Fates for Apate (11 page)

She shifted a bit, testing her muscles. "I'm sore in places where I didn't know I had places."

He chuckled and kissed her cheek, nuzzling into her hair. "Then I suppose it's good we need to move on.”

She ran her hands down his arms, feeling the muscles and hairs, so different from her own. He rose up on his elbow again, watching her as she explored his body in ways she had been too distracted to do last night. She had seen naked men before, but none of them had been
hers
. She was intrigued with every aspect of him. Her fingers trailed over his chest and down to his ribs.

"If you keep this up we won't be getting on that carriage this morning." His voice was husky and low. She looked up at him with a mischievous smile and wrapped her fingers around his cock. He cleared his throat. "Especially not if you do that."  

He kissed her slow and deep while she rubbed her hand up and down his shaft. She shouldn't encourage him, she really was sore. But she couldn't help herself. Madame Blythe had filled her head with knowledge that she suddenly had a practical use for. Based on the low growl that Casimir made in his throat, that use was in driving her husband helplessly insane. He broke their kiss and moved down her body to her breasts, effectively removing his hardened member from her reach. She gave a frustrated huff and buried her fingers in his hair. Shortly he had her gasping and writhing under him again. Then he stood up.

She scrambled to the edge of the bed. "Where are you going?"

"Getting dressed. You have a wedding to get to." He tossed her chemise on top of her and then slapped her thigh playfully. "You have to get dressed, too, or I'm carrying you out in the blanket."

She pulled the chemise over her head. "You're a terrible tease."

"I'm wounded. I thought you knew that about me and married me anyway."

She stuck her tongue out, but joined him in quickly dressing from the clothes they had scattered last night. When she retrieved her hair pins she saw that half of them had been doused in candle wax when the flame had guttered in the night. "I don't have enough clean pins to put up my hair."

Casimir wrapped his arms around her from behind and set his chin on her shoulder. "Leave it down."

"People will think me wanton."

He ran a possessive hand down her belly. "You have a point. We wouldn't want them knowing the truth, would we?"

"Women of my station are not wanton," she informed him primly.

"Then what was last night?"

"Doing my duty for God and country." She couldn't keep up her prim facade and laughed. "That's what the old biddies say about one's marital duties. Think of England."

"Then I can only hope you'll be so patriotic every night."

She turned and looped her arms around his neck. "They wouldn't have to be so patriotic if they just married a man who made them feel wanton."

"So the Lady from England admits that she is, in fact, wanton."

"Only in certain circumstances."

"It would please the chamber if you would iterate the circumstances in which you are wanton."

She lowered her voice to a husky whisper. "When you kiss me. When you dance with me. When you touch me. When you look at me..."

He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead on hers. "Unless you wish to take up residence in Nuremberg we should leave before I endeavor to make you wanton again."

When she turned to leave he chased her from the room and pinched her bottom.

* * *

Casimir held his wife tight against his side, his feet crossed at the ankle on the opposite seat of the carriage. They had run out of idle chatter some time ago and he was fairly sure that Gina dozed. He watched the countryside rolling by outside the window. He should be far more upset than he was. In two days he had redirected the course of his life. But in this moment all he could feel was content. Pleased.

Last night certainly had something to do with that. He couldn't wait until they were able to indulge in bedsport again. He caressed his fingers over the arm she had curled against his chest. She shifted with a soft sigh and he held as still as he could in the swaying carriage to keep from waking her.

"Speak to me in your language again," she murmured.

"What do you want me to say?"

"Anything. I just love to hear your voice."

So he told her about his childhood. About the forest, how quiet it was at night. About his mother’s dumplings and his sister’s love of rabbits. He told her the good things, because those were all he wanted to think on for now.

C
HAPTER
N
INETEEN

The night in Frankfurt was a blur and Cologne was only glanced from outside the carriage window as they continued their pell-mell dash to London. They were spending this night in a village that George hadn't even heard the name of. The travel was an odd combination of forced inactivity and exhaustion. Her husband helped her strip down to her chemise and seemed content to pull her into bed to sleep as they had done the night before. They could be to the port by tomorrow night if they arose early enough. But George was intrigued by how easily she had come to think of Casimir with the possessive term husband. Once they were lying in the bed she stroked her fingers over his eyebrows in the darkness.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Touching you."

He chuckled. She loved that sound. It was intimate, seductive. "I can think of better things for you to touch."

"Pervert."

"Absolutely." He rolled her onto her back and kissed her throat. "Is there anything you would like for me to touch?"

"Everything?"

He growled and squeezed her hip, his lips covering hers in a heated kiss. Madame Blythe had taught her the ways of seduction and sensual manipulation, but her education had been woefully short on explaining the emotions that she was feeling now. Along with the sexual excitement that was coursing through her veins there was something else. A sweetness, a rightness that she had never felt before meeting her husband. He had effortlessly elicited those feelings from the start, and over time they had only grown.

He pulled away from their kiss. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."
Only a fear that you'll break my heart.

He kissed her cheek and side of her throat. "If you're still sore we can wait. We'll have time on the boat with nothing better to do."

"You won't be seasick?" she teased.

"Hmm, good question. Is the Channel rough? I've only been on rivers before."

"It can be rough, but most likely nothing worse than the infernal jostling of that carriage."

"Are you sore from all the travel,
ukochany
?"

She felt herself melt from what she was sure was an endearment in his native language. It was hard to say whether she would rather learn to speak Polish or simply listen to the nonsensical poetry of his words when she didn't know what he meant.

"No," she said in a small voice. "I'm not sore."

"What do you want?"

