Читать книгу The Royal House Of Karedes Collection Books 1-12 - Кейт Хьюит, Шантель Шоу - Страница 45

‘SHE was only seventeen?’

‘We’re talking ten years ago. I was barely out of my teens myself.’

‘Does that make a difference?’ The uncrowned king of Aristo stared across his massive desk at his brother, his aquiline face dark with fury. ‘Have we not had enough scandal?’

‘Not of my making.’ Prince Andreas Christos Karedes, third in line to the Crown of Aristo, stood his ground against his older brother with the disdain he always used in this family of testosterone-driven males. His brothers might be acknowledged womanizers, but Andreas made sure his affairs were discreet.

‘Until now,’ Sebastian said. ‘Not counting your singularly spectacular divorce, which had a massive impact. But this is worse. You need to sort it before it explodes over all of us.’

‘How the hell can I sort it?’

‘Get rid of her.’

‘You’re not saying…’

Sebastian shook his head, obviously rejecting the idea—though a tinge of regret in his voice said the option wasn’t altogether unattractive.

And Andreas even sympathized. Since their father’s death, all three brothers had been dragged through the mire of the media spotlight, and the political unrest was threatening to destroy them. In their thirties, impossibly handsome, wealthy beyond belief, indulged and fêted, the brothers were now facing realities they had no idea what to do with.

‘Though if I was our father…’ Sebastian added and Andreas shuddered. Who knew what the old king would have done if he’d discovered Holly’s secret? Thank God he’d never found out. Not that King Aegeus could have taken the moral high ground. His father’s past actions had got them into this mess.

‘You’ll make a better king than our father ever was,’ Andreas said softly. ‘What filthy dealing made him dispose of the royal diamond?’

‘That’s my concern,’ Sebastian said. There could be no royal coronation until the diamond was found—they all knew that—but the way the media was baying for blood there might not be a coronation even then. Without the diamond the rules had changed. If any more scandals broke… ‘This girl…’

‘Holly.’

‘You remember her?’

‘Of course I remember her.’

‘Then she’ll be easy to find. We’ll buy her off—do whatever it takes, but she mustn’t talk to anyone.’

‘If she wanted to make a scandal she could have done it years ago.’

‘So it’s been simmering in the wings for years. To have it surface now…’ Sebastian rose and fixed Andreas with a look that was almost as deadly as the one used by the old king. ‘It can’t happen, brother. We have to make sure she’s not in a position to bring us down.’

‘I’ll contact her.’

‘You’ll go nowhere near her until we’re sure of her reaction. Not even a phone call. For all we know her phones are already tapped. I’ll have her brought here.’

‘I can arrange…’

‘You stay right out of it until she’s on our soil. You’re heading the corruption inquiry. With Alex still on his honeymoon—of all the times for our brother to demand to marry, this must surely be the worst—I need you more than ever. If you leave now and this leaks, we can almost guarantee losing the crown.’

‘So how do you propose to persuade her to come?’

‘Oh, I’ll persuade her,’ Sebastian said grimly. ‘She’s only a slip of a girl. She might be your past, but there’s no way she’s messing with our future.’

It was time to leave, but of all the places Holly had to farewell, this was the hardest.

The grave was tiny—a simple stone plaque nestled under the shade of the vast river-red-gum that gave this Australian cattle station its name. The tree was ancient. The native Australians who’d lived here for generations called it Munwannay—resting place—and when Holly’s tiny son had died it had seemed the only place to let him lie.

How could she walk away?

How could she walk away from any of this? Holly sank to her knees before her son’s grave and turned to gaze back over the homestead—the rambling, old house with its wide verandas, its French windows opening the house to every breeze, the neglected garden she’d loved so much since she was a little girl.

Andreas had loved this garden.

Andreas had loved everything about this place. And she’d loved Andreas.

Well, that was another thing she needed to walk away from. The memory of Prince Andreas Karedes. He’d been twenty when he’d come here to spend six months experiencing life in Australia’s remote outback. She’d been seventeen.

She was twenty-seven now. It was more than time that she move on—from this place, as well as a love that had been doomed from the start.

