To Pleasure a Prince (12 page)

Oh…dear…Lord. He rubbed her hard down there, and she nearly leaped out of her skin. His caress made her thrum with unfamiliar desires. She laid her cheek against his shoulder, not even trying to stop him from touching her. Even though it was the most scandalous thing anyone had ever done to her.

And the most exquisite.

When his stroking made her moan, he rasped, “You like that, do you?”

“I…I don’t know…”

“I can feel that you like it.” His voice grew gruff. “But only because you don’t have to look at me. Only because you can imagine it’s someone else—”

“Never.” She twisted around to face him. “I’ve never allowed any man these liberties, I assure you.”

“No?” His eyes gleamed in the darkness as he drew her close, his other hand cupping her breast deliberately through her bodice.

“No.” She caught her breath as he stroked and kneaded her, his gaze hot on her face. “Marcus, we shouldn’t—”

“Shh, dearling.” Taking her by surprise, he dropped to one knee and clasped her about the waist. “Let me taste you,” he whispered, planting a kiss to the inner valley between her breasts. “One taste to enhance your adventure—”

“I never said I wanted…an adventure.”

Not one this scandalous, anyway. His mouth was so hungry, so bold. This went too far—she could not let him…she mustn’t let him…She clutched his head, meaning to draw him back, but his thick hair engulfed her hands in a silky mass and she couldn’t resist stroking it, burying her fingers in it.

And now he was drawing down the bodice of her gown to bare one breast to his intent gaze. Excitement vibrated along her every nerve, making her tighten her fingers in his hair.

“Marcus, what are you…” She trailed off as his mouth seized her breast as boldly as it had seized her lips earlier. Oh, heaven…how delicious.

And what he did to her nipple with his tongue, good Lord!

“God help me,” he tore his lips from her breast to murmur. “Even here you smell like sun and honey. So warm…so sweet.”

He returned to sucking her breast while his hand fondled her other breast beneath her gown. He strummed one nipple and tongued the other until her blood beat wildly.

Then she was pressing his head into her chest, wanting more of the erotic thrills surging down her, undulating along her belly to throb madly in the secret place below that he’d stroked before.

He removed his hand from her breast, only to drag her onto his bent knee. She gasped as his rigid thigh pressed right on that spot between her legs, setting every nerve thrumming.

His mouth seized her other breast this time, sucking it with blatant hunger. Her heart’s mad drumming drowned out the tiny voice of conscience.

But not the music. Beyond the curtain a soaring, lilting aria sounded, a fitting counterpoint to the hot licks of his tongue over her nipple and the pulsing between her legs that she only seemed able to ease by rocking against his thigh.

“Yes, dearling, like that,” he whispered against her breast. “That will make your adventure all the better.”

“I wish you’d…stop calling it that…” Rubbing against him did feel exquisitely adventurous. Deliciously pleasurable. The more she rocked, the more her need seemed to tighten in that one aching spot, like a harp string wound in the tuning until its note arched higher and sweeter and purer—

A sudden burst of thunderous applause erupted around them, the sound shattering all her pleasure. Blinking, she drew back from him. Sweet heaven. She tugged hard on his hair. “Marcus, we must stop.”

“Yes,” he growled as he laved her nipple with his tongue, ignoring the way she pulled at his head. “Soon, dearling, soon…”

“Now,” she said firmly. “The first act must be ending.”

He lifted his head. “It hasn’t been long enough, trust me.”

She had no idea how long it had been. When he was kissing and touching her, she lost all track of time. “I’m sure the lights will come up any moment, and we cannot be seen coming out of the box together unchaperoned.”

When he just stared at her, his eyes blazing hot and hungry and his hands locked on her waist, she added in a whisper, “Please do not let me be ruined.”

His hands slackened. “Damn.” He didn’t try to stop her as she scrambled from his knee. “Confound it all to hell.”

If they did not leave soon, they would be caught together. But no respectable woman wandered the theater alone, either. “Come on!” she cried, jerking at his arm to make him rise. “We have to go!”

He rose stiffly, but then the applause petered out, and the music continued. “It was just the end of the aria. We still have time, thank God.”

