Ruark knew he was thinking of Queen Catherine.
“You know, Ru, in my experience, which is rumored to be extensive, women are all the same.”
Ruark silently disagreed with him. If he could meet an attractive lady who hadn’t slept with the King and half his court, he’d probably consider marrying her.
The King continued, “On the surface Catherine and Barbara seem worlds apart, yet underneath both use sexual favors to get their own way. Then if they don’t get their own way, they withhold those favors.”
“Well,” said Ruark, “there’s not much point in my going to Lil’s with you, Sire. I’m for Cornwall in a week’s time and the last thing I need is a female entanglement. I’ve only just managed to extract myself from one.”
“Helford, you swore an oath to support your monarch in any undertaking. As your superior, I command you attend me.”
Ruark lifted one brow, dark as a raven’s wing. “I have no superior, Sire.”
Charles looked at him with admiration. “’Sdeath, I do believe you speak the truth.” Charles’s face was transformed by a lazy, charming smile. “As my friend, come and give me moral support.”
The white Persian cat had chosen to sleep in Summer’s chamber, but by the door scratching it was now doing, it obviously needed to go outside. She threw back the covers, hesitated a moment over going downstairs in the snowy nightgown so exquisitely trimmed in ribbon and lace, then she scooped up the small ball of white fluff and ran downstairs. She reasoned that before six in the morning none would be about.
She was startled by a knock on the front door just as she was about to open it and fell back in wonder as two tall, dark gentlemen stepped confidently into the foyer. The cat, alarmed, scratched her and jumped from her arms. “Oh, you little hellcat,” she murmured as her eyes went wide over the magnificently garbed pair of gentlemen callers. One was dressed in purple velvet with gold braid, the other in black velvet with a powder blue ostrich feather sweeping from his wide-brimmed hat. Powder blue, begod! She’d never seen anything like it in her life.
Her eyes began at their thigh-high cavalier boots and traveled upward to their black, shoulder-length hair and frankly assessing eyes. One of the men held her gaze for what seemed a lifetime as panic rose within her at her state of undress. Relief swept through her as one of her aunt’s footmen stepped into the foyer and she fled upstairs, her black cloud of hair in wild disarray and her cheeks stained crimson.
Ruark Helford stared up the stairs long after she had gone. The girl’s looks had almost bowled him over. Her darkly dramatic features were exotic, unusual, almost mysterious, and she was physically exciting in the extreme.
The pristine nightgown she wore with the little bows all up the front sent his imagination soaring. Today’s fashions were so voluminous a man couldn’t gauge a female’s figure accurately until he actually stripped her of her whalebone and padding, but the prim white garment had fallen about her in soft folds which hinted at the delicious swell of high-pointed breasts and round bottom. When she ran up the stairs, he’d actually glimpsed bare feet and slender ankles and he prayed that the limbs above the ankles were lithe and slim.
He had already made up his mind about one thing. The first time she came to his bed he wanted her in that white thing with its row of ribbon fastenings. The thought of opening them one by one made his throat go dry. There was that about her which suggested a man might find unmatched, pleasurable fulfillment if she would ever deign to bestow her favors.
Though he knew he had never laid eyes on her before, she reminded him of something or someone. He imagined himself deep inside her and he was instantly swollen with lust.
Ruark Helford said to the King, “I feel it only sporting to let you know I’m in the running after all.”
“Not a chance, Helford! Gad, I believe that’s the first unpainted face I’ve seen in two years.”
“Fifty pounds say I taste her first,” wagered Ruark.
“You are ordered to Cornwall, Helford, and I see no possible reason for delay.”
Summer’s auntie Lil was about to descend the staircase as the breathless girl flew past her. Lil’s eyes narrowed with speculation as she saw Charles Stuart larger than life in her foyer. At the foot of the staircase she swept into a deep curtsy and drawled in her plummy, provocative voice, “Your Majesty, you honor me by your visit but must it be before six in the morning, Sire?”
“Lady Richwood, your humble servant, madame,” Charles said, smoothly raising her jeweled fingers to his lips. “We are such intimate friends I believed I should be welcomed at any hour.”
She slid her eyes over the King’s companion. “Lord Helford, I believe you near frightened my niece to death with your dangerous good looks,” she drawled suggestively.
“Your, er … niece,” said the King delicately, “has caught my eye and I beg an introduction.”
Lady Richwood stiffened instantly, and to show the King of England he had committed an almost unforgivable faux pas she dropped the drawl and spoke crisply. “Gentlemen, that really is my niece, Lady Summer St. Catherine. I summoned her to London because of her father’s health. Sadly he passed away yesterday. We are in mourning.”
It was an age of loosest morals, but strictest manners.
“Lady Richwood, forgive us for clumsy fools. My deepest condolences, madame, on the loss of your brother. Helford, your suggestion to come here today was most ill timed.”
Lil Richwood’s voice softened immediately as she drawled, “You are quite forgiven…. I’m particularly partial to tall, dark cavaliers.”
Both men bowed formally and very deeply before they departed.
Auntie Lil swept up the staircase, her eyes narrowed in speculation. She reassessed her niece with shrewd eyes before she answered the question that had burst from her lips. “It was His Majesty the King, darling, and he was definitely interested in you. But if I arrange a liaison, you will have to be a very clever girl to hold his interest more than briefly. Your competition would be formidable. However, it would be a way out of your financial difficulties.”
A little maid brought a breakfast tray with fruit and croissants and chocolate to drink. Lil grimaced at Summer’s healthy appetite. Slowly, between bites, Summer asked, “Do you mean share the King’s bed … for money?”
