Page 19 of Lord Fournier’s Shameless Princess (Scarlett Affairs #4)

Fournier Park

Kent, England

June 30, 1804

L iesel had returned south to Fournier Park with the baroness after meeting with Queen Charlotte. She’d occupied herself each day enjoying the company of her hostess, her brother, and her sister. When she needed a mindful pursuit, she visited the library for a book. The collection was vast. She felt like a child in a sweet shop. When she needed exercise, she went down to the tenants’ cottages, where she made a new friend each day, and helped weeding and planting their kitchen gardens.

But when she needed something to take her mind from the question of where in the world Dirk Fournier might be, she went down to the park’s kitchens. She did not tell the baroness. Such a thing was not done by a lady, much less a princess.

Still Liesel needed the release. She fretted over Dirk’s actions. But if that were not enough, she ground her teeth over Carlisle’s disturbing news that Mara and Hartenburg had been greeted by his father not with congratulations, but with condemnation. Liesel prayed Mara had the tools to deal with such rudeness.

“No wonder I need something lively,” she muttered to herself as she took the back stairs down to the kitchen. There, Cook and her two maids were at first shocked to see her don an apron. They were further stunned to see her wield knives over vegetables and meat like a convicted cutthroat. She returned the compliment of the surprise when she taught the three of them how to make an apple tarte tatin . When they tasted her wares, licked their lips…and did not die, they welcomed her offer to teach them how to make a French stew. They were shocked when they loved it.

“Must be the red wine,” said the first kitchen maid.

“Must be the beef,” said the second.

“Must be the garlic,” said Cook with a wink.

What drove Liesel’s impatience were newspaper articles she read each day full of the whereabouts of Dirk. He had arrived from Bremen, via Yarmouth, and gone down to his home in Kent. Almost immediately thereafter, he had journeyed to London, dining with Miss Scarlett Hawthorne in a large party at her home, and later alone with the prime minister.

Word was that he’d then journeyed north. Some said he visited his childhood friend Tate, Lord Appleby, and that man’s new wife in Norfolk. Others said they spotted a man who resembled Lord Fournier in Manchester.

Why he should be there caused great speculation, declared one rag, but we, Dear Reader, have no confirmation of this.

A different story brought a smile to Liesel’s lips. A public declaration to a newspaper in Manchester was issued by Lord Fellowes and his new wife, Alice. The public apology to Lord Fournier became a most repeated story in newspapers from London to Dublin, and even so far as Boston, Massachusetts.

A smaller story also appeared. A holding company, recently begun, had failed to attract enough capital to fulfill the orders of three new ships. The company proposed to begin the triangular trade along the Atlantic. Many questioned the wisdom of adding more trade, which so many recognized was inhuman, to that route.

Liesel read of her own actions in similar papers.

As for news of Crown Princess Elizabeth of Rittenburg, she was the guest of Lady Fournier in London recently. While there, the two of them called upon the queen.

In gossip sheets, it was rumored that …the princess, lately traveling in her native land, had done service to the Crown during her time abroad. She currently resides in the country, awaiting the renovation of a new house she has purchased for the benefit of her brother, sister, and herself. Both siblings will now reside with the princess here in England.

Only Charlotte, Lady Fournier, and the servants at Fournier Park knew that Liesel and her family lived there. Liesel’s new wardrobe, bits of which arrived daily from Charlotte’s modiste, made her set for company she was yet to enjoy. The elaborate new gown of pink satin and white lace, which she wore to the Queen’s House that day she and Charlotte visited, was put away. She had the distinct impression she would not be invited back to Buckingham anytime soon.

But now she spent her days wondering when Dirk might appear. Aside from the note he’d given to his mother to deliver to her, Liesel had heard nothing from him. Even that note was far too brief.

Dearest Liesel,

Wait for me. —Dirk

Had she not been doing that for months?

The man irritated her. How long did he need? She, on the other hand, required no days or nights to make his restitution more acceptable to her. He had always been the noblest creature she’d ever had the honor to know.

Meanwhile, he stayed away while the ton took their sweet time ruminating? Good God, did he not realize that they would tittle-tattle to each other for years ?

She groused about his delay in the privacy of her rooms. She walked the floor. She walked his land. She laughed with his tenants. She peeled garlic in his kitchen. Each day, she vowed that when he did arrive home, for making her wait so long, she would box his ears!

She missed him.

