Scandalous Desires

Chapter Ten

“Mr. Makepeace.”

Winter tamped down a surge of impatience and turned at the feminine tone of command. His morning had been busy enough before Lady Hero had decided to make an unscheduled appearance at the home—and bring Lady Beckinhall with her.

He’d thought the ladies well occupied with Nell, discussing the new venture of teaching the children how to spin, but apparently he was wrong. Lady Hero stood on the upper landing just outside the meeting room of the Ladies’ Syndicate for the Benefit of the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children. She smiled brightly and he immediately was suspicious. The lady was the least annoying of the aristocratic members of the Ladies’ Syndicate, but he was beginning to realize that underneath her always pleasantly elegant exterior, she was a bit Machiavellian.

He bowed shortly. “My lady?”

“I have a particular favor I wonder if I might ask of you,” she said.

He sighed, mentally girding his loins, for he had the feeling he wasn’t going to like this favor. “Of course, ma’am.”

She nodded, satisfied. “You’ve met Lady Beckinhall, the newest lady attending our meetings?”

“Indeed, ma’am.”

“Lady Beckinhall would be a wonderful addition to the Ladies’ Syndicate for the Benefit of the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children,” Lady Hero said. “But I’m afraid she’s not quite certain if she would like to join us.”

Winter looked at her blankly. “Yes?”

Her smile became firmer. “Yes. And I thought, if you gave her a special tour of the home, she might realize what very good work you do here.”

“Ah…” For the life of Winter, his brain, usually quite a quick organ, was unable to come up with a suitable excuse which would get him out of wasting his time with a silly society matron for forty-five minutes or longer.

“Lovely!” Perhaps Lady Hero had gone deaf, for she beamed as if he’d acquiesced enthusiastically. “Lady Beckinhall is waiting in the meeting room for you.”

And in another minute Winter found himself bowing to Lady Beckinhall.

He straightened and thought he caught a gleam of amusement in her eyes.

“How kind of you to volunteer to show me the home,” Lady Beckinhall said. “I vow the prospect of inspecting children’s beds fills me with wonder.”

“Does it indeed, ma’am?” Winter replied woodenly. He turned on his heel and strode to the stairs, starting up them. His worry for Silence—both her person and the harm she might do the home—was ever constant and now he must pander to this woman.

There was a pattering and a breathless voice behind him. “My! Will this be the five-minute tour?”

Winter stopped and turned.

Lady Beckinhall stood, panting a bit, three stairs below him. From his higher vantage point he had an intimate view down her bodice. Her plump breasts were mounded softly, the cleft between them shadowy, mysterious, and far too alluring.

He looked away. “Pardon, my lady. I did not mean to make you run after me.”

“No, of course you didn’t,” she replied.

He glanced at her swiftly. The lady’s blue eyes were watching him mockingly.

Winter sighed silently and mounted the stairs at a slower pace. The next floor held a short, cramped hall with three doors. He opened the first and stood back to let Lady Beckinhall enter.

She swept in and glanced around. “What is this?”

“The children’s beds you were so eager to inspect,” he said without inflection. “This is the boys’ dormitory. As you can see it is in need of repairs.”

She glanced at him over her shoulder and then around the room. The ceiling was low, stains from previous leaks in the roof prominent. Two rows of narrow cots lined each wall. “But you’ll soon be moving into a new home, won’t you?”

He nodded. “That is our hope. I believe, however, that there is still a need for funds to pay for furnishings for the new building.”

“Hmm.” Her murmur was noncommittal.

They needed her money. Winter inhaled. “Would you like to see the girls’ room?”

Lady Beckinhall raised elegant eyebrows mockingly. “Would I?”

Tamping down an urge to reply bluntly, he led her out of the room and into the next, which was nearly identical.

She paced to the far end of the room, peering at one of the cots lining the wall. “It’s very Spartan.”

“Yes.”

Lady Beckinhall delicately touched the threadbare blanket on one of the beds with her fingertips. “Well, the coverlets leave much to be desired, but at least the beds are roomy enough for the children here.”

Winter cleared his throat. “This dormitory houses some seventeen children. The children sleep two or three to a bed.”

She swiveled in an abrupt movement, her rich burgundy skirts sweeping the bare boards of the floor. “Why?”

He looked her in the eye, this aristocrat who’d never known want, and said gently, “Because it’s warmer at night.”

He could see the logical question form in her mind and then her swift glance at the tiny fireplace. The coal scuttle was nearly empty beside it.

