Читать книгу Royal Christmas: Royal Love-Child, Forbidden Marriage - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 11

‘WHAT?’ Leo looked up from the mail he’d been rifling through, his brows drawn sharply together in a frown. His top aide, Piers Handsel, gave a nod of confirmation.

‘I thought you’d like to know. The king summoned the boy ten minutes ago.’

‘But they’ve just arrived,’ Leo said, his voice no more than a growl. Had the king no tact, no sensibility? Running roughshod over Phoebe was not the way to gain her trust.

‘Just the boy,’ Piers clarified. ‘Not …’ he paused delicately ‘ … the mother.’

Leo dropped the letter he’d been holding and glared at his aide. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked, his voice menacingly soft.

Piers shrugged in apology. ‘The king has no wish to see her, apparently. He refused her entrance into the throne room.’

‘She would have resisted—’

Piers coughed. ‘I believe Lars escorted her to the blue salon.’

‘Lars!’ Leo repeated in disgust. Lars was little more than a thug, paid to do Nicholas’s dirty work. And when Piers said escorted, Leo had no doubt he really meant forced. So, only minutes after arriving at the palace, Phoebe was being treated like an unwanted prisoner, and her son was alone with the king. A stranger.

Rage, white-hot and electric, coursed through Leo. For a moment a memory of his own mother’s treatment blazed through him. Just like Phoebe, she’d been shunted from the palace and her son’s life because she’d been surplus to requirements. He felt sick at what Phoebe had to endure. What he had allowed her to endure.

‘I will speak to the king,’ he said shortly and, tossing the rest of his mail aside, he strode from the room. Rage fuelled him as he navigated the palace’s many corridors before arriving at the throne room. He paused at the doors, for if Christian was still with the king he had no desire to frighten the boy. All was silent from within. Leo threw open the doors and strode in.

Nicholas sat on the throne, a small, grey-haired man, diminished by age, wearing his usual three-piece suit, his thin, liver-spotted hands folded over his middle.

Leo didn’t bother with the preliminaries; he was too angry. ‘What were you thinking,’ he demanded tersely, ‘to separate Phoebe from her child practically the moment they arrived?’

Nicholas regarded his nephew shrewdly. ‘Phoebe, is it? I told you not to bring her.’

‘I had no choice,’ Leo replied, his voice curt despite the anger that still coursed through him. He curled his hand into a fist at his side, resisting the urge to plough it straight into the king’s sagging belly. ‘She wouldn’t be bought.’

‘Everyone can be bought.’

Leo pressed his lips together. ‘Phoebe is utterly dedicated to her son. I’ve seen it myself.’ He paused. ‘Before I went to New York, I didn’t realise quite how much.’ He’d gone to New York anticipating a flighty, careless woman … the kind of woman who had married a man she’d known for little more than a week, and separated from a month later. Yet Phoebe hadn’t been that woman. She’d changed, he realised, changed and grown, and he felt a surprising flash of both pride and admiration at the thought.

Nicholas shrugged. ‘No matter. I’m sure we can find a way to dispose of her.’

Dispose of her. Like rubbish, Leo thought, just as Phoebe had feared. Twenty-four hours ago such a statement would have caused barely a ripple of unease; Phoebe had just been an inconvenience to deal with. Yet now his uncle’s callousness infuriated him. Enraged him, touching and hurting him in a deep place inside he couldn’t bear to think about. ‘Your sensitivity astonishes me,’ he said in a clipped voice that belied the emotion coursing through him in an unrelenting river, ‘but she has a legal right to her son—’

‘As did your mother,’ Nicholas replied with a glimmer of a smile. ‘Yet she saw fit to step aside.’

Leo struggled to speak calmly; the mention of his mother caused that river of emotion flowing through him to become a torrent, an unstoppable tide. For a moment he was that boy again, standing at the window, struggling not to cry, yet wanting desperately to shout out, to beg her to come back or at least turn around. She never had.

