“I don’t… I don’t know.” She gave him a pleading look. “I’ve never been kissed before…in a bed…like this.”
“Have you been kissed out of a bed?” His eyebrows lifted. “They promised me an innocent bride.”
“I am,” she insisted, before she realized he was teasing her. She looked away, flushing hot. “I haven’t seen a man in a great while, much less been kissed by one. I’ve been living in a convent for years.”
He was silent a moment, then asked, “Do you wish you’d been allowed to stay there?”
“No.” The word came faster and more forcefully than any of her words before. “I wanted to leave Highcliffe. I wasn’t happy living with the sisters.”
“Why weren’t you happy?”
She considered how to explain it, how to describe the astringent quality of the sisters’ interactions, the rebukes and punishments, the suspicious looks, and, as the day of her nuptial journey neared, the heightened warnings and shame. She’d heard the stories of her own parents’ marriage, whispers of fatal unhappiness resulting in her mother’s early death.
She pushed down panic and met Prince Gideon’s gaze. “I suppose none of it matters. We’re to be wed...” She swallowed hard. “In two days.”
“Indeed we are.” He reached to touch her cheek, a whisper-soft caress. “So you must allow me to give you a kiss.”
She had time to take one short, shuddery breath before his lips met hers. It was a most peculiar experience, feeling a stranger’s mouth warm against her mouth, his lips pressing against hers, somehow coaxing them to respond. His nose brushed against her cheek, and one of his hands traced down her neck, coming to rest on her shoulder. The contact lasted only a moment or two, but by the time he ended the short kiss, she found herself unable to think.
“Have you survived your first ‘debauching’ at my hands?” he asked lightly.
She touched her lips. Had she survived? A man had embraced her, moved his lips against hers and held her close in an amorous way. She didn’t know what to feel, or what to say. She pressed back against the pillows, afraid to look at him.
“Have I behaved badly?” he said in the silence. “Forgive me. I couldn’t resist stealing the innocence of your lips. But you must have your sleep, Princess Cassandra, if you’re to make my official acquaintance tomorrow at breakfast.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “I wish you the sweetest of dreams.”
By the time she gathered the courage to look up, he’d left as quickly as he’d appeared, into the shadows, and then, presumably, through some hidden door.
“Official acquaintance?” she whispered, her arms hugged tight about her waist. She thought she ought to take the candle and find his hidden door, and stack the heaviest furniture she could find in front of it so he couldn’t visit again.
The innocence of her lips? What a rakehell, what a wicked poet.
She bundled back under the sheets and blankets, furtively touching her now-less-innocent lips. He hadn’t even asked if she wanted to kiss him. The whispers she’d heard about Prince Gideon’s questionable behavior were proving to be true.
Chapter Two
Gideon woke feeling like hell, having tossed and turned most of the night. Bertram rapped on the dressing room door, then entered and stared dolefully in his direction with occasional, subtle throat-clearing that grew less subtle with each passing quarter hour.
“Stop it,” he finally said to the servant. “I know I have to get up.”
“The time, Your Highness. Your bride, and breakfast…”
“Of course. I intend to show my face. You may stop coughing and grunting before you injure your throat.”
“Very well, Your Highness,” he replied with a twist to his lips.
Gideon climbed from bed, stretching, remembering last night’s strange, chaste kiss with his princess. She’d considered it a terrible trespass, even though he’d acted with restraint. He’d squelched the urge to shock her with rough possession, to frighten her in the darkness and secrecy of their first meeting and show her that he—and only he—would rule within their marriage. He was the prince, after all, the future king.
So why hadn’t he been rough and possessive?
He crossed to the washbasin as a footman poured hot, fresh water. “Bert, you must make me the picture of elegance,” he told his valet. “It’s not every day a young man meets the woman he’s to marry in, oh, what is it, twenty-four hours or so?”
“You are ever a paragon of elegance,” Bert replied with dry courtesy, and a speaking glance at his state of dissolution.
Gideon peered into the looking glass, at sleep-swollen eyes, unkempt hair, and a full day’s beard-stubble. “Thank God you’re good at your job. I need extensive repair this morning.”
