The anarchy of her emotions grew to full revolt. She was so flabbergasted she couldn’t speak.

  “I am... God help me, I am at sea. I have come to love you ardently, Eliza, and yet I find myself in this damnable predicament of being an heir to a throne.” He laughed bitterly. “That must sound as deranged as I feel.”

  She could not seem to catch her breath. She couldn’t believe what was happening, not in her wildest fantasy. He was telling her that he loved her, and her heart was nearly bursting with joy, but at the same time, her head felt as if it were in some sort of vise. How could he tell her this when nothing would come of it? How could she accept it when she would read of his nuptials? It was wrong to fill her with this dead hope. “Sebastian! What in heaven are you saying?”

  He suddenly moved across the room to her. “For the love of Christ, Eliza, don’t dissuade me, please. I know how it must seem to you, I do. I am a prince, I should do as I please, but it’s not possible, not in this. The king, my father, depends on me. My country depends on me. It was never my choice, I have always known it—but I never expected to fall in love.”

  He was truly distressed. The pain of this admission was clearly evident around his eyes and in the set of his mouth.

  “You think less of me, and I don’t blame you. But I had to tell you.”

  She wanted desperately to help him. She wanted desperately to help herself. “It’s infatuation—”

  “No. Deo, no, Eliza. Can you not see with your own eyes? Can you not look at me now and see it?”

  He cupped her face in his hands, forcing her to look at him. She could see what he said was true. It both frightened her and enthralled her. “How can you do this to me?” she asked weakly. She wasn’t Caroline, who could marry at any time if she desired, but who preferred to tease and pretend she had the affection of a prince. She wasn’t Hollis, either, who had experienced the love of her life, if even for a short time. Eliza was a woman who lived on her own private island in a bustling city, who could only dream of a moment like this. And that she could have it, but from someone who was as far removed from her as any man could possibly be, wounded her soul.

  She knew she was headed for an ugly and painful fall.

  He splayed his hand across her cheek. “I love you, Eliza Tricklebank. Do you hear me?”

  She set her gaze on his mouth.

  “Don’t say anything,” he said gruffly. “Just allow it to be for now. Can you do that?”

  Conscious thought had deserted her, leaving nothing but the riot of her emotions.

  “I am desperate for the few moments of happiness we have together. It’s unfair of me to ask—”

  “It is,” she said curtly. “It’s horribly unfair.”

  Sebastian stilled. He slowly removed his hand, nodding. “Of course it is,” he said. “I beg your forgiveness.” He stepped away from her, wandering to the hearth.

  The poor man looked so lost.

  Her heart ached for him. Eliza needed these moments of happiness, too, and she understood him completely. Even in her sorrow she could feel the connection between them, the pull of his heart to hers. It seemed cruel that everything she had ever wanted was standing right before her, wanting her as much as she wanted him. Just as it must seem cruel to him to feel those things as the divide between them widened with every passing day.

  He lowered his head, his hands clasped tightly at his back.

  “Sebastian.”

  He didn’t turn.

  “My power to resist my own feelings has gone missing.”

  That brought his head up. He turned partially toward her with an expression of unspeakable sorrow.

  Eliza lost the last rags of her reason. She couldn’t bear it and suddenly ran to him. “If you kiss me, I will encourage it. I will fully encourage it all.” She threw her arms around his neck and pulled his head down so that he would kiss her and she could encourage it all.

  Sebastian crushed her to him and returned her kiss hard and deep, the feelings he’d been trying to express suddenly roaring to life in physical touch. She understood him completely. She knew what she was doing, even in the dense fog of sexual arousal. She understood that this was the only time in her life that she would be so completely desired. Or that she would desire someone so completely in return.

  Sebastian whirled her about and pushed her up against the wall, his body covering hers, his mouth, warm and wet on hers. The sensation electrified her, rattling every bone, every fibre in her. She pressed against him, trying to blend into him, but the cloaks they wore were an impediment. Sebastian seemed to realize it, too. He lifted his head and looked at the door. He took her hand in his. “Come,” he said. He went to the door, opened it slightly and said something in Alucian, then closed the door.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Give it a moment.” He gave her a quick kiss, then opened the door and pulled her out into the hall.

  Eliza knew where they were going, and she didn’t care that she’d already made this mistake once. She cared only about this moment and etching it into her heart.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  A formal supper by invitation of the queen in honor of the soon-departing Alucian crown prince has been cancelled due to a brief illness in the queen. Or perhaps it was cancelled due to foul weather, as has been said among certain members of the House of Lords, particularly from one who had hoped to have his daughter affianced by now.

  The foul weather did not keep one bird who has hatched six little hatchlings in eight years from hopping across Marylebone Road to call on an old friend who was once her Latin tutor. She did not hop out again until the following morning, leaving one to assume that Latin is a difficult subject.

  —Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and Domesticity for Ladies

  IT WAS AMAZING to Sebastian how quickly a man could lose his mind to devotion and love and all manner of things he had not felt until his thirty-second year. But here he was, racing down a hall like a stable lad clinging to the landowner’s daughter. Up a flight of service stairs and down another, narrower hall. Bedrooms, he assumed. He moved all the way to the end of the hall, passing the closed door, not knowing what he might disturb. But when they came to the last door in the hall, it was thankfully standing open. He saw only a bed, drew Eliza inside and shut the door behind him.

