Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

E leanora didn't even need to tap at the door. It swept open with surprising haste to reveal the man who had been taunting her every thought ever since they had parted several hours earlier. He was no longer wearing his evening finery but a loose silk banyan the color of aquamarines.

Wordlessly, he stepped back, gesturing for her to enter. With a furtive glance over each shoulder to ensure the darkened hall remained silent and empty, Eleanora slipped into his chamber. She took in the glowing sconces and candelabra, the fire burning cheerfully in the hearth. There was no sign he had made any preparations for sleep, despite the lateness of the hour.

"You were waiting for me," she observed, turning back to him against her better judgment.

The banyan brought out the vibrancy of his eyes. It was unique, embroidered with rich gold thread and the letter F on his lapel, lest she have any doubt that it was a garment his man had fetched for him from his own town house. The flicker of candlelight caught in his golden curls. He smiled, and she tried not to throw herself at his chest and kiss him until she couldn't think.

"I knew you would come."

He was more certain of her than she was of herself. But then, perhaps Nando was merely certain of the effect he had upon all women.

"How could you have known, when I only just decided a few minutes ago?" she asked, even though that wasn't quite true.

She had waged an inner battle over the decision; it was true. She had also held a lively debate with the stack of Emmaline's trousers. She had enumerated a list of all the reasons why she must stay far, far away from the Prince of Varros's bedroom. But in the end, she hadn't been able to quell the restless need to see him. To learn what it was he wanted to speak to her about.

Foolish.

Downright stupid.

But here she was, in the lion's den.

He cocked his head at her. "My dear, do you expect me to believe such rubbish? We both know you were planning to come to me tonight whether I invited you or not. I gave you too much pleasure for you to stay away."

Her chin went up. "You, sirrah, are a vainglorious popinjay."

"And you are charmed by me despite yourself." He winked. "Confess."

The knowing, intimate expression on his face made her stomach flutter as if it were inhabited by a dozen butterflies.

"I tolerate you," she countered, knowing that if she gave him any hint of her susceptibility to his rakish wiles, he would seize upon her weakness.

And summarily destroy what remained of her already flagging defenses.

But she hadn't come to him to be seduced. Had she?

Of course she hadn't.

"You more than tolerate me, my darling Eleanora." He caught her hand in his and brought it to his lips, bussing a light kiss over her knuckles with a courtly air. "You like me."

She did like him. She liked him far too well and against every instinct and shred of reason she possessed. Men like Prince Ferdinando didn't flatter and woo women such as herself because they intended to marry them. They did so because they wanted them in their beds.

And if Eleanora gave him her virtue, she would lose everything she had worked so diligently to build. Her entire life would be upended, whilst the prince would saunter off to charm another all-too-eager victim. She had almost given herself to him entirely last night, but she had returned this evening with restored determination. She would not allow herself to relent.

"I hate to disappoint you, Your Royal Highness, but I do not like you at all," she lied.

"Oh?" He was undeterred, brushing another kiss over the top of her hand now. "Is that so?"

She shivered. "Yes, regretfully so."

"Have you taken a chill, my dear?"

Of course he would have noted her reaction to him. His touch was like fire. He filled her with heat and desire. Made her think things she must not think. Made her long for more of what she must not want. How dangerous he was.

"I have," she fibbed again. "The air is rather cool today."

"I do believe you're deceiving me," he said smoothly, before turning her hand over to kiss her palm. "You'll have to prove that you don't like me."

"How should I prove such a thing?" she asked sharply. "I've already told you."

"And yet, your body reveals the lies you tell just as it did last night." His gaze holding hers, he traced one of the lines on her palm with his tongue.

That persistent ache between her legs throbbed. She knew she ought to yank away from him and return to the haven of her bedroom, where she could not be tempted by this sinful devil. And yet, she couldn't seem to sever the connection. She held herself impossibly still as the velvet, wet sweep of his tongue slowly turned her to flame.

