Truth about Leo Read online

  “Oh.” The woman stood in front of him and eyed him in a manner that he would have liked to find offensive but was too tired to work up the necessary emotion. “I suppose that would make you more comfortable. One moment, please.”

  She left the room and Leo, with a shudder of distaste, peeled off the offensive nightshirt and tossed it into a corner. As the ground beneath him rolled slightly, several pieces clicked together in his mind. Porthole. Cabin boy. Ship’s surgeon…by God, he was on a ship. How had that happened? He sat down abruptly on the bunk when the ship rolled again, hastily grabbing at the bed linen when the door opened and the woman who had somehow managed to marry him while he was unaware appeared. She was followed immediately by two sailors carrying a narrow tin tub, which was set down in front of him.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to bathe in seawater, since the captain doesn’t seem to be inclined to let anyone have fresh water for bathing, but I’ve found it’s bearable once you get used to it. Thank you, gentlemen.” This last was spoken to a line of sailors who carried in wooden buckets of water, which they proceeded to dump into the tin tub. She waited until the last of them unloaded the water before moving over to Leo’s side. “It’s not very hot, but it’s better than nothing.”

  She stood expectantly next to him. He looked up at her and hugged the linens closer. “What are you doing?”

  “Waiting to help you bathe. I’ve never bathed a man before, not in a tub, but Julia tells me that it’s right and proper that I should do so, and she should know. She’s a widow, you see.”

  “No, I don’t see, and I don’t know that I care to. I do know that I wish for you to leave.”

  Her forehead wrinkled in a manner that he found wholly adorable, a fact that he stubbornly refused to acknowledge. “Why?”

  “Why do I want you to leave?”

  “Yes. Julia said that most men like to be waited on, and although I have no intention of doing so in the normal course of events—begin as you mean to go on, my sainted mother used to say—allowances can be made for the fact that you’ve had a fever for almost ten days and probably feel quite weak.”

  “Ten days!” He tried to remember what he had last been doing, but his memory was hazy at best. All that came to mind was the image of a fresh-faced girl, an obnoxious cat, and anger at the treachery of his horse.

  “Yes. Get up and I’ll bathe you.”

  He pulled the bed linens up to his chin and gave her his most haughty look. “Madam—”

  “Dagmar. Or Your Serene Highness if you wish to be formal.”

  “—Madam, I have no intention of arising from this bed with you present. Please take yourself off so that I might cleanse off the effects of ten days’ worth of sickness.”

  She tipped her head to the side. “Are you shy? Do you not wish for me to see your naked form? Do you have some sort of defect that you think will cause me to divorce you?”

  He sat up straighter, glaring over the top of the bedsheet. “I am not defective! Nor am I overly modest. I simply balk at the idea of parading my naked self in front of strange women.”

  Dagmar thought for a moment. “Would it help if I’ve seen your upper parts without clothing? I even bathed them. Julia wouldn’t let me attend to your lower half, since she said it was unseemly for an innocent and gentle maiden such as I to do so, and the captain assigned one of the sailors to attend to those needs of a highly personal nature that occurred now and again—this despite the fact that we are very much legally married by the crown prince’s own bishop—but as you are now improving, I think it only right and proper for me to aid you in bathing.”

  He stared at her for a long moment. “You wish to see me naked, don’t you?”

  “Yes. My sainted mother told me that there was much I had to be told on the eve of my wedding, but she died a few years ago, and of course, Dearest Papa died a little over a year ago, and Julia, although a widow, was unaware that she would be called upon to discuss such things with me as naked men and what to do with their various bits and pieces, so I’m not entirely sure how everything works.”

  Leo was well aware that the bathwater, such as it was, was rapidly cooling, but he felt oddly loath to end this bizarre conversation. He wanted to keep Dagmar talking just to see what she’d say next. “Are you referring to sexual congress?”

  “No, not particularly.” She looked thoughtful. “Although I suppose if you wanted to inform me about how to do it, I would be grateful. People don’t talk to me about these things because I am a gentle and innocent maiden.”

  “So you have mentioned.” He had absolutely no doubt that she was anything but a gentle maiden, although the forthright look in her pretty hazel eyes gave proof to her claim of innocence.

  “I don’t often have the opportunity to see gentlemen without their breeches.” There was a wistful note in her voice that had him wondering if her innocence was as great as he first thought. “Copenhagen is so cold in the winter, you see.”

  There wasn’t really much to say to that. Leo contemplated his course of action and decided to throw his trust in the legitimacy of the marriage lines that she’d dangled in front of him, and with a flick of his wrist, stood up, allowing the bedsheet to fall to his feet.

  Dagmar’s eyes widened. “I see,” she said after a few moments’ silence, her gaze crawling over him in a way that had he not suffered a fever for ten days, not to mention a grievous injury to his arm and shoulder, he would have acknowledged in a wholly physical manner. As it was, he simply stood there and let her look her fill. “And that bit there…” She waved toward his groin. “Is it supposed to look like that?”

  He looked down. “I’ve been ill.”

  “Yes, but it’s rather unsightly, don’t you think?”