Mio Dio, did he see himself in Christian? His mother in Phoebe? How could he have ever considered separating them for a moment?

Yet he hadn’t, Leo realised. From the moment he’d entered the salon at the consulate and seen Phoebe standing there, so proud and afraid, so much the same as he remembered with her wide grey eyes, as clear as mirrors, and her dark, curly hair, irrepressible and wild … his plans to buy her off had disappeared. Evaporated, like so much meaningless mist. He would never separate a mother from her child … yet what could he do with her now? What life could she have in Amarnes? Or would the king tire of the boy as Phoebe hoped?

‘What do you intend,’ he asked now, trying to sound unconcerned, ‘with the boy?’

Nicholas shrugged. ‘I like him,’ he said, his tone that of a child with a new toy. ‘He has courage. He was obviously afraid when he entered the throne room, but he didn’t succumb to tears. He threw back his shoulders and greeted me like a man.’ Nicholas paused, and Leo turned around to see the king give him a sly, sideways smile. ‘He will make a good king.’

For a moment all Leo could do was stare blankly at the king as his words echoed through him. ‘He will make a good king … a good king … a good king …’ ‘What,’ he finally asked with soft menace, ‘do you mean?’

Nicholas chuckled. ‘You didn’t realise, did you? Why do you think I sent for the boy?’ Nicholas’s mouth twisted cynically. ‘To play happy families?’

Leo didn’t trust himself to answer. Suddenly he realised how ridiculously sentimental, how glaringly false Nicholas’s desire to see his grandson was. Of course he had an ulterior motive … but king?

‘Anders abdicated,’ Leo finally said in a low voice. ‘You can’t undo—’

‘Can’t I?’ Nicholas looked positively gleeful, causing rage to course through Leo once more. Rage and regret and guilt, all wrapped together, consuming him, choking him—He’d been so blind. So blind to follow the king’s bidding, to ignore his own memories, to bring Phoebe and Christian here—to think he could be king. That he deserved to be.

‘I’ve called a session of Parliament,’ Nicholas said. He sat back on the throne, an ageing tyrant still determined to wield his power. To hurt.

‘And just like that,’ Leo demanded in a hiss, ‘you’re going to change the line of succession, make a child you don’t even know your heir—?’

‘The line of succession is intact,’ Nicholas informed him coldly. ‘You were the aberration.’

Of course he was. He always had been. The older son of the younger brother. What a useless position that was. Leo laughed, a harsh, ugly sound. ‘I know how much it infuriated you that I was made heir—tell me, was it pride that kept you from begging Anders not to abdicate? Perhaps in time you would have accepted his bride, as long as it meant your son could be king.’

Nicholas’s eyes narrowed to two slits blazing hatred and contempt, the only weapons he had. ‘And now my grandson will be king instead,’ he said coldly.

‘If Parliament agrees to reinstate Anders posthumously.’

‘They will.’ Nicholas spoke with such certainty, and Leo knew he had reason to. Parliament did what the king wanted it to. He shook his head, the implications of Nicholas’s pronouncement filtering through him.

He wouldn’t be king. For six years he’d been the heir, serving the crown, serving Nicholas in attempt after attempt to show how worthy he was. Even if he didn’t believe he was himself.

It had taken several years of honest living before the Press—and the people—started to believe in him, in the idea of him as king, but he’d won their trust. Their respect.

He’d never won the king’s.

He was the son of a second son; he’d been a playboy, a reprobate, a rake. And deeming him even more unworthy were the feelings he’d locked inside himself, feelings he refused to consider or acknowledge because to do so would be to open a Pandora’s box of emotions that might never be shut again.

And now it was going to be taken away, his life—and Christian’s—irrevocably changed by the whim of an ill, old man. The twin demons of regret and guilt lashed him. He’d brought Phoebe straight into the lion’s den—a pit of vipers! For if Christian was heir, there was no question of him returning to his life in New York … ever. And Nicholas would want Phoebe completely and utterly out of the way … out of the country, out of Christian’s life, and he’d do whatever he could to achieve his goal.

