Читать книгу The Marquis And The Mother-To-Be - Valerie Parv, Valerie Parv - Страница 11

When Carissa awoke, she was surprised to find it was morning. Although she had slept well enough, she felt lethargic. Last night, Eduard had insisted she stay in bed and had brought her an omelet and a sliced Carramer peach. Impressive for a man who was accustomed to being waited on, she told him, using humor to disguise her reaction to him.

He had learned to cook in his spare time while at sea, he explained. While she ate, he had kept her company, but had refused to let her talk about the lodge, insisting that the problem could wait until morning when she felt better. She wondered if he would be so tolerant if he knew the real cause of her “flu.”

She was violently ill almost as soon as she arose, and was glad that Eduard didn’t see her undignified dash into the en suite bathroom. Why didn’t she tell him she was pregnant? she wondered, as she returned to the bed to catch her breath.

The answer came straight away. She didn’t want to disappoint him. After all this time, she still cared what he thought of her. Fool, she lectured herself. How many times did he have to reject her before she accepted that he wasn’t interested? If he were, he’d have answered at least some of the letters she wrote to him after returning to Australia. But he hadn’t. After his stiff apology for hurting her feelings, she hadn’t heard from him again.

She sipped a glass of tepid water, knowing she didn’t regret the baby she was carrying. She had met Mark Lucas, a handsome, personable investment broker, through her brother, who was in the same field. She had been assistant manager of a boutique hotel. After she had learned that her father hadn’t left her a share in the family home, she and Mark had already discussed moving to Carramer, and had set the wheels in motion. Mark had assured her he wanted the move as much as she did, but for different reasons, she knew now. According to her brother, Mark’s business was struggling. He had probably thought moving to Carramer would give him a fresh start.

She and Mark had been seeing one another for six months before they had made love. Mark had wanted to long before, but she had preferred to wait. Then in the aftermath of her father’s death, she had turned to Mark for comfort, too grief stricken to think of taking precautions. When she found out she was pregnant after only one night with Mark, she was so delighted she wondered if that had been her unconscious wish all along. A baby would give her the family she so longed for. Foolishly she had expected Mark to feel the same way.

Her fantasy had been shattered when she’d discovered he didn’t want children. He’d been one of six brothers, and he didn’t intend to struggle like his parents, he told her. When she informed him that she was expecting his child, he had offered her money to, as he put it, “solve the problem.” She realized what he meant and had thrown the offer back at him and walked out.

Whatever her motive for getting pregnant, she wanted this baby with an intensity that astonished her. She linked her hands in front of herself in a protective gesture, although it was too early to feel any changes yet. Mark might think of the baby as a problem, but Carissa cherished the life growing within her because it meant having someone upon whom she could lavish all the love inside her at long last. She didn’t expect Eduard to understand any more than Mark had done.

Finding the lodge had seemed like fate. She had paid the con man half the money Jeff had given her as her share of their father’s house, keeping the rest for redecorating. The con man had told her she could move in right away, assuring her that her mortgage repayments wouldn’t start until the lodge was earning an income. With a doctor available in Tricot to see her through her pregnancy, she had felt like the luckiest person in the world.

Lucky? She almost laughed out loud. If she’d suspected that Eduard really owned the lodge, she would have had nothing to do with it.

She shuddered, remembering how she had believed herself in love with him when she was a teenager. With the Australian Embassy located next door to Eduard’s home in Perla, their paths often crossed socially. In the eighteen months she had lived in Carramer, they had become friends.

On Eduard’s part, that’s all it was, she understood now. Perhaps her lack of family and roots, and her father’s emotional distance, had made her susceptible to reading too much into the relationship, but she had believed that Eduard had shared her feelings.

Knowing he would soon be leaving for university, she had kissed him with all the passion in her soul. He had stood like a statue, his mouth cold against hers and his body stonily unresponsive. When she’d stammered out her feelings, he had dismissed them with unfeeling arrogance. She had wanted the ground to open up and swallow her. The stiff apology he made before he left had only made her feel more stupid and naive.

