“Good girl,” he whispers. “Now more.”
I grab his lapels, surging up to rub my tender breasts against his firm chest. His tongue meets mine, stroke for stroke. It makes me wild. His body is rock steady under mine, controlled, and coiled tension tightly leashed. But his mouth speaks for itself, a language of passion and desire.
I’m shaking when I break away from him with a gasp. My body throbs, full of a delicious ache. I touch the skin around my lips, where it feels chafed from the scrape of his dark facial hair.
“There.” He leans back. In the hazy light streaming from the lamps, he looks like a painting. Portrait of a man satisfied.
He pulls out his handkerchief, pats his lips. “That should mollify the papers.”
My happy daze shatters. “What?”
“We’ll do that every so often, when the photographers think we don’t know they’re watching.” He tucks his handkerchief back into his breast pocket. I search his expression, but there’s no sign he was affected at all by the kiss that made me reel. “Goodnight, Miss Beaumonde.” With a cruel little twist to his lips, he gets up off the couch and stalks away, leaving me cold.
Chapter 6
Frankie
The next morning, I’m sitting in a sleek black limo, dressed in a navy skirt suit, trying not to hyperventilate. Daniel is watching me with concern.
“Breathe, Frankie. It’ll go fine.”
“I feel like I’m going to court.” I raise my arms and look down at my Kate Middleton outfit. “I look like it, too.”
“Lady Ursaline isn’t going to cross-examine you. Well, she will, but you have nothing to fear.”
“Oh god.” I glance out the window as the limo rolls up to a monstrously large estate. The four-story stone front looks like something out of a Jane Austen movie set. Lady Drey’s mansion could easily fit into one of the wings. I feel faint.
“Shall I fetch the smelling salts?” Daniel asks, and I realize I said what I was thinking out loud.
“Relax. Pay attention a minute.” He taps his clipboard. “Did you and his Grace get your story straight? When you met, what you thought, how he fell for you? When he proposed?”
I nod. “We’re sticking to the truth as much as possible. Except we’ll say I was wearing clothes when I met him.”
“No need to change that little detail.” Daniel smirks. “It would explain love at first sight.”
“I don’t know if we can fake love.”
“I think you’ll do fine.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about,” I mutter.
“Oh, I don’t know. The duke is better at faking things than you might expect.”
I frown, but Daniel doesn’t explain. “Well, His Grace is making sure we rehearse everything. We even practiced kissing, so you can check that off your list.”
Daniel blinks at me and then at his clipboard. “That wasn’t on the list.”
“Oh.” My cheeks heat. “Extra credit then.”
Daniel gives me a long look. “It’s all an act, Frankie,” he says finally. “All of this is fake.”
“I know.” I remember how the duke sauntered off after our kiss, totally unaffected. “I won’t forget.”
“If you say so.”
The limo glides to a stop, and Daniel hops out to get my door. I twist and keep my knees together as I take his hand and exit the car.
And then Benedict is there, sauntering out of the grand home like he owns the place. Which he might, one day. He nods to Daniel and reaches out to greet me. “Darling, you look beautiful.” He kisses my cheek.
I squeeze his hands like they’re a lifeline. “Thank you, so do you.” And he does, but he arches a brow at me. “Shut up,” I whisper. “I’m nervous.”
“Relax. She’ll like you.” He offers his arm and I take it.
“Daniel says she’ll give me the third degree.”
“Yes, but she only does that with people she likes.”
“Oh well, that’s all right then.” I gulp down air as we stroll casually through a home so grand, it should be a museum. It is a museum—of giant classical landscape paintings and Baroque architecture.
“Did Daniel tell you the schedule for the day?” Benedict asks as we come to a door guarded by two footmen. He nods to them, and they sweep the doors open for us to walk through. This room is a bit smaller than the rest we’ve passed through—meaning you can’t fit my childhood home in it, just the first floor. There’s a long table adorned with cornucopias overflowing with grapes. All this pomp and ceremony for brunch.
“Um, he did but I didn’t catch all of it.” I was too busy trying not to hyperventilate. Like now.
Benedict brings me to a chair and pulls it out for me to sit. “After this, we’ll go to the courthouse to post banns. There’s a little ceremony we’ll attend after, nothing taxing. Tomorrow a press conference to announce the engagement, then a party for a visiting diplomat. And Friday is a ball.”
“Fun.” I feel sick. “I’ve never been to a ball.”
“We’ll dance. Drink. Then fireworks.”
I force a smile. “I’m always down for fireworks.”
Benedict seats himself next to me. There are twenty chairs on our side of the table alone, and I have no idea why.
“Are we expecting company?” I motion to the seats.
“No, just Lady Ursuline. She likes to take breakfast in the lesser dining hall.”
“Of course. Very bourgeois. I’d do the same.” There are three forks beside my plate. I touch them, trying to remember what they’re for. Salad, main course, and… I can’t remember what the extra one does. Oh well, I can use it to kill myself if I make a mistake.
“Frankie.” Benedict takes my hand and peels my fingers away from the item of silverware. He sets the fork in its proper place and closes his large hands over mine. “Relax.”
“I am relaxed. I am. Did you know the 1812 Overture wasn’t written by Tchaikovsky to commemorate the War of 1812? I didn’t know that. Americans play it on the Fourth of July, along with their fireworks. But it’s not about America. It’s about Russia defeating Napoleon.” I inhale a deep breath.
Benedict blinks slowly. “I think I did know that, actually.”
“Okay. Okay. Good.” I bob my head up and down. “I talk when I’m nervous.”
“I hadn’t noticed.” His deep voice soothes me, while his fingers stroke the inside of my wrist. “It’s all right.”
“And if it’s not?”
“Then I’ll consider ways to keep you quiet.” The look he gives me is pure heat. He raises my hand to his lips and kisses it, looking like a man in love.
He’s not. He’s not in love. It’s fake, fake, fake. Fake it, Frankie.
I let my face melt into an adoring simper. Benedict’s dark eyes widen slightly, then the corners crinkle. “That’s the spirit.”
Benedict
Frankie gazes up at me, the portrait of a woman in love. Then she flutters her eyelashes at me.