Page 48 of Romanced By the Orc

This comment coaxed a smile. “I cannot argue with your logic.”

“Let us not argue at all. There are better options.”

A low growl emitted from the back of his throat, and he leaned in for yet another kiss. All practical thoughts fled her mind as they indulged once more in their deep longing for one another.

Daisy nestled in his embrace, his arm protecting her delicate shoulders. Unwilling to disturb her, he gazed at her serene brow and then the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, hair spilling carelessly around her face. Fierce as a lion and yet, in repose, vulnerable as a lamb.

He could have spent the morning happily watching Daisy sleep but felt suddenly uncomfortable with the thought, imagining how she would react should she wake unexpectedly and catch him staring at her like a man driven mad by lust and love.

Come to think of it, driven mad wasn’t so far from the truth of his current state. Whenever he looked at her, his heart caught in his throat. He would do anything for her. He was lost.

Albion had embraced every aspect of London Society, including the company of ladies raised in similar spheres of influence as Diana, the daughter of a peer. Once their husbands had passed, Society granted them greater freedoms. In these interactions, Albion was the very picture of discretion. Understanding the ladies’ wishes, he had never allowed for anything more than a satisfying physical connection. They did not linger long in bed afterward. Did not stare deeply into one another’s eyes. This situation suited the women and Albion alike, for he could devote his full attention to his work in Chamberly.

Until Daisy.

He ran his fingers through her hair, inhaling its entrancing apricot fragrance. How had her parents ever found the hubris to send her across an ocean on her own? And now, to allow her sister to face the dangers in Chamberly? Albion despised their callousness with a passion he could not express to Daisy. It did no one any good to loathe their flesh and blood. But he longed to call her father out on a field of honor for his heartlessness.

He needed to control the fury building inside of him for what they had done to Daisy. Had he not curbed his anger with his parents for being discarded at a school he hated?

During that terrible time, he cried himself to sleep under the thin and sterile sheet provided to him, enduring the taunts from boys in neighboring bunks. How was it possible to live in these crowded barracks yet feel so miserably alone? Over the course of the first week, Albion penned nightly missives pleading to come home, petitions his parents studiously ignored.

After that, he could never quite make things right with his father. He may have grown out of that awkward stage that provoked his bullies, but the sting of those memories tormented him still.

And then the first Duke of Barrington passed from this earth. He was determined to have an amicable relationship with his mother, who had, on more than one occasion, apologized for the miseries of his childhood. Yet that experience had shaped him. He could never ignore a tormentor like the Duke of Rostin.

He gazed at his wife’s lovely face. After a night of such passion, a woman deserved her rest. He kissed the pillow near where Daisy’s hand rested so as not to startle her awake before delicately extracting himself from the bed.

Content with half-dress for the morning, he headed to his set of apartments, running into Mrs. Waverly in the hall, the keys on her chatelaine jangling. He quietly requested the kitchen staff delay the breakfast tray for another hour while Daisy slept.

Then Albion unlocked his study and spent a few minutes staring at the maps on the wall, to assist in planning travel between England and the continent.

In his private sanctuary, his thoughts still returned to Daisy. Somehow, over the past weeks, Albion had grown jealous of the persona he had created. The Benevolent Phantom. He liked to think she heldhim, her wedded husband, in the highest regard.That devotion and passion fulfilled her far more than any ghost might.

He yearned to bear his soul to her, to share his most intimate secret. He was the Phantom. And it terrified him. Would he be discovered? Worse, would Rostin’s mercenaries capture one of the Langleys while they were within the city’s gates? What comfort he would have found in Daisy’s arm.

Still, he had not told her. Albion couldn’t determine why not. And he wasn’t clear at all on how to handle that particular situation. Edward Langley was due to make the next trip. Could he ask Edward to take on the additional danger of checking on Diana’s sister? When Lillian Stewart was in Chamberly willingly and thus likely not disposed to leave? Nor was Jacques, for that matter, but then his family had attracted the Duke of Rostin's ire, and Lillian had not.

Before taking a seat behind his cherrywood desk, Albion's attention wandered to the charcoal sticks and oil paints he kept in a kit on his shelf. He had set up an easel with a blank canvas in one corner of the room, with a basket of cloths he used to protect the floors and walls, ready for when the muse prompted him to paint. On reflection, he couldn’t remember the last time he had started a sketch, let alone a proper painting.

Now, he wanted only to capture the image foremost in his mind. Daisy.

Albion assessed the equipment he had at his disposal and decided on a half-portrait in oil. He would start with a simple drawing he might then transpose to the canvas. Eventually, he would present it to his wife as a gift.Perhaps the distraction would lead him to the right decision when it came to Lillian Stewart and his next mission in Chamberly.

He set to work.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Later in the day, Albion left Diana to her reading and correspondence and donned his top hat to make his usual rounds for the afternoon.

As the son their father had meant to represent the Hidden Realm, Dunc kept to a strict schedule of hours at their gentlemen’s club on St. James, though he had disclosed he found them a trial. Unlike Albion, Duncan thrived alone in his study.

Albion found such cloisters maddeningly lonely after a spell. His acceptance into London Society—by way of high fashion, good humor, and the ability to take absolutely nothing with quite the seriousness it should merit—made him popular. And there was much to be said for popularity. The denizens of London found Albie Higgins a boon companion, unhindered by depth of thought. Thus, in his own way, he smoothed relations between the Hidden Realm and England, even as the weightier matters of trade and such fell squarely under his elder brother’s purview.

So Albion sometimes spent time at the club on St. James without Dunc, looking approachable and glancing at the broadsheets with far less interest than he took in the club’s chestnut soup and dry Riesling. It all rendered him damned decorative: a fixture of the club no more significant than the plaster of Paris pendants on the domed ceiling or the green baize tabletops in the gaming room. But he persisted.

“Lord Albion!” a jovial voice called, disrupting his thoughts. “What an unexpected pleasure.”

Albion looked up to find the Prince Regent standing before him. At the club, His Royal Highness wished for the same treatment as any other member, free from the fuss and bother of court.

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