TheCharmer (25 page)

Rose bit her own lip at his entry. He was large and so very thick. She ached at taking him fully, but he was being so careful that she briefly, poignantly, wished she was the virgin he obviously believed her to be.

He withdrew slightly and came to her again, driving away the ache with clenching pleasure. Again and again, she felt him expand and fill and claim her.
Yes, yours. Finally… only… yours
. Then all thoughts of the past left her, washed away by the renewing beauty of having the man she loved above her, inside her, surrounding her with demanding tenderness.

Right where he belonged.

Then the tenderness flared to passion, and the passion to combustion, until there were no thoughts at all.

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When the knock came at the doors of Etheridge House, it was far too early in the morning for visitors. So, of course, the new arrival was Liverpool, brandishing what had to be a very early edition of a London news sheet. Dalton tugged the belt of his dressing gown tighter and waved his guest to a seat in the front parlor as he took the folded news sheet and read the column displayed in front.

Button, button, who has the button? Or should your Voice of Society say, "Who has the Prince Regent?" Our dear Prinny missed his audiences yesterday, leaving more than one disgruntled supplicant without a promised word. Our source at the palace says no one has seen the Royal George since Monday night. Perhaps he's ill, and our Prime Minister doesn't want anyone to worry. Perhaps he's merely taking a tiny holiday from the worries and wearies of the royal schedule. Still, such an absence does

remind one of those early days before King George slipped away from us entirely, hmm?

Dalton's gut sank. "Oh, damn."

Liverpool pursed his lips. "You said that before. Yet the Prince is still missing. Perhaps these mongrels of yours are not as efficient as you claim. Where is Tremayne?"

"He and Rose haven't returned to the club since Monday morning."

"And Tremayne and the Prince Regent went missing Monday night." Liverpool fidgeted irritably with the head of his walking stick.

Dalton knew that was not auspicious. Lord Liverpool was made of ice. Ice men
never
fidgeted. Dalton overcame the powerful urge to scoot his chair a few inches farther back. "My lord, I have every man out looking for them now."

"I don't trust your lot to find their shoes in the morning. Get out there yourself and get George back before I have to go public with his disappearance."

Liverpool narrowed his eyes as he went on. "Trust me, George does not want me to go public with information of erratic behavior. There are too many rumors floating about already about 'diminished capacity.' If he returns at once, I can still provide a reasonable cover. If he doesn't—then I'm not sure I want to."

Dalton did not like the sound of that. "My lord! His Highness may be self-indulgent and lazy, but he isn't
mad
!"

"Isn't he? You cannot prove it by this latest circus! If he does not take care, he will spend his days locked in a room next to his father." Liverpool struck the tip of his walking stick on the floor for emphasis. "And in typical careless form, he has left me with so few suitable heirs! Charlotte is his only child, and she is a sickly creature. After her, we must take George's younger brothers into account, and every one is more worthless than the one before!"

It would be best to deflect Lord Liverpool from the topic of heirs. "We don't know that George is gone apurpose," Dalton said soothingly. "Perhaps he met with foul play." Although why that would be the more comforting alternative, he didn't know. Unless it was that it was more possible to be rescued from danger than from madness.

He leaned back in his chair, frustrated and weary. This whole mess was turned about. Rose and Collis were missing. The Wentworths reported no contact from either one. There had been no word to Denny, Collis's valet, or Clara, Rose's dearest friend.

"People don't simply vanish," Dalton said grimly.

"Of course they do," Liverpool snapped.

"Not my people," Dalton retorted, his patience overcoming his lifelong habit of respect to his mentor. "Not the Liars."

The Sergeant pattered in just then, still somehow militarily rigid despite his fuzzy wool dressing gown. "My lords, it's Denny! He's come back with a message from Master Collis!"

Dalton blinked. "Come back?" Why had Denny been out and about in the night? Then the sleep cleared from his brain. "Collis!"

Collis was quite delightfully stuck. Rose was asleep upon him, draped like a womanly blanket over his shoulder and chest. Her thigh lay over his groin and her hair spread across him, tickling nearly unbearably. Still, it had been so long since he'd enjoyed the privilege of being wrapped in naked woman that he refused to move an inch for fear of waking her.

A woman. Not his woman, despite his barbaric thoughts earlier. At least, not yet.

And what a woman she was. She was swift and fierce and intelligent and would be a credit to the Liars. She was also, he was surprised to realize, a friend, the like of which he had not had since before he went to war.

A good friend. A respected colleague. He stroked her hair with tender fingers. An enchanting lover.

He wanted more.

It felt odd to be in love for the first time in his life. He looked at her burrowed deeply into the sapphire covers of the sinful bed, with only her hair and the tip of her nose showing from beneath the counterpane.

The first time.

And the last.

Yet she'd never listen to him if he told her now. He knew what she believed, that he was only interested in bedding her. That he would never have the thoughts that he was having right now.

"I want to marry you," he whispered, so softly that even if she had been awake, she likely could not have heard him. "I want to shower you with luxuries that you've never known, and bring you chocolate every morning. I'll build a hearth in our room big enough for a half dozen fires, and I'll put up a target in our ballroom for you to practice your knives. I want to be your partner, your friend and your lover forever."

He leaned down to drop a feather kiss on the end of her nose. She snuffled and pulled her head deeper into the bed linens. Collis chuckled. "And then when forever is over," he breathed into her hair, "I want to start again."

She stirred, then yawned. "Collis?" Her voice was muffled by the covers.

