The Prince's Bride

Chapter Twelve

Gabriel’s excuse was insufficient, but Ryan had always been a little helpless around people who told the truth. Vulnerable friends, neighbors who shared worries, tenants who bared their souls. Her sister Diana said Ryan’s heart was too soft and her patience too loose; that Ryan invited these confessions. Ryan preferred to think of it as prioritizing the authentic.

If Maurice the Imposter Prince had been authentic—if he’d come to Ryan and said that he was short on funds, had no remaining relatives, and was adrift in a country that hated royal cousins, it was possible she would’ve determined some way to help him.

Meanwhile, Gabriel Rein, also known as His Serene Highness, Gabriel d’Orleans, the man now stalking silently behind her, had genuinely confided in her. He’d shared an elusive, fleeting blink of honesty. And it had been enough.

He described his love for the forest, and a need for safety, and the obstacle of losing control over his own life. It wasn’t an I won’t—it was an I cannot. And hearing this was enough to soften her heart, just a little.

Meanwhile, her body cared nothing for soft hearts or obstacles. Her body wanted more of the waterfall. His hands. His attention. His coiled strength kneeling before her. What had begun as a hodgepodge of attractive qualities had piled up for Ryan like logs on a fire; now she felt ablaze. His eyes, for one thing. He gazed at her with an intensity that made her stomach flip. And the power of him—the height and muscles and broad shoulders. He’d carried her through the forest and into his waterfall and she did not hate it.

Also, his home was tidy and warm, with thoughtful touches like rugs and a little curtain on the window.

And his nose was so very proudly French.

And the bread he’d served her with soft butter and a small dish of salt was delicious.

And the way he’d touched her—

“Will you be comfortable in the nightshirt?” he asked from behind her.

And that was another thing, she thought. The intimacy of wearing his loaned nightshirt made Ryan so very aware of her half-dressed body. The shirt was enormous but smelled clean. The fabric was rough, and it brushed against her nipples in a way that made her tingle. And it belonged to him.

“Oh yes, thank you very much,” she said. “If I’d worn the soggy dress, I wouldn’t have slept, not really, and it would’ve ruined your sheets.”

“I hope the nightshirt will keep you warm,” he said. “There is no fire in the bedchamber.”

“No I don’t suppose there is. I hadn’t realized about the fire.”

“No way to remove the smoke,” he said. “The chamber is too deep in the hillside for a stovepipe or chimney. A window would be impossible. It can be chilly without a fire. I’ll fetch another blanket.”

“Thank you. But how do you know when it’s morning if there is no window?”

“Rooster,” he said.

“Of course. Rooster.”

The bedchamber was dimly lit by the sconces, half of them now burned out. Around the corner, the waterfall splattered. Ryan eyed the bed. Should she simply draw back the covers and crawl in?

“Did you find the waterfall suitable?” he asked.

“Oh yes. I should love to have such a thing at Winscombe. The maids resent lugging buckets of heated water upstairs, and I don’t blame them. I’ve converted a little side parlor on the ground floor into a bathing room. And we use a trolly for the buckets.”

“How many floors have you at Winscombe?”

“Five. If you count the cellar and the attic. It’s the largest home on the island, actually. Plenty of space for ancestors to tack on leaky additions and impossible-to-heat solariums.”

She’d reached the edge of the bed and stopped. She could feel him standing behind her, as tall and thick as a stone wall. She need only drift backward to ever so idly lean against him.

In the kitchen, they’d sat across from each other, talking across his table. Her gaze had been drawn to his big hands on the small cup. She’d thought of him holding her foot, massaging her ankle; she’d fought the urge to reach out, to feel the roughness, to see her own hand disappear inside of it. Her parents had held hands, she’d remembered. When her mother had been alive and her father had been well, they’d walked hand in hand to the village, they’d danced together at assemblies, and her father had put his arm around her at church. Ryan remembered her naive childhood assumption that she would grow up and one day marry the Prince d’Orleans, and they would hold hands, and dance, and snuggle together on shared pews.