She looked back at him, and to her credit, she didn’t try flippancy. “I see.”

“Do you, my lady?” Perhaps it was his impatience coming to a head. Perhaps it was his very real worry for Silence, but suddenly he was tired of sophisticated sparring. Of wasting his meager time on beautiful, frivolous women.

When he spoke again his voice was hard. “They crowd into the beds at night and huddle close, but the hearths aren’t big enough to keep the entire room warm, not with the thin walls. One of the maids must rouse herself in the middle of the night to stoke the fire again. The children who have been living with us awhile are well fed. They are fine, even if the night is cold.”

“And the others?” she whispered.

“If they have come new, often—usually, in fact—they’re thin and weak from starvation,” Winter said. “They haven’t the plumpness of a healthy child. The plumpness that keeps a child warm at night. Most do well after several months of being fed good, wholesome food. But for some it is too late. Those do not wake in the morning.”

She stared at him, her face pale. “I thought you were supposed to tell me how sweet the children are. To woo my money with gentle words and flattery.”

He shrugged. “You seem like a woman who has had more than enough flattery in her life.”

She nodded once and swept past him.

He stared after her, startled. “Where are you going?”

“I think I’ve seen all that I need to, Mr. Makepeace,” she said. “Good day.”

Winter shook his head, disgusted with himself. Every day Silence lived at that pirate’s home, the orphanage was in imminent peril of losing what funding it got from these aristocrats. All the more need, then, to placate women like Lady Beckinhall. The home needed money and if the only way to get it was by toadying up to wealthy widows, well then, he ought to toady and be happy.

Instead, he’d just driven away a potential patroness.

Fool.

LATER THAT NIGHT Silence nervously touched the ruching that decorated the neckline of her new dress. It really was lovely—the loveliest dress she’d ever worn. Before William’s death she had worn colors, but she had usually dressed in brown or gray. Sedate colors, practical colors for a woman who, when she needed to go somewhere, did so by her own feet. London was a grimy city.

Certainly she’d never worn bright indigo blue. She turned a bit before the full-length mirror that had been brought into her rooms. The silk seemed to shimmer and change, sometimes more purple, sometimes more blue.

“It’s simply grand, ma’am,” Fionnula sighed from where she sat on a footstool near the mirror.

The maid had helped her to dress and had pulled back her hair into a knot with a few locks carefully curled at her temples and nape.

“Do you think so?” Silence asked shyly. She touched again the ruched ribbon at her neckline. The bodice was round and deeply cut, highlighting her breasts pushed into mounds by the embroidered stays she wore under the dress.

“Oh, yes,” Fionnula said firmly. “Yer even more grand than the ladies that Himself used to have in his rooms.”

Silence stilled, and wet her lips before asking with feigned indifference. “Used to?”

Alas, she’d never be a good actress.

Fionnula gave her a speaking glance. “Haven’t ye noticed? He hasn’t had a strumpet in his rooms since the day after ye arrived.”

“Oh,” was the only reply Silence could think to make, but her heart leaped willy-nilly with joy.

Fionnula rolled her eyes. “He used to have at least one woman a night, sometimes more.”

“More?” Silence squeaked. “Than one? At a time?”

“Oh, yes,” Fionnula assured her. “Sometimes two or three at once.”

Silence simply gaped, her mind stopped on the thought of Michael entertaining two or three women in his bed at once. Had he… serviced them all? In a single night? How…?

But Fionnula had grown quite chatty. “I never understand it myself. I mean, if it was backwards, as it were, and a woman could have any number of men she wished… Well, I’d never have more than one, I think. Why, can ye imagine two men snorin’ in yer bed? Or three? And what about the covers? When Bran lets me spend the night—which don’t happen often, let me tell ye—he’s always pullin’ the covers off my shoulders in the middle of the night. I wake up, my shoulders numb with cold. No.” Fionnula shook her head. “No, ye couldn’t pay me to take more’n one man to me bed.”

Fionnula turned at the end of this speech—the longest she’d ever made in Silence’s presence—and looked at her expectantly.

Silence blinked and unfortunately an image of Michael, entirely nude, lounging in the middle of his huge bed came into her mind. In the image he was erect, his long penis lying hard and straight against his flat belly. It was ruddy and wide at the tip where—

Oh, dear.

She cleared her throat and said rather huskily. “No, one would be quite enough.”

Fionnula nodded as if her argument was confirmed. “Sometimes I don’t understand men at all.”

