Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

N ando was beginning to despair that he had truly died the day he'd been wounded, and that, given his sinful nature and depraved past, he'd been consigned to his fate—a hell consisting of lying in bed like an invalid, presided over by a scowling Bruno and the occasional maidservant who delivered him trays of broth and gruel.

It was, in a word, mind-numbingly horrid.

No, he reckoned that was two words.

Anyway, he was weary unto death of looking at Bruno and the maid, who rather resembled a mouse in both her countenance and her bearing and refused to meet his eye when she delivered the slop he was meant to eat.

He had been lying abed long enough.

Grimly, Nando threw back the bedclothes with his uninjured arm and swung his legs to the side. He was wearing a dressing gown—not for his sake, but for that of the mousy maid—and nothing else. But he didn't give a damn. Nude was his preferred state, and he didn't care if the damned maid arrived with the next tray of swill and the sight of his bare feet and calves made her swoon. He was getting out of this cursed bed.

Now.

Bruno, as predicted, hastened to his side, his expression one of stark worry. "Your Royal Highness, you must rest. What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" he grumbled, feeling rather like a raging bull who had been made to remain still and silent in a barn. "I'm standing up."

"But your wound."

"I need to take a piss," he snapped. "Would you like to hold my prick whilst I do it?"

Bruno paled. "O-of course not, Your Royal Highness. That is, unless Your Royal Highness would prefer me to do so?"

"Deus," Nando grumbled. "No. Get out of my way and leave me in peace to do what I must."

Bruno, looking crestfallen, nodded. "It is my fault you were wounded, Your Royal Highness. If I had but been more vigilant, none of this would have happened."

He took pity on the mammoth man, who looked as impossibly out of place in this gilded and overwrought chamber as Nando felt. "The fault lies in whoever shot me, Bruno. But I still wish to be alone. Go to the kitchens while you wait and see if you can procure me something other than the vile broth that little mouse has been delivering to me, won't you?"

Bruno nodded, tugged at his forelock in a show of respect, and bowed before hastily taking his leave of the chamber.

Nando knew a moment of guilt for his vulgarity and animosity. But it quickly faded when he was reminded of how his bodyguard had conspired with Tierney to keep him trapped here under the guise of healing. The sole reason he had allowed himself to linger after it had become apparent that he wouldn't die after all—much to the dismay of the bastard who'd shot him, no doubt—was because he wanted to see more of Eleanora. But his delectable spinster hadn't appeared since she had slipped from his room in the midst of the night. And he was rather cross with her for staying away. Cross with anyone responsible for keeping her from him.

That included bloody Bruno.

His wound ached and burned and throbbed as he made his way to the screen and the awaiting chamber pot across the room. Thus far, he had been making use of the bowl by his bed whenever he had a moment's privacy. But he was tired of remaining abed. He'd been shot in the arm, damn it, not in one of his legs. He was alive, and the wound had yet to fester. If he wasn't going to be graced with the privilege of Eleanora Brett's company, then there was no reason for him to remain here at Tierney's town house.

Nando relieved himself and completed some hasty ablutions, thinking it a mercy that he'd been shot in the opposite arm of his dominant hand. Otherwise, he might well have required Bruno's aid in holding his cock. And how lowering that would have been.

He had just finished carefully blotting his face with a cloth single-handedly when the door to his room opened and closed beyond the privacy screen.

"Damn it, Bruno," he growled. "I thought I told you to be gone. Why have you already returned?"

"Why are you out of bed?"

The crisp, feminine demand that reached him decidedly did not belong to Bruno. And Nando would recognize it anywhere. He dropped the cloth and stepped around the privacy screen, warmth already sweeping over him.

"Eleanora," he greeted, offering her as elegant of a bow as he could muster, given the state of his wounded arm.

As it was, the action left him grimacing as agony tore through him when he tested his stitches. He hoped she would be polite enough not to comment upon it.

"You are in pain," she said, instantly dashing his misplaced optimism, her lips tightening into a thin line of disapproval. "What are you doing out of bed so soon, Your Royal Highness?"

Had he expected anything less than her taking him to task?

If he had, he ought to be ashamed of himself. But her cold tone and stiff shoulders had his cock waking up for the first time since his wounding, and that pleased him greatly—he hadn't lost his voracious appetite for the fairer sex. Not, of course, that the confirmation pleased him as greatly as the sight of her in his chamber did. For nothing could compare.

She was here .

And she was lovely.

And he wanted her more than ever.

Best of all, she hadn't come because he'd demanded it of her. Rather, she must have ventured to him of her own free will.

Like a seasoned general watching his enemy's flank disintegrate before him, Nando seized the advantage, charging.

"Perhaps you might be willing to tuck me back in," he suggested smoothly.

