Romancing The Crown: Leila and Gage

Cade went to check on Suki first, naturally. She was his best mare—dapple gray with a black mane and tail, charcoal mask and legs, a real beauty—and this would be her first foal. Not that he was worried. If Rueben said she was doing okay, then she was. But he looked her over anyway, because it made him feel good doing it, and he and Rueben discussed her condition and care the way they always did, which was mostly mutters and grunts with the absolute minimum number of actual words. Then he went out to the paddock to look over the rest of his stock—two mares with spring foals and three more pregnant ones due later in the summer.

He was leaning on the fence railing watching the foals trotting around after their dams, fuzzy little brush tails twitching busily at flies, when Rueben came to join him.

“Doin’ real good,” he said.

Cade nodded. He’d been wondering why the sight wasn’t giving his spirits a boost the way it was supposed to.

“So,” said Rueben after a silence, “you got married, huh?”

Cade surprised himself with a hard little nugget of laughter, which he gulped back guiltily. “Yeah…I guess I did.”

“Pretty sudden.”

He didn’t try to stop the laugh this time. “You could say that.”

Rueben mulled that over. “Pretty girl,” he said after awhile, nodding his head in a thoughtful way.

Cade nodded, too. “Yeah…” and he changed the nod to a wondering little shake “…she is that.”

“Seems nice,” said Rueben. He stared hard at the toes of his boots, then kicked at the dirt a couple of times, and finally turned to offer Cade his hand. “Congratulations.”

They shook, and Rueben gave his shoulder a hitch. “I’m gonna go get those suitcases now.” He walked rapidly away in the bowlegged, rump-sprung way older men do when they’ve spent a good part of their lives sitting on the back of a horse.

Cade thought about going to help him, but for some reason didn’t. He stayed where he was, leaning on the fence, watching the foals cavort in the sunshine, smelling the familiar smells of grass and straw and horse manure, feeling the humidity settle around him like a favorite old shirt. This was his world. It was where he belonged. It was good to be home. Home…

And then he thought, What in heaven’s name have I done?

Having suffered through the pain of his parents’ divorce at an age when his own adolescent struggles were just getting underway, he’d come to believe with all his heart and soul that if two people got married it ought to be forever. It was why he’d never been tempted to try it himself—he just didn’t think he had it in him to make that kind of commitment. And here he was, not only had he gone and committed himself, but to a girl ten years younger, from the other side of the world, with whom he had nothing in common with, and barely knew!

He patted his shirt pocket, looking for the comfort of a cheroot, which Betsy wouldn’t let him smoke in the house. Then, remembering they were still packed away in a suitcase, he gazed up into the milky haze and sighed.

It wouldn’t have been so bad, he thought, but…well, it was what Rueben had said. Leila was a very pretty girl—downright beautiful, actually—but more than that, yes, she was nice. Sure, she was a princess, and spoiled and pampered and very, very young. But she had a bright and buoyant spirit. And he’d come to realize, even in the short time he’d known her, that she also had a kind and loving heart. She deserved someone who would love her back, someone who would make her happy. As he was certain he never would.

His chest swelled and tightened, suddenly, with that familiar surge of protective tenderness, and he brought his closed fist down hard on the fence railing. Dammit, he thought, I can’t do this to her. I can’t.

At the time, he remembered, it had seemed to him he’d had no choice. Converting…marrying Leila…it had looked like the only reasonable course of action open to him. But that had been back there, in The Arabian Nights world of Tamir. Here, with the green grass of Texas under his boots, he knew it was impossible. Not so much the conversion—he’d never had any particular religious beliefs one way or another, so what difference did it make what label he carried? But marriage, now, that was different. Marriage involved somebody else, not just him. In this case, a nice, lovely girl. A princess. And a virgin princess, at that.

His fist tightened on the fence railing. Somehow or other, he was going to have to find a way out of this—for both their sakes. And in the meantime…well, the very least he could do, Cade figured, was see that the virgin princess came out of this marriage in the same condition as when she went in….