“Gah!” Mary Darling cried as if agreeing with Fionnula. She’d slept most of the afternoon as Silence and the maid had worked on the dress, taking in the waist a bit. The baby toddled over and held out her arms to be picked up.

Silence stooped and carefully lifted the baby. “Will you be good and obey Fionnula while I’m out?” she whispered into the dark curls.

“Down!” Mary said, wriggling, so Silence kissed her hastily and put her on the floor, just as a knock came at her door. It was the corridor door, so it mayn’t be Michael, but still she checked her reflection in the looking glass.

Fionnula opened the outer door.

Michael stood there in a fine deep blue coat over a white waistcoat embroidered in silver thread. Diamonds winked on the buckles of his shoes. His gaze went straight to her and something in his black eyes seemed to heat when he saw her.

She instinctively covered her décolletage with her hands.

“Don’t.”

He took three steps and was before her. Gently, he grasped her hands in his own and spread them wide, exposing her bosom framed by the low neckline of the dress. His gaze dropped to her breasts and heat flooded her cheeks.

“Don’t ever hide yerself from me eyes,” he murmured low so that only she could hear.

Her gaze darted to Fionnula by the door. “Please!” she whispered in embarrassment.

His smile was not quite kind. “Ye may cover yerself only when we’re not alone.”

Her breath caught at the sensual promise in his eyes. Did he mean to make their friendship more intimate? And if so, would she let him?

His eyes narrowed at the confusion in her face, but he didn’t comment. He’d thrown a cloak over a chair as he entered the room and now he picked it up and drew it about her shoulders. It was velvet, rich and warm and lined with rose silk. He pulled the edges together under her throat and tenderly tied the cloak closed.

“There,” he said when he was done. “A shield to hide yer modesty behind. And to hide yer identity…”

He held out a velvet half mask.

“Oh!” She’d been worrying all afternoon about appearing in public with him, though she wasn’t sure how to bring up the subject. It was not for her reputation that she worried—that was already ruined—but for the orphanage. Now she looked at him gratefully. “Thank you.”

He gave her an ironic glance and moved behind her. Gently he lowered the mask over her face and tied it behind her head. She could feel his male heat at her back and the whisper of his breath on her nape. Something warm and soft brushed her ear.

Her breathing went shallow.

Then he was beside her again, holding out his arm. His voice was husky when he said, “Come now or we’ll be late.”

She made her good-byes to Fionnula and Mary Darling and then he was taking her hand and pulling her into the hall.

“Late to what?” Silence asked breathlessly.

But he only glanced over his shoulder at her and grinned, white teeth flashing, and so handsome her heart seemed to leap into her throat.

He led her to the front door this time, nodding at the two guards standing there. Outside a carriage waited.

“Is this yours?” Silence asked, eyeing the polished lanterns hanging by the coachman.

“Aye,” Michael said as he handed her in. He leaped in beside her and knocked on the ceiling. “I don’t have much use for it, so I keep me carriage and horses at a stable.”

“And the coachman?”

She saw the flash of his teeth again as he grinned at her in the dim carriage. “One o’ me crew. He had a job as a stable lad in another life.”

“I see.”

Silence fingered the soft velvet lying over her lap, the realization suddenly hitting her that they rode in a small enclosed space together. She tried to keep her breathing even, but the feel of his broad shoulders leaning against her, the sight of his long legs stretched clear across the carriage floor, seemed to make breathing rather difficult.

“This is only my fourth carriage ride,” she said nervously into the heavy quiet that had fallen.

“Oh?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “Papa could not afford to keep one, but I once rode in a carriage belonging to a friend of his, Sir Stanley Gilpin, who helped to found the Home for Unfortunate Infants and Foundling Children. That was when he took us to a fair in Greenwich once. And when Temperance was married, her husband, Lord Caire very kindly provided a carriage for the family to ride in to the church and later the wedding breakfast.” Silence stopped suddenly having run out of breath.

She darted a look at Michael.

His face was shadowed in the dark, but he seemed to be paying close attention to her babbling. “And the fourth time?”

She remembered and had to look down at her hands in her lap. “The fourth time was on the morning after I spent the night in your bedroom. Temperance rented a hack to come search for me. She found me at the end of the street after I’d walked it with my hair undone and…” She trailed away, unable to say the words.

But he was quite able to supply them. “And yer dress unlaced to show yer chemise and the tops o’ yer pretty titties.”

