at his orders, the bastinado his discipline of choicehis principality remote from the civilized world when it suited him.
Both his wife and guards understood they must heed his commands.
So once the marquis had been returned to his suite after dinner, the lady entered his bedchamber a brief time later, elegantly robed in green cut velvet against the cool evening. A fire had been lit in the grate, and the marquis, still dressed, stood at the window, a bottle in his hand, drinking away his discontent. He didn't turn at the sound of her voice nor when she came up behind him and, reaching up, touched his shoulder.
'Go away,' he said, lifting the cognac bottle to his mouth.
'I can't. No more than you can.'
'If he's not here, you can do anything you damned well please. I'm not fucking you. How many times do I have to say it?' The stars shouldn't be shining so brilliantly tonight, he sullenly thought, when he was so afflictedhis sense of injustice keen, the idea of captivity galling.
'You have to.'
He swung around so violently, startled, she jumped back. 'No,' he whispered, unbridled rage vibrating in his voice. 'I don't.'
He took a threatening step forward, but she stood her ground. She'd learned long ago to never show fear.
He carefully set the bottle down as if to restrain his more brutish urges and, towering over her, quietly said, 'Get out of this room.'
She raised her hand the merest distance from her side, a gesture so small it would have gone unnoticed had she not been closely watched.
The dressing-room door opened and his four warders from dinner strode into the room, their faces impassive.
'Tie the marquis to the bed,' the Princess Marko softly said.
He didn't succumb passively, and during the struggle, additional guards were called in, several of them bearing damage from the marquis's powerful fists before they were able to subdue him sufficiently to tie his wrists and feet. He was carried to the bed and placed on his back on the crimson brocade coverlet, four guards firmly holding him down while four others untied his feet and, slipping his shoes off, secured his ankles to the bed posts with thick, braided silk cord. Restrained by the weight of four guardsmen, his wrists were then untied and, after forcing his arms above his head, he was bound to the headboard with knots pulled so tight, there was no question of him gaining his freedom.
One of the guardsmen spoke to the princess in an unfamiliar language, his phrases in the nature of a question. She shook her head slightly, replied in a few brief words and waved them out. Without even a glance at the bed, she turned away from the door, walked to a chair by the fire, sat down and, resting her head against the pillowed chair back, gazed into the flickering flame. The heavy Genoa velvet of her gown spread in folds at her feet, the opulent fabric lush, touchable, like her pale skin and silken hair. The delicacy of her features, the tumble of her loosened hair on her shoulders, gave her a look of innocence at odds with the depraved circumstances.
The silence was a balm to her agitated senses, the dancing flame mesmerizing, and she wished for a moment she could sit here forever in this suspended moment of time. But she couldn't, she knew, reality too intense and demanding, the requirements of her hermitage in the country exacting. She was to conceive an heir to Marko's title. Like the marquis, she was a prisoner… worsehis durance vile would end in a month and hers would not.
The lady before the fire evinced such melancholy, even in his vengeful mood, the marquis was struck by her sadness. And her words from dinner reminded him she was no more free than he. 'Come and talk to me,' he neutrally said, surveying the room, wondering where the peepholes and listening posts were.
She looked up, but neither moved nor replied.
'I'm not asking to be untied. You're safe enough.'
'A relative term.'
'Come closer,' he cajoled, his understanding of women acute after years of sharing their beds. She might be as interested in her freedom as he was in his. 'Tell me exactly what's expected of me,' he added, wanting to coax her near so they could talk with less fear of being overheard.
'Nothing out of the ordinary for you, if gossip is true.'
'I can't hear you,' he murmured, arching a brow toward the dressing-room door, where the guards apparently had set up their watch.
She seemed to understand, for she rose and walked toward him.
'Sit down,' he suggested when she stood indecisive at the foot of the bed. 'Tell me your name.'
She sat a circumspect distance away, and when she said, ' Sofia ' in little more than a whisper, he felt a curious provocation quite distinct from logic. Maybe it was the sultry undertones of her voice or the wafting sweet scent of her hair; maybe it was because he'd loved a Sofie once who'd died when they were both very young and he'd never loved anyone again.
This Sofia 's lashes were sooty dark as if they'd been kohled although they hadn't, and her eyes were like tamped green flame. And her flamboyant auburn-haired beauty wasn't like his Sofie at all, who had been very blond and childlike and much too young to die. But provocation and beauty aside, he had no intention of fathering a child on this unknown woman. 'Is there any way you can get us out of here?' he murmured. 'I'll protect you from your husband.'
Instant fear shown in her eyes.
'Bend down and kiss me,' he whispered, 'so we can talk.'
She hesitated, skittish under the surveillance.
'I could say seduce me if you can,' he murmured, challenge in his dark gaze, his mouth quirked in a smile.
'I wouldn't have to kiss you for that.' How curious that he could almost make her smile when so much in her life was cheerless.
'You might enjoy it.'
'And so might you.'
'Not likely,' he said in truth and also to nettle, wanting her to move nearer.
Both considered themselves jaded, worldly, immune to trembling anticipation, but when she accepted his challenge or his offer to talk and moved closer, gracefully leaned forward when her silken hair brushed his face and her perfume pervaded his nostrils, when she stroked her palms lightly down his temples and held his finely modeled face between her hands, they both felt an irrepressible impatience, a restless enticement quite distinct from previous amorous encounters. 'I think I hear choirs of angels,' he lightly breathed.
'Nocherubim,' she whispered, her voice as teasing.
Then their lips touched and pure lust dissipated more temperate images of heavenly bliss. His body instantly responded, the shock of desire so intense he wondered if he'd been drugged at dinner. She pulled away as if burned and sat trembling beside him.
'Untie me,' he whispered.
She seemed to come back from some inner world and, appalled at her response, at what she perceived as the disreputable marquis's expertise and cunning, she said, cool and brisk, 'Let's keep this impersonal.'
'It's too late.'
'You're wrong.'
'I can make you hear those cherubim anytime you want.' Seduction was so familiar to him, even he didn't know whether it was emotion or necessity driving him. But this woman was the only way to freedom.
That he knew.
'Untie me. It's safe enough with all the guards. And if we must dothis… baby making,' he gently said, his gaze guileless, 'why not make it more pleasant?'
Debating his sincerity, she gazed at him, his power undiminished despite his bondage. He stretched the length of the large bed, his powerful musculature evident beneath the fine wool of his evening clothes, his thighs and biceps straining the fabric. And then her glance slipped downward and his arousal brought a heated blush to her face.
'There are enough guards to protect you,' he quietly reminded her and, taking note of her gaze, insolently added, 'Do you like it?'
'Whether I do or not doesn't matter.' Her eyes turned cool.
'I can make it matter if you'd let me,' he lazily drawled.
