Truth about Leo (18 page)

“I doubt if that thought even crossed Louisa's mind,” Leo said dryly before catching her hand and stopping her. “No, there is need for you to soothe troubled waters. Your companion, once freed of the nail in question, took herself off to bed. Dalton escorted his sister to her bedchamber, assuring her all the while that he wasn't being taken advantage of. Now, I wish to discuss something of great importance.”

“Whether or not we are to have sexual congress?” Dagmar asked, her mind once again focused on the matter that she felt was of the moment.

He gaped at her for a few seconds. “I was going to tell you about a task that Dalton has asked I undertake, but now all I can think about is getting you into bed and having my wicked way with you. Wait—did you mean that you wish to make love, or that after last night's experience, you don't want anything to do with me again, at least so far as lovemaking goes? Because if it's the latter, I can assure you that not only will it be easier now that your maidenhead is no more, but also that my technique is bound to improve with time. I have not had experience with virgins, and thus, was unsure of how best to introduce you to the arts of love, but I believe I have a plan now.”

“Plans are good. I have several plans of my own, many of which include your thighs. In fact, the plan uppermost in my mind involves removing your trousers.” Dagmar reached for the appropriate buttons. “You look somewhat surprised. Have I not mentioned how much I like your thighs?”

“You have, and I appreciate the compliment. May I be allowed to reciprocate?”

Dagmar, having released Leo from the confines of his lovely tight trousers, spent a moment in appreciation of his legs, his groin, and pretty much all of him. Her stomach tightened and did a little flip-flop that made her just want to fling him onto the bed and lick every inch of him, a thought that simultaneously shocked her to her depths and made her feel like a very wanton woman. “You may, although they can't hold a candle to your thighs.”

“You are too kind and very mistaken. Your thighs, however, are splendid. They are glorious. They are sublime in perfection of thigh-ness.”

“Really? How odd that we are of one mind concerning our favorite parts.”

“Ah, but that's not my favorite of all your bodily delights.”

“It isn't? What is, then?”

“Your breasts,” he answered promptly, taking them in his hands.

She gave her bosom a swift, startled glance. Even through the white lawn of the nightdress, her breasts were visible, strained against the fabric as they demanded that Leo's hands never leave them. “Even though they're too large?”

“They are in no way too large. I like them excessively. Thoughts of them occur to me at random hours of the day. I remember their shape and feel and the weight of them in my hands, and how your breath gets raspy when I rub my cheeks on them and take them into my mouth. And by then, I usually have an erection of such quality that I could demolish a small brick house with it, so given that painful situation, I figure I might as well go ahead and continue thinking about your breasts, and so I dwell lovingly on how your skin tastes and how I like to feel your breasts against my bare chest, and how very badly I'd like to rub said erection upon them should you allow me to do so.”

Dagmar stared at him, all sorts of images running pell-mell through her head. “You wish to rub yourself on my breasts?”

“Yes,” he said, nodding quickly. “Yes, I do. Very much so. Does it shock you?”

She thought about that for a few minutes. “No, it doesn't shock me. Surprise, yes, but not shock. I'm also surprised that you like my breasts so large. Julia always said that gentlemen preferred a neat, tidy bosom, not one that overflows one's stays, which is why I was so distraught with the journey here and the way the sea air made them grow larger.”

“Julia is not a gentleman, and thus she doesn't know these things. I'm afraid you're not going to find much scientific proof that sea air has any effect on breasts, but if it was so, why then I'd buy a house right at the seaside and you'd stroll the beach every day, and every evening I would put scented oil on your breasts and weigh them in my hands, caressing them and stroking them and rubbing my fingers all over them in an attempt to determine how much larger the sea air had made them grow.”

“Goodness,” Dagmar said, her mind filled with erotic thoughts and her body ablaze with desire and need and wanting that was not helped in the least little bit by the fact that Leo's fingers were suiting action to word. She arched her back so as to better deliver her breasts to his hands. “Do you happen to have any of that scented oil?”

