A delicious sense of power swelled her pounding heart and quickened her breath when he cried out in surprised pleasure, and she felt him burgeoning against her palm. She moved her thumb in a leisurely circle around the tip of his masculinity, and it seemed he grew even larger and harder.
“Annie,” he gasped.
She leaned over Rafael, kissing his chest, finding the flat male nipples hidden in whorls of dark hair and sampling them, one by one, with the tip of her tongue.
He said her name again, this time in warning, but he didn’t try to push her away.
Annie grew more and more brazen with her kisses, moving lower and lower, until she’d reached his abdomen, and felt his member against her cheek. Just when she would have turned her head, and taken him as boldly as he had once taken her, he grasped her by the shoulders and thrust her onto her back in a motion so quick and forceful that it took her breath away.
Rafael held her wrists, pressing them into the pillow on either side of her head, and gazed into her eyes. His breathing, like Annie’s, was quick and shallow, and although she saw the muscle leaping in his jaw, she was no more afraid of him than a tigress would be of its mate.
“I want you,” she said.
“You’ll do considerably more wanting,” Rafael immediately replied, “before you’re satisfied.”
He was as good as his word; the deflowering of Annie Trevarren was a long, thorough and exacting process. Rafael teased her for what seemed like hours, kissing her, stroking and suckling, whispering the glorious details of what he meant to do into her ear. At last, he poised himself over her, and interlocked his fingers with hers, again pressing her hands into the pillow, while she felt him between her legs and strained to take him inside her.
By then, Annie was drenched in perspiration and half out of her mind with need, and whether it brought pleasure or pain, she wanted only one thing—utter union, of form and of spirit, with Rafael.
He mounted her and gave her just enough of himself to make her want more, and that stripped away the last vestige of her control. Annie went wild beneath Rafael, freeing her hands, clawing at him, urging him, finally clasping his muscled buttocks and driving him into her.
There was an explosion of pain when her maidenhead was breached, but before Annie had fully registered that, the sensation changed to a pleasure beyond anything she’d ever imagined. The rapture was intensified by the knowledge that Rafael had finally lost control as well.
At first, he moved slowly, deliberately. But when Annie raised her hips high, and forced him back into her depths with her hands, he gave a hoarse cry and began to flex and delve with a powerful, frantic rhythm.
Finally, when Annie knew for certain that she could bear no more waiting, there was a blinding shattering of all that held her within herself. Their souls, as well as their bodies, seemed to collide and then merge into one fiery entity.
Annie was lost, transported, her body convulsing in response long after Rafael’s fierce thrusts had ceased, long after he had collapsed against her, his face buried in her neck. He made no move to pull away, and she was grateful, for being held was as pleasant as the lovemaking had been.
She could not have said whether an hour or a year had passed when Rafael finally raised his head to look into her face. Although the room was dark, she saw bewilderment etched in his features, and something deeper that she couldn’t recognize. He didn’t speak, and neither did she, for there was no need. Their communion had been complete.
Presently, when the first pinkish gold hint of dawn glowed at the windows, Rafael left Annie’s bed. He pulled on his clothes, not bothering to button his shirt, and carried his boots in one hand. He bent to kiss her on the mouth, but the contact was brief, and somehow final.
He started to speak, but Annie touched her fingers to his lips.
“Don’t,” she pleaded softly. “Don’t say you’re sorry, Rafael. It would hurt too much to bear.”
Rafael’s eyes seemed to shimmer for a moment. He reached out to caress Annie’s cheek, and his reply was gruff. “By all rights, I should be sorry, but I’m not.”
Annie could hardly breathe, and though her body was still humming with the euphoria she’d known in Rafael’s arms, her heart was breaking. “And now?”
He sighed. “And now we must forget; I because there can be nothing else between us, and you because there will be another, better man to claim you, one day soon.”
She didn’t bother to deny that she would ever love another, although she knew she wouldn’t. She closed her eyes and nodded, for it had been the bargain from the first, that they would part. She had sold her soul for one night with the man she loved, and she didn’t regret it.
Rafael went out, closing the door gently behind him, and Annie lay alone in the darkness, weeping even as she savored and cherished the memory of an almost inconceivable joy.
