To Pleasure a Prince (28 page)

The butler led her to the servants’ quarters beneath the main floor, then showed her to a small door set at the end of a gloomy stone hall. “This is the entrance to the stairs. It’s not too far down from there.”

Apprehension skittered along her spine. Joking about a dungeon with Marcus had been one thing; joining him in one after he’d been drinking whisky for two hours and keeping company with some ghastly painting was quite another.

But she’d come this far—“Thank you,” she told the butler, and opened the door.

She had only descended a few steps down the dimly lit stone staircase when a disembodied voice came up from below.

“Leave me be, Louisa. I’ll be fine for your confounded meeting tomorrow, I assure you, but for tonight I want some time to myself, to think over my sins.” His voice dropped. “God knows I have plenty of them to keep me occupied.”

Her heart lurched in her chest. He didn’t sound like a man who’d been drinking. But the despair in his voice was more frightening than any drunkenness.

She quickened her steps until suddenly she burst into a very odd room, about twenty-feet-by-twenty-feet, barely high enough to permit a man to stand erect. Close and cold, it was hewn entirely from stone. A threadbare old chaise longue sat against one wall, looking incongruous amidst the moldy stone and rusting chains.

Waning daylight trickled in from one slit window near the ceiling, but most of the light came from candles. Lots of them. They were perched on stone ledges, inserted in ancient sconces, and lined up in candelabras along the wall. In the middle of them stood Marcus, with his back to her.

This was no place for anyone, not a grown man
or
a child of thirteen. Now that she saw it, she understood much about him that she’d never understood before.

A sudden hatred for his mother—and the prince—flared in her chest. How dared they try to break a mere boy all those years ago by thrusting him down here? They had convinced him he deserved nothing better, and drat him if he didn’t still believe it.

No wonder he tried to gain everything by force. He didn’t think he could gain things any other way. Well, it was time he learned otherwise.

A sudden scrabbling on the floor near her reminded her of what he’d said about rats, and she squealed before she could stop herself.

“Damn it, Louisa,” he snapped as he whirled around, “I told you—”

He stopped short when he caught sight of her. “Regina?” he said hoarsely. Disbelievingly. “What are you doing here?”

Her heart twisted in her chest. He looked haggard, as if he’d slept even less than she had. His beautiful eyes were shadowed by pain. And his whiskers were growing back.

“You forgot to tell your butler to bar the door.”

He flinched. “I didn’t forget.”

It took all her strength not to fly into his arms and tell him everything was fine. But she wasn’t about to act as if nothing had happened. She meant to save his dragonly soul, to make sure he never did anything like this again. To force him out of his cave once and for all.

“Why did you not come to town yourself?” She allowed all her own pain to pour out of her. “Why did you not bring the keys in person instead of sending me some scurrilous letter, drat you?”

He stood there stoically, as if enduring a series of blows. “Because I was afraid you would not forgive me. I said the most horrible things to you—”

“Yes, you did. So you should have at least come in person to apologize.”

Guilt etched his gloomy features. “Quite frankly, I wasn’t sure you’d even see me.” With a weary sigh, he dropped his large frame heavily onto the chaise longue. “And I wouldn’t have blamed you.”

Drat it, Marcus, fight for me.
“Is that what you’ve been doing all this time, when you should have been apologizing? Drinking down here in this dungeon, working yourself into a fine brooding?” She walked toward the chaise longue, then spotted the painting he’d been gazing at.

Good Lord. The candlelight cast an unholy light over the ghastly thing. It was not what she’d expected—the usual picture of a scaly dragon with a long, reptilian tail. The dragon was actually a man to whom had been added some reptilian features, reminiscent of Satan himself. Marcus had certainly picked an excellent subject for his brooding.

“And I suppose you’ve been staring at this the whole time.” She faced him with a scowl. “Your butler is right—it
is
horrible.”

He lifted the bottle of whisky in a silent toast. “ ‘Splendidly awful,’ to quote my wife.”

Tears gathered in her throat. She fought them ruthlessly. “I suppose you think it’s an apt representation of
you.”

