Читать книгу Royals: Wed To The Prince: By Royal Command / The Princess and the Outlaw / The Prince's Secret Bride - Leanne Banks, Robyn Donald - Страница 17

AT THE Dacian airport the steward escorted Lauren into a private room, empty except for flowers and some comfortable lounge furniture, then went off to get her luggage. She waited tensely until Guy came into the room.

Her heart clenched. You can do this, she told herself with ice-cold resolve, determined not to wilt under his keen scrutiny. You’ll be polite and crisp and very, very restrained. You are infatuated with this man, but it won’t last, because you won’t let it.

She took another deep breath.

Guy said, ‘Your luggage will be here in a few minutes. Did you manage a nap?’

‘No,’ she said, adding with a smile that hurt the muscles in her cheeks, ‘I’m fine, thank you.’

He didn’t seem to notice anything different about her attitude, but she didn’t fool herself. Like every predator, he was acutely tuned to his surroundings.

Neither spoke as they went down in a lift and walked out of the building into heat that sucked the breath from her lungs. Ahead, a limousine purred softly, like a waiting cat. Apart from that and the sound of a jet in the distance, it was blessedly silent. No hounds of the Press yapped around her, no lights flashed in her eyes. A uniformed man gave a short salute to Guy and held the back door open. Behind the wheel she made out the form of a driver.

Sliding into the seat, she commented in a voice with no expression at all, ‘It’s every bit as hot as the tropics, but not at all humid.’ And because she could no longer hold the question back, she asked with a cool lack of emphasis, ‘What exactly were you doing on Sant’Rosa?’

‘I have interests there. And friends.’ He glanced down at her, thick lashes veiling the glimmering depths of his eyes. His tone told her nothing as he went on, ‘Several years ago I spent a few weeks there as a hostage.’

A hostage?

Horrified, she asked unevenly, ‘How on earth did that happen?’

‘I delivered medical supplies during the civil war, and the government of Sant’Rosa saw a way of using me.’ He shrugged, looking straight ahead as the car drew smoothly away. ‘They kidnapped me to persuade my cousin to act as intermediary between them and the rebels.’

She stared at him. ‘What happened?’

‘I escaped the second night,’ he said nonchalantly. A swift grin reminded her again of the buccaneer she’d first met, as did the wry note in his voice when he added, ‘It wasn’t difficult; they were pretty half-hearted gaolers.’

She closed her eyes. ‘You escaped, but you stayed on the island? In the middle of a civil war?’

‘They were desperate,’ he said briefly. ‘And I liked them. They knew the Republic was ready to move troops across the border if there was any chance of a truce between the warring sides. In fact, we fought off an incursion while I was there.’

Appalled at the risks he’d taken, she demanded, ‘We fought off?’

His broad shoulders lifted. ‘I was involved in a very minor way,’ he said casually. ‘They were much better bush fighters than I was, but terror makes fast learners.’

‘Or dead ones,’ she said tightly.

‘Life’s for living; it’s not worth much if you’re forever looking over your shoulder.’

The car purred quietly down a road shared with an occasional donkey and many more motor-scooters, all ridden by young men with very white teeth who waved insouciantly at the limousine as it eased past them.

Lauren clamped her lips together to stop herself from raging at Guy for valuing his life so cheaply.

‘We’re heading inland to a villa up in the hills; I thought your parents would prefer it to the coast because it’s cooler there,’ he told her.

‘Thank you.’ She had to fight back a heavy thud of disappointment. For some reason she’d thought they’d be at the same place…

Fool! A sensible woman would want as much distance between them as possible.

But she wasn’t sensible about Guy. From the moment she’d seen him, villainously unshaven on Sant’Rosa, she’d battled a ferocious, elemental appetite that had nothing, she reminded herself stringently, to do with love or respect.

He said, ‘My cousin, Luka, and his wife would like to meet you, but they’re sure that you and your father need to rest today, so it will probably be tomorrow.’

‘I’ll look forward to that,’ she said untruthfully.

