Chapter 18
Her words struck Damien with an unpleasant jolt. The ease of sexual satisfaction began to subside with the intrusion of reality. Ellie was smiling at him, having no notion of her mistaken belief. One corner of his mouth twisting, he glanced away for a moment. She couldn’t begin to guess the true reason why he was called the Demon Prince.
Nor would he would tell her.
He felt the light touch of her hand slide upward over his chest to cup his jaw. Returning his gaze to her, he saw that her face had taken on a somewhat pensive look. At the same time, he had a keen appreciation of the erotic picture she made. She lay beneath him, a wealth of auburn hair spilling over the pillows and curling around those fine breasts. She had the rosy glow of a woman who’d been well satisfied. How incredible to recall that he’d believed her to be a dried-up spinster when, in truth, she possessed an abundance of natural sensuality.
Ellie was studying him earnestly, as if she’d noticed the shift in his temperament and sought to understand it. Those warm brown eyes held a note of query that boded ill for his privacy.
That was his cue to depart. They’d had their pleasure—and it had been very gratifying. Spectacular, in fact. But he had never cared much for a woman’s prattling in the aftermath. There was no point to it. The purpose of their sharing a bed already had been accomplished.
He would give Ellie a farewell kiss, throw on his clothing, and return to his own chamber in the keep. He should sleep well after enjoying so powerful a release. Useless conversation would only irk him. Especially if it involved questions that he didn’t wish to answer.
Damien pulled her close and nuzzled her hair, savoring her lilac scent. God help him, those breasts felt soft against his chest. “I really should go now. We’ll be departing in the morning—”
“Oh, but you cannot leave.” Ellie placed her hands firmly on his shoulders and looked him square in the eyes. “You promised me one night of pleasure. So you are bound by our agreement to stay until dawn.”
Damien chuckled. He couldn’t help himself. She had the manner of a stern governess, which was absurd in light of her nudity—and her erotic demands. He lightly slapped her bare bottom. “You’ll have me thinking you’re insatiable.”
With a faint smile, Ellie shifted position, reminding him of the movements of her body during their rutting. “Then people do make love more than once in a night?”
His blood stirred. It was much too soon, but lust for her already simmered in him again. “Yes. They do. We can…” Ah, hell, he couldn’t even speak coherently when she looked at him like that. Of course he was staying. How could he not? “But you’ve wrung me dry for the moment. You’ll have to allow me a few minutes to recover.”
Ellie wriggled into a sitting position against the pillows. She drew up the covers against the chill in the air. “Then in the meantime, you may tell me why you’re called the Demon Prince. It isn’t to do with your wild reputation at all, is it?”
Devil take it! She was far too perceptive.
Damien rolled off the bed and paced buck naked across the room to toss another log on the fire. “It was a long while ago,” he said over his shoulder. “I scarcely remember.”
He took his time jabbing with the poker until the flames shot up to consume the new fuel. Maybe she’d take the hint and quit probing into his private affairs. Ever since his ill-fated marriage, he’d kept his relationships with women superficial, and that wouldn’t change now.
He went to the table to glance over the now-cold dinner of chicken, medallion potatoes, and crusty bread. With his fingers, he popped one of the potatoes in his mouth, then uncorked the bottle of burgundy and filled the single goblet. He washed down the morsel with a long swallow before strolling back to the bed with cup and bottle.
Wrapped in the quilt, she sat watching him. It pleased him to see that her gaze swept covertly over his nude form, lingering a moment on his groin. A faint flush had crept into her cheeks. If she was flustered by his lack of clothing, perhaps that would serve to deter her from any meddlesome questions.
He sat down on the bed and held the goblet to her lips. “Take a sip. It seems we’ll have to share tonight.”
She drank from the pewter goblet, her topaz eyes studying him over the rim. Sitting back again, she ran the tip of her tongue over her reddened lips. The charmingly provocative action fanned the embers of his passion.
He was glad he’d decided to stay. Very glad, indeed. Ellie Stratham had a fresh, alluring sensuality so unlike the practiced jades of his other dalliances. He would relish making love to her again. With the night still young, they could take their time indulging themselves.
He refilled the goblet, then placed the bottle on the bedside table. There, on the leather notebook, lay the quill pen and ink that she’d asked him to bring to her. He was struck by the suspicion that had flitted through his mind when he’d first spied her in that extremely low-cut gown. “You planned this liaison from the start,” he said in amusement. “It wasn’t mere happenstance, was it? Earlier this afternoon, when you asked me to return here, you fully intended to seduce me.”
