Abducted by a Prince (24 page)

There was truth in her observation, Damien realized. Perhaps her illustrations of fantastical creatures
had
spoken to a place deep inside his past. He smoothed his hand over her tousled hair. “Yes, well, just like you, Mimsy had quite a knack for storytelling. She often advised me to be as gallant and brave as a storybook prince … because I, too, had royal blood.”

Ellie gave him a startled stare. “What? She
told
you that you were related to the royal family?”

He shook his head emphatically. This was why he’d been reluctant to reveal his past to her. He disliked anyone knowing that he’d once been naïve enough to believe such a Banbury tale. “No. Absolutely not. It was just a morality tale, her way of convincing me to comport myself as a prince. You see, I was a rather rambunctious lad, always getting into scrapes, and since I had no father, she thought to encourage me to model my behavior after heroic figures.”

“But what about the crown on the missing key? Doesn’t that prove—”

“It proves nothing. It’s far more likely to be the other way around, that Mimsy was inspired to tell me such a tale
because
of the crown on the key. She must have known that a child would be gullible enough to believe her.”

From the slight puckering of her brow, Ellie didn’t appear convinced. “Mad King George had more than a dozen children. Perhaps one of them sired an illegitimate son—
you.
”

“And then arranged for me to be spirited away to be raised in poverty?” Damien shook his head again. In his youth, he’d entertained such a fantasy, but no more. “Royal bastards have a certain standing in society. So I’m sure my story is far more prosaic. I was likely an inconvenient surprise for an unmarried lady and needed to be hidden from sight. When I retrieve the key, it may provide a clue to her identity. I intend to find her if I can, and to learn the truth…”

He stared at the flames on the hearth. Because of Lily, he thought fiercely. Someday, Lily would ask him about her grandparents, and he wanted to have answers to her questions. But he could not—would not—reveal that part to anyone, not even to Ellie.

She gently stroked his cheek, drawing his attention back to her. “You haven’t yet explained how you came to be called the Demon Prince.”

“It was a slur invented by your cousin Walt during my first semester at Eton. One afternoon, he and his cronies ganged up on me behind the cloisters. I fought back and bloodied a few noses. But they were bigger and there were three of them.”

“Finn told me about that incident. It happened the same day you’d learned that Mrs. Mims had died. You went there to be alone, only to be set upon by those boys. He said that you were roughed up, your robes torn.”

“Yes, they pinned me down on the ground so that I was helpless. I struggled, but I couldn’t free myself. That’s when I made the mistake of shouting that my father was a king and he would chop off their heads. You can only imagine their mirth.”

He gave her a cynical smile, but Ellie didn’t smile back. Instead, she had a suspicious sheen in her eyes. “So my cousin started calling you the Demon Prince.” Before Damien could make a jest of it, she circled her arms around his neck and kissed him gently on the cheek. “Walt should never have mocked you that way. Boys can be very cruel sometimes.”

Damien folded his arms around her, too. He held her tightly, quilt and all. Not that he needed comforting. No. It would be ridiculous for a grown man to want consoling over an event that had happened in the distant past. Nevertheless, he couldn’t deny feeling somehow relieved for having shared the story.

“I despised the name at first,” he said, “but in time I came to embrace it. I used it to finagle my way into a group of dissolute young bucks at Eton. I fleeced them at cards, won enough to open my own club, and called it Demon’s Den.” He grinned at her. “And of course, my scandalous reputation as the Demon Prince has also made me quite popular with women.”

Ellie gave him a severe look. “Most gentlemen try to live up to their principles. You, I think, have tried to live
down
to yours.”

He laughed. “So now you will be the strict governess again. Perhaps you will punish me for my sins, hmm?”

His hands delved beneath the covers to play with her breasts. They were soft and abundant, and the tips puckered to his touch. The warm silk of her skin made him keen to have her again.

She melted against him, her fingertips trailing down his chest. “Punish? Oh, no, my prince. I was thinking more in terms of a reward. You see, I have become as sinful as you are.”

