Kitabı oku: «The Royal House Of Karedes Collection Books 1-12», sayfa 29

CHAPTER TEN

HOW had she ever said that? Stood up to the queen? Holly sat on the magnificent four-poster bed and tried to stop her teeth chattering. Deefer huddled in her arms and shook in sympathy.

‘It was you,’ she told him. ‘You made me feel brave.’

She didn’t feel brave. She felt small, insignificant and very alone.

‘When do you think we’ll see Andreas?’ she whispered.

Deefer licked her face.

‘Yeah, your kisses are great,’ she told him. ‘But they lack a certain finesse.’

She stirred restlessly, trying to quell the rising sense of fear and loneliness. How could she stay here alone? But if Andreas didn’t intend staying here, was there a choice?

Maybe there was. But if she went home now it was the end. And she’d married for a reason. It was crazy to walk away now.

‘And he’d probably haul me back in chains,’ she whispered. ‘I’m a captive wife, Deefer. I’ll end up like Tia. Obedient and fearful after years of marriage.’

Another lick.

Unbidden her eyes filled. Dammit, she would not cry. She carried the little dog over to vast French windows opening to a balcony overlooking acres of manicured gardens.

A vision sprang to mind—dusty paddocks, gum trees, and a small white grave.

‘You’ll like it at Munwannay,’ she told Deefer. ‘And at least I’ll have you with me this time.

‘But I want it all,’ she whispered to herself. ‘I want you and Andreas and Munwannay. I want to be a family.’

‘You’re flying out at dawn. I have a list of contacts over there for you to work your way through.’

Andreas stared at his brother, his dark eyes clouded. ‘I can’t leave Holly here.’

‘You can’t take her with you. You need to move fast and move alone. You’ve trained in security—you’re the only one with the skills and inside knowledge and discretion to do this. And you know what happens if the stone isn’t found.’

‘I don’t give a damn about the stone.’

‘Do you think I do?’ Sebastian asked incredulously. ‘But like me, you care about our country. You care about our people.’

‘Zakari would make a decent ruler.’

‘We don’t know that,’ Sebastian said ruthlessly. ‘And there’s too much at stake to take a chance. You don’t have a choice.’

‘I’ve never had a choice,’ Andreas said grimly.

‘Not when the livelihood of our people’s at stake. No.’

‘And when the stone’s found?’

‘Then you might find you like being a prince again,’ Sebastian said, and allowed himself a glimmer of a smile. ‘As I might relish the chance to be king. But meanwhile we do what we have to do, and we do it now. The security chief is here to brief you. Let’s go.’

Two a.m. He opened the door with stealth as if he was wary she might be sleeping. Yeah, she might be sleeping if she wasn’t so on edge every nerve ending felt frayed and exposed and standing on end.

He’d also forgotten one pup. Deefer was out of bed the minute the door opened, bounding across the bedroom, yelping in delight at seeing his long-lost friend.

Holly followed the examples of her nerves and sat bolt upright. ‘It’s a bit early in our marriage to come creeping in after midnight,’ she said scathingly. ‘Wouldn’t you say?’

‘I had to—’

‘Go to Greece. Your mother told me.’

‘I’m not going until tomorrow.’

‘Oh, goody.’ She glanced at the clock on the gilt bedside table.

‘But it is tomorrow. Do we have one day left before you go.’

‘Holly, I’m sorry, but… Yes, it’s today. I need to go early this morning.’

‘You have to save the world. Your mother told me.’

‘What else did she tell you?’ he said, sounding apprehensive.

‘That Deefer has to sleep in the stables.’

‘I can see you took that one on board.’ The pup was wriggling ecstatically round his legs, practically turning inside out. He hadn’t had his beach run today. He was one bored dog. Andreas scooped him up, turned him over and started scratching his tummy.

‘Don’t start making up to my dog,’ Holly snapped and Andreas smiled, walked across and sat on the bed. It was a very big bed. Huge. There was no reason Holly’s heart should lurch just because Andreas had sat down.

Maintain the rage, she told herself breathlessly. It was the only defence she had in this situation and she surely needed a defence.

‘Your mother says I need to have deportment lessons.’