She’d been stalling for as long as possible, trying to keep the property presentable in case new owners could be found, but it had been on the market since her father’s death six months ago. Financially it was impossible to keep going, and it was becoming bleaker every day as she watched it deteriorate. Finally she’d transferred her job—teaching on the School of the Air—to the educational base at Alice Springs. This was the end.

She touched her baby’s gravestone one last time, aching with regret and loss. And then she paused, looking upward as the stillness of the hot April morning was shattered.

A helicopter was arrowing in fast from the east. It was big and powerful, a much larger machine than those owned by the larger local landowners. All black, almost menacing, it swept in low across the bare paddocks, heading straight for the homestead.

Holly winced. There’d been a trickle of potential buyers looking at the place since it had gone on the market. No one had been interested. Munwannay needed a massive injection of cash and enthusiasm to build it up to the magnificent property it had once been. If these were more potential buyers sent by the rural land agents, they’d react the same as the others. They’d walk through the faded splendour of the old homestead; they’d look at the weathered outbuildings and the dilapidated infrastructure and they’d walk away. If these buyers were coming in such a helicopter they’d have more money than most, but then they could afford to buy a more prestigious place.

And she didn’t want them here now. Not on her last day.

But they were landing. She watched them as the chopper settled in a cloud of dust; as the doors opened. Four men in dark jeans and black T-shirts jumped out. Big men. Powerfully built, all of them.

Odd. Up until now potential buyers had been local farmers wanting to extend their own landholdings, distinctive by age and by weathering—or men in suits from the city.

No matter. She needed to be gracious. If this place sold it would give her a hope of settling the crippling debts left by her father’s refusal to believe his circumstances in the world had changed. She pinned a smile on her face and hurried forward, not wanting them to come here—to see the tiny gravestone she loved so much.

They were young to be buyers, she thought as they approached. And foreign? They were olive skinned, as Andreas had been. They looked serious, purposeful, striding across the paddock towards her with an intent at odds with a potential buyer’s initial appraisal.

A shiver of unease shot down her spine. She was alone here. Too alone.

She gave herself a swift mental shake. She was being fanciful. They’d hardly come here in such a helicopter with the intent to do her personal harm, and there was nothing left to steal.

She smoothed her suddenly damp palms on her jeans, tucked—or tried to tuck—her unruly blonde curls behind her ears, firmed her smile and called a greeting.

‘Hi. Can I help you?’

There was no answering smile on any of their faces, and Holly’s sense of unease deepened.

‘Are you Holly Cavanagh?’ the leading man called.

‘I am.’

Maybe they were Greek, she thought. They had the same accent as Andreas. Maybe they were even from Aristo, the island country Andreas had come from.

That was being even more fanciful. Or maybe not. She’d read that ruthless dealings by the old King Aegeus had turned Aristo into an economic force to be reckoned with. There were casinos there now, easy money, rumours of corruption in high places. Maybe there were citizens with the money to transform a place like this.

Maybe Andreas had heard Munwannay was on the market, she thought suddenly. He’d loved it. Maybe…

Maybe she needed to stop thinking, for the men had reached her.

She stretched her hand out in greeting. The first man to reach her took it, but not with the light, formal greeting she was expecting. His grip was harsh and unrelenting. She tugged back but he didn’t release her.

‘You need to come with us,’ he said, and she stared at him in blank astonishment.

‘I’m sorry?’

But he was already tugging her towards the helicopter. As she resisted one of the other men grasped her by the other arm. They had a hand under each elbow now and were almost lifting her; hauling her fast towards the helicopter.

She screamed.

There was no one to hear. Munwannay had been deserted long since by everyone but this slip of a girl, whose efforts to save the place had come to nothing.

‘Get her into the chopper, fast,’ the leader said, in a language she recognized; a language she’d learned for fun so she and Andreas could speak to each other without her parents understanding.

‘No. No!’ But she couldn’t fight them. She was one woman among four men surely trained to use brute strength to good effect.

‘Shut up,’ one of the men snapped at her, and another hauled her forward so roughly he almost dislocated her arm.

‘Don’t hurt her,’ another snapped, urgent. ‘The prince said we’re not to harm her.’

‘What …? Why?’ They were lifting her bodily into the chopper with as little trouble as if she’d been a bag of chaff.