He laughed and pulled her to her feet, whisking her nightdress over her head and leaving her as bare as he was.

She glanced at his shoulder. The flesh around the bandage looked normal, not at all red or inflamed, and the pale line down his chest where the skin had been stitched together looked every bit as normal as it should. She pursed her lips.

He leaned forward and licked them. “My shoulder is fine. My chest is fine.”

“On the contrary, your shoulder is a bit mangled, but your chest…” She drew in a deep breath as her fingers moved upward from his belly to the unmarked pectoral muscle. “Your chest is wonderful. Would you like to rub yourself on me now?”

A little tremor shook him. “May I?”

“Yes, if you like.”

“Would you mind if following that, assuming I survive such delights, and I'm not at all sure I will given the ample bounty of your delicious breasts, if I survive, will you mind if I conduct those activities that I performed last night? You seemed to enjoy it then, and I believe that a revisit to the circumstance might make you a bit more comfortable with the idea, as well as prepare you.”

“I wouldn't mind, but prepare me for what?”

Leo, who was gently laying her down on the bed, taking a moment to stroke his hands up her legs to her belly, stopped caressing her to sit down and don the same face he wore when he explained the how-tos and whereby of lovemaking the evening before. “Some women find it necessary to be stimulated for a certain amount of time before the man mounts her. To do otherwise would make the experience unpleasant and painful for her.”

“But that's how it was for me.” She continued quickly when a hurt look flashed in his eyes, “At the end, that is. The first part was utterly lovely.”

“That was your maidenhead. I thought I explained that.”

“You did, but what if I'm one of those unfortunate women?”

“What women?” He just looked confused now.

“The ones who must have you put your mouth on them to give them pleasure. Well, not you personally, because I feel very strongly that should you do so to another woman, I would get a small gelding knife and—”

“I take your point,” he said hastily and kissed her. “You need not have worries about me straying, darling. I'm not that sort of a man. As for women needing time to bring them to pleasure, all women are like that. Men tend to have speedier natures where connubial acts are concerned, and women take longer to arouse.” He shrugged with his good shoulder. “It's simply the nature of things.”

“So I'm one of those mouth-upon-secret-parts women?” Dagmar was worried about this. While the experience had been very pleasurable, she couldn't help but feel that it was a bit sinful. It had been her experience that anything that felt that good was
always
sinful.

Leo stared at her as if he didn't know what to say. “Does it make you that uncomfortable?”

“No. Not really. Sometimes when I think about it for a long period of time. But it
was
very nice.”

“Would you prefer if we proceeded without doing that tonight?”

“If you like. Leo?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you always going to lesson me before we engage in sexual activities?”

He looked so startled she wanted to laugh. He eventually chuckled and leaned down to kiss her again, this time lingering on the process. “I promise you, my darling wife, this is the very last time I bring the schoolmaster into the bedroom.”

“Well, I don't know about that. What does the schoolmaster look like?”

Leo gave her a hard look for a second before he realized she was teasing, at which point he swooped down on her and tickled her ribs while nibbling on her neck. “Wench! I'll teach you to torment a wounded soldier.”

This business of being a wife—Dagmar decided later as she snuggled against her husband, sated, tired, and very, very pleased with herself—was a lot more complicated than she had first envisioned. She hadn't included in her thoughts of marriage the intimacies of the marriage bed, which did indeed get better with time. She smiled in the darkness, so contented she could almost purr.

Those around us know us by the words we use, which is why it's important for any lady, not just one of a royal lineage, to avoid besmirching her character by the use of words better suited to the stable (which location will be banned to a certain princess should the shocking language continue, especially at the dinner table when the company includes the bishop).

—Princess Christian of Sonderburg-Beck's Guide for Her Daughter's Illumination and Betterment

Leo knew the exact moment that Dagmar woke up, because she stretched her silken legs alongside his and gave a long, happy sigh.