“Isn’t it?” With a hint of defiance, he swigged from the whisky bottle, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“No, it is not.” Walking up to examine the painting, she noted the blond woman lying at the dragon’s feet. On the picture frame below the figure was a gold plate with a title inscribed on it. Regina ran her fingers along it, which helped her read it. “And I suppose you see ‘the woman clothed in sun’ as me.”

“It fits you.” He blinked. “Wait a minute—how did you know the title?”

“I read it just now. While you were apparently spending
your
time brooding in a dungeon, I was spending mine trying to learn something. And thanks to Katherine and Cicely, I have come a long way.” She shot him a hesitant smile. “I read a whole line from a poem this morning. All by myself.”

“That’s wonderful, dearling,” he said with heartfelt sincerity. Then his troubled frown returned. He set the bottle on the floor. “But that just proves how useless a husband I am to you. I couldn’t even teach you to read.”

His remorseful tone tore at her heart. “Teaching is not your particular strength, true. But without you, I could not have done it. Because you convinced me I could learn. Without your faith in me, I would never have even tried.”

She steadied herself before she turned into a puddle of mush in front of him. He did not need mush right now. “But that’s neither here nor there.” She glared at him. “Do you know what the trouble is with you?”

He eyed her warily. “I suspect you intend to tell me.”

“You’re damned right I do.” When he blinked at her un-ladylike language, she said, “The trouble with you is that your half-mad mother expected you to be the same ‘slobbering sycophant’ to His Highness that she was, and when you recoiled, she tried to force you into it.”

She blinked back tears, determined not to let him see them. “So to survive her machinations, you turned yourself into the dragon. Better that than a sycophant, right? Better that than becoming the equivalent of your whoring mother, begging for the prince’s attention.”

She strode up to him. “But you
aren’t
the dragon, any more than I’m the ‘woman clothed in sun’ or the siren or even La Belle Dame Sans Merci. Yes, the dragon is a part of you, and the siren is certainly part of me.”

He’d risen to stare at her, and she pressed on ruthlessly. “But you’re more than that. You’re a fierce protector of the innocent. You’re a clever man with a taste for books.” Her breath caught in her throat. “You’re even a considerate lover, for all your talk about chaining women in the dungeon. And it’s time you stop letting the dragon rule your life.” Reaching up, she ran her finger along the thick line of his scar. “It’s time you put the dragon in his place.”

A low groan escaped his lips. “What if I don’t know how?”

“Of course you know how. I suspected it the day I met you, but I became convinced of it when I saw you walk into Almack’s so gloriously. You’re the Viscount Draker, a man of wealth and privilege, the son of a future king. You’re a prince, if not in name, then in character. If I had not seen the prince hidden beneath the dragon, I would never have let you kiss me or touch me…or marry me.” Her tears fell unheeded. “I certainly would never have fallen in love with you.”

Hope briefly lit his face. Then it died, and he shook his head stubbornly. “You say you love me now, but how long can it last? My own mother didn’t love me, Regina. How the hell could you?”

The aching pain in his voice ran so deep that she feared she could never take him past it. But she refused to let it win.

She caught his face between her hands. “Your mother did love you in her own way, I’m sure. How could she not? She simply didn’t know what to do with you. She was a will-o’-the-wisp trying to clasp a great, magnificent beast by the tail, and she couldn’t hold on.”

As tears filled his eyes, she looped her hands about his neck. “But I can hold on, my love. I can and I will. You will not shake me off, no matter what you do, no matter what you say. I will
never
let you bar the doors to me. Because La Belle Dame Sans Merci is part of me, too, and when it comes to you, I shall show no mercy. I will drag you out of the cave and into the light if it’s the last thing I do.”

Something broke inside him then, for with a groan, he crushed her to him. Then his mouth found hers, hard and achingly hungry. He tasted faintly of whisky and smelled like candle smoke and Marcus. Her Marcus.

He kissed her, deeply, thoroughly, as if trying to imprint her on his soul. Then he tore his lips from hers. “I’m sorry for what I said, dearling. God, you have no idea how sorry I am.” He brushed kisses to her cheeks, her eyelids, her nose. “I’ll do anything you ask. I’ll go to town whenever you please, or stay here if you wish. I’ll do anything you want, as long as you don’t leave me.”