But her mother had died, and the prince had gone missing, and her father had fallen ill. For whatever reason, suitors had not come—not the missing prince chosen by her father, and not the sons of the small circle of local gentry. Ryan had realized that there were no guarantees. She was not the sort of woman that men viewed as... well.

She was not the sort of woman whom men looked upon with interest. To presume some man might court her? Marry her? These were fairy dreams.

By the time she and Diana discovered that Winscombe was in debt, Ryan had forgotten all about the Prince d’Orleans and any other man. Her life was full of sisters, and her ailing father, and the grief of a mother who had fallen very ill, very quickly, and then died the next week. She took on the responsibilities of managing a household when she was barely out of the schoolroom. Her life had not been without trials, but it was very full; and she truly believed it was a privilege to be so very needed and to have the cleverness and energy to provide for everyone in it. Ryan had been given many gifts, she knew this.

But oh.

Oh, how this deep forest, and this dark cave, how this giant man plucked and pulled at some long-overlooked yearning inside of her. It was like the errant string on the sleeve of this nightshirt; her fingers returned to it again and again, fingering, twirling, tugging gently until it snapped. She wanted to be touched and twirled; she wanted to have her strength tested. She wanted to snap.

In this moment, it didn’t matter so much that he’d refused to oust his cousin. In this moment, she was crawling into a bed located beneath a hillside. Surely she could indulge in the fantasy of snapping. Just for one night. If only in her mind.

“Shall I...” she began, unable to endure their silent observation of his bed. “Shall I sleep on top of the coverlet? It’s not necessary to disturb the—”

“Get in. You’ll be chilled on top.”

“Thank you.” She gathered her courage and dragged the covers back. She took up a pillow and fluffed it.

“Use the light of the candles to get settled and I’ll snuff them,” he told her. “This will mean total darkness. When the last one goes out.”

“Total darkness?”

“Because the passageway has a bend,” he said. “Any light from the fireplace is cut off. It becomes as dark as... well, as dark as the inside of a hill.”

“I’m not afraid,” she said, although she had no idea if this was true. Her bedroom at Winscombe was never without the bright coals smoldering in the grate. If the fire burned out, there was always moonlight from the window.

Without looking at him, Ryan climbed gainfully into the bed, sweeping her legs quickly beneath the covers. The spring in the mattress surprised her, not to mention the cool, crisp sheets. He really was very comfortable inside this hill. She wanted to tell him that he’d be comfortable at Winscombe, too, whether he stayed one night or forever. Of course he’d not refused her for lack of comfort. Ryan, meanwhile, was rather a purveyor of comfort. She loved fresh flowers in vases, and soft cushions in chairs, and raging fires on snowy days, with hot chocolate and currant buns.

When she was settled, Ryan watched him stalk about, snuffing the wall sconces. The room grew darker by degrees. With every new pool of shadow, Ryan’s heart beat faster. She pulled the covers to her chin.

“Would it be unsafe to leave a single candle lit?” she asked.

“I don’t know, I’ve never done it.” He snuffed the candle in the last sconce. Darkness dropped over the room like a black cloth. The only light was the candle inside the lamp in his hand. His face and chest were illuminated by a flickering glow. Her eyes followed it as he made his way around the bed.

“You’re exhausted,” he said. “It invites sleep, actually—the complete darkness.”

“Will you...” she began—but then she stopped. Her heart beat wildly. She squeezed the coverlet.

She tried again, “Before you go, may I see what it will be like? Will you stay a moment after you snuff the lamp? Could you find your way out with no flame?”

After a long beat, he said, “If you prefer.”

She glanced up, watching him in the tiny oval of light. He tipped his head down.

“Will you come closer?” Ryan whispered.

“Alright.” He walked four steps and loomed beside her. Could he see her nestled in his bed? How far did the halo of his candle extend? She didn’t know, but she could see him, and his gaze was half lidded. Heavy. He blinked slowly.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “I’m being ridiculous. I’ve never been afraid of the dark.”