It was late—almost midnight—and Leila was growing more nervous and apprehensive by the minute. Surely, she told herself, Cade would come soon. He must be tired after such a long journey. Why did he not come to bed?

This was his bedchamber—bedroom—she must remember to call it that, now that she was to be an American. Betsy had told her so. “And yours, now, too,” the round, kind-faced woman had said, and had given Leila’s hand a happy squeeze.

Betsy’s husband, Rueben, had brought her suitcases here along with Cade’s, and then Betsy had helped her with the unpacking until it was time for her to go and prepare the evening meal. She had even rearranged things in the dresser drawers and spacious closets to make room for Leila’s things. So few things, really—she had left Tamir in such a hurry. The rest of her belongings would be packed into boxes and shipped to her later, though where she would find room for them all here was a mystery to her.

But would she even need so many things…so many beautiful clothes, hats, designer shoes…now that she was married to Cade Gallagher and living in Houston, Texas? She didn’t know. There were so many things she didn’t know.

It had all happened so fast. She had barely had time to say goodbye to her mother and sisters, to Salma, and Nargis. Thinking about them now, she felt a frightened, hollow feeling, and for one panicky moment was afraid she might begin to cry. She took several deep breaths and blinked hard until the feeling went away. I must not cry—what would Cade think?

Perhaps it was just that she was so tired. It seemed a lifetime since she had slept. Cade’s bed—big and wide and covered with a puffy comforter in masculine colors, a burgundy, blue-and-green paisley print—looked inviting. But Leila didn’t dare to lie down. She didn’t dare even sit. In fact, she had taken to pacing, not so much out of nervousness, although she definitely was, but because she was afraid if she stopped moving she would fall asleep. She had refused wine at dinner for the same reason—even the mild vintages at home made her sleepy.

Cade, she had noticed, drank strong black coffee with his meal, and afterward a small glassful of something the same golden brown color as his eyes. Bourbon, he said it was, when she asked. After that he had excused himself and gone into his study—to make some phone calls, he told her.

Betsy had shown her Cade’s study, on her tour of the house. To Leila it had seemed the most fascinating of rooms, full of photographs and books and all sorts of personal things that belonged to Cade. There had been a photograph of Cade with his mother and father, taken when Cade was very young, and Leila remembered that Kitty had told her that Cade’s mother and father were both dead. She had felt a warm little flash of sadness for the eager-looking golden-haired boy in the picture. There had been a blackand-white photograph of a bearded man dressed in overalls, standing amongst a forest of tall wooden oil derricks—Cade’s grandfather, Betsy had told her, and he had been a “wildcatter.” What was a wildcatter? Leila had longed to ask that question and so many others, to study the pictures and ask about them…to learn more about the stranger who was her husband.

But there had not been time, then. And after dinner Cade had gone into his study and Leila had dared not intrude.

Instead, she had gone alone to this, the bedroom they would share, to prepare herself for bed. And for her husband.

Butterflies. Oh yes, they were all over inside her, not just in her stomach, but everywhere under her skin. They had caught up with her in the bathroom she and Cade were to share, as she arranged her personal things, her bottles and jars of powders and scents, oils and lotions, her hair brushes, toothpaste and shampoo. There were two sinks, one of which, she assumed, was meant to be hers. The other, barely an arm’s length away, was Cade’s. And yes, there were his personal things, neatly arranged around it.

Daringly, unable to help herself, she picked up a bottle labeled Aftershave Lotion and sniffed it. So this is my husband’s scent, she thought. But it was not yet familiar to her. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine him there next to her, brushing his teeth, shaving, patting the spicy lotion onto his smooth, clean skin…and all the while the butterflies frolicked merrily.

She tried to relax away the butterflies in a warm bath scented with jasmine, but although the water made her limbs and muscles feel warm and limp and heavy, the hard fluttery knot in her belly remained. And there was something else—a new, squirmy, quivery feeling between her legs. When she put her hand there and pressed against the quivering, she felt her pulse in the soft places beneath her fingertips, a slow, heavy pace.

