Читать книгу The Monarch's Son - Valerie Parv, Valerie Parv - Страница 11

As Lorne scooped up Alison’s inert body, he automatically reassured his son. “It’s all right, Nori. Miss Carter is only tired because of her fight with the serpent. Return to the house with Robert and I’ll bring Miss Carter myself.” To his aide he added quietly, “Have the doctor meet us there.”

The bodyguard was too well trained to argue the prince’s edict, but his eyes were full of questions as he took Nori and hurried toward the villa. Lorne knew he had always been something of a hands-on ruler, but it was unusual for him to take such a personal interest in a stranger even if she was inordinately beautiful. Of course, most strangers didn’t wash up on the beach at his feet, he admitted to himself.

Alison didn’t stir when he held her in his arms for the second time in an hour. Much more of this and it could get to be a habit. He frowned as he took in the paleness of her features. They were already finely drawn, and her pallor added to his impression that he held a life-size porcelain doll.

Smudges of violet rimmed her huge sea-green eyes. He felt annoyed with himself for letting her talk instead of insisting she see his doctor right away. Who knew what damage her brush with the serpent had done?

He had allowed her to talk because he had enjoyed it, he acknowledged inwardly, crossing the white sand in long strides until he reached a row of ironwood trees fringing the beach. Meeting a woman on equal terms was a rare experience in his world, where almost everyone knew who he was at first sight and invariably reacted with deference. It had come as a shock to realize that Alison had no idea of his position. Then he had started to enjoy being treated as a man rather than a monarch.

Fool, he berated himself. Hadn’t he learned anything from his experience with Nori’s mother? Chandra had been Australian, too, and as refreshing in her way as Alison was in hers when they met during an official visit to her country. He had fallen in love with the former Miss Australia and against the advice of his ministers, had brought Chandra back to Carramer as his bride.

The fantasy had lasted only long enough for her to realize that, unlike her reign as Miss Australia, her duties as a member of Carramer’s royal family wouldn’t end after a year. During one of their more spectacular arguments, she had assured Lorne that attaining the title of princess had been her ambition all along. Having achieved it, she could see no reason to put up with the duties attending the title.

Motherhood had proved even more of a burden and she had readily handed their son over to a nanny until Lorne stepped in, taking an active role as the baby’s father. Chandra simply hadn’t cared about either of them, preferring to fly off to Paris where she could attend the latest fashion showings and revel in the attention she received as a princess without the inconvenience of royal duties.

In desperation Lorne had reduced her allowance, forcing her to stay at home for longer periods, only to be accused of being a tyrant with no thought for her needs and feelings. Over time, she found almost everything about the island kingdom disagreeable—including their marriage, leaving Lorne feeling more alone than he had ever felt when he was single.

Chandra also grew increasingly resentful of the attention Lorne devoted to their baby and retaliated by criticizing everything to do with Carramer. His country could never compete with Australia in her eyes. He had become sick of hearing how much better everything was in Australia. Yet he couldn’t do the one thing Chandra really wanted him to do—free her from their marriage vows so she could enjoy being a princess without any other ties.

In his country marriage was a union for life. Only in the most dire of circumstances could separation be considered. There was no such thing as divorce. A couple might live apart, but they would be bound together until death. Chandra had demanded that Lorne change the laws, but having seen the effects of divorce on children in other countries, he couldn’t bring himself to institute it in Carramer, not even for his wife. Had they not been royal, he could have allowed her to live apart from him, but he had no intention of setting such a poor example for his people.

A furrow etched his brow. If he had changed the law, would Chandra be alive today? He would never know. He only knew that another fierce argument had resulted in her flight away from the villa at reckless speed, ending when her car went out of control on a cliff top, sending the car crashing to the surf below. Chandra had found her release but in a way that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

The woman in his arms moaned softly, drawing his attention. While they talked, her long hair had dried into a curtain of nut-brown curls that now fanned out against his shoulder. Silken strands of it twined around his fingers. He caught himself wondering at how little she weighed, surely not much more than Nori. The feel of her lithe body against him reminded him unwillingly that it had been a year since Chandra died, a long time for a man of his strong appetites to be without the company of a woman.

The frown returned. What was it about Alison Carter that made him so aware of his celibate life? After Chandra he knew better than to involve himself with a woman not of his own kind, especially another Australian. What was their expression? Once bitten, twice shy. It definitely applied to him. And he wasn’t so starved for female attention that any woman would turn his thoughts in the same direction.

There was something about this woman that affected him in ways he preferred not to think about, he knew. The sooner his doctor cleared her to be on her way, the better for all of them.

