Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Climb into bed beside me.”
Julia immediately sat straighter in the chair, shocked to her core by the instruction. More so because Nicholas had not even attempted to make it sound like a request.
“Please, do not argue,” he added when she opened her mouth to do exactly that.
“You are shivering with cold.” He shifted over in the bed so that he could throw back the covers on the side closest to Julia.
“If you want me to answer any of the questions tumbling about inside your head, then you will do as I ask and climb into bed with me.”
You will climb into bed with me.
Nicholas had said it to her twice now, and Julia was convinced she had never heard such an outrageous statement.
One that caused heat to burn low down in her belly before radiating between her thighs and her breasts as they tingled and her nipples hardened.
Even so… “You know it would not be fitting for me to do such a scandalous thing.”
He eyed her patiently. “Julia, we have already established that you have come into my bedchamber in the middle of the night, dressed only in flimsy night attire. I think the word ‘fitting’ to describe this occasion is already made redundant by your previous behavior.”
Julia felt the burn of color in her cheeks. “Maybe so. But asking me to share a bed with you, for whatever reason, would be taking it to a scandalous level.”
Nicholas watched her through narrowed lids. “You will one day share a bed with me every night of your life.”
Julia stiffened. “My grandparents and your father might have arranged it to be so, but I have not formally agreed to a betrothal between us.”
“What of informally?”
She glowered at him. “I am glad you find this subject so amusing!”
“Are you?” he mused. “Then I would appreciate an answer from you, if you please.”
She lifted her chin. “The subject of how or where we will sleep, if we ever do marry, is a question for us both to consider before we agree to share a house, let alone a bed.”
His smile was rueful. “Well, while you continue to think about it, you really should get beneath the bedcovers. Before the chill has time to replace the warmth of the sheets.” He patted the side of the bed he had recently vacated.
The warm side of the bed, Julia acknowledged. Because Nicholas’s body heat had made it so.
It seemed so…intimate to just climb into bed with him, even if it was for the purpose of warming herself.
“There are things I need to tell you, Julia.” Nicholas’s expression was no longer teasing or mocking but was instead lined with a seriousness she had not seen in him before now.
“What things?” she prompted cautiously.
His mouth quirked. “If you get into bed with me, I will proceed to tell you.”
It was daring for her even to think of doing such a thing.
Outrageous.
Shameful.
And yet Julia could not deny that she was thinking about it. Never, in all her nineteen years, had she ever seen a gentleman who was not related to her in his nightshirt, let alone been invited to share a bed with him.
“I intend to tell you things I have not shared with anyone else,” Nicholas cajoled.
And Julia was tempted, very much so. But… “If they are so private, perhaps you should not share them with me either if they will compromise you.”
His expression sobered. “I believe I must if we are to have any possibility of proceeding further with a betrothal and marriage.”
Julia had now gone well past curiosity and was into the realm of desperately needing to know what Nicholas wished to share with her. “I do not keep secrets from my cousin Amanda.”
He frowned his impatience. “And is she able to keep the secrets you have told her in the past?”
“Always.”
“Very well.” He nodded abruptly. “I will trust her as you do. Now will you join me?”
“I will,” she decided, standing abruptly before moving to sit awkwardly on the side of the bed.
“You will need to be underneath the covers if you are to feel any benefit from the endeavor,” Nicholas encouraged softly.
Julia’s movements were stiff with nervousness as she swung her legs up onto the bed before slowly lying back against the pillows. Nicholas immediately threw the bedcovers across her stiff-as-a-board body, wrapping her in the residual warmth they carried from him.
She froze, her fingers gripping the top of those covers, in the realization of how close she now physically was to the man himself. So close she could feel his heat down her left side and feel the soft caress of his breath against her cheek.
Disconcerted did not even begin to describe how she was currently feeling.
“You may now begin to tell me your secrets.” She kept her gaze fixed rigidly on the painted ceiling above her.
Not because she was in the least interested in the nymphs and shepherdesses depicted there, but because she simply dared not turn her head and look at Nicholas himself.
“They are not just my secrets,” he stated softly. “Which is why, before I speak of them, I must have your promise that you will not discuss what I tell you with anyone else but your cousin Amanda, who you assure me can be trusted not to relate this information to anyone else.”
Julia did turn and look at him then. Only to once again be struck by how close Nicholas now was to her as he leaned up on his elbow, looking down at her with his dark and shadowed eyes. She quickly turned away from that searching gaze.
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “Your secrets, once you have told them, shall remain exactly that. Whatever they might be.”
“Your hair is so beautiful like this.” Gentle fingers caressed the hair at her temple.
“It is so many different colors when it is loose,” he admired.
“Dark and light gold, with a hint of light rose and a darker copper— Are you still cold?” Nicholas voiced his concern as she repressed another shiver.
She turned to glare at him. “I am in bed with the man that I learned earlier today I am already betrothed to, and he is touching my temple and caressing my hair; I am not shivering. I am trembling! From our close proximity,” she added before he could press her for further details.
“Ah.”
“What does ah mean?”
“It means I am as physically aware of you as you just admitted being of me.”
“I did not—” Julia broke off as Nicholas raised skeptical brows. “Very well, I am…aware of you. But as I have just explained, I would be equally as uncomfortable at finding myself sharing a bed with any man.”
“You do not look uncomfortable.”