He glanced up at her, his expression serious, his eyes intense. "You see, Eleanora? I can feel you tremble for me. Only think of how lovely my tongue would feel on your pearl again. And deep inside you."

She didn't want to think about that.

She couldn't stop thinking about it. Her body remembered it all too well, and every part of her was crying out for more.

"No." She shook her head firmly, hoping she could send those dreadful, wanton, best forgotten notions from her mind.

"Yes." He gave her a soft, almost tender smile and kissed the sensitive skin of her inner wrist, his tongue flicking over the tracery of veins there. "Give yourself to me, Eleanora. Don't you see how inevitable it is? Of course you do. It's why you've come here tonight, against all your better judgment. It's why your prim and proper ice melts for me."

She wanted him. Ached for him. She'd never known such frenzied yearning was possible.

But that didn't make it right. And it didn't render her any more able to succumb to the decadent seduction he promised.

Just one more night , her reckless body whispered. She summoned her strength, ignoring it. Because one more would turn into another, and then another, and another until he had tired of her and cast her aside as he would inevitably do. He would return to his homeland and his court and the women who adored him, and he wouldn't even remember her name. Whilst she would be heartbroken and alone, her life lying about her in ruins that no amount of effort could resurrect. She had seen it with Mama time and again. Every protector had left in the end, and there had been nothing left.

She shook her head. "I cannot, Your Royal Highness."

"Nando," he purred. "Say it."

She had said it last night. She thought of him in those same, intimate terms. And she couldn't deny she liked the way it felt on her tongue, the intimacy it implied.

Meow.

The sound was so abrupt and out of place that for a moment, Eleanora was convinced she had imagined it. But then it came again, the loud, undeniable call of a feline, followed by a trill.

She stiffened. "Is there a cat in here?"

His grin deepened until fine lines creased at the corners of his brilliant eyes, and he released his hold on her hand. "Of course there is. Why wouldn't there be one?"

She stared at him, feeling oddly bereft without his touch, and wondered if he were truly and utterly mad after all. "Why do you have a feline in your chamber?"

As if on cue, a cat leapt to the back of a chair by the hearth, balancing precariously on the stuffed edge. The little fellow must have been curled up on the seat, which wasn't visible to Eleanora from her current vantage point.

"He's not just any cat," Nando said smoothly, moving toward the cat in an unhurried gait. "He's Benvolio."

The prince made the declaration in the same manner she imagined he might make an announcement at court. As if it made complete and utter sense, and perhaps to him, it did. Her lips parted, but words were beyond her.

"Benvolio," she managed to repeat. "After the character in Romeo and Juliet , I presume?"

He stopped at the back of the chair and ran the backs of his fingers over the gray-and-white cat's head. "Ah, you are familiar with the tragedy, Miss Brett?"

Her mother had been an actress. Eleanora knew the lines of every role Mama had played by heart. She had helped her mother to rehearse, as a na?ve child secretly in love with the sweeping emotion and the pageantry. The seedier side of her mother's life had been unknown to her then, in those innocent days when the world had seemed a much brighter, happier place.

She had learned the truth soon enough. It was a lesson she would never forget.

Eleanora forced a smile. "Quite. It seems an odd name for a cat."

"Does it? How strange. I took one look at him when we met in the streets and simply knew he was a Benvolio. Call it an instinct, if you will."

The man was getting more preposterous by the moment.

"You met him in the streets?" she asked, the invitation to sin with him momentarily supplanted by the presence of a feline he had apparently taken under his wing.

He raised an imperious golden brow. "Where else is one expected to make the acquaintance of a cat?"

"In the bedchambers of dissolute princes," Eleanora quipped before she could think better of it.

Before she could recall she was not the lively, carefree girl she'd once been but the severe, joyless woman she'd been forced to become. This was no pleasant drawing room flirtation. This was the beginning of her fall from grace if she but allowed it, cat or no.

