Truth about Leo Page 8

  “The surgeon said I have suffered a saber slash, but even that I don’t remember.”

  How long would it take him to recover from his wounds? He seemed hearty enough, other than holding his shoulder oddly. Would he need his shoulder in order to fulfill those bedroom duties that she thought about so much in the long, dark hours of the night? If only she knew just what those duties consisted of, she might have a better sense of how close he was to achieving them. If only she knew how he was really feeling. If only she had someone to ask.

  “And I certainly don’t remember meeting and marrying you, despite the fact that I must have been enough in possession of my wits to speak during the wedding ceremony.”

  She sighed as she sat down on the edge of his bunk. There, right before her, sitting on a three-legged wooden stool was just such a person. Dearest Papa had always said that the only foolish question was the one that remained unasked. Therefore, she would take her courage in hand and simply ask. “Do you want to bed me?”

  Leo, who was in the act of removing a heavy wool coat, paused and gave her a wild-eyed look. “Right now, you mean?”

  “No, of course not.” She thought for a moment. “Unless you feel able to, that is. Do you?”

  He stared openmouthed at her for a few seconds, then tossed the coat onto the bed alongside her, wincing as he did so. “I…I…I don’t think I’ve ever…”

  “You’ve never bedded a woman?” She frowned. “Now, that surprises me. My sainted mother said men were forever trying to bed women, which was why I must never have one in my bedchamber unless he was a king or my husband. But if you haven’t…I fear we may be in some trouble, since I haven’t bedded a man before either.”

  “Of course I’ve bedded a woman.” He sat up straight and looked incensed, waving his good arm in a grand gesture. “I’ve bedded dozens of women. Hundreds. Why a king?”

  “Why what? Oh, blackmail, of course.” She smiled. “There’s nothing like a bedchamber scandal to tighten the screws on a man, is there?”

  The look he gave her was one of mingled appreciation and horror. “You’re quite the bloodthirsty little thing, aren’t you?”

  “Not particularly. The Danish court is fraught with bedchamber intrigue, however, and Mama felt I should understand how best to use it to my advantage should someone attempt to bed me without being my lawful husband. Do you want to?”

  “We’re back to that, are we?”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” she pointed out.

  “That I didn’t. I was hoping you’d forget it.” Leo took a deep breath and, with both hands on his knees, said, “Despite what your sainted mother told you, not every man wants to take every woman he sees to his bed.”

  “Oh.” Disappointment filled her. He didn’t want to bed her. She had a horrible feeling she knew why too. “It’s my bosom, isn’t it? I told Julia that it was getting bigger, but she didn’t believe me.”

  Leo’s gaze was locked on her bulging bodice.

  “Er…they’re getting bigger?”

  “It’s the sea air.” She regarded her chest mournfully. “I don’t suppose binding my breasts would help?”

  “Most decidedly not. In fact, I forbid you even thinking about it.”

  “I think there’s something you should know about me,” Dagmar announced.

  “I’m sure there are any number of things I should know, about you and our marriage, and since we’re on that subject, I’d like a few answers—”

  “I don’t take well to being forbidden things,” she said calmly. “I never have. Dearest Papa said I got that from my mother, but I believe it’s because I had to put up with Frederick bossing me around while Papa was ill. Frederick was forever forbidding me things.”

  Leo just blinked his eyelashes over those interesting eyes and looked at her as if she were a boiled pig’s head.

  “If it’s not my bosom—which I hope will shrink back to normal once it’s out of the sea air—then is it something else about my person that repels you, or is it a general unwillingness to bed me?”

  Leo took a deep breath. “I’m neither unwilling nor repelled, but I don’t wish to discuss your breasts—which I have to say I find utterly delightful as they are—and would, in fact, like to have an explanation that I have been attempting to seek from you for the last two days. The time has come, Wife, for the reckoning.”

  Dagmar flinched just a little at the emphasis on “wife.” He never once questioned the validity of the marriage documents she’d brought with her, although just the day before he demanded to have charge of them, and reluctantly, she’d given them over into his possession.

  One thought led to another, and before she could stop herself, she said, “I don’t need the marriage lines to divorce you, you know. They’re in the records of both the bishop and Copenhagen. And of course, my cousin sent the bishop to marry us, so he would be able to testify that we were properly wed.”

  Leo looked confused. “According to the papers, we’ve only just been married, and you’re talking about divorce?”

  “Not in the sense you mean. I simply wanted to point out that should I desire it, I could divorce you. I believe it’s more difficult in England for a woman to divorce her husband, but in Denmark, it’s not at all uncommon.”

  A wry smile twisted Leo’s mouth. “Thank you for the warning. Now then, shall we start at the beginning? Where did we meet?”

  “In Copenhagen.” She smoothed a hand over the bed linens, wondering what it would be like to burrow into them and cocoon herself with his scent. “I like the way you smell.”

  “Oh no,” he said, waggling a finger. “I’m familiar with your ways now, so there will be no distracting me with talk of your breasts and how large they are, and how perfectly they would fit into my hands and how I would like to rub them all over myself. We are going to stick to the topic at hand. Where in particular did we meet?”

