One Night with a Prince Read online

  “Does he know about your scheme?”

  She eyed him warily. “How could he? He’s fighting the French right now.”

  “But you didn’t write him.”

  “I thought it best not to bother him.”

  “And Prinny?” Byrne lifted one eyebrow. “When he learned that your ‘property’ had been sold, why didn’t he approach your father?”

  Because there was no time. In one month, Lord Stokely would make good his threats unless she stopped him. It would take a month at least just to reach her father and bring him back to England.

  But if she told Byrne that, it would raise more questions in his too-inquisitive mind. So she shrugged. “I suppose His Highness thought it best to deal with me, since it was my husband who sold my family’s property.”

  Byrne flicked her a glance. “If your father did know of your scheme, what would he think of it?”

  Trying to ignore Papa’s stern eyes staring down at her, she clasped her clammy hands together, and lied. “I have no idea.”

  “I doubt he’d approve of your sacrificing your reputation for ‘family property.’”

  “With luck, he won’t hear of it.” But of course he would. And no, he wouldn’t approve. She was his “little soldier,” his “Bel-bel”—he would want no man sullying her good name.

  But what use was her good name when his was about to be destroyed? She refused to watch “Roaring Randall” be vilified in the papers as the man responsible for the greatest scandal in royal history.

  Worse, as the prince had pointed out, if the letters weren’t retrieved, Papa might very well hang for treason. How could she take that chance?

  Papa should never have kept those letters after he’d been ordered to destroy them. But like any military strategist, he’d thought to protect himself—and his family—in case the drastic actions he’d taken on the prince’s behalf ever came back to haunt him.

  Which was precisely what they’d done. Because of her husband, the man whom her father had cautioned her against. She only wished Papa had barred her from seeing Philip. Then she wouldn’t be in this position now.

  She sighed. No, she would have found a way to elope. At the time, she’d chafed at Papa’s many restrictions. Never mind that they’d been designed to protect her. She’d wanted light, air, freedom.

  She’d found it in Philip, a gentleman officer too charming and solicitous for a woman of her limited experience to resist. What a naïve fool she’d been.

  “Mr. Byrne? My lady?” came a voice from the vestibule. Grateful to be dragged from her thoughts, she walked out of the dining room with Byrne to find Mrs. Watts standing there. “We are ready for your ladyship’s fitting now.”

  Once they were in the small parlor, the dressmaker banished Rosa with the excuse that there was no space for the maid. But after the maid stalked out, Mrs. Watts explained in a confidential tone, “I find that ladies’ maids only get in the way. Best to leave matters of dress to the experts, don’t you think?”

  “Certainly,” Christabel replied, flummoxed by the dressmaker’s lofty pretensions. But as the dressmaker brought out a book of fashion plates for them to examine, it became apparent that the expert she referred to was Byrne.

  While Mrs. Watts took notes, he flipped through the book, barking orders faster than the dressmaker could write them down. “She’ll need at least five chemises, seven evening gowns, three riding habits, eleven walking dresses with matching pelisses or spencers—”

  “That’s too many,” Christabel protested.

  “We’ll be in the country a week.” Skimming his hand down to rest just above her hips, he added, “And I intend to have you in and out of your gowns frequently.”

  As the dressmaker discreetly dropped her gaze, Christabel glared at him. He was enjoying his role of lover far too much.

  Leaving his hand on her waist, he went on. “She’ll need new petticoats—silk, preferably—a few nightgowns of very fine linen, and dressing gowns.”

  “And shawls,” Christabel added.

  “No shawls.” Byrne dropped his gaze to her bosom. “A woman should flaunt her…assets.”

  Heat rose in her cheeks despite her efforts to contain it. “Then perhaps I should do without gowns entirely,” she said sweetly.

  His eyes gleamed. “An excellent idea. We’ll stay in my room the whole time.”

  Blast him. She tipped up her chin, determined to have the last word. “I need my shawls. I get cold.”

  “I’ll keep you warm enough, don’t worry.”

  “Byrne—” she began in sheer exasperation.