She peeped around the curtain at the stage, wishing she could remember what Cicely had read to her from the translation yesterday. “But the first act will surely end soon.” Straightening her gown, she cursed herself for letting matters go so far. “We have to leave the box while no one’s in the hall to see us.”

“I can’t. Trust me, if I go with you into the light right now, you’ll be ruined the second anyone sees me.”

She stared at him uncomprehendingly.

He flashed her a rueful smile. “A woman can hide her arousal, dearling. A man cannot.”

A blush stained her cheeks as she remembered the outrageous information she’d wrangled out of her married friends about men and lovemaking. She resisted the scandalous impulse to drop her gaze.

“Can’t you…” She waved her hand vaguely in the area of his groin. “Can’t you do something?”

Fire flamed in his face. “I could make love to you on the floor, but somehow I don’t think that’s what you mean.”

“Certainly not!”

“Then we’ll have to wait it out.” His tone grew ironic. “Tell me about your cousin Whitmore. That will dampen my…er…ardor in a hurry.”

The request took her by surprise. “What do you want to know?”

“Why was he bothering you?”

Oh, Lord. With a shrug, she glanced away. “He wants to marry me. I said no. Again.”

“Again?”

“He asked before, and I refused. He chose not to accept my refusal.”

“So how many marriage proposals have you refused, anyway? Four? Five?”

“It hardly matters.”

“How many, Regina? And tell me the truth, or I’ll ask Miss Tremaine, who will surely tell me just to spite me.”

Drat him and all his questions. It was exceedingly difficult to discuss such things with a man who’d only moments before been tempting her to sin. “Eleven,” she snapped. “If you count Henry.”

“By all means, let’s count ‘Henry.’ And what’s so wrong with Whitmore that you refused him twice?”

The applause sounding in the house gave her an excuse not to answer. “Come on, we can’t wait any longer, no matter how your ardor is doing.”

“Believe me,” he retorted, as she opened the door, “my ardor is about as dampened now as a man’s can get.”

When Regina peeped out to find the passageway deserted, she nearly collapsed with relief. “Quickly now,” she murmured as she drew him out. “We’ll just tell Cicely and your sister that we were visiting old Lady Montgomery’s box. The countess is so forgetful that even if anyone asks, she’ll say we were there.” She cast him a small smile. “She likes me.”

“Everyone likes you, Regina,” he muttered.

“Even you?”

He had no chance to answer, for as they rounded a bend, they came face-to-face with Henry. And his brothers were with him, blocking the path and forcing her and Marcus to halt.

“Step aside, Whitmore,” Marcus ordered.

Henry glanced past them at the empty passageway, his face turning a mottled red. “The two of you have been in Foxmoor’s box all this time?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Regina said coolly. “We were visiting Lady Montgomery in her box.”

“Liar,” Henry said in a vile tone. “You’ve been with this blackguard. You won’t give me one minute alone with you, but you’ll let the Dragon Viscount—”

“I’d hold my tongue, if I were you,” Marcus broke in. “You’re speaking about a lady of impeccable reputation.”

“It won’t be so impeccable when people hear about this,” Henry retorted.

“Don’t be a fool, Henry,” Richard put in.

Before anyone could say another word, Marcus grabbed Henry by the throat and thrust the young lord up against a wall, his feet dangling off the ground.

“You will not say anything to anyone,” Marcus hissed into Henry’s face, which was already turning red as he struggled for air.

Drat men and their tempers. Praying that the passageway would stay empty another moment, Regina grabbed Marcus’s arm. “Lord Draker, put him down!”

She might as well pull on a lamppost, for Marcus didn’t even seem to notice. He shook Henry as easily as he might wring a chicken’s neck. “You won’t say a word, Whitmore. Because if I hear that you have, I will cut off your tongue and shove it down your goddamned throat. Do you understand me?”

The other two men gasped, as much at his speaking profanity in the presence of a woman as his threat of violence.

“Marcus!” Regina’s cheeks flamed. “For heaven’s sake, put him down!”

“Do you understand, you little ass?” Marcus slammed Henry against the wall. “Do you?”