  It was a master bedroom, judging by the size of it. It was at the corner of the house, with windows on two walls. He let go of Eliza’s hand and went to a door on the only wall with no windows. He opened it, saw a dressing room. He latched it shut.

  Eliza was standing in the middle of the room, looking around at it, frowning at the canopied bed. “Who lives here?”

  He didn’t know, he didn’t care. The evidence of anything that happened in this room would be erased by Patro before the day was done. What Sebastian cared about was that they were alone. There was no servant standing outside the door. There was no one lingering in the hall waiting for him to finish.

  And there was a proper bed.

  His pulse began to ratchet. He felt almost as if he’d been waiting for this moment all his life. He shrugged out of his greatcoat and let it lay where it fell. He moved to Eliza, unfastened the clasp of her cloak, removed it from her shoulders and tossed it onto a chair. He took the gloves she held tightly in her hand and tossed them aside, too. And then he took her into his arms.

  Her body curved into his and she clung to him, her fingers digging into his arms and shoulders. Sebastian pulled the pins from her hair and watched golden brown curls tumble down her back and around her shoulders. She was so beautiful, the perfection of the fantasy that he carried in his mind.

  She sighed and pressed her mouth to his, her tongue meeting his. Sebastian’s need was rapidly building, brick upon brick, towering over him.

  He caressed her side, his hand sliding up to the plumpness of her breast. He began to unfasten the buttons of her gown, and pushing it from her shoulders, watched it slide down her body to reveal her undergarments.

  He turned her around, began to unlace her corset, pulling all the ties free until the corset gaped open. Eliza removed it and tossed it aside. She was standing in a chemise so light that he could almost see her through the fabric.

  The drum was beating louder in his veins. He removed his coat and waistcoat, pulled his shirt over his head, then took her into his arms again. He kissed her as he picked her up by her waist and twirled her around, settling her against the foot of the bed. He dipped to the hollow of her throat and felt the flutter of her pulse beneath his lips. Her heart was beating rapidly, and he could feel the staccato of it in his blood.

  He sought the bottom of her chemise and slid it up. His hands were on bare skin now, and white-hot rivers of anticipation shimmered in waves down his spine. He pushed the chemise over her head, then pushed her back onto the bed and removed her pantalets.

  She was gloriously bare before him and Sebastian thought there was nothing more beautiful to him in nature than a woman’s body. He quickly disrobed, so that he was bare before her, too, his erection thick and pulsing with anticipation.

  She drew a deep breath as he came over her. He cupped her face, pressed his forehead to hers. “I do love you, Eliza,” he said earnestly. “I’ve never uttered those words to a woman before.”

  She pushed a lock of his hair from his forehead, encircled him with her arms. “I want to remember every second,” she said, and pulled him down to kiss her.

  Sebastian began to explore her body, his hands and mouth on her breasts, on her smooth, warm skin. He reached for the soft flesh of her inner thigh and into the folds of her sex.

  She groaned softly and reached for him, wrapping her fingers around him.

  The dam burst in Sebastian. He couldn’t contain his lust or his regard for her. He swirled his fingers around the core of her pleasure, and when she began to gasp, her breathing coming quick, he anchored his arm around her and thrust into her, filling her up.

  The physical experience was like no other—he was riding a crest of intense pleasure, but with an undercurrent of despair knowing it might be the last time he touched her.

  He willed that from his mind. He couldn’t think of it now—he wanted every moment, every stroke to count. He wanted to lift them to heights neither of them would ever experience again. He wanted this to be the instant when all things would be illuminated and understood. He wanted it to be magic.

  Eliza latched onto his arms, arching her back and whimpering as he moved in her, riding along toward her completion until he could scarcely contain his own. He rolled with her, putting her on top of his body so he could see her. Eliza began to ride him, her fingers digging into his chest.

  She gazed down at him with her gray eyes, and her hair spilling everywhere in long, glorious curls. “I curse the day I met you,” she breathed.

  “So do I,” he agreed.

  Her body clenched around his. “You’ve been my undoing, Sebastian. But oh, what a glorious undoing it has been,” she said, and closed her eyes.

  Sebastian came up on an elbow, thrust his hand into hair at the back of her head and stopped them from moving. “All my life, I’ve believed that joy like this was not possible for me. If nothing else, Eliza, if nothing else, you have showed me what love is. Do you understand what a gift that is? I would never have known love had it not been for you.”

  Eliza smiled. She framed his face with her hands and leaned down to kiss him tenderly. “Neither of us will ever be the same, then, will we?”

  Oh, Eliza. He could not possibly express how profoundly he had been changed.

  He began to move in her again, slower, and with deliberation, wanting it to last as long as he could possibly could manage it.

  She continued to kiss him, her body moving in rhythm with his. The build was excruciating and wonderful, but when he could contain it no more, he embraced her and rolled onto their sides.