  “My back garden.” She thought about what he said. This rubbing of her bosom on his person hadn’t, at first, seemed an overly attractive thought, but the more she dwelt on it, the more pleasing it became. Should she invite him to take her breasts in his hands? She looked at his hands where they rested on his thighs, then she looked at his thighs and lost all thoughts of anything else.

  His brow wrinkled. “Your garden? Was it a party of some sort?”

  “You have very nice thighs.” She was staring, she knew, but she couldn’t stop herself. Through the stretched material, she could make out the heavy thigh muscle that indicated a man who spent a vast amount of time in the saddle. “If I let you take my breasts in your hands, would you let me stroke your thighs?”

  He fell off the stool.

  Instantly, she was on the ground next to him, checking to make sure he hadn’t hurt himself. Somehow, her breasts ended up in his hands, which she took as permission to do as she wanted with his thighs.

  “Oh!” she said, startled and pleased not just by the sensation of her bosom, suddenly feeling quite demanding, resting in the warmth of his hands, but also by the sleek lines of thigh muscles that her hands were happily exploring. “Oh!”

  “Oh, indeed,” he said, his voice sounding strangled at he stared down at his hands, now overflowing with bosom. He flexed his fingers. She moaned and arched her back. “I think we might even go so far as to say, ‘good God!’ or even, ‘bless my garters,’ not that I understand why garters enter into the subject. Dagmar, if you continue on that track, you’ll end up causing me to burst my trousers, and as they are borrowed from the captain, I’d hate to ruin them.”

  Dagmar stopped rubbing her breasts against his hands and looked down, somewhat surprised to find both of her hands now stroking a very full front of his trousers. She pursed her lips for a moment at the buttons holding the fall up, then quickly released him.

  “That is not flaccid,” she accused, her gaze firmly on his
erection.

  “Not in the least, although you needn’t sound so annoyed by the fact.”

  “My sainted mother told me that men were flaccid by nature, and to be otherwise was dangerous, as you were in the bath, although even then you weren’t this…pronounced.”

  “You weren’t stroking my thighs in the bath.” He seemed to be having some problem breathing, and Dagmar was about to offer to assist him to his bunk when he shifted her so that she sat astride his legs. “I can’t believe I’m even thinking this, although it’s perfectly natural given the fact that you are clearly trying to seduce me, but when you said you’ve never been bedded, did you mean that figuratively or literally?”

  She ran a finger down the nonflaccid part of him, marveling that something so silly-looking could be so very velvety. “I try very hard never to lie,” she said, dragging her gaze from his interesting parts. Leo, for his part, moaned when she wrapped her fingers around him. “I’m not very good at it, and Mama always said that princesses should never lie because what’s the point in being a princess if you can’t say exactly what you think?”

  “Your mother—to the left a bit, darling—your mother sounds like she was quite the woman.”

  “She was. I miss her and Papa greatly. You are becoming even stiffer, Leo. You would tell me if something was amiss with your male parts, would you not?”

  He groaned again and panted just a little as she let her fingers explore the length and breadth of him. “I would. Answer my question.”

  “Which one? There’ve been so many.”

  “Are you really a virgin, or did you just say you were so that I wouldn’t annul the marriage on the spot?” He leaned down as he spoke and brought his mouth to her breasts, which somehow he’d managed to get out of her stays and bodice. His breath was hot on her flesh, and she squirmed against his thighs, wanting more, so much more, but unable to put that need into words. His mouth closing on one of her nipples had her releasing his parts in order to grasp his shoulders. She managed to stop grabbing his bad shoulder just in time, clasping his hip on that side instead and shifting so that he would pay his attentions to her other breast.

  “I am a virgin. Would you mind sucking on my other breast? It is out of sorts because you’ve paid so much attention to the right one.”

  Leo obliged, but before Dagmar could really throw herself into some quality moaning, he stopped and gently pushed her off his legs. What was even sadder, he tucked himself into his breeches again.

  “I was afraid of that. I suppose it’s for the best, really, since we shouldn’t do anything we might later regret.”

  Dagmar was having some regrets at that moment, but they had everything to do with the fact that he ceased teasing her nipples with his tongue and nothing to do with thoughts of the future. “You don’t wish to consummate me?” she asked forlornly.

  “Of course I want to consummate you.” He gestured toward his crotch, which was quite bulgy behind the yellow material of the trousers. “I want to consummate you as you’ve never been consummated, and then continue consummating you until one or possibly both of us expire from sheer, unadulterated pleasure, but that, my fine temptress, is not going to happen until I have made a few decisions. And to that end, let us continue the discussion we were having when you attempted to seduce me by means of your delicious breasts.”

  Dagmar finished squishing her bosom back into their stays and tugged up the bodice of her gown. She was pleased by the thought that she, the most inexperienced of women, had almost successfully seduced Leo. What might she accomplish when she had all the information at hand about the exact proceedings of the bedding?

  “All right,” she said, getting to her feet when he rose to his. “But you have to kiss me first.”

  He looked like he was going to protest, then his expression changed to one of curiosity. “Not that I am opposed to such a thing, but why do you wish for me to kiss you?”