“Good morning. I have a present for you.”

Her eyes opened, and he instantly was drawn into their ever-changing depths. “The thing about hazel eyes,” he found himself saying aloud, “is that they can look a certain color one day and a different color the next. I don't know how it is scientifically possible, or if it's a false impression that we cherish about our loved ones, but today your eyes are bluish gray, whereas yesterday they were grayish green.”

She blinked her bluish-gray eyes and reached up to touch the back of his neck.

“I don't have a fever,” he said, smiling at her and catching up her hand in order to press kisses along it. “If I sound giddy, it's simply because I'm quite content with life at the moment.”

She slid her foot along his calf, making him remember just how satiny her flesh was. “What is this present you have for me?”

He flipped back the bed linens to reveal his erection.

She made a little face at it. “That's very sweet of you, Leo, but I have no idea where I'd keep such a thing without causing comment from visitors.”

“Goose,” he said, rolling on his back. “I thought I might show you a new way to indulge our earthier selves. If you would just kindly impale yourself on me, I believe you will enjoy being able to set the pace.”

She stared at him. “You mean…you intend for us to…but it's morning.”

“All the more reason to greet the day with a smile on our faces,” he said, waggling his eyebrows as he gestured toward his crotch. “Hop on and let us get with the smile making.”

“But…” Her gaze bobbed between his penis, now waving gently in the cold morning air at her, and his face.

She was hesitating. He didn't like that. Why was she hesitating? One concern occurred to him. “Did you need to use the closestool again? I know you did so a few hours ago, so I assumed you wouldn't need to do so upon awaking.”

“No, I don't need to use it again. Did I wake you when I did earlier?”

He smoothed out the wrinkle of concern between the dark sweeps of her eyebrows, allowing his thumb to trace the line of her cheek down to the pink mouth that held such allure for him.

She bit his thumb.

“You did not. Actually, I believe I woke you while returning to bed from the same mission a few minutes before you arose. If you don't need to use the closestool, then what is holding you back from even now riding me like a wet mule?”

“Why would a mule be wet?”

He waved away the question and her look of curiosity. He had to get to the bottom of this blasted hesitation she had. It threatened to ruin all of his wonderful morning plans. “It's just an expression. Are you sore from last night?”

“No. On the contrary, there was no pain at all, just pleasure.” The look she gave him was downright seductive, and it heated his blood. Whereas a moment before he was pleasantly anticipating teaching her a new method of lovemaking, one look from those wickedly wonderful eyes and all he could think about was planting himself inside her.

“Then why aren't you driving me insane with all those deliciously hot little muscles you have that grip me and make me deranged with ecstasy?”

She looked thoughtful now. He didn't care for that either. He wanted her back to looking seductive. “Is that how it feels to you? I wondered. Because to me it feels like…well, I don't quite know how to put it into words. If you could imagine a sausage stuffed into a tight glove, and—”

“Dagmar, my darling, would you think me uncouth, unkind, or just downright monstrously selfish if I asked for the sausage-in-glove discussion to be kept for a later time? Because I feel quite strongly that if I'm not allowed to make love to you right this minute, I will burst and then the sausage won't come even close to filling the glove.”

“Very well,” she said, giving his penis a suspicious look. She rose to her knees and proceeded to straddle his hips. “But I would like to note that I never read anything in the groom's pornographic literature that referred to people conducting sexual activities first thing in the morning. It seems like this must be another one of those sinful things that feels good and yet will probably damn our souls.”

Leo was on the verge of saying, “To hell with our souls,” but since he hadn't as yet determined just how strictly Dagmar had been raised, he kept that blasphemy to himself and proceeded to explain to her how this new method of lovemaking worked.

She was a fast learner, he'd give her that. She asked a few intelligent questions about why he thought this was something she needed to experience, but the moment she sank down upon him, her eyes widened, and she said in a breathy voice, “Oh, now I see! Yes, yes, you were right to insist I try this…to the left? Really? I can move like that? Goodness! Leo, this is very…you're so right there…what happens if I do this?”