  Eliza was gasping with exertion, her chest still rising with each furious breath, and when she came, she cried out at the sensation of it.

  It was the end for Sebastian. He jerked free of her and spilled onto her thigh.

  “Oh dear God,” Eliza said breathlessly. “Oh my stars.” She kissed him on the mouth, lingering there, then sighed happily and fell onto her back, her arm flopping to one side.

  Sebastian kissed her cheek, her forehead, and then tenderly kissed her mouth before gathering her in his arms and holding her to him. He had never felt so utterly connected to another human being. He could feel her heart beating against his chest, and it was almost as if she was a part of him. Love and good fortune and all that was right with the world was shimmering above them, blanketing them.

  Several moments passed before Sebastian put his palm to her cheek and kissed her again, this time with reverence. He reached for the coverlet and pulled it down, and the two of them crawled into the bed and lay in each other’s arms, their gazes on the boughs of the tree dancing on the other side of the windowpanes. “It’s still day,” Eliza said. “I feel like I’ve been away for a week.”

  “I wish we’d been away for a week,” Sebastian murmured.

  “Do you suppose marriage is like this?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.” He hoped that he could find this in his life, this feeling of peace and contentment. He ran his fingers through a long tress of her hair. “Certainly not with anyone but you.”

  She turned her head, resting it on his chest. “If I were married to you, I would insist we begin and end every day just like this.”

  He chuckled and traced a line up and down her arm. “I would happily oblige. But is that all, madam? Or is there more you would demand of me?”

  “Yes. Horsehair crinolines for my dresses. It’s quite expensive according to my sister, and only the fanciest of ladies can wear them.”

  “Then you would have an entire herd of horsehair crinolines. What else?”

  She looked at him. “That you tell me you love me every day, without fail.” She put her hand against his cheek.

  Sebastian pressed his cheek against her palm and closed his eyes. “That would be the easiest thing in all the world to do.” He kissed her palm and allowed himself to imagine it, but hard reality began to ram the door of consciousness, demanding to be let in.

  He turned his gaze to the canopy overhead.

  “What would you demand in marriage to me?” she asked.

  “That you be by my side through good times and bad. That you would be forever honest with me as you are now.”

  “That, too, would be the easiest thing in all the world to do, for I don’t know how to be any other way.” She giggled and rolled onto her back beside him. “I hope you have that, Sebastian. I truly do.”

  He closed his eyes against the pain that wish caused him. How could she be so generous with a wish like that?

  Eliza suddenly sat up, clutching a bed sheet to her, revealing her smooth back to him. He ran his finger down the knobs of her spine.

  “I hope you find who killed your friend, too,” she said, swinging her legs off the side of the bed. “Did the information about the woman help?”

  She stood up, began to root around for her clothes as he watched.

  She was eager to be away, he guessed. Her reality must be knocking as adamantly as his. “No. The English government wants to wash their hands of it.”

  “Why?”

  “They want to finish the trade agreement. This is an Alucian problem as they see it. They are probably right.”

  She had found a stocking and sat on the bed to pull it on. “But what about the man who delivered the post? Doesn’t what he said help?”

  Sebastian shook his head. “There could be any number of Alucian women in London now.”

  “Still, you should speak to him.”

  “How shall I speak to him, mung lief, my love?”

  She glanced over her shoulder at him.“I will take you to him, that’s how.”

  He began to shake his head, but Eliza leaned across the bed wearing only one stocking and pressed her hand to his chest. “What have you to lose, Sebastian? If the government won’t help you, this may be your only hope.”

  She had a point. The clock was ticking, his time here running out. He sat up, too. “Do you know where he is?”

  “Well, no. But I think he is in Covent Garden most days looking for work. It’s Saturday—I’m certain we can find him. But you can’t go as a prince. You’ll have to be a cart driver again.”

  “I was not a cart driver—”

  “Oh, but you were, Your Highness.” She grinned, kissed him on the tip of his nose and hopped off the bed and began to dress.

  Sebastian watched her, memorizing the details of her body so that he’d not forget. He would take these images to Alucia with him—the freckle on her right hip. Her breasts, one slightly smaller than the other. The way her waist flared into her hips, and her ankles, as slender as his wrists. These were the images he would cling to.

  She glanced up and pushed the hair from her face. “Are you coming?”

  How he hated to leave the warmth of this bed. The scent of their lovemaking. The feel of her skin against his. How he hated everything that was to come. “Je,” he said softly, and slung his legs over the side to stand.

  When they’d dressed—Sebastian without his waistcoat or neckcloth, and Eliza with her hair bound in a loose knot at her nape—he went out of the room to find Patro. He explained what he needed from his butler, and as usual, Patro and Egius efficiently fulfilled his request without as much as the lift of a brow. When Sebastian returned to the bedroom, he was wearing someone else’s coat. He had no idea whose and didn’t care. “Shall we?” he asked, and held out his hand to Eliza.

  “There is something missing,” she said, eyeing him critically. She reached into her reticule and withdrew the pocket watch she’d given him. She dangled it before him like a pendulum and then slipped it into his coat pocket. She patted the pocket and smiled up at him. “Now you look like a proper cart driver.”