Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Betsy could not think, she could only feel.
Feel the weight of Rupert in her arms. Feel his skin against hers, his chest pressed up against her own. Feel the heavy breathing in her chest, the heady sensation of pleasure that was swimming in her veins.
Feel the utter weight of what she had done.
But there was no regret. Despite all she had expected, despite searching her heart frantically for any hint of the emotion that she had expected to flood through her body…she did not regret what she had done.
How could she?
Every inch of her body was glowing with a warm heady sense of success. Betsy could hardly understand it, hardly know what to do with herself after such an encounter.
An encounter with such a man.
Betsy’s fingers tightened around Rupert as he lay, nestled in her arms. Had she ever felt so at one with another?
Not just physically; after receiving both her first kiss and her first lovemaking all in the same evening, it was no surprise that Betsy had nothing to compare the physical experience with.
Why, a gentleman had once attempted to steal a kiss, but she had given him rather short shrift.
She had not known it would hurt so much to kick him there.
But this…
This was not merely physical. There was something deeper her, something that drew her to him in a way Betsy could not describe.
“Love at first sight?”
Betsy swallowed. that could not be it, surely. She was no chit of a girl, hardly aware what she was doing in polite Society, unable to speak in company.
She knew what love was, did she not?
“My word,” breathed Rupert in her arms. “That was—”
“Yes,” Betsy said. She could not have put it better yourself.
That was…everything. Everything she had wanted it to be, everything she had feared it would not be. Everything. All emotions, all sensations, giving up everything to find herself in his embrace.
In a prince’s embrace.
Just for a moment, Betsy’s stomach churned slightly. Yes, she had known her reputation would be gone the moment they found themselves locked in here, but she had truly destroyed it now.
How odd to find she did not care.
“I…well,” came Rupert’s quiet voice. “I have never felt such—you are the most…oh, Betsy.”
Betsy’s heart soared.
Well, she may have been an innocent when it came to actual lovemaking, but she was not an innocent completely. She was no fool; she had presumed, based on his title alone, that Rupert would have bedded women before her.
In truth, it felt rather unusual nowadays to meet a gentleman who had not tumbled a girl.
But to hear Rupert say that he had never felt such a way before—it made Betsy’s heart sing in a way she could never have predicted.
She wanted to be special. She wanted to dazzle, to make him feel just as heady as she did.
“I never thought it would…well,” she said a little awkwardly, suddenly conscious that her skirts were still very much pushed up to her hips. “I had no idea what to expect, I suppose.”
Rupert pushed himself up on his elbows and looked down at her anxiously. “I hope I did not disappoint.”
“Disappoint?”
Betsy could do nothing but repeat the word, it was so ridiculous. disappoint? To feel such pleasure, such sensual decadence; but more than that, to feel safe as she felt it, to explore the ecstasies her body could produce when so aligned, in tune with another…
Disappointment could not be further from her mind…
“I am not disappointed,” she said firmly.
There was still a flicker of concern on Rupert’s face. “Truly?”
Betsy smiled at that. “You seem rather concerned, if I may say so.”
“A gentleman is no gentleman, more a cad, if he does not carefully consider the pleasure of his partner,” Rupert said easily, a little more confidence seeping into his voice. “And you…oh Betsy.”
She would never be able to have anyone else call her that now, Betsy realised. She would have to return to Elizabeth, or some other variation of her name.
Not now it had been spoken by a mostly naked man in her arms after he so effortlessly brought her to climax…
“I…well, I never thought I would feel such things,” she confessed, the words spilling from her mouth.
There was a rather sardonic grin on Rupert’s face now. “Did you assume your future husband would not know how to please?”
“It’s not that!” Though now he came to mention it, Betsy had never given her future husband much thought. she would have one, of course, and she merely supposed that she would grow used to him as he would grow used to her. Pleasure had not been a given. “I meant more…well. So cared for. So adored.”
Rupert’s face softened. “It is only what you deserve.”
Betsy squirmed slightly under him, relishing the sensation. How could he say such things? Just like that, out of the blue, as though it were perfectly normal?
As though gentlemen said such things all the time?
Perhaps they did; she was hardly an expert on the male race.
“I meant more…well,” Betsy said a little awkwardly. Had she ever been so open before, so vulnerable to another? And yet what she was about to say was going to make her feel far more defenceless than what they had just shared. “I mean, I have never felt close to someone in…in this way.”
Rupert’s smile did not waver as he caught her gaze. “You are surprised by it.”
“You surprise me,” she admitted with a dry laugh. “A prince who is lonely, a gentleman who knows how to make love on a sofa, a man who makes me laugh, who—”
“Has fallen in love with you.”
Betsy swallowed. she was not going to dignify that with a response. He had undoubtedly said many fine words to other ladies of a similar ilk, and she was not going to get ahead of herself and pretend that she adored him in return.
Though what was this feeling, if not adoration? How did one tell?
“I do not seem to be myself,” Betsy breathed, looking up into Rupert’s handsome face, “when I am with you.”
Rupert could not help it: he crowed.
At least, internally. He was not an animal.
But it was impossible not to feel a little triumphant at hearing Betsy’s words, difficult as they clearly were for her to admit. For was she not essentially saying the three words he so longed to hear from her?
“I do not seem to be myself when I am with you.”
She loved him. He loved her.