"Yes?"

"Why now?"

He knew what she wanted to know. "When I think back, I realize now that I always wanted you."

She rose up on her elbows to gaze into his face. "You did not."

"Why else would I have fought so hard to drive you away?"

He could tell when she believed at last, when her body seemed to melt against his, as if all the tension and defenses had drained away and left only her. Only Rose. Only Collis.

She dropped her forehead to rest on his chest. He stroked her hair, treasuring the softness of every strand. To touch her, to truly be able to feel her hair, her skin, the taut, flexible firmness of her—he planned to spend the rest of his life trying vainly to tire of this woman.

"There is a story about a girl named Briar Rose," he mused aloud. "Gretchen—who became more a nanny to me than a companion to my mother—used to tell me all sorts of tales from Germany. Most of them contained ravenous wolves for some reason, so I always asked for more."

He felt a soft gust of laughter on his skin. "I know," he said. "Bloodthirsty little snot that I was, I loved them. But there was one about a princess, whose royal parents had angered a witch by not inviting her to the baby princess's christening. So the witch comes uninvited, and there is a curse, and the Princess Rose falls asleep in a castle surrounded by a wall of briars for a hundred years." He snuggled her closer and paused for a yawn. "Now, having some experience with briars myself, I have a lot more sympathy for all the questing princes who died trying to scale those thorny walls."

She bit him lightly at that. He chuckled, then went on. "Eventually, one especially handsome and noble prince comes along and the briars part for him like a sickly hedge, and he finds the Princess Briar Rose, as legend has named her, sleeping in her tower. And, this is the part that I found particularly fascinating, she isn't a day older than she was when she fell asleep a century before. So of course, being well versed in princely etiquette, he kisses her. She wakes up, falls madly in love with him at first sight, and they marry and live happily ever after."

He heard and felt her derisive snort against his skin. "What a load of night soil," she muttered. "Tell me one with wolves."

Collis laughed out loud. "Briar Rose indeed!"

She said something too softly against his skin. He chuckled. "That feels rather stimulating, but I didn't understand a word."

She raised her head. "I tried to drive you away, too."

He nodded. "It was probably a very good idea. I'm glad it didn't work."

"I am, too." She smoothed a hand over her hair to clear it from her face. He'd never seen her look so sad. "The lord and the housemaid. Hardly a suitable match."

"So I snarled."

"And I sniped."

"And here we are, after all."

She rolled into the crook of his arm, no longer looking at him. "Here we are."

The next question hung in the air, but neither of them was willing to speak it.

What do we do now?

The fire was dimming and the room was turning chill. Collis rose, drew on his trousers over his nakedness, and stirred the coals. Pulling his shirt over his head to hang loosely, he took the tasseled throw from the sofa to layer it over the sleeping Rose and climbed in behind her. She immediately turned to him, sleepily opening her arms to draw him into her warmth.

That seemed somehow unusually generous to him, that she would rather warm him than retain her own comfort. She wrapped her arms about him and pulled him close. He relaxed into her lithe softness, feeling rather alarmingly at home.

Then she kicked him. "Hot," she muttered, and shoved the covers down to her hips.

Well, then, perhaps not so very at home after all. He tugged the covers back up. The room was nearly icy in his view. He drew them up over both their shoulders, enjoying the warmth around his neck. Rose all but decapitated him when she yanked them away to push them down. "Oomph," she protested. Then she kicked him again.

Finally he gave up with a sigh. She was apparently much tougher than he was, and he was likely a good deal more spoiled. He left her half-covered and retreated to the other side of the bed. But he took the throw with him.

There were unrealized benefits from this position. He could admire half-naked girl to his heart's content from here. The fire had regained some of its glow and it shone on Rose's skin like the evening light on snow. Curves and slopes, shaped into glory by nature… his own private Alps.

Collis's drowsy contemplation of the precise contour of Rose's naked hip was interrupted by the sound of a door crashing open somewhere in the house. Somewhere very close by—as in the next room, where the Prince Regent was.

In an instant Collis was up and pulling his weapon from beneath his pile of clothing. Rose's feet hit the floor only a split second after his. She whipped her gown over her head and made for her own weapons.

Too late. The door to their room crashed open under the blows of several large fellows. Collis couldn't be sure, but they bore a remarkable resemblance to ruffians he'd met before. They poured into the room in a flood.

Collis brought his pistol up just a moment too late. A massive hand covered his and his shot was wasted on the plaster of the ceiling. He tossed the useless pistol aside and took the fellow on by hand.

In one corner of his mind he was aware of the shrieks and commotion coming from the room next door, and in still another portion he was painfully aware of every rough hand now pinning down a viciously struggling Rose.

The majority of the players were in his court, however, and he took them on willingly enough. There were simply too many. He'd down one with a mighty right cross, only to find another taking the place of the first.

Someone had left nothing to chance in hiring enough louts to take down an army. Collis didn't have to stretch too far to think of who. Rose had been quite correct. Louis Wadsworth wanted his secret kept at any cost.

As he inevitably went down under a mass attack, buried under odorous bodies, Collis had the sinking feeling they were about to find out the hard way.

Collis was down. Rose could see him being hauled limply by the thugs from her position in the hands of two of their attackers. She struck out with bare feet at one, but he'd learned his lesson too well already and stayed just out of reach of her kicks. The two had her nearly stretched between them, one on each arm, immobilizing her with meaty paws that were more binding than manacles.