"Tell me, my darling Eleanora, how many bedchambers of dissolute princes have you visited?" he asked, his voice silken.

"Only one," she answered tartly. "And I am not, nor shall I ever be, your darling."

"Hmm," was all he said in response, a noncommittal hum that suggested he didn't believe her denial whatsoever.

She wouldn't be distracted or goaded by him, she decided sternly.

"The cat," she reminded him. "You found him in the streets?"

"In a positively dreadful stew," the prince confirmed, still idly stroking the feline's soft-looking fur as Benvolio lovingly rubbed his face against Nando's arm. "Near a house of ill repute, if you must know, though I'm ashamed to admit it now. The little fellow was meowing quite loudly, and he had the biggest eyes I'd ever seen on a cat. I petted him and could feel each bone in his spine beneath my hand. He was clearly in need of food, and I was in wont of a companion." He flashed her a grin. "The rest is history, I reckon."

Nando had rescued a starving cat from the streets. Of course, in true rakehell fashion, it had been during a visit to a brothel. Eleanora could not quite tamp down the stinging tide of jealousy that rose inside her at the thought.

He gave the cat a few more fond caresses and then turned back toward her, giving Eleanora his full attention. "But Benvolio was not my reason for inviting you to my bedroom this evening."

"What was, then?" she dared to ask, even though part of her feared his answer.

And her own response to it.

Because she didn't even trust herself any longer. Not when it came to this maddening, alluring, dangerously seductive man.

"To tell you that I am leaving."

The heat burning inside her turned abruptly to ash, and all she felt was cold. Cold, cold dread. The ferocity of her reaction surprised her. What had she expected of him? He had summoned her to him for one last attempt at seduction before he left.

"You are leaving England?" she asked through numb lips.

He drew to a halt before her, his impossibly blue gaze searing hers. "Would you miss me if I were?"

"Do not toy with me, if you please," she bit out, horrified to discover her hands were trembling with the force of her emotion. She sank her fingers into her muslin skirts, clenching tightly so he wouldn't see. "Answer the question."

"I'm leaving this town house," he said simply. "Not England."

Relief flooded her, followed quickly by alarm. "But Princess Anastasia said Mr. Tierney feared you remained in great peril. It was the reason we avoided the ball meant to honor the princesses. You should not leave with such haste."

"It's hardly haste. I've been here for what seems an eternity. You were the only bright light in an otherwise dark and dismal stay."

His words were gratifying, but he was still leaving. And the effect his imminent departure was having upon her was just as distressing. She very much did not want him to go. It astonished her to realize that she felt the same way about the prince—he had been a bright spot in an otherwise arduous routine of drudgery.

She cared for her charges; of course she did. But that didn't mean her task wasn't a thankless one. She had spent each day in breathless anticipation of seeing him again, of crossing his path and drawing nearer to him. He was like the sun, bringing light and warmth to all in his presence, and she was the moon, a creature of darkness, doomed to dwell only in the night. To scarcely be seen and oft ignored.

"Your presence here will be missed," she said quietly, her throat thick with suppressed emotion. "But I understand your desire to return to your own home. However, can you not see the danger?"

"The danger doesn't concern me," Nando told her easily. "It never did, and now Tierney has reassured me this evening that I need no longer fret over another such attempt."

"I am relieved for you." More relieved than she could convey. More relieved than she had imagined possible.

Good heavens, it was almost as if she had begun to develop tender feelings for this man, this prince who could never be hers.

"Thank you." He reached for her, taking one of her hands from the folds of her gown and grasping it. "But that's not all I need to tell you."

Heat chased up her arm from the connection, bringing the fervor of her desire for him back to life. "I don't understand."

He brought her knuckles to his lips for a lingering kiss that was somehow every bit as intimate as his mouth on her most private flesh the night before. She felt it to her toes.

When he had finished, he raised his head, entrapping her gaze with his. "When I go, I want you to accompany me."