances.” He glared at Tom, his eyes sharp. “For your latest trick, you owe me.”
The names omitted the one he was most interested in. “What about the Emperors?” he asked mildly.
His father burst into gales of shocked laughter. “The Emperors of London? You are jesting, are you not?”
“There are not many more influential families in the country. Together they encompass all the seats of power.”
The duke shook his head sadly. “The optimism of youth sometimes astounds me. They are and always will be our enemies. Too much bad blood lies between us for us to reconcile. One marriage will not accomplish that. They hate us, and the sentiment is heartily reciprocated.”
“But you were just saying we should let our history go.”
The duke’s mouth tightened. “Not that history. That remains an open book. Do not even consider it.”
Will stepped forward, waving his hand, his abundant ruffles punctuating the conversation. “We could discommode them. We could court them and then not come up to scratch.”
“No!” The emphasis was more than Tom would have expected from political rivals. “You will not go near them. The Duke of Kirkburton, his sisters, their husbands, and their families. I will not have that poison infecting my family. Do you hear me?”
Tom’s dreams of courting Helena openly faded into nothing. He rarely heard his father give edicts, but this was most definitely one. Something other than allegiances had fired that denial. His father was nothing if not devious, and he rarely laid down the law, preferring to make the choice obvious or denying all other choices so that the object of his attention had no other way to move forward.
His father was perfectly capable of arranging matters so that Tom and Helena would never be together.
He could not tell the duke. He would have to find another way.
“Why are you so against the Emperors, when you do not mind us marrying a Cavendish or a Holles?” Both names were on his father’s list of potential brides, and both families were as against the Stuart cause as the Emperors were.
His father shot him a calculating look. “The Duke of Kirkburton cut me to the bone once, but I will not tell you why.”
Despite all Tom’s protests, he refused to say a word. Tom would have to do some investigating of his own.