He lifted a lean hand to acknowledge a wave from a donkey rider. Olive trees shimmered in the slow breeze, their leaves gleaming silver against a sky as blue as heaven. Small plants and wild flowers grew against the bases of ancient stone walls that bordered the road.

Guy surveyed her, his eyes cool and intent. ‘What’s the matter?’

Lauren gathered her composure around like cling film, leaned back and showed her teeth.

‘Nothing,’ she said coolly. ‘Well, nothing apart from a dodgy marriage to a man who neglected to tell me he was a prince.’

His brows lifted. Wielding courtesy like a weapon, he said with suave distinctness, ‘It didn’t seem relevant at the time.’

‘Most people would consider it very relevant. I had no idea that you were a member of the Dacian royal family until—’ she glanced at her watch ‘—about half an hour ago, when I saw an article about you in a magazine. When we went through that ceremony on Sant’Rosa I did think Bagaton sounded vaguely familiar, but not enough to ring alarm bells.’

‘Alarm bells?’ he said softly. ‘Why should you be alarmed?’

She lifted her head and met his glinting gaze full on. ‘I’m not in the habit of marrying princes, even to get out of a bad situation.’

‘I didn’t tell you because you didn’t ask,’ he returned with cutting urbanity. ‘You found me useful, so you sensibly used me. Besides, it didn’t matter—it’s merely an accident of birth. The important thing on Sant’Rosa was to get you to safety.’ He flicked her a glance edged with satire. ‘You didn’t ask who I was when I came to you in Valanu.’

Lauren bit back the rash words threatening to tumble from her tongue but couldn’t stop herself from snapping, ‘I thought I knew who you were.’

‘Perhaps,’ he said softly, ‘I should ask you the real question.’

‘Which is?’ Although her voice was crisp with hauteur, she knew the moment she said the words that they should never have been spoken.

‘Why did you offer yourself to me in Valanu?’

Humiliation burned in her throat. Without thinking she flashed, ‘I felt sorry for you.’

His eyelashes drooped and for a frightening second she flinched at the very real menace she saw in the hooded eyes.

But when he said, ‘You have a charming—and very effective—way of feeling sorry for men,’ his voice was insultingly indifferent. ‘Not that it matters. The title is completely irrelevant—apart from affection for my cousins and the islanders, I have only sentimental ties to Dacia. Prince Luka has a very promising four-year-old son, and the prospect of another arriving before the end of the year, so Dacia is well set up without me, a situation I’m more than happy with.’

‘Lucky you,’ she said, her voice as wooden as her expression. ‘All of the deference and no responsibility.’

He shrugged. ‘I assume you’re blaming me for the Press frenzy at the airport.’

She said quietly, ‘No. You could have told me who you were when you came to New Zealand to warn me the marriage might be valid, but I suppose there was always the chance that I might have charged you a handsome sum for a quick divorce.’

‘I can deal with blackmailers,’ he said on a ruthless note. ‘Perhaps I should have told you, but it seems pretentious to announce that I’m a prince to people who couldn’t care less.’

‘I suppose it is.’

‘As for the media—’ His voice hardened even more. ‘Yes, if I hadn’t been who I am I doubt very much if there’d have been any reporters to meet you in London. I’m sorry you got caught up in it, but I’m not answerable for people who like to season their breakfasts with highly suspect gossip about princes and pop stars and sportsmen.’

‘Of course you’re not,’ she said in a toneless voice, feeling small and petty.

He covered her rigid hands with his warm, strong one. ‘But knowing who I am wouldn’t have made any difference on Sant’Rosa—you’d have married me if I’d had to hold a pistol to your head.’

Her heart picked up speed, the pulse at her wrist fluttering under his fingers.

Of course he noticed. After a charged second he said on a raw note, ‘I promised myself I wouldn’t touch you.’

Lauren had to force herself to return, ‘Then don’t. It’s not necessary.’