‘It’d be excellent if you would,’ he said.

‘Why would it be excellent?’

He put Deefer down onto the carpet, wriggled the fringe of the ancient Persian rug until Deefer was distracted and then left him to it. This conversation, it seemed, was more important than a mere priceless heirloom.

‘Holly, maybe we could have a real marriage,’ he said cautiously.

‘A real marriage.’ She repeated the words dumbly, trying to figure why she felt as if all her breath had been sucked out of her. Three little words. A real marriage.

‘Our plan of a royal marriage has worked far better than we dared hope. The people are seeing you as my Cinderella bride. You have enormous public sympathy. Sebastian thinks it could work.’

Sebastian. ‘Does he just?’ she retorted, fighting for equilibrium. ‘I’ll have you know—’

‘And I want you.’

There it was again. Whoosh. The same gut feeling she’d felt at seventeen, the moment her father had introduced her. Multiplied by about a million.

‘If you want me,’ she said softly, almost to herself, ‘then it’s not about Sebastian. It’s not about this country. It’s about us.’

‘That’s right,’ he said, and tugged the covers aside, pulled her up so she was hugged against him and softly kissed her. ‘It’s all about us.’

‘But tomorrow…’

‘I am a prince,’ he said, almost sadly. ‘I need to do what I need to do. I won’t let this country be ruined. But for now… For now, my heart, there’s only you.’

Until dawn, she thought, but it could only be a fleeting thought for Andreas was holding her, possessing her, demanding she respond and how could she help but respond?

He was right. There was only them.

Until dawn.

She woke and he was gone. She stirred in the too big bed, drowsy and sated with the after effects of loving. She turned sleepily to his side of the bed and it was empty.

Even Deefer wasn’t with her. She looked over to the door and he was there, his little black nose pressed against the vast oak panelling. Andreas was gone, and Deefer had the air of a pup who’d be faithful for years.

‘Come back to bed, Deef,’ she whispered, but the pup just whined and put his nose hard against the crack at the base of the door. She flung back the covers and padded across to him, picked him up and carried him back. She slid back down under the covers and held him close.

A real marriage. Huh!

‘You’ll like Australia,’ she whispered. ‘You can be a real dog on the farm. And me… I can go back to being the real me.’

The lonely me. The me who mourns a dead baby and a lost love.

‘Yeah, the Miss Haversham me,’ she said, blinking and sitting bolt upright as she heard the echoes of what she’d just thought. ‘Sitting alone for years in cobwebs and crumbling wedding cake.’

There was a knock on the door. A maid put her nose around, looking apologetic.

‘If you please, ma’am,’ she said. ‘Her Majesty, Queen Tia, has scheduled your deportment lesson at ten. She says breakfast will be served for you in the grand dining room at eight, and an etiquette master will be on hand to show you through the protocols.’

She closed the door.

‘Wow,’ Holly whispered. ‘Protocols, eh? We’re having protocols instead of eggs and bacon?’ She shivered. ‘You know, Deef, I want to go home.’

But…

‘I said I’d make a go of this marriage,’ she said, addressing a spine that was starting to sag. ‘Andreas says we need to be married and I believe him.’

But…

‘But nothing,’ she told herself. ‘Don’t even think about being homesick. Go bury yourself in… protocols.’

He was gone for eleven interminable days. Days when she wasn’t permitted out of the castle gates.

‘Everyone thinks you’re still on honeymoon,’ she was told by the bureaucrat who headed the public relations department for the royals. ‘The public doesn’t know Andreas has gone to Greece. Your honeymoon is a perfect front.’

A perfect front for a marriage. Sure. They were supposed to be on honeymoon, ensconced in their sumptuous apartments, gloriously in love. Andreas was in Greece. She was in… protocol hell?

‘You will walk three steps behind your husband at all times. Watch his feet—the moment he pauses, you pause. If he turns back, if he attempts to speak to you, come up to within a step of him, listen, smile, make your response brief, never look as if you’re disagreeing and then step back. Your husband is royal and you’re not. He takes precedence in everything.’