Henry managed something like a nod, and Marcus released him abruptly. Henry crumpled to the floor like a hot-air balloon collapsing. As his brothers hurried to his side, her cousin pushed himself to his feet, and croaked, “You don’t fight like a gentleman, Draker.”

“No, I don’t,” Marcus growled. “See that you remember that the next time you think to drag a lady’s reputation through the mud.”

The man had lost his mind—did he really think such tactics would solve anything? He was lucky Henry was too big a coward to call him out. And though Henry might keep silent about her and Marcus, he would never keep silent about Marcus’s rough manner and coarse speech.

Marcus held out his arm to her. “Shall we go?”

The box doors burst open, spilling people into the corridor around them. She had no choice but to let him lead her away from her still-gaping cousins. As they navigated the halls her temper soared. Marcus had just made everything infinitely worse. Did he have no sense of how to behave in public? No understanding of the rules?

Either he had none, or he chose to ignore them. But why? She could not believe his mother hadn’t instilled some knowledge of appropriate behavior in him. So why did he ignore his upbringing at every turn?

He practically invited people to insult him. But their insults clearly bothered him, or why would he have been so snide last night when he’d thought she was cutting him? He was a proud man, yet he behaved in a manner sure to invite contempt and condemnation.

Then there was his behavior toward her. One moment he was sneering at her; the next he was kissing and caressing her with a tender passion that made her blood heat just to think of it. None of his actions made any sense.

They entered the Iversley box to find Cicely pacing and Louisa looking positively frantic.

“Where on earth have you been?” Louisa hurried up to Regina. “One of your cousins came looking for you and said that you’d disappeared with Lord Whitmore. Then he mumbled something about Marcus, and we thought something might have happened—”

“Your brother has been busy terrifying the patrons,” Regina bit out.

Marcus cast her an incredulous look. “I was defending
you.”

“By half strangling my cousin?”

“He deserved it. He was going to—”

“Nonsense,” she broke in. “If you’d given me the chance, I would have reminded Henry that gossip is a sword I can wield as well as he. He wouldn’t dare malign me, knowing that I would retaliate by telling people I refused his suit. That would mortify him.”

“You refused Lord Whitmore?” Louisa’s gaze flitted from Regina to Marcus with clear interest.

“No doubt he failed to meet her ladyship’s high standards,” Marcus growled.

“Or Regina simply didn’t think they would suit,” Louisa said helpfully.

Marcus snorted. “I can’t imagine why. He has everything Lady Regina is looking for in a husband—title, wealth…a condescending manner.”

“That’s not what she’s looking for.” Louisa cast Regina an uncertain glance. “Tell him that’s not what you want.”

“Oh, pay your brother no mind.” Regina’s temper flared. “He only says these things to annoy me.”

And disturb his sister. In the past two days, Louisa had doubted her more often than she had in the whole time of their friendship, and all because of the insults her bitter brother continued to—

The light dawned.
That
was why he was behaving like this, doing his best to make Regina despise him. Oh, Lord, now it began to make sense—his contradictory behavior, his insults, his snide manner.

He thought she was shallow, heartless, and fickle, and he wanted Louisa to think so, too. Because if Louisa could be made to doubt Regina’s character, she might also begin to question Simon’s.

Of all the sneaky, conniving tricks! This wasn’t about courting her—that’s why he didn’t try to impress her with compliments or dress to please her. And here she’d thought he actually wanted her.

Tears filled her eyes; she blinked them furiously back. What a fool she’d been. He’d probably thought to prove her a wanton, too, perhaps even ruin her. She’d been too blinded by her stupid physical attraction to him to realize it. She ought to consider herself fortunate he hadn’t come right out and told Henry what they’d been doing.

But she didn’t feel terribly fortunate just now. She felt used, manipulated by a man more expert at it than any of those society members he loathed.

Well, not anymore. If the dragon intended to devour a virgin before he’d stop terrorizing the countryside, he was about to discover how unpalatable this virgin could be.

A discourteous gentleman should never be tolerated.