He lifted his hand, but as the car left the main road and began to climb, he said deliberately, ‘I don’t seem to be able to forget that for a few days we were lovers. Can you?’

Her bones melted as images from those few days flashed across her mind with full sensory impact. Attacked by a bitter regret, she said doggedly, ‘It was a time out of time—a lovely tropical fantasy, but now we’re in the real world, and it’s over.’

His ironic laughter stunned her. She flashed a sideways glance and shivered at the compelling determination of his expression. ‘Liar,’ he said calmly.

When Lauren opened her mouth to object he sealed her indignant response with his fingertip. Mutely, her body struggling with an overload of sensation, she stared at his arrogant, handsome face.

With that fascinating hint of an accent underlying each forceful word, he said, ‘No matter how hard we try to pretend, when I touch you we both feel that electricity. Don’t try to convince me—or yourself—that it doesn’t exist. What we need to talk about is how we’re going to deal with it.’

He removed his finger from her lips and sat back in the seat, his profile an angular, uncompromising statement against the silver-grey foliage of the olive trees lining the road.

With stubborn precision Lauren said, ‘We don’t do anything about it.’

Still quivering inside, she dragged her head around to stare blindly out of the window, fuming when Guy made no answer. Instead she heard him speak in Dacian through the intercom to the driver. His voice, easy and relaxed, told her that he wasn’t suffering any inner turmoil.

Lauren clawed back the tattered remnants of her control. Her father had once told her that the tone of a man’s servants told much about the master; listening to the driver, she decided that his respectful reply was entirely free from servility, and that he liked Guy.

Who said no more about the attraction that smouldered between them. Instead, with infuriating self-possession he turned into a tour guide, explaining the age and the reason for various interesting ruins along the way, and discoursing on his cousin’s plans for the island.

The villa in the hills was a tall, square house, redeemed from severity by blush-pink walls and shutters in a muted dark green. Gardens stretched around it, the trees and arbours melding inconspicuously into olive groves.

Delighted by its faded charm, Lauren leaned forward a little as the car swung up the drive.

From beside her Guy observed, ‘According to family tradition the house was built for the Venetian mistress of one of the nineteenth-century princes. She had an embarrassment of children, but he spent most of his time here.’

Lauren stiffened. ‘Why didn’t he marry her?’

‘He was already married to a very stern woman who never, so the story goes, smiled.’

‘I wouldn’t smile either if my husband flaunted a mistress in my face,’ Lauren said astringently, reaching for her bag as the car slowed down.

The second the words left her mouth she realised she’d made a mistake. Guy’s brow lifted and he surveyed her with a twisted smile. ‘Is it the infidelity or the flaunting that you disapprove of?’

‘Both,’ she said shortly, wishing that she could tell him about her relationship with Marc. She couldn’t, of course, because it wasn’t her secret.

Her mother came out of the shadows beneath the portico, graceful and composed as always, the grey eyes she’d bestowed on her daughter serene and limpid. Nevertheless her smile was a little too set, her movements too careful to be natural.

Hurrying out of the car, Lauren gave her a quick hug. ‘How’s Dad?’

Isabel smiled at Guy. ‘Fine. He’s waiting inside for you.’

As Lauren ran up the steps she heard her mother say, ‘Guy, thank you so much for organising this— I don’t know what we’d have done without you.’

Her tone revealed that she liked him. So did every other woman, Lauren thought with crisp cynicism as she walked into the coolness of the house and found her father waiting in a big drawing room decorated in a subdued palette of cream and ochre and the same silvery green as the olive leaves.

Nothing lushly tropical about this place!

‘Hello,’ she said and hugged him tightly. He returned it with vigour. Relieved, she pulled back and regarded him. ‘So now we know that you can travel by air without any problems,’ she observed severely, ‘you’ve no excuse to stay at home in future.’

He smiled at her. ‘It seems I need a nurse to keep an eye on me, but I got here in one piece. How are you, darling?’

‘A bit groggy from lack of sleep.’ Her rapid description of the exchange students’ antics made him laugh.

