Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

T he appallingly sad, terribly disheartening, utterly disappointing truth was that no one needed Prince Ferdinando of the House of Tayrnes. Not the people of the Kingdom of Varros. Not his beloved, if stern, older brother, King Maximilian. Not his sister-in-law, the delightful Queen Tansy, who'd brought Maxim to heel. Not his baby nephew Caspian Ferdinando, even if the lad had been, quite rightly, named after Nando himself.

Not even the half dozen or so enchanting denizens of the Varrosian court who eagerly warmed his bed at the slightest hint of an invitation.

Not a single damned soul.

He'd accustomed himself to being little more than a gilded ornament. The necessary heir, should something ill befall his brother. The ne'er-do-well. The irresponsible rake whom no one trusted with any duty or knowledge of import.

And that was why he was in London.

Specifically, why he was idling away his time at a Mayfair address where he'd been recently told, in no uncertain terms, that he wasn't welcome by the most infuriatingly aloof female of his acquaintance.

Why he was waiting in a drawing room teeming with hothouse flowers as he awaited his next crushing setdown. Just when Nando was beginning to despair that the fierce-eyed Miss Eleanora Brett would deny him the pleasure of smiting his soul with her searing insults, she arrived.

As usual, she was wearing a white muslin frock that did nothing to accentuate her generous curves and ripe breasts and a hideous cap over her lustrous hair. But she didn't fool him with a modest fichu tucked into her bodice. His experienced eye knew the body of a goddess when he saw one, regardless of how hideously she enrobed herself in virtue.

Nando sketched a bow for her benefit. "Miss Brett, how delightful. I began to fear you'd never arrive."

She curtsied because she had to, but she bore the tenacious expression of a dog protecting her territory, telling him she wasn't pleased by his presence. Briefly, he wondered if she'd bite him. And then he thought about how much he might enjoy her sharp little teeth. She could bite his shoulder when he made her come.

In that moment, Nando couldn't think of anything he'd like better.

"Your Royal Highness," Miss Brett clipped, as if his very title were an epithet.

And damn it if that didn't make his cock twitch to attention. He adored the disapproving tone she used in his presence. If Miss Brett had any notion of how much her frostiness affected him, no doubt she'd box his ears. That was another quality he enjoyed about her. Miss Eleanora Brett didn't give a fig if he was a prince. She didn't suffer nonsense or fools.

"My dear Miss Brett, your gown is quite becoming this afternoon," he lied smoothly.

"I would thank you, were your observation not only impertinent but patently false as well," she returned, her voice cool and unamused. "Your presence here is decidedly unwelcome. I've begged Your Royal Highness to cease paying singular attention to Princess Emmaline and Princess Annalise."

Nando strolled nearer to Miss Brett, unable to help himself, stopping by a nearby vase to trail his forefinger along the decadently soft petals of a rose. "I wouldn't quite say you begged me, Miss Brett. Indeed, the mere thought of you playing the supplicant is more delightful than I can possibly convey. Though my memory may sometimes be faulty, I assure you that I wouldn't have forgotten such a stirring exchange."

His intentionally sensual inference was met with a stern tightening of Miss Brett's lovely lips. "Your familiarity is unwarranted, Your Royal Highness."

Nando continued idly tracing the unfurling petals of the blossom, noting the way her gaze slipped to watch his progress. "Pray accept my apologies, Miss Brett. It wasn't my intention to cause you distress."

Not distress, perhaps, but irritation? Decidedly so. There was something thoroughly rousing about Miss Eleanora Brett's pique. He couldn't seem to have enough of her tart rejoinders and frigid glares. Her censure only made him want her more. She was the answer for the ennui that had been plaguing him these last few months. Nothing that had once held his interest had appeased him any longer.

Until he'd crossed paths with the princesses and their ferocious chaperone.

From the moment he'd set eyes on the golden-haired, blue-eyed spinster, he'd wanted her more than he could recall ever wanting another woman. Her allure wasn't just her beauty—a dainty nose, a mouth that would have looked more at home on a courtesan than a prim chaperone, high cheekbones, finely arched brows, and a stubborn chin. It was something indefinable that was unique to her. He'd known and bedded any number of women who were exquisite. But none of them moved him in the way she did.

