Chapter 12 #2
And he’d missed her terribly.
And he’d been anxious to see the ring on her hand, he realized that now. His eyes flicked to it, again and again.
And he wanted her—not simply to see her or chat with her, he wanted her. Here. In this church hall.
He’d made no progress since the pond, clearly. He was overwhelmed with desire to touch her. He forced himself to turn away,
shoving his hands in his pockets. He ambled to the stage and propped a hip on the edge. She hovered in the doorway. She was
wearing a pale green dress overlaid with an apron. Her hair was pulled back in a kerchief. She looked like an incredibly fetching
village girl.
She is a princess, Luke reminded himself. Even if he didn’t mean to use her as a pawn to recover his friend, he was the bastard son of an itinerant
sailor. He, himself, smuggled guns. Stinchcomb had been right about one thing, he was a brute.
He glanced to her again; this time, he held her gaze.
The pink of her cheeks had spread to her throat.
Her green eyes were large, locked on him.
Her lips were parted. Her breath came in swift, shallow little gasps.
Luke knew desire when he saw it, and everything about her was an invitation. His heart thudded a resounding Yes.
She took three steps toward him, idling just out of reach. She touched her new ring with a fingertip. Her tongue peeked out
to tease her top lip.
Luke was suddenly too hot. He peeled off his gloves. The hall was too empty, the stage too conveniently horizontal. He looked
at the rafters, looked over his shoulder, looked at the floor. He saw nothing. When he returned his gaze to her, every detail
came into sharp focus. The cinch of the crisp apron at her waist, the smudge of soot on her cheek. Her hair fell down her
back, the ebony curls a sharp contrast to the white of her kerchief. Her hands were bare except for his ring. Her throat was
bare. Her hem was high and showed an inch of ankle. She smelled like furniture polish and soap.
“Will Mr. Stinchcomb believe your threats, do you think?” she asked.
“I dare him not to believe them.”
“Or what?” A laugh. “You couldn’t really buy this parish hall. And the town wouldn’t sell it, not even to you.”
“If I donated enough money for the vicar to build a new parish hall, I could buy this one,” he told her, crossing his arms over his chest. He couldn’t touch her, but he could admire her.
“With what funds? You’re a . . . a . . .” She narrowed her eyes, waiting for him to say it.
“Cat lover?” he supplied.
“Criminal,” she corrected in a dramatized whisper.
“So I am, but—and forgive me if I’ve said this before—I’m not an impoverished criminal.”
She blinked at him.
“How am I to set up house in Eastwell Park, if I have no money, Miss Allard?”
“I thought to live in a small section of it; to heat only a room or two and seal off the rest. Or perhaps live in the space
above the carriage shed?”
He barked out a laugh. “You mean live with Abbott?”
“In time, the estate will support itself,” she assured him. “Only in the beginning, we’ll need to—”
He reached out and caught her hand. She stopped talking. She went still. She looked down. They stood suspended, three feet
apart but joined by their hands. He found the ring with the pad of his thumb.
“No one will live with Abbott,” he told her. “There is money for fuel, Princess Danielle. And candles. In every room. There
is money for housemaids and kitchen help and a proper butler, unless you like Abbott for the role. I would never dream of
installing you in a giant house without the means to see it properly run.”
“All the money from ill-begotten means?” she asked.
“If you prefer, we’ll say the source of the money applied to Eastwell Park came from the War Office—how’s that? I’ll build
Miriam’s cat sanctuary with the smuggling money.”
“You’ve enough money for both?” Her eyes were huge.
The great irony was that Luke didn’t care about riches.
Wealth was useful but hardly his goal in life.
His home in Cornwall was modest. His ship had been in good repair and his crew had been well paid, but there were certainly finer vessels.
His preferred luxury was books. If necessary, he could dress and dine like a gentleman to influence a client.
But he’d never thrown around coin to feel important.
No one had been more surprised than Luke when his profits began to accumulate; even more so, when his investments began to multiply.
No, that wasn’t true. His mother’s family had been more surprised—or appalled, more like.
Horrifying his grandfather had been the most satisfying part of making money as a smuggler. It was the only compensation he craved.
But the princess did not look horrified at the moment, the princess looked . . . dazzled. Without thinking, Luke gave her
hand the slightest little tug.
She went, allowing herself to fall. Ever so slowly, their bodies collided. He was leaning against the stage and she dropped
across his chest. She planted her hands on his lapels, then slid them to his shoulders, then to his hair. His hat fell off.