And Leo … Leo had practically been his stooge. He’d thought he was serving the crown, but now he saw he’d only been serving the greedy whims of a vicious old man. He shook his head slowly, steeled his spine.

‘If you’re so determined to see the boy king, so be it,’ he said coolly. ‘I suppose you’d rather see the monarchy crumble to nothing than have me on the throne.’ Nicholas’s mouth tightened, but he didn’t reply. ‘But you won’t get what you want by bulldozing over Christian’s mother. As much as you might loathe her presence, she can’t be bought or intimidated.’

‘We’ll see about—’

‘She’s American,’ Leo cut across him coldly, ‘and that boy is her whole world. She has no notion of royal duty as my mother did, and she won’t be frightened or bullied the way my mother was.’ Again he felt the old rage, the guilt and sorrow and regret. How could he have acted in such a way, putting Phoebe in the same utterly untenable position as his mother? How could he not have seen what was happening, what Nicholas was planning? Or had he just closed his mind to it, an act of bloody-minded will, because he was determined to do what he could to protect his crown?

Except the crown wasn’t his any more. Nicholas shrugged impatiently. ‘I’ll find a way—’ ‘No,’ Leo cut him off, ‘you won’t.’ Determination filled him, a cold sense of purpose that made him gaze directly, unflinchingly, at the king, allowing the old man to see his scorn. ‘And if you want Christian to remain in this country, in the crown’s protection, then you need a subtler method.’ The smile he gave his uncle was cold and feral. ‘From now on we’ll do it my way.’

Phoebe rubbed her arms, fighting a rising sense of panic—near hysteria—as she paced the room, one of the palace’s many salons. The doors, she knew, were locked. She’d tried them, rattled the handles helplessly, unable to believe they’d actually locked her away without a word of explanation … without her son.

She was a prisoner, and the realisation that she’d walked straight into this gilded jail made her choke. She’d trusted Leo—she hadn’t even known she’d been doing so, he’d insinuated himself into her thoughts, her heart so insidiously—and now look where she was. Locked up like a criminal, and Christian—

She pressed a fist to her trembling lips and willed the panic to recede. She needed to be calm, to think clearly, rationally—

They couldn’t just take him from her. Surely, surely in this day and age, in the Western world, a mother couldn’t be forcibly separated from her son—

Except she really had no idea what could happen, what the royal family could do. Lord, where was he? It had been half an hour, an endless thirty minutes. She resisted the urge to go to the door and rattle the knob once more, to pound and kick and scream until she was heard. Such antics would surely only weaken her position, and she needed to be calm—

A sound at the door had all sense of calm leaving her as she flew to it, her breath heaving in her chest. The door opened and Leo stood there, looking all too calm, all too unruffled—

‘You lied!’ Her voice came out close to a scream. ‘They took him from me, and locked me in here—’ She choked back a helpless sob.

Leo moved into the room, closing the door quietly behind him. ‘I’m very sorry for what happened,’ he said in a careful voice. ‘That was never my intention.’

‘Wasn’t it?’ Phoebe threw back at him. ‘Somehow I have trouble believing you didn’t know exactly—’

‘I promise you, Phoebe, I didn’t.’ The intensity in his voice, the throbbing sincerity, made her still. She believed him, she hadn’t been wrong to trust him, and the realisation—the hope—gave her comfort.

‘Then what?’ she asked, drawing in a steadying breath. ‘The king acted on his own?’

‘Basically, yes.’ Leo thrust a hand into his pocket and strode to the window, gazing out at the cloudless blue sky, the palace courtyard glittering under a winter sun. Phoebe watched him, saw the tension in every taut line in his body, felt the anger simmering under his calm exterior. Perhaps he wasn’t so unruffled after all.

‘I thought the king wanted to see his grandson,’ he said abruptly, his eyes on the sun-filled view outside. ‘That’s why I brought you here.’

