She passed the opening of the embrasure; a glint of moonlight tangled in her hair. Minerva.
Seeing her hurrying about wasn’t surprising, even late at night. Seeing her rush off in her nightgown, swinging a light cloak about her shoulders, was.
He’d been walking back from the countess’s rooms for some minutes; in the pervasive silence he would have heard if any of the staff had knocked on Minerva’s door.
He slipped out of the embrasure and followed at a distance, stopped breathing when she turned down the short corridor that led to the ducal apartments. He reached the corner in time to peer around and see her open the door leading into Royce’s sitting room.
It shut silently behind her.
Despite the obvious implications, he couldn’t quite believe it. So he waited. Waited for her to emerge with Royce, having summoned him to deal with some emergency…
In her nightgown?
Barging into Royce’s bedroom?
A clock somewhere tolled the quarter hour; he’d been standing there watching the door for over fifteen minutes. Minerva wasn’t coming out.
She was the reason Royce had dismissed the countess.
“Well, well, well, well, well.” Lips curving, he slowly turned and walked on to Susannah’s room.
Eighteen
M inerva paused just inside Royce’s sitting room to drag in a breath and steady her nerves.
A shadow across the room shifted. Her senses flared.
He emerged from the dimness, the shadows sliding away; he’d dispensed with his coat, waistcoat, and cravat, and was barefoot, but still had his shirt and trousers on. He set down the empty glass he carried on a side table. He didn’t actually growl, “About time,” but the sentiment invested every stride as he stalked toward her.
“Ah…” She grabbed her sliding wits and hauled them back, raised her hands to ward him off.
He reached for her, but not as she expected. His hands clamped about her head, angled it as he swooped and captured her lips with his.
The searing kiss overwhelmed all thought, submerged every last vestige of rationality beneath a scorching tide of desire. Of passion unleashed; the flames licked about them, crackling and hungry.
She was, as always, drawn into the sheer wonder of being wanted so blatantly, in this way, to this degree. His hands locked about her head, with his mouth, lips, and tongue, he claimed, possessed-and poured so much raw need, unfettered passion, and unrestrained desire into her, through her, that, swamped, submerged, instantly aroused, she swayed.
Her hands flattened on his chest; through the fine linen of his shirt she felt his heat and hardness. Unrelenting, demanding, commanding-she felt all he was beckon and lure. Sensed through her touch and the grip of his hands that amazing though it seemed he wanted her with an even greater passion than he had the night before.
Far from waning, a hunger gradually sated, his appetite-and hers-only grew. Escalated, deepened.
Fingers curling in his shirt, she kissed him back-an equal participant in the outrageously explicit kiss. If he never seemed able to get enough of her, she felt the same about him.
The thought reminded her of what she needed from the night. What more she wanted of him. The others had given her directions, not instructions. She knew what she had to achieve, had known she would have to improvise.
So how?
Before she could think, he released her head and drew his hands outward, letting her hair flow through his long fingers. Her cloak slipped from her shoulders, sliding down to puddle in a heap behind her. He broke from the kiss, reached for her body-and she’d run out of planning time.
“No!” Stepping back, palm braced on his chest, she tried to hold him off.
He halted, looked at her.
“I want to lead. For this dance, I want you to let me lead.”
That was the critical point-he had to let her. Had to accept the passive role instead of the dominant, had to willingly relinquish the reins and let her drive.
He’d never shared the reins-not truly. He’d allowed her to explore, but it had always been a permission granted, time and duration limited, all subject to his rule. He was a marcher lord, a king in his domains; she’d never expected anything else from him.
But tonight she was asking-demanding-that he not just share, but cede her his crown. For tonight, in his room, in his bed.
Royce understood very well what she was asking. Something he’d never granted to any other-and never would grant, not even to her, if he had a choice. But it wasn’t hard to guess from whom she’d got the idea, nor what, in her mind and theirs, it meant. What they thought his capitulation would mean.
And they were right.
Which meant he had no choice. Not if he wanted her to wear his duchess’s coronet.
Desire had already locked his features; he felt them grow harder, felt his jaw tighten as he held her gaze-and forced himself to nod. “All right.”
She blinked-he had to stop himself from scooping her up anyway and carrying her to his bed. He could rip away her wits, and her determination, but that way lay failure. This was a test-one he had to take. Easing back, he stretched his arms to either side. “So what now?”
A more cerebral part of him was intrigued to see what she would do.
Sensing his underlying challenge, she narrowed her eyes, then grabbed one hand, swung on her heel, and towed him into his bedroom.
His gaze locked on her hips, swaying naked beneath the near translucent poplin of an amazingly prim white nightgown. None of her nightgowns rated as provocative, but this one, with its long, gathered sleeves and high collar, closed all the way up to her chin with tiny buttons, seemed extreme-and erotic.
Because he knew the body inside the gown so well, the nunlike outer casing only spurred his imagination in picturing what it concealed.
She led him to the foot of his bed.
Releasing him, wordlessly she pushed until he stood with his back to the bed, his thighs against the mattress’s edge. She positioned him in the center of the four-poster, then grasped one arm, raised and slapped his palm to the ornately carved post on that side.
“Hold that. Don’t let go.”
She did the same with his other arm, setting that hand, too, level with his shoulder, against the other carved post. The bed was wide, but his shoulders were broad, his arms long; he could reach both posts easily.
She stepped back, assessed, nodded. “Good. That will do.”
For what? He was utterly intrigued over what she was planning. For all his experience, he’d never considered anything from a woman’s perspective; it was a novel, and unexpectedly arousing experience, arousing in an unusual way.
He’d been aroused from the moment he’d closed his hands about her head, painfully so once his lips had found hers; he would have taken her against the door in his sitting room if she hadn’t stopped him. Although she had, courtesy of her peculiar direction, the fire in his blood hadn’t died.
She trapped his eyes. “Under no circumstance are you to let go of the posts-not until I give you leave.”
Turning, she walked away from him, and the fires inside him burned brighter.
He tracked her across the room, aware of his hunger growing. Curiosity balanced it to some degree, let him wait with some semblance of patience.
Crossing to where he’d slung his clothes on a chair, she shifted things, then straightened; because of the sharp contrast between the shadows cloaking the room and the brilliance of the shaft of moonlight beaming like a searchlight on him, he couldn’t make out what she held in her hands until she drew near.