To Wed a Wicked Prince (27 page)

Livia thought, particularly after the last hour, that she had experienced all there was to experience in the business of lovemaking, or at least everything that was possible outside of the more esoteric poses illustrated in Sophia’s books. She now learned that she had not. Thus far in their union Alex had merely shown her the tip of the iceberg when it came to his knowledge of the world of sensual delight. As the hours passed, he withheld his own release, concentrating only on bringing her again and again to the crest. His mouth and tongue found every nook and cranny of her body in a dance of arousal, and she was lost in a turmoil of sensation. Again and again he held her on the edge of dissolution until she could bear it no longer, and only then would he touch her, a flick of his tongue, a nuzzle of his lips, a stroke of a finger, and she would once more fall into the void, where all sense of herself as distinct from pure sensation did not exist.

The candles were guttering, the fire a glow of embers when at last Alex allowed himself to climax for the second time. He held her tightly against him as his climax shuddered within her and he felt the velvety sheath of her body pulse around him in one last orgasmic convulsion.

Livia’s legs fell from around his waist, her arms fell onto the bed, and she was aware of nothing. Alex moved slowly to disengage, easing himself onto the bed beside her. Her eyelids fluttered and she smiled weakly. “I went somewhere.”

“
La petite morte,
” he said softly, too exhausted to kiss her but managing a flutter of a hand against her thigh. “It happens occasionally, when a climax has been particularly intense.”

Livia closed her eyes again. When she next opened them, Alex was no longer beside her. She struggled onto an elbow and saw that the fire had been fed and was now blazing. Fresh candles were in the candlesticks, although none were close enough to the bed to disturb her sleep. The door to Alex’s chamber stood ajar.

“Where are you?” she called.

“Here.” He appeared in the doorway, smiling as he retied the girdle of his robe. “Are you hungry? We’ve had no dinner.”

“Oh, no, so we haven’t.” She struggled up against the pillows, acutely aware of her body. Of the stickiness between her legs, a slight soreness there, a faint, deep ache in her muscles, muscles she hadn’t known she had. And she was famished.

“The house will be asleep.”

Alex shook his head. “This particular slave is wide awake. I will go and forage, madam.”

“I would really like some hot water,” Livia said. “But I think you’ve played your part for one night, so I’ll come and fetch it myself.”

He shook his head. “No, you won’t. You’ll stay right here and I’ll be back soon.” He left the room and Livia fell back on the bed, not at all sure that she was even capable of doing something so energetic as fetching water.

Alex returned in a few moments with a steaming jug. He poured water into the basin and beckoned to her. “My last task.”

Livia climbed off the bed and crossed to him on slightly wobbly legs. “Don’t start anything, Alex,” she pleaded, trying to take the washcloth from him. “I cannot endure any more tonight.”

“I’m not sure I can either,” he said. “Be still now.” He passed the washcloth over her body, leaving not an inch of skin untouched, but with a swift efficiency that would have been appropriate for a nursemaid. He handed her a towel and bent to pick up her discarded robe. “Put this on and I’ll go down for our supper.”

Livia did as he said and then slumped into a chair by the fire, smiling to herself at the chessboard that was still set up in the endgame. It wasn’t possible for a man to be such a wonderfully inventive and unselfish lover and also a deceiver.

Alex returned with a laden tray that he set on the dresser. “Hot food was beyond my capabilities at three in the morning, but there’s a cold chicken, vegetables in aspic, one of Ada’s game pies, a little salmon mousse, and that amazing pudding that Mavis makes with the crispy meringue. Carve the chicken while I fetch the wine.” He disappeared again.

Livia had carved the chicken and served up a little of everything else onto the two plates when Alex returned with a bottle of burgundy and two glasses.

She cleared away the chessboard and sat down on the floor again as he brought the glasses over and set them on the low table. “I didn’t know how hungry I was.”

“It’s hungry work, lovemaking,” he observed. “Thirsty too.” He drank deeply of his wine and forked a piece of chicken. “By the way, I’d like us to host a dinner in the next couple of weeks.”