When Lorne reached the villa, Dr. Pascale was pacing the marble terrace, his expression anxious. As soon as he saw Lorne, he gestured for servants to relieve the prince of his burden. Lorne gave Alison up to them with a reluctance he didn’t care to examine too closely.

“Take her to the Rose Suite,” he instructed. Of all the guest suites in the villa, it was the most beautiful. An artist would appreciate waking up in such surroundings, he thought. To the doctor, he said, “Report to me as soon as you’ve examined and treated her.”

The doctor’s eyebrows lifted curiously. “I take it this young lady is special to you?”

The doctor had brought Lorne into the world thirty-one years ago and was one of the few people who would dare to speak so familiarly to him. Lorne’s parents had died during a cyclone when he was only twenty, and the doctor had become something of a father figure. The man’s informality usually warmed him, but right now he found it intensely irritating. “She is a stranger in need of our help, Alain. I suggest you provide it for her.”

The doctor didn’t look in the least put out by Lorne’s abruptness. “As you wish, Your Highness.” Somehow he managed to infuse the title with a touch of reprimand.

Lorne regretted his tone immediately. He deserved Alain’s censure. No matter how confused he felt over the unexpected arrival of the Australian woman, it didn’t give him the right to abuse a dear friend. Raking long fingers through his hair, Lorne said, “Wait, Alain. I’m sorry for snapping at you. Do what you can for her, all right?”

Amusement danced in the doctor’s expression. “As you wish, Your Highness.” This time, the title contained the wealth of affection that had built up between them through the years.

By the time the doctor returned with his report, Lorne had showered and changed into a white open-necked shirt and black pants. He was surprised at the tension he noticed coiling inside himself as he waited for the doctor’s verdict.

“The young lady has suffered no lasting harm from being caught in the rip,” the doctor informed him. “At least no physical harm.”

Alarm flared through Lorne. “Then why did she faint?”

The doctor paced to a large window overlooking the villa’s expansive grounds. “Exhaustion would be my diagnosis.”

“From her ordeal?”

The doctor turned back to him and shook his head. “From more than that, I would say. She’s run-down and slightly anemic. When she came around, she was groggy enough to be honest and admit she hasn’t taken a holiday for years. I gather she hasn’t had much sleep since arriving in our beautiful country.”

Bracing himself, Lorne said, “I imagine she spends her nights partying with other travelers her own age.”

“I doubt it,” Dr. Pascale observed dryly. “She’s staying at Shepherd Lodge.”

“I see.” Lorne did see. Shepherd Lodge was run by an order of lay nuns who took strict care to see that their residents behaved themselves. The young women who stayed there endured the spartan rooms and requirement to do chores either to please parents who lived in the country or, in the case of foreigners, because it was clean and incredibly cheap. He had a good idea which of the reasons applied to Alison. On the beach she had mentioned staying as long as her money lasted.

“I’ve given her something to help her rest,” the doctor continued. “Do you want me to arrange transportation for her back to the Lodge when she wakes up?”

Lorne was in no doubt what answer the doctor expected. Alain Pascale might be getting on in years but he was nobody’s fool. “You know perfectly well I can’t send her back to that bleak place if she’s unwell,” he observed testily. “They have a rule against residents remaining in their rooms during the day. You have to be almost dying to be exempted.”

“Then she can remain in the Rose Suite for a day or so until she recovers?”

Wondering if he needed his head examined, Lorne nodded. “For a day or so. Have someone notify the matron at Shepherd Lodge that their resident is staying at my villa so they have no need to send out a search party.”

The doctor’s eyebrows lifted. “And you got mad at me for harboring suspicions. They’ll have nothing on the rumors doing the rounds once that message is received.”

Lorne gave a heavy sigh. “You’re right as usual. Have my aide tell them Alison has taken up a post with my household as…as Nori’s companion for the remainder of our vacation here.”

Alain had the grace not to grin, although he looked pleased by the decision. “You’re assuming that she’ll accept, of course.”

Lorne wondered if he looked as stunned as he felt. “Of course she will, if I command it.”

The doctor shrugged. “You of all people should know Australians can be infuriatingly independent. Miss Carter seems to be no exception. I’d ask her nicely if I were you, then she might say yes.”

Asking nicely wasn’t something Lorne was accustomed to doing. As the sovereign ruler of Carramer, his word was quite literally law. For the first time it came to him to wonder if it hadn’t been one of the stumbling blocks to happiness with his late wife. Since he would never know the answer, he dismissed it from his mind. “I’ll think about it,” he said ominously.