“Princess . . .” he whispered.
“Do not call me that,” she whispered back.
“I will call you that.”
He squared his hips against the stage, turning to her, but he kept his hands on the boards. She raised her face to him, eyes
closed, mouth parted. For a long moment, heart thudding, groin tightening, he feasted on the sight of her pretty face, turned
to him. He could feel her, warm, and pliant, and lush.
“Captain?” she whispered, eyes still closed.
Finally, he settled an open palm on her bottom and the other hand along her jaw, his fingers fanning her neck. When he bent
to receive her mouth, he barely remembered the reasons he’d come. If there were reasons not to kiss her, he couldn’t remember
them either. He knew only that if he didn’t kiss her, he would perish.
“I missed you,” she whispered between kisses.
“You needed time with your parents.”
“And yet, I missed you.”
Their kisses had a rhythm now, a cadence distinctive only to them. She knew how to slant her head, he knew where to nuzzle.
He knew her body, too—he loved her body—and he massaged his hands over the most glorious parts, small pert breasts, round bottom, slim throat. Within minutes
their breath was labored, eyes closed, minds lost.
It was always like this when they kissed; extended, and deep, and energetic. He’d spent a lifetime languidly kissing women
who were willing and eager for sex with someone, although not necessarily with him. The princess seemed to want only him;
and God knew he wanted her. He wanted only her.
His hands cupped her bottom, grinding her to him; he found her breasts, kneading, teasing. He caught her hands and intertwined
their fingers and squeezed, then dropped them and sunk his hand into her hair. He tugged on her thigh and she hooked her knee
over his hip, and he moaned at the burn of her closeness, at her eagerness, at her little gasp of pleasure.
When their position proved too restrictive, he pushed away from the stage and lifted her. He pivoted and plopped her on the
stage. He nudged her knees apart and she opened for him, hitching her legs around his haunches. Luke groaned and fell into
her, sliding his hands to the backs of her knees and scooting her to the edge of the stage.
They never broke the kiss. This was their way. Mindlessness with no end in sight. Their passion felt like a ship on fire . . .
in a storm . . . on the darkest night of the year. No survivors. Their way.
He’d just tipped her back, fanning out her hair on the stage, when she said, “I would marry you. Even if Prince George hadn’t betrothed us, I would do it.”
The words lit him up like a warning flare. He kissed her harder.
“I would marry you,” she repeated. “Even if Eastwell Park was not at stake, I would marry you.”
If the previous Luke—the old Luke—had heard these words, he would’ve declared victory. He’d come to Ivy Hill to claim a princess—and
now he had her, compliant and consenting, with almost no effort.
But the current Luke did not rejoice. The current Luke swore in his head and stopped the kiss. He dropped his head beside
hers, resting his face in her hair. They were ear to ear; his mouth on her shoulder. He breathed in and out, willing his body
to calm; willing himself to let her go.
“I’ve said the wrong thing,” she said to the ceiling.
“No.” He shook his head against her. None of this was her fault.
He pushed himself up, leaning over her, his palms planted on either side of her face. He looked into her emerald eyes. At
the end of the day, his goal was to marry her. And now he had—blaggard that he was—made her want the same. She’d professed
this—she’d literally just said the words. There was no choice but to take advantage.
“I’m too bold, perhaps,” she told him. “But I—”
“Have you a date in mind, Princess?” he cut in. He closed his eyes. “For the wedding?”
She fell silent. He opened his eyes. She stared up at him, her expression confused. “A date?”
“It’s only conjecture, isn’t it, with no set plan.” He endeavored to smile, but the expression felt hollow. He gently pulled away and slid from her arms. He stepped to the side and gave her his back, adjusting his trousers. “We should have a plan.”
“Alright,” she said carefully. He heard her slide from the stage. She walked along the edge, fluffing her skirts.
“So,” she began, “I’d thought of the first Saturday of next month? That gives us—”
“Too far away,” he cut in. He turned to her. “Could we do this Saturday? Saturday at the end of the week?”
“In five days?”
“Yes. If you can arrange it in that time.”
“The ceremony itself could be arranged in five days, I suppose,” she mused. “It will be next door at St. Andrew’s. The vicar
is Amelia’s father and he can officiate. But my hopes for a wedding breakfast would want more time. This parish hall can’t
be ready in five days.”