She thought, then, about what Salma had told her, that there might be pain the first time she made love with a man. She thought of the bottle of soothing oil her former nanny, with tears in her eyes, had pressed into her hands as she was helping her to pack. A cold little gust of homesickness and dread swept through her, taking away the butterflies and leaving a great hollow void in their place.

I must not be afraid. A woman’s first duty as a wife was to please her husband sexually. How could a man—how could Cade—find pleasure in sex if he knew that his wife was afraid? Clearly, there was only one thing to be done. I must think of some way to not be afraid.

And no sooner had she thought that, lying there in the water’s warm embrace, with the sweet scent of jasmine melting into her pores and seeping into her senses, then here came the memories…vivid, tactile memories…sweeping away all thoughts of Salma and pain and homesickness and fear.

Cade’s chest…a landscape of gentle hills and unexpected valleys her lips had explored like a greedy treasure hunter on the trail of lost gold…smooth, warm skin and a musky scent, unfamiliar but intoxicating as wine…the hard little buttons of his nipples…an intriguing texture of hair that tickled when she touched it with her nose….

The throbbing between her legs became heavier. She arched and squirmed sinuously as, under the water, her hands slid over her body, unconsciously following the same paths as the images in her mind. But, oh, what a difference there was between her own curves, and the hard planes and sculpted hollows of the male body she remembered…the body that invaded her thoughts, quickening her pulse and heating her cheeks at the most unexpected and inappropriate times. Cade’s body. And now, her husband’s.

My husband…will he desire me now? Now that I am his wife? Will he kiss me again the way he did that night on the terrace?

Her heart gave a sickening lurch, as though it were trying to turn upside down inside her chest. Trembling like someone just risen from a sickbed, Leila climbed out of the bathtub and wrapped herself in a thick, soft towel. She dried herself quickly, ignoring the shivers, then bravely tossed aside the towel and naked, faced her blurred reflection in the steam-fogged mirror. With her lips pursed in a thoughtful pout, she turned this way and that, trying to see herself from all angles. Yes…her breasts were full and yet still firm, with the nipples tightened now into hard, tawny buds…hips also full, but, she thought, not too wide…slender waist and firm, flat stomach…thighs wellmuscled—probably from horseback riding—and her buttocks, what she could see of them, round and smooth, and, she hoped, not too big.

Almost as an afterthought, with a defiant little flourish, she pulled out the combs and pins that held her hair high atop her head and let it tumble, thick and dark, down her back and over her shoulders. As she watched it her breathing quickened. Her lips parted and a rosy flush spread across her cheeks. The eyes that looked back at her in the mirror seemed to kindle and glow, as if from a fire somewhere in their depths.

He kissed me. He desired me then, I know he did.

Confidence welled up in her like a fountain, and her thirsty soul found it more intoxicating, more erotic than wine. He desired me once, and I will make him desire me again.

Buoyed on a magic carpet of restored self-confidence and new resolve, Leila brushed her teeth and her hair and rubbed her skin with scented oil until it felt soft and smooth as silk. She put on a modest but alluring gown in a soft, shimmery blue-green—the color of the water in a shallow cove near the palace where she and her sisters liked to swim and sunbathe. Somewhere along the line she noticed that the butterflies had come back, although now it did not seem at all an unpleasant sensation.

I am ready, she thought as she paced nervously, glancing from time to time at the clock on Cade’s bedside table. Ready for my husband…

It was half past midnight when she heard the creak and scuffle of footsteps outside Cade’s bedroom door. Her heart skittered and bolted like the squirrel she had seen that afternoon in the lane as she watched the doorknob slowly turn and the door swish inward, silent and stealthy as a thief in the night, to frame the tall, imposing figure of her husband.

For a moment he hesitated, looking as if he wasn’t sure whether he’d got the right room. Then he stepped through the doorway and carefully closed the door behind him. All the while his eyes never left her face, and they reflected the glow of the lamps she’d turned on low beside the bed so that they seemed to catch fire and flare hot as he looked at her.

Her stomach gave a lurch as the magic carpet of confidence she’d been riding on went into a steep crash dive.

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