Phoebe frowned, an uneasy confusion filling her. Even though Leo was still, his gaze on the palace courtyard, she sensed an anger in him … a restless darkness that she remembered from six years ago. ‘Has something changed?’ When Leo remained silent, gazing outside, she continued more forcefully, ‘What does he want, Leo? Why did he separate us?’

‘Because he’s more interested in Christian than you,’ Leo replied flatly.

Phoebe paced the floor again, rubbing her arms. ‘I know that,’ she said. ‘I’d be an idiot not to. But …’ All the unspoken fears—fears she couldn’t afford to confess—clamoured up her throat, clawing their way out. Was the king going to seek custody, remove her from Christian’s life completely? Her mother was right, she never should have come, she should have hired that dippy lawyer friend, something, anything—

‘Phoebe.’ Phoebe skidded to a halt, for suddenly Leo was there, his hands warm and steady on her shoulders, his eyes meeting, melting into hers. ‘I’m not going to let anything happen, I promise.’

‘How can you stop it? What’s he planning, Leo?’ She felt a hiccupy sob rise from her throat and she swallowed it back.

‘I didn’t realise …’ Leo stopped, his lips pressed together, his face turning hard again.

‘Realise what? Leo, what are you not telling me? What is the king planning?’ Her voice rose with each question until it neared a shriek. ‘Please,’ she said in a whisper. ‘Please be honest with me.’

Leo glanced down at her, and a surprising tenderness softened his features. ‘I will,’ he told her. He raised one hand to brush her cheek with his knuckles, and it took all of Phoebe’s strength to resist leaning into that caress. She wanted to lean into it, into him, to let someone share the burden of her fear and anxiety. She longed to trust Leo—he was the only one she could—and yet she was afraid that trusting him might be the biggest mistake of all. ‘I will tell you,’ he continued, ‘but not now. You’ve only been in the country for little more than an hour, and I’m sure you want to see Christian.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Upstairs in the nursery, with my old governess. He’s fine.’

Phoebe nodded. She still felt shaky and far too afraid, but Leo’s words, his presence, his hand still cupping her cheek made her less so. Perhaps they shouldn’t, but they did and she was even glad.

Leo smiled, his fingers drifting down her cheek to cup her chin. ‘Tomorrow,’ he told her, and bent his head so his lips brushed hers in the softest whisper of a kiss. He stepped back, his eyes widening slightly, and Phoebe wondered if he felt as dazed as she did. It had been the slightest kiss, their lips barely touching, and yet …! It had lit a fire of yearning in her body, that latent little spark igniting suddenly into a raging blaze.

‘Leo …’ she said, and heard the longing in her voice.

Leo touched her lips with his finger as if he was sealing the memory of his touch. ‘We’ll talk tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow?’ She couldn’t wait that long.

‘You need rest.’ Leo smiled, and Phoebe found herself fixated on his mouth, his lips so full, sculpted, perfect. Her own lips parted in memory and desire. ‘I’ll have someone see you to the nursery.’

‘All right …’ She knew she needed to process everything that had happened—including Leo’s kiss—even though already she longed to see him again. Touch him again. Yet exhaustion was crashing over her in a numbing wave, and she knew Leo was right. She needed to see Christian, to restore some balance, some sanity to their lives. Still, as Leo turned away, clearly distracted, a prickle of unease rippled along her skin. What was he thinking, feeling and, more importantly—more frighteningly—what was he not saying?

The door clicked shut behind him and, alone in the salon, Leo swore aloud. His plan was working all too well. Phoebe trusted him, had responded to him—mio Dio, that kiss! He’d barely touched her, yet it hadn’t mattered. That simple touch had set off an unstoppable response in both of them. He’d felt it before, all those years ago, and he certainly felt it now. His whole body ached with memory and desire, a longing to deepen that almost-kiss and join his body to hers …

No. Not yet. There was still more work to be done.