“My eyes cross,” he said, suiting action to word when she reached behind her and clasped various dangly parts of his personage. “Good God, woman, don't stop! Eye crossing is encouraged during this sort of engagement. Nay, a necessity! Do that little move to the left again, please. Wrrl!”

“What?” Dagmar asked, stopping the delightful rhythm she'd picked up. She peered down at him, concern writ on her lovely face. “Whirl?”

“No, wrrl. It's a statement of absolute pleasure at the combination of the left-most move and the grasping of my stones. Shall we try it once more?”

“No.” Dagmar smiled then, a smile that was filled with the knowledge of women down the centuries. “We will try a move to the right. Thusly.”

“That is not a wrrl move,” he said, the words coming out more of a moan than conversation. “That is definitely a nnrn.”

“You are a silly man, making up words like that.” She flexed her hips, and he thought he might just die and go to heaven.

It took him a few minutes to recover enough brain power to actually speak again, and then it was only to say, “You think so? Then I shall have to show you that you are not the only one who can drive a person near unto death with pleasure. Prepare to wrrl and nnrn, madam.”

“What—” she started to say, but when he flipped her over and wrapped her legs around his hips, he bent down to bite her gently on the neck just as he plunged deep within her.

“Wrrl!” she said, arching up against him. “Oh, yes, definitely wrrl!”

“And nnrn,” he said, making a little hip swivel of his own, not as payback, more as a way to show her that he too could do amazing things with a slight shift to one side. “Do not forget the nnrn.”

“Never!” she gasped and tightened all of those wonderful muscles around him. He fervently hoped that she wasn't counting on him to last longer than the time between two seconds, because he knew he was bound to disappoint her if she was.

“Luckily,” he said some long minutes later, when he was able to catch his breath. His arm and chest hurt, but he cared little for that as he managed to roll off her and forced air into his lungs. “Luckily, you didn't.”

“Do not speak to me,” she said from where she lay, a veritable puddle of satisfied woman. She lifted a hand and waggled it at him. “Your nnrns and your wrrls and your hoochas did me in. I die. What didn't I do?”

“Count on me to have any sort of staying power. Hoochas?” He propped himself up on his good arm. “What is a hoocha?”

“It's the name I gave to that little extra push you do that makes my female receptacle want to jump for joy.”

“Ah.” He lay down again, pleased with her praise. He would have to work on developing the hoocha move if it pleased her that much. “You know, we don't
have
to go to that archaeological dig today. We could remain here and practice all of the moves that you find worthy of improvement.”

“The Roman temple!” Dagmar, who had been lying with eyes closed and making little murmurs about never being able to move again, leaped up and ran for the basin of water. “I almost forgot about that in the ecstasy of the sinful morning activities. Get up, Leo! We have ancient Romans to see!”

“They'll still be there tomorrow,” he pointed out halfheartedly, but while he did so, he enjoyed the view of Dagmar's ass. It was lovely, round, and pink, and clearly she had grown it just to delight his senses.

“We're promised to go with the Daltons today. Besides, we can wrrl and nnrn later. Right now, dead Romans beckon!”

He was contemplating just how many ways her ass delighted him when she flung a pair of trousers at him and ordered him to get dressed. Her enthusiasm amused him, a state of emotion that lasted through a hurried breakfast—that was only mildly disturbed when Louisa Hayes accused Dagmar's companion of slipping poison into the cup of tea she had passed to her—and into the next hour that it took to arrive at Oxford Street and the scene of what appeared to be utter chaos.

“How thrilling it all is,” Dagmar said, her hand holding tight to Leo's as they picked their way across a devilish landscape made up of burnt wood, mud, and crumbled brick walls lying in large blocks. “Do you suppose there is someone we can talk to about what they found?”