‘Yeah, but he’s not here to take precedence,’ she told Deefer on day eleven. She’d taken the little dog for a walk in the palace grounds—to the south because cameras could penetrate to the north and it was imperative she wasn’t seen walking disconsolately alone. Even here she didn’t feel at ease. There was music playing from the palace balconies. The princesses, she thought, wincing. She’d hardly seen them. They’d been too caught up with their own personal concerns to spend much time with her. And she didn’t like their choice of music.

She didn’t like this place.

‘It’ll be better when I get home,’ Andreas had assured her in the brief phone calls he made. He’d sounded stressed and tired, which was the only reason she couldn’t yell at him. Though eventually she’d yell. Quietly of course. In a very deferential manner. If he ever returned.

She’d been thinking for too long. She’d taken her eyes off her pup. She hauled herself to attention but it was too late. Deefer had headed off at a run towards the palace’s ornamental lake.

Uh oh. Deefer had found the lake a week ago and there’d very nearly been trouble. Swans…

‘Get back here,’ she yelled in her best authoritative voice. But whether he heard her over the music or not, Deefer wasn’t paying attention. He was bored. Holly had spent the morning in interminable lessons. The servants didn’t like him wandering. They seemed to have almost a phobia about pets, instilled by the old king. He wasn’t permitted anywhere Holly wasn’t, so he’d been locked in her apartment.

Border collies were bred to work. It was in him, an innate instinct to get out in the fields and round things up. And the only things here to round up were the palace swans, scattered on the far side of the ornamental lake, spread randomly over the grass as they searched for snails.

And now… Creatures randomly spread were an offence against nature for one highly bred collie. Deefer was round the lake in a blur of canine happiness, reaching the swans long before Holly could reach him; long before her yells had any impact.

He launched himself into their midst, yipping with high-pitched excitement, but working with the innate intelligence of his breed. After that first initial scattering he’d figured his mistake. Now he was racing round the outside of the entire group, causing them to rear up, flap their wings in alarm, back away, snapping, screeching…

A lesser pup than Deefer might be intimidated. These birds were three times his height. But a dog had to do what a dog had to do. He was darting in and out so fast the birds could hardly figure what he was doing. He had them totally bewildered. Amazingly they were even starting to cluster together. He was herding them like a professional. Why didn’t they fly away? Holly thought, racing past the massed bushes between her and her dog.

And it was no longer just Holly who was panicking. There were shouts from the palace balconies, audible above the music. Others were running as well—the man Holly recognized as the head gardener and two younger men.

She glanced sideways at them as she ran—and then her heart seemed to freeze in her chest. One of the men had a gun. A rifle. He was raising it. Aiming…

‘No,’ she screamed. ‘No.’

But the guy still had his gun levelled. He wasn’t looking in her direction and the music was louder where he was. Could he hear her?

‘No,’ she screamed again. ‘He’s mine.’ But the man was steadying. His companions had paused to give him freedom to aim.

She was so close. She rounded the last clump of bushes and launched herself in a flying tackle she didn’t know she was capable of. But too late? Too late? The gun exploded in a blast of noise. She felt a sting across her cheek and heard a man’s shouted expletive.

But she had him, Deefer, an armload of overexcited pup. She was lying full length, rolling with him under her, hugging him, weeping, while swans went everywhere. She didn’t care, she didn’t care, she had her pup. He was wriggling. He was okay. She closed her eyes…

‘Holly…’

And amazingly, miraculously, she heard him. It was a shout from far away, but even so she heard the terror above the music.

Andreas.

Her face stung. She could feel the warm trickle of blood seeping down her cheek.

But Deefer was safe. He was wriggling frantically in her arms, desperate to escape, to continue his very important task.

‘Holly!’ The yell was nearer now, and someone switched the music off. She opened her eyes and rolled over, still holding her pup in her arms.

Facing men. All of them seemed to be groundsmen of some description. The guy with the rifle was staring down at her with horror. He was backing away, and by the look on his face he was expecting to be shot himself.

Then he was shoved aside, with such force that he almost fell. And Andreas was bending over her, his face such a picture of dread that she instinctively put her hand to her face in case his expression was right and the shot had been… dreadful.

It wasn’t. She could feel a faint scoring of her skin and the blood was