“I’ll never leave you,” she said.
As long as you love me.

Yet he had not said he loved her, had he? Some tiny part of him was still too afraid to trust her that far. Still, she truly believed he did love her. He just feared that if he said the words, she would own him. And he’d fought so long against having anyone, especially a woman, own him, that even now it was a struggle.

Which was why she meant to have the words from him tonight. And she could think of only one way he would let go of his fears enough to say them.

“There
is
one thing I want from you right now,” she told him.

“Anything,” he swore.

“Make love to me, Marcus.”

His eyes darkened. “Oh, yes. We’ll go upstairs—”

“No. Make love to me here. In the dungeon.”

Your charge may choose a husband whom you would not choose for her. If she is happy with her choice, however, then you must be, too.

Sometimes a man improves upon acquaintance.

—Miss Cicely Tremaine,
The Ideal Chaperone

A
n involuntary shudder wracked Marcus. The very idea of laying his lady wife down in this hellish place revolted him. “No. Trust me, you do not want—”

“I do. And why shouldn’t I?”

“Because it’s filthy and unfit for a lady.”

Her eyes gleamed at him like steel through a mist. “Yet you dreamed of me here. Naked.”

A strange panic gripped his chest. “I told you, I don’t know why I dreamed that. I only come down here to be alone and—”

“Think upon your sins. Yes, I know.” Taking him by surprise, she shoved him so hard that he lost his balance and fell onto the chaise longue. Before he could stand back up, she had moved between his sprawled legs.

His cock instantly went hard. With a sensuous smile, she removed the pins from her hair and shook it out. As a curtain of gold curls fell to drape her shoulders, his breath caught in his throat.

Nimbly, she unfastened the front of her gown. “You come here to vent your temper where it can do no harm. Isn’t that what you said?”

Her bodice fell open to reveal the sheer linen of her chemise, and his mouth went dry. He nodded, unable to speak, unable to do anything but stare at her. Even with only candles for light, he could see the rosy buds of her nipples through the fabric. God help him.

She thrust her breasts forward, as if to tease him. “What you really meant is, you come here to let the dragon loose when he is at his fiercest and ugliest. When you don’t want anyone else to see him. Well, I mean to prove that I can handle even the dragon. In all his manifestations.”

She shoved off her gown, and his blood beat a hot tattoo at the sight of her in that sheer chemise, her slender arms and bare neck awash in golden candlelight.

He reached for her, but she brushed his hands aside. Grabbing the hem of his shirt, she dragged it over his head. Before he realized what she was doing, she lifted his hand to one of the eyebolts fastened into the wall directly over his head. “I mean to chain the dragon,” she said as she closed his fingers around it.

His heart hammering, he held on as she did the same to his other hand.

“I mean to chain him so that you’ll learn how. So that chaining the dragon will become a pleasure to you, and not a fear that you are giving up your soul.” Her eyes glittered as she skimmed her hands down his raised arms. “So that you will trust me not to hurt you, the next time I ask you to chain the dragon.”

She stepped back to unbutton her chemise.

“What if I don’t want to be chained?” he growled.

“You said you’d do anything I want. Do you really want to break another of your promises to me?”

He groaned, his groan deepening to a moan when she shimmied out of her chemise. Great God, she really was a siren. And La Belle Dame. And the woman clothed in sun. The candlelight behind her kissed her shoulders with a molten glow and turned her gilt hair to fire, but cursedly eclipsed all the places he wanted to see and lick and touch.

Bending close, she whispered, “Close your eyes.”

He didn’t want to close his eyes after being without the sight of her for so long. And he’d spent his three nights in the dungeon at thirteen entirely in the dark. Why did she think he kept so many candles lit down here now? During the day, the slit window provided enough light, but at night—

Glaring at her, he hissed, “No.”

She set her chin stubbornly. “Close your eyes,” she demanded.

“Make me.”

She sucked in a breath. Then she smiled. The wickedness gleaming in her smile should have warned him. But when she leaned in to brush his mouth with her breast, her nipple hardening instantly, he didn’t think twice before thrusting his tongue out to catch it.