Pink washed over her cheekbones, and he didn't miss the way her gaze dropped, taking in his dishabille. "Your Royal Highness, you are utterly without compunction."

He grinned. "I'm without anything that keeps me from what I want most."

She stared at him, for once apparently having been left speechless. Nando might have reveled in the brief victory, but a sudden, brilliant idea had occurred to him. A means of keeping Eleanora close even after he left this town house. She still hovered hesitantly at the door, as if she would flee at the slightest provocation. He couldn't have that.

Nando moved toward her slowly, trying to make his actions appear nonchalant rather than calculated. In truth, he was a hunter stalking his prey, each footfall on the rich Aubusson bringing him nearer to his quarry.

"I should take my leave," she muttered, almost to herself.

And yet, she didn't move.

"Nonsense," he countered softly. "You should remain precisely where you are. I'm pleased you've come to me, my dear."

"I merely wished to inquire after your recuperation," she said, fingers twisting in the fall of her muslin skirts at her sides in an obvious show of her inner turmoil. "Where is Mr. Dimitrius?"

Mr. Dimitrius. For a moment, Nando didn't know who the deuce she was speaking of, until he realized Bruno's surname was Dimitrius.

"I sent him to the kitchens to fetch me something reasonable to eat," he explained, skirting a table as he approached her. "I've been given nothing more than bone broth and gruel. I feel like a prisoner."

She pursed her lips. "Surely Her Royal Highness and Mr. Tierney have instructed the servants to follow the directions of the physician who attended you."

"Perhaps," he allowed, stopping almost an arm's length from her, near enough to catch the faintest hint of her scent. "But I have no wish to starve to death. If I'm to heal, I require sustenance."

And you, preferably riding me.

But he didn't say that aloud. He had no wish for Miss Brett to run screaming into the hall.

Her eyes narrowed, almost as if she had heard the wicked, unspoken addition. "Nonetheless, I am certain you should be resting and eating what the doctor has ordered for you. You are a dreadful patient, Your Royal Highness."

"I truly am dreadful, Eleanora. You're not mistaken. However, I'm famished. Starving. My appetite requires sating."

Yes, he was villain enough to be speaking of two different appetites at once. But he was also cunning enough to know that she could find no fault in the information he had just imparted.

The color on her cheeks deepened, but the rigidness from her posture didn't relent. "How kind, then, of Mr. Dimitrius to fetch you sustenance. I'm pleased to see you are healing well, Your Royal Highness. I bid you good evening."

Did she truly think he would allow her to leave him so quickly? Nando would have been amused had he not been so determined to keep her precisely where she was.

He strode nearer, reaching her in time to lay a flattened palm on the door above her head using his uninjured arm. "Don't go with such haste."

She spun about, eyes wide and startled, her back pressed to the door. "Your Royal Highness!"

He had shocked her. He didn't care.

"I'd like to make you an offer," Nando said smoothly, disregarding her surprise.

He was determined to implement the notion that had seized him in its relentless grip.

Her golden lashes fluttered over her icy eyes for a moment, the sole indication that his words had an effect on her sangfroid.

"I won't be your mistress, Your Royal Highness," she said coolly.

Ah, yes. For all the games she played with him, his Eleanora knew what he wanted from her. It was elemental. Something deeper and larger than the both of them. Inevitable, too.

But Nando smiled, ignoring the searing pain in his wounded arm, which paled in comparison to the thwarted lust boiling in his blood. "Eleanora, you wound me. I have a proper circumstance in mind for you. Not something scandalous."

He couldn't be certain if it was their proximity—his body almost aligned to hers—or that he had been on his feet for longer than he had since being shot that was dizzying him. But he decided he didn't give a damn.

"What manner of circumstance could you possibly have to offer me, Your Royal Highness?" she asked, her tone skeptical.

"You can teach me how to dance and be proper."

A blatant lie. No doubt they both knew it. But Nando was hoping she might fool herself into accepting the temptation he offered.

Her chin tipped up. "You already know how to dance quite elegantly, and as for the latter, I harbor a strong suspicion that it is an unattainable feat."

She wasn't wrong. Nando had no intention of being proper. Especially not in her presence.

He removed his palm from the door and waved his hand. "Something else, then. What is Tierney paying you? I'll offer you triple the sum."

"Your Royal Highness, even if I were inclined to accept your offer, which I most assuredly am not, leaving my current employer in the midst of my duties would reflect poorly upon me. My charges require my further aid, and I would never abandon them to take on a dubious role in your household."

Well, that was rather a bruising and crushing refusal. But Nando didn't expect anything less from her. A renewed determination to make her his roared forth within him. He would simply have to find the means of flouting her stern opposition to himself.