  “Oh, all right.” He turned to Mrs. Watts. “And a shawl.”

  “Three shawls,” Christabel said.

  “One shawl,” he countered. “In silk.” When she frowned, he added, “If you want more, you’ll have to pay for them yourself.”

  He knew perfectly well she couldn’t afford such things. “Then I’ll just use my old ones.”

  “Of wool, no doubt.”

  “As a matter of fact, yes.”

  He groaned. “Fine. Three silk shawls.” Her triumphant glance made him add, “But don’t think I’ll let you wrap yourself up like a mummy after I’ve gone to the trouble of buying gowns that display your charms.” He lowered his voice to a confidential murmur. “Either play the part or don’t. Stokely will be suspicious enough as it is.”

  Her face fell. He was right. “Very well, one shawl will do, I suppose.”

  The next hour was taken up in sorting through a dizzying array of fabrics, styles, and colors.

  The fabrics were the most exquisite she’d ever seen or touched. She’d never cared much about clothes, but then she’d never had gowns made of fabrics like these—silks that flowed over one’s hand like water, muslins so soft and delicate she feared tearing them with a single touch. As a lieutenant, Philip hadn’t been able to afford such. Then, along with his estate he’d inherited a mountain of debt, which he’d built higher every year.

  But Byrne could clearly afford them. Either that or he was mad.

  Madness would explain his outrageously bold color choices—brilliant reds, vibrant blues, and dramatic greens. Didn’t he realize she wasn’t one of his stunning society ladies, who could easily wear clothes that drew attention to themselves?

  When she protested, he told her, “Trust me, they’ll suit you perfectly.”

  “But I thought pink and cream were the fashion.” That’s what Philip had always preferred her to wear.

  “For schoolgirls coming out, not for a grown woman. And certainly not for you.”

  When Mrs. Watts held particular fabrics up to her face for him to choose, Christabel saw in the mirror what he meant. Even she could see that the rose satin made her cheeks glow a healthy color, and the holly green crepe made her eyes sparkle. She’d always looked rather sallow in her pink gowns.

  The fact that he’d been right perversely annoyed her. “You seem to know a great deal about women’s clothes.”

  His slow smile sparked something hot low in her belly. “I know what I like.” His gaze dropped to her mouth. “And what makes a man desire a woman.”

  A delicious shiver coursed through her. Curse the randy devil, he also knew what made a woman desire a man. Him and his smiles and extravagant gifts and commanding voice—all designed to send a female’s pulse into a frenzied gallop and melt her resistance into a puddle.

  Well, he wouldn’t do that to her. No, indeed. She’d already allowed one man’s flatteries and flirtations to tempt her into an unwise marriage; she wasn’t about to let it tempt her into an illicit liaison with a devil who put his own gain above his conscience. If he even possessed a conscience.

  Once they’d settled on the gowns, Mrs. Watts drew out her measuring tape. “If you will come this way, my lady…” Mrs. Watts led her to a corner of the room where a little dais had been built to accommodate a previous resident’s passion for exhibiting. “Stand up here, please. And forgive me, but you must remove your gown so
I can measure you in your corset.”

  “Of course.” As she mounted the little steps, she glanced expectantly at Byrne, who responded by taking a seat in her favorite armchair. “Byrne! You can’t watch this.”

  “Why not?” The sneaky devil had the audacity to smile. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

  He was taking this role too far, and he knew it. “Which is why you don’t need to see it now,” she persisted.

  “Ah, but I have to make sure everything is done to my specifications.” He glanced at the dressmaker. “Don’t mind me.”

  Mrs. Watts’s plump cheeks turned a rosy sheen, but she gave him a cursory nod. That’s what Byrne’s extravagance bought him—compliance from dressmakers and servants.

  Fine, she would let him watch her be measured. She couldn’t very well quarrel with him in front of the dressmaker. Besides, he was paying for the gowns. She supposed he had a right to have a say in it.

  But his extravagance would not buy her. He’d find that out soon enough.