“I recognize a dismissal when I hear one,” the doctor said easily. “I’ll stick around overnight in case your young lady needs me again.”

“She isn’t my young lady,” Lorne said irritably. “Although I seem to be stuck with her for the time being.”

“Approach her with that attitude and it won’t be a problem. She’ll be gone so fast your head will spin,” the doctor pointed out. “Most virile young men wouldn’t consider accommodating a beautiful young woman to be a hardship.”

Lorne favored him with his most regal glare of disapproval although he knew it was wasted on the doctor. “Most virile young men don’t have a country to run.”

“Or a bad experience with an Australian beauty behind them,” the doctor observed with remarkable insight. “Remember, not all women from that country are like Chandra. Some of them enjoy living in Carramer.”

Alain Pascale’s wife, Helen, was one of them, the prince knew. A nicer, more generous person was impossible to meet. Even in her late sixties, she was still a beauty, and although she returned regularly to visit relatives in her native country, her loyalty to Carramer was unwavering.

“Neither are they all like Helen,” Lorne countered. “She may be Australian, but her heart belongs to Carramer.”

The doctor laughed. “Give me some of the credit at least. When you’re as much in love as Helen and me, even after forty years of marriage, it hardly matters where you live as long as you’re together.”

Jealousy gripped Lorne so fiercely it was like a physical pain, but years of royal training enabled him to mask the reaction. He kept his expression impassive as he bade the doctor good evening. “You may have only one patient, but I have a million of them and I need to get some work done, vacation or no,” he explained.

At the door the doctor paused. “You may have a million subjects, but you’re still a man with a man’s normal needs and desires. Maybe you needed to have a woman wash up at your feet to remind you of the fact. Good night.”

Before Lorne could frame a scathing reply, the doctor had gone and Lorne was alone. Never before had his private apartment seemed so vast or lonely, he reflected somberly. Maybe the doctor was right. It was time he got to know one or two of the beautiful women who were regularly paraded before him at official functions. One of them would never capture his heart unless he gave them a chance. Somehow the idea had less appeal than he thought it should.

“Good, you are awake. Papa said no one was to disturb you until you woke up by your own self.”

It took Allie a moment to connect the child at the foot of her bed with her surroundings, then she sat up with a jolt as memory came rushing back. She had almost drowned in the undertow known locally as the serpent and had been rescued by Prince Lorne himself. She remembered collapsing at his feet, then awakening briefly to find herself being checked over by a kindly doctor who said he would give her something to help her rest.

“What time is it?” she asked the wide-eyed little boy watching her intently.

He made a face. “I don’t know, I’m only four. You went to bed even earlier than me, Miss Carter.”

She couldn’t help smiling and realized how much better she felt. “I did, didn’t I, Nori? I’d like it if you called me Allie. It’s the name my friends use, and I hope you’ll be my friend, too.” She levered herself onto one elbow and patted the space beside her. “Jump up.”

He didn’t need a second invitation. “You talk funny.”

“I’m from Australia. That’s why I sound funny to you.”

He settled himself more comfortably beside her. “My mummy came from Australia. Is that like Heaven?”

Something was wrong here. “Australia’s a place like Carramer, Nori,” she explained, adding gently, “is your mummy in Heaven?”

The child nodded and his eyes grew luminous. “Papa says we can’t visit her but she’s very happy.”

Allie’s heart felt as if a giant hand had clamped around it. So Lorne’s wife had been Australian, too, and had died not so long ago. She remembered the cold way Lorne de Marigny had identified her nationality. Allie must have reminded him painfully of his loss. He must have loved his wife a great deal to react so strongly, she thought on a wave of sadness. What must it be like to be so loved? “I’m sure your daddy’s right, sweetheart,” she assured the little boy tremulously.

He nodded, then brightened. “Do you have a pet kangaroo in Australia?”

He was so sweetly earnest that she wanted to hug him, but hesitated. Was one allowed to hug a crown prince, even if he was only four years old? She settled for placing an arm around his small shoulders. He responded by nestling into the crook of her arm, triggering a surge of maternal longing deep inside her. “No, I don’t,” she said with a laugh. “Kangaroos are wild animals that live in the bush, not in people’s houses. But I have cuddled a koala. They’re adorable, like you.”

He looked disgusted. “I’m not ’dorable. But I’d like to cuddle a koala.”

“They’re only found in Australia and a few zoos in other places. Tell you what,” she said on a sudden inspiration, “I have a toy koala in my luggage back at Allora. I promise I’ll send it to you as soon as I get back there.”

