Chapter 12
The two guards stared, too, clearly wondering if anything was amiss as Robert quickly recovered himself enough to take the rattling tray from Estelle before she could drop it.
“Ah, yes, a light supper for His Highness, I’d almost forgotten.” He had only to nod and the guards at once closed the doors with a resounding thud, leaving him to stare anew at Estelle as if he didn’t know quite what to do next. “Miss Easton, forgive me, but I thought you were a maidservant—”
“Please, Robert, I have no time to explain. I must see Valentin! Is he here?”
The valet gave her a look of such kind understanding that Estelle felt tears sting her eyes, but she forced them back as Robert set down the tray and indicated that she follow him. She no longer paid any heed to the sumptuous surroundings, her sole focus upon seeing Valentin again—her beloved!
“He’s in the drawing room,” Robert said quietly, indicating a closed door. “He hasn’t slept, hasn’t eaten…but I imagine neither have you.”
Estelle shook her head, her heart in her throat as she reached for the gilded door handle. Then she stopped, glancing behind her to thank Robert, but he had already walked away. Her hand trembled as she opened the door.
“Valentin?”
She’d scarcely whispered, her voice catching as he spun around from a huge fireplace and stared at her as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. She had no more than taken another step into the room before he crossed the floor in three strides and swept her into his arms.
“Estelle!”
Her arms flew around his neck as he crushed her against him, lifting her from her feet to twirl her around. His mouth found hers and he kissed her until she was breathless, Estelle tasting the saltiness of her tears on his lips.
She couldn’t say how long they held each other, she was oblivious to all else but him, until she felt her feet touch the floor again as he gently set her down. He glanced at her clothing, and then searched her eyes.
“With you dressed like that, my love, Adam cannot know you’re here.”
My love! His endearment like a balm to the despair that still lingered in her heart, she sighed in acknowledgement. “I can only hope he and my sister are sleeping. Mattie took my place in my bed.”
“A generous act, truly. I wanted to stop by your room earlier, but Adam thought it best we remain apart—”
“Oh, Valentin, what are we to do?” Estelle cried, panic overwhelming her. “Are we never to see each other again after tomorrow? No, no, I cannot bear it!”
An anguished groan tearing from his throat, Valentin pulled her close again and hugged her fiercely. She clung to him, her cheek pressed against his chest, his heartbeat hammering in her ear.
“I’m so sorry for what you suffered last night,” he murmured, kissing her forehead. “Hortense and my privy council—damn them all!”
Estelle clutched at his shirt, feeling such utter hopelessness as she looked up to meet his eyes. “Forgive me, Valentin, for not telling you until this moment that I love you. That’s why I had to see you tonight. I love you!”
He stared at her so intently, his eyes grown wet, and then lowered his head to kiss her so desperately, so passionately, as if to affirm how much he loved her, too. Yet she pulled away a moment later, reaching up with trembling fingers to cradle his face, her voice choked with emotion.
“If we can’t remain together, give me a child, Valentin, please! Our child! At least then I’d still have a part of you—”
“Estelle, do you know what you’re asking of me?” His expression tormented, he drew her closer as he searched her face. “I cannot risk your future…your chance to have a husband and a life you deserve—”
“No, I’ll never love another, Valentin! You shall be the only husband I ever know…” She raised herself on tiptoes and pressed her lips to his with such fervent tenderness that he groaned again, Estelle gasping when he suddenly swept her from her feet.
She began to tremble as he carried her from the drawing room, his gaze never leaving hers, and down a dimly lit hallway where an open door at the far end revealed what she realized was his bedchamber.
She heard the door slam shut, realizing, too, that he must have kicked it closed, Valentin not stopping until he’d set her down beside the massive canopied bed.
“You’ll always be my wife…my only love,” he murmured, pulling her close to kiss first her parted lips, and then her closed eyelids as Estelle shivered against him.
She wasn’t cold. She tingled from her scalp to her toes as he gently swept the cap from her head and loosed the pins from the hasty knot she’d fashioned, her hair tumbling down her back.
“Estelle…”
She saw the question burning in his eyes. Valentin stood so near without touching her, but she felt no hesitation as she took one of his hands and enmeshed her fingers with his, her love for him making her bold.
“We’ve only tonight, my dearest heart. Only tonight…”
As if her words had unleashed something visceral in him, primal, Valentin drew her into his arms to kiss her passionately, and then began to divest her of her borrowed clothing.
If she had thought she had dressed quickly back in her room, now he accomplished the task of undressing her so swiftly that he left her breathless, his hands caressing her all the while.
Shivering at the sensations he evoked in her, she gasped when he swept her up once again and laid her naked upon the bed.
He took only a moment to kick off his boots and then he joined her, his fervent murmurings of love like heated whispers against her skin as he knelt beside her and began to kiss her everywhere.
The hollow of her neck, where Valentin pressed his lips to the nick that was nearly healed.
The curves of her breasts, his mouth moving to her nipples to tease them into aching nubs.
The sensitive inside of her thighs, the stirring warmth of his breath leaving her flushed and trembling.
