Kitabı oku: «The Royal House Of Karedes Collection Books 1-12», sayfa 28
‘How …?’
‘I remembered,’ he said and smiled. ‘I had Georgiou find this wine. Just for tonight.’
She drank and her resolutions grew hazier. This was only her second glass. She was hardly drunk. She was just… entranced?
Seduced?
No!
But he’d remembered her wine.
And then there were sweets—tiny, bite-sized eclairs oozing with rich, dark chocolate and creamy custard. There were strawberries tasting how strawberries should and never did, but this night how could they help but taste like this? Andreas watched her as she put each red fruit between her lips, and he smiled and they might as well be making love. The candles were flickering, burning to stubs. They were going out, one by one, and the light was fading.
The night was ending.
She was half expecting Sophia to appear, to clear the table, to bid them goodnight, but there was still no one in sight. Just the two of them. She and her husband.
She took her last sip of coffee. ‘I need to go to bed,’ she said, a little unsteadily, and Andreas was behind her, drawing out her chair, helping her to her feet, his hands holding hers with strength and desire and absolute surety of what was to follow.
‘I believe we’ve missed our bridal waltz,’ he whispered into her ear and suddenly it was all she could do not to chuckle.
‘You have some set-up here.’
‘I knew I built it for something. I believe I built it for tonight.’ He was whispering into her ear, his breath warm on her skin, his touch sending heat surging to every part of her body. He deliberately unfastened the top two buttons of his tunic, loosening the garment as a non-royal would shrug off a tie. Then before she could respond, before she could haul her resolutions into line again, he swept her up into his arms and strode to a central panel. Still holding her in his arms, he pushed discreet buttons and on came a waltz, slow and soft and dreamy.
Wordlessly he carried her back to the side of the pool, he set her to her feet, he drew her into his arms and started to dance with her.
This was the most perfect seduction scene. And she was being perfectly seduced.
She should fight. She should push away and leave.
How could she do such a thing when Andreas was holding her in his arms?
So she danced.
With the social ambition of her parents she’d been taught to dance almost before she’d been taught to ride, but it was years since she had. Like riding a horse, though, you never forgot. And she’d never forgotten dancing with Andreas. The first night he’d arrived in Munwannay her parents had put on a dance to welcome him. He’d asked for the waltz, she’d been swept onto the floor—and her life had changed.
Not one thing had changed since then, she thought dazedly. She was falling in love all over again. She was being swept around the floor with her lovely bridal gown looped up and held, the rich folds of silk swaying around her. Andreas’s arms were holding her as if she were the most precious porcelain; as if she was the most desirable woman in the world.
As he was her most desirable man. Her prince.
She was melting into him. Her face was against his breast. His opened tunic meant that her face was brushing his chest. He felt… irresistible. He smelled irresistible. Strong and male and… her husband.
No. This wasn’t sensible. This marriage was for a few weeks only and if something happened…
But she wanted him so badly it was like a searing, physical ache. A void that had to be filled and only he could fill it. He was holding her closer, closer. Their feet moved in perfect unison; he was anticipating her every move, or maybe she was anticipating his. Who knew?
Her husband.
‘Andreas,’ she whispered and she heard him groan softly into her hair.
‘My love?’
‘Enough already with the seduction scene,’ she whispered unsteadily.
‘You don’t like it?’
‘I said I’ve had it with the set-up,’ she whispered back and her hands came up and gripped his head and tugged his face down so his mouth met hers. ‘I can’t wait. Damn the risks. Oh, Andreas, I know this is crazy, but I want you so much.’
‘I wanted you to want me,’ he said, and she could practically see his smile.
She gave a little gasp and pulled away. He was laughing. Laughing! With those dark, dark eyes that glowed with desire.
‘And do you want me to want you?’ he asked, and suddenly the laughter was gone. The look in his eyes was deadly serious. ‘Holly, I’ve said I’ll take no unwilling bride. I want you more than life itself but you come to me willingly or not at all. Do you want me as much as I want you?’
And there was only one answer she could give. There was only one answer in the world. Sensible or not.
It wasn’t sensible. It was dumb, dumb, dumb but she didn’t care.
‘I do,’ she said simply, and then gasped as he swept her up into his arms again. And then there was no room for anything. There was no room for any words at all.