—Miss Cicely Tremaine,
The Ideal Chaperone

M
arcus knew he was in trouble. He should never have touched Regina, never have tasted her, never have let her entwine him in her spell. Why else had the thought of Whitmore’s ruining her reputation turned him into a slavering beast? Even a boor like him could tell when he’d lost control, and a man should never lose control around his enemies.

Marcus glanced across the carriage to where Regina sat stiffly gazing out the window while her duenna eyed him from beside her with a distinctly malevolent satisfaction. No doubt Miss Tremaine was glad he’d argued with her cousin.

A pox on her. A pox on them both.

Regina had ignored him for the remainder of the opera, conversing only with Louisa or Miss Tremaine, turning no glances his way, and in general treating him like the only discordant note in her social symphony.

He wouldn’t let her get away with it. Yes, he’d gone too far with Whitmore, but she ought to be glad he hadn’t beaten the man to a bloody pulp. That’s what he’d wanted to do the minute that weasel had threatened to slur her in society.

Stifling an oath, he glanced out the window. If he’d been thinking with something other than his cock, he could have used Whitmore’s accusations to his advantage. Regina would have ended her bargain with Marcus if he’d confirmed even a small part of her idiot cousin’s claims.

Instead, he’d browbeaten the man into silence. And why? Because of some chivalric impulse as out of place as the courtly gesture of tossing one’s cape down across a mud puddle. Because after tasting her sweet flesh, he couldn’t stand to watch her reputation reduced to rags for it.

And she was rewarding him with coolness. He’d foolishly let Regina know how badly he desired her, and now she thought to make him pay dearly for it.

The hell she would. “Tomorrow night, we’ll go to the theater with Foxmoor and Louisa,” he told her firmly. “That new fellow Edmund Kean is at Drury Lane.”

His sister, who sat beside him in the carriage, perked up. “That would be lovely. Don’t you think so, Regina?”

“I’m sorry.” Regina kept her gaze fixed out the window. “I’m attending the Hungate ball tomorrow night. But Simon and I will look for you and Louisa there.”

A burning anger settled in the pit of his stomach. “I wasn’t invited.” And she damned well had to know it. “That means Louisa won’t be going, either.”

“But Marcus—” Louisa began.

“We can go riding the next day, however,” he went on.

“If Foxmoor is free.”

“He might be free, but I am not,” she said in such an excruciatingly correct tone it infuriated him. “I have already agreed to attend a friend’s party that day. But I’m sure Louisa and Simon would be delighted to join you.”

“Oh yes—” Louisa began.

“What about the day after that?” he growled, his temper rising.

“That’s Sunday.” Regina leveled a hard glance on him. “I go to church.”

“How very pious of you,” he snapped.

“I pray for the souls of those who delight in their wickedness,” she said sweetly.

“Like your cousins, perhaps?”

Her lips tightened. “Like certain gentlemen I know, yes.”

Louisa laid a hand on his arm. Marcus shrugged it off, his temper soaring. “What about Monday night, then? Kean will still be at Drury Lane.” Damn it, he had not meant to make it a request. He refused to beg her. She’d had him on his knees once tonight—she would not get him there again.

“Monday night I am otherwise engaged. And also on Tuesday.” When he opened his mouth, she added in her most sugary tone, “Wednesday night I’m attending the assembly at Almack’s. I don’t suppose you have a voucher?”

He snorted. “I would sooner cut off my right hand than solicit a voucher from that lot of vultures.”

“What a pity, then, that you need your right hand for strangling gentlemen.”

“Damn it, Regina—” he began, coming to the end of his patience.

“Indeed, my social schedule is so crowded this time of year, I don’t know when the four of us shall be able to meet again. You three must go on without me. But I shall check my schedule when I get home to see if I can fit you in sometime the week after next.” Her brittle smile made him want to shake her.

She meant to punish him for not behaving like a gentleman. But was she also trying to get out of their bargain? The instant punch to his gut made his temper flame higher. She’d better not be. Regina had agreed to a courtship, and she was damned well going to hold up her end of it or reject him in front of his sister, where it might do him some good.

The coach shuddered to a halt. As the footman scurried to open the door, Marcus said, “Stay here, Louisa, while I see the ladies inside. I won’t be long.” Then he leaped from the carriage before Regina could protest.