  “Because my breasts are hot, and those parts of me that my mother said would someday become very useful are in fact appearing to head in that direction because they are tingling greatly, and also because I’ve never been kissed.”

  He stared at her as if she was a giant, tingly female part. “What, never?”

  “Oh, I’ve been kissed. Mama and Papa were very affectionate, and men have kissed my hand, of course. But there is a difference between a man like Frederick slobbering on my knuckles, and a man like you, with all your muscles and your warm flesh, and your hair that I want to touch now that it’s clean again, kissing me. That I would very much like to experience, and I see no reason why you couldn’t do that now, since it involves your lips and not your shoulder or arm.”

  His eyes glinted with an amused light. “Darling, you’re not doing it right if you believe that.”

  “That’s just the point. I’m not doing it at all.”

  “Far be it from me to deny a lady a simple request,” he said, looking somewhat noble. Dagmar wanted to giggle. “But immediately following the kiss, we are going to have the talk that I’ve been trying to have for two days now. What are you doing?”

  “Giggling,” she said, making an effort to stop. “You look like a brave knight about to face a dragon.”

  “Well, stop it. No man wishes to kiss someone who giggles. And I assure you, madam,” he said, putting his good arm around her, easing her forward until she leaned on one side of his chest, “I find the princess a much more daunting foe than the dragon. Tilt your head slightly. Other way. No, there’s no need to open your mouth up wide. I’m not going to extract a tooth. There, just like that, with your lips slightly parted.”

  Dagmar’s eyes crossed as she tried to keep him in focus when his mouth descended upon hers. At first, she wasn’t overly impressed with the experience, and she told Leo so.

  “For one,” he said, pulling away enough that she could see him again. “You’re not supposed to speak while I’m kissing you. And for another, we hadn’t really started. That was just a little preliminary peck, if you will.”

  “It was just your lips touching mine in no real exciting manner. To be honest, I found it very underwhelming,” she said, frowning slightly at him. What if all the romantic tales she’d read of heroines who swooned upon kissing the hero were fabrications of deranged minds? What if this kissing business was a warning that the bedding was going to be just as disappointing? What if—

  At that moment Leo swooped in again, and this time, it was as if an entirely different person was kissing her. Leo didn’t just kiss her; he took possession of her mouth, his lips apparently taking charge of hers while his tongue swooped and swirled and teased with wet little touches that by rights should have been disgusting—she hadn’t imagined a tongue ever entering into the situation—but in reality, seemed to start a fire deep inside her that quickly spread outward. She clutched his good shoulder, wordlessly urging him on as his tongue swept into her mouth and started doing things there that made her wild with desire.

  He was right about one thing: he needed his arms and shoulder to kiss properly. He pulled her tighter against his side, his arms urging her to move against him in a way that seemed both sinful and extremely exciting. And when he finally managed to pry her off him, it was with a real sense of regret that she allowed him to move away a step.

  “I take it back,” she said some moments later, when she could remember how to speak again. She stared at his mouth, wanting to kiss him again.

  “What?” he asked, looking confused.

  “It wasn’t underwhelming. I want very much to kiss you again, Leo.”

  “No,” he said sternly even as he reached for her and pulled her against him. “Absolutely not. We have things to discuss. Open your mouth just a tiny bit wider, darling.”

  And he kissed her again, and again after that, and once more after that even though by that point Dagmar was light-headed from lack of oxygen, and Leo’s bad a
rm was trembling from the strain of use.

  “I’m going to swoon if you continue,” Dagmar told him when his lips reluctantly parted from hers. “Or vomit.”

  “That is the singularly most unromantic thing I’ve ever heard,” he said, helping her to the bed where she immediately bent over to put her head between her knees in the approved manner of nearly swooning or vomiting women.

  “I’m sorry. I just thought you’d like to know that I no longer was unimpressed by your ability to kiss,” she said, her voice somewhat muffled. “It’s actually a compliment, because no other man has made my insides knot up the way you did.”

  “I will wear your nausea as a badge of pride,” he reassured her, collapsing onto the three-legged stool opposite, “and hope that in the future, your insides will be pleasantly stirred rather than knotted. Now, my dear, you’ve done your best to hide from me, insist to the captain that I am too ill to speak, and seduce me away from the subject, but there will be no more of that. I want answers, and I have selected you as the person to provide them. I believe the last question I asked was how we met in your garden. Had you invited me there? Were you having some sort of a party?”

  “No,” she said, drawing out the word. She didn’t really want to tell him the truth but couldn’t, despite some rapid and desperate thinking, come up with a viable reason why she shouldn’t do so.

  Except, of course, for the fact that he would in no way like the circumstances.

  “No you didn’t invite me there, or no you weren’t having a party?”

  “Neither. Both.” She sat up, her head feeling much clearer, and bit her lower lip as she tried to gauge his response to the truth. Unfortunately, she kept getting distracted by his thighs and mouth and all sorts of wicked thoughts, and in the end, she just decided to cast her worry aside. “You were wounded when Julia found you. We dragged you back to the house and tended to you there. And since I needed an English officer to marry, and you said you weren’t married—you didn’t lie, did you?”