‘Just be quiet,’ another of them said, quite kindly as if humouring a child. ‘And there’s no use in struggling. The Prince Andreas wants you, and what the Prince Andreas wants, the Prince Andreas gets.’

The call came just after dinner. The manservant beckoned Andreas discreetly from his family’s presence, and he slipped silently away.

In truth the royal family of Karedes was so caught up with the scandals rocking them right now, the absence of Andreas from their midst would hardly be missed. In his father’s time it would have been unthinkable to leave the table before port was served to the males of the family, but the king was dead.

Long live the king, Andreas thought bleakly as he made his way swiftly from the room. All they needed was a coronation. And a diamond. And no more scandal.

In this atmosphere Holly’s secret was enough to blast them off the throne.

At least the first part of Sebastian’s plan had worked. He knew it the moment he picked up the phone. ‘She’s on her way,’ Georgiou said, and he drew in his breath in relief. He hadn’t thought it would be so easy.

In truth he didn’t know what he’d thought. He’d expected Holly to be married by now. It had been a shock to hear she was still single.

That had been the least of his shocks.

And now she was on her way. To him.

‘She agreed to come straight away? There was no argument?’

There was a silence on the end of the line and Andreas’s jet-black brows snapped down. ‘Why don’t you answer?’ he demanded as the silence lengthened.

‘Our instructions were to use whatever means necessary to get her to you.’

‘But you asked her to come? Your instructions were to tell her she was needed here urgently. To offer her every comfort…’

‘And if she didn’t agree, the Prince Sebastian told us to ignore her protests. She was alone. She was expecting the land agent. Our decision was that it was wisest to move fast. Discussion would have wasted time and maybe jeopardized our ability to take her at all.’

‘So…’

‘So we put her on the helicopter whether she willed it or not, then transferred her to a plane which took us up north and then on. There’s no problem. There was no one to see us come or her go.’

He closed his eyes, appalled, the ramifications of what they’d done slamming home. ‘You abducted her.’

‘There was no choice,’ Georgiou said firmly. ‘She will not listen. All through the flight we’ve been trying to tell her you simply wish to see her, but the lady is too angry to listen. She bit Maris.’

‘There was a struggle?’

‘She didn’t wish to come. Of course there was a struggle.’

His breath hissed with dismay. For them to abduct her…

What the hell must she be thinking? And if this got out… A prince of the royal house of Karedes kidnapping an Australian woman; dragging her out of the country against her will…

‘Did you hurt her?’ he demanded, incredulous.

‘We haven’t hurt her,’ Georgiou said, defensive. ‘We have our orders. Though she fights like a wildcat’

‘I don’t care how she fights,’ Andreas snapped, appalled at the results of Sebastian’s curt orders. ‘You will not retaliate. She’s just a girl.’

‘She’s a woman,’ Georgiou corrected him. ‘She’s every bit a woman. Mixed with tigress.’

Andreas thought back to the Holly he’d left ten years ago. Even at seventeen Holly had had spirit.

Years ago he’d spent a glorious six months on Holly’s parents’ property, experiencing life in the Australian outback before taking up his royal duties. It had been a dispensation granted reluctantly to a younger son by his father, the king. His relationship with Holly had flared from nowhere and turned to wildfire. The young Andreas had been desperate for it to continue, but Holly had been strong enough for both of them.

‘You don’t belong in my world and I don’t belong in yours,’ she’d said firmly as he’d held her close one last time and declared he couldn’t leave her. ‘You’re needed at home. Your life is on Aristo. You’re promised in marriage to a princess. Andreas, don’t make it harder than it needs to be for both of us. Just go.’

So he’d gone, trying hard to block the stricken expression he’d glimpsed on his beloved’s face as Holly had turned away that one last time. Yes, there had been tears—he’d been close to them himself—but she was right. He was a royal prince, already promised in marriage. Holly had aging parents to care for and a budding career as a teacher on School of the Air. Holly and Andreas belonged on separate sides of the world.

So that had been it. He’d tried not to think of her for ten long years, through a tumultuous royal marriage that ended in acrimonious divorce, through his career as a royal prince with princely duties, through a life in the goldfish bowl of royalty. His was a life of service to the crown, a crown that must be protected at all costs.

A crown that Holly herself was now threatening to undermine, whether she knew it or not.