“Up late, Your Highness?”
He hadn’t been, at least not for the usual activities. Gideon had declined the laundry maid’s charms when she showed up for their weekly tryst, his thoughts preoccupied by Cassandra instead.
“Have you seen the princess?” he asked Bert, to keep up the fiction that they hadn’t yet made one another’s acquaintance.
The old retainer shook his head. “From a distance only. I’m sure she’s all that is to be desired in a royal consort.”
“Let’s hope so.”
Gideon fought a yawn since Bert was leaning over his jaw with a razor. Once the man completed a close and flawless shave, there was nothing to do but dress in a dark blue formal morning jacket and breeches, and present himself for breakfast.
He hurried down the stairs and swept into the breakfast salon, nearly colliding with a servant. Gideon steadied the man’s plate of sweet buns before it crashed to the floor, then turned to greet his parents. His mother wore a beleaguered half-smile, and his father’s brow arched in that way that discouraged half-cocked excuses.
Gideon drew himself up and turned to acknowledge the other two guests in the room: the frowning King of Carlisle, and his daughter, Princess Cassandra. As they stood to be formally introduced for the “first time,” he studied his betrothed in the daylight.
She wore a pale pink gown with white flocked flowers, a strange color choice for breakfast, but it set off her dark eyes and hair to exotic effect. She was paler than he’d thought last night, especially standing next to her tanned, brutish father. Two dots of color stained her cheeks as she pretended not to know him. Her lips pursed and he thought, I have kissed those lips. The memory gave their awkward introduction a frisson of excitement, at least for him.
She looked perturbed.
He sat to her left at the table, in front of the remaining place setting. The King of Carlisle glared at him, unimpressed by his punctuality.
“I pray your journey to Hastings was not too onerous, Your Majesty,” Gideon said politely.
“It was onerous enough, but the weather was good.” He had a clipped accent that his daughter didn’t share, but from what Gideon could divine, they hadn’t spent much time together. They sat stiffly beside one another, like strangers. He felt a pang of sympathy. His own parents were warm and loving, both to him and one another.
Having addressed her father first, he turned to the princess. She still wore a faint blush.
“What do you think of Hastings so far?” he asked.
“I haven’t seen much of it,” she answered quietly. “We arrived very late.”
Their eyes met and held before hers skittered away. He cleared his throat and added extra cream to his tea. “Perhaps I can take you for a walk about the palace grounds this afternoon.”
“Oh, dear,” his mother cut in. “What a gallant suggestion, but the princess has so much to do before tomorrow’s wedding. There are fittings, accessories and jewelry to choose, and trunks to unpack.”
“So we’ll meet at the altar as strangers. Very well, if you wish.” He said it gently, teasing his mother, and she blushed and reached to pat Cassandra’s hand.
“It’s a shame the two of you couldn’t know one another sooner,” his mot
her said. “I do think it’s better when there’s a courtship, but in this case—”
“A courtship isn’t necessary when duty is involved,” interrupted Cassandra’s father. “I didn’t see my betrothed until they brought her to the chapel to recite her vows. If the bride’s an obedient and virtuous lass, that’s all that matters, and I can promise you my daughter will bring honor to your family. She was reared by the Sisters of Mercy in Highcliffe.”
The princess didn’t so much listen to this speech as endure it. She bit her pretty lips, the lips he’d kissed, while wringing her hands in her lap. How sad, to be a parcel of statecraft, delivered to the altar of the most eligible prince on your wedding day.
Gideon smiled at her to make the moment lighter, if not easier. “I regret we can’t spend time together on this busy day. I look forward to getting to know you better.”
“Why, that’s what leisurely breakfasts are for,” his mother said, pushing back her chair. “We’re nearly finished. You two must stay and converse while we parents retire. No, you must stay and speak with Gideon, dear Cassandra,” she said when the princess stood as well. “You’ve a little time. Madame Benoit won’t be here to begin your fittings for another quarter hour.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said, sinking back into her chair.
“An entire quarter hour!” Gideon said with a straight face. “We’ll find plenty to talk about.”