Ellie gave him an artful look from beneath her lashes. “Perhaps.”
“Minx. There’s no ‘perhaps’ about it. You duped me. You set the bait and reeled me in.”
He found that he didn’t mind one whit. At least not anymore. Odd that, for as a matter of rote, he resented being manipulated by scheming women. He preferred to keep females pigeonholed until his physical needs drove him to seek them out on his own terms.
Little did Ellie realize, though, she could be maneuvered in turn. Only look at how easily he had diverted her attention away from his past.
As he drank again from the goblet, she said, “Enough with the distractions, Damien. I still wish to know why you’re called the Demon Prince.”
He almost choked on a swallow of wine. “What?”
“You heard me. It’s time you told me the truth. In fact, you really have no choice in the matter.” Tilting her head, she gave him a shrewd smile. “I am making it part of my compensation.”
He ought to be annoyed, but found himself chuckling instead. “Is that so? And how many more ways must I compensate you, Miss Stratham? Best to lay them all out on the table right now.”
“I promise to be satisfied with the truth about this one matter.” Her hand came from beneath the covers to press lightly to his knee in a gesture that was both sensual and sweet. “Will you tell me, please, Damien?”
The warmth of her smile thoroughly disarmed him. A mawkish sentiment crept into his chest, and he felt a vast desire to make her happy. When she looked at him like that, he couldn’t form a single coherent rebuttal. Oh, hell, what did it really matter if she knew?
Besides, she might ask Walt upon her return to London, and maybe it was best that she hear it from himself.
“If you insist, then.”
He placed the goblet on the bedside table and climbed back into bed with her. Ellie cuddled up against him, settling her head in the crook of his shoulder and draping her arm across his chest. She felt far too perfect in his arms. As if she belonged there. Yet he only wanted sex with her, not confidences that might draw them closer in their minds.
He blew out a breath and decided the best place to start was at the beginning. “You’ll remember that I mentioned Mrs. Mims, the woman who raised me. When I was a little boy, she would relate stories to me at bedtime each night. Sometimes, they were true historical events about the kings of England, the emperors of Rome, even the czars of Russia. But at other times, she spun tales of fictional princes slaying dragons. She talked of strong heroes who battled monsters and rescued princesses from the clutches of evil witches.”
Ellie lifted her head, her eyes shining. “Really? That must be why you didn’t mock my book. Because you’d grown up hearing such fairy tales.”
There was truth in her observation, Damien realized. Perhaps her illustrations of fantastical creatures had spoken to a place deep inside his past. He smoothed his hand over her tousled hair. “Yes, well, just like you, Mimsy had quite a knack for storytelling. She often advised me to be as gallant and brave as a storybook prince … because I, too, had royal blood.”
Ellie gave him a startled stare. “What? She told you that you were related to the royal family?”
He shook his head emphatically. This was why he’d been reluctant to reveal his past to her. He disliked anyone knowing that he’d once been na?ve enough to believe such a Banbury tale. “No. Absolutely not. It was just a morality tale, her way of convincing me to comport myself as a prince. You see, I was a rather rambunctious lad, always getting into scrapes, and since I had no father, she thought to encourage me to model my behavior after heroic figures.”
“But what about the crown on the missing key? Doesn’t that prove—”
“It proves nothing. It’s far more likely to be the other way around, that Mimsy was inspired to tell me such a tale because of the crown on the key. She must have known that a child would be gullible enough to believe her.”
From the slight puckering of her brow, Ellie didn’t appear convinced. “Mad King George had more than a dozen children. Perhaps one of them sired an illegitimate son—you.”
“And then arranged for me to be spirited away to be raised in poverty?” Damien shook his head again. In his youth, he’d entertained such a fantasy, but no more. “Royal bastards have a certain standing in society. So I’m sure my story is far more prosaic. I was likely an inconvenient surprise for an unmarried lady and needed to be hidden from sight. When I retrieve the key, it may provide a clue to her identity. I intend to find her if I can, and to learn the truth…”
He stared at the flames on the hearth. Because of Lily, he thought fiercely. Someday, Lily would ask him about her grandparents, and he wanted to have answers to her questions. But he could not—would not—reveal that part to anyone, not even to Ellie.
She gently stroked his cheek, drawing his attention back to her. “You haven’t yet explained how you came to be called the Demon Prince.”
