Lakota Princess (31 page)

He smiled. “Were you not angry with me? Were you not denying me your favors?” he asked as he trailed his tongue lower and lower, down to her stomach. “What chance did I have against your wrath?”

She sighed and had she the strength, she would have answered him. His tongue, however, was working magic over her flat stomach, the touch of his fingers there against the inside of her legs an intoxication she could not resist.

“You are mine, Waste Ho,” he said. “You belong to me and I to you. Say it to me, Waste Ho. Let me hear it from your lips.”

She whimpered; it was her only response.

“Say it.”

“I…” She twisted her head.

And then he slid down farther, the touch of his tongue finding that hidden place between her legs.

“Black Bear!”

“Tell me you are mine,” he insisted, pushing her legs back into place when she would have closed them.

“Black Bear, I…”

He brought his tongue more fully upon her there, and Estrela’s conscious thought ceased, replaced by raw feeling. Estrela could no more have thought logically than she could have stopped the sweet sensation.

It went on and on. He gave to her over and over, and Estrela, though she knew what he did was most likely indecent, her own reactions unthinkable, she had never experienced anything like this. These were heady sensations sweeping through her body, and she had no will to deny herself.

The pleasure built and built until Estrela, instead of doing what would have been most femininely proper, opened her legs more fully toward him, her response a sweet surrender.

She moved to fit him. She couldn’t help herself. It came as natural to her as talking. And just when the pleasure built so that she wanted it more fully, he removed the presence of his tongue.

“Say it,” he said, gazing up at her. And as she shuddered, he repeated, “Tell me.”

“Black Bear, I…”

He lay a finger on her there. “Say it.”

She gulped. “Yes, Black Bear,” she whispered, “I belong to you.”

And Black Bear, not even smiling, returned his attentions to her, where, only a moment later, he brought her once more to the brink of release; keeping her there, keeping her there until, just when she thought she couldn’t take it, he tipped his touch within her and she fell over the edge, glorious sensation washing over her not just once, but again and again.

While her body rocked in pleasure, Estrela seemed to float, until Black Bear, rising above her, pushed himself inside her.

He gazed down at her as he leaned over her, and she returned the look.

Their eyes met and held, his body straining against hers and she twisting underneath his.

He smiled at her as they moved against one another, the pleasure between them building into a roaring crescendo in her ears, blocking out all sound, eliminating all thought and she tried to smile at him, but she couldn’t.

It felt too good.

She groaned, she screamed, she gyrated.

Black Bear strained, his gaze never leaving her.

As they struggled, their movements became as one, their gyrations in unison, and amid all the whirl she thought she could feel his pleasure growing; it was as though it were her own. She heard him groan and then she felt it, the power of his release within her, and with one final twist of her hips she followed him, her own enjoyment so intense, she thought she could never have such pleasure again.

A silly conjecture on her part, she was to learn, for he proved her wrong within an hour.

They didn’t sleep. They played with one another. They kissed. They laughed. They loved, exhausting one another until at last, both of them spent, they drifted off into a peaceful sleep.

Neither of them appeared at dinner that evening; neither one was greatly missed.

And somewhere in the middle of the night, Black Bear aroused her to start the lovemaking all over again, until at last, toward early morning, they slept, the two of them entwined together, so close in body and in spirit, Estrela knew his thoughts as easily as she knew her own.

She smiled, then, a self-satisfied smile of one who knows she is truly loved.

For she had learned something from the sudden insight.

Something of great value.

Black Bear loved her, not just loved her; Black Bear stood devoted to her. And just as she belonged to him, he was now a part of her.

He belonged to her.

It was a heady awareness.

She tiptoed down the stairs, the flickering of her shadow along the wall causing her more fright than comfort.

It was early morning, the time just before dawn, and Estrela had left Black Bear still asleep in her bed upstairs.

She had to know. She remembered now the sensation she’d felt upon seeing this house, coming into the house and then, in the drawing room—the picture.

She had to know it. She had to see it.

If it was what she thought it was… No, she dared not consider it.