“There’s no need. Nori has plenty of toys,” came a stern injunction from the doorway.

Allie turned to see Lorne standing there, looking like thunder. It was very attractive thunder, she couldn’t help thinking, as memories of him carrying her up the beach returned unbidden. He was dressed in a light-blue polo shirt with a monogram on the pocket and navy pants, the fine cut of the clothing emphasizing the athletic figure underneath. She pulled the bedclothes up higher in an instinctively defensive gesture.

At the sight of his father, little Nori scrambled off the bed and ducked under his father’s arm out of the room. Lorne said something to him about a nanny waiting with breakfast, and the child scampered off.

“I would rather not have my son’s head filled with fantasies about Australia,” the prince said grimly.

What had she done? “I only promised him a toy koala,” she explained. “I brought one with me in case I needed a gift, so it’s no problem.”

He folded his arms across his broad chest and angled his body against the door frame, a picture of masculine disapproval. “Perhaps not to you. But Nori already thinks of Australia as a kind of Disneyland where everything is more exciting than in his own country.”

The child probably associated all Australians with his mother and endowed them with the same magic, Allie thought. She wondered if Lorne knew just how much the little boy missed his mother. Without knowing more of what had happened, she didn’t feel free to bring it up. And she had already made enough mistakes where Lorne was concerned, starting with treating him as a commoner instead of the most powerful man in Carramer.

“About yesterday, Your Highness,” she began formally, although the effect was reduced somewhat by their relative positions. “I’m sorry for intruding. Thank you for having your doctor treat me and for letting me recover here, but I should get back to Allora.”

“Alain—Dr. Pascale—has prescribed several days’ rest for you,” the prince informed her. He didn’t sound pleased about it. “He tells me you’re run-down and slightly anemic.”

It was said as if he found her a complete nuisance. Her temper flared. “I didn’t plan on collapsing at your feet, Your Highness. I’m sure I can recuperate just as well at my hostel if you’ll let me dress and be on my way.”

She dimly remembered the doctor helping her to change, after having had clothing brought to her room, presumably from some royal storehouse. Turning her head, she could see several garments folded neatly over a stand under a window. One of the other teachers at the school where she worked would have called the situation “landing on her feet.” Looking at the prince’s forbidding expression, Allie wasn’t so sure. “I’ll make sure you get your clothes back safely,” she added.

The prince shook his head. “The clothes are unimportant. Dr. Pascale wants you to remain here.”

That made one of them, she thought tensely. She sat up, forgetting for a moment that the doctor’s bounty had included a decidedly skimpy nightdress that revealed as much of her as it covered. With difficulty she resisted the temptation to drag the covers back over herself. There were other, more important issues here. “Surely I have some say in this?” she demanded.

It was the wrong tone to use, she saw, when anger flared in the prince’s black eyes, but all he said was, “If you were from Carramer, you would know better.”

“Because you’re the prince and I’m nobody?” she asked. He might be the ruler of his country, but he wasn’t her ruler, and it was time she pointed it out.

If her comment amounted to high treason, he took it remarkably calmly. “Your status is irrelevant. I was referring to Dr. Pascale’s prescription of rest and quiet for you.”

The thought that Lorne wouldn’t allow her to stay for any other reason added fuel to her annoyance. It was clear that, doctor’s orders or no, the prince would like nothing better than to send her packing. She probably reminded him too painfully of the Australian wife he had lost. But Lorne wouldn’t want to risk having her collapse again if he let her leave before the doctor okayed it. And in truth, she did feel shakier than she had any intention of admitting.

The prince saw it, anyway. “Rest now,” he instructed. “Your accommodation has been informed that you are remaining here, and your luggage will be brought later this morning.”

“You’ve thought of everything,” she said mutinously.

He chose to ignore her tone. “Precisely. To allay any unseemly rumors, they have also been informed that you are joining my staff as a temporary companion to the crown prince.”

This was interesting news, given that Lorne obviously didn’t want her anywhere near his little son. “And am I?”

“Of course not. Nori seems to enjoy your company, but he is already well looked after.”

He was also a lonely little boy, but she had a feeling Lorne wouldn’t welcome that observation. “Then I’m afraid I can’t stay,” she said, pushing back the bedclothes.

It was a mistake, she realized as soon as she swung her legs over the side of the bed. The nightdress barely reached her thighs. Lorne had seen much more when he rescued her from the surf wearing only a bikini, but she hadn’t felt as exposed then as she did now.