She pressed her hands to her cheeks, which burned as hotly as her memories. When he’d swept her into his arms yesterday, he must have been aware of her instinctive response. Was she destined always to make a fool of herself around him?

Her only consolation was that Eduard didn’t seem to remember that teenage kiss. He had been the one to kiss her yesterday. She touched her fingers to her mouth, as if she could still feel the pressure of his lips against hers. He was no man of stone now. No statue could generate the heat inside her that his touch had done. She felt a resurgence of it now, just thinking about him.

Annoyed with herself, she drowned the feelings under a cool shower then dressed in a white shirt and olive cargo pants. Leaving her feet bare, she went to the kitchen to make toast, which was about all the breakfast she could face at present. From the plate and cup on the drainer, she saw that Eduard had already beaten her to it.

Later she tracked him down to the study she had looked forward to using as her own. She felt cheated at seeing him looking so at home behind what she’d thought of as her desk. Nor did she welcome the quick flutter in her stomach at the sight of him.

She placed the worthless sale contract on the desk in front of him. “I should have known this deal was too good to be true.”

Eduard leafed through the papers, stopping to read a clause now and then. When he looked up, he said, “These are good, very good. But the royal family only uses one intermediary and it isn’t…” he glanced at the name of the selling agent “… Dominic Hass. Where did you meet this man?”

She sighed. “I was staying at the Monarch Hotel in Tricot. He must have overheard me talking on my cell phone to my brother. I told Jeff that I was going to look at a property for sale out this way. After I hung up, Hass came up and asked my advice about where to take his mother sight-seeing. His mother! I must have sucker written on my forehead.”

Eduard tilted the swivel chair backward, resting his fingertips on the desk for balance. “Don’t blame yourself. People like Hass can be very convincing.”

“He struck up a conversation. When I told him I planned to open a bed-and-breakfast place in the area, he told me he was the agent for a property that might interest me.” She looked around her. “I should have smelled a rat when he didn’t have a key. The lock was broken, probably by him. He said the keys had been lost.”

This elicited a frown from Eduard. “That explains how he managed to gain entry. The lodge has never been up for sale.”

She couldn’t conceal her bitterness. “I know that now. Hass looked well-dressed and trustworthy.” She might have been describing Mark, she thought with sudden insight. Or Eduard himself. She would definitely have to be more wary of good-looking men.

Eduard leaned across the desk. “How did he convince you of his credentials? I’m not rubbing it in, but the more you can recall about him, the greater the chance of the police catching him.”

“He showed me glowing references from some of the people I remember from my father’s time here, including you.” She fished in her pocket and pulled out a business card. Hass’s name mocked her from the glossy surface as she handed it to Eduard.

He studied the card thoughtfully. “The details are probably as phony as his references. Did he have an accent?”

“Vaguely British, I think, but difficult to pin down.”

“He probably travels around the region, looking for new victims and staying a step ahead of local law. The local authorities may already have a file on him. He probably targeted you, as a foreigner, because…”

“Because I don’t know any better than to buy up chunks of Carramer’s national estate.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not going to see my money back, am I?”

“Probably not.”

She sank onto a chair in front of the desk. With most of her nest egg gone, she couldn’t afford to remain in Carramer for long. Her brother would give her a home until the baby was born, but the thought of confessing her present plight to him didn’t appeal at all.

“Still feeling unwell?” Eduard asked, watching her.

She lifted her head. “A little.”

“You do look washed-out.”

“Kind of you to say so.” She let her ironic tone thank him for his encouragement.

His aristocratic eyebrows lifted. “I wasn’t criticizing, merely stating a fact.”

“Sometimes ‘facts’ can be damaging, whether you mean them to or not.”

“Would you prefer me to lie to you?”

“I’d rather this whole mess hadn’t happened.” To her horror, she felt tears pool in her eyes. She blinked hard, but two droplets escaped down her cheeks.

Although she dashed them away furiously, Eduard noticed. He stood up, looking distressed. “Cris, please don’t.”

He had never been comfortable with emotions, she reminded herself, determined not to burden him with hers any longer. She got up. “I’ll start packing right away.”

Eduard stayed her with a sharp command. “Don’t go, not like this. I’d like to help if I can.”

