Cloudy With a Chance of Marriage (25 page)

But the prince didn’t seem to notice. His eyes were back on Miss Jones. “Oh, let’s cease the pretense now, as precious as it was. State your real name, my dear, and tell us why you hide beneath this disguise as a woman of lackluster origins.”

Miss Jones’s cheeks were pale. She looked genuinely nervous. “I’m still not sure what you mean, Your Highness.”

“She’s not disguised, Your Highness,” said Lady Tabitha with a little laugh. “She truly is a lackluster little nobody.”

The prince gazed sternly at Lady Tabitha. “You were
not
asked to speak. You’ve also no idea what you’re talking about.”

He made a quarter turn so that she was no longer in his line of vision. It was the ultimate insult—the cut direct, and given by the Prince Regent himself!

There were several gasps.

Stephen watched with morbid fascination and not a little satisfaction as Lady Tabitha turned bright crimson, turned slowly, and strode away.

Prinny lowered his eyebrows. “I don’t care how beautiful the woman is, how dare she insult the daughter of a long, proud line of Celtic kings?”

His cronies all agreed in equally loud voices.

At the break in attention focused strictly on her, Miss Jones managed to dart a questioning look at Stephen.

Play along,
he willed his expression to say.
This is that diversion you begged me to create.

She widened her eyes only slightly. Stephen watched as she lifted her chin and her gaze grew more direct. Good for her. She was gathering courage. Ignoring the confusing circumstances.

She would have made a fine sailor.

Who was he fooling?

She would have made a fine admiral!

When the prince finished chortling with his colleagues, Miss Jones cleared her throat. “Dreare Street, Your Highness, is actually a very pleasant street on which to live. In fact”—she bestowed a genuine smile upon him—“we’re having a street fair soon.”

Prinny drew in his many chins. “Really? No one has those anymore.”

Miss Jones tossed her head. “
We
do. I’d be honored if you’d make an appearance at ours, Your Highness, as our guest of honor. Would you, please?”

Stephen couldn’t stop his lip from curving up. Miss Jones’s voice was so throaty with hope and enthusiasm, who could resist her?

Prinny blinked.

Stephen felt his shoulders tense.

“Why, I’d be glad to, Miss Jones,” the Prince Regent replied with spirit—and only a little bit of slurring in his speech. “But only if you stand by my side in that delicious lady’s-maid costume.” He waggled his brows at her.

“If you say so, Your Highness,” she responded weakly.

“When shall it be?” Prinny gave a little hop of excitement. “A week from now, I’ll be gone for at least a fortnight to Brighton. So it’s either in the next seven days or not for a small while.”

“It’s this coming Wednesday,” she blurted out. “Isn’t that right, Captain Arrow?”

Their gazes locked. They’d planned to have the fair
two
Wednesdays from now. But it couldn’t be helped. They’d have to have it sooner.

“Next Wednesday it is, then,” said the prince.

“And please tell all your friends,” Jilly asked him.

“And enemies, too,” added Stephen. “We don’t discriminate.”

Prinny laughed a great big belly laugh. “You always were a card, Arrow. Very well. I’ll tell all of London’s Upper Ten Thousand to come. For one day, my foes and I will be friends—on Dreare Street, of all places.”

“Why not?” Stephen agreed.

Prinny kissed Miss Jones’s hand with a great deal of fervor then retreated to his group of hangers-on once more.

Stephen was impatient to catch Miss Jones’s gaze. When he finally did, he saw she was bursting with excitement. He felt it, too.

The deed was done. Prinny was coming to the street fair. In all likelihood, so would many of London’s wealthiest shoppers. Perhaps they’d buy books. And oversized handkerchiefs. Meat pasties and paintings and mobcaps and beautiful gowns. And maybe … just maybe … one of them would buy his house.

God, he had to get those beams fixed by Wednesday!

He’d do it if he had to stay awake from now until then.

But he had something much more imperative to think about at the moment—Miss Jones, and getting her out into the garden before they left the ball tonight. It was time to hold a celebration of sorts. And not only about the prince’s announcement. It was time to celebrate the fact that she’d managed to turn an intended slight from Lady Tabitha on its ear.

It was also time to celebrate her voluptuous body, her smile, her boldness, her intelligent gaze, her kindness.

It was time to celebrate
her
 …

If she’d only let him.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Captain Arrow had a glint in his eye, a bold, take-no-prisoners look, as he wended his way through the small crowd gathered around Jilly.

“You’re coming with me,” he said in her ear.

Without hesitation—for she felt terribly uncomfortable with all the sudden interest in her—she put her hand through the crook of his arm.

“I’m sorry, I must go,” she told the people staring at her and murmuring things about her royal Celtic origins.

It was such a relief! She still wasn’t exactly sure how the diversion had happened, but Captain Arrow had made clear with that look earlier that he’d had everything to do with it.

He looked down at her now, his expression smug. “We’ve something to attend to in the garden, and this time I won’t take no for an answer.”

He was acting like a naval officer again, expecting instant obedience.

“I’m not one of your sailors,” she retorted.

“Thank God,” he said softly.

The inscrutable look he gave her then made her heart race. “Don’t think—”

“That’s right,” he said, walking without hesitation through the flung-open doors to the garden.
“Don’t think.”

She was confused. And tired.

And blast the man, intrigued.

He took her by the hand, and she stumbled after him through paths of stately trees and beautiful flowers. “Captain,” she whispered. “I know what you’re doing. But we can’t.
I
can’t.”