“Shall I extinguish it?” he asked.

“You’ll not leave the chamber until I’m ready?” she asked. In her head, she thought, Please stay.

“I’ll not leave until you’re ready.”

“Right,” she said, releasing her grip on the covers. “Thank you. Alright, then. On with it.”

He lowered his mouth to the glass globe that protected the candle and blew. The bedchamber, which previously seemed very dark indeed, was plunged into total blackness.

“You’re alright,” Gabriel whispered.

“Yes?” she said, her voice like a squeak.

“Lady Ryan?”

“You did not misrepresent—it’s very dark indeed.”

“If you give yourself time, your eyes will adjust.”

“I can feel myself searching for some source of light—a tiny glimmer somewhere in the distance—but there is nothing.”

“In two minutes, it will not seem quite so disorienting. You will grow accustomed. You will sleep.”

The darkness was like being dropped into a void, cold and thick and disorienting. Spreading her fingers wide, she slid her hand in the direction of his voice. She felt cool sheet and the boxy edge of the mattress. She reached farther. Her fingertips brushed the back of his hand. He jumped at the contact but did not move away. Ryan went still, one trembling finger pressed to his knuckle.

When, finally, he moved, it was all at once. He snatched her hand from the mattress and interlocked their fingers. Ryan squeezed and closed her eyes. For a long moment, she lay with fingers clinging, heart running away, breath held.

“You’re alright,” he said lowly, his voice a rumble.

She didn’t answer. Ever so slightly, she gave a slow, slight tug to his hand. Stay, she thought.

“Lady Ryan?” he whispered, a plea.

She said nothing. She blinked her eyes open. There was no difference between the inside of her eyelids and the black chamber. It emboldened her, this blindness. She increased the strength of her grip on his hand and pulled.

Stay.

“Ryan,” he warned.

Heart pounding, eyes open or closed—she didn’t know—she increased the slow, steady pull of his hand. She didn’t yank. It was more like she was trying to prevent him from drifting away.

Gradually, he allowed her to draw him down. He nudged closer, then closer, then finally, all at once, he sat heavily on the bed beside her. The weight of his body caused a slant in the mattress, and Ryan tipped in his direction. She let out a small, desperate sound. Triumph.

Without pausing to think, she released his hand and began to feel her way up his arm, sliding, tracing, using the tips of her fingers to see.

“Ryan,” he rasped. His breath was faster.

She didn’t answer. She swam through the dark and found his thigh—hard muscle encased in buckskin—and then felt her way to his waist. Above his waist, she found his elbow, his bicep.

Her hands moved at a moderate pace, not frantic but swift. She touched him like she was carefully searching for the handhold on a rock face. In truth, she searched for the trigger that would release him, that would ignite him, that would lure him from hiding place and... and—

She could not say what she hoped his trigger would do. Could he touch her like he had in the waterfall; hold her like when she’d fallen from his cupboard? Could he not go?

He remained, but he didn’t touch her or hold her. Her hands roved over him, and he sat, bolt upright, frozen, breathing hard.

“Gabriel?” she whispered.

“Please,” he said.

“Gabriel?” she called again. Her hands had reached his neck. She lifted from the bed, feeling his beard, cupping his face.

It was enough.

On a growl, he reached for her, scooping her to him, dropping her against the pillows, and coming down on top of her.

She whimpered—part thrill, part relief—and slid her arms around his neck. Her head sank into the pillow and he buried his face in the crook of her shoulder, his mouth against her throat. He didn’t kiss, he didn’t nuzzle, he simply held her tightly and breathed. Ryan struggled to catch her own breath, and they lay there in the blackness, holding each other, sucking air in and out. He smelled like rain, and horses, and him. His hair tickled her face. His hand cradled the back of her head. His body was so very heavy against her, deliciously heavy—heavy like an anchor, like a hillside.

“What do you want?” he whispered into her skin.