The night was warm and starlit. His bedroom was open to the night, the shutters pushed far back so it seemed that his vast bed was on a platform overlooking the moonlit sea. He carried her there triumphantly, tenderly, and she lay back in his arms and smiled up at him and thought, this is where I should be. This is my husband. This is my heart, my home.
My Andreas.
There was no going back now. He was setting her down by the bed and she could barely stand. Her body was on fire and if he’d put her away she would have fought her way back to him. He was hers. Her body was aching for him, throbbing its want. She gazed up at him and saw her hot, desperate need reflected in the eyes of the man she loved.
Andreas.
‘Holly,’ he whispered, his voice husky with passion. ‘My wife.’
And then… How was she suddenly without clothes? How was she so soon lying on silken sheets with nothing between herself and the man she loved but sheer, raw desire?
Had he undressed her? He must have, while she was concentrating on ridding him of unwanted garments. But she hardly saw his clothes. All she thought of was his body. All she wanted was him. Years ago she’d known and gloried in this man’s body and tonight it felt as if she was coming home.
‘You’re beautiful,’ she whispered, awed, as they sank onto the bed together, and he laughed, a soft, throaty chuckle as he laid her on the silken sheets, following her down and gathering her naked body into his arms.
‘You… To say that to me, my heart…’
And then he was kissing her, not just on the lips but everywhere, toes to forehead and back down again, slowly, tenderly, while she writhed and moaned with pleasure. She was alive under his hands, under his touch. Her body felt as if it were waking after a long, long sleep, every nerve-end aware, alight, afire.
She was touching him too, running her hands through his hair, feeling his nakedness, glorying in the hard arrant maleness of his body. She was alive as she hadn’t been alive for long, barren years, awaking after a too-long sleep to this all-consuming blaze. Her body was melting into him with a fierce heat she’d forgotten she was capable of feeling. The touch of him… He was hers. Hers, she thought fiercely.
For years she’d thought it was a fairy tale. She’d thought her memories of the way Andreas had made her feel were a figment of a girl’s romantic yearning; her first love with a prince, a time out of frame, the full fairy story.
There’d been the odd guy she could have started something with. Neighbours. Stock and station agents. Other teachers. But she’d looked at them and internally she’d lined them up against Andreas and thought, who was she kidding? She’d had the romantic fairy tale and to go back to the real world seemed impossible.
So she’d hung onto a fairy tale, knowing it was just that, imagination and nostalgia.
Only it wasn’t. For the way Andreas made her feel…
He was everything she remembered and more. Demanding, aristocratic, overwhelming in his sheer masculinity. But still tender at core, wanting her to share his exultation—no, demanding that she share his exultation. He gloried in her body, tasting her, touching her, exploring every inch of her with wonder and languorous pleasure and wanton delight—but he expected the same of her. That she know him as he wished to know her. That she give pleasure as he intended to give pleasure. That she take this coupling slowly, savouring every last moment of its wonder.
And she did. She did. The feel of his body in her arms was close to overwhelming.
And when finally, blissfully the moment came when he was entering her… taking her, demanding she follow where he led… she felt herself cry out with sheer joy. They merged, and the night exploded in a mist of white-hot desire. And then they lay, sated but still linked, still loving, until the heat built again and raw need took over from the blissful afterglow of consummation.
For this was no one-coupling night. It was as if their bodies were demanding that they make up, in part, for all these years they’d missed. This night was too precious for sleep. She’d dreamed of this man for ever and sleep was for the barren years, for another time, something to be put away as irrelevant.
All that mattered now was Andreas.
He’d changed, she thought wonderingly during this long, languorous night. His was no longer a boy’s body, but a man’s, hard and muscular. Royal or not, this wasn’t the indulged body of a playboy prince. He’d loved working on the farm, she remembered, savouring the hard physical requirements of axing tree stumps, of hauling out rotten fence posts, of heaving bales of hay for hungry cattle. Somewhere in the last years he must have found an alternative to farm work, for his body was all muscle, hard and sinewy and fabulous.
Fabulous. The word whispered over and over in her mind as she lay with him through the night, her fingers exploring, her tongue discovering, her legs holding him possessively in between couplings. Skin against skin on the silken sheets of Andreas’s vast princely bed, still they weren’t close enough.
