Shall We Dance? (25 page)

“Oh, good grief,” His Lordship said, sinking into a chair and propping his elbows on the table. “Now I'm a Tory dog.”

“You…you're not? But Sir Willard…”

“Ah, yes, Sir Willard. I can see how you might come to that conclusion. However, you'd be wrong. So, you're working with Brougham and the Whigs?”

Bernard rolled his eyes. “I should say not! Fools, the pack of them. I worked under Mr. Brougham and his brother for five long years, and they've bollixed everything, at every turn. No, My Lord, I'm here to
save
the queen, not simply to help myself.”

“Believe that, My Lord,” Mrs. Fitzhugh said, shifting a peppermint from one side of her mouth to the other, “and you'd believe anything. No chin, you know. Can't trust a man with no chin.”

“I'll take that under advisement, Mrs. Fitzhugh,
thank you,” His Lordship said, then motioned for Bernard to continue.

Which he did with alacrity, explaining all the reasons behind his belief that Amelia Fredericks was, in truth, the legal heir to the throne of England, and how he was certain the proof was in a small chest kept locked inside the queen's traveling trunk. Wooden thing, with fancy carving all over it. And another lock.

“Sitting right on the top. The princess took it out and had me hold it for her,” Nestor concluded, holding out his hands. “I had it. Right in my hands.” He dropped his hands to the tabletop. “And then she took it back.”

“Well, damn me for a tinker,” Clive said, once Bernard was through. “Miss Fredericks a royal princess? M'Lord? M'Lord, where are yer goin'?”

“Never mind that, Clive. Nestor? If you're right…” His Lordship closed his mouth, shook his head. “It would appear Nestor is on our side, at least in theory. Fill him in, Clive. All of it.”

“Yes, sir,” Clive said, but he said it to His Lordship's back, because he was already gone, loping toward the servant stairs. “Looks like a man just been punched in the belly, don't he, Dovey? Here now, Nestor, drink up, and welcome aboard.”

 

P
ERRY STOOD
in the box room, staring at the tin-clad trunk. Glaring at it. This had to be it, the trunk his uncle had told him about, the one the Tories hoped held all the damning evidence they'd need to discredit the queen. As
if they knew they hadn't gotten enough with their suspicious stains and urinals.

“Damn,” he whispered. “Damn, damn and blast.”

Then he dropped to his knees, pulled a thin sliver of metal from his waistcoat pocket and set to work.

The lock yielded easily enough, but Perry hesitated, knowing that, yet again, he was going behind Amelia's back, digging his nose into the queen's, and Amelia's, business. And without being asked.

But he had to know. Holding his breath, Perry pushed back the lid to reveal an interior occupied by satins and furs and velvet boxes he assumed contained the queen's jewels. But no wooden box, intricately carved.

Amelia had taken it, that's what Nestor had told him. But had she returned it? Was it, even now, in the queen's chambers?

No, wait! Amelia told him just tonight that she had been about to trust him with the queen's secrets, until Nate had warned her away. Had she actually been about to give him the chest, ask him to keep it safe?

“God's teeth, no wonder she wouldn't answer my notes.”

Perry lowered the lid, replaced the lock, feeling guilty yet again. That should be enough for him. He had no good reason to look further. None at all.

“Amelia? A royal heir?” He rubbed at his forehead as he muttered to himself. “Christ, what am I thinking? Nestor's a zealot, and probably half-mad into the bargain. Thank God Brougham turned him off before he could voice his insane theories to him, or else Amelia
would be dragged through the investigation along with the queen. I—”

He shut his mouth, at last realizing he was babbling to himself like some village idiot.

Amelia. His Amelia. He needed to see her, now. He needed to speak with her, now.

He needed to hold her. Now.

 

A
MELIA STIRRED SLIGHTLY
in her sleep, then lifted a hand to rub at the faint tickling on her cheek. Her eyelids opened wide when, instead of her cheek, she felt fingers under hers. Fingers that slid around her hand, squeezed ever so slightly.

“Amelia? Don't cry out, pet. It's me. Perry.”