Only to catch nothing but air.

She was now rubbing her nipple up along his scar. “Close your eyes, Marcus.” This time her voice was the silky enticement of the siren. “I promise I will make it worth your while.”

She slid her hand down to cup his erection, and he nearly went off in her hand right there.

His eyes slid closed. He wasn’t sure how. All he knew was he wanted to taste her, and with her teasing him, he might not get to. Nor could he bear to have her hand leave him aching, empty. Alone.

With a low murmur of approval, she brushed his lips again with her breast. This time when he opened his mouth, he was rewarded with a taste of her. More than a taste. She thrust her breast into his mouth and he took it gladly, eagerly. He sucked it as if he’d never had the chance before, tongued the nipple until he heard her groan.

Triumph surged through him. The dragon might be chained, but that didn’t mean he had to lie quiet. Her hand worked open his trousers, and he thrust against her fingers, hoping to coax her to “reward” him there, too.

She chuckled. “Lift your bottom so I can get your trousers down, Marcus.”

Within moments she had him naked, his ass resting on the worn damask of the couch as she settled herself across his thighs. He could imagine her honeypot open and waiting, imagine her downy curls glistening in the candlelight. But he couldn’t see it, damn it. He wanted to see it.

“I want to open my eyes,” he grumbled.

“Not yet, my love. Not if you want me to satisfy this.” Her fingers grazed the crown of his cock, and his blood pumped his erection even higher.

“Great God, Regina—”

He broke off with a choked moan as she stroked his cock with a long, teasing caress. Then her mouth was on his chest, kissing and licking and driving him completely out of his mind.

Never knowing where she’d touch him,
how
she’d touch him, made him nervous. She ran the tip of her tongue over his nipple, and he jumped. She fondled his ballocks, and he clenched the eyebolts to keep from pushing her away.

“Shh,” she murmured against his chest. “Settle down, my dragon. You know I won’t hurt you. I would never hurt you. Show me that you trust me.”

With soothing murmurs, she gentled him until he grew used to having her touch him everywhere at will, to having her all around him, her honeyed scent seeping into his senses, her loose hair brushing every inch of his skin. The more he relinquished his fear of letting her control the caresses, the more her caresses aroused him. Having his eyes closed made him feel every fondling more acutely, every kiss more profoundly.

But now he was so damned hard he feared he might go off too soon.

“I want to be inside you,” he bit out.

“Do you?” She shifted on his lap until suddenly he felt her dewy curls brush against him. She inched forward until his cock was cradled between her thighs—not inside her, but so close to being inside her he thought he would die.

“Please…” He cringed to hear the word come out of his mouth. But that didn’t stop him from saying it again. “Regina, please—”

“Tell me something, Marcus.” She rubbed her damp cleft up the length of him, then down, and he cursed under his breath. “Why did you send me the keys to the town house?”

That gave him pause. “Because…because I knew you wanted them.”

She nipped his nipple. “And?”

“And what?” he growled, unable to stop from thrusting against her.

“Was that the only reason?” She rubbed herself against his erection again.

He groaned. Vaguely he remembered doing this to her in the carriage once, caressing her while he demanded answers. But he would never last as long as she had. If he didn’t get inside her soon, his mind might just snap.

“Was that the only reason you sent me the keys, Marcus?” she repeated.

“I wanted you to know that I trust you.”

She rewarded him for that answer by impaling herself on his cock. His eyes flew open, but she did not protest. Her own eyes were fierce and sure. “And?” she demanded.

He pushed up, trying to get her to move, but she just sat there atop him, her sweet heat engulfing him, tempting him, arousing him to painful heights.

“And?” she asked again.

“And I want you,” he said, stating the obvious.

That got no response except a frown.
“And?”
she bit out, a hint of anger in her tone.

Then he realized what she wanted. Why hadn’t he said the words before?

Because he’d been afraid that if he said them, she would have the advantage. She would assume she could do as she pleased, and he would be unable to stop her.

But now he didn’t want to stop her. He trusted her not to hurt him or be disloyal to him. She had come back here, even after all the nasty things he’d said to her. She’d come back for him.