“I... I don’t know,” she breathed. “I want you to stay.”

“If this is a game, it’s a dangerous one, Lady Marianne.”

“Please don’t call me that.”

“Please don’t...” and here he paused, as if he couldn’t say what he didn’t want. Finally he said, “Please don’t make this more of a challenge than it already is.”

“This?” she whispered. “What do you mean—this? We are two lonely people who... who need not be lonely tonight. For once. Here and now.”

“What is meant by ‘not be lonely’?” he rasped.

“I don’t know,” she breathed. The truth. She knew only that she didn’t want him to go.

“What do you want?” he demanded softly.

“I don’t know how to say it. In the waterfall you... you—” She could not finish.

“If you mean to tease me or trap me, have mercy. Please. You feel—so—good.” Each guttural, raspy word washed over her like a warm, gentle wave. “How can you feel so good?”

Yes,she marveled, how can I? Her body hummed.

“Am I hurting the abrasion on your neck?” he asked.

She thought of this. She felt only tingles and warmth and pleasure on her neck. She felt tingles and pleasure everywhere. She shook her head.

“May I touch you?” he rasped.

“Please touch me.”

“May I touch all of you?”

This, she had not considered. Ryan Daventry had never been kissed, and the thought of a handsome prince/horseman/fiancé touching all of her hadn’t been something she’d expected to consider. She allowed her body to decide. “Yes,” she said.

Gabriel let out a feral-sounding moan and rolled off of her. For a second, she thought she’d said the wrong thing. He’d been pressing against her, and now he was gone, and it was too dark to see. But she heard the sound of two heavy boots hitting the floor, felt the mattress depress near her knees and felt the coverlet being peeled back. Cool air moved in, and she let out a little gasp. Beside her, the mattress shifted.

“Oh,” she whispered, her heart pounding like it would knock down the walls of this cave. A shimmer of anticipation tingled up her body. She gasped for breath.

Lowly, he whispered something in French, the words too fast for her to interpret. And then his hands were on her thighs, grasping her through the nightshirt. He skimmed downward, massaging as he went, until the fabric ended and he touched bare leg. He rubbed lower, taking care around the wound; and lower still to clasp her ankles. He squeezed her heel and massaged her feet, tracing the arches, circling each toe and then sliding back to her leg. It was like in the water but firmer, more lingering. The water had made his fingers slide, but here there was a friction that allowed him to dig in. After a fortnight of travel from Guernsey, a day on horseback, and their flight through the rain, his hands felt heavenly.

“Vous êtes belle,” he said in French. This translation she knew. You’re beautiful. She wanted to laugh, she wanted to tell him that she’d prefer he not speak if he must tell her lies, but it felt too good to protest. He was bathing her without water; fizzy, tingling sensation dripped from his fingers and radiated across her skin. She descended into warm, shimmering pleasure. Her consciousness narrowed to his hands, strong and thorough and sure, working their way up her legs in deep, probing strokes. She said nothing, and thought nothing, and very occasionally moaned a vague, “Oh.” She lay before him, half languid, half coiled in anticipation, and simply felt.

When his fingers nudged the hem of the nightshirt, he stopped, his breath coming in heavy pants. Ryan let out a whimper, frustrated with the pause.

“There you are,” he rasped. “Like the waterfall.”

“More?” she whispered, emboldened by the darkness—emboldened by the threat of him moving away.

He let out a growl and continued his assent, his hands now above the nightshirt. She missed the warmth of his fingertips but reveled in the new sensation of rough fabric scraping her skin. He dug in more deeply, massaging the muscle, exploring the shape. Vaguely, Ryan became aware of his progress so very far up her leg; he’d reached the apex of her thighs. If he continued on his current path, he would surely brush up against—

“Oh,” she gasped, a wave of pleasure rolling from her core.

He’d flattened out his hand across her belly and slid it downward, scooping her sex with his open palm. Pressing in with the heel of his hand, he cupped her, setting off a delicious burn that made her mind go blank.