Leo surveyed the workmen, obviously going about their business of taking down one building in order to erect a new one. “Doubtful, but we shall see. You there! Can you tell us where the temple has been discovered?”

Before the mud-encrusted workman could reply, another man hurried forward, pushing a pair of spectacles up his long, beaky nose. His black hair was parted in the middle and slicked down on either side, and he moved with sharp, awkward gestures that reminded Leo for some bizarre reason of a bird. “Sir! You asked about the remains? Might I introduce myself? I am Oliver Buryboots, curate of St. Margaret's—indeed, I am their most devoted curate and, if I may be so forward as to tout myself, an expert on objects Roman, all things Roman, anything Roman. You and your party have come to see the baptistery?”

“It's not a temple? I thought it was a temple. The
Times
said it was a temple,” Dagmar protested.

“We have come to see the remains, no matter what they are.” Leo introduced them all briefly, helping Dagmar over a jagged piece of stone wall and ignoring the sensation of wetness oozing into his left boot.

The curate gestured them forward, his hands moving in sharp little jabs as he spoke. “I'm flattered that Your Highness and your lordship, and of course, the other ladies and gentleman, take such an interest in things archaeological. Most people haven't the slightest interest, not the slightest interest at all, and even though I've pointed out a hundred times that it would be a shame, the veriest shame of all to lose such an exciting and unique opportunity as presents itself to us, alas, the builder, Mr. Welles, insists on continuing forward with his building in just a few days' time. Such a shame, don't you agree?”

“What exactly is a baptistery?” Dagmar asked Leo, who was loath to admit that his memory of his days in church was long gone.

“Somewhere people are baptized, I assume.”

“Indeed you are correct, Lord March, very correct in your assumption.” Oliver danced around a piece of stump that had evidently been dug up, and made shooing gestures at the workmen who sat around a small campfire, metal mugs of tea clutched in their hands. The men watched them without the slightest bit of interest.

“It's very muddy here, isn't it?” Julia said to Dagmar in a soft undertone as she picked her way after them. “Is there an odor at the baptistery, Mr. Buryboots?”

“None at all, madam, I can reassure you that there is no odor at all. Shall I tell you how they found this fabulous treasure that is soon to be lost to us? I shall, for I can see the princess is most interested.”

“Please do,” Dagmar said, and Leo—with now two wet feet—consigned himself to being bored for a good cause. Dagmar's cheeks were pink with excitement, and her hand on his good arm kept squeezing to signal her delight with the muddy pit. They descended a slight slope and came to a stone door set in the floor of what was probably the cellar of the building being replaced.

“As you can see, the workmen uncovered this stone trapdoor in the floor. A trapdoor! No one knew it was there, you know, and it was a great surprise to Mr. Welles, who ordered it opened. Imagine the surprise of all who were present when they found this!”

Mr. Buryboots lifted a lantern that had been resting on a rock, and gestured forward. They all craned to look. Rough stone steps led down into a dim light. Faint noises emerged from the depths, indicating, along with the flicker of light, that people were beneath the surface.

Despite the mud, Leo was interested. Dagmar was beside herself with joy. Philip Dalton peered forward as well, Louisa on his arm. “Is it safe to traverse?”

“Quite safe, I assure you, Mr. Dalton, quite safe indeed. My colleagues are down there now, making what records they can before it is utterly destroyed. If you would follow me?”

The curate bobbed down the stairs, Dagmar at his heels.

“Perhaps I should stay up here,” Dagmar's companion started to protest. But Dagmar cut her off with a quick, “Oh, do come, Julia. You know you always loved to hear when Dearest Papa had news of a new artifact.”

Reluctantly, the woman brought up the rear.

The air in the chamber to which they descended was, as the curate claimed, surprisingly fresh. It was damp down there, true, but there was no smell of sewage, no odor of mildew or rotting things, just a pleasing earthy smell that reminded Leo of fresh tilled soil under the summer sun.