He said nothing until they reached the darkest corner of the garden, where he stopped, turned toward her, and put his hands on her shoulders.

“You,” he said firmly but gently, “need me.”

She opened her mouth to say he was mad, but at that exact moment, he pulled a tendril of hair off her face. And then he gave a small tug and she was in his arms, her cheek pressed against his chest.

“And God knows I need you,” he said.

She was ashamed at how moved she was by that eloquent yet simple speech, and by how quickly she submitted. She fell limp against him and let him caress her back, all while she stared at the outline of a small statue of a goddess holding an urn, and behind that, a cluster of lilac bushes.

They needed each other.

“You did amazingly well tonight,” he murmured in her ear. “Starting out with that awful bitch Tabitha, and then being thrust into the situation with Prinny with no warning as to what the plan actually involved—”

She said nothing. She couldn’t. She was letting herself drift. When one drifted, one took no responsibility.

One … let things happen.

She closed her eyes. He laid a kiss on her temple, a soft, slow, thoughtful kiss. When he pulled back, she sighed, and he nuzzled her neck then, moving her hair aside with his mouth, lingering on the soft spot below her ear and then her throat. She let her head fall back.

“You’re perfect,” he murmured.

She let a desperate little giggle escape. “I’m not perfect.”

Not only that, she was in far, far too deep waters.

He put his hands on the wall on either side of her head and made her look into his eyes. “You’re perfect,” he said in a serious voice. “Accept it and move on.”

He stared at her a moment, daring her to defy him.

“All right,” she said, and, in an insane move, lifted her hand to his cheek. “You’re perfect, too,” she whispered.

He closed his eyes and then opened them. “Perfect for now, right?” His voice was gruff, but his mouth lifted at the corner.

She couldn’t help a small smile, too. “Yes.”

“That’s fine with me.” He wrapped both his arms around her waist and spun slowly around with her.

She looked up into his eyes and was lost.

Lost
.

“Captain—”

“Stephen,” he whispered.

“Stephen,” she said.

But she couldn’t say anything else. He was still the insouciant rake. But tonight he was something more.

So was she.

She could feel it humming around them,
through
them.

He looked down at her, and without a second’s hesitation, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.

And he kissed her back.

She was caught in a heady, buzzing garden of delight, wrapped in his arms, tasting his mouth, smelling his skin, his coat, the lilacs—hearing the moans of pleasure emitting from his tanned, masculine throat.

This
was what she’d imagined kissing to be.

This was heaven.

Stephen picked her up then, and she wriggled as close to him as she could, her mouth never leaving his.

“Miss Jones,” he said in a husky tone. “I knew you’d be unforgettable. The very first time I kissed you, I knew.”

“Jilly,” she told him.

“Jilly,” he murmured. “I need to get my coat off.”

She helped him, and somehow they kept kissing.

He dropped the coat on the grass and laid her on top of it, their lips still locked. He endeared himself to her by doing his best to spread the coat out beneath her.

“We don’t want to muss your lady’s-maid costume,” he said, grinning against her lips. “You’ve got to wear it again for Prinny.”

She grinned back, but he kissed the grin right off her mouth.

She wanted to wrap up in that coat. She wanted to take his shirt off. She wanted to do so much more. In the confines of Hodgepodge, she’d had the yearning to meld into the man, to lose herself in him, but she’d never known it would overwhelm her to the point that she was greedy, avid, selfish and tugging, like a starving beast.

She looked up at him as she yanked at his shirt. The sickle moon hung above his shoulder for a moment, until he raised both his arms into the air and pulled the shirt off over his head.

She gave a small cry of pleasure when he came crashing back down on her yet managed not to hurt her in the least, his mouth demanding and his hands tugging at her bodice. She lifted her back to make it easier for him to shrug her gown down over her shoulders.

When she was free, he fumbled at her stays, unlacing them while she lay stunned, staring into the night, her hands roaming his back and the nape of his neck.

What was she doing?

Who cares?
a wild voice in her head answered.

She let her fingers burrow into his hair as his lips began a slow perusal of her breasts, nuzzling in the cleft between them. But he avoided her nipples, merely slowing to gaze at them, to blow his warm breath over each of them—so delicious on a cool evening—and then moving onward and upward, to her face again.

Damn him for being a tease.

The sensation of her nipples pressed against his hard, sculpted chest while he kissed her mouth drove her even more mad with longing. But she was also happy. Happier than she’d been in years.

He caressed her waist with a hand, and then the edge of her breast and the full underside, all the while teasing her mouth with his tongue. She played back with equal abandon.

Finally, he covered her breast with his large palm and gave a gentle squeeze.

“You’re more luscious than any tropical fruit,” he whispered.

“I am?”

“Oh, yes.” He held her arms trapped while he bent low and slowly circled her nipples with his tongue. She arched upward, and he pushed her down again, firmly but gently, with his thighs and groin.

His torture was exquisite. She wrapped her leg around his, and he took her nipple in his mouth then, suckling her breast.

She felt feral, right, pressed to the earth, to Stephen’s skin—

To life.

She moved her head first left, then right, unsure how to bear the exquisite pleasure thrumming through her, crashing into her like waves at the point between her legs where the captain now steadily pulsed with his thigh. His hands, meanwhile, pulled her gown up her legs so she could do what he wanted her to do, what
she
wanted to do—