Guilt roiled within him, as bitter as bile. He was using Phoebe, using her with cold-hearted calculation. And if she discovered it …

He couldn’t think that way. Couldn’t afford to. The king’s nefarious plans justified his own. This was the way it had to be; the only way it could be.

Numbly, Phoebe followed one of the royal servants to the top floor of the palace, where the nursery suite was located. She was met at the door by a pink-cheeked matron in a staid blue uniform.

‘We’ve been waiting for you,’ the nurse said, smiling with easy good humour.

‘Where’s my son?’ Phoebe asked tersely, and Frances stepped aside to let her enter.

‘He’s right here, never you worry.’

‘Mommy!’ Christian stood up from his place on a colourful rug on the floor, bits of Lego scattered around him. ‘Where have you been?’

Phoebe let out a shaky laugh of relief as she bent to scoop him into her arms. Christian squirmed, but she couldn’t resist pressing a kiss to his head. ‘I was talking to Leo,’ she murmured, kissing him again. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Of course I am.’ Christian wriggled away, returning to his Lego. ‘I met the king.’

Phoebe sat back on her heels, her heart beating fast once more. ‘Did you?’ she asked lightly. ‘Was he nice?’

‘He was OK,’ Christian said with a shrug, then glanced up. ‘Why didn’t you come with me?’ His eyes widened, and Phoebe saw the fear lurking behind his boyish bravado.

‘I wanted to,’ she said carefully, ‘but the king wanted some special time with you.’

Christian considered this as he placed another piece of Lego on the tower he was building. ‘Oh,’ he said, and just when Phoebe was about to let her breath out in relief of a confrontation avoided, he looked up with his clear, candid gaze. ‘Why?’

‘Time for elevenses!’ Frances swept in with a tray of jam and bread as well as glasses of milk. ‘You must be hungry, young man. Come and have a bite to eat.’ Dutifully Christian sat at the table for his snack, and Phoebe rose, turning to Frances, who busied herself tidying up the toys.

‘Thank you for taking care of him.’

‘He’s a lovely young man,’ Frances replied. ‘It was no trouble.’

‘You’ve worked for the royal family for a long time,’ Phoebe said slowly.

Frances nodded. ‘Thirty-five years, since Leo was born. I took care of him as well as Anders.’ Her expression sobered. ‘Such a waste, that one. A loss.’

It was, sadly, a succinct and accurate summary of Anders’s life. ‘Yes,’ Phoebe agreed quietly.

‘You know, of course,’ Frances continued with a nod and Phoebe started at her plain speaking. ‘He couldn’t keep his hand to anything.’

‘No, I don’t suppose he could.’ Phoebe reached down to place a dog-eared book in the toy basket. ‘You must have known them quite well, then? Anders … and Leo?’

Frances glanced up quickly, her expression shrewd before she shrugged and nodded. ‘Yes, of course.’

Curiosity bit at Phoebe, made her want to ask questions. To know more, and even to understand. ‘What were they like … together? Were they friends?’

Frances gave a short, derisive laugh. ‘Friends? Those two? Not even for a moment.’

The abruptness and certainty of her answer made Phoebe ask, ‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because Anders was frightfully spoiled from the moment he was born. I did the best I could, but his parents doted on him dreadfully. He could do no wrong, and if he did …’ she shrugged ‘ … Leo was blamed.’

‘Leo …?’ Phoebe glanced quickly at Christian, but he was absorbed in a game he was playing quietly with himself at the table, his face smeared with jam. ‘What do you mean?’