‘Just bring her here fast,’ he said, his tone becoming harsher as he recalled all that was at stake. ‘Bring her straight to the palace.’

‘There might be problems,’ Georgiou said cautiously.

‘What sort of problems?’

‘I told you. She’s not… quiet,’ he said. ‘There’s no saying she won’t scream her head off.’

‘Why would she do that?’

Another silence. Georgiou obviously thought that was a stupid question.

Okay, maybe it was. If they’d dragged her here against her will… If she was still even slightly the Holly he knew…

‘I’ll meet you at the airport,’ he said.

‘Not the main landing strip,’ Georgiou said urgently. ‘You need to talk to the lady privately. If she’ll talk to you.’

‘She’ll talk to me,’ Andreas said grimly.

‘Maybe,’ Georgiou said. ‘How long is it since you’ve seen her?’

‘Ten years.’

‘Then maybe she’s changed,’ Georgiou said and there was suddenly a note of admiration in his tone. ‘Maybe this woman has learned to fight.’

‘She could fight ten years ago.’

‘Could you win then?’ Georgiou asked diffidently. ‘With respect, Your Majesty… It takes four strong men to hold her now. Will you be able to do it?’

They were landing.

Holly had long since stopped struggling. Once she’d been bundled ignominiously onto the jet and the jet was in the air she’d accepted that fighting was useless. She’d withdrawn into what she hoped was dignified silence.

Not that she felt the least bit dignified. She’d been wearing ancient jeans and a dust-stained shirt when she’d been grabbed. She’d just completed a last inspection of the bores and water troughs—for the sake of the kangaroos and emus on the place, for the cattle had been sold long ago—and her blonde curls were thick with dust. Twenty-four hours later that dust was still with her. She’d scrubbed her face in the airplane washroom but there was no make-up to disguise the shadows under her eyes. She looked grubby and exhausted and fearful.

Not fearful, she thought savagely. She was damned if she’d show these louts fear.

Maybe it wasn’t these men she had to fear. Andreas wanted her. Andreas had taken her, whether she agreed or not.

Ten years ago she would have agreed. Ten years ago if Andreas had said come she’d have followed him to the ends of the earth. She’d fallen so deeply in love that she’d given everything she had. She would have given more.

Then she’d been wild, passionate, desperate to find a life outside the confines of her parents’ farm. Andreas had blasted into her dreary life, tall, dark and mysterious, a royal prince, twenty to her seventeen, laughing, imperious, seemingly as eager to be a part of her world as she’d been to be part of his. Of course they’d fallen in love.

She’d thought later, in the bleak aftermath of loss, that maybe that was why her parents had arranged to host Andreas. They’d known two young things might be drawn together as they had been. Her parents had had illusions of grandeur, and offering to host a young prince on a farm-stay when they had such a young, impressionable daughter was surely dangerous.

Maybe they’d had a royal marriage in mind. Who knew? All she knew was that her parents had achieved more than they’d bargained for.

A daughter desolate.

A tiny grandson, unacknowledged by his father. Now dead.

Don’t think of Adam, she told herself fiercely as the plane started to descend. Don’t you dare cry.

She blinked and stared fixedly out the plane window. They were circling the Adamas kingdom now. Home of Andreas.

Adamas consisted of two vast islands, the glamorous Aristo and the desert lands of Calista. Andreas had told her so much of these islands that she felt she knew them already. They were once one kingdom, ruled by the Royal House of Karedes, but now split acrimoniously into two by a warring brother and sister.

Andreas’s father ruled Aristo, and Andreas helped rule, as one of three royal sons. Andreas was married. She knew that much. The wedding had taken place soon after he’d returned from Australia. The story of the ceremony’s magnificence had even reached the women’s magazines in the Munwannay General Store. She’d read of it and wept. After that she’d studiously avoided any mention of him, but he was probably saddled with a tribe of royal children by now.

Why had he hauled her here?

Maybe he was bored in his marriage, she thought. The idea had crept into her mind as the flight wore on, a vicious stab of unwanted imagination. Andreas had been married for over nine years now. Nine years was time enough to tire of a wife, especially a wife who’d been arranged for him in the first place. Maybe he was thinking back to the wild, tumultuous passion that had sent them past the bounds of care.