“Yes.” She looked at him. The old anger and pain was in her chest, but it was dimmer now, allowing her to think. “Why did you make me do that? Walk up the street like a whore coming home from a night of sin? Did you want to destroy my marriage?”

“No.” He shook his head sharply. “Had I thought enough to want to destroy yer marriage then me actions might be forgivable.”

She wished she could see his face. It had never occurred to her that he might think what he’d done that day unforgivable—that he might care enough to want forgiveness. The idea was a revelation.

“Then why?” she asked.

“Why not?” he replied and the simple cruelty of his statement sent a jagged shard of pain through her breast. “It was me whim, that and only that. I was bred and birthed in St. Giles. I clawed me way up to become king o’ hell and now me every wish is granted, love.” He shrugged, his expression filled with self-mockery. “If I should have a mind to crush a virtuous woman merely for me own entertainment, then I do it.”

His honest depravity took her breath away, but her eyes narrowed in suspicion. Once she might’ve taken his words as simple fact. Now she knew him better. He might think himself a devil, but he was far more complicated than that.

Far more good.

“So you have no control over your desires?” she prodded skeptically.

“Sure and I have control.” He closed his eyes as if disgusted. “Don’t harbor false illusions about me, Silence, m’love. I chose not to control me desires when I met ye—even if that meant making an innocent walk, disheveled, up a street in St. Giles to fall into her sister’s arms.”

“How do you know I fell into Temperance’s arms?” she asked. “You didn’t escort me to your door—that was Harry’s job.”

He went still. “I watched ye with a spyin’ glass from me windows. I saw yer courage—and I saw ye collapse into her waitin’ arms.”

“Why?” she whispered. “Why should you watch me?”

“Why shouldn’t I share in yer pain?”

She shook her head, looking away from him, staring blindly out the darkened windows. “You say you chose not to control your basest urges that night, yet you did not harm me physically. You could’ve taken me to your bed and destroyed me, yet you did not.” She turned and stared at him seriously. “You cannot tell me that you don’t feel true remorse for the pain you caused me.”

He looked startled for a moment and then he laughed, short and hard. “Ah, Silence, m’love, don’t mistake me for a gentleman. I am a pirate, a thief, and a killer, and nothin’ but.”

“Then you would do it again, if you had the chance?” Silence demanded. “Make that terrible bargain with me? Send me into the street, disheveled and ashamed?”

His hesitation was so slight that had she not been paying careful attention, she might’ve missed it. But she didn’t miss it. It was real.

He looked haunted—confused as if the very earth had shifted under his feet. “D’ye hope to change the stripes on a snake, darlin’? Rub as hard as ye might, they’ll not come off and yer like to be bitten for yer pains.”

“You didn’t answer me,” she whispered.

He turned to face her though she could not make out his expression in the dark. “And yer sure o’ that now?”

She drew in a wavering breath. “You can choose not to do such horrible things in the future, can you not?”

“Can I?”

“Yes,” she said firmly. “No matter what you were in the past, what you are now, you can choose to change, choose to indulge only your better desires, not your basest ones.”

He stared at her and she wished that she could see his eyes clearly. Would a devil lurk there—or a militant archangel?

She opened her mouth, but the carriage shuddered to a halt at that moment.

“We’re here,” Michael drawled.

He pushed open the carriage door, revealing blazing torches in the night, and jumped down before setting the step and offering his hand to her for assistance.

Silence took her skirts in one hand and carefully stepped down. She wasn’t used to such an abundance of skirts and she rather feared she’d drag her hems in something awful.

“Come,” Michael said and set her hand upon his arm.

She finally looked up and saw a lovely classical building. Lanterns lined the steps leading to the doors and streams of ladies and gentlemen were entering the building. At the edges of the crowd were hawkers calling their wares: oranges, walnuts, flowers, and sweetmeats. Michael led her up the steps and into the doors.

Silence looked up at the vaulted ceiling, lined with sparkling chandeliers. “Where are we?”

“Ye’ll see,” he said and mounted a curving stair.

The upper level held a corridor with doors along one side. Michael opened one and ushered her inside.

“Oh!” Silence exclaimed. “You’ve brought me to the theater.”

“Not quite,” Michael said from behind her. “This here is an opera house.”

Silence looked about excitedly. She’d never been to either the theater or the opera as Father had rather frowned upon such things as frivolous.

They were in a luxurious box with several plush chairs and a table. Velvet curtains lined the box and could be drawn to give the occupants privacy. But beyond the railing the stage blazed with lights. Below a crowd milled in the pit.