It was remarkable to think that just four and twenty hours ago he had not yet stepped a foot in London, their ship only just starting up the Thames, and now…
Now he was lying on a sofa in the library of a Lady someone, with a far more intriguing lady in his arms admitting that she cared for him.
Surely that was a precursor to her telling him she loved him, was it not?
“Oh, Betsy,” said Rupert, sitting up now and looking, half dazed, at the woman beside him on the sofa.
She sat up, pulling up the bodice of her gown and pulling down her skirts. “Rupert, I—”
“I just cannot believe it, in a way,” said Rupert, unable to stop himself. why should he, when such joy was rocketing through his bones?
He had found her; found her when he had not even been looking. Here was a woman who completed him in a way he had not known; who listened to him and cared for him beyond what anyone had ever done.
There was something about this Lady Elizabeth, something that made his heart sing, and Rupert hardly knew where to start.
How could he explain to her just how wondrous she was?
Rupert’s heart skipped a beat as his fingers scrabbled together the buttons of his breeches. Well, if he was fortunate and Betsy would say yes to the question he knew he had to ask, then it would not matter if he could not explain himself right in this moment.
He would have a lifetime to consider telling her.
“I can hardly believe it either,” came her dry words, though there was still a smile on Betsy’s face and a flush on her cheeks. “If someone had tried to tell me that I would end up this evening not playing cards with George…”
She continued speaking. Rupert was sure of it, her mouth was moving, words were undoubtedly coming out, but what she was saying…
“If someone had tried to tell me that I would end not this evening not playing cards with George…”
George? George who?
Unparalleled jealousy hurtled through Rupert’s body, so hard he thought he would shake. Who was this George—a lover? A gentleman, he’d be bound, who was after Betsy’s hand and heart?
Could he have been the gentleman at her side for the early part of the evening? Rupert had noticed him, only due to his proximity to Betsy, true, but it had been hard to ignore him. Tall, well-featured, probably well-mannered.
Rupert swallowed down the irrational panic that was roaring through him. Why would Betsy have let him kiss her, let him do so much more, if she already had a beau pursuing her.
“Rupert?”
He blinked. Betsy was waving a hand before his eyes, great concern in her own.
“Wh-What?”
That was all he could manage, but it appeared that was sufficient. At least, sufficient to prompt even more questions.
“What has got into you?” asked Betsy with a slightly nervous smile. “I was talking about how wonderful this evening has been, and you—”
“Who is George?”
Rupert had not intended to ask the question so baldly; had thought he could perhaps weave the question into a later part of the conversation, so his enquiry would not be so abrupt. But he could not help himself, he had to know, could not wait a single minute more before he knew.
Betsy was smiling, though evidently a little confused. “George?”
Rupert nodded. “The George you just mentioned, you said you were playing cards with him.”
Still she looked at sea. “Lord George Northmere, you mean?”
“Lord?”
A nobleman then, Rupert thought, his stomach twisting most painfully. More than sufficiently impressive to offer matrimony to a Lady. Oh, to think he was too late, after all he had attempted, after pouring his heart out to her—
“You cannot be—Rupert, you are a prince,” Betsy reminded him, as though the fact had slipped his mind. “You surely cannot be envious of a Lord!”
It was difficult to keep his face impassive but Rupert did the best he could. “I am not envious of his title, I am…well. Jealous.”
Apparently that was not enough. Betsy was staring at him as though he was making absolutely no sense, which, Rupert thought wretchedly, was probably true.
But how could he explain to a woman he had fallen in love with almost at first sight that he was not entirely in his right mind at the moment? All his senses were affixed on her, all his needs on her, his future on her…
If he could not have her—it was a terrible thought. he would not countenance it.
“Jealous?” Betsy repeated. “What on earth for?”
“You, of course!”
Rupert flushed, heat searing his cheeks as his words entirely overcame his tongue. Well, it was out there now, and he felt more than foolish enough.
“M-Me?” she said, eyes wide. “Why would you—oh, Rupert. George is just a friend.”
Just a friend. Was that not what ladies said when they were secretly hoping to receive a proposal of marriage?
“I know what that means,” Rupert said darkly, suddenly conscious that he was still entirely nude from the waist up. Where was that shirt of his?
Betsy was shaking her head, a small smile on her lips. “You must trust me, Rupert. George’s father and my own were friends, we played together as children. Myself and all the Northmere boys.”
This last pronouncement did not help. “Dear God, how many of them are there?”
But then he quivered. Betsy’s hand had reached out and touched his own, pulling his fingers to intertwine with hers. It was such a sensual yet delicate movement, it quite twisted his heart.
“Do you think if I felt anything more than what was appropriate for a friend for Lord George Northmere,” Betsy said quietly, “I would have asked you to make love to me?”
Relief, sweet relief, poured through Rupert’s mind. “No. No, of course not.”
A smile tugged at his lips. He had been foolish there for a moment, almost revealed himself to be far more possessive than he had thought possible—but then, he had never been in love before. Never had a woman to worry about, never adored someone so greatly that—
“Betsy, I have to ask you something,” Rupert said in a rush, hardly aware how the words were coming out in order but knowing he had to speak.
Betsy flushed. “Y-You do?”
“I do,” said Rupert, painfully aware that they had just echoed certain vows that ought to be made in a church. “Betsy, will—”
His voice was interrupted, and not by the passionate kiss he had half thought Betsy would bestow to answer him before he had even begun.
No; Rupert broke off, twisting painfully in the sofa to stare at the door. The door which had just been knocked on, very loudly, from the other side.