It was such a non sequitur, such an extraordinary change of subject and mood after their play that Livia took a minute to absorb the statement. “Of course. When?” she responded, trying to hide her surprise and slight dismay that he could so easily move from the glories of the bed to such a mundane topic. It was the first time such an initiative had come from Alex. He always seemed more than happy to go along with whatever hospitality she arranged, or invitation she had accepted for them both, but otherwise, except when they spent time alone together like tonight, he had his own social circle as she had hers. Society would have looked askance at anything else.

“How soon can it be done?” He took a bite of a piece of game pie.

“Not for several weeks,” she said. “Even if the invitations went out tomorrow, we have to accept that people have prior engagements. How many guests are you thinking of?”

“Not many…six couples only.” He leaned back against the chair with a sigh of repletion.

“Close friends?” She sipped her wine, wondering if at last she was going to become properly acquainted with his Russian associates.

“Not really…let’s just say that they’re people I’d like to know better.”

So much for that hope. “Who are they?”

“I’ve made a list.” Alex got up from the floor and went into the adjoining bedchamber, reemerging with a sheet of paper. He let it flutter into Livia’s lap before settling on the floor again and attacking the meringue.

Livia read the list of names. She was barely acquainted with most of them but she knew they were all on the fringes of the government. The only one who was really familiar made her wrinkle her nose. “I loathe Eversham, Alex,” she said. “He’s a pompous, bullying ass and his poor little mouse of a wife puts a damper on any dinner table.”

“Nevertheless, I would like you to invite them,” he said.

His tone was perfectly warm and pleasant but still Livia heard the hint of steel, and despite the evening’s play, all her earlier misgivings arose in full flood. “Why?” she ventured.

He raised his eyes from his plate and it was there just for a second…that diamond-bright flint. “Sweeting, I have an interest in Lord Eversham’s opinions.”

“But he’s a politician…I thought you said you weren’t interested in politics?”

“If you recall, I said I wasn’t interested in the process, but I did enjoy stimulating discussions.”

“And these others…they will provide stimulating discussion?” She flicked almost derisively at the sheet of names.

“I hope so,” he responded easily.

“More stimulating than Harry…or Nick…or David?”

“Harry I grant you, but Petersham and Foster are more interested in the gaming tables than the political arena,” he said. “Although I enjoy their company on the right occasion. But there’s a time and a place for everything, my sweet. So will you oblige me in this?”

“Yes, of course,” she said swiftly. It was a simple enough request, it just seemed an odd time for him to be making it. “But I’d like to invite a few other couples just to dilute the brew.”

“No.” He shook his head. “Just these. That’s all I need you to do.”

Livia looked at him in frowning silence for a moment. The only reason anyone would want to invite such a group would be to further some political ambition, but Alex couldn’t possibly have such an ambition. Maybe in his own country, but hardly in this one.

Oh, well.
She gave a mental shrug. She could endure one boring evening with good grace if it would please her husband. He certainly went out of his way to please her. The reflection brought a dancing smile to her eyes.

“Then so be it. The only problem I can see is how to divide the menu between your cook and the twins.” She tapped the sheet again. “These people will enjoy the twins’ rather more familiar culinary skills, and probably be a little suspicious of your cook.”

“Boris will see to all the arrangements once you’ve issued the invitations. The twins will have no part in this dinner,” he stated. “Come, let’s to bed.” He held out his hand to her over the table and pulled her to her feet. “My bed, I think. Yours is rather tumbled.”

Livia slept the sleep of exhaustion, but when she awoke in the morning it was with a renewed sense of unease that at first she couldn’t put a name to. The curtains were drawn securely around the bed and she could hear Alex talking to Boris in the room beyond her enclosed space. They were not talking in English. She had a sudden memory from their first meeting when he’d told her he was fluent in many languages except Russian. He spoke to the dogs in Russian on occasion but she’d somehow assumed he only had a few phrases. She’d never heard him use it as fluently as he was now. And if it wasn’t Russian he was speaking now, what was it? Certainly not French. Why weren’t they speaking English anyway? Boris was fluent in the language.

