Dukes to the Left of Me, Princes to the Right (23 page)

She had the grace to blush.

“But we’ll get to see the Lievens’ home,” she said. “And even Papa said he managed to have a good time, in his own fashion. Although he’s still very touchy, isn’t he? About Mama.” She sank into a chair and stared at the small fire burning in the grate, the glass dangling from her hand. “Overall, however, I’m pleased.”

“You should be.” Nicholas knelt before her and took her hand. “Neither the food nor the conversation nor your gown mattered tonight as much as your intent. Your goal was to make your guests feel at home, and that can never be criticized. I’m sure your mother would have been very proud for how well you succeeded.”

She gave him a pensive smile. “Thank you.” She squeezed his hand. “But if you don’t mind, I really
am
tired. I’d like to go to bed.”

He backed up only enough to give her room to stand.

When she stood, they locked gazes.

“Did you think that kiss Lady Charlotte demanded of us was a disaster—or a success?” he asked her.

She looked down for a moment, then back up. “I don’t know,” she said quietly. “It’s the only part of the evening that I can’t peg as either one.”

“Before you go up,” he said, “I’d like to show you something that might help you decide.”

“What is it?”

He pulled a lock of hair off her face. “The real meaning of
thrilled
.”

CHAPTER 23

Nicholas pulled Poppy close. The fire was at his back, heating his calves. But he had another fire inside, one that had been banked all night until he could get her alone, and it was now burning high.

He held still a moment and listened for Kettle on the other side of the half-closed library door. The butler was whistling through his teeth at his station near the front door.

Good.

As long as Nicholas knew Kettle’s whereabouts, he could do what he so wanted to do. He leaned down and kissed Poppy’s neck right below her ear.

She let out a sigh.

He kissed her once, a playful, openmouthed kiss that she responded to by melting into him. When he pulled back, he smiled inwardly. She obviously wasn’t as tired as she thought she was. Her eyes flickered and heated with want.

“I need you to trust me,” he said. “Will you?”

She looked at him with wide eyes and nodded.

Silently, he crouched on his haunches and pulled up her gown, exposing her jeweled slippers. He inched the gown’s slithery, beaded smoothness slowly up her legs. All the while, his hands held her close, and he dropped little kisses on her calves, then her knees, and finally her thighs.

Her breathing was jagged, which pleased him. He looked up, hoped his eyes told her he was enjoying himself immensely, and put an index finger to his mouth.

She swallowed, nodded, then bit her lip.

Gently, he pushed her legs farther apart, which—wonder of wonders—exposed her fully to him. Already hardened with desire, his need went up another notch, but he would ignore it.

Tonight was for her alone.

Lost in the sweet scent of her and the soft miracle of her skin, he kissed the insides of her thighs, going slowly higher, until he reached her most tender spot. He nuzzled it—she whimpered—and then he flicked it with his tongue.

She let out a gasp.

He stopped moving.

Kettle was still whistling.

Nicholas pulled back and motioned for Poppy to put her hand over her mouth. With a shaky hand, she did just that, and he went back to what was becoming his greatest delight—pleasuring her.

He blew on her first.

She moaned again. Softly.

And then he probed her with his tongue, going deeper.

And deeper.

Her legs began to buckle, so he stopped, listened for Kettle, who was now whistling a sea ditty, and took the opportunity to stand and move Poppy gently back to the chair. “You’ll need to be very,
very
quiet,” he whispered to her.

She nodded, and he pushed her legs wide apart.

Her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright, she kept that hand clamped over her mouth.

He couldn’t help grinning at her obedience—she so rarely listened to him. But he had little time to gloat. She chuckled behind her hand.

“Sssh.” He stared sternly at her and she resumed her quiet posture, although her eyes were full of mischief.

The minx.

With only the whisper of the fire, the ticking of the clock on the mantel, and Kettle’s occasional whistling as a backdrop, Nicholas gave the sensual game all he was worth.

Within seconds, Poppy had her free hand in his hair. Thirty more seconds of well-timed teasing with his tongue, and he could only tell he’d brought her to pleasure by the way she arched her back and held herself suspended, which brought her sweetest flesh even closer to his mouth.

He gave one last plunge of his tongue into her womanly depths at the same time she was peaking, and only wished it were the length of him inside her.

But that would come another time. He felt determined it would be so.

She
might not think she was marrying him, but blast it, if he had to marry to keep his job, there was only one woman who interested him whatsoever.

Poppy.

He might not love her, but she fascinated him. And he wouldn’t give up trying to win her until he had her lying naked on a rug somewhere in front of a fire and they were coming to completion together.

For now, he’d have to be satisfied with teaching her the art of love without his full participation.

She sank back down and let out one long, slow breath.

Gently, carefully, he pulled down her skirt and stood.

“
That,
my dear, is
thrilled,
” he said. “Every time you tell Sergei or his sister you’re thrilled to see them, please remember what
thrilled
really is, and remember you experienced it with me.”

As he spoke, she stared at him as if she’d never seen him before. She was gorgeous, her lips deep red and her cheeks rosy. He’d satisfied her. He’d removed that awful, bleak look from her eyes, as well as that stiff, worried posture.

He felt good about that.

“I’ll go now,” he said, and kissed the top of her head. “Good night.”

“Good night, Nicholas,” she said softly.

Nicholas,
he thought, happy to hear it.
Not Drummond
.

