Louise leaned back into the divan’s cushions and asked Donovan about his modeling and latest painting projects. He shared with her his goal of traveling to France, Germany, and especially to Italy. “Rossetti is teaching me to paint in his style. I want to study in Rome, to see the Sistine Chapel then visit Florence with its magnificent art.”

“I would love to go to Rome too,” she said. “But my mother says Europe is too unstable, too dangerous for us to travel now. Although my sister Vicky lives in Germany.” And might soon become empress, she thought but didn’t say to him.

Donovan reached out and played with a tendril of her hair that had come loose and fallen across her cheek. He wound it around and around his finger while watching her eyes. “We will run off together, you and I. To Rome. Yes, Princess? And make love in all the most romantic places.”

“Oh, yes.” She nodded her head in enthusiastic agreement, not sure whether they were playing a game or serious, but wanting to do nothing to discourage such a delicious fantasy.

She lifted the jug to her lips again. The wine had begun to taste smoother. Her eyelids grew heavy with the pleasure of it. Such a lovely, lovely way to spend an hour, or two.

When she moved the rough edge of the jug’s rim away from her mouth, Donovan’s lips pressed over hers. She held very still, liking the moist, warm sensation of his mouth on hers. The flesh around her lips and down her throat sang. She closed her eyes and savored the feeling. The jug levitated out of her hand. She heard it softly clank on the floor at their feet.

When she raised drowsy eyelids, Donovan was reaching for the silk robe. He swung it around and over his shoulders, like a magician’s cape, then leaned toward her, easing her down onto the seat cushions.

“What are you doing?” She laughed, shaking her head at him, confused but delighted that he wanted to be so close to her. The robe sheltered them from the rest of the room, from the world.

“What do you think I’m doing, Princess?” he said, his words throaty and rich to her ears.

She laughed again and shook her head. “Making me feel dizzier still, lying down like this. I think I might’ve”—she hiccupped—“drunk too much wine.” For some reason, she couldn’t stop laughing.

He lowered his body still farther until she felt the entire length of him, fiery warm and lovely, his weight pressing down on her belly, flattening her breasts, snuggling against her hips.

“Just close your eyes and let the wine take you away. You’re probably not used to drinking so much. It will wear off.”

“But it is a lovely kind of dizz-dizz—dizziness.” She breathed in and out softly, humming to herself, aware of his hands moving here and there, over the fabric of her dress. His gentle touch soothed her. She imagined herself a contented kitten, lovingly petted by her master. She lay very still. Just breathing. Her eyes closed. Smiling. Sensing his hands playing with the ruffles of her skirt then tangled somewhere between the layers of her petticoats.

“Where are you?” he whispered in her ear.

“Right here,” she murmured drowsily.

Then his fingertips found her skin. And it all felt so natural, as it should be. Skin on skin. His on hers. One flesh indiscernible from the other. Together.

She floated, unwilling to move, unwilling even to crack open her eyes for fear the spell would be broken. His fingers drew little patterns on her stomach, the coils widening, tracing lightly from waist to hips.

Her flesh felt alive, vibrating, molten.

“Together,” she whispered. She didn’t like being alone. Never had. This was the nicest kind of togetherness she’d ever known. He liked her! He accepted her—her body as well as her art.

Louise drew a deep breath and sighed it out again. She curled into his arms. He stroked the length of her arm, the swell of her hip, the roundness of her small breast. She felt she could be happy here, like this, forever.

He kissed her again, deeper, and his hand wandered farther then slipped between her thighs. Ever so gently he cupped the place no one but she had ever touched. Yet it felt right that he knew it would please her.

Why had she never guessed she could feel this way?

The room spun as the wine’s effect intensified, but his body anchored her, made her feel safe. She reached up and lapped her arms around his slender, boyish shoulders as he moved again. Then some part of him, not his hand, pressed against her resisting flesh. Her eyes flew open at a sharp sting. After that, it was as if no force on earth could ever separate them.

Louise wrapped her legs around her lover’s slim hips and held him there as the sound of his pleasured groan turned her world golden. She lay in a shimmering haze, enthralled and amazed at what they had done.