Remembering how he had trampled on her feelings once before, she shook her head. “I got myself into this and I’ll get myself out again. I don’t need charity.”

“I’m not offering any, but I have an idea that may help.” He paused, then said, “Haven’t you wondered why I have the title of marquis, theoretically outranking my older brother?”

Her confusion increased. “I assumed it’s a Carramer tradition.” But she sat down again.

Eduard laced his fingers together on the desk. “In a way, it is. The Merrisand title traditionally passes down my mother’s line to the youngest child. One of her ancestors, also a youngest child, managed to offend a past ruler of Carramer and was given the title as an insult.”

What did this have to do with her? Still, she couldn’t resist asking, “Why was it an insult?”

“In Carramer mythology, Merrisand is a place that doesn’t exist except in imagination, what you might call a fool’s paradise.”

She bristled. “I know I’ve been living in one since I got here, but I don’t think…”

“I wasn’t referring to you,” he said before she could finish. “My forebear turned the title into an honorable one by setting up a charitable trust in that name. He built Merrisand Castle which still stands as a tourist attraction, the income going to the trust. With the title, I inherited responsibility for the trust. When Prince Henry left me the lodge, I decided to make it into a tourist facility to aid the trust, not unlike your plans for it.”

“The difference being you own it, I don’t.”

He gave her a wry smile. “Did you own the hotels you worked in?”

She stared at him, perplexed. “Are you offering me a job?”

“You have the skills and experience to run such an establishment, more than I do, come to that. You could set the lodge up and operate it until I finalize my tour with the navy in the next few months.”

“You have staff coming out of your ears.”

Her turn of phrase provoked another smile. “Staff, yes. People accustomed to running palaces and royal tours. It’s hardly comparable to looking after tourists.”

“True.” She quelled the expectancy rising inside her. Could this possibly answer her prayers? “What would I have to do?”

“Help me set up and run the best tourist facility in Carramer in aid of the Merrisand Trust.”

“What happens after you leave the navy?”

“We can discuss that when the time comes.”

By then she would be noticeably pregnant. Her original plan had been to work steadily on the refurbishing for as long as she could, then take the time she needed to have her baby and recover before opening the place to visitors. Eduard was hardly likely to want to wait that long. She found it hard to say, “Thank you, but I don’t think so.”

“Why? It’s not as if you have competing offers.”

She made a face. “You really should stop boosting my ego, or I’ll end up with a swollen head.”

“I didn’t mean…”

“Let’s face it, you don’t really want me around. You’re only offering me a job to ease your conscience, but there’s no need. I’ll be fine.” She was probably flouting protocol by not letting him finish. She didn’t care. She only wanted this over with. His job offer tempted her more than she wanted to admit, but her pregnancy made it impossible.

Overseeing the lodge for someone as demanding as Eduard would entail stress she didn’t need right now. And soon her condition would begin to show. How long would Eduard want her on his payroll then? Better to leave with dignity while she still could.

“My conscience is clear,” he surprised her by saying. “I didn’t con you into buying a pig in a poke.”

She hitched her fists onto her hips. “So you’re saying I’m stupid?”

“How do you figure that?”

“Well, I must be, mustn’t I? Any woman with half a brain would have seen through that smooth operator, instead of trusting him with every cent she had in the world.”

This time she did break down, unable to stem the tears cascading down her cheeks. Eduard was at her side in an instant, his arms enfolding her as he murmured to her in the lilting Carramer tongue.

Twelve years had banished much of the language she’d picked up, but the comfort in his tone reached her, his consideration making her feel worse. She dragged in a lungful of air, trying to stop the sobs welling up from her depths.

“Don’t fight it, let the tears come,” he said in English. “You’ll feel better afterward.”

She didn’t want to feel better. She didn’t want to be in his arms, fighting a war with herself over whether to ask him to kiss her again. Hadn’t she learned anything from her experience with her baby’s father, and from the cold way Eduard himself had rejected her? Suddenly she didn’t know if she was crying because of the lousy hand she’d been dealt, or because she knew Eduard wasn’t for her.