After handing down the two females, he escorted them up the long stairs. Regina’s overlight hold on his arm irritated him. She could hardly stand to touch him now, but only an hour ago she’d been melting beneath his kisses and caresses. Damn the woman.

As soon as they were inside, he turned to Regina’s cousin. “I’d like a word with Lady Regina alone, Miss Tremaine.”

That sent Miss Tremaine into a dither. “Oh, I don’t know, I—”

“It’s all right, Cicely,” Regina put in. “I’d like a word with his lordship myself. It will only take a moment.”

After that clipped statement, she marched off down the hall with all the regal grace of a true aristocrat. He stalked after her, painfully aware of his ungainly size and heavy gait.

Why the devil had he inherited Prinny’s bulky frame instead of the man’s princely manners? It was damned inconvenient.

He thought of how perfectly Regina had fit in the slender Whitmore’s arms, two elegant people elegantly entwined in an elegant kiss. Until she’d started fighting the bastard.

Marcus’s kisses had been more like the attack of a ravening wolfhound. And then his annoying size had forced him to kneel just so he could suck her breasts…

Not that she’d protested it. Her eager response to his kiss had merely whetted his hunger. Especially when she’d looked so appealing with her blond hair temptingly swirled and coifed and her female flesh plumped up so sweetly it would make any man weep to taste it. Great God, how could he have helped himself?

He could still hear her soft moans of arousal, remember her nipples growing hard as pebbles beneath his tongue. How dared she renege on their bargain after welcoming his advances—

“Well?” She turned to face him. “What did you want to speak to me about?”

With a start, he glanced around. He hadn’t even noticed they’d reached a sitting room, probably hers. He’d followed her blindly, like a slobbering lapdog.

Careful, man.
She’d probably led him deliberately into this enclave of frothy fripperies and spindly chairs that would snap the minute he dropped his massive body into them. She wanted to remind him that she wasn’t meant for ungainly louts like him, but for refined gentlemen.

“You think to punish me with this coldness, don’t you?” he ground out.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“The devil you don’t. Ever since that moment in the corridor when I—”

“Throttled my cousin? Used unconscionably coarse language? Tried to ruin my reputation forever?”

He bristled. “Whitmore was the one trying to ruin you, and you know it. Damn it, you ought to be grateful that I took care of it.”

“Grateful! Your barbaric behavior made an enemy not only of him, but of his brothers, too. If you had used some restraint—” She broke off, then took a steadying breath.

“Which leads me to what I wished to discuss with you.”

This was it. She would break with him. It was exactly what he’d been waiting for—so why was he suddenly finding it so hard to breathe?

“It seems I misunderstood your reasons for courting me.”

That put him on his guard. “What do you mean?”

“You said you wanted someone to ease your entree into society. I thought that you wanted to support Louisa. Yet whenever you are in society, you are rude to whomever we meet.”

“Why be polite to that lot? They’ll despise me no matter what I do.”

“That’s ridiculous—if they despise you, it’s only because of how you act. And I can hardly blame them. You insult me and them at every turn, you make no attempt to adhere to gentlemanly manners, and you dress as if you’re going to a wheat-threshing instead of out into good society.”

“I’m only being myself. You knew what I was when you met me.”

“I assumed you were being rude to me then because of my brother. I never dreamed that you lacked any knowledge of proper social behavior whatsoever.”

He scowled. “I don’t. I’ll admit I overreacted when Whitmore made his threats, but that doesn’t give you the right to renege on our bargain.”

“Who said anything about reneging on our bargain?”

“That’s what I call it when you refuse to let me accompany you anywhere.”

She cast him one of her cool, condescending smiles. “You misunderstand. I am merely putting you off until we can resolve this situation.”

He eyed her warily. “Oh?”

“If we begin lessons at once, you should be ready in no time.”

He blinked. “Ready for what?”