“Let me take yer cloak,” Michael said, lifting it from her shoulders.

Silence hardly noticed. She was busy peering into the pit and across the theater to the boxes on the other side.

“Take care,” Michael warned. He placed his hands on either side of her waist. “Lean too far over and ye’ll tumble out.”

“I won’t,” Silence said, blushing. She must look a rustic country lass in her excitement. She sat on a chair with careful dignity, but then couldn’t help putting a hand on the rail as she hissed, “Isn’t that the king?”

Michael had taken a seat beside her and he casually turned his head to look where she indicated. “That’ll be the king’s son, the Prince o’ Wales. He does bear a fair resemblance to his da, though ’tis said the king hates his son most strongly.”

“The king hates his own son?” Silence felt incredibly naïve. How did Michael know this and she did not?

He shrugged. “The king and the prince are never seen together.”

Silence tried not to stare at the florid man with the protuberant eyes. “Oh! And what about the lady beside him?”

“His wife, I think,” Michael murmured. “ ’Tis rumored that he’s devoted to her.”

“Really?” Silence examined the princess. She wore a very elegant silver and white gown, but she was little more than a girl.

She craned to see who was in the boxes on their side of the opera house. “Do you come here often?”

Michael shrugged. “Once or more a month.”

Silence looked at him then. She’d not thought when she asked the question that he would answer in the affirmative. “You do?”

He smiled, his face in profile to hers. He didn’t lean forward eagerly as she had done, but his attention was most definitely on the crowd, the stage, and the atmosphere of the opera house itself. “Aye, and is it that startlin’ a savage such as m’self can find pleasure in music? Or is it the elegance o’ the music I like that surprises ye?”

“I am surprised,” she admitted. She was fascinated by the beauty of his profile, the severity of the straight lines of his forehead and nose, the sensual curves of his lips, and the arrogance of his chin.

He turned and caught her watching him and the smile left his lips. His eyes grew intent, his eyelids drooping, his eyebrows looking quite satanic and a little frightening.

She found him so tempting that she pressed her hand to her chest without conscious thought.

He followed the movement.

A corner of his mouth kicked up as he stared at her exposed bosom. He reached out and trailed his finger lightly across the upper slopes of her breasts. “Ye have no idea how long I’ve waited to see these.”

She caught his hand in her trembling fingers, uncertain if she was thrilled or mortified.

He didn’t try to pull away. “If I knelt right now at yer feet no one would see.”

“I…” She glanced at the low wall in front of her. It hid her from the waist down to anyone looking at the box. An image of him kneeling at her feet popped into her head and she suddenly stopped breathing. “What?”

“I could kneel there and lift yer skirts,” he murmured. “Ye’d have to be very still, mind. Very quiet. And no matter what I did ye couldn’t let it show on yer face.”

She stared at him, mesmerized by his deep, slightly rasping voice as he told her his wicked thoughts. She blinked, unable to resist asking, “What would you do?”

A corner of his mouth curled and his black eyes were intent. His hand left her lax fingers and trailed over her bosom, down her stomach, to her lap. “Do, love? Why, I’d fold yer skirts up, careful like, a little at a time, until I could see yer sweet cunny, hidin’ there between yer thighs.”

He pressed with his palm on the place that he described and it seemed to burn right through the layers of cloth.

She bit her lip, unable to look away from him.

His nostrils flared as if he could scent her arousal. “I’d part yer sweet thighs and touch ye there, where yer pink and wet. I’d slide me finger through yer softness, up until I touched that little spot at the top.” He tilted his head, watching her. “D’ye know the spot I mean?”

“I…” She swallowed, feeling the heat rising over her throat. She knew, of course.

“Tell me.”

She closed her eyes. “Yes.”

“And have ye touched yerself here?” He spread his fingers wide as if claiming possession of her femininity. “Tell me, Silence me love. Have ye touched yerself and thought o’ me?”

She drew in her breath—to deny or confirm, she didn’t know which—but a squeak came from the orchestra.

Michael lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed the palm, his lips warm and intimate.

Silence stared at him, her heart fluttering in her chest.

He smiled into her eyes, placed her hand gently back on her lap, and turned his gaze to the stage. “Hush. It begins.”

MICK SMILED TO himself as he turned to watch the stage. He could hear Silence’s quickened breathing, still saw in his mind’s eye the pink tingeing her lovely chest. He was rock hard from their play and were she a doxie he might’ve pulled the curtains and taken her there.

