Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

N ando was reasonably certain that Bruno had poured an inhuman amount of laudanum down his throat. Partially because he felt like he was floating on a cloud made of shimmering mountain mist and partly because the wound in his arm was only producing a small ache. He felt hale enough to climb a tree, for God's sake. Surely that couldn't be right after he'd been shot. Could it?

He would worry about that pernicious question later. For now, he had more pressing concerns to fret over. Namely, one. She was a golden-haired spinster who had disappeared from his side in his time of need, and he didn't like her absence one damned bit.

As the hours had worn into the evening and the sun had faded from the sky, he had decided that if he was going to die, he wanted to do so with Miss Eleanora Brett at his side. No one else would do.

"Your Royal Highness," Bruno was saying in a coaxing voice. "You need more laudanum to calm you so that you don't tear your stitches."

Bruno was playing nursemaid. Nando didn't want Bruno. He wanted Miss Brett.

"Go to the devil," he growled, picking up the nearest object and using his uninjured arm to hurl it across the room.

The tumbler crashed into the wall with a satisfying smash, sending shards flying to the floor.

"Your Royal Highness," his loyal guard chided. "That wasn't necessary."

"It was necessary," he argued, quite irritable at having been repeatedly thwarted and denied his requests. "I'll have you sent to the dungeon in Varros for your insolence."

That was an empty threat, of course. But he wanted Bruno to understand that the man had damned well overstepped. He was Prince Ferdinando of Varros, curse it. He always got what he wanted.

And if there was any moment when he most assuredly should have everything and anything he wished for, it was now, when he was perhaps lying on his deathbed. And what he wanted was decidedly not more laudanum.

It was her .

"Of course it was," Bruno agreed submissively. "Forgive me, Your Royal Highness. I'll attend to the broken glass as soon as you take your laudanum."

The cloud Nando was inhabiting became a thundercloud. "I don't want any bloody laudanum. Give me Miss Brett, or give me nothing."

He'd rather raised his voice by the end of his booming demand, and it sounded to his mind every bit like a brutal summer storm cracking across the landscape. Bruno looked alarmed.

As well he ought to.

"I'm afraid Miss Brett is otherwise occupied, Your Royal Highness," Bruno said. "Now just a small amount of laudanum. Dr. Crisfield said it was important that you stay as still as possible, and I?—"

"No, no, no," Nando roared, interrupting. "I don't give a damn what the doctor said. I don't want more of that poison. I want Miss Brett. She is essential to my recovery. Bring her to me at once."

Surely there was something else within reach that he might throw. Nando looked around wildly and saw a book. He seized it and drew it into his cloud, thinking it weightless and airy. Existing in a cloud wasn't particularly vexing. But he would like it far more if Miss Brett were here. Not Bruno. Bruno could lie down in a busy thoroughfare for all he was concerned at the moment.

"Get out of my cloud," he added, tossing the book toward one of Bruno's two heads.

Two heads?

What the devil?

The book sailed over both of his guard's heads and hit the wall just as the door opened.

And there on the threshold, thank the angels in heaven, was Miss Brett. Her countenance was pinched and distraught. She looked as pleased as a woman marching to the gallows. Dare he hope it was worry for him that rendered her so grim? Either way, there was more than sufficient room in his cloud for her.

His arm was beginning to pain him, damn it all. His skin felt too tight, and a persistent ache was throbbing to life. Who'd had the gall to shoot him?

"Eleanora," he greeted the woman whose presence he'd been demanding for what felt like the last century.

It must have been the last few hours, at least. A lifetime. Fifteen minutes? Who cared? He had her where he wanted her now.

She glided into the room like a spring breeze, cooling and self-assured. Was she floating? God. He couldn't see her feet. The ceiling and floor were swirling, and in between, there was her loveliness. He never wanted to look upon anyone else for as long as he lived.

"Miss Brett," she corrected.

Of course she did.

"I'm in pain," he told her, which wasn't a lie.

Her lush lips thinned, her eyes straying to the bandage on his upper arm. "I'm so sorry to hear that, Your Royal Highness."

"Come and sit by my side," he invited. "Only you can assuage my agony."

"I'm certain that isn't true, Your Royal Highness."

He raised an imperious brow. "Are you daring to suggest I'm wrong?"

She shared a glance with Bruno that Nando didn't like. Why was she looking at his guard when she ought to be looking at him? Bruno wasn't the one who'd lost his lifeblood all over the street.