Surely he wouldn’t think…

Why else would he want her?

She curled her fingers so tightly into her palms that her nails cut into her skin. Surely in this day and age he wouldn’t dare. And if he thought she would…

But… Andreas, she thought. Andreas, Andreas.

See, there was the trouble. Andreas had moved on. He’d lived another life, whereas she’d been stuck in a time warp, trying to hold the farm together for her father’s sake. Trying to forge a career for herself, while never being able to leave one tiny grave.

And never being able to forget Andreas.

Andreas was down there. Prince Andreas Christos Karedes of Aristo. A royal prince, waiting for her.

She dug her fingernails even deeper into her palms. What did he want of her?

He could have nothing. Nothing! What was between them was over. She just had to get away from these thugs and she’d find some way to leave.

But she’d see Andreas first.

The plane didn’t taxi towards the airport buildings but instead stopped far out on the runway.

Andreas drove himself out to meet it. He didn’t need Sebastian to tell him that the fewer people who saw this first reunion, the better. He’d like to get rid of Holly’s minders and the aircrew first, but that was impossible. They’d have to be paid well for their silence.

He reached the plane and waited with ill-concealed impatience for the steps to be put in place and the doors to open.

Georgiou emerged first. The big man stopped on the top step and looked helplessly down at Andreas. He held up his hands, as if in surrender.

‘You want us to carry the cargo down?’ he asked, with a wary glance at the airport workers within earshot. ‘She… we could have trouble.’

‘You and your men leave the plane,’ Andreas said grimly. ‘I’ll come up.’

‘You’ll be… safe?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he snapped, and climbed the steps with purpose. This was getting farcical. Even though he hated the idea that she’d been abducted, he needed to remind himself that this woman had deceived him. She was here because of that deceit. He had every reason to be angry and the sooner he had it out with her, the better.

Or maybe there was some simple explanation. Maybe this could be a five-minute conversation and she could leave again. It could all be a mistake.

Maybe.

‘She’s up the back. She’s hardly spoken to us since we left Australia, and only then in anger,’ Georgiou said, standing aside, and Andreas nodded and entered the cabin. And saw her.

For a moment his world stood still.

Holly.

She was just the same. His Holly. The Holly he’d held in his heart all these years. Holly, in her tattered jeans and T-shirt, her hair wild and tumbled, always laughing, always teasing. The image he’d loved most was of her riding bareback across the paddocks, daring him to keep up with her if he could.

Lovely Holly, with her beautiful body. Her bright, sapphire-blue eyes, her fierce intelligence, her low, throaty chuckle…

She wasn’t chuckling now. Her face looked set and grim. Her arms were crossed firmly across her breasts as she sat where she’d clearly sat for the entire journey. She looked dishevelled and weary and very, very angry. She met his gaze and it was almost a physical jolt. A stormy tempest about to break.

‘Holly,’ he said, and maybe he even said it tenderly before he could help himself, but the tenderness stopped right there.

‘How dare you?’ she snapped and, as he took a step towards her, she rose and moved out into the aisle.

‘I wished to see you,’ he said and her eyes flashed fire.

‘You’re seeing me. Your thugs dragged me into their helicopter without a word. They brought me here with no explanation. Your thugs. That’s what they are, Andreas, and so are you for employing them. A stupid, cowardly thug to set four men on a defenceless woman.’

‘You’re not defenceless,’ he said, taking a further step toward her and feeling the faint tug of a smile at the corners of his eyes. ‘You bit Maris.’

‘So I did.’ If looks could kill he’d be stabbed to the heart. ‘I wish I’d bitten him harder, but then I’d probably catch something vile. You’re pond scum, the lot of you. Why have you dragged me here?’

‘There are things we need to talk about,’ he said, forcing his tone to mildness.

‘So use the phone.’

‘That wouldn’t have been wise,’ he said and took another step forward and maybe that was a mistake. For her hand came up and slapped, a solid, ringing slap that pushed his face aside and echoed around and around the confines of the cabin. He gasped, his face darkening in anger. Instinctively his hand came up and caught her wrist, dragging it down.

‘Don’t you touch me,’ she snapped and lashed out with her feet. Her leather boot hit his shin and it was all he could do not to yelp.