She was acutely conscious that this was a bedroom and Lorne was first and foremost a man, a man among men, she recalled him being described in her guide book. She had thought the phrase extravagant and was alarmed at how readily it sprang to her mind now. He made her feel a sense of herself as a woman that she hadn’t felt in all the years that she had served as her mother’s housekeeper and younger sister’s caregiver.

She refused to let him see how much he discomfited her and stood her ground beside the bed, wishing that the room would stop moving around her and spoiling the effect.

“Get back into bed. You’re in no condition to go anywhere,” he commanded, but his voice had gentled and he moved to her side, steadying her. “Let me help you.”

She could have managed to stay upright if only he hadn’t touched her, but as soon as he took her arm her knees turned to jelly and she sagged against him. “I won’t stay here under false pretenses,” she insisted, trying to ignore the tattoo her heart had set up. It was a symptom of her weakened state, nothing more, she insisted to herself.

His deeply vibrant voice was very close to her ear. “Obviously you have yet to learn that one does not say no to royalty.”

Lorne might be used to his subjects shaking in their shoes when he looked at them, but she came from stock that had made an art form of equality. Respect was another matter, but it had to be earned, and riding roughshod over her preferences was no way to earn it. “And you have yet to learn that we Australians are an independent lot who prefer being asked to being told,” she said as coolly as she could manage.

His expression turned grim. “During my marriage, I was made well aware of your Australian disdain for authority, but you are in Carramer now. You will stay because the doctor advises it.” He didn’t add “and I command it” but he might as well have. She heard it in his steely undertone.

“Or you’ll do what? Throw me over a cliff like the guidebook says your ancestors did?” Her chin came up and she almost closed her eyes as the gesture brought her face alarmingly close to his. She settled for lowering her lashes slightly so she looked at him through a feathery screen. It softened the strong contours of his face but not by much.

The glint in his gaze clearly said “don’t tempt me” but the only outward sign of his anger was in the rigidity of his arm around her and the sudden tightening of his jaw as he said, “Please get back into bed.”

Surprise almost knocked the wind out of her. “There, see? Saying please didn’t hurt a bit, did it?”

As soon as the whispered words were out, she cursed herself. What was it about the prince that made her open her mouth and say stupid things? Lorne was a man who plainly wasn’t used to deferring to anyone. What would it have cost her to be gracious? Instead she had to issue what amounted to a challenge.

She should have known better, she grasped, as she glimpsed the light of battle in his eyes. Then his head came down and his lips claimed hers. Like many grown women, inside Allie was a little girl who had dreamed of one day being kissed by a prince, but nothing in her childhood fantasies had prepared her for the reality. Instinct told her that Lorne was only showing her who was boss, but the molten way he made her feel overruled logic, leaving a sensation so all-consuming that she didn’t want it to end.

When he put her away from him, she was glad of the bed at her back as her knees buckled. She curled her fingers around the edge of the mattress for support. “I wasn’t aware that your customs included the one about droit du seigneur,” she said shakily.

“Supposing it was not just a medieval myth. The right of the ruler to have any woman of his choosing before any other man hasn’t been claimed for centuries,” he said equably. The coldness in his expression reminded her that he hadn’t kissed her out of desire, but because she had challenged his authority.

“But you think it did exist?” She suppressed a shiver at the possibility.

His mouth curved into a perceptive smile, making her wish she had fought him when he kissed her. Why hadn’t she? “It would be…edifying,” he confirmed after a long pause, “but it has nothing to do with why I kissed you.”

She tossed her head, wishing she had more energy to put into the defiant gesture. His kiss had added to her feeling of weakness in ways she was probably better off not thinking about. “I know perfectly well that you did it to show that I may have won the round but you will win the match because of who and what you are.”

He inclined his head in agreement. “Then we both know where we stand.”

He was only confirming what she had suspected, but part of her rejected the thought that it was his only reason for kissing her. In the midst of her own maelstrom of feelings she had sensed an equally strong response in him. Clearly he did find her attractive, but it was plain that she reminded him painfully of the Australian wife he had lost, so he was unlikely to give in to it.

It was fine with her, too, she thought. After years of burying her own needs and desires in favor of her mother’s and sister’s, she wasn’t interested in exchanging one form of tyranny for another. Lorne was the last person in the world who should interest her romantically. He was too hard-headed and his position made him far too inflexible for there to be any common ground between them.

All the same, his kiss lingered on her lips long after he left her to sleep, and although she closed her eyes, it was a long time before her need for rest overcame the turmoil racing through her mind.