She sniffed, tilting her head and regarding him in a way that made him feel as if he were a recalcitrant lad being reprimanded. "I make it a habit of never accepting apologies that are either forced or insincere. And as I'm persuaded you did wish to cause me distress, I'm afraid I can't accept yours, Your Royal Highness. If you wanted to express true contrition, you would cease your flagrant campaign of ruining the princesses' delicate reputations."

His cock was stiffer than a fire poker after her delightful upbraid. If only Miss Brett knew that the more she chastised him, the more he longed to bend her over the nearest piece of furniture and fuck her witless.

Nando bit back a smile, giving the rose another slow caress as he directed his best bedroom stare on the stern chaperone. "Miss Brett, I'm cut to the quick."

The object of his desire remained staunchly unmoved. "Pray, do not insult my intelligence by feigning remorse."

This time, he couldn't suppress his smile. God, she was so delicious when riled.

"I'd never insult your intelligence," he said smoothly, "nor would I dream of feigning remorse, considering that I'm proudly incapable of feeling that finer emotion."

Her eyes narrowed, her lashes long and fine and the color of sunlight streaming through a window into a darkened room. "Why have you graced the household with your presence, Your Royal Highness?"

It would seem she'd grown weary of verbal fencing.

Pity. He loved it when she snapped and crackled, all that fire seething beneath her icy exterior sizzling to life.

He gave the bud one last, lingering caress. "Is the reason not apparent, Miss Brett? It's because I longed for your delightful company."

Her nostrils flared in new evidence of her ire. "Your mere presence alone is enough to cause undue gossip for the princesses."

"The princesses create all manner of gossip without my aid," he drawled, thinking of the shock they'd caused in polite London society when they'd attended a ball wearing trousers.

Although ladies could don such a garment in their native land of Boritania, women wearing trousers were decidedly outré in England. To say nothing of the wild twins flirting their way through the ranks of the ton . Their behavior and the ensuing swirl of social doom it had provoked were the reason Miss Brett's prestigious services had been obtained.

But Miss Brett remained undeterred, staying at a polite distance as if she feared the stain proximity to him would cause her own character. "Nevertheless, the marked interest you pay to Princess Emmaline and Princess Annalise is unacceptable. It is a risk that is unnecessary for the both of them. If you hold them in regard at all, you will leave them to traverse polite society without your interference."

Her words should have stung. Perhaps they did, a bit. But Miss Brett was growing increasingly annoyed with him, and Nando was perverse enough to enjoy the knowledge. She was mistaken on one fact. Persuading her to let him bed her was the only true campaign he was waging. He couldn't be certain if her own modesty precluded her from deducing where his interest truly lay, or if she was simply so woefully inept at reading blatant carnal interest because of her own lack of experience. The reason didn't matter. He would correct her misconception the only way he knew how—seduction.

Slowly, Nando sauntered toward her, pleased by the subtle way her eyes widened at his approach. He stopped near enough to touch her. The drawing room was cavernous by London town house standards. He'd taken his time approaching her, but the potent lure of Miss Brett, vexed and stern and nettled, was just too much for him to resist a moment longer.

"I would modestly suggest your assessment is not entirely accurate," he said.

"I doubt there is even a modicum of modesty in any action you take, Your Royal Highness," she huffed.

As it happened, she wasn't incorrect. Nando wasn't modest. He didn't need to be. He was handsome, and he knew it. He was an excellent lover, and he wielded that skill often. Or at least, he had until the thorough distraction of the delectable Miss Brett. He had a big cock, he was a prince, he possessed ample wealth in his own right, he was sought after. Women—with the notable exception of the one before him—adored him. Some men did, too, and although he'd never been physically attracted to his own sex, he couldn't find fault with those men for their excellent taste.