"His Royal Highness should take more laudanum," Bruno told Miss Brett quietly.

As if Nando weren't present in the room.

He may have been inhabiting a cloud, but his ears worked perfectly well.

"Bruno, you are happily relieved of your duties," he told his unwanted guard. "Get out."

"Your Royal Highness?—"

"Out," he interrupted, not wishing to hear anything else. "I'll see you sent to the gallows for disobeying me."

Bruno paled, as if he considered the threat a legitimate one. Good. Let him think it was. Nando wanted Miss Brett alone, and he wanted her alone with him.

Right bloody now .

"Leave the laudanum with me, if you please," Miss Brett told his guard, taking command in typical Miss Brett fashion. "I'll see to His Royal Highness for a spell."

Bruno looked dubious. Nando was suddenly possessed by the notion that Miss Brett could lead an army into battle without so much as faltering.

"Listen to Miss Brett," Nando commanded Bruno in a tone that brooked no argument.

"As Your Royal Highness wishes," Bruno acceded with a bow, his reluctance obvious.

Finally. Progress.

Nando watched as Bruno took his leave, the door closing at his back, before turning his attention to Miss Brett.

Eleanora.

"Come," he beckoned, crooking a finger.

The throbbing in his arm was enough to make his eyes water. He ignored it. Nothing mattered as much as her nearness. He wanted her to sit by him. He wanted her to join him in his cloud. He wanted to drink her in like fine wine. He wanted…

He didn't even know what he wanted.

At the moment, his cock was sadly uninterested in making itself useful. He ought not to have been so enamored with her. He couldn't bed her at present. And yet, he somehow desired her despite his infirmity.

She approached his bedside, more glorious than any woman had a right to be. It wasn't ordinary beauty that Miss Eleanora Brett possessed. It was something so much rarer, something innate and uniquely hers. He couldn't elucidate what it was, the laudanum and pain rendering him much less capable of eloquence.

"I prayed for an angel to save me, and at last, here you are," he told her dramatically.

"Your Royal Highness, I cannot fathom why you would wish for me to attend you."

"Sit," he ordered her.

She seated herself primly on the chair, arranging the fall of her skirts as if it were of the utmost interest to her. Looking anywhere but at him.

"You ought to try to rest, Your Royal Highness," she told her lap.

Blast it, he finally had her where he wanted her, and she was denying him the full force of her gaze.

"I'm up here," he told her wryly. "And please, call me Nando. Given the rather intimate nature of our current tête-à-tête, it only seems right."

At last, she looked at him. "Your Royal Highness."

"Nando."

"I cannot call you by your given name."

"Of course you can. Try it."

She huffed a sigh. "If you take your laudanum, I shall."

And this was why he had welcomed her into his cloud. She was every bit as diabolical as he was. How excellent. It pleased him greatly.

"Ah, a bribe. That is surprisingly cunning of you, my dear. I like it."

Miss Brett frowned. "I was thinking of it more as a compromise."

He twirled a finger. "Call it whatever you like. Very well, I'll have the laudanum if you call me Nando."

"Only when we are alone."

He grinned wolfishly. "Wonderful, for I intend us to be alone often."

And naked. But he refrained from adding that rather salient bit.

Her nostrils flared. He thought she might chastise him. Actually, he hoped she would. There was something about her frosty rebukes that made him want to kiss her. And more.

Pity he was wounded. There wasn't much he could accomplish with his arm as it was.

"I expect this will be the last time we'll be alone," she countered with her impeccable poise.

"And I expect you're wrong, my darling Eleanora, but you may think that if you like." Because he was a prince, and he always got what he wanted.

He shifted in the bed, trying to find a more comfortable position, and pain shot through him, making his gut clench. Damn it, perhaps the laudanum he'd consumed earlier at Bruno's behest was losing its efficacy.

She must have taken note of his contorting face because she sprang to her feet, hovering like a fretful little bird.

"Are you in pain, Your Royal Highness?"

Her scent washed over him, familiar and decadent. He wanted that scent on his pillow. On his skin. It was a testament to his desire for her that he could even entertain such thoughts now, after losing a good deal of blood, his wound paining him dreadfully.

"I thought we agreed you'd call me Nando," he gritted from between clenched teeth.

"Your laudanum first." She flitted away, returning with the medicine in hand.

It was just as well that he take it. His cloud was dissipating, and the agony was returning. Besides, he wanted to hear his name on her lush lips. He was beginning to feel weak again, and he needed the distraction.