Frances sighed. ‘It’s not my place to say, but I can only imagine how difficult your position here must be, and the more information you have …’ She stopped and shrugged again. ‘Nicholas and Havard were brothers. It starts with them, you see. Nicholas hated Havard … he was jealous of him, of course. Everyone loved Havard. He was the younger brother, but I’m sure everyone wished he were the heir instead of Nicholas. He was handsome, charming, kind to everyone, while Nicholas was sour and spiteful. He couldn’t help it, really. He was sickly as a child, pale and thin, while Havard was bursting with health. Or so I’ve been told … he was a husband and father by the time I met him. But it seemed that Nicholas had reason to be jealous, and that jealousy poisoned him.’ Frances put the basket back on the shelf and brushed off her hands. ‘Nicholas married first, a Danish woman, Johanna. She retired to Monaco when Anders abdicated, and died two years ago. But back then it seemed as if they might make a good match, until no children came. For ten years.’ She shook her head. ‘Ten long years. Meanwhile Havard married Ana, an Italian heiress, and had Leo practically nine months later. Nicholas was even more eaten up with jealousy. Everyone could see it, even me. I had been hired by then, to take care of Leo.’

‘But Leo had no chance to be king,’ Phoebe said. ‘As the son of the younger son.’

‘Well, that would be the case, if Nicholas didn’t have any heirs. And Havard probably began to think his son might be king—he actually might be king—if Nicholas remained childless. There were rumours and whispers, as there always are, and no doubt they enraged Nicholas.’

Phoebe couldn’t even imagine the tensions and rivalries that must have poisoned the royal household, the home Leo had grown up in. How had it affected him? Changed him? ‘What happened then?’ she asked in a whisper.

‘Anders was born and Havard died,’ Frances said simply, ‘and everything changed.’

‘How …?’

‘Nicholas had an heir and Leo had nothing. His mother was sent back to Italy post-haste and Leo was treated like the poor relation. It’s no wonder—’ Frances stopped, shaking her head. ‘But I shouldn’t gossip like this, even if you deserve to know.’

Phoebe laid her hand on Frances’s arm. ‘Please,’ she said, ‘tell me.’ She needed to know this history, needed to understand Leo.

Why …?

She couldn’t even say, couldn’t untangle the kaleidoscope of feelings tumbling through her. Fear, of course, was prevalent, but there was also compassion, wonder, hope.

Hope …?

That made no sense.

Phoebe turned back to Frances, who pursed her lips then gave a little shrug. ‘It’s no wonder he went off the rails a bit, that’s all,’ she finally said.

‘The Playboy Prince,’ Phoebe murmured, and Frances nodded.

‘Exactly.’ Christian rose from the table, gleefully holding out his jam-covered hands. ‘Come here, love,’ Frances said, bustling over to him, clearly glad to have a reason to end the conversation with Phoebe. ‘Let’s get you washed off.’

Christian went for a wash off with Frances, and Phoebe was left alone in the nursery with its high sashed windows and pale oak floor. She sank onto a sofa, her mind spinning. She felt she understood Leo so much more now … why he’d been such a playboy, so cynical, and why he’d changed. For he had changed, she thought. The unneeded spare had become the heir, the prince who would be king, and duty rather than desire—a lust for pleasure—drove him now.

Yet could she really think she knew—understood—Leo? She wanted to know him, to trust him, even to like him. She touched her finger to her lips, and knew she wanted more than to like him. Desire, consuming, endless, flooded her.

Yet was it wise—safe—to trust such a man? To desire him? Was Leo truly being kind, or just softening her for the kill? Did he intend to take away her son? Phoebe swallowed back the acid taste of fear. She didn’t, Phoebe realised, really know Leo at all.

‘Mommy!’ Christian came back into the nursery, his face brightening as he turned to the door. ‘Leo!’

Phoebe froze. The room, the whole world seemed to stand still as she turned slowly. Leo stood in the doorway, smiling, natural, and entirely at ease, his relaxed stance starting to dispel her fears of moments before even as her heart rate kicked up at the sight of him. She could almost taste the memory of his lips on hers, inhale his scent …

‘Hello, Christian,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d come and see how you are.’

‘There are lots of toys here,’ Christian told him matter-of-factly, ‘but some of them are old.’

‘Ah.’ Leo’s laughing eyes met Phoebe’s over Christian. ‘Those would be mine.’

Phoebe let out a little bubble of surprised laughter, and Leo smiled back, his eyes so very warm on hers, melting her fears clear away. If only I could stay in the same room with this man, she thought suddenly, and have him smile at me forever.