"Perhaps," he allowed with a shrug that suggested it didn't matter either way. "You needn't insist on ceremony with me, Miss Brett. Please, call me Nando. All my friends and lovers do."

Color crept over her cheekbones. "I'm neither your friend nor your lover, Prince Ferdinando. Such untoward familiarity would be most imprudent of me."

She was flustered. He wondered if it was his attempt at coercing her into calling him by his given name or if it was his reference to lovers that did it.

"You could be," he invited.

"No, I most assuredly could not," she snapped, more color flooding her cheeks.

"Why not, Miss Brett?"

Irritation sparkled in her eyes. "Do not attempt to cozen me by playing your flirtatious games, Your Royal Highness. I know quite well that a man like you has no interest in a woman such as myself."

How wrong she was. Astoundingly so. He would show her with great pleasure. First, however, she needed to be more amenable to his advances, and Nando was thrilled by the notion of a challenge—a woman who wouldn't fall directly into his bed.

"I would never attempt to cozen you or play games with you, my dear," he said easily. "I like you far too much for that."

He liked her quite a lot, actually.

More than he could recall liking anyone, with the notable exception of his sister-in-law. The only difference was that his fondness for Tansy was entirely platonic and sisterly in nature. What he felt for Miss Brett, however?

The difference between night and day.

"If you think flattery will further your cause, you're wrong," Miss Brett told him. "But I suppose it doesn't matter. If you've come to pay a call upon the princesses, I'm afraid you're doomed to disappointment. They've left with their sister, Princess Anastasia, on an outing."

Excellent. That meant he'd have Miss Brett all to himself for an indeterminate span of time. Nando tried to hide his glee.

"I suppose I've no choice other than to await their return. You may keep me company, Miss Brett. But perhaps you ought to ring for something. I'd dearly love some whisky, although I'll settle for tea."

Whisky was a favorite vice of Nando's. One he knew quite well no respectable lady would offer him, even if the household possessed any of that spirit in its stores.

"I'll not be taking tea with you, Your Royal Highness," she denied crisply. "It would be unseemly."

"Denying a royal prince is the most unseemly act by far," he countered, not above using his title to press his advantage. "I'm sure Princess Anastasia would be displeased if she were to learn I was turned away like a common beggar from the streets."

It was wrong of him to use her desire to maintain her position in the household against her. But Nando had done many things that were wrong in his admittedly debauched life. Indeed, he had no intention of ceasing. Because seducing the virginal spinster chaperone of Princesses Emmaline and Annalise St. George, a woman who had been tasked with taming their wild ways and making them into proper London ladies, was decidedly as wrong as he could be.

He ought to save his seductions for the obliging harlots of England's finest brothels. Or for grasping widows and discontented wives. But the appeal of those women didn't compare to the potent allure of Miss Brett. He couldn't explain it. Nor did he want to examine the reasons.

It simply was .

And he wouldn't stop until he had her where he wanted her most.

Under him.

Or atop him.

On her knees for him.

Everywhere. Yes, that was where he wanted her. Everywhere and anywhere he could have her, as often as possible, until his needs were eventually sated and he could carry on. Because Miss Eleanora Brett was like a poison in his blood. One he would enjoy finding the antidote for.

She still hadn't made her decision. Miss Brett was nibbling on her lower lip, an action he suspected she only allowed herself when thoroughly caught in the throes of a dilemma. She was so poised and polished at all times, as if emotion were beneath her. Seeing her torn caused a guilty little rivulet of pleasure to run through him.

"Well, my dear," he prompted, feeling like the fox who'd found his way into the henhouse and was about to have a feast. "What is your answer? Will you ring for tea, or will you risk bringing the wrath of your employer down upon you?"

Her chin went up, her expression turning carefully serene. "Of course I shall ring for tea, Your Royal Highness. Forgive me for my hesitation. As you so astutely pointed out, it would be remiss of me to turn you away without proper acknowledgment."

Nando grinned. "How delightful you are, Miss Brett. I knew you wouldn't disappoint me."

He didn't miss the way she clenched her jaw as she went for the bell pull.