Commander's Little Surprise

“And now?” He stroked the sides of her face with gentle hands. “Is it still your favorite place to hide?”

“Not since I grew up,” she said, “but it is as long as you’re here with me.” She raised her lips for his kiss.

Her phantom lover murmured his pleasure at her answer. Grasping her around the waist, he drew her to a cushioned corner of the gazebo. He ran his hands over her shoulders, her swollen breasts that ached for his lips. And slowly, sensuously down her hips to the place that cried out for his touch. She couldn’t get enough of him, couldn’t wait to belong to him.

“Love me,” she said impulsively, not recognizing herself. She felt alive, wanton and needy for him. Her hands plucked at his shirt until he drew it over his shoulders and, chest bare, pulled her into his arms again. She tongued his nipples as he had tongued hers and found his bare skin salty to the taste. Flames ran through her as her desire to become his grew. “Love me as if you mean it,” she whispered.

“I do,” he said into her lips, his voice shaking with desire. “So help us both, moon sprite, I do.”

“My turn,” he finally said and drew her robe and nightgown all the way off her shoulders. She stepped out of the garments and he tossed them onto a bench, held her away from him for a moment, then smiled. “You’re even lovelier than I thought you would be.”

In a few heated moments her phantom became everything she had wished for, dreamed of and had despaired of ever finding, Victoria thought dimly as she lost herself in a storm of passion. Skin to skin, lips to lips, he drew her deeper and deeper into a fantasy world that knew no end of desire. She forgot everything but the man who was making all of her yearnings come true.

“I love you,” she heard herself whisper when her release began to ebb, leaving her floating in a warm sea of sensations. “I will love you forever,” she whispered into his closed eyes.

Too late, she realized her phantom lover had drifted off to sleep. She smiled sadly as she realized he hadn’t heard a word she’d said. She shouldn’t complain, she told herself. After all, he’d taken her into a place every woman dreamed of. A place she’d longed to be in without knowing why.

And now she knew.

She moved closer into his warmth and closed her eyes. The return to reality would inevitably come with the dawn, but the night belonged to her.

CUDDLED UNDER the blankets in her room in the palace’s guest wing later that day, Victoria opened her eyes when she heard her name. The lasting sweet sensations of last night’s stolen hours still lingered. A new tender sensation between her thighs reminded her of last night’s passionate embraces.

“Time to get up, my dear.” Lydia Monsour, Victoria’s long-time elderly friend and companion, glanced at the small gold watch pinned to her blouse. “It is well past noon.”

“Not now, please,” Victoria murmured, reluctant to let go of a dream that had come true.

“Now,” Lydia said firmly. “Today is a very important day. The wedding rehearsal for your cousin’s wedding is to take place this afternoon.”

Victoria smiled dreamily. The romantic wedding ambience of her cousin’s marriage had been part of the reason for her restlessness last night. A restlessness she wouldn’t have been able to explain before, not even to herself. But now she knew it had been the desire of a woman to be held in the arms of a man who loved her back. Last night had turned into the most wonderful night of her life.

She glanced over at Lydia. If there were anyone she could tell of meeting her phantom lover last night without hearing recriminations, Lydia was the one.

“I met someone late last night,” she began dreamily. “Out in the palace gardens.”

Lydia froze. “Alone? At night? It isn’t done! If you wanted to go out to get some fresh air, you should have called me. I would have gone with you.”

“Yes, alone.” Victoria stretched and turned over on her back. “He was wonderful.”

“Obviously.” Lydia glanced uneasily at her charge’s glowing face. “Who was he?”

“An American. Probably one of the groomsmen over here for May’s wedding.”

Lydia relaxed. “Good. Then we don’t have to worry about your meeting him again once the wedding is over. He will undoubtedly return home.”

“I have to find him, Lydia,” Victoria said. She threw back the covers. “First, I’m going to take a shower.” Dream or not, real or not, and no matter what Lydia might think of her, Victoria had to find her phantom. “I have to know if last night was a dream or real.”

Lydia tightened her lips. “I don’t understand what drove you to do such an outrageous thing, my dear; certainly not after your convent upbringing. Did you stop to think of possible consequences?”

Victoria shook her head.