"Fair enough." He accepted a measure of the bitter liquid and forced himself to swallow it down.

Laudanum was bloody terrible. He hated it.

"My name," he gritted when she hesitated, lingering near to his bedside.

The instinct to draw his uninjured arm around her and haul her onto the mattress beside him was strong. He resisted, clinging to what little compunction he possessed.

"Nando," she said, her voice so faint he thought he must have imagined it at first.

But she'd said it.

His name.

"That wasn't so difficult, was it?" he asked, wincing as another sharp stab of pain radiated from his wound.

"You should get some rest, Your Royal Highness," she said gently.

"Damn it, you're to call me Nando. I drank your poison."

She gave him a small smile. "You didn't specify how many times I was to say your name. Once shall suffice."

Once would never suffice when it came to this woman. He wanted to hear her saying his name again and again. He wanted her to moan his name when she came. He wanted more from her than he could even comprehend. Certainly more than he could tell her.

She'd flee like a frightened doe alerted to the hunter's approach if he did.

"That was positively Machiavellian of you," he praised her instead. "I've been soundly routed at my own game."

She was frowning again. "I've never seen a wounded man so full of vigor."

"How many wounded men have you seen?"

"Only you, Your Royal Highness."

He stared at her, his vision beginning to soften at the edges as the laudanum took hold. "It's not every day I'm nearly assassinated. I'm not certain what manner of vigor is called for on such occasions."

Eleanora shook her head at him. "How can you find levity in your present circumstances?"

"Easily enough. I didn't die, therefore I'm vastly amused. Whoever intended to kill me had dreadful aim. The poor fellow really ought to practice more."

This time, a sound stole from her, small and sudden, before she pressed a dainty hand to her lips to stifle it.

"Too late, my dear. I already heard your amusement."

Deus. He wanted to worship this woman. He coveted all her smiles. He longed to kiss every inch of her. To pleasure her as she deserved. To melt her ice. Everything. He wanted her complete and utter surrender. She was more intoxicating than the finest spirits, and he wanted to drown himself in her potent allure.

"I shouldn't have found humor in the situation. Forgive me, Your Royal Highness."

"I insist you do penance by sitting with me," he said, doing his best impression of his imperious brother.

She eyed the chair she had so recently vacated as if it were a peril she couldn't bear to face. "Why do you wish for my presence?"

"Because you soothe me," he said easily. "And because I like you, Miss Brett. I want you here, and so here you are."

"You were being a petulant child, Your Royal Highness," she told him.

"My dear Eleanora, have you met me? I am a petulant child."

Her lips twitched as if she wanted to smile but refused to allow further amusement to crack her grim shell.

"You aren't even making an effort to defend yourself."

"Why should I? You aren't wrong. But you see, I'm too complacent to change my ways."

She sat at last, her reluctance obvious. "Someone ought to shake that complacency."

"I wouldn't be averse to your trying. Perhaps you might administer corporal punishment. Wait until my wound heals, however, if you please. I have no wish to lose any more blood today."

"You're the most peculiar man I've ever met," she grumbled. "I'll not be administering any punishment to you, corporal or otherwise."

"Oh, but I think I might enjoy it if you did. I'm a wicked man, and I ought to be punished." His tongue felt fat now, the laudanum fully taking hold, his head floating, the pain in his upper arm blessedly diminished.

He should rest as the eminently wise Eleanora had advised him. He'd been shot, for God's sake. But he didn't want to close his eyes and surrender to the abyss. He wanted to stay awake, talking with her. Looking at her. She pleased him greatly. Everything about her, from her stiff spine to her lush mouth.

A flush had stolen over her cheekbones at the insinuation in his words.

"Your Royal Highness, I'll ascribe your unseemly suggestion to the laudanum. It must have addled your wits and loosened your tongue."

She folded her hands primly in her lap.

"Admit it, I charm you," he said, because he couldn't seem to help himself.

Weariness was drawing over him, but he would fight it. He wanted to spend the night basking in her husky voice.

"I find you as charming as a rash," she told him curtly.

"A compliment if I've ever heard one," he said, unperturbed.

Because she didn't fool him. He did charm her. She wanted to be insusceptible to him; that much was apparent. But beneath her cool fa?ade, Miss Eleanora Brett could be tempted. His intuition in such matters never failed him.

And Nando intended to use that weakness in his favor.