She awakened late the next morning to find Kathleen in her room, humming and rattling dishes.
“Good morning, miss,” she said, when Annie sat up in bed. Her eyes felt swollen and itchy, her heart was in pieces and, conversely, her traitorous body was jubilant, fairly pulsing with well-being.
“Good morning,” Annie grumbled. She had been forever changed by the events of the previous night, and felt certain that such profound differences must show, but Kathleen didn’t seem to notice anything.
In fact, she simply crossed the room and set a tray across Annie’s lap.
“Cook says you’ll be going back to St. James Keep today,” the maid commented. “Now that the ball is over, there’s no reason to stay, is there? And besides, it’s so dangerous here.”
Annie lifted the lid off a plate and found eggs and sausage and toasted bread beneath. She immediately discovered that, while her heart might be broken, her appetite was still intact. She picked up her fork and tried to speak casually.
“Have you seen the prince this morning?”
Kathleen moved to the vanity table and straightened Annie’s comb, brush and hand mirror. “Yes, miss—he left the palace early, with Mr. Barrett. They went to the Parliament building to see about Miss Covington’s brother.”
Annie’s hunger vanished, and she put down her fork. She watched in silence as Kathleen opened the door of the armoire and gazed thoughtfully at the array of dresses inside.
“Would you like to wear blue today, miss? It looks so nice with your eyes.”
Annie felt a surge of impatience and quelled it. “I’ll choose my own dress, Kathleen,” she said moderately. “Will you please take this tray away and have hot water sent up for a bath? And find out, if you would, if Miss Covington is all right.”
Kathleen nodded and collected the tray. “Yes, miss,” she said, and went out.
Soon, warm water was brought to Annie’s room, along with a small copper tub. She ached from last night’s lovemaking, and the bath soothed her body, if not her troubled soul. Annie knew she would never regret giving herself to Rafael. Still, having visited paradise, it was doubly difficult to know she was barred from its gates. She thought she knew how Eve must have felt, being driven from the Garden.
Presently, Annie dried herself and dressed, putting on the cornflower blue dress Kathleen had suggested earlier. She had tamed her wild hair and wound it into a single thick braid when the maid returned, with two helpers, who immediately removed the tub. Kathleen lingered to strip the sheets from Annie’s bed and replace them with clean ones.
Annie said nothing, but her cheeks were hot as she swept out of the chamber and went in search of Phaedra. Kathleen would know exactly what had happened to her charge the night before, if she hadn’t guessed already, when she got a good look at those linens.
There was no sign of the princess in her chambers, the dining room, the main parlor or the gardens.
Annie’s wanderings eventually brought her to the other side of the palace where six different sets of French doors, all standing open to the morning air, offered admittance to the ballroom.
The grand chamber was still bustling with activity, although the servants had long since cleared away champagne glasses, punch bowls, flowers and paper decorations left from the ball. By that time, they were polishing the marble floors and the mirrors that lined three walls.
Annie lingered a few moments, remembering how it had been to whirl round and round in Rafael’s arms, her heart soaring in a waltz of its own. When she turned from the doorway, she was restless, and wanted to spend what was left of the morning exploring the palace grounds and her own hopelessly confused thoughts.
Felicia was standing directly behind Annie. She was pale and subdued, and the shadows under her eyes were like bruises. Tears welled along her dark lashes and she started to speak, then stopped herself.
Annie’s heart went out to Felicia, but she didn’t know what to say. While she regretted the woman’s pain, she felt no remorse for identifying Jeremy Covington as the leader of the men who had raided the marketplace and murdered the young dissenter.
“You’re—you’re certain it was Jeremy you saw?” Felicia whispered brokenly.
“Yes,” Annie said.
Felicia gnawed at her lower lip, absorbing Annie’s response as though it had been a physical blow, and finally gave a distracted nod. “Jeremy was always getting into trouble as a boy,” she said. “Papa thought the army would make a man of him.” Felicia paused and uttered a hysterical sound that was part laughter, part strangled sob. “Instead, it will be the end of his life.”