*

Dirk had insisted that his coachman and footman had to make Fournier Park today. Not usually so demanding of his staff, he had now done all he could to prepare a future that suited him there. He had alerted his London house in Grosvenor Square to his impending marriage and the arrival of a new mistress. He expected that he and his bride would not venture into London, nor Society, until late in autumn. His desire to keep Liesel to himself, plus his understanding that she would not relish yet another long trip in a carriage, meant he expected that November might be the right time to appear among the ton .

He had no fears about that. What Scarlett and Carlton had done for him with the government and the Crown had more than polished his name. What Dáire O’Neill had done with Fellowes and Alice had more than washed the stains from his reputations. What he had done with them eased his conscience. He was not a man bent on revenge any longer.

Now he had only one goal in mind: to get to his prospective bride and marry her in front of as many people as possible. As his coach rounded the bend to the front portico of Fournier Park in the dark, the silhouette of the house beckoned him.

Handing his gloves, coat, and hat to Jameson, he glanced up the stairs and listened for the sounds of the house. “Where is everyone?”

It was past ten o’clock, so he expected the children to be asleep, his mother to be in her rooms—and Liesel to be in bed.

That was exactly where his vivid imagination had taken him in the hours since he’d left London.

Jameson responded with all those locations Dirk had predicted for everyone.

“Wonderful,” he said, and took the grand staircase two steps at a time.

“But my lord…?”

Dirk paused at the landing. “Yes?”

“Do you wish dinner, brandy, or a bath?”

“I will ring when I’ve decided, Jameson.” He took the steps up to the second floor and headed for Liesel’s rooms.

He had so much to tell her, so much joy to reveal, that he was bursting with news. So when he knocked and no one answered, he debated whether to continue. Wake her up, he could. But he doubted she’d be angry with him. She hardly ever was. His darling was so even tempered. He smiled and opened the door.

Her sitting room was dark, save for two wall sconces casting flickering lights here and there. But the sounds of what occurred in the room beyond had his mind whirling with laughter.

Of course—it was right that he should walk in on her bath!

He walked past her bedroom, headed straight for the sounds of splashing water.

The lovely coincidence was complemented by the fact that she was alone. In her bath.

“Good evening, sweetheart.” He strode in her boudoir to stand before the edge of the porcelain tub, then crossed his arms, lest he rush her past her surprise—and spoil his own fun.

She gaped at him.

“You look well,” he said, and could not change his rogue’s tone. What he could do, however, was look.

And what he saw was everything he had desired of her. Everything he had fought to claim. Everything he’d never thought he even merited.

She noted the path of his gaze, her lips still parted in surprise. Her long arms to the rim of the tub, her elegant fingers curled around the edge, she let him look.

Oh, yes . She let him have his fill. Her golden hair billowed around her like a crown with the humidity. Long waves curved around her cheeks and down her shoulders. The arcs and planes of her slender body made his mouth water. Her unmoving acceptance of his perusal made his knees weak.

This was his Liesel. His woman filled with courage and conviction. His darling who had loved him in spite of what the world claimed he was. His madwoman who had declared her love for him when he could not declare his own for her.

“Pardon me,” she said, raising her chin in royal hauteur. “Who are you, sir, to invade my boudoir so boldly?”

Looking at the ceiling, he chuckled. Then he strode toward her, all the better to hunger for her lithe figure, full breasts, slim hips, and the pale thatch of hair at the juncture of her thighs.

“I am the man who loves you.”

She sank lower. Her head upon the rim of the tub, she stretched out. Her breasts bobbed in the water. Her pink nipples, growing firm, rose above the waterline. One knee bent, she tipped her head to one side as she opened her legs to him. “I’m delighted to see him.”

“As I am you.”

Her expression gutted him. She had missed him terribly. “Where in hell have you been, sir?”

Positioned as he was at the very edge of her bathtub, he spread his hands wide in supplication. “Everywhere to make it possible for you to wed me—and never be ashamed to call yourself my wife.”

“Never would I have been ashamed, sir. But do tell me how you have accomplished this.”

Satisfaction warmed him through and through. He unbuttoned his frock coat and threw it to the nearby chair. “I went to Scarlett Hawthorne and her chief clerk, both of whom went to the government and won me favor for the work I’ve done.”

She slowly smiled. “Praise long overdue. What else?”

He removed his waistcoat, and it sailed over to join his coat. “I went to see a man who makes his living arranging retribution for those who have harmed others.”

“A man I would like to meet.”

“Someday, I will introduce you. You will like him.” Dirk sat on her stool and pulled off his boots and socks. “I asked him to give me the address of Alice Sedgwick and Lord Fellowes.”