"I want you to make love to me. Please?"

As a good husband, he fulfilled her request.

* * *

This would hopefully be their last day in the carriage. On the one hand Casimir was heartily tired of spending all day racing across the countryside. On the other, this was essentially a place out of time where he and Gina had nothing to occupy their time except each other. Today she had broken out a set of cards from her luggage and they were playing piquet on the seat between them. It was a challenge keeping the tricks organized on the leather seat while the carriage jostled about, and there had been more than one outbreak of teasing each other about cheating when a crucial card had been covered up by the shifting.

She was crowing her triumph over taking another trick when a ray of light shined across her face, highlighting her smile and laughing eyes. Casimir felt his heart lodge in his throat. She was so beautiful, so full of life. Had he endangered her with this letter? Would his protection be enough? He had wanted to marry her anyway, but knowing that his name might stay Otto's wrath had made it that much more urgent. Now she was his, in every way. At times she had a reserve that concerned him, but their rapport was such that he didn't worry about it overly. It turned out that building up their friendship first was standing them in good stead. Honestly, she was among the best friends he had ever had. He felt neither her superior nor inferior. They were evenly matched in wit, and their temperaments complementary. He looked forward to spending the rest of his days with her.

A lock of her hair had fallen out of her pins. The pins he had helped her clean the wax from two days before, while they laughed and formed tiny wax animals with the shards. He reached to smooth the lock back over her ear. She looked up at him, an expression of pure longing on her features for a moment before she gave him one of her typical wry smiles.

"Trying to distract me from my play?"

"You're beautiful."

She chuckled and looked back down at her cards. "How can I take seriously a compliment from the man who charmed every woman in Vienna with his flattery before he left?"

"Flattery? I object. I'm always completely honest with my assessment of a woman's finer qualities."

That earned him a snort. "Honesty is rarely complimentary and never flattering."

"See? As I said, I do not use flattery."

She arched her brows at him. He set his cards down for a moment. "The trick, you see, lies not in complimenting what you admire about the other person, but in what they admire about themselves."

"That isn't flattery?"

"Let me demonstrate."

She waved a hand at him. "You already said I was beautiful."

"Yes, I broke my own rule. That was a subjective observation, something that I admire about you." He paused. "Are you ready?"

"Ready for what?"

"My honest assessment of your finer qualities."

She smirked and put down another trick. "As you wish."

"You're more competitive than any man I've ever met."

She looked up at him in surprise, obviously warring with herself not to look pleased. "What makes you say that?"

It was his turn to arch a brow. "You can climb buildings, carry more weapons than anyone I've ever met, and play cards like a stevedore on leave. Yet you are also fully competent on the etiquette required of a woman. You perhaps even have a feminine accomplishment or two to brag about."

"I'm a fair artist," she mumbled. "And can play a song or two on the harpsichord."

"The only thing left for me to wonder is what drives a woman to be like that?"

"What drives a man to be like you?" she countered. "To learn a dozen languages and how to charm everyone in his sphere. It wasn't just the women who loved you in Vienna, you know. The men couldn't say enough good things about you, either. Even odd little John Howards."

"John isn't odd," Casimir said with a frown, "he's just..."

"Odd," Gina supplied for him. "But he likes you.
Everyone
likes you."

 "I can assure you that not
everyone
does. Otto was certainly less than pleased with me when I left."

"Oh yes, I apologize. There might be one or two people in the world who aren't in love with you."

"In love with me?" He smiled. "I only need one."

She stuck out her tongue at him and laid down her last trick. "Count your points, I think I'm winning."

She was adorable. But she still hadn't said that she loved him. Should that worry him as much as it did?

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY

It was late when they arrived at the docks. George was regretting even bringing her trunks back with her as they created an additional complication now. The coachman wanted to unload them so that he could head home immediately in the morning. It was unlikely that they would find a ship they could board this late in the evening, which meant they would need to unload at an inn and pay to have the trunks transported in the morning. She rubbed her forehead, trying to evaluate the logistics.

Casimir laid a comforting hand against her cheek. "Do you want me to find out if it's possible to board a ship this evening?"

She sighed. "No, I think it would be a waste of time."

"All right, then I will secure a room for us tonight while you negotiate payment with your driver."

"Some place respectable, please. I don't want to come this far only to be killed in our sleep at some wretched boarding house near the waterfront."

"Yes, my love, some place respectable. Make sure your man here doesn't rush off, we'll need him to bring our luggage to the inn once I pick it."

"Of course."

George watched Casimir walk off under the street lights of Calaise and had to wonder at herself. It felt disturbingly natural to share decisions and duties with him, as though they had always done so. It also seemed it would feel easy to rely on him and that was something she did
not
want herself to do. She still wasn't entirely sure about his motivations and she didn't want her heart breaking any more than necessary if it turned out that he
wasn't
being completely honest with her. 

* * *

George awoke and stretched in the luxurious bed. Casimir had found them lodging in what she suspected was the finest inn to be had in Calais. The staff had taken care of her luggage and promised to secure the couple passage on an early packet to Dover. By the time she had arrived at the room a steaming bath had been waiting. She still wasn't sure if he had paid for all this or charmed them out of it, but either way she was grateful. Perhaps she could use her training to show him exactly how grateful.

He stirred when she moved the blankets out of the way. "Gini, what are you...? Oh." He buried his fingers in her hair as she licked and kissed and suckled his cock. He was a beautifully made man, even down to this most intimate part. She delighted in hearing his sighs, feeling his fingers tighten in her hair at his pleasure. But as much as she was enjoying pleasuring him, her own body was craving to have him inside her again.