Strange, when his smile had used to scare her. Years ago it had been so cold, so cruel and callous and calculating. Yet now she basked in the sunlight and warmth of Leo’s smile and wondered how she could have ever doubted that he’d changed. At that moment, it seemed so wonderfully obvious.

‘I thought,’ Leo said, coming farther into the nursery, ‘that you could have dinner in your rooms tonight. Since you’re most likely tired.’

‘I’m not—’ Christian began and Leo’s eyes met Phoebe’s once more.

‘I think,’ he said softly, ‘it would be best.’

Phoebe nodded slowly. ‘Thank you,’ she said slowly. The farther away she stayed from King Nicholas, the better.

‘And tomorrow,’ Leo continued, ‘I thought we’d go ice-skating. Every year a rink is created in Njardvik’s main square, by the biggest Christmas tree you’ve ever seen. It is quite a sight.’

Christian cocked his head, clearly sceptical. ‘Bigger than the tree at the Rockefeller Center?’

‘Hmm.’ Leo pursed his lips. ‘I’m not sure about that, actually. But the rink is most certainly bigger.’

Christian nodded in acceptance, excitement lighting his eyes, and Phoebe touched Leo’s sleeve. ‘Leo—’ she said quietly, and he turned to her, his gaze warming her once more.

‘There will be time for us to talk later, Phoebe,’ Leo said softly, so only she could hear. ‘When we are rested … and alone. I promise.’

Alone. And what would happen when they were alone? Nerves and something else—something wonderful and intoxicating—fluttered deep in Phoebe’s belly. ‘And when will that be?’ she asked, knowing Leo could hear the longing in her voice. Desire had made her transparent.

‘Soon.’ His voice was a caress. ‘I promise.’

Phoebe nodded, knowing she would have to leave it at that, even though her mind seethed with questions and her body ached with unfulfilled yearning. ‘All right,’ she murmured, and a few minutes later he excused himself to return to work. Phoebe took Christian back to their suite and, despite many mighty protests, he quite promptly fell asleep.

Phoebe remained awake, restless, anxious, both her body and mind unsated, unfulfilled. And yet, even so, amidst all the turbulent uncertainty coursing through her, she felt hopeful as well. She gazed out at the palace gardens, the bare branches of the trees stark against the darkening sky, the grounds shrouded in winter, and wondered what on earth she had to hope for.

Yet it was there, deep inside her, a tightly furled bud ready to burst open and bloom in the light of day, in the warmth of a man’s smile, in the memory of his kiss, in the belief—naïve and misplaced as it might be—that she could trust him, that perhaps he could be a friend … or perhaps—perhaps—even something more.

‘The king is expecting me,’ Leo coolly informed the aide standing guard outside Nicholas’s bedchamber. The aide moved aside and Leo let himself into the darkened room.

King Nicholas sat up in bed, an ornately carved four-poster, several pillows piled behind him and the coverlet folded over his knees.

‘Well?’ he demanded in a rasp. ‘Did it work?’

‘Did what work?’ Leo asked laconically, and Nicholas gave a growl of impatience.

‘Whatever this plan of yours is, to get the girl out of the way.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Leo replied. He propped one shoulder against one of the bedposts as he surveyed Nicholas’s frail form. ‘It’s working.’

‘I don’t see why we couldn’t just buy her off,’ Nicholas grumbled. ‘Or run a smear campaign—’

‘Trashing her in the tabloids would hardly benefit your heir,’ Leo pointed out sardonically, ‘and I told you, she can’t be bought.’

‘And as I told you, everyone can be bought, Leo,’ the old man said. He paused, his eyes glinting with malice. ‘Your own mother’s price was fifty thousand.’ He paused, clearly savouring Leo’s surprise. ‘American.’

