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She sketched him a curtsy and hurried out.
“So that’s how you handle females you get up the stick,” Tony said with a sneer.
“No it is not, you young lout. If that had been an innocent young girl you’d gotten into trouble, I would have made you pay and pay dearly. But Dolly is another kettle of fish. She’s far too wise to get pregnant in the first place unless she intended to set a matrimonial trap. When girls like that do happen to get caught, they know how to get shut of it in half an hour. Now, for Christ’s sake Tony, can you keep your nose clean or do you need a wet nurse?”
“If you’ve finished knocking me down, I’ll take my leave.” Her mouth was so sore, it hurt her to speak.
“Don’t expect me to apologize for hitting you. You had it coming.”
“Someday youwillapologize for hitting me. I guarantee it,” she said quietly.
Tony managed to slip into the house without being noticed. She bathed her face and called Savage every shocking name she could curl her tongue about. She’d have a damn great bruise and when Roz saw it, she’d insist on Mr. Burke accompanying her everywhere. Perhaps she should go home to Lamb Hall. It was within riding distance of Edenwood, the house she’d fallen hopelessly in love with. She’d love to see it now spring was coming. Tony couldn’t really understand how Adam Savage could stay away from it. It was his dream home and yet he’d hardly spent five minutes there. What he needed was a wife. Someone who would cherish Edenwood and fill it with children. She reprimanded herself sternly. She must be out of her mind longing to marry a man who had just struck her in the face.
Another lady in another part of London also fancied becoming a wife. Her aspirations seemed just as hopeless. Maria Fitzherbert was taking late supper with the Prince of Wales in his private suite at Carlton House. She had no doubts that George was totally besotted with her. He had made her the toast of London. Every hostess knew her success or failure depended upon whether her guest list was headed by the new favorite. They were thankful for small mercies. At least Mrs. Fitzherbert was a respectable widow, a very different class of woman from the Prince’s usual choice of gold-digging actress.
Maria was walking a fine line. She had taken supper in George’s private suite once before, at which time she had learned just exactly what England’s Prince expected of her. She had only escaped by protesting outraged virtue and by allowing kisses and cuddles to take the place of capitulation and congress.
Since then, however, they had been alone umpteen times in the enclosed royal carriage, where she had learned that a young man in his prime was after larger game than the two plump partridges she used to pacify him. It had come as a bit of a surprise to Maria just how frisky a man in his twenties could be when she measured him against her two elderly husbands. Not altogether an unpleasant surprise, however.
Now, once more her virtue was in jeopardy. She was not naive enough to think she would escape altogether unscathed, but everything had its price and she was determined to make her Prince pay and pay dearly.
“Ah, Puss, it does me good to see how much you enjoy precisely the same food I love.”
“Your Highness’s chef has no equal,” Maria said with a nervous little laugh.
“I beg you not to ‘Highness’ me. Please let’s be Prinny and Pussy, my love?”
“Of course, Prinny. You know I would do anything in my power to make you happy.” The minute it was off her tongue, she knew she shouldn’t have said it. He had taken her off balance tonight by wearing a brocade dressing gown, which made her downright nervous. As a consequence she had consumed one dish after another as a stalling tactic, but delicious as it was, if she took one more mouthful of trifle she would burst the seams of her Parma-violet satin.
“It is within your power to make me more than happy. You would make me jubilant if you were kind to me, Pussy.”
“Prinny, I have been more than kind to you. I have allowed you privileges I would allow no other man on earth.”
George came around the table to her, the food at last forgotten. “Give me your little paw,” he commanded.
Maria obeyed and he covered it with kisses. Then he drew her from her chair and led her to a substantial couch. Now that he had her captive beside him, his lips touched the rapid pulse in her wrist and trailed up her pleasingly plump arm to her shoulder.
“Pussy, you excite me beyond my endurance. Beneath my princely robes, Puss, I am but a man,” he said meaningfully.
“A prince is greater than other men, Prinny.”
“That is true, Pussykins. Therefore does it not follow that a prince’s needs are also greater? My lovely, it is painful for me to be continually in this condition without hope of release. Surely you do not wish to give me pain, Maria?”
“Your Highness, I cannot give myself to any but a lawful husband,” she said primly.
“We are back to ‘Highness, I see.”
Maria could hear the great hurt in his voice.
“Your arrows have pierced me to the heart, cruel, cruel huntress. Have you no balm for my wound?”
“Prinny, I love you!” she cried. “Do not bring dishonor to me!”
“Pussy, Pussy, with my body I thee honor, not dishonor!”
“Ah, now you mock me with lines from the marriage ceremony.”
“Never that, my lovely. In my heart you are my true wife. I would give anything to be a true husband to you.” He could wait no longer to fondle her breasts.