‘Do you know what the penalties are for assaulting royalty?’ he demanded, astounded, moving adroitly so she was held out of kicking range.

‘Do you know what the penalties are for international kidnap?’ she countered, still trying to kick. ‘For grabbing me and hauling me here against my will? I don’t know what you want with me, Andreas Karedes. Tell your thugs to turn the plane round and take me home.’

She wrenched her wrists so hard he released them. She staggered back. His hands came out and caught her shoulders. She steadied and her hand came up and slapped again. Harder.

Ouch. If he wasn’t careful he’d have a black eye to explain to the press.

‘I just want an explanation…’ he started, but she was too angry to let him go on.

‘I don’t care what you want. Let me go.’

‘Not until you tell me what I need to know.’

‘You can’t do this.’

‘Holly, it seems I already have,’ he said wearily. ‘I’m sorry you were abducted. I meant to persuade you to come—not to coerce you. But now you’re here, you need to accept the royal imperative. You’ll stay until we have an explanation.’

Um… maybe that hadn’t worked. As an apology for what had happened, maybe it lacked a certain finesse. Holly certainly seemed to think so.

She stared at him blindly, two spots of flame high on her cheeks revealing that her temper had her right out of control. She glanced out the window. There was a cluster of airport workers in sight, clearly waiting to do the plane’s routine maintenance, or at least assist it to leave the runway it was blocking.

‘Aristo is a civilized country,’ she said, suddenly thoughtful, almost civil.

‘What …?’

‘You have laws,’ she continued. ‘Laws that even include kidnapping, I believe. Royalty may have been able to rape and pillage in the past, but I’d imagine those days are well and truly over.’

‘What I say, goes,’ he snapped, startled.

‘Does it? I wonder?’ She eyed him thoughtfully. She closed her eyes—and she screamed.

It was a scream to end all screams. It was a scream perfected years ago by a lonely child who’d had a taste for dramatics and miles of open space to practise. It was a scream that had every head within two hundred yards of the plane swivelling to see what was happening.

He grabbed her and hauled her towards him, reaching for her mouth. She elbowed him in the ribs and kept right on screaming.

His fingers closed on her mouth.

She bit. Hard.

Andreas swore, then strode across to haul the door closed, giving them a measure of privacy. Just in time, for Holly had taken a breath and was opening her mouth to scream again.

‘I wouldn’t bother,’ he said, staring down incredulously at the small teeth marks on his palm. That she could do such a thing… ‘You’ll not be heard through the doors.’

‘I demand the police,’ she spat. ‘I want the consulate. You can’t do this.’

‘This is Aristo and I’m the royal family,’ he said. ‘I can do what I want.’

‘Not with me you can’t.’

And then Georgiou was back, shoving his way urgently through the aircraft door and staring at his boss’s hand in incredulity. ‘You’re bleeding.’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘I hope he gets rabies and dies,’ Holly hissed.

‘So he might, being bitten by a mad—’

‘Leave it,’ Andreas snapped. ‘You’ll have to take her to Eueilos.’

‘Sir, she’s out of control,’ Georgiou said urgently. ‘There’s no one on Eueilos except Sophia and Nikos, and they’re too old to defend you.’

‘I’ll tell them to lock up the firearms,’ Andreas said dryly. ‘She won’t hurt one elderly couple who have nothing to do with this, and there’s no way she can get away from the island.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I can’t stay. I need to face parliament in an hour and if I’m not there, there’ll be questions.’

Georgiou gave a wry smile. ‘Very good,’ he murmured. ‘But can we keep this one under wraps?’

‘I’m not staying under any wraps,’ Holly hissed, kicking backward at him. ‘Andreas, what the hell do you think you’re doing?’

What was he doing? He thought of the report lying on his desk at home and his face hardened. She was threatening everything. One secret, which surely he’d had the right to know… even before his marriage?

But she’d gone past the point of hysterical.

‘I’m protecting my own,’ he said at last. ‘I have no idea what happened to you after I left Australia, but it’s threatening the future of this country. I’m sorry it’s had to come to this, Holly, but I want the truth. You’ll go to Eueilos and you’ll await my pleasure. I’ll see you when I’m ready.’