Perry? She must be dreaming. She'd fallen asleep dreaming of him. But no, this hand was real. Warm.

She felt his weight join her on the bed, and turned to see him perched there, still dressed in his evening clothes. She shook off his grasp and quickly pressed herself up against the headboard, pulling the covers up to her chin. “Perry? What's wrong? The queen? Is it the queen?”

“No, not the queen,” he said, employing the tinderbox to light the bedside candles. “And her servants are well on their way to Dover.”

Amelia swallowed with some difficulty, unaccustomed to having a man in her chambers. The queen had often entertained from her bed, but that was the queen. And this was Perry.

“Then I don't understand,” she said, pushing her
hands through her hair, which she'd been too tired to plait herself, now that they were a household totally without a single lady's maid in residence.

“No, I suppose you don't,” Perry said, his smile soft and rather sad. “I shouldn't be here.”

That was true enough, but if Amelia agreed with him, he might leave. “If it's important…?” she said, her words trailing off as she felt the blood rushing into her cheeks.

His hand came up to trace the line of her cheek. “I've missed you terribly, you know. When you were hating me.”

“I never hated you,” Amelia said, stifling a sigh as his palm cupped her cheek, trailed down to her neck, his thumb lightly rubbing at the skin just behind her ear. “I could never hate you.”

He shifted his position on the edge of the bed, so that he was sitting almost facing her, leaning toward her, his steady gaze on her mouth.

Amelia closed her eyes, waited for his kiss.

“Do you trust me, Amelia?” he asked, his breath warm and wine-sweet on her face. He touched his lips to hers, only briefly. “Please. Do you trust me?”

“I do,” she said thickly. “You know I do.”

“God, how I've dreamed of this,” she heard him say, and then his mouth was on hers again and, together, they were sliding down on the pillows, until she was lying on her back once more, and he was leaning over her. Kissing her. Kissing her…kissing her.

Amelia raised her arms, clasping them around his neck,
and Perry shifted yet again, moving entirely onto the bed, pulling back the bedcovers. He stretched at his full length beside her, his arms sliding around her, pulling her up and over so that she lay halfway across his body.

His hands now cupped her cheeks, framing her face as he turned her this way and that, nibbling at her lower lip, sucking it inside his own mouth. With teeth and tongue he conquered her every inhibition, and she felt her body going liquid as she lay against him.

She could feel the hardness of his body through the fine white lawn of her simple night rail, and when he moved beneath her she couldn't help but be aware of his arousal. She felt a tightening between her legs, utterly foreign to her experience. A yearning…

He shifted his attention to her throat, to the bare inch of skin visible above the buttons of her night rail, his hands joining his mouth as he worked each small button free, as she found, to her amazement, that she had braced her hands against the pillows on either side of his head. In order to lift herself. In order to grant him access to those last few buttons. So many buttons.

“Beautiful,” she heard him say as if to himself as he pushed the now-gaping night rail off her shoulders. “My beautiful Amelia.”

The material of her night rail binding tight against her upper arms, Amelia could only keep her head raised as the cool night air mingled with Perry's warm breath against her bare skin.

Her eyelids closed tight, she flinched only slightly as his hot, moist mouth captured her nipple, flicked at it
for a few mind-shattering moments with his tongue, before he turned his attention to her other breast, replacing his mouth with the softly pinching thumb and finger of his hand.

Sensations alien yet welcome rushed through her as her heart pounded in her ears, as the burning tightness between her legs grew into an ache that had her softly moaning Perry's name with each ragged breath.

She didn't want to move, not so much as an inch, even as her arms began to tremble, as her passion made her limbs weak, and she moaned in protest when Perry put his hands on her waist and gently pushed her onto her back.

“No,” she said, eyes tightly closed.

Perry's hand, lightly rubbing at her belly, went still. “You're right, pet. I shouldn't.”

“No!” she said, opening her eyelids wide in sudden panic. “I didn't mean no. I meant
no.
Please don't leave me.”

“Never,” he said just as he kissed her again, as he slid his hand up to cup her breast once more. “But we both know I should, me more than you.”