But they could be. Over and over, each time striving to be closer, closer. The night wasn’t long enough. By rights they should be exhausted but there was no way this night could end with them asleep.
‘You’re so much more beautiful than I remembered,’ he whispered, awed, at some time during the night and she thought, so are you, so are you. ‘My beautiful Holly. My magical outback princess.’
Like young lovers they clung, holding to each other in the dark, exploring, exulting, wanting more, more, until dawn finally came, a tangerine flush appearing softly over the horizon, and a kind of peace that was deeper than she’d ever felt before fell over the pair of them. They lay naked and entwined and she felt seventeen again, beloved, with the world at her feet, her prince in love with her, her man in her arms and nothing could go wrong with her world ever again.
‘Can I take you for a swim, my love?’ Andreas whispered into the dawn, and she thought she must be dreaming.
‘I believe you can take me wherever you want,’ she managed.
He smiled, then swung himself up and over her, so he was smiling down at her. He kissed her on the tip of her nose. ‘Then a swim it is.’
‘I don’t believe I’m capable of moving the tip of my smallest finger,’ she whispered, cautious.
‘But you’d like a swim?’
‘Maybe a soak?’ she whispered, tugging him back down to her.
‘Then a soak you shall have,’ he said, and before she knew what he was about he’d rolled off the bed and swung her up into his arms. She gave a squeak of surprise and he grinned down at her, his smile pure mischief. And then he was striding towards the door and she was too stunned to even struggle.
‘We’re naked,’ she managed and her voice came out an even higher squeak.
‘Are we?’ He stopped dead, as if such a thought hadn’t occurred to him. He looked down at her, and his dark eyes gleamed with laughter. ‘So we are,’ he said on a note of wonder. ‘How wonderful.’ He kissed her on the top of her head and then as she twisted he found her lips and kissed her more deeply still. But he’d reached the door and pushed the handle down with his elbow, and was striding out. Past the pool. Through the entrance hall. Out into daylight, to the open world where the beach lay before them in gold and turquoise wonder.
‘Andreas, we’re naked,’ she squeaked again, half laughing, half shocked. The feel of his bare skin against hers in the warm morning wind was almost unbearably erotic. But she had to be sensible. Someone had to be sensible. Dear God, he was gorgeous. Her big, naked prince. Her Andreas.
Her husband.
But: ‘Sophia…’ she whispered desperately. ‘Georgiou…’
‘Sophia will have the others carefully on the other side of the pavilion,’ he said, not breaking stride.
‘She has instructions for when you bring your women here?’
He stopped at that. Stopped dead and his brow snapped down into a frown. ‘No,’ he said, and his tone was suddenly harsh. ‘I’ve told you. I’ve brought no other women here.’
‘Like I believe that.’
‘You can believe it,’ he whispered and kissed her again, so deeply there was no room for argument; there was no room for anything but heat and want and now. ‘I’ve brought you here, my woman. My wife. It was time to bring you home.’
And then he didn’t stop until he reached the shallows. He laid her down, almost reverently, on the soft sand, where the tiny waves rippled in and out. She gasped as her overheated body met the cool of the water, but then Andreas was following her down, gathering her to him, taking her to him with a desire that said this was to be no gentle soak.
‘I thought…’
‘You think what you like,’ he growled and pulled her to him, under him, his knees sinking into the soft sand, his hands holding her face as he tugged her closer, closer until once more their bodies met, fused, merged. ‘I can’t think at all. My Holly. Agapi mou. My heart.’
CHAPTER NINE
THE following days were a dream. A honeymoon. Six condoms? There were more where they came from and it was just as well.
For once started it was impossible to stop. Holly was just as crazy as she’d been when she was seventeen, and just as helpless. She was just as hopelessly in love.
Andreas just had to look at her and she melted. He just had to touch her and every fibre of her being responded with pure, white want.
‘My hot woman,’ he called her, tugging her into his arms over and over. ‘My captive wife. I have a mind to keep you here for ever.’
That was fine by her, she thought dreamily as the days wore on. Her time with Andreas in the past had been stolen moments, passion laced with guilt. Caution had made her hesitate on her wedding night, but having abandoned caution she discovered there was nothing more to worry about. There was nothing but the love she felt for this man.
He could take her in any way he pleased, and he did, he did. In turn she took him. He might be aristocratically demanding, but so too could she be. He could be tender in turn and he brought out a gentleness in her she didn’t know she had.