“Nicholas?” she called after him.

There was a heated silence between them.

“Don’t forget your cane,” she whispered.

“I won’t,” he said, his voice gruff. He was loath to leave her.

If Kettle were the nosy man she’d claimed he was, he would have already found the five-pound note and message Nicholas had left him inside the cane, with strict instructions that if he ever planned on serving as butler when Nicholas was a permanent member of the household, he’d best not question his integrity ever again. Although he could keep checking the cane whenever he felt like it, as it was an amusing temptation that might yield occasional rewards.

At the front door, Kettle handed him his hat, which Nicholas donned.

For a brief second, they both had their hands on the cane. Their eyes met in mutual understanding, and Kettle’s, he noted, even held a smidgeon of respect.

“Thank you, Kettle.” Nicholas slung the cane under his arm.

“Have a good night, Your Grace.”

“I’ll do my best.” It wouldn’t be easy, however. He’d be dreaming about Poppy’s trusting, vulnerable gaze all night.

CHAPTER 24

The day after her dinner party, Poppy woke up thinking about Nicholas, about his mouth—about what he’d done to her with his mouth. And then she thought of his eyes, their mysterious gray depths—their warm, sympathetic, and sometimes
heated
depths.

No wonder he was called an Impossible Bachelor.

He was too, too delicious a man to ever be thrown into a category as bland and all-encompassing as the list of eligible, unmarried gentlemen she presumed the patronesses at Almack’s kept at the door of that esteemed establishment to screen out lesser mortals.

He was far more interesting than the terms
eligible
and
unmarried
could convey.

Nicholas had encouraged her to believe in herself last night. Indeed, all evening he’d been a bulwark of support, lighting a fire beneath her unsurety so that she felt confident, a true hostess. Afterward in the library, he’d shown her a tender, considerate side that fascinated her … and made her want him even more.

Padding over to her window, she looked out at the London morning and sighed. Her legs wobbled again at the memory of what they’d done together. She pressed her mouth, her breasts, her belly against the windowpane. It was cold and hard—in sharp contrast to Nicholas’s mouth and hands.

She had an obsession with his mouth now. And his hands.

By God, and everything else about him, too.

She pulled back from the window and ran both her hands over her breasts, lingering over her nipples, and then ran her hands down her belly to that point between her legs where she’d found such pleasure with him.

And wished …

Wished
.

She threw back her head and gave a soft moan of frustration. Nicholas had started a craving in her, a craving she needed
him
to fulfill.

She was to see him tonight. They were attending a rout at the Merriweathers’. All the furniture would be removed, the windows thrown open. London society would squeeze itself inside the house to make merry.

Surrounded by hundreds of people, she’d be squashed next to him, her breasts brushing his chest, her belly up against his belly. His mouth would be close to hers. He’d lean down, whisper, and perhaps at one point, they’d kiss, and while they did, he’d caress her hip, her back, and her breasts.

She’d—why, she’d be tempted to cup his hardness in her hand.

Would anyone even notice if she did?

It was a daring, thoroughly naughty thought that left her breathless and excited.

She watched with curiosity as a young messenger boy carrying a large, wrapped parcel crossed the street and headed to the front door of her home.

A moment later, a maid knocked on her bedchamber door.

“Something from Prince Sergei, miss,” she said and held out the parcel.

“Really,” she said, almost reluctant to take it.

But she did and shut the door behind her. She sat at her desk, tore open the note on top of it immediately, and read it.

Then reread it.

She let out a short laugh and clasped the note to her breast, amazed at how differently she saw the world now. This was the prince she remembered from St. Petersburg … but she was no longer the same girl.

The note was charming. Even romantic. He asked her forgiveness for insisting she involve herself with him in an illicit relationship—and for a chance to start over.

But it was also false. Oh, so false.

She wanted to be excited, and moved, and in love with him again, but she wasn’t. She could never be again. She was no longer in the bud of her youth, and she definitely wasn’t a fool.

The prince was all talk and no substance.

She didn’t trust him.

But she
would
accept his invitation.

He wanted her to attend a special gathering at his rented apartments. It was to be a masked dinner with a special surprise event to follow, culminating in the unveiling of the Revnik portrait at its conclusion, which he would reveal in her honor since she so wished to see it.

“Please come,” he wrote. “It is the only way I know to make up for my ungentlemanly actions.”

She made a face. Did he think her completely naïve?

Nevertheless, she would go. She had to see the portrait. It was reason enough for going.

But would she tell Nicholas?

She looked down at the tissue paper in the box. She still hadn’t opened it, but Sergei had asked her to wear the gown and mask he’d sent with his compliments. It was supposed to be a romantic gesture, but it did nothing but annoy her. It suggested he felt a sense of possession over her she’d already told him he had no right to have.

Now if Nicholas had sent her a gown, she would have loved it.

Why?

Was it because she enjoyed being possessed by him?

Yes, she had last night. But at the same time, with Nicholas, she sensed he respected her, had waited for the right time to assume that possession—he’d waited until he sensed she was ready, and wanted it.

Sergei, on the other hand, hadn’t taken her feelings into account at all.

She folded back the tissue paper and looked upon the dress with nothing beyond an objective admiration for the seamstress who’d sewn it. The gown was well made, a bit low in the bodice, but she wasn’t surprised. It was Sergei, after all, who’d ordered it.