Page 85 of To Pleasure a Prince

“You don’t understand,” she murmured, her face an ashen mask. “I can’t read because…because…there’s something wrong with my brain.”

“There’s nothing wrong with your brain,” he protested, holding her close.

“But there is!” She pushed him away. “Ask Cicely; she’ll tell you.” The words spilled out of her, heartbreaking in their conviction. “I don’t see letters properly, and when I try to read anyway I get these awful headaches. And if I bear you children and they have the same defect or worse—” Tears filled her eyes again. “Oh, I’d just die!”

“Don’t even think it.” He kissed her tears away, feeling as ifhewere dying. “Nothing will be wrong with our children, I promise.”

This was why she’d never married, why she refused every suitor, why she could be the sweetest angel one moment and a cruel siren the next. Because she’d survived by keeping everyone away. Until he’d come along.

And what if she were right? What if her brain reallywasdamaged? Feeblemindedness and lunacy did run in families. What if their children—

No, whatever else might be wrong with her, she was not feebleminded. “We’ll face this together, dearling. You’re my wife, till death do us part. I’m not letting you out of it, so don’t even suggest an annulment.”

“But Marcus, I wouldn’t blame you—”

“If you persist in speaking of an annulment,” he warned, “I’ll assumeyouare the one who wants out of the marriage.”

Her gaze shot to his, fierce and sure. “Never. I meant every word ofmywedding vows.”

His heart flipped over in his chest. “So did I.” Later, he’d probe into this “damaged brain” nonsense and make her explain how a duke’s daughter came to be illiterate. For now it was enough to see the old Regina reviving.

Determined to salvage what was left of their evening, he smiled and began to unfasten the tassels on her silly gown. “I can think of only one way to make sure there is no annulment.”

She sucked in a breath, her eyes shining through her tears like two silver guineas in the candlelight. “What does the inscription say, Marcus?”

His blood ran high as he opened her gown to find a silky chemise so sheer that her nipples showed through the fabric, two pink buds he already ached to taste. “It said, ‘To my dear wife, the only woman I would ever want to chain in my dungeon.’ ”

A hesitant smile touched her lips. “That is not very…er…nice. One might even call it naughty.”

“Damned right it’s naughty.” The blood surged through him as he lowered his mouth to hers. “And we’re going to be far more naughty before the night is over.”

Chapter Eighteen

Your charge’s mother is responsible for informing her of what she can expect on her wedding night.

But if the mother cannot or does not fulfill her duty, then you must do so.

—Miss Cicely Tremaine,The Ideal Chaperone

Regina reveled in Draker’s kiss, so warm, so tender. Perhaps he truly didn’t care. If he desired her badly enough to overlook her defect, who was she to argue?

Especially now that he had his hands inside her gown, working their incredible magic on her breasts. Sweet heaven, what a delicious feeling.

He bent his head to kiss her neck, then cursed.“Thishas got to go.” He hastily untied the other tassels, then dragged off her gown. “That damned ruff has poked me for the last time.”

She laughed, practically giddy in her relief that he hadn’t cast her aside. “Perhaps you should chainitin the dungeon,” she teased as he tossed it across the room.

His eyes glittered, playing hotly over her thinly clad body. “I’d much rather chainyou.”

“You’d better not,” she warned. But her breath came in quick gasps, and the images rising in her head were luridly vivid.

“You might like it.” He pressed her back upon the bed until her head lay on the pillow, then took her hands and closed them around two pieces of the fretwork that formed the headboard of the Chinese Chippendale bed. Bending his mouth to her breast, he tongued her nipple through the chemise, rousing it into an aching bud. “You might find it very adventurous to be chained up in my dungeon, waiting for—”

“The dragon to come devour me?” she whispered, caught up in his fantasy.

“Oh, yes,” he growled against her breast.

Where just a little while ago she’d been apprehensive about her wedding night, his outrageous words—and actions—were perversely having the opposite effect on her. Her body softened beneath the rasps of his hot tongue, grew warm beneath his sucking mouth.