“I know,” Amelia told him. “But which is the greater evil, Perry? I know what I'm doing, please believe that. And I don't want you to go. Please, must you always make me ask?”

Perry's chuckle was low and genuinely amused. “I told you, pet, I'm a bad, bad man. But you, darling Amelia. You are my sweet redemption.”

“Oh, Perry,” Amelia said, her fears flying from her,
her inhibitions taking wing along with them. “Show me what happens next.”

“It would be my pleasure,” he said, and his mouth, when it touched hers once more, was curved in a smile.

His mouth never leaving hers, he managed to free her arms from her night rail, and she didn't care if this showed an expertise he must have gained from long practice. He kissed her throat, her breasts, her belly, all the time easing her night rail down and over her hips, pushing it past her most private secrets, to her knees and beyond.

And then he was rising above her, looking down at her nakedness in the soft light of the candles, his eyes aglow with a hunger that had an answering ache growing inside her.

On his knees on the bed, he slipped out of his evening coat, tossing it to the floor, to be followed by his waistcoat, neck cloth and shirt, leaving him in nothing but the long knit pantaloons that looped over the soles of his evening shoes.

She swallowed down hard once more when his hands went to the buttons of his pantaloons, and she was secretly pleased when he opened the buttons but did not remove the pantaloons, rather lowering himself beside her once more, so that the bare skin of his muscled chest brushed against her softness.

“I wouldn't frighten you, pet,” he said, gently coaxing her back to her former passion as he once again lavished his attention on her breasts, one hand lightly circling the sensitive skin of her belly, stroking the rise of her hip.

“I'm…I'm not that frightened,” she admitted, throwing any remaining caution to the wind and giving in to the impulse to stroke his hair, to kiss his bare shoulder, even to nip at his skin with her teeth.

And the hunger, the ache, grew inside her as he left her again, if only for a few moments.

Amelia was only mildly shocked when she felt his bare leg against hers, the soft hairs prickling her skin as he rubbed his leg over hers, insinuated it between her knees.

She held on to him with both hands now, running the tip of her tongue along the base of his neck, loving the salty taste of him, bereft when he shifted his body, until he had claimed her nipple once more.

Her eyelids tightly shut, she concentrated on the sensations racing through her, so that she was acutely aware when his hand moved again, moved lower, when his fingers slipped between her legs.

This shouldn't happen. Surely this shouldn't please her. And yet it did; it pleased her very much. His fingers, gently touching her, learning her, deftly spreading her, then stroking the most intimate parts of her.

Amelia's knees seemed to draw up of their own accord, her heels digging into the soft mattress as Perry's touch became even more intimate, his forays including an unexpected penetration that had her lifting her hips in anticipation of more, more…

He shifted again, raising himself up slightly to look into her now widely open eyes. “I don't want to hurt you, sweetings.”

“I know,” she said, her chest rising and falling rap
idly, both with passion and a new fear. She'd heard the stories; she wasn't completely unawares. But no one, surely no one ever had felt the way she did now. “I don't care.”

“I do,” Perry whispered, bracing himself on one elbow as he watched his hand move between her legs.

The heat he was generating was so nearly overpowering, and yet when she looked at him, at the expression on his handsome face, she forgot the heat, and tears stung her eyes. He was worried for her. He cared more for her than he did for himself. That was evident in the look on his face.

She couldn't help it. She allowed her knees to drop open, silently telling him that whatever he did, whatever he had to do, he did with her permission.

She felt his thumb circling her in a way that brought a fresh flood of heat, a tighter, keener concentration of feeling that seemed to build upon itself as he increased the pressure. He moved his thumb faster, faster, so that she barely noticed when he slipped a second finger inside her…and when he suddenly plunged deeper her cry was more of shock than pain, quickly forgotten as his thumb circled, as his fingers continued to possess her.

“No more pain, Amelia,” he whispered, turning to look at her, his eyes eloquent with concern…and a heat that mimicked her own. “Only pleasure. Feel it, Amelia. Let me give you pleasure.”

She fell back against the pillows, giving in completely to what he did, the way his fingers moved on her, the way her own hips began to move in rhythm with that touch.