It was an odd sensation to come here again after what seemed a lifetime away. It was as though the house, perhaps this very location, stirred up old memories. Memories she’d not realized she’d had until now; a part of her life that had been lost to her…until she’d seen it…the picture, hanging on the wall, the curtain before it.

It hadn’t occurred to her at first. She’d almost thought nothing of it. Except an idea of it kept coming back to haunt her again and again, ideas of what lay behind that curtain and a knowledge of just whose picture it was.

She had to know it and she needed to see it now.

Their visit here was not an extended one. Soon their party would return to the Colchester estate. Soon she would become again part of the Colchester family. But tonight, or rather this morning, she would discover the truth.

And if she were right, she would… She didn’t know. It didn’t bear thinking about.

She paced farther and farther down the stairs, drawing closer and closer to the room, the drawing room, until at last she stood at the bottom of the stairs.

She had no light to guide her, the candle in her hand remaining unlit. No, she found the room from memory alone, her white nightgown floating out behind her as she passed silently forward.

She drifted through the sitting room now, ignoring the ghostly shadows that seemed to leap to life in every corner, sweep in behind every curtain. On she went, until she reached it, the drawing room.

She hesitated at the door, she sighed.

She opened the door.

It creaked.

She stopped and glanced around her, her breath coming in tiny gasps.

She pulled on the door again; it squeaked, it moaned, yet it opened enough to admit her.

She gulped, staring at the opening to the room in fascination, never remembering being more frightened.

She passed into the room, slowly, as soundlessly as her slippers would allow, their soles barely whispering over the hardwood floors and Chinese rug, as though to reinforce her ghostly appearance.

There it was. On the wall. The picture. The picture behind the red curtain. The one she’d seen earlier tonight.

She reached out a hand toward it.

She pulled back.

If it were true, what she thought was there, it would forever change her life.

She gasped, the fingers that she held over her mouth masking the sound.

She reached out again and, breathing deeply, snatched the curtain back.

She didn’t faint. Life didn’t suddenly stop. In truth, she could hardly see the picture; it was too dark. And she squinted toward it until she remembered that she grasped a candle in her hand.

She looked at the candle, glanced at the picture, back at the candle.

Finally, drawing a deep breath, she moved to the fireplace where, reaching out, she lit the candle’s wick from a dying ember.

Then slowly she stepped back toward the picture.

She lifted the candle. She gulped.

The windows suddenly flew open, a breeze rushing in, the candle snuffed out by it and as Estrela glanced toward the window, her hand flew to her mouth.

There, by the window, silhouetted against the moonlight had been a figure, quickly gone now; a figure of a woman, a woman with something in her hand. A knife.

Estrela stifled the scream in her throat and spinning back around she came face to face with, stared straight into the eyes of…

She screamed.

Chapter Twenty

Black Bear awakened to the sound.

He felt beside him. She was gone.

Black Bear shot up and was out of the room, leaping down the stairs, his breechcloth tied haphazardly around him, his bow in his hand, his quiver on his back before even a minute elapsed.

He tore through the house. Where was she? What was she doing alone? And why hadn’t he awakened when she’d left their bed?

He cursed himself a thousand times, an English habit he’d acquired, as he fled through the house. He’d been too exhausted, too spent.

Damn!
He’d been taught all his life to sleep lightly, to anticipate trouble. He’d had protecting others trained into him from the time he could walk.

And for what good?

When he’d needed all that training most, he’d slept right through danger.

He shot through the house, checking each room, despairing.

Where was she?

“Your Royal ’ighness.”

Estrela stared straight up into the eyes of the housekeeper.

“Mrs. Gottman?”

“It ’as been a long time since me eyes ’ave be’eld ye, child,” the older lady stated.

“Yes,” Estrela said, holding up the candle which she had relit to see the woman better. “I remember you now. I had thought you looked familiar when we first arrived here.” Estrela’s gaze trailed down from the woman’s face to the knife the older lady still held in her hand.

“Oh, forgive me, Your ’ighness.” Mrs. Gottman lay the knife aside on a nearby table. “There ’as been trouble ’ere this past mont’ and I am nervous in this ’ousehold. ’As been a rash of murders, M’lady, and ye did but frighten me.”