At the impish sparkle in her eyes, Damien felt his potency return in a mad rush of heat. He untangled her from the quilt and then reclined against the pillows, bringing her down to sprawl on top of him, his very own goddess of love. Her hair spilled around them in a fiery curtain. She smiled in delight at the new position and suggestively swiveled her hips.

They began to kiss and caress at a leisurely pace, taking pleasure in each other, murmuring and sighing. Time ceased to exist. Damien could not remember when he had enjoyed himself more—perhaps never. Again, he felt possessed by an irresistible affection for her, the desire to make her happy. When at last he pressed deeply into her body, he derived a fierce satisfaction from her cries of bliss before allowing his own completion.

In the aftermath, he blew out the lamp and then settled back down in the bed. Ellie lay hugging a pillow, already half asleep. He drew the covers over them, tucked her into the cradle of his body, and dropped a light kiss into the fragrant tangle of her hair.

His arms enfolding her, he gazed into the semidarkness that was lit only by the glowing remains of the fire. A mental restlessness kept him from joining her in slumber. With any other woman, he would be making his departure. He never actually
slept
with his partner once his physical needs had been slaked. But with Ellie, he wanted to stay. He didn’t want to let her go.

It wasn’t like him to be so irrational. They had only this one night, after all. She had been very explicit about that. And no matter how much he might crave it, he could not bring himself to dishonor her by offering the position of his mistress. He had already abducted her, ruined her reputation, and claimed her innocence.

He couldn’t rob her of her ambitions, too.

Ellie had a plan for her life, an admirable determination to live alone and work on her storybooks. He had no right to interfere with that. Nor would he. Once they returned to London, this obsession for her surely would vanish.

He concentrated on that thought. It had to be merely their enforced isolation here at the castle that had fostered his attachment to her. Once he resumed his business dealings and the routine of his daily life, he would forget about Ellie Stratham. She would join the legions of other women that he’d enjoyed and then barred from his private life.

Satisfied by the logical conclusion, he closed his eyes and succumbed to a postcoital lethargy. For tonight, there could be no harm in indulging his wish to remain with her. But he must be away before first light. Finn would have Damien’s head on a pike if he was unwise enough to be caught in Ellie’s bed.

Thankfully, he had an internal clock that never failed to awaken him at dawn. His last thought before drifting into slumber was a hazy resolve to bestir himself early enough to make love to her one last time.

Chapter 19

A thumping sound summoned Ellie from the depths of a deep sleep. Every part of her resisted swimming to the surface of awareness. She felt too contented in mind and body, too happy in her dreams. Then the noise intruded again, and in her groggy state, she identified it as an insistent rapping.

She opened her eyes to the watery sunlight streaming through the high, narrow windows of her bedchamber. At the same instant, she realized that her back rested in the heated cradle of a man’s body. His heavy arm lay draped over her waist.
Damien.

All at once, the events of the previous evening flooded her mind, the hours of sensual enjoyment, the heady rapture of release. They had made love twice, then again sometime during the dark of night. She had asked him to stay just until dawn. But he hadn’t departed, he had fallen asleep in her bed. And now …

A realization struck away the last cobwebs of sleep. Dear God, someone was at the door. They were about to be discovered!

She rolled over, intending to shake him awake, only to find Damien already blinking drowsily at her, his black hair in attractive disarray. His green-gray eyes widened on her, then cut over to the brightly lit windows. He thrust himself up on one elbow as the knocking rattled the door again, louder this time.

“What the devil—” He sprang out of bed and snatched up his breeches, hopping on one leg and then the other as he yanked on the garment.

Ellie frantically searched the tangle of covers for her missing chemise. He had stripped it from her in the midst of their lovemaking. Where had it fallen?

Spying a white heap on the carpet beside the bed, she caught it up in her hand just as the door was flung open and Mrs. MacNab came marching into the bedchamber.

The maidservant’s eyes goggled. She let out a screech. “Ahhh! ’Tis just as Finn feared, ye was in milady’s bed! Oh, laird! How could ye treat her so ill?”

Mortified, Ellie clutched the chemise to her bare bosom and tried to cover her nakedness. Despite the chill in the air, her face felt blazing hot. She wanted to dive beneath the covers and not come out again until next week. No, next
year.