Leo froze, his gaze sweeping over his uncle in icy assessment. He didn’t want to believe what he’d just heard; he wanted to call the king a liar. Desperately. Surely his mother wouldn’t have accepted money in the place of her son. Yet, looking at Nicholas’s sleek smile of satisfaction, he knew he wasn’t lying. His mother had accepted cash to abandon her child to the royal family and their machinations, and clearly Nicholas had been waiting for such a moment as this to tell him so.

He felt a wave of icy shock at the realisation, and underneath a deeper hurt he couldn’t bear to probe. He snapped his unfocused gaze back to his uncle and smiled lazily.

‘At least she got something out of it, then,’ he said in a drawl, and Nicholas let out a raspy laugh.

‘So what is your plan with this American?’

Leo smiled coldly. It was a sign of the old man’s unbelievable arrogance that he trusted Leo to carry out his bidding even now, when he’d told him he would no longer be his heir. He’d cut him out of the succession as ruthlessly as if he’d wielded scissors, yet Nicholas didn’t doubt or question Leo for a moment. He simply wasn’t accustomed to disobedience. The only one who’d dared to go against him in a moment of childish folly had been Anders, and look where it had got him … abdicated, exiled, dead. A waste of a life. Leo swallowed back the rush of guilt such thoughts always caused him and turned to address his uncle.

‘There’s no need for you to know the details,’ he said coolly. ‘I’m carrying it out and it will deal with … the inconvenience … in due course.’

‘Inconvenience.’ Nicholas snickered. ‘Yes, she is that.’ He shifted in his bed, adjusting the pile of pillows behind him. ‘Well, as long as you take care of it, and soon.’

‘Oh, yes,’ Leo assured him, his voice terribly bland. ‘I’ll have it dealt with by tomorrow night.’

‘Good.’ Nicholas pulled the coverlet up over his chest, a cough rattling in his bony chest. For a moment Leo felt a flicker of sympathy for the old bastard; even he couldn’t defeat Father Time. ‘Now I’m tired,’ Nicholas said. ‘I’ll speak to you in the morning.’

‘Of course.’ Leo sketched a short, mocking bow before leaving his uncle’s bedroom.

Back in his own suite of rooms, Leo automatically went to the drinks tray before, with a muttered curse, he turned away. He unlocked the French doors leading to a terrace and stepped outside.

The wrought-iron railing was cold under his bare hands, the night air freezing and sharp, like a knife to the lungs. Stars glittered in a mercilessly black sky, the moon no more than a pale sliver of silver. In the distance the harbour gleamed blackly in the moonlight, and Leo smelled the promise of snow in the frigid, damp air.

He cursed aloud.

He’d never felt so trapped, so backed into a corner, as he did right then, and the king didn’t even realise. No one did. He had to protect Phoebe. He had to protect the crown. And he could see only one solution. A solution that required him to manipulate and use Phoebe with cold precision.

He had to make Phoebe his wife.

It would save her, but it would also condemn her. Condemn her to the politics of the royal family, a life she didn’t choose in a foreign country, a loveless marriage to him.

There was passion between them, Leo knew—oh, how he knew; he still felt it in every restless, unsatisfied sinew and limb. He felt it every time he saw her, uncoiling deep within him, radiating out to his fingertips that ached to touch her, brush the creaminess of her skin, the softness of her lips, her hair …

It was that latent sense of need that had given him the idea in the first place, and yet was it enough? Would Phoebe agree? Accept …?

And would she hate him when she knew … discovered what he’d done, what kind of man he was?

Would it even—ever—come to that?

Leo closed his eyes. Phoebe was a good woman, a better woman, perhaps, than even his own mother, who, he now knew, had given in to if not greed, then desperation. Thirty years after the fact he could feel pity—despite the pain—for a woman who had been so bullied by the royal family she’d allowed herself to be bought off.

Yet Phoebe didn’t let herself be bullied or bought; despite her fear, she’d stayed strong. She was a good woman, Leo thought with a pang of guilty regret. Far too good for him.

A cold wind blew over him, rustling the tree branches, making him shiver. Suppressing another curse, Leo resolutely turned and went back inside.