-CHAPTER 15-
✯The next Day
Lily-soft hands kissed the side of his neck with a firm yet gentle touch. They glided down his Adam's apple, feathering lightly over the gentle scoop of a curve at the tail of his neck and between his tough collarbones. The Duke shifted in his sleep. Rolling against his taut back muscles, he turned over onto his side — facing away from her.
His mistake.
Coralie's hands returned, planting a velvet touch against his bare skin as she artfully traced a full circle from the centre of his spine outward across the breadth of his back. Félix couldn't keep from moaning slightly when she did that. His knees pushed up almost to meet his heart as he shifted into a more fetal position.
A faint smile caught at the corners of her lips, and Coralie let her hand stray — slipping under his arm, teasing over his ribs, until she needily squeezed at his ripped abs.
By the time she began scrawling a quick descent lower, down his midriff and belly button, and further still, Félix jolted awake, seizing her hand in a sharp grip.
"What are you trying to do?" he growled at Coralie, who smiled back at him. "Who let you in here?"
That sly butler of his.
Félix cursed under his breath and sprang to his feet. Ignoring the girl on his bed, he strode toward the vanity at the far end of the room, pulling on a robe. Not that it did him much good. The fabric draped down to his knees, over his burgundy pants, but that was about it. No buttons. No fasteners. The princess could still enjoy the view of his exposed torso against his best efforts.
"Why are you here?" Félix asked, his arms slowly folding across his massive chest.
Coralie scoffed. Rising from the bed herself, she patted her dome-styled hair as if to make sure she hadn't made it into a mess.
It's perfectly fine, Félix noted with a scoff. No use getting overly dramatic for something that never happened.
"Duke Félix of Chateaûbriant—" Princess Coralie pouted her lips — "you are a boring man. Did anyone never tell you that?"
"That doesn't answer my question," Félix said, keeping a straight face.
Acting like she hadn't heard him loud and clear, the princess sashayed herself to the double glass doors Eastway of the vast bedroom, the kind of doors divided down the middle with long, slender muntins that framed the panes like delicate bones.
She clutched both handles and pulled them inward toward herself with all her might. Both doors were heavy, and Félix, watching from behind, mentally applauded her efforts.
He followed a few measured paces after her, then stopped at an honourable distance. Far enough not to be directly harassed by the cold himself, close enough to catch the faint rose-colored tint blooming across her cheeks.
"Princess," he said flatly, "will you state your purpose of visiting or not?"
Coralie gave her shoulders a slow shrug, a small hmph escaping her lips.
Félix, for his part, was not having it.
If she wasn't willing to talk, what precisely had compelled her to come all this way simply to startle him? Not that she had succeeded in doing so — no, certainly not. He just did not appreciate her habit of barging in on him unannounced. And this was hardly her first offense.
Turning away, he trudged towards his bedside table. On reaching it, he bent over and picked up his watch.
"Four-thirty," he muttered, loud enough for the Princess to hear. "Whatever possessed you to journey so far, so early, only to disturb me?"
"What do you mean by that? Do you not know how much I have missed looking at you after Lady Agatha's ball?" Coralie replied, her voice bright with mischief. "It was beautiful to watch you sleeping like a baby."
She happily squealed as she said it, totally pleased with herself.
She had slipped back into the room while he was occupied with putting the watch back down. She had also shut the doors against the ice-cutting cold outside.
"Does that surprise you?" she asked, catching him now that he had turned.
"What?"
"The part where I said I miss you."
It did not, Félix thought. Without a word, he sat back down heavily on his bed, elbows pointing outwards as he stationed both hands a little below his knees.
"What is this about?" he asked at last.
She delayed her answer, crossed the floor to where he was, and sat next to him.
"This is what it is about," Coralie said and entwined her fingers with his.
"You know, a little bird told me you visited my father's plot yesterday," Coralie began saying. "Could you not come also to see me before you left?"
"Is that your reason for being here?"
"Yes," she said, then shifted on the bed."Is it wrong? Is that not reason enough to visit the man I am betrothed to marry?"
"Intrusion is more like it," the Duke said. "I don't appreciate your visiting at oddly absurd hours. You should worry for your reputation also. Do you not know whose daughter you are?"
"Heavens, Love. Is this the perfect time to scold me? Are you not also happy to see me? Look how swollen my eyes got from staying up throughout my ride here. Sylvester is probably dozing off somewhere because he is equally tired."
Félix grimaced. What did her coach boy have to do with him?
"You should have to pamper me for coming all this way and being on the road for three long hours…"
After saying that, she reached for his hand in a heartbeat, guiding it from where it rested on his knee, and settled her head against his thigh—or at least, that was her aim. Félix stood up before she could make good on her attempt.
"Why do you keep avoiding me?"
Coralie scoffed in mild outrage, her head tilting just enough to watch him extract a bottle of scotch from the safe and glass to match.
"You should know better than to reduce your conduct — the Princess of England, no less — to that of some common service girl. If I wanted sex that badly, I could have as many women over to warm my bed."
"But we are engaged to be married. You are engaged to be married to me, not those other women. What difference does it make if we consummate now before the wedding night or after?"
Félix abandoned the glass and drank straight from the bottle without replying. He did not trust himself to say more.
"Fine. Pretend you can't hear me. Ignore me, then."
"For heaven's sake, Coralie—"
A sharp knock interrupted him.
"Come in," Félix said tersely.
"Your Grace, you seem rather pressed for a busy morning ahead. Someone important is here and asking to see you," came the butler's voice. "I let them in already. They are waiting downstairs as we speak."
Félix's jaw tightened. He was a breath away from rebuking Bach thoroughly, but by some mercy of self-restraint, he held back. Was it not enough that he had let Coralie in while he slept? Who was this other important person anyway? Had people forgotten what counted as widely acceptable hours for visits? And an unplanned one at that.
His chin jutted slightly, but he swallowed the growl rising in his throat. Coralie's accusatory eyes hadn't left him for one second. Her icy glare boring a clean hole through the side of his head. But Félix let her.
"Send them away," he said simply.
If it wasn't the King of England himself visiting at such an ungodly hour, he owed his presence to no one else.
Then, turning to Coralie, he bit back what he'd meant to say.
"What? Why are you looking at me for?" she said, catching on quickly. "You want to send me away too?"
"Your… Your Grace," Bach's voice came again, unrelenting.
Félix shot him lasers with his glare.
"I am afraid to say this, Your Grace," Bach went on, unprovoked. "But they may not be easy to dismiss as you say. Like I said before, they are an important guest."