“Your hair is so beautiful like this.”Gentle fingers caressed the hair at her temple.“It is so many different colors when it is loose,” he admired.“Dark and light gold, with a hint of light rose and a darker copper— Are you still cold?”Nicholas voiced his concern as she repressed another shiver.
She turned to glare at him.“I am in bed with the man that I learned earlier today I am already betrothed to, and he is touching my temple and caressing my hair; I am not shivering.I am trembling!From our close proximity,” she added before he could press her for further details.
“Ah.”
“What does ah mean?”
“It means I am as physically aware of you as you just admitted being of me.”
“I did not—” Julia broke off as Nicholas raised skeptical brows.“Very well, I am…aware of you.But as I have just explained, I would be equally as uncomfortable at finding myself sharing a bed with any man.”
“You do not look uncomfortable.”
She glowered at him.“You do not look like a rake and a bounder, but I have heard you described as being both those things by other women in Society.”
* * *
Which was exactly the reason Nicholas wanted to take this opportunity of complete privacy to explain the true situation to her.
He drew in a deep breath before beginning to speak.“In 1811, when King George III became too ill to continue as monarch, his son, Prince George, took on the role as Prince Regent in his stead,” Nicholas spoke quietly but clearly, knowing by the surprise that had widened Julia’s bewitching dark blue eyes that this was not the subject she had thought he wished to discuss with her.“England and France were already at war and had been so for four years.The unusual circumstances of the monarchy meant that the Prince Regent needed to make himself familiar with the situation, and the people involved, as quickly and thoroughly as possible.That knowledge included knowing exactly who in his court had been and still were traitors to England.”
“I know from my friend Georgiana that her father was briefly suspected of being one of them,” she recalled.
“Mistakenly.”
She nodded.“A mistake that may have cost him his life.”
“Shefford might have been innocent of betraying his country, but I have since learned that in private, he treated his wife and daughters abominably.”
Her eyes widened.“How can you possibly know that?”
“It is my business to know,” he stated firmly before continuing.“Once Prinny became Prince Regent, he decided to form his own small private army.He chose a coterie of eight gentlemen whom he trusted implicitly.Men who all had powerful connections of one sort or another, and as such, were privy to information that might otherwise not have been available to him.”Nicholas raised his brows when he saw the questions starting to form in Julia’s indigo eyes.“Shall I continue?”
“If you please,” she invited huskily.
Nicholas tried to do so, he really did, but he had wanted Julia for so long that lying in bed with her was sorely testing his willpower.
Too much so for him to stop himself from raising his hand to gently cradle one side of Julia’s face.Or prevent him from moving the soft pad of his thumb in a light caress across her slightly parted lips.
They felt as soft as rose petals and were the color of his favorite deep pink roses.The fact that he had been able to discern the engorged tips of her nipples through the flimsy white nightgown and robe she wore made him think that they were that same shade of dusky pink.
He moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue, inwardly wishing they were Julia’s nipples instead.
“Nicholas…?”she prompted hesitantly.
He moved his hand abruptly, as if touching her had burned his skin.At the same time, he became aware that the hardness of his arousal was pressing against her thigh.“I apologize.”He closed his eyes briefly before opening them again.“I might have bruised almost one hundred percent of my body this evening, but I would have to be stone-cold dead not to respond to having you near me like this.”
A becoming blush once again appeared in her cheeks.“I find your close proximity…stimulating too,” she admitted.“But not enough,” she continued firmly when Nicholas would have lowered his head to kiss her, “to be deterred from finishing our previous conversation.”
Nicholas shifted back so that he was once again leaning on his elbow looking down at her, a slight smile curving his lips.“You are a very single-minded young woman.”He wasn’t sure whether he admired that trait or felt irritated at being thwarted in his need to kiss her.Mostly, he admired it, he accepted.
She gave an acknowledging nod.“The quicker you finish telling me what you believe is so important for me to know, the sooner we might return to finishing this other…conversation.”
“Might?”
“Might,” she echoed.
“You are also a very cruel woman,” he complained.