Only then did he leave the bed to strip out of his own clothing…
first his shirt, his upper chest covered with fine blond hair.
Then his trousers, Estelle drawing in her breath as her eyes followed a trail of hair down his muscled abdomen to the darker blond curls where already, he stood hard and erect for her.
She’d never seen such a sensual sight and she could but stare in awe at his lean, masculine beauty limned in firelight.
She hadn’t even noticed the fireplace and the flickering flames when he’d carried her into the room, or the luxurious softness of the bedding until he lay down next to her and pulled her into his arms.
Skin against skin, his rougher than hers and so warm, Valentin capturing her mouth in a kiss unlike anything she’d known.
Her quickening breath melded with his, her arms flying around his neck as his tongue delved deeply to taste her, to claim her as a desperate urgency suddenly seized them both.
Did they really have tonight? Maybe it was only a few hours or even minutes before they were torn from each other’s arms forever—oh, God!
Crying out in wordless agony at the thought, Estelle heard Valentin’s answering moan as he shifted to blanket her with his body and pressed her deeper into the bed.
Instinctively she spread her legs beneath him, his knee driving her thighs even wider, his kiss so impassioned now it seemed their breathing had become one.
She felt his weight pressing at the very heart of her, Estelle gasping against his mouth when he thrust inside her, a burst of pain almost instantly subsiding.
“Forgive me, my love…forgive me,” came his ragged plea, but Estelle only tightened her arms around him to draw him closer, deeper, arching her hips to meet his quickening thrusts.
As his whole body began to shake, she knew intuitively to wrap her legs around his hips, pressing her calves into his muscled buttocks when exultation overcame her.
For a sweet, blinding moment as Valentin stiffened against her, Estelle crying out in ecstasy, all sorrow fled from her mind and there was only love.
Spilling into her body in a gush of warmth that she prayed would bring them a child.
A breathless moment more and he collapsed against her, pulling her with him as he rolled onto his side.
Valentin enfolding her in his arms to hold her so tightly that she could but bury her face against his chest, slick with sweat, the racing of his heart beneath her splayed fingers gradually slowing…slowing.
She could not say when he loosened his hold to kiss the top of her head and tenderly stroke the curve of her shoulder, such exhaustion overwhelming her that she could not have fended off sleep if she tried.
Distantly she heard him murmuring her name, his lips grazing her brow as he pulled the covers over them…and then nothing as she surrendered to the sweetest sensation of peace that she’d ever known.
“My lord, you must wake her. It’s nearing dawn.”
Valentin opened his eyes with a start to find Robert, his face grave with concern, standing at the far corner of the bed.
“Oh, God.” Immediately Valentin glanced down at Estelle, still snuggled against him and sleeping peacefully, her curled hand tucked beneath her chin. Such fierce emotion gripped him, though he nodded at Robert.
“If you wish, I’ll escort her back to her room. It wouldn’t be wise if you—”
“Understood. Wait by the front doors, will you?”
Robert murmured his assent and left the room while Valentin sighed heavily, gazing down at the woman he loved more than life.
The woman who would leave him that morning…perhaps carrying his child.
Twice more they had consummated their love during the night, swiftly again when a shared hunger had awakened them both, and then the last with poignant tenderness. Holding her in his arms afterward, he had never felt more helpless to change a future that loomed so wretchedly in front of him.
So he felt now, too, wanting desperately to keep her with him forever and never let her go, but Robert was right.
If there was any chance to get her back to her room with no one the wiser, for her sake, now was the time. He could hear birds stirring outside with their morning calls, a nightingale, doves, a glance over his shoulder at the paned window telling him that the sky was lightening.
Steeling himself for what was to come, Valentin lowered his head to gently press his lips to Estelle’s. Almost at once she shifted against him, sighing so softly, so sweetly, and opened her eyes to gaze up at him.
Luminous brown eyes filled with such love and yet undeniable heartache as she smiled sadly. “Is it time?”
He nodded, his throat so tight he couldn’t speak. He thought she might ask him to hold her for a few moments more, but she seemed to have steeled herself just as he had done and moved to rise from bed. He started to sit up, too, but she turned and gently pressed him back down upon the pillows.
“No, Valentin. Stay here, please.”
Almost woodenly she rose and gathered up her clothes, turning her back to him as she hurriedly dressed while he drank in the sight of her for one last time.
He thought she might even leave the room without kissing him goodbye. Her eyes were wet when she slowly turned around to look at him, though she’d clearly bitten her lower lip so hard that it bled, to keep herself from crying.
“Valentin, I…” She didn’t finish, but flew around the bed so suddenly that he had scarcely sat up when she threw her arms around him.
He hugged her as fiercely, Valentin murmuring against her cheek, “Estelle, I will go with you to England. Without you, none of this will mean anything to me—”
“Your people love you, Valentin. They need you. I could never live with myself for taking you away from Bratavia!”
She turned her head to kiss him, but only briefly before she wrenched herself away from him and ran to the door.
Desperate to fling aside the covers and follow after her, somehow Valentin made himself stay even though he could hear her running all the way to the front doors.
He heard them open and close, then nothing.
Estelle was gone.