They didn’t want her to understand them. It was the only explanation that came to mind. But what possible conversation could Alex be having with his majordomo that she shouldn’t hear? Perhaps it was something of personal concern to Boris, she decided. It was reasonable that he shouldn’t want her to know his personal business. It wasn’t as if they were exactly bosom friends.

She lay back and closed her eyes, letting the sounds wash over her, but even so there was something disturbing about the alien words, and she didn’t like the feeling of deliberate exclusion. And now she realized that it was by no means the first time she’d felt it since her marriage.

When Alex drew back the curtains with a vigorous rattle, her eyes shot open. “Has Boris gone?”

“Yes, it’s all clear.” He came to the bed and bent to kiss her. “Good morning, my love. You slept well.”

“Yes, like the dead,” she agreed. “Was that Russian you were speaking? I thought you didn’t speak it.”

“I don’t speak it very often,” he said casually. “And rarely through choice.”

“Why did you choose to speak it just then?” She tried to make the question sound merely casual.

“What an inquisitive creature you are this morning. Why would you wish to know?” He was smiling, but there was a speculative look in his penetrating blue gaze.

“No reason. I’m sure your conversations with Boris are no business of mine,” Livia said.

“Boris would certainly agree with you,” he said smoothly. “Are you getting up now?”

That seemed to be the end of that little discussion. “Yes.” She pushed aside the covers. “What are your plans this morning?” She stood up and stretched, the air cool on her naked body.

Alex looked at her appreciatively, then he shook his head and reached for her discarded dressing gown. “Put this on, for pity’s sake. You’re too tempting and I’m too busy to yield to temptation this morning.”

Livia made a mock moue of disappointment. “Too busy doing what?”

“People to see, places to go,” he said with a vague gesture, heading for the door. “Don’t forget those invitations. Boris will have them delivered as soon as they’re written.”

“How could I forget?” she muttered. “I still don’t know why you want to condemn us to an evening of unconscionable boredom.”

If Alex heard, he made no sign, and the door closed behind him.

Livia went through to her own chamber. Someone had been in and cleared away the night’s supper dishes. The bed was made with clean linen and the fire relit. As she pulled the bell rope for Ethel she wondered with a suppressed chuckle if the disheveled state of the room had provoked some ribald talk below stairs.

She was going downstairs to her parlor a short while later when the front door knocker sounded. It was too early for social calls and no tradesman would come to the front door. Instinctively she stopped on the stairs, then moved back up them until she was out of sight around the curve of the staircase but had a clear view of the hall. Why she was behaving in this fashion she had no idea. It was her house when all was said and done, but for some reason in these last weeks she seemed to have become secretive, watchful, and she realized now that it was based on the same feeling she’d had that morning in Alex’s bed. A feeling that there were things going on that were being kept from her.

She had always been so open in her responses, lying was foreign to her, and as far as she knew no one had ever deliberately lied to her in her entire life. Her father certainly had never kept anything from her or told her less than the truth. In her childhood he had encouraged her curiosity and generally answered her questions fully. On the rare occasions when he chose not to he had always told her the reason. But now she sometimes had the impression that she was living on the periphery of a world that operated by different rules, rules she was not to know. It was a world that ran on parallel lines to the one she did know and understand. The one that contained a loving husband, a vibrant circle of friends, a familiar round of pleasurable activities.

She was beginning to wonder if she was losing her grip on reality, as she hid on the stairs and peered down into the hall. Boris had opened the door and a swift exchange in Russian took place between him and the visitor, who stepped into the hall.

Livia recognized the man as the rough-looking visitor she had met briefly in the library when she’d gone to confront Alex about Morecombe and the twins. How long ago that seemed now. Boris escorted the man to the library and showed him in, leaving the door slightly ajar as he returned to the kitchen.

Livia moved swiftly down the stairs. She crossed the hall and pushed open the library door. “Oh, forgive me, I didn’t realize anyone was in here,” she lied with a smile, closing the door behind her. “We’ve met before, I believe.” She held out her hand.