But she was a lady true and he had no intention of making her flee. No, he’d take this slow, seduce with voice and imagination, and when he finally took her to his bed, well then, the victory would be all the more sweet for the anticipation. He sat back and swiftly made his breeches more comfortable as the music swelled.

The musico stepped out on the stage to calls of approval from the audience. The opera singer was Italian, well known, and had quite a following in London. He was unnaturally tall and a bit fat and he stood woodenly on the stage, his body ungraceful. But when he opened his mouth… what delight!

Mick closed his eyes as the mezzo-soprano voice flew, high and precise, confident even when the notes were rapid and complex. Mick had come to the opera a little more than a year ago on a whim and had been instantly enthralled. That a man could produce such a wonderful sound almost made him believe in a God.

Almost, but not quite.

Mick opened his eyes and turned to watch Silence. She was leaning against the rail, her expression utterly rapt. Her lips were slightly parted, her eyes wide, and a curl of her hair drifted against her fair cheek. It occurred to him that he was very content thus, watching Silence and listening to the opera. Was this what happiness was? Strange thought. He’d never considered happiness before. That kind of prosaic life was not for him, he knew. But here, now… he had a glimmering glimpse of what happiness might be.

At the intermission he left her and fought through the crowds to a certain hawker he’d seen outside the opera before.

“What’s this?” Silence asked when he returned with laden hands.

“Cream cakes and wine,” he drawled, and felt the warmth light his chest at her delighted gasp.

He watched her eat the pretty cakes he’d found for her and drink the sweet wine and the satisfaction was so pure that it gave him pause. Was this all an illusion? Could he trust her as he’d trusted once before, long ago?

That time had ended in tragedy. Would this?

She glanced up at that moment, licking the cream from her sweet lips, and frowned. “What is it?”

He sat back, looking away. He’d break in half and die if she treated him as the other had. “Nothin’.”

He felt her gaze for minutes that seemed to drag like an hour, but then, thank God, the orchestra began.

Mick hardly paid mind to the second half of the opera. It was time. Tonight he would take her to bed and end his restlessness. Once she was his, he’d no longer have this womanish worry that she’d betray him.

The decision made, he waited out the rest of the opera impatiently. Silence was hiding a yawn behind her hand by the end, so Mick gave her his arm and led her into the night air.

The carriage was around the corner and he was conscious as their footsteps echoed off the buildings on either side that this would be a grand spot for an ambush. He breathed a sigh of relief when they made the carriage and he grimaced ruefully to himself as he followed her inside. He was becoming a silly old woman it seemed.

He settled beside Silence, very aware of her smaller size and of the delicacy of her profile. Tonight he’d have her in his bed. Tonight he’d discover all that smooth, soft skin, and the woman beneath.

“Thank you,” she said sleepily. “That was the most delightful thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Ye liked it then, m’love?” he murmured.

“I did.”

He smiled in the dark. He’d had years of practice with seduction, but this was different somehow. Final and just. After tonight he’d have no need to seduce any other. “What did ye like the most?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I liked the lady singer and the dancer—imagine dancing without stays!” She stifled a yawn. “So scandalous, and yet she was terribly graceful as well, like watching swan’s down float on the wind.” She was quiet a moment. “It must be nice to see the opera or the theater whenever you might wish.”

He tilted his head toward her. “Perhaps I’ll take ye again.”

He waited like a lovesick schoolboy for her reply and it took several moments for him to realize that she’d fallen asleep. He smiled in the dark. Best she get her rest now. Still, he could not help the impulse to carefully put his arm around her and gently tilt her head so that it lay more comfortably on his shoulder.

She murmured something and snuggled into his chest.

They rode thus through the night, she fast asleep trustingly against him, he with the smell of her hair in his nostrils. He was erect and throbbing in anticipation, but oddly he was content to sit thus with her.

More than content, if truth be told.

The ride must end at last, though, and the carriage shuddered to a halt before his palace.

She stirred and looked up, her eyes suddenly wide. “Oh! I’m sorry. I must have been a terrible weight.”

“Not at all, m’love,” he murmured. “Not at all.”

He bent his head toward hers, drawn by her plump, parted lips, but the carriage door opened.

Immediately she moved away from him and he sighed. “Come inside and I’ll give ye a taste o’ some fine Spanish wine.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said as he handed her down.

“Naught but a sip, I promise ye,” he whispered into her ear.

He was so wrapped up in their gentle flirtation that it took him a moment to notice what he should’ve seen at once.

There were no guards outside the palace.