“You saw them?” Apprehension drained her lovely face of any joy. “And what happened?”

He frowned, recalling the squalid conditions of their existence. “They have lost their child. She has lost her family’s support. He has lost the income from his first wife. They married in Manchester a few weeks ago. While they are at last together, they are much diminished in circumstances.”

“Yet they issued a public apology for their accusations.”

“They did.”

“Why?” Her brow wrinkled.

“Seeing me, evidently, was all they needed to call forth remorse for what they had done.”

“Unusual for two so ruthless.”

“It is.” He would explain later, when they had more time, how he had gone to see Dáire O’Neill upon his return to London from Manchester. He’d told the man not to punish Fellowes financially. Dirk would even pay O’Neill the portion of the fee that man would have earned from Fellowes’s ruin. “The two of them seem happy together. So with the loss of their child and their precarious finances, I could not make their lives worse. They were happy to post their statements in the Manchester papers.”

“Many have reprinted them,” Liesel said, and sat forward with a whoosh of water.

His ambition to have her wet and willing drove out all other desires. He stood, undid his flies, and pushed down his breeches and his small clothes. His desire for her was a bold, hard statement.

Her lips spread wide in a grin as he took a step to stand near her.

Her hand cupped his hip.

His manhood showed how he appreciated the caress.

She licked her lips.

“I’m coming in.” He lifted a leg over and put his foot in the tub between her thighs.

“Oh,” she said, her gaze on the long, hard sight before her. “Do you think you’ll fit?”

He put another foot in. “I know I will.”

She giggled, but when faced with the insistent evidence of his desire for her, she paused and whispered, “I remember.”

He bent down and lifted her to her feet. He wrapped his arms around her, one hand to her derrière, and pressed. “So do I. This time, what we do will be complete.”

She blinked, her amethyst eyes locking on his. “Do you promise?”

“From now on, everything we do together will be the fulfillment of how I love you and you love me.”

Tears sprang to her lower lids. “Clive has relieved me of work abroad. The queen has released me from Isenhurst.”

“I know. I read.” He grinned and rubbed the tip of his nose on hers. “Mama sent letters to our Grosvenor Square house every day.” He wended one hand down her throat to one breast, her hip, then threaded his fingers into the soft hair between her thighs. “I read them all as I arrived last week.”

She drew in air as he parted her folds and sought the core of her. Wet and hot, she was all that he needed, and he’d give her all she required.

“Dirk.” She said his name like a prayer and nuzzled into his shoulder. “Why, my darling, were you so damn long in London?”

He stepped out of the tub, her hand in his, picked up a towel on a bench and flung it over her, then walked backward, leading her toward her bedroom.

At the edge of the bed, he urged her down and knelt before her. One day he had promised her, in her family’s throne room, that he was her liege man, and he wished to prove it once and for all. “I went to my bankers.”

At the mention of such a mundane thing, she blinked. “I don’t understand.”

“I am more than solvent.”

She said, “Excellent,” though she appeared uncertain what more that implied.

“I told him I intend to remain at home and that I resume all my obligations to my family and my estate.”

“As you should.”

“As I wish to do for the rest of my life.”

She waited, speculation in her beautiful eyes.

He pulled the towel more firmly around her and rubbed her arms dry. “Then, the other day, I called upon the archbishop.”

This took her frown away. “Of Canterbury?”

“I told him of a lady who’d saved me from the wilderness, who loved me when few others did.”

She gulped. “Did he ask who this woman was?”

“Oh yes. I told him she was my darling, my princess, and if he would consent, I wanted her to become my wife and my baroness.”

“What did he say?”

“That I am a very fortunate man.”

She put her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his hips.

He grinned and nestled closer to her warm invitation. “I have from him a special license to marry you.”

Tears dribbled down her cheeks.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he whispered, kissing her tears away. “Will you marry me?”

“How can you doubt it?” She sniffed as she hugged him closer.

He kissed her ear, her throat, and then took her lips in a fierce claim. “Tomorrow?”

“No!”

“But—”

She gave an exasperated cry. “If you think I will let you go tonight, you are so wrong.”

He chuckled. “A demanding wife.”

“Exactly. And I do not wish to go to my wedding having guests say I looked like a…a…bag!”

He snorted. “Hag?”

“That, yes.”

He laughed and nuzzled the hollow behind her ear. Then he froze and pulled back to look down at her. “But you will marry me?”

“I will.” She cupped his firm jaw. “I have never wanted any other man.”

“I have never wanted any other woman. You, my darling, are my love, my everything. Only you.”