"I never said that you needed to abandon your present post," he told her mildly. "You may complete your duties first. I have it on good authority that Tierney is a gentleman one shouldn't cross, and having already been shot once, I have no desire to suffer a second such wounding."

This was only partially true, and he promptly banished the minuscule shards of conscience that attempted to ruin his plans.

"I hardly think Mr. Tierney would do you violence, Your Royal Highness. But while I thank you for the generous proposal, my answer must be a firm and resounding no."

Damn her resolve.

He wanted to kiss it right out of her. But he was no neophyte to seduction. He knew that he had to proceed at her pace. Which was to say with excruciating torpor.

"Why must it be?" he asked. "I'm a wealthy man. Hideously so. You might find yourself set up comfortably for the rest of your life after accepting my offer."

Particularly after he managed to secure what he wanted from her. Nando was a generous man in all things. In his estimation, pleasure and wealth were best enjoyed with others. He had no reservations about dispersing both. He wanted to shower Eleanora in jewels and pleasure her until she was mindless.

He wanted her naked in his bed and covered in diamonds and rubies and sapphires.

Best not to reveal that part of his plans to her just yet, however.

"I don't require your largesse, Your Royal Highness."

"Of course you don't require it. But what one requires and what one wants are two entirely different birds, are they not?"

He didn't miss the flare of awareness in her eyes. She was no na?ve innocent, even if she wasn't a seasoned woman of experience as he had oft preferred in his women. She knew what he was implying quite well. And despite herself, she was tempted.

Watching Eleanora Brett fall would be the most potent aphrodisiac of his admittedly dissolute life. Of that, Nando had no doubt.

But she wasn't there yet.

He watched as she summoned her icy reserve as if it were a suit of armor she could don and prepare for battle. Her shoulders straightened. Her lips firmed into a thin, grim line. Her spine stiffened with renewed resistance.

"I concern myself with what I require. Frivolous cares are for those with the liberty of basking in them."

It was a pointed little barb. But it bounced off Nando. She could insult him all she liked. He was still going to woo her and win her. And bed her. As many times as he could until the poison of desiring Miss Eleanora Brett was out of his blood.

Nando was reasonably certain his attempt at a smile resembled a grimace more than anything else.

"But only think, my dear," he said smoothly, "of how enjoyable it would be to bask in wants rather than needs. I can assure you that it is most rewarding."

Her wintry determination showed no signs of melting. The challenge was almost as rewarding as his inevitable victory would be. She was utterly intoxicating. He wanted to kiss and lick every inch of her delectable body.

"I would prefer not to think of such things since I cannot accept your offer. Now, if you please, Your Royal Highness, I must attend to the duties awaiting me. I shouldn't have come here at all, and I most definitely shouldn't linger. Pray excuse me?"

"What duties can be more important than the well-being of a prince?" he asked, shamelessly invoking his royal heritage and not moving from his position, keeping her pinned between himself and the door.

In truth, he had never felt like much of a prince. His brother, Maxim, had shouldered all the burdens and responsibilities of their kingdom. It had been Maxim who had fought in the Varros Great War to reclaim the throne. Maxim who bore the weight of duty with regal grace and responsibility. Nando, meanwhile, had been left to his own devices.

Protected. Spoiled. Debauched.

"Your welfare is of the utmost concern to this household, as evidenced by my presence at your sickbed when you requested it. However, I fear I've already spent far too much time alone with you. My reputation is paramount, and now that you're obviously healing nicely enough to be on your feet, I cannot help but to think further lingering here in your chamber would prove disastrous."

Ah, now she was wanting to abandon him altogether? He must have pierced her armor more fully than he'd believed.

"It can hardly prove disastrous when I'm an invalid," he said, although aside from the pain in his arm, he felt perfectly hale.

He was possessed of a hearty disposition. His wound was already healing. He would survive despite the intentions of the bastard who had dared to lay him low that day. There remained, of course, the unpleasant business of finding out precisely who it was who had shot him and why. But Tierney was a man of many talents, and he had eyes and ears everywhere in London. Nando had great faith in the man's ability. And in his present state, all he wanted was to further his cause where Eleanora was concerned.

"You are looking rather well for an invalid," she observed shrewdly, tearing him from his whirling thoughts as her gaze traveled up and down his dressing-gown-clad form.

He grinned. "My dear Eleanora, I'm so pleased to know you've been inspecting my person."

The flush on her cheeks deepened.

God, she was adorable.

And eminently fuckable. Oh, how he would enjoy debauching her.

"I was hardly inspecting your…your person," she stammered, as if she could scarcely bring herself to mention his body in any fashion.

Her hesitation and stumbling over her words were so unlike the stern, unflappable woman he'd come to know that it left Nando with no doubt that she wasn't as unmoved by him as she pretended. In fact, he would wager it was quite the opposite.

