Seducing the Princess by Hart Perry Mary

Author:Hart Perry, Mary [Hart Perry, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION/General
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2013-03-04T22:00:00+00:00

25

Beatrice left her mother’s office late that afternoon, still shaken by the prime minister’s words. A war. Hadn’t they had enough of that?

The Crimean War had robbed Britain of thousands of her youngest and finest young men. Women whom she personally knew had gone to the front to nurse the wounded and come back with stories of working for a tough-minded young woman with the oddly delicate name of Nightingale. The horrendous tales they brought home had reduced Beatrice to tears. Unarmed men had been slaughtered by the hundreds because there weren’t enough weapons to go around. And because their officers were untrained, inept, and foolishly proud. Most of these officers had bought their way into the upper ranks with their families’ money. They knew nothing of war; it was all a romantic adventure, a game to them. But the game pieces they played with were human beings, whose lives they carelessly ordered into impossible battles.

Did people never learn? Hadn’t history demonstrated innumerable times the price paid for greed and violence? If it wasn’t a war between nations, tribes, or religions—then it was a revolution. More fighting. She hated it all! The thought that her nephew might someday have a hand in creating yet another hell on earth, with thousands more dying, was just too much for her to bear on her own. She desperately wanted the company of Henry Battenberg—gentle, level-headed, beautiful Henry. The man she’d come to love.

She had arranged to meet him in the palace garden at dusk. Her mother was so preoccupied with the Prime Minister’s fear of subversion within her court that she hadn’t objected when Beatrice told her she planned to go with friends to the opera that evening.

Henry was waiting for her in the gazebo. When she came up the steps he turned, azure eyes flashing his joy, rushed to her, and they embraced. Being held in his long arms was the only salve she needed. She pressed her cheek to his chest and felt as comforted as if she was sipping from a cup of warm Dutch cocoa.

But that peace lasted but a minute. Then she felt other, stronger emotions. The exhilaration of a gallop across sun-spangled poppy fields. The first heart-throbbing notes of a Viennese waltz. Standing there enfolded in his arms, his lips pressed to her, she thought: We are lovers. Lovers! Or soon would be.

Such was her bliss at that moment, she would have done anything for him. Anything at all to make this man happy. But she suspected that might require a little more of her physically than an occasional hug or kiss. For she felt that particularly satisfying firmness below his sword belt that he was taking no pains to hide from her. She blushed at the thought of his arousal and felt a secret thrill. Maybe, after all, the sexual act wouldn’t be as bad as Mama suggested. Maybe it would be glorious.

“We’d better not tarry,” he said, taking her hand in his. “I can’t trust myself to be a gentleman when we’re alone like this.

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