“To go back into society. If you and I are to keep courting, you cannot continue to fumble about, insulting people willy-nilly. I do have a reputation to maintain.” He gaped at her as she paced the room, ticking things off on her fingers. “Since you’re so fond of books, I’ll send you the most recent ones on deportment for gentlemen. We’ll consult with Lord Iversley about a tailor, and I’m sure Simon would be willing to explain to you all the rules of appropriate gentlemanly—”

“I am not going to be tutored by your damned brother!” he exploded. “There’s nothing wrong with my clothes, and I behave as I please. It has nothing to do with not knowing the rules.”

She turned slowly to face him, her eyebrows arching high. “Do you mean to say you
choose
not to follow the rules of gentlemanly behavior?”

“Damned right,” he growled.

“But I don’t understand. You insisted that we have a proper courtship, that it not be private, that I be seen in public with you. I assumed that in return you meant to treat me the way a man who is courting a woman generally does—with courtesy and respect. But apparently it’s only a proper courtship for me. For you, it’s…what? I am trying to understand.”

Uh-oh. This was not how he wanted the conversation to go. “It’s…er…”

“Surely you know that behaving badly shames both me and your sister. So why do it?” Her eyes narrowed. “Perhaps because this is not a proper courtship after all? Because it is only your scurrilous way of trying to make me give up on Louisa and Simon?”

His blood chilled. Had she guessed what he was up to? “That’s absurd.”

“And all your talk of wanting a beautiful woman on your arm? Was that a lie, too? And your kisses and your claim to desire me?” Her hands were shaking now, and her lower lip trembled.

He stifled an oath. “You know damned well I desired you…I
desire
you…I—” God, she was talking circles around him.

“You desire me. Yet you do not want to please me.”

“I didn’t say that,” he growled.

“You certainly said and did nothing to make me think otherwise. So how can you blame me for thinking you were toying with my affections for your own vile purposes? The way you claim Simon is toying with Louisa’s?”

The comparison hit him like a blow to the chest. Something had gone badly awry during this conversation, but he’d be damned if he could figure out where.

La Belle Dame Sans Merci is used to turning men inside out, remember?

“I hardly think I could toy with a woman who’s rejected eleven proposals of marriage,” he shot back, desperate to regain his footing in the deepening morass that suddenly surrounded him.

Anger glittered in her eyes. “So you decided that my having past suitors made it acceptable for you to toy with me.”

“Damn it, I wasn’t toying—I meant—” He swore a foul oath. “You’re twisting this all around. You know how I feel about society. Why should I follow their ridiculous rules?”

“Because you’re courting me?” When he scowled, she added dismissively, “Never mind. I think I understand now.”

He stiffened. “Understand what?”

“If you did not set out purposely to toy with me—” She paused to cast him a brittle glance. “That is what you claim, isn’t it?”

“Of course,” he bit out, more uncomfortable with this conversation by the moment.

“Then it must be as I said at first—you don’t know how to behave publicly.” She gave a heavy sigh. “I should have seen it before. You are simply too proud to admit it. All your grousing and protests—they’re precisely how a man behaves when he’s out of his element and doesn’t want anyone to know.”

“Out of his element?” he said uneasily.

“I suppose I shouldn’t have made it worse by pointing out your need for lessons in gentlemanly deportment.”

“I do not need lessons in deportment!” he roared.

“There’s no need to shout,” she said primly. “It’s all right. You needn’t be ashamed of it with me.” Her face showed nothing but pity.

Pity, damn her!

A million shades of red exploded in his brain. Nobody pitied him, not her, not his sister, nobody. Perhaps he floundered a bit when he was in society, but that was only because of how those asses treated him. Did she expect him to be
nice
to them? When they were rude to him? To smile and bow and—

The devil he would. He thrust his face right down to hers. “I do not need lessons in a damned thing. I simply choose not to cater to your insane whims and society’s silly rules.”

“Forgive me, but that’s what incompetent fellows always protest when they don’t know how to dance or behave properly or say the right things. But I am perfectly happy to help you learn—”

“I do not need your help! I do not need anyone’s help.” Realizing he’d sunk so far into the morass he might never get out, he decided that retreat was best. “I’ve had enough of this nonsense. Good evening, madam.”

As he stalked toward the door, she called out, “Lord Draker?”

“What?” he snapped without breaking stride.