Any woman who would do that, who would brave the dungeon for him, who would fight this hard for him, could be trusted with his heart.

“I love you,” he whispered.

Her eyes filled with tears. “Are you sure?”

“I love you.” Instead of feeling as if chains closed around him, he suddenly felt free. Completely free.

A giddy joy rose in his throat. Releasing the bolts, he caught her head in his hands. “I love you!” He kissed her mouth and her cheeks and her chin. “God, how I love you,” he said hoarsely.

How could he not love the woman who’d come through the door with her heart shining in her eyes, talking about how clever and protective and considerate he was? Who’d defended him to her friends at the opera? Who, the first time he’d seen her, had stood up to him in all her virginal fury and demanded her due?

She began to move atop him. “Oh, Marcus, I love you so much, I thought I would die when you left me.”

“I’m an idiot.” He buried his face in her neck, in her fragrant hair. “I’m an utter fool.”

“Yes, you are.” She clutched his shoulders as she moved on him, up and down, gloriously hot, gloriously sweet. “But you’re my idiot. And I will never let you go, do you hear?”

“Good. Because if you do, I will loose the dragon.” His breathing grew labored. “I’ll send him…flying over the countryside…until he finds you…and drags you back…to me.”

The rush to release built inside him thrust by thrust, until he thought he could bear it no longer. Yet he waited until he heard her breathing grow labored, too, and felt her muscles tighten around his cock. Until he felt her give herself completely into his keeping.

The storm overtook him then, and his cock filled her with his seed the way he wanted to fill her with his love. As she cried out her own pleasure and strained against him, he clutched her close against his chest.

“Hold on, my love,” he rasped. “Hold on to the dragon. Because I will never let you go.”

They did not stay long in the dungeon. Now that Regina had accomplished her purpose, she wanted a comfortable bed, where she could hold her husband close and remind him that they belonged together forever.

Louisa had the good sense not to disturb them, thank heavens, so they spent the night in the master bedchamber in a daze of sweet words and kisses, of sealing the vows of their marriage as they never really had.

When she awoke near dawn to find him inside her, thrusting hard, taking her to ecstasy yet again, she could only thank whatever god had sent her out here weeks ago. Because if not for Marcus, she might have spent her entire life letting her fears about her defect keep her from finding this wild and wonderful love.

Only after they lay in each other’s arms, satisfied and replete amid the tangled sheets of the spacious bed, did she venture to ask a question that had plagued her. “Marcus, what do you mean to do about Cicely?”

He shrugged. “I thought we already decided that. She’ll live here.”

“I wasn’t sure. You were so annoyed at the thought of my needing her—”

“Only because I knew you didn’t need her. I knew you could learn to read eventually.” He brushed a kiss to her hair. “And because I was selfish. I wanted you to need
me.”

She snuggled close. “I do, I assure you. But while I may not rely on Cicely much anymore, she relies on me.”

“I know, dearling. We all rely on you.” He stroked her back. “When we go to town today, we’ll bring her home, wherever we decide that home is. Besides, Louisa can use a companion, even if we stay in town for the remainder of the season.” His voice grew husky. “We’ll be too busy for chaperoning.”

A delicious thrill shot through her, but she had one more question. “Speaking of Louisa, why did you arrange a meeting for her with His Highness?”

With a sigh, he settled her against his chest. “I realized you were right. Louisa did need to hear the truth about her possible parentage, and not just from me. I’m no longer even sure if I know the truth about anything anymore. I spent so many years resenting Prinny that I don’t know who he really is. So this meeting is as much for me as for Louisa.”

“It has sent Simon into a real dither.” She pressed a kiss to his chest. “He came to the town house to demand what was going on.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That I had no clue, of course. The answer didn’t exactly please him.”

Marcus chuckled.

She lifted her head to eye him askance. “You can be a very wicked man, you know. And what
is
going on, anyway?”

He only laughed again. “I know as much as you, believe it or not.”

He related his conversation with Louisa, and Regina shook her head. “What can she possibly mean to do to Simon? If His Highness is the one who orchestrated the courtship, then—”