Sophia appeared again, and Nikos and Georgiou, but they stayed in the background. This was their own desert island, their own paradise, just for them.
Deefer was a part of their world, a bouncing ball of fun, flying along the beach, rounding up gulls, following them bravely into the surf, but collapsing in true puppy fashion, exhausted and happy while his master and mistress took their pleasure until they, too, felt the same.
Paradise, just for them.
Only of course it couldn’t last. They were given three days and then the fairy tale ended.
It ended with a knock on the bedroom door. It was eleven in the morning. They’d swum and made love lazily in the shallows, then wandered back hand in hand for a late breakfast by the pool. While Deefer slept the sleep of a truly contented pup, Andreas and Holly had showered with the intent of dressing. But that was as far as they’d got. Their bed was too inviting.
Now they lay coiled together in the aftermath of loving, hazy with heat and spent passion. But the knock sounded urgent. Andreas swore, shifted Holly in his arms and called, ‘What is it?’
‘His Majesty, Prince Sebastian, is on the phone for you.’ It was Georgiou, sounding, for Georgiou, apologetic.
‘Damn.’ Andreas moved Holly gently away from him, kissing her lightly on the forehead. ‘If I go will you promise to stay?’
‘You think I have energy to move? Don’t be long.’
‘If my brother calls…’ He didn’t finish. He hauled on his clothes and disappeared and Holly was left with vague forebodings.
Her forebodings were right. Andreas was gone for half an hour. She showered again and this time she dressed, simply in a soft sarong. She tugged her hair back into a coil and fastened it and slipped her feet into sandals. She was about to emerge when he reappeared.
One look at his face told her their idyll was over.
‘We need to go,’ he told her and her heart sank. His face was set and hard, already moving forward.
‘Back to the mainland?’
‘I need to go to Greece,’ he told her. ‘There are rumours that the missing diamond’s been sold to a private buyer. The royals from Calista are sniffing around already. If they find it before we do…’ He left the sentence unfinished but he was already moving towards the bathroom. ‘Georgiou’s checking the helicopter now. We’re leaving in half an hour.’
And that was that. No ‘can you be ready?’ No ‘I’m sorry the honeymoon’s been interrupted.’ Andreas was moving on.
Back to being a royal. And that left her… where?
He was stripping, stepping into the shower again. He wouldn’t want to smell of lovemaking when he met his family, she thought dully. He’d need to be royal again.
She swallowed. Maybe she could stay here.
She couldn’t. She knew that. She needed to go back to the mainland. For a start. To see… If there was a future there for her?
But Andreas had never said there was a future for her as a princess. As his wife. As far as Andreas was concerned she still wanted to go home.
Of course she did, she reminded herself sharply. Of course she did.
She left him showering. Sophia was waiting outside, looking anxious. ‘What will you do?’ she asked.
‘What comes next,’ Holly whispered. ‘In truth, Sophia, I don’t know. But for now… I have so few clothes and I’m about to return to Aristo as a royal wife. Let’s you and I do a fast sort through this appalling wardrobe and see if we can find something that makes me look vaguely respectable.’
‘More than respectable,’ Sophia said and hugged her. ‘You want a wardrobe that makes you look royal. You want a wardrobe that makes Andreas wish to keep you.’
‘Yeah, well that’d be a magic wardrobe,’ Holly said stiffly. ‘Let’s not count on miracles here.’
Andreas stood under the streaming water and felt ill. He’d almost forgotten. The last three days had been a magic time out, but Sebastian’s phone call had been curt to the point of being brutal. A reality check in the worst possible way.
‘You have to get back here. I can’t trust many people with the knowledge of the missing diamond. You have to go to Greece and search.’
‘I can’t leave Holly.’
‘You’ve done what you had to do with Holly. That problem’s over. Forget her. We have bigger problems now.’
‘She’s my wife…’
‘Because she had to be your wife,’ Sebastian snapped. ‘You hardly want to keep her.’ Then, as Sebastian heard nothing in response—heard the nuances behind Andreas’s silence—he sighed. ‘All right. She’s beautiful, I grant you. But if you want her long term then she has to play by the rules. This situation is too complicated as it is, and if she makes it more so… Leave her on the island. Or send her back to Australia.’ He hesitated. ‘No. It’s perhaps too soon for that. But if she sticks around, you need to make sure she stays firmly in the background.’