Seventeen

She wouldn’t have known that someone had entered the room but for the sudden draft that breathed across her bare skin a moment after Donovan rolled off of her. Only then did she hear the voices.

Still half asleep, woozy from the wine, Louise left her lovely, dreamy lethargy with reluctance. She instinctively reached for the silk robe to pull it back up over her. She’d leave it to her lover—Her lover! She had a lover—to chase off whoever had intruded upon their intimacy. But when the voices rose, filling the room with bursts of angry words, her eyelids fluttered open.

Donovan stood naked, his manly bottom turned to her as he shouted and waved his arms at someone she couldn’t yet see. “Least you could do is bloody well knock. What are you doing here? You were supposed to be at the—”

“Which one of your tarts you got in here now?” an unfamiliar voice asked.

“Don’t be talking like that in front of her,” Donovan scolded. “She’s special she is.”

This generated a great deal of amusement from not one person but, it sounded to her, like two. Two men, from the raucous bass boom of their laughter. Inside the room now. And she was . . . well, rather indecent at the moment.

It occurred rather fuzzily to Louise that she should probably make herself more presentable and help Donovan chase off these two jokers, whoever they might be. But her head felt as capable of thinking as a bushel of turnips. She reached down and pulled the silk robe up to her chin.

As her fingers moved up her body she realized how embarrassingly few articles of her clothing remained where they should have been. Her eyes shot wide open at the suspicion that events might have transpired she couldn’t quite recall. Not in detail anyway. And that made her wonder how much time had passed since she’d climbed the stairs to an unexpected taste of heaven in Donovan’s arms.

The fogginess in her brain altered in an instant to a throbbing sensation, which was far less pleasant. Louise pressed her palms over her face, feeling as if she needed to hold it in place. The room swam. Her stomach soured. At last she forced herself to drop her hands and locate Donovan again.

He was stepping into his trousers, tugging them up to his waist while the heated conversation among the men continued. But now he no longer blocked her view of the two intruders. Older men. Both much broader in the shoulders, fuller in the belly than her young lover. The dark-haired, taller of the two tried to get a look at her even as a half-clothed Donovan dodged back in front of him to keep him from seeing her.

“I doubt she’s any different than the others,” the other man said in an offhand way. “Yes, let’s do have a peek at her, Gabe. Weren’t you saying you were short a model for tomorrow?”

“Ah, yes.” His friend laughed. “I need a Mary for my stable scene. Think she’d suit, Donovan old boy?”

Louise roused herself enough to pull up her blouse, which had fallen beneath her breasts. She was beginning to recall details now. Donovan’s hands soothing her. His kisses. His . . . forbidden caresses. She’d let him do things to her that she’d admittedly enjoyed, though now that the wine’s effects were retreating, she suspected her mother might object rather strongly. Her governesses had often emphasized that princesses ought never to allow themselves to be caught alone in a room with a grown man who wasn’t family. No reason was ever given for the rule.

Now, she believed she knew.

Her face flushed with heat at the thought of their recent intimacy. But she wouldn’t have wished away her night with Donovan for anything.

It seemed laughable to fear something so beautiful and natural. This was how lovemaking happened. This secret way of showing tenderness and passion was what being a woman was all about. And after all, she was eighteen years old . . . and a woman.

A surge of excitement and pride nearly chased away the worry that she’d unwittingly crossed a forbidden line. But sorting out these tangled feelings, and the arbitrary rules of society, would just have to wait. She had rather more pressing wardrobe issues to deal with.

Her skirt and petticoats and chemise, in extreme disarray, had become bunched up around her waist. She tugged them down under cover of the robe. Where her drawers had gone, she’d no idea.

Meanwhile, Donovan was having little luck trying to physically force the two men out of the room. Decently covered now, Louise sat up straight, tossed off the robe, and swung her legs off the side of the divan. She planted her bare feet firmly on the floor and stood up, hands on hips, aiming her haughtiest glare at the two strangers.

“These are not public rooms, gentlemen,” she announced quite loudly. “How dare you barge in here like this. I demand you leave at once and give us our privacy.”