"You weren't?" He pretended to frown and reached for the fastening on his robe as if he intended to whisk it away. "Perhaps we ought to rectify that matter."

"No." Eyes wide, she laid her hand over his with haste. "We will do nothing of the sort. This is positively scandalous. I must go."

But her fingers had tightened on his hand rather than releasing him, and the air was suddenly filled with undeniable, potent awareness.

"Stay," he said simply.

Her lips parted, their lush fullness on display along with her hesitation. She wanted to linger here with him, despite all her protests to the contrary. He could see it plainly in her countenance, feel it in her touch.

"Please," Nando added when she continued to look torn between what she ought to do and what she longed to do. "Must I beg you, Eleanora?"

"I've told you not to be so familiar," she said, her voice husky and distinctly lacking the reproach she likely had wished to instill in it.

"And I've promptly ignored you, just as you want me to," he said. "You like hearing me say your given name."

"I'll admit no such thing."

But still, she had yet to pull away from him.

"You needn't make the concession. I can tell well enough from your reaction every time I call you by it."

She stiffened and withdrew her hand quickly, as if she'd inadvertently burned herself. "As I said, I must return to my duties."

"Must you, or are you merely afraid that if you linger, you won't be able to resist me?" he couldn't help taunting.

"There is nothing to resist," she denied.

But he didn't miss the breathless quality of her voice.

"Isn't there?"

The scent of her, clean and womanly—soap with a hint of roses—wound itself around him. Her lips were parted. Blue eyes wide and no longer cold, but sizzling with the same fire he felt in his veins.

"Your Royal H?—"

He ended her protest with his lips. Partially because he didn't want to hear her call him Your Royal Highness one more bloody time, and partly because he couldn't exist another second on this earth without knowing what Eleanora Brett's mouth felt like beneath his.

Heaven.

Exquisite.

Perfection.

That was what her mouth felt like. Like the last mouth he wanted to kiss. The force of his reaction to her was astonishing. Nando had never felt anything so overwhelming. Her lips were silken and soft, hot and lush and giving. She tasted like tea and innocence, and he wanted more. Had to have more.

He could never have enough.

Nando cupped her cheek with his right hand, gently angling her face so that he could deepen the kiss. With a soft, almost breathy sound of surrender that he felt in his ballocks, Eleanora opened for him. He gave her his tongue.

Her arms wound around his neck, and she pressed herself against him fully. Her diminutive height kept her from coming into contact with his wounded arm, sparing him from pain. But he would have kissed her anyway. No kiss he'd ever known in his life compared to this one, Eleanora Brett coming so deliciously undone for him.

He swept his hand from her jaw to her nape, cupping her head and keeping her from colliding with the door at her back as he kissed her deeper. Harder. Her tongue answered his, tentatively at first and then with greater confidence.

Deus , it was heady, the feeling of her in his arms, her completely yielding to him.

And just as quickly as it had begun, it was over. Interrupted by three sound raps on the chamber door. She flew away from him like a startled bird, darting to the side, staring at Nando with a dazed expression, her lips swollen from his kisses. A thundering bolt of possession jolted through him.

He wanted to see her thus again.

Soon.

"Your Royal Highness?"

But Bruno's untimely return and his unwanted voice from the hall, hesitant after Nando's somewhat ungracious treatment of him earlier, shattered the possibilities of the moment.

"What is it, Bruno?" he demanded harshly, raking his hand through his hair.

Of all the times for his bodyguard to return.

If he'd been but half a minute longer, Nando could have pressed his advantage. He'd have had Eleanora eating out of his hand.

"I was able to procure some sustenance from the kitchens, Your Royal Highness."

Fuck.

"I'm no longer hungry," he tried, hoping Bruno would go to the devil and leave him alone with Eleanora.

The only sustenance he wanted was more of the woman before him, whose breathing was erratic and whose eyes were wide. He was reasonably certain he could spend the rest of his life on nothing more than her kisses alone for succor.

"Come to me later," he told her lowly. "We've not finished this discussion."

Her nostrils flared as she inhaled sharply at his boldness. "No."

Damnation.

Thwarted .

"Perhaps Your Royal Highness will change your mind when you see what I've managed to obtain," Bruno suggested, the latch on the door lifting as his bodyguard decided to let himself into the room.

Bruno faltered as he spied Eleanora, whose countenance couldn't have been more horrified if she'd just been invited to her own funeral.

The bodyguard attempted a bow, no easy feat given the laden tray he bore. "Miss Brett."

She dipped into an elegant curtsy. "Mr. Dimitrius, good evening. I was just taking my leave." She ventured a fleeting glance in Nando's direction and another curtsy. "Your Royal Highness."

And then she fled his chamber, leaving Nando alone again, save for Bruno and a tray of pilfered food he no longer wanted to eat.