“Oh!” she called again. The shape of his large hand through the cotton of the nightshirt, the pressure—these became the titillating answer to a question she hadn’t known her body was asking. It was an upward journey to the very heart of pleasure. They’d not reached the destination—she knew this somehow—but the journey had begun, and she wanted to fly.

He pressed more firmly now, cupped her tighter, stoking that mind-erasing burn. Every twitch of his hand set off a jolt of pleasure that took her breath away. Ryan shoved to her elbows and blinked, trying to see him, but the blackness endured. She saw only sparks and twinkles of sensation glowing behind her eyes.

“Gabriel,” she panted, “it feels... it feels—”

He muttered a French curse, cutting her off, and lowered himself—actually, it was more like he fell—on top of her. One moment he’d been kneeling, then she heard the curse, then the hard, heavy weight of him was stretched out on top of her.

She dropped back on the pillow, reveling in the pressure, the closeness, the smell of him. His hand slid from between their bodies, replaced by a thick, hard ridge that nestled exactly, perfectly in the hottest part of the burn between her legs. Ryan whimpered and pushed up, seeking the hardness.

“What are you doing?” Gabriel whispered into her hair.

“I don’t know,” she whispered back. “I’m doing nothing. For the first time in perhaps a very long time, I’m doing nothing at all.” It was true. The darkness had collided with days of fatigue and weeks of worry, and that collision was reason enough to give in. To simply feel. To indulge in the incredible thrill of him wanting her, of him indulging her; worshiping her body and giving her pleasure. Making her forget. And no other indulgence would be quite as thoroughly effective as this, part forbidden, part mindless, part transporting, all pleasure.

“I could stop,” he breathed, although the words sounded like he could not, in fact, stop.

“No,” she gasped, it was the last thing she wanted.

He swore again and scraped his beard from her neck, across her ear, until his lips found her mouth. Ever so gently, he lashed the very tip of his tongue against the corner of her lips. A lick. A taste.

“Please, Gabriel...” Sucking in a shaky breath, she turned her head, seeking the tip of his tongue.

Gabriel moaned and shifted, squaring his mouth to hers. The kiss was hungry and demanding and all-consuming. It felt pure and uncomplicated, like the first voracious bite of an apple. He was in charge and she was grateful. She need only drag her hands into his hair and hold on.

When, finally, he drew back and sucked in air, Ryan whimpered, not wanting to stop. She made a keening noise and tried to pull him back down.

“You’re killing me,” he rumbled.

“Again?” she pleaded.

He complied, dipping to find her mouth. This time, he nipped. He licked. He pecked with tiny, teasing kisses. Eventually, when she was raising her head off the pillow to seek him, he went deeper; he lingered, he feasted.

This was a complicated kiss, with tasting and savoring, and Ryan became a student of rhythm and angle and depth. She was a quick study, aided by the darkness. Her only desire at that moment was this—kissing him, touching him, feeling him.

If she worried he was not equally affected, if she worried he was merely going along, she need only listen to his groans of pleasure, feel his labored breath on her cheek, revel in the urgency of his body pressing against her. He devoured her like a maelstrom devours ships at sea and she welcomed it, she let herself be sucked down.

And yet...

The drowning seemed to want something else to be fully consumed. Through it all, she experienced a leading, pleading, burning need for... more. For... something. For—

For what? As if this was not enough? As if she would not relive the glow of this night in her memory until the day she died. Even so, her greedy body insisted it wasn’t enough. Despite the abundance, she should have more. She needed, she needed...

She couldn’t say what she needed. She knew only that she would absolutely require more, and he should absolutely give it to her, and he should do it very soon, and it made no difference that he was currently doing every perfect thing that had ever been done to a woman by a man.

“Gabriel?” she panted.

“Like this?” he whispered. And then he pumped his hips—once, twice—rocking the hard ridge of his body against the demanding burn between her legs.

“Oh!” She sighed.

“Ryan?”