  Pretending she didn’t care in the least if he saw her half-dressed, she stared him down as the dressmaker helped her remove her gown. Watching him proved a mistake, however, for once she stood atop the dais in her corset and chemise, her pride forced her to keep looking as his gaze roamed wherever it pleased.

  It took all her strength to fight a blush. No man had ever gazed upon her like that before. Even Philip had never really taken the time to look at her. A lusty soldier, he’d been quick to join her in bed, and just as quick to retire to his own when he was done.

  Somehow she suspected that “quick” wouldn’t apply to Mr. Byrne. While Mrs. Watts took her measurements and scribbled them in her notebook, he did some measuring of his own. His eyes lingered on her bosom with disquieting interest, then examined her cinched-in waist and too-ample hips. When he was done with his thorough assessment, his heated gaze made a leisurely trip back up her body to fix on her face.

  And in his eyes, she saw the truth that he wasn’t even bothering to hide. He would stop at nothing to have her in his bed, bargain or no.

  She cursed as a wayward thrill coursed down her spine. The impudence of the man! Well, she would just show him. She turned to the dressmaker with a smooth smile. “I do hope my friend hasn’t embarrassed you too much with his antics. Sometimes he can be most outrageous. I wouldn’t be surprised if after he chose all these gowns, he changed his mind about them and refused to pay.”

  Mrs. Watts didn’t so much as frown.

  Worse yet, Byrne merely chuckled. “Mrs. Watts has dealt with me often enough, my sweet, to know that I pay my bills with admirable regularity.”

  Christabel glared at him. So much for trying to shame the man into behaving.

  Ignoring her frowns, he turned his attention to the dressmaker. “And speaking of payment, I’m willing to pay more to have these gowns finished in three days.”

  Mrs. Watts eyed him with a wily gleam. “It will be a great deal more.”

  “Whatever it costs.”

  The woman smiled broadly. “Very good, sir.” Then she untied Christabel’s chemise and pulled it down to form a line across the very top of her breasts. “Now, milady, for your evening gowns, is this an acceptable neckline?”

  “No,” Byrne said, before Christabel could even answer.

  Mrs. Watts pivoted to him like a dog following the bounce of a ball. She pulled the chemise down a little more. “Here, then?”

  “Lower,” he said.

  As Christabel seethed, Mrs. Watts went down another half inch. “Here?”

  “Lower.”

  “Perhaps I should simply pop out my breasts and serve them on a platter,” Christabel grumbled.

  As the dressmaker coughed to hide her laugh, Byrne raised one eyebrow. “While that sounds intriguing, my sweet, when we’re in public you’d best keep them in a gown.”

  “In being the important word,” she retorted.

  Mrs. Watts continued to hold the chemise in its present position, her gaze fixed on him. “Sir? Is this all right or not?”

  He glanced from the dressmaker to a glowering Christabel, then back to the dressmaker. “That’ll do for now, I suppose. We’ll see how the gowns look once they’re done.”

  With a nod, Mrs. Watts finished her measurements. “Will that be all, sir?”

  “No. She needs something to wear for the next few days, so if you could alter one of her old gowns, something she wore before she went into mourning—”

  “She can’t,” Christabel broke in. “We dyed all my old gowns black.”

  “All of them?”

  She stuck out her chin. “Yes.”

  “Bloody hell. At least that explains why you persist in wearing them.” He turned to the dressmaker. “Could you make her mourning gowns a bit less…severe? And have one of them ready in the morning?”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  He rose and strode to the door. “I’ll call her maid to fetch them.”

  As he opened the door, Rosa practically fell into the room. Christabel rolled her eyes. Rosa would never go meekly off when there was gossip to hear.

  “Forgive me, sir,” Rosa babbled, “I was merely coming to tell my lady—”

  “It’s all right, Rosa,” he broke in. “Just go bring us the prettiest of your mistress’s mourning gowns, will you?”

  “But they are all ugly, senor.”

  “What a surprise,” he said dryly. “Very well, then take Mrs. Watts with you. She can assess which ones are best for alteration.”

  Rosa and Mrs. Watts went off, and Byrne closed the door. Only then did she realize they were alone. And she was dressed most scandalously.