Both were excuses to feel thoroughly miserable, she thought sniffing hard. Pregnancy must be playing havoc with her hormones to make her come apart so completely.

Eduard offered her a fine lawn handkerchief with his crest embroidered in one corner, a reminder if she needed one, of his status relative to hers. She blew her nose and dabbed at her streaming eyes. “I’m not usually this much of a wimp.”

“Neither are you entirely well. Maybe we should have this discussion again when you’re fully recovered.”

He began to rub the small of her back. The circular movement of his hand against her back felt so comforting that she wanted to purr. All the more reason to put some distance between them. Why was she finding it so hard to do?

“Eduard,” she began diffidently.

His face was buried in her hair. “Mmmm.”

“You can let me go now. I’m all cried out.”

“Maybe I don’t want to let you go.”

He had been ready enough to do so when she was a teenager. “You can’t make me take the job,” she said.

“Who said anything about the job? You feel fine right where you are.”

Heaven help her, she agreed. After her father had died, and then Mark had rejected their child, she’d felt more lonely than she’d thought possible. She wasn’t usually given to self-pity but the realization that she was officially an orphan had created a chasm inside her that seemed impossible to fill. Her father had been an only child, and hadn’t heard from his parents in England in years. He had lost touch with her mother’s family after she’d died. So, apart from her brother, Carissa had no close family. No wonder her desire for a child of her own had overwhelmed her common sense.

She told herself the surge of pleasure she felt in Eduard’s arms was only because she was lonely. Unable to resist, she lifted her head and looked at him. He must have read the naked need in her gaze, because he bent his head and claimed her mouth, filling her with desire so wild it was like a bushfire tearing through her.

She tried ordering herself to relax. Hormones, only hormones, she told herself. She wasn’t going to give any man the chance to treat her badly again, remember? So who was that woman answering his kiss with so much passion?

Her mind reeled as his tongue met hers in an unbelievably seductive dance. She placed her hands on his chest, thinking to push him away, but he trapped her hands against the fiery heat of his body, right where his heart pounded under her fingers. She could feel hers keeping time.

Heat flickered through her, making nonsense of her attempt to remain aloof. When had she been able to do any such thing around Eduard de Marigny? As a boy, he had enchanted her with his darkly handsome looks and challenging air of reserve. As a man he was even more handsome, but with a strength and self-assurance that had been missing from the boy. The result was breathtaking, literally.

“I can’t do this,” she said, all but suffocated by sensation.

“You’re doing remarkably well,” he murmured.

She persisted, pressing her palms against him to signal her seriousness. “Everything’s moving too fast. First I thought the lodge was mine, now I find it’s yours.”

“No reason you can’t be part of the package,” he said.

“No!” This time she made sure he understood her rejection of this notion.

He created a heartbeat of space between them and looked down at her, his gaze puzzled. “What’s the matter, Cris? To me, this feels pretty right.”

“You could have fooled me.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice.

A frown etched a deep V in his forehead. “What do you mean?”

She hadn’t intended to remind him, but she was committed now. “When I was fifteen, I kissed you and you treated me as if I’d just crawled out from under a rock.”

He released her. “I was only eighteen myself. I didn’t have much skill at dealing with women.”

And now he did. The thought wasn’t as comforting as she knew he meant it to be. A wave of something very like jealousy overcame her. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I thought you were attracted to me.”

Eduard let out a long breath. “I was.”

She hadn’t expected this. “Then why did you go out of your way to avoid me until you left for university?”

“I didn’t know any other way to handle a lovestruck fifteen-year-old. I obviously couldn’t encourage your attention.”

“Because I’m not royal like you?”

He crooked a finger under her chin and tilted her face up. “Because you were still a child.”

She wasn’t a child any longer, and his closeness threatened to overwhelm her defenses. “Just as well it was only a crush. I got over it.”

“Did you, Cris?”

“Of course.” The shakiness in her voice made the lie obvious.

Evidently not to Eduard. “Then all I can say is I’m sorry. I thought you wanted me to kiss you.”

If he only knew. “People change,” she said with a lightness that didn’t quite come off.