Annie held her tongue, knowing it would serve no purpose to say what she was thinking, that the army had not destroyed Jeremy Covington. He had done that to himself.
Felicia seemed to be speaking not to Annie, but to some unseen person standing next to her. Her beautiful brown eyes were unfocussed, her brow furrowed, her skin almost transparent, with tiny blue veins showing through. “Rafael will make an example of Jeremy, a sacrifice. He’ll throw him to the wolves.”
Putting a firm arm around Felicia’s waist, Annie guided the other woman to the nearest bench and sat her down. “You’re overwrought,” Annie said. “Let me bring you some water …”
“No.” Felicia shook her head, caught Annie’s hand in a frantic grasp and tugged hard. Annie took a seat beside her.
“You could change Rafael’s mind,” she said. “He cares for you, Annie. If you asked him, he might exile Jeremy from Bavia, instead of putting him on trial.”
Annie closed her eyes, hearing the shrill whinnies of the horses, the clattering of their hooves on the cobblestones of the marketplace, the soldiers’ shouts and the terrified screams of the merchants and their patrons. And she heard the shot that had taken the life of the student.
She made herself look at Felicia’s wan face. “I have no influence over the prince,” she said, as kindly as she could.
Felicia started to protest, but she was silenced by a masculine voice from behind them.
“Miss Trevarren is right, Felicia,” Rafael said.
Miss Trevarren?
Annie thought, injured, even in light of their agreement that they must forget last night’s interlude, that he could refer to her with such cold formality.
His gray eyes were like frosted steel as he looked at her. “While I admit to a certain fondness for our American guest,” he said, “I do not consult her on matters of state.”
Annie lowered her gaze. His words were perfectly true, and undeniably reasonable, but they still made her feel as though she’d been slapped. Only last night, after all, Rafael had moaned in her arms, and cried out hoarsely when she pleasured him. Now, he might have been a stranger.
Felicia was agitated, jumping to her feet, clutching the lapels of Rafael’s dark morning coat in both hands. “Please,” she begged. “Let Jeremy leave Bavia—send him to England or France—punishing him will change nothing—”
Rafael gripped Felicia’s wrists and held them, and Annie saw a shadow of pain move in his eyes. “Lieutenant Covington has identified the other men who were with him that day,” he said quietly. “They have all been relieved of their duties and put into prison, pending trial.”
Felicia began to sob. “Rafael, no—oh, God—don’t do this, I beg of you—”
The prince drew Felicia into his arms then, murmuring words of comfort and compassion but gazing at Annie over her head the whole time. His self-control was remarkable.
Annie rose from the bench without a word and hurried into the palace, nearly colliding with one of the maids as she traversed the ballroom’s slippery floor.
That afternoon, by Rafael’s order, Phaedra and Annie were sent back to St. James Keep, with a large contingent of armed soldiers to escort them. Mr. Haslett remained in Moravia, as did Felicia, who was clearly in no state to travel.
Phaedra sat silently in the carriage seat opposite Annie’s, absorbed in a slim volume of poetry, apparently untroubled by this sudden separation from her intended husband. Every so often, the princess closed her book and stared out at the passing countryside with a pensive expression.
Annie was anxious, and she needed her friend’s attention and the sound of another voice, however mundane the conversation might be. “The ball was beautiful,” she said, hoping for a lengthy response.
Phaedra turned from the window and looked at Annie as though surprised to see her there. “Yes,” she replied. “You spent a great deal of time with Rafael. There was quite a lot of comment on that, you know.”
After pressing her lips together for a moment, and averting her eyes, Annie gave a straightforward reply. “I’ve never made a secret of my feelings for him,” she said. “Especially not with you.”
The princess sighed, removed her black traveling bonnet, with its pleated brim and wide ribbon ties, and set it beside her on the cushioned seat. “You seem different today, Annie,” she observed, studying her friend frankly. “You’re subdued, but there’s something defiant about your manner, too. I hope you have not been so foolish as to surrender to my brother’s formidable charms.”
Fire throbbed in Annie’s cheeks; her emotions were so close to the surface that she could hardly hide them from strangers, let alone from her closest friend. “It is my own affair what I do, Phaedra St. James, and none of yours.”