Damien had his breeches only half buttoned. “Devil take it, woman, turn around! Better yet, step outside for a moment.”

Mrs. MacNab remained standing in the doorway, glowering, her hands parked on her ample hips. “Mind yer tongue, young man. ’Tis
ye
who’s at fault here! Dinna ye have no shame?”

Ellie drew a shaky breath. No matter how embarrassed she was, she couldn’t let the servant go on thinking that Damien was responsible. Not when it had been Ellie who had coerced him into sharing her bed. “Mrs. MacNab, it isn’t quite as it seems. You see—”

“It is precisely as it seems,” Damien cut in, his voice cold and hard as he yanked on his black boots. “Last night, I seduced Miss Stratham. I took advantage of her innocence. It was not the act of a gentleman, and I am entirely to blame.”

He flicked a stern glance at Ellie as if warning her to be silent. Or perhaps he’d realized that making love to her had been a mistake to be repented in the harsh light of day. That second thought made her heart wither.
Did
he regret it? She remembered how he had resisted her at first.
For God’s sake! I can’t do this, not to you of all women.

After the tragedy of his first marriage, he had not wanted to entangle himself with a virginal lady. Yet Ellie had enticed him, tempted him, convinced him. And now he appeared to be having second thoughts about their intimacy. Except for that one stony glance, he took no notice of her at all. He merely donned his shirt and turned to gather up the rest of his garments where they lay in a trail over the floor.

“’Tis best ye make haste, laird,” Mrs. MacNab said stiffly. “Finn sent me t’ tell ye there’s a rowboat a-comin’ an’ ye’re soon t’ have guests.”

Damien turned sharply on his heel. “What? Who?”

“Dinna ask
me.
” She shook her stubby finger at him. “’Tis
ye
who should’ve been keepin’ watch, instead o’ plantin’ yer seed in virtuous young ladies.”

During their short exchange, Ellie managed to surreptitiously pull the chemise over her head to cover her nakedness. A rowboat! Someone was heading to the island. Who? Had Walt brought the stolen key, after all? Did he intend to ransom her?

The thought shook her to the core. She had been so certain that her cousin would never leave the pleasures of London on her behalf …

Then a worse fear struck her. Perhaps the Earl of Pennington had come, too. Perhaps he had coerced the story from Walt and now intended to rescue his niece from the clutches of a notorious scoundrel.

Her stomach churned. If indeed it was Uncle Basil, he would be in a rage to avenge the family honor. He might very well have brought an officer of the law with him.

The more she considered it, the more plausible that possibility seemed. Damien would be arrested on the spot.

She opened her mouth to warn him, but he was already pulling on his coat and striding toward the door. As he brushed past Mrs. MacNab, he snapped, “Keep Miss Stratham here. I’ll send for her if necessary.”

Blast his orders! Ellie had no intention of being confined to the tower room. Not when he could be walking into a trap.

She scrambled out of bed and grabbed her petticoat from the floor. The fire on the hearth had long since died, and her teeth chattered from both the cold air and an attack of nerves. She had to get down to the beach as swiftly as possible in order to avert a disaster.

Damien mustn’t be thrown behind bars—even if he
had
committed the crime of abducting her. It wasn’t just because she now knew him to be a worthy man who’d only wanted the return of that stolen key. Nor was it because they’d shared a wonderful night together, one that she would remember for the rest of her life, one that had left her body pleasantly tender in places from their unaccustomed activities.

She swallowed a lump in her throat. No, he mustn’t be imprisoned because he was vital to her own independence. Damien had agreed to give her the cottage in the country where she could be alone to work on her storybook. He also would provide her with a small stipend to tide her over until she could sell her book to a publisher.

It was a dream come true.

But how could she explain all that to her uncle—and to Walt? They would say only that Damien had dishonored her. They would seek his punishment.

Her trembling fingers made a tangle of the ties of her petticoat. She would
not
permit her family to interfere in her plans for her life. If Walt or the earl made a misguided attempt to avenge the stain on the family honor, then she would lose everything. Damien could hardly fulfill his promise to her if he was confined to a dank cell.