“It was a slur invented by your cousin Walt during my first semester at Eton. One afternoon, he and his cronies ganged up on me behind the cloisters. I fought back and bloodied a few noses. But they were bigger and there were three of them.”
“Finn told me about that incident. It happened the same day you’d learned that Mrs. Mims had died. You went there to be alone, only to be set upon by those boys. He said that you were roughed up, your robes torn.”
“Yes, they pinned me down on the ground so that I was helpless. I struggled, but I couldn’t free myself. That’s when I made the mistake of shouting that my father was a king and he would chop off their heads. You can only imagine their mirth.”
He gave her a cynical smile, but Ellie didn’t smile back. Instead, she had a suspicious sheen in her eyes. “So my cousin started calling you the Demon Prince.” Before Damien could make a jest of it, she circled her arms around his neck and kissed him gently on the cheek. “Walt should never have mocked you that way. Boys can be very cruel sometimes.”
Damien folded his arms around her, too. He held her tightly, quilt and all. Not that he needed comforting. No. It would be ridiculous for a grown man to want consoling over an event that had happened in the distant past. Nevertheless, he couldn’t deny feeling somehow relieved for having shared the story.
“I despised the name at first,” he said, “but in time I came to embrace it. I used it to finagle my way into a group of dissolute young bucks at Eton. I fleeced them at cards, won enough to open my own club, and called it Demon’s Den.” He grinned at her. “And of course, my scandalous reputation as the Demon Prince has also made me quite popular with women.”
Ellie gave him a severe look. “Most gentlemen try to live up to their principles. You, I think, have tried to live down to yours.”
He laughed. “So now you will be the strict governess again. Perhaps you will punish me for my sins, hmm?”
His hands delved beneath the covers to play with her breasts. They were soft and abundant, and the tips puckered to his touch. The warm silk of her skin made him keen to have her again.
She melted against him, her fingertips trailing down his chest. “Punish? Oh, no, my prince. I was thinking more in terms of a reward. You see, I have become as sinful as you are.”
At the impish sparkle in her eyes, Damien felt his potency return in a mad rush of heat. He untangled her from the quilt and then reclined against the pillows, bringing her down to sprawl on top of him, his very own goddess of love. Her hair spilled around them in a fiery curtain. She smiled in delight at the new position and suggestively swiveled her hips.
They began to kiss and caress at a leisurely pace, taking pleasure in each other, murmuring and sighing. Time ceased to exist. Damien could not remember when he had enjoyed himself more—perhaps never. Again, he felt possessed by an irresistible affection for her, the desire to make her happy. When at last he pressed deeply into her body, he derived a fierce satisfaction from her cries of bliss before allowing his own completion.
In the aftermath, he blew out the lamp and then settled back down in the bed. Ellie lay hugging a pillow, already half asleep. He drew the covers over them, tucked her into the cradle of his body, and dropped a light kiss into the fragrant tangle of her hair.
His arms enfolding her, he gazed into the semidarkness that was lit only by the glowing remains of the fire. A mental restlessness kept him from joining her in slumber. With any other woman, he would be making his departure. He never actually slept with his partner once his physical needs had been slaked. But with Ellie, he wanted to stay. He didn’t want to let her go.
It wasn’t like him to be so irrational. They had only this one night, after all. She had been very explicit about that. And no matter how much he might crave it, he could not bring himself to dishonor her by offering the position of his mistress. He had already abducted her, ruined her reputation, and claimed her innocence.
He couldn’t rob her of her ambitions, too.
Ellie had a plan for her life, an admirable determination to live alone and work on her storybooks. He had no right to interfere with that. Nor would he. Once they returned to London, this obsession for her surely would vanish.
He concentrated on that thought. It had to be merely their enforced isolation here at the castle that had fostered his attachment to her. Once he resumed his business dealings and the routine of his daily life, he would forget about Ellie Stratham. She would join the legions of other women that he’d enjoyed and then barred from his private life.
Satisfied by the logical conclusion, he closed his eyes and succumbed to a postcoital lethargy. For tonight, there could be no harm in indulging his wish to remain with her. But he must be away before first light. Finn would have Damien’s head on a pike if he was unwise enough to be caught in Ellie’s bed.
Thankfully, he had an internal clock that never failed to awaken him at dawn. His last thought before drifting into slumber was a hazy resolve to bestir himself early enough to make love to her one last time.