  He squared his shoulders and looked down his nose at her. How dare she make disparaging comments about his penis? “It is quiescent at the moment, but I assure you that is simply the result of the fever. If you are worrying that I cannot perform my marital duties—not that I intend to perform them anytime soon because I have many questions, many questions indeed regarding this so-called marriage that has taken place—I can assure you that when needs must, it works quite well. Or so I’ve been given to understand from various ladies.”

  “Hmm.” She gave his groin a doubtful look, then gestured toward the tub. “Well, I must admit that I don’t see what all the fuss is about. If my sainted mother had shown me that years ago, we wouldn’t have had that episode where she found me hiding in the stables.”

  He stepped into the tub, glancing at her before sitting down in the tepid water. “What does a stable have to do with the male form?”

  She smiled and handed him a small square of cambric. “We used to have a very handsome groom. His upper parts were exceptionally well formed. I felt that his lower half must match and wished to see for myself. Unfortunately, Mama found me before I could ascertain the truth for myself. Here is some soap. If you lean forward, I will wash your back. Try not to get your arm or shoulder wet.”

  His body felt so weak, and he was so distracted by the mental image of a gentle and innocent princess hiding in a stable in an attempt to spy on a well-built groom, that he wasn’t aware of her touch until some minutes had passed.

  “Oh, goodness! You have a drawing on your back.”

  “It’s called a tattoo.”

  “Why do you have a drawing of a”—there was a pause while she leaned forward to squint at the image—“a bird on your back?”

  “It’s a firebird, and it is the reason young men on their Grand Tour should not deliberately lose their companions in order to drink themselves blind in a tavern in the seedier part of Marseilles.”

  “Oh.” She touched it with the cloth. “It’s rather pretty. I have never seen someone with a drawing on their skin. What is a firebird?”

  “A mythical creature, and before you ask, I have no recoll
ection of asking for it, let alone the tattoo, so I’m unable to tell you why I chose that image.”

  “Ah.”

  Silence wrapped around them, a warm, steamy silence that seemed oddly charged. A warm tingling along his spine finally caught his attention, and it was at that point that he realized she had spent an inordinately long time soaping his back.

  “Are you all right back there?” he inquired politely, trying to look over his shoulder without causing pain.

  “Yes, fine. The salt water doesn’t let the soap work too well.” Her fingers, warm and strong, slid along the flesh of his back, sending little chills of pleasure coursing through him. She made swirling motions, little patterns comprised of swoops and circles and long sweeps of her hands, that made him very aware that he was a man, and she was a woman, and one of them was naked.

  “I believe…” He had to stop and clear his throat. “I believe my back is clean now.”

  “Is it? I suppose that’s so.” She wrung out another cambric square over his back and moved around to kneel next to him, eyeing his chest doubtfully. “I will wash your left side, but the ship’s surgeon was most adamant that we keep your wound as dry as possible.”

  He took up his cloth. “I have washed my left side already.”

  “Very well. I shall do your lower half, so you won’t have to bend…” She paused, staring with growing astonishment at the water. After a minute, she looked up at him, a question clearly evident in her face.

  “Yes, it’s supposed to do that,” he said without looking down at his lap. “That’s how it functions.”

  “Really?” She returned her attention to his groin. “That seems singularly impractical. How do you walk with that in your breeches?”

  “Quite painfully when it’s in this state. Luckily, I’m not often called upon to stroll about like this.”

  She gave it another doubtful look, then proceeded to wash his legs and feet, finally taking up a large linen for him to dry himself upon.

  Ten minutes later, with his head swimming from the unaccustomed activity and his groin attempting to impress the princess with its apparent prowess, he was tucked into bed.

  “Now, if you please, I should like the exact details of the circumstances of our marriage. I don’t recall ever seeing you before.”

  “That will have to wait until after you’ve had your broth.”

  “I want to hear about it now.”

  “I don’t want to go into the explanation until later.”

  Leo glared at her. “Madam, you seem to be under the delusion that you can naysay me. Please disabuse yourself of that notion immediately, and do as I ask.”

  “Bossy, aren’t you?” She had the nerve to look unimpressed by his dictates as she tidied up the room.

  “If I am, it’s because it comes with my position. When and where did we meet?”

  “I didn’t realize that majors were entitled to push innocent and gentle citizens around. In Denmark, officers treat ladies with respect.”

  “I am entirely respectful to you.” He stopped, aware that the words were coming out in a growl. He cleared his throat again. “And I was referring to my title, not my military rank.”

  “Your title?” She frowned as she gathered up the nightshirt, pausing as she was about to leave the cabin. “I thought your name was Leo Mortimer?”

  “Mortimer is my family name, yes. I am the seventh Earl of March.”

  “Oh, how nice! Frederick will be relieved to hear that.” She beamed at him.

  He didn’t want to allow the distraction, but he was unable to resist it. “Who’s Frederick?”

  “The crown prince. He’s also a cousin and was, until we were married, responsible for me. But now I have you. Isn’t it wonderful how things turned out? I’ll go fetch your broth and have the men take away the bath.”

