Penelope and Prince Charming (Nvengaria #1)(26)
Penelope shook her head, her soft hair tickling his skin. “Mr. White—Rueben—I discovered by accident that he wanted a marriage of convenience. His convenience. I heard him speaking to his friend that with my dowry and family connections he could pay his debts and be comfortable. That he’d think nothing of returning to his mistresses—both of them. They were the most beautiful women in London, he said. Nothing like his overly-plump, dull-haired wife-to-be.”
Penelope drew a sharp breath as she finished, as though she hadn’t meant to say the words aloud.
Damien’s dark fury rose. “I believe I have changed my mind about sparing him.” Any man who looked at this woman and thought overly-plump and dull-haired was blind and a fool.
Sword fodder, a voice whispered inside him.
“Where can I find this Mr. Rueben White?” Damien kissed Penelope’s cheek and quietly slid the tie at the back of her nightrail loose from its knot. “I will have Petri bring him to me and I’ll have a … chat …with him.”
“Damien.”
The sound of his name on her lips made his temperature soar. He liked the way her tongue touched her teeth on the D and how her lips closed on the M.
Say it again, love.
“It no longer matters,” she went on. “What I meant to explain was that Rueben wanted a marriage of convenience—which is what you want.”
The lacing of the nightrail loosened. Damien slid his fingers under the cotton, finding her smooth flesh. His arousal, which had been plenty hard since he’d entered the room, tightened further.
Being with her was too risky. He should go.
Not yet. Let me stay here a little longer.
Damien did not miss how Penelope’s gaze darted to the open V of his shirt and the bare muscle inside. Penelope burned for him as much as Damien burned for her. Their first coupling would be highly satisfying.
“Not convenience,” Damien said as his imagination conjured images of their betrothal night. Yes, the ribbons would come in handy. Perhaps he’d begin teaching her now, gently tying her wrists, pushing her nightrail down her body, lowering his fingers between her legs …
“What your prophecy wants, then,” Penelope said, oblivious to his thoughts. “You must marry me to fulfill the prophecy and save your kingdom. I need a husband—at least my mother very much wants me to have one. She has a freehold of this house for her lifetime, but the keeping of me is dear.”
Damien pressed a kiss to the crown of Penelope’s head as he began to lose the thread of the conversation. He knew English very well, but as his need rose, he had to think to translate their words.
“You are not an object to be passed from hand to hand,” he managed to say.
Penelope’s smile was sad. “I am well-versed in aristocratic marriages. The higher-born the family, the more a daughter becomes an object to be passed from hand to hand, as you say. Marriages aren’t like in the fairy tales, where the hero and heroine fall in love and live happily ever after. It is How much land do I get, and what alliances can I make, and how can her father influence my career in Commons?”
Damien wanted to laugh, but he’d never dream of it while her eyes held so much sorrow. “What you say is true,” he admitted. “I too know much about aristocratic marriages.”
Indeed, not one duke, duchess, or prince he knew had married for love. It had all been about connections and who was related to whom. The dukes kept mistresses, and their duchesses sought Damien. The unwritten rules of aristocratic marriages dictated that a man sought a wife for dynastic ambition and kept a lover for the tender side of life.
“But we have already fallen in love,” Damien pointed out. “Our fairy tale is real.”
“What happens when the prophecy is fulfilled?” Penelope asked, her voice unsteady. “Will we still be in love?”
Damien wasn’t bothered by the technicalities of the prophecy at the moment. He brushed his fingertips over her breasts inside the nightrail, wanting them against his chest. She might be ready for him—all he had to do was coax her. “I hope so, my love,” he said. “This feeling came unlooked-for, but I do not want it to go away.”
Penelope turned to him, her lips near his own. The scent of her made his already crazed brain madder still. “We fell in love for the prophecy’s convenience,” she said.
“Mayhap.” He caught her nipple between his fingers, tugged it. Her eyes closed as she let out a tiny sigh. “You admit we are in love?”
Penelope’s words were a breath, her voice shaking. “I can find no other explanation for these feelings.”
Damien could find no explanation either. Penelope’s warmth against his skin sent an explosive spark through his body. He wanted her with a mindlessness he’d never experienced. The control on which he prided himself was rapidly slipping.
“This is dangerous,” he said. “But I wanted to see you, love. No, I needed to see you, not just through the convenient peephole.”
Penelope’s lips parted, showing him waiting moisture. “Peephole?”
“In the panel. Do you not know of it?”
“Oh, behind the night table? I never pay it any mind.”
“I will have Petri nail it shut. Else I might be tempted to kneel there all night.” Watching her comb out her hair, perhaps braiding it to keep it neat while she slept. Then she’d draw off her dressing gown and move, bare under her nightrail, to her bed. The cotton nightgown would cling to the curves of her body, sticking, perhaps, to any damp place.