“I haven’t. Not where my affection for you is concerned.”

“Don’t, Eduard, please.” To find that he had cared about her after all was almost more than she could bear.

“Is there someone in your life?”

“Yes.” She didn’t tell him the someone was her unborn child.

“I see.” He turned away and paced to the window. “Is he planning to join you here?”

“We haven’t worked out the details.”

Eduard spun around. “Then why not stay and manage the lodge? There’s a caretaker’s cottage that could be made into a separate home.”

Dare she say yes? She knew he meant that she and the man he believed she was involved with could use the caretaker’s cottage, while she helped him get the lodge ready to open. Did it matter if the other person in her life turned out to be a baby? Of course it did, she accepted. Look at the damage one misunderstanding between them had done. Who knew what harm could come of starting out with another?

“Don’t give me your answer yet,” he urged before she could say anything. “I’d like to look around the estate first, get a feel for what might be done with it. Will you stay while we work up a plan of action?”

The pleasure shafting through her was out of all proportion to his suggestion. But it meant she could stay for a few more days. And she would be gone before he found out about the baby, so he need never feel disappointed in her. Now she knew that he had been attracted to her, she didn’t think she could cope with that.

“I’ll stay. Once we report what happened with the con man, I’ll need to be available for the police to interview me,” she said, knowing the excuse sounded lame. She could be interviewed equally well at the hotel in Tricot.

“You should.” He matched the seriousness of her tone.

She laughed nervously. “You said they would want to.”

“And your con man might have left the country by now.”

His comment plunged her into gloom, emphasizing that she stayed by Eduard’s grace and favor. The thought took some of the gloss off the idea. She was tempted to change her mind. Playing house in what she had thought of as her home only postponed the inevitable. She still had to make a life for herself and the baby. With only the money she had set aside to redecorate the lodge, it wouldn’t be easy. Why not face it now and get it over with?

Her expression must have telegraphed her intention, because Eduard said, “I mean to put our arrangement on a business footing, starting now.”

“What?”

“I intend to pay you a salary while you’re assisting me.”

She studied him suspiciously. “You wouldn’t be trying to make up for my losses, would you, your lordship?”

He lifted his hands, flattening his palms. “When we were younger, you called me that when you thought I was getting high and mighty. Offering to pay you isn’t in that class.” He shifted uncomfortably. “Putting you on my staff would serve to defuse any gossip that might arise out of your presence here.”

“It’s okay for you to have a female under your roof, as long as she’s a servant?” She knew she sounded angry and couldn’t make herself care. She felt as if she was fifteen again, being put in her place. “I think it’s best if I leave now.”

He touched her arm. “Cris, I didn’t ask to be royal. Things are simpler this way, trust me.”

His statement took the wind out of her sails. “I know, and I shouldn’t overreact. But if I’m to be paid for working for you, I want to do a real job.”

He looked relieved. “I can turn into a slave driver if you prefer. Some of the men under my command already think of me as one.”

“I don’t doubt it.” She had seen firsthand how autocratic he could be when he wanted. Catching sight of the twinkle in his dark gaze, she realized he was joking.

“Do we have a deal?”

Her sigh gusted out. She had known what she would say the moment he offered her the job. She wanted to stay with him. “Deal.”

He smiled and her heart turned over. “I’ll brush up on my slave-driving skills just for you.”

He wouldn’t have to, she knew. This was familiar territory. Challenged by his offer, her mind was already racing ahead as she ticked off requirements on her fingers. “We’ll need a business and financial plan for the lodge. That would be your department.” She took a breath. “As soon as the financials and decorating theme are in place, I can draw up a schedule for trades-people to do the work, and a program for hiring and training staff, starting with a house manager, catering manager, executive housekeeper and front office staff.”

He looked slightly bemused. “Agreed. Right after you put your feet up for a while.”

Shock jolted through her. Had he guessed her secret already? “Excuse me?”

“You’re still recovering from the flu. No feudal lord worth his salt makes his serfs work when they’re ill. Serfs are expensive to replace,” he added when she shot him a quizzical look.

“You’re the boss,” she admitted.

His gaze glimmered with satisfaction. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”