  She left a smile behind as she bustled out.

  Leo lay back on the pillows, feeling incredibly confused.

  Without any memory, he’d been wounded.

  And married.

  And hauled onto a ship going…where?

  It was all too much to take in. Perhaps he’d rest his eyes until the princess came back.

  He slept for sixteen hours.

  Five

  We do not ogle Italian dancing masters, no matter how tightly their trousers fit or how muscular their derrieres are. Princesses are above such things, and if they aren’t, they will soon find themselves with new dancing masters who don’t fill out their trousers in quite such an exciting manner.

  —Princess Christian of Sonderburg-Beck’s Guide for Her Daughter’s Illumination and Betterment

  Dagmar started down a corridor, saw a familiar shadow loom up on the opposite wall, and turning quickly, sped back the way she’d come, racing up the steep wooden stairs to the deck. She paused for a moment, looking around wildly for a hiding spot, and had just chosen the fore of the ship when a hand closed around her arm.

  “Princess Dagmar,” a male voice said rather breathily in her ear. “I find you at last.”

  Dagmar’s shoulders slumped. Caught!

  “If I didn’t know that there are few, if any, hiding spots on a ship this size, I would say you were avoiding me. But that can’t be, can it?”

  She murmured something inaudible and considered her options. Could she, if she twisted out of her captor’s hold, outrun him to the captain’s quarters, where she could make a plea for sanctuary?

  “Not to mention the unlikely idea of a wife avoiding the company of her very own husband, a man who just two days ago she greeted with enthusiasm and appreciation. And no, you can’t make it. I might be a little weak still, but if you run to the captain and demand he shelter you from me, as you did yesterday, I shall simply tell him to confine you to quarters.”

  Dagmar spun around, frowning fiercely at her husband. “It was entirely unkind of you to tell him that I had a mental deficiency and was not responsible for my actions. Now he thinks I’m simple.”

  Leo, who she absently noted was looking particularly well, regarded her with a steady gaze. The gaunt lines of his face brought on by the illness were softening as he fleshed out a little. His color had returned as well, although she couldn’t help but notice that his right shoulder was held higher than the left, indicating he was still in pain. “You ran to him claiming I was beating you. If that’s not the result of a deranged mind, I don’t know what is.”

  “You were beating me!”

  He just looked at her.

  She made an exasperated noise. “All right, you weren’t actually touching me. But you yelled quite a bit, and you looked like you wanted to beat me.”

  “If I did, it was only because you refuse to answer my quite reasonable questions. You might as well give it up, Dagmar. You’ve led me on a merry chase for the last two days, but the time is come for the truth.”

  Her shoulders slumped some more. Even she had to admit that his request was a reasonable one. She’d avoided telling him the events of those last two days in Copenhagen simply because she’d come to realize that there was a very sharp mind behind that mild facade.

  It didn’t hurt that the facade was extremely charming and had taken to haunting her restless nights.

  “Come. Let us sit in your cabin, where it’s warm.”

  “We can’t. Julia is sleeping after her night’s illness.”

  “Ah. Is she suffering from mal de mer?”

  “Still, yes. She’s been sick the entire time we’ve been at sea, and at this point, I don’t expect her to feel well again until we land. I managed to get a little brandy down her, so hopefully that and the sleep will keep her from succumbing to her horrible condition.”

  The wind buffeted them as Leo stood watching her. Without warning, he reached out and brushed back a strand of her loose hair, his thumb gently stroking her cheek. “You have
not had a very good time of it lately, have you? The captain says you seldom left me while I raged with the fever, and now you are in attendance of your companion.”

  “She’s my friend. I can’t leave her any more than I could have abandoned you.” Dagmar suddenly shivered, the thin wool of her coat not doing much to keep out the wind and spray. Luckily, she’d turned out to be quite a sailor, moving with the ship in such a way that she didn’t much notice its rolling.

  “Then it will have to be my cabin. No balking, now. I am recovered, have bathed and eaten, so there is no reason you can’t tell me what happened in Copenhagen.”

  He took her hand, his fingers warm around hers despite the chill of the North Sea, and led her back down the stairs to the cabins.

  “You still don’t have any memory of the time before your fever broke?” My, but he smelled nice. It must have been the soap he used—he smelled warm and masculine, and there was a slight pine scent that pleased her.

  “Not of events immediate to that time, no.”

  Oh, who was she fooling? He pleased her in many more ways than just his scented soap. Dagmar didn’t want to face the fact that she was having more and more thoughts about just how sleek his flesh had felt under her hands while she bathed him, but there came a point where one couldn’t ignore the fact that one was having extremely erotic thoughts, and that time was now.

  “I remember quite well what I was doing before I went to Denmark, but it’s my time there that seems to have gone missing.”

  She eyed him, wondering what it would be like to be married to him—really married to him, not just in name. She had a vague idea of what went on in a marital bed but clearly needed more information to fuel those erotic thoughts that kept pestering her at night—or correct them, since she wasn’t sure if she was having feasible erotic thoughts.