“Murders?”

“Yes, Your Royal ’ighness,” the housekeeper said. “It would seem all t’ servants from t’ old Earl’s ’ousehold are in danger. I be t’ last one now who still lives.”

Estrela stared at the older lady, whose younger image even now kept flashing into her mind. “Then you must have a care,” she said, reaching out to touch the older lady’s hand.

Estrela’s gaze flicked to the painting.

“It was so long ago, it seems,” Mrs. Gottman said, herself staring at the painting. “My, but ye were a pretty child. ’Tis you w’ yer grandfather,” she said and smiled, still gazing at the painting. “T’ King.”

“The King?”

Mrs. Gottman nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Prince Regent, King George the Fourth, God rest ’is soul. ’E ’as been gone from us now seven years.”

“He has? He was… Then that means I am…”

“Princess. Yes, Your Royal ’ighness. Did ye not know it?”

Estrela glanced over to the picture, a painting of a man, portly in his older age, and a young, blond-headed girl. Both smiled serenely, their images imbued with life and color there forever, the older gentleman wearing a jeweled crown and the long, red train denoting his station, the young child dressed in white gown and smiling happily toward the painter.

“I cried and cried t’ night ye left us. Ye ’ad been w’ us since ye were a babe and I remember feelin’ as though me own child was leavin’.”

Estrela glanced again at the picture, then back to the housekeeper. “Mrs. Gottman,” she said, “tell me. Do you remember my parents?”

The older lady smiled. “I remember yer mother well,” she said. “I was then servant in t’ Royal ’ousehold. Princess Charlotte. Stubborn, willful, beautiful. She caught and ’eld t’ eye of Prince Leopold.”

“My father?”

Mrs. Gottman smiled. “Yes. Theirs was a love affair. A true love affair, not one of t’ose arranged things.”

Estrela smiled. “What happened?”

“She died giving birth. It was a boy, a dead baby boy at birth a’ all of England mourned at ’is loss. But then all of England thought that was t’ only child she bore t’at night. No one knew about ye, about a twin. No one knew about ye because—”

The wind howled in through the open window as though in warning. It faded the older woman’s words away and caught Estrela’s attention.

Estrela looked away, then back to the older lady. “Because?” she prompted.

“Because yer grandfather feared fer yer life if it were known ye existed.”

“Why?”

An image of a man flickered across the window, his shadow clear in the early morning dawn.

Both Mrs. Gottman and Estrela gasped.

“Who was that?” It was Estrela who spoke. Mrs. Gottman turned wide eyes to Estrela. “It canna be.”

“Mrs. Gottman!”

“Sir Connie.”

Estrela spun around. No one was there. “Sir Connie?” Estrela asked quickly. “Mrs. Gottman, who is Sir Connie? Was he here?”

“It does na matter. It canna be. Come, Your ’ighness. ’Tis danger ’ere in this ’ouse, in this room.”

She didn’t say anymore, nor did she remain in the room longer than necessary to cover the painting, returning it to its anonymity behind the red curtain.

She ushered Estrela out of the room, and they had no more than entered the sitting room when Estrela turned back toward the housekeeper. “Mrs. Gottman, do you know Sir Connie?”

“Yes, I—”

A window broke.

Someone threw a burning rushlight through the window.

Another window broke behind them.

Another flaming rushlight shot across the floor, a wooden floor in a room filled with wooden furniture.

It happened quickly then. The room went up in a blaze. The walls, the floors, even the furniture itself, all wood set to fire as though these things were mere kindling.

Estrela grabbed Mrs. Gottman, who stood frozen and fixed, and threw herself and the older woman to the floor.

“Stay low,” Estrela ordered. “You must not breathe the smoke. We will crawl out.”

“’Tis murder,” Mrs. Gottman cried. “I was t’ last of t’ ’ousehold. A’ now…”

“Nothing is going to happen to you,” Estrela said, as though by her will it would not happen. “We will survive. Now crawl with me.”