She glowered at him. “You do not look like a rake and a bounder, but I have heard you described as being both those things by other women in Society.”
* * *
Which was exactly the reason Nicholas wanted to take this opportunity of complete privacy to explain the true situation to her.
He drew in a deep breath before beginning to speak.
“In 1811, when King George III became too ill to continue as monarch, his son, Prince George, took on the role as Prince Regent in his stead,” Nicholas spoke quietly but clearly, knowing by the surprise that had widened Julia’s bewitching dark blue eyes that this was not the subject she had thought he wished to discuss with her.
“England and France were already at war and had been so for four years. The unusual circumstances of the monarchy meant that the Prince Regent needed to make himself familiar with the situation, and the people involved, as quickly and thoroughly as possible. That knowledge included knowing exactly who in his court had been and still were traitors to England.”
“I know from my friend Georgiana that her father was briefly suspected of being one of them,” she recalled.
“Mistakenly.”
She nodded. “A mistake that may have cost him his life.”
“Shefford might have been innocent of betraying his country, but I have since learned that in private, he treated his wife and daughters abominably.”
Her eyes widened. “How can you possibly know that?”
“It is my business to know,” he stated firmly before continuing.
“Once Prinny became Prince Regent, he decided to form his own small private army. He chose a coterie of eight gentlemen whom he trusted implicitly. Men who all had powerful connections of one sort or another, and as such, were privy to information that might otherwise not have been available to him.” Nicholas raised his brows when he saw the questions starting to form in Julia’s indigo eyes. “Shall I continue?”
“If you please,” she invited huskily.
Nicholas tried to do so, he really did, but he had wanted Julia for so long that lying in bed with her was sorely testing his willpower.
Too much so for him to stop himself from raising his hand to gently cradle one side of Julia’s face. Or prevent him from moving the soft pad of his thumb in a light caress across her slightly parted lips.
They felt as soft as rose petals and were the color of his favorite deep pink roses. The fact that he had been able to discern the engorged tips of her nipples through the flimsy white nightgown and robe she wore made him think that they were that same shade of dusky pink.
He moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue, inwardly wishing they were Julia’s nipples instead.
“Nicholas…?” she prompted hesitantly.
He moved his hand abruptly, as if touching her had burned his skin.
At the same time, he became aware that the hardness of his arousal was pressing against her thigh.
“I apologize.” He closed his eyes briefly before opening them again.
“I might have bruised almost one hundred percent of my body this evening, but I would have to be stone-cold dead not to respond to having you near me like this.”
A becoming blush once again appeared in her cheeks. “I find your close proximity…stimulating too,” she admitted. “But not enough,” she continued firmly when Nicholas would have lowered his head to kiss her, “to be deterred from finishing our previous conversation.”
Nicholas shifted back so that he was once again leaning on his elbow looking down at her, a slight smile curving his lips.
“You are a very single-minded young woman.” He wasn’t sure whether he admired that trait or felt irritated at being thwarted in his need to kiss her. Mostly, he admired it, he accepted.
She gave an acknowledging nod. “The quicker you finish telling me what you believe is so important for me to know, the sooner we might return to finishing this other…conversation.”
“Might?”
“Might,” she echoed.
“You are also a very cruel woman,” he complained.
“You were going to tell me the names of the Prince Regent’s private army of gentlemen,” she reminded.
He gave her a chiding look. “I do not believe I said that was what I was about to do.”
“But I should like it if you did so.”
“And do you always get what you want?”
“Not always,” she allowed. “But a vast majority of the time, yes, I do,” she added without apology.
Nicholas gave a snort of soft, appreciative laughter. “Very well, I shall tell you the names of three of them.”
“Why only three?”
“Because you do not need to know the names of the other five at this juncture. In fact, it might be dangerous to them, and you, if you did know. Are we agreed?”
“Are my father and uncle two of those gentlemen?”
He reared aback. “Why do you ask that?”
“Because they did not seem surprised by any of the troubling events earlier that led to your abduction,” she explained. “Nor did my mother and aunt. Concerned, perhaps, but not surprised.”
“The Earl of Ipswich and the Marquis of Broom are two of Prinny’s private army, yes,” Nicholas confirmed, his admiration for this beautiful woman growing by the second.
“Do I take it from your affirmation my father and uncle have been acting clandestinely on behalf of the Prince Regent for some years now?” She sounded stunned.
“Yes.”
“I would never have thought…” She gave a dazed shake of her head.
“Are the Dukes of St. Albans and Hellsmere, now married to two of my very close friends, also members of this private army? I recall they were instrumental in discerning and then dealing with the real betrayer of the Crown at the time Georgiana’s father was suspected. ”
God, even this woman’s mind aroused him, Nicholas realized achingly. Like her nature, it was sharp, precise, and ultimately beautiful.
“Yes, they are,” he answered appreciatively. “And I only confirm this because I feel sure that when you and your friends meet up again, St. Albans’s and Hellsmere’s wives will confide this to you and Lady Amanda anyway.”
She nodded. “What of the Earl of Kingswood? It appears to me that his behavior has not always been…discrete or proper, considering he has been betrothed to my friend Rose since her birth.”
“I only agreed to tell you the names of three of those gentlemen.”
“And I have guessed another two, possibly three.”
“Yes.”
She smiled with satisfaction. “Will you now tell me the name of the third member of the coterie you originally said you are willing to share with me?”