“Yes,” she breathed. “Like that.”

The pumps melted into a steady rhythm of rocking thrusts that stoked the burn in her center, setting off wild sparks of pleasure.

“I don’t—” she panted. “I can’t. You must—”

“Wait,” he urged, his voice strained.

“Wait for...?” Surely he would tell her. Surely one of them would find words for what needed to happen next—not her, of course. She was rapidly drowning and sinking and thrashing against rocks and surging and dying and should not be expected to predict the future. Nor to wait, for that matter. She could not wait.

“Gabriel!” she cried out.

He answered with a guttural noise that was primal and wrenching but also somehow fitting for this moment. He increased the thrusting motion with his hips, grinding, a heavy, muscled, panting man. He’d removed his boots but nothing else, and the texture of his buckskins imprinted through the roughness of the nightshirt. Behind that, she felt the hardness of his arousal. Layers of texture rubbing against her and—

Oh.

She rose up to meet all of it—the weight and the roughness and most of all the hardness. When she pressed, every other thought vanished. She lived only to relieve the yearning fire that throbbed from her center. She pressed, and pressed, and pressed, and then—

A gasp.

A plunge into the dark and the light. She was launched into a swirling spray of pleasure, and colors, and tingling, delicious shimmers. Breath froze in her throat, her body clenched, she clung to his shoulders. She hovered in the dark cave, an ethereal mist shaped like a woman, while a million little particles of pleasure kissed her inside and out.

When she came back to herself, she was being kissed by an actual man, by Gabriel; his mouth swallowing her gasps of pleasure, drinking it in.

“You’re killing me,” he growled between kisses.

“I don’t care,” she said, trying to keep up with his mouth.

“I can tell.”

He kissed her hard and deep, an assault to her mouth that felt just as shocking and intimate as every other shocking and intimate thing he’d done, and then pulled back. She felt his breath on her face.

“Have you kissed a man before, Lady Ryan?” he rasped.

She shook her head but then realized he could not see her. “No,” she whispered.

He swore in French and lowered his face again, kissing her more softly. Little pecks. Longer pecks. The swipe of his tongue.

Ryan kissed him back. Now she understood, and it was nice—less mindless, which she appreciated. She valued reasoned thought and now she could almost, almost manage it.

“Gabriel?” she whispered between kisses.

“Yes?”

“Can I have a baby from this?” She was reluctant to ask this, but it was among the first reasoned thoughts when her brain returned. No responsible woman could allow this to remain unknown. She didn’t think she could have a baby from what he’d done—but it was so explosive and life-altering and incredible, she had to be certain. She’d taught herself many things since her mother had died, but she had not learned this. Not specifically.

“No,” he said. “Can you feel my clothes? I’m fully dressed, Lady Ryan.”

What Ryan felt was the large, thick hardness, still nudging between her legs, but he seemed to be making a point.

“Yes,” she said. “I can feel you—er, your clothes.”

“You cannot get pregnant without... without me.”

“Thank you,” she said, squirreling away this information for later examination. Without him. She wanted to ask more but the simple thank you seemed like the most concise, most polite thing to say, considering how wonderful it was and how wanton she’d been.

“Can you sleep now?” he asked.

“Will you stay?”

He made a groaning noise but said, “Yes. Alright. I will stay.”

He rolled from her body and Ryan made a small noise of protest, her fingers scrambling to retain some part of him. He settled beside her and she sighed in relief.

He moaned softly and reached for the coverlet, pulling it over them.

“Close your eyes,” he said, gathering her body up and tucking it against him.

And now Ryan felt an entirely different pleasure: strong arms pulling her against warm man; one hand slid round her waist, another beneath her and between her breasts. She felt safe and satiated and exhausted; she felt she’d been given permission to tumble into sleep. She saw new colors in the darkness, more muted, but no less incredible. Her breathing was slow and steady. It was so very dark, she didn’t know if her eyes were opened or closed, but she knew he was beside her. Knowing this, she fell asleep.