  He seemed to realize the same thing, for his gaze took outrageous liberties as he surveyed her scantily clad form.

  To her chagrin, her pulse leaped in response. “For pity’s sake, go see to your horses or something. We can finish this without you. Go on, go away and leave us in peace.”

  “And let you dress yourself like a nun? I think not.”

  His nonchalant assumption that this masquerade gave him the right to tell her what to wear frustrated her. “I should warn you, just because I let you get away with these outrageous flirtations in public doesn’t mean I’ll allow them in private. Furthermore,” she lied, “I shall elaborate on your abominable treatment of me in my written report to His Highness. And when your father hears—”

  “What did you say?” He’d gone abruptly still, his eyes turning gray as a sudden tempest.

  Too late, she remembered that he had good reason to dislike his father. “I-I said I will make a report to—”

  “No, you called His Highness my ‘father.’ ” He advanced up the dais’s steps swiftly, trapping her atop it. “If you’re to play my mistress, Lady Haversham, there are some things you should know about me. For one, His Highness is not my father.”

  She blinked. “But I thought—”

  “He did sire me, yes, no matter what the bloody arse claimed to the world. But there’s a vast difference between producing seed and being a father. Only one person raised me, and she’s the only one who counts. That fool at Carlton House had nothing to do with it, so I don’t give a bloody damn what you tell him.”

  Backing her against the wall, he scowled down at her. “And one more thing—I don’t take kindly to threats. I respond by doing exactly what I’ve been warned not to do. And if you think my flirtations were outrageous before—”

  Taking her off guard, he caught her chin in a firm grip and brought his mouth down on hers.

  The kiss was hard. Commanding. And very, very thorough. With provoking insolence, he sealed his mouth to hers as if he had every right to do so. But when he tried making the kiss more intimate, she wrenched her mouth from his.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, fighting to ignore the silly pounding of her heart and the deplorable quiver in the pit of her belly.

  His smoldering gaze seared her wherever it settled. “I’m ki
ssing my pretend mistress.”

  “Stop it.” She cast a furtive glance to the door. “The servants might see us.”

  “Good. Servants are notorious gossips, so let’s put on a good show for them.” Then he kissed her again.

  Except that this time he succeeded in invading her mouth with his tongue, erotically, possessively. And she didn’t stop him, blast it.

  Worse yet, she liked it. She tried not to compare his slow, drugging kisses to Philip’s sloppy, eager ones, but it was hard to ignore the difference. Her husband’s kisses had always been a brief prelude to a quick tumble. Byrne’s kiss was an end in itself, hot, heady, and intoxicating. He fed on her mouth as if he’d been waiting half his life to taste it. The sensation made her dizzy.

  His hand skimmed down her throat, and she waited, on the edge of disappointment, for him to grab her breast and squeeze it roughly the way Philip always had.

  Instead, Byrne curved his hand around the side of her neck, caressing her throat with his thumb, up and down, back and forth, to mimic the heated plunges of his tongue between her lips.

  Oh, heavenly day. He drove the very air from her lungs, which might explain why her knees were going weak and her head growing faint. With leisurely care, he thrust, probed, caressed…made love to her mouth.

  But only her mouth. How very intriguing.

  Though he’d settled his other hand on her waist, he merely stroked her ribs with it. He didn’t paw her breasts or cup her between the legs or squeeze her bottom, all of which Philip would have done within seconds after starting to kiss her.

  And Byrne’s peculiar restraint was having the oddest effect on her. She felt restless and unsatisfied. She found herself wanting his hand on her breast. Lord help her—what kind of a wanton was she?

  She tore her lips from his, seeking breath and…respite? Relief from the liquid heat he fed with each newer, bolder thrust into her mouth? “That’s enough,” she somehow managed to whisper. “You’ve made your point.”

  His breath warmed her cheek. “My point?”

  He turned to nibbling her ear, and oh, what that did to her. She thought she would come out of her skin. She could barely think, much less answer. “That if I threaten you, you’ll feel free to…take…certain liberties.”