When she finished Guy said from behind, ‘I have an appointment in a few minutes, so I must leave now. I hope you enjoy your stay here.’

Flushing, Lauren remembered her manners. ‘I’ll come out with you.’

He stood back to let her through the door. Once it had closed behind them he said, ‘Walk in the garden with me for a few minutes.’

‘Why?’

His brow lifted. ‘Because it’s cooler than standing out on the gravel in the sun. Dacia is not as hot as Sant’Rosa or Valanu, but the sun will burn your white skin.’

Feeling foolish, she said, ‘Oh. Yes, all right.’

The garden, throbbing with cicadas, was certainly cooler. In the shade of a dark, dome-shaped tree, Guy remarked with disconcerting shrewdness, ‘Satisfied that your father hasn’t taken any harm from flying?’

She blinked back tears and gave him a strained smile. ‘He looks great. They both do. Guy—oh, in public, should I call you Your Highness?’

‘No,’ he said tersely, his voice quick and hard and cold.

‘I don’t want to break any rules,’ she said.

He showed his teeth in a smile that held little humour. ‘Between us,’ he said sardonically, ‘we’ve broken so many that it doesn’t matter. The first time you meet Luka, call him Your Royal Highness. After that it’s sir, until he tells you not to bother with formality. The same applies to Alexa, although she has a tendency to giggle when anyone calls her ma’am.’

He sounded fed up. Lauren said, ‘Thanks. In fact, thank you for everything. I imagine that between us we’ve made a huge mess of your schedule, and I’m sorry—’

He interrupted with curt impatience, ‘Don’t be foolish. Naturally I feel responsible for this situation; I shall do what I can to make it easier for you. Now go inside, have a meal, talk to your parents and go to bed as soon as it gets dark. Do you ride?’

She blinked. ‘Yes, I do. Well, Pony Club level.’

‘Then I’ll call for you after breakfast tomorrow morning with a suitable mount,’ he said and flicked her cheek with a casual finger. ‘Sleep well.’

‘No— Guy—that’s not a good idea.’

His black brows lifted. ‘What? Sleeping? I think it’s an excellent idea.’

The lazy, caressing note in his voice set fires smouldering deep inside her. Gritting her teeth, she said, ‘I don’t want to fuel more media furore. Shouldn’t we keep as far away from each other as possible in case the marriage has to be annulled?’

‘Discovering that the marriage might be valid hasn’t turned me into a serial rapist,’ he drawled in a voice like chipped ice.

Her eyes widened as she searched his hard face. ‘I know that, but—’

He cut her off with a total lack of finesse. Every word sharp-edged, he said, ‘My cousin Luka is as close to being an absolute ruler as you can get nowadays without aspiring to dictatorship. He’s slowly organising a democratic system of government—against the wishes of most of his subjects so far—but at the moment he can ban anyone he doesn’t want on the island, and if anyone does sneak in, he can see that they get shown politely off.’ He frowned, but his voice softened as he said, ‘Why do you think I brought you here?’

Lauren said doubtfully, ‘I hope you’re right,’ then made the mistake of smiling at him.

Her heart kicked into high gear when he smiled back. Experienced and wicked, that killer smile promised untold delights—delights that figured largely in her dreams each night, so that she woke hot and aching with frustration.

How long would it take for the Press to forget them? If she had to stay here for more than a week she’d be in real trouble…

He bent his head and kissed her cheek, a touch so light there was no reason for her bones to melt.

The heat in his eyes transformed into cynicism. ‘As for the Sant’Rosans, don’t worry about them. Believe me, they’re not in the habit of reading gossip columns. They’ve got more important concerns to worry about.’

He took her arm and steered her back to the house. At the door he said, ‘Get a good night’s rest. Shadows under your eyes don’t suit you.’

Towards morning Lauren opened her eyes, only slowly realising that she was staring at the tester of a massive four-poster bed. The fabric was arranged like the roof of a tent, fastened in the centre with a medallion carved in high relief.