“I thought not,” Lydia sighed. “Your mother has told me that your own wedding will be announced soon.”

Victoria smiled. “Not when I tell her I have found the man I love.”

“You said it was in the middle of the night. How will you be able to recognize the man in daylight?”

“I’ll know him from the sound of his voice,” Victoria said as she headed for the shower. “He has an American accent, the same as Cousin May’s bridegroom. He must be here as a member of the groom’s party. That should make it easy to find him.”

Lydia sniffed and hung up the dress Victoria had worn last night. “Easier said than done, my dear. Americans all sound alike to me. From what I hear, the groom has invited six of his fellow naval officers to serve as groomsmen. With the men in uniform, how will you be able to tell one from another?”

With her phantom’s face in her mind’s eye, his low, melodious voice still sounding in her ear, Victoria blew Lydia a kiss. “I’m sure I will be able to find him.”

Lydia smiled sadly and watched Victoria disappear into the bathroom. First as Victoria’s childhood nanny, and now her close companion, she understood her charge all too well. Young blood, a royal wedding and a romantic, uniformed hero were a potent combination not easily cooled by a convent upbringing and the prospect of an arranged marriage. Victoria was no different than other young women of her age.

As she looked under the bed for Victoria’s shoes, Lydia mulled over the coming wedding. May, Victoria’s royal cousin, had managed to escape the stringent customs of the royal family as practiced in the twenty-first century, but there was a difference. This was to be May’s second wedding, her first, an arranged marriage, having ended with her husband’s untimely death.

As a member of the extended Baron family, Lydia knew that no matter how Victoria felt about the archaic custom, her charge’s marriage, like May’s first, would be determined by her father.

She muttered her dismay at what might happen if Victoria did somehow manage to find the man she’d encountered in the palace gardens last night. The only peaceful thought she had was in knowing that whoever the man had been, he would be gone forever in a matter of hours.

When Victoria returned, they were interrupted by a knock on the door. “Excuse me, ma’am,” a palace footman said politely, “I have a message for Miss Esterhazy.”

Victoria caught her breath. Was it possible her phantom lover had found her before she had a chance to find him? Her heart raced as she took the envelope Lydia handed her and tore it open. Seconds later, her face whitened.

“Something is wrong?” Lydia dropped Victoria’s slipper on the bed and hurried to her side. “Have you had bad news?”

“My father wishes to see me. At once,” Victoria murmured as she dropped the message to the floor. She glanced at her watch. “With the rehearsal only hours away, what could Papa possibly want that is so important?”

“Oh, dear! You don’t suppose he knows about last night, do you?” Lydia shuddered. “I blame myself. It would never have happened if I had kept a closer watch over you.”

Victoria patted Lydia’s ample shoulder. “I’m a grown woman now, Lydia. Papa couldn’t possibly know about last night. I’ll tell you what Papa wants when I come back.”

Victoria squared her shoulders and made her way to a suite set aside for wedding guests. In spite of what she’d told Lydia, her thoughts were uneasy as she knocked on the door. “Papa? You wished to see me?”

Basil Esterhazy, tall and stately, with the famous Baron cleft in his chin, smiled down at her. “Come in. Come in and sit down, my dear. Your mother and I have good news to share with you.”

Victoria dutifully kissed her silent mother’s cheek and took a seat on the velvet upholstered couch beside her. “Good news?”

“Yes.” Her father beamed at her and cleared his throat. “Weddings seem to bring out the romantic nature of people, do they not?”

Smiling, Victoria agreed as her thoughts flew to her mystery man and the precious hours they had spent together. “Yes, Papa, I suppose they do.”

“With May getting married to her American suitor, it appears you are going to be the next bride in the family,” he said as he gazed fondly at his only child.

“I am?” A cold premonition passed over Victoria’s shoulders. Her worst fears seemed about to be realized as her mother took her hand and squeezed it gently.

“Yes, my dear. Because you are our only child, I’ve put off arranging your marriage until now. However, you are now twenty-three. Accordingly, I have accepted Rolande Bernard’s suit for your hand in marriage.” He paused to let the announcement sink in. “You will no doubt be happy to know he wishes the marriage to take place as soon as arrangements can be made.”