‘She’s hardly going to bring us down, Sebastian,’ Andreas said.
‘Anything can bring us down right now,’ Sebastian answered grimly. ‘We’re on a knife edge. We have to find that diamond. So I want you here now.’
The phone went dead. Andreas was left staring into space. Hating it.
The royal goldfish bowl… He couldn’t remember a time he hadn’t hated it.
A memory popped up, uninvited and maybe untimely.
When he was six years old he’d been ill. Seriously ill, with rheumatic fever. He had glimmers of memory through a haze of fever. His huge bed with its starched white sheets, in the overornate hall that served as the royal nursery. Doctors surrounding him, looking grave. His mother coming into the room, sitting on his bed—an almost unheard of thing for the queen to do. His father restricted his contact with his parents to a ten-minute recital of his achievements for the day, formally performed before high tea. But this day she had stayed, and looked worried. And then he remembered the magic words—said to his nanny, Sophia.
‘Very well, if that’s what the doctors are ordering, you can take him home. I’ll defy his father, on this. But you’re not to let him forget what’s due to him.’
What followed was three months in Sophia’s home town, in Sophia’s own home. Sophia’s mountain village was known for its medicinal qualities—it was supposed to be a place where damaged lungs and hearts could find a place to heal.
Sophia had promised his father that he’d be treated as a prince, gravely and sincerely. They’d been driven to the village in one of the palace’s vast limousines. Sophia had been strictly formal all the way home, but as they stood in the doorway of her home and watched the limousine disappear into the distance she’d suddenly bent and hugged him.
‘I have you here, my little cabbage, and I’ll make you well,’ she’d said joyously. ‘This is our secret but for these three months I want you to be a child. I want you to be free.’
And he had been. As his health had improved he’d swooped around the village as part of the tribe of local kids, running, playing, going to the local school, getting into mischief, falling for the misbegotten mutts that were the family pets. He’d eaten at Sophia’s kitchen table with Sophia and Nikos—they’d both been granted leave of absence from the palace staff to take care of this sickly princeling.
They were sharing the rambling old house with Sophia’s two grown sons and their wives, and a tribe of grandchildren. Sophia had tucked him into bed each night—a bedroom he shared with Sophia’s oldest grandson. She’d hugged him and kissed him and he’d slept as he’d never slept before or since.
His mother’s words had stayed with him as he returned to the palace. You can take him home. That was what it had felt like. He’d wanted so much to go back. His time in Australia had been a desperate attempt to relive that experience—being normal—being a kid again.
And in a way it had worked. He’d fallen in love with Holly in the same way a six-year-old had fallen in love with Sophia. Or actually in a very different way, he thought ruefully. But there were similarities. He’d escaped into… love.
But both times had ended. Both times he’d been called back to the palace, to the place where shows of emotion were regarded as weakness. Where noise and mess, pets and mischief were not tolerated. Where the word home had no place. But he had no choice. It was his duty. It was his birthright.
He was needed now. He had to go back.
With Holly. It had to be with Holly.
She’d hate it, he thought. He had no right to ask this of her, even for a short while. But it was too soon to send her back to Australia.
Hell, he didn’t want her back at the palace, confined to royal protocol. His fantasy with Holly had never included royal trimmings.
He looked through the open bathroom door to the bedroom beyond. Deefer was watching him from the doorway. The pup’s intelligent little face was cocked to the side as if he knew his master was troubled.
‘Can you be a royal dog?’ he asked.
Deefer stared back at him, appearing to ponder the question. Then, bored, he gazed around him.
The bed had a massive brocade cover, tumbled now and lying half over the end of the bed. It had magnificent gold tassles on the side.
Deefer barked at the closest tassle. Then he crouched low, pounced, grabbed the tassle and headed for the main door. Dragging the priceless brocade with him.
Maybe not, Andreas thought ruefully. Maybe Deefer wasn’t a royal dog as Holly wasn’t a royal princess.
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and flicked off the taps. He reached for his towel and padded through to find his clothes. A suit. Clothes to make him a prince again.
With wife? With dog?
Only if they both learned to toe the royal line.
They were on opposite sides of the helicopter again. This machine wasn’t meant for lovers. Nor was it meant for man and wife.