A leopard.

She was in Dacia, and she was in love with a prince.

No, she was not in love—she was besotted, infatuated, in lust, smitten by the man, but never in love! As soon as she got back to work she’d see it for what it was—a temporary sexual bewitchment, so fierce it would burn out in the routine of ordinary life.

In other words, exactly what her mother had felt for the man she’d taken as a lover for one crazy week. Isabel had always loved Hugh Porter; when she’d come to her senses she’d gone back to him.

Lauren frowned and wondered why it was so hard to convince herself that all she felt for Guy was that temporary flash and dazzle.

Because he’d shown himself to be brave and chivalrous? Or something so simple as being able to make her laugh?

Whatever, she couldn’t let it affect her. Fairy stories were for children; she wasn’t a Sleeping Beauty and Guy was too tough and autocratic to be a fairy prince, and there’d be no happily-ever-after for them.

The bleak truth hurt, but not facing it would lead to greater pain; better to accept it, ignore the heartache and get on with her life. But oh, it would have been so much easier to deal with if she’d been able to go cold turkey. This stay on Dacia was going to be refined and subtle torture.

Thank heaven the media’s voracious appetite for stories soon burned out!

Yet she couldn’t regret meeting Guy. As for making love with him—the thought of never knowing that extreme pleasure made her shudder.

A wistful fantasy drifted across her mind; for a few minutes she indulged herself in the tormenting memories, but self-preservation forced the dangerously seductive images from her mind. Instead, she wondered what had happened to her laptop computer in Sant’Rosa; if she had it here she’d be able to contact Marc in the Seychelles. She should warn him that their relationship might become public knowledge. Besides, she’d like the benefit of his ability to cut concisely through to the heart of any matter.

Eventually she drifted off to sleep again, to wake with a thick head and a sombre mood.

In contrast, her father had never looked better across the breakfast table. Any pain, she thought with renewed determination when she ran upstairs to change into the jeans and cotton jersey she’d bought in New Zealand, would be endurable if it kept him safe.

A knock on the door heralded her mother. ‘You look much better,’ Isabel said with a smile that faded too quickly.

‘So does Dad.’

Her mother’s voice softened. ‘He loves this weather. In fact, he seems to have taken a great liking to Dacia itself. Darling, I’m so glad you’re here. I’ll never be able to thank the prince enough for rescuing you both times, from Sant’Rosa and then from those journalists.’ Her gaze lingered on Lauren’s face. ‘He was wonderful yesterday—just took over and organised us so smoothly onto the plane and over here. Your father likes him very much, and so do I. What do you think of him?’ she finished casually.

Lauren’s heart contracted. Infusing her tone with wry briskness, she said, ‘I’m very grateful to him, but he’s too much like Marc—inclined to take over.’

Another knock on the door produced one of the maids, to tell her with a broad, significant smile that Prince Guy had arrived to take her riding.

‘Make sure you put on sunscreen,’ her mother said automatically, then laughed. ‘I know, I know—modern cosmetics have sunscreen in them. I suppose I’ll stop being an over protective mother when you marry. Really marry, I mean.’

The taut note in her voice made Lauren say steadily, ‘That’s not on the agenda at the moment.’

After a second’s hesitation Isabel returned, ‘I hope that when you meet a man you can love, you won’t let any considerations weigh on you but your chances of a happy life with him.’

Their eyes met. ‘When I meet him,’ Lauren said quietly, ‘I’ll let you know.’

Her mother nodded.

Guy was mounted on a chestnut gelding; he rode, Lauren thought for one dazzled moment, like a centaur, at home on the animal in a way she’d never achieve. As she came out into the sunlight a groom dismounted from another gelding with an amiable face and two white socks.

After greeting them both, Lauren swung into the saddle and spent the next few minutes concentrating on staying in the saddle. Guy monitored her carefully, riding close enough to help if things went wrong, and proffering only advice she needed.

She had never felt so safe, she thought despairingly.