She didn’t feel like a wife right now. She was on her way to being a royal princess. She felt small and insignificant and scared.
Andreas was staring out the window to the land below. Aristo.
A reception committee was waiting. From the helicopter she could see a cluster of waiting suits, of media jostling for position.
‘The press?’ she asked in a small voice and Andreas sighed.
‘It’s only to be expected. Our marriage has caused enormous interest. However hopefully they’ll back off now I’ve done the right thing.’
‘Now I’ve done the right thing…’
He was still staring below. Preoccupied. How could he know that her heart felt as if it had been pierced?
‘They would have had my hide if I hadn’t married you,’ he said grimly, almost to himself. ‘It’s what being a royal’s all about. You’re pressured from day one. Your life’s not your own. Hell, if I’d been able to follow my own course… You’re better out of it, Holly.’
He turned to her then and she had to fight—really fight—to get her face under control. She felt sick.
‘I… How long do I need to stay?’ she managed.
‘I’ll talk to Sebastian.’
And that was that. He’d talk to the future king. He’d do what was required.
The last three days she’d allowed herself to hope. No, she’d allowed herself to believe that there was truly a marriage, for that was what it had felt like.
I’ll talk to Sebastian.
The course of their marriage was in the hands of the Prince Regent, Sebastian. Naturally.
This had been truly time out of frame, she thought dully as the helicopter landed, as the doors were hauled open to readmit the world. Three days of memories to last her for the rest of her life.
How could it be enough?
Maybe it had to be enough. They were taken over the moment they landed. The moment the doors were open there were flashlights going everywhere, almost blinding her.
Andreas climbed out first and helped her after him. He held her hand and she clung.
She was wearing a tight-fitting, little green dress—a sundress. She should be corporate, she thought. To face this she needed power clothes. Shoulder pads. Business black.
‘How was the honeymoon?’ someone yelled, and there were chuckles and questions, fielded by Andreas like an expert. All she could do was cling like a limpet and hope it’d soon be over.
‘How does it feel to be a royal wife?’ someone called and Andreas was before her.
‘Holly’s not intended to be a royal wife,’ he said smoothly. ‘Yes, we’ve wed, but Holly’s life is in Australia. She runs one of the most beautiful cattle stations in her country. I’ll never ask her to give that up to take on royal duties.’
There was a moment’s shocked hush. Then a torrent of follow-up interrogation, all of which could be summed up in the one phrase.
‘You mean it’s not a real marriage?
‘I didn’t say that,’ Andreas said smoothly. ‘We were married before God and we intend to keep our vows. But marriage means different things for different people. Christina and I had a royal marriage where both of us were expected to play a role in public life. But Holly’s not a royal wife. To ask that of her would be unfair.’
‘So you’re going back to Australia?’ someone demanded of her. ‘When?’
‘There are many things to be sorted,’ Andreas interceded smoothly. ‘We’ll let you know.’
‘But you’ll attend royal functions until then?’ someone called.
‘She will,’ Andreas said.
What was happening here? Holly thought, stunned. Limpet? Wet rag more like it. Docile bride standing meekly by her husband’s side as he answered her questions. The husband as the woman’s spokesperson.
‘And how do I like my porridge?’ she blurted out, before she could help herself.
‘Pardon?’ Andreas stared down at her. Everyone was staring at her.
‘Tell the press how I like my porridge,’ she said dangerously, and she knew no good could come of this. She could feel a wave of anger so strong it threatened to overwhelm her. But she was on the wave now and there was no way she could get off until it was ridden to its end.
‘We don’t understand,’ a reporter complained.
‘I mean if I’m asked a question—about me—then maybe I’m the one capable of answering it. I’ll be going back to Australia when I feel like it,’ she snapped. ‘When I decide. I’m not intended for a royal wife? That sounds like I’ve been produced on some breeding programme. I’m sorry, my love,’ she said, and she managed a saccharine smile as Andreas stared at her, astounded. ‘I know. A royal wife shuts up and lets her husband speak for her. But I’m not a royal wife. You’ve just said so. I’m just a wife. I’m just me. Let’s take that as read and move on.’
He was furious. Not just angry but almost impotent with rage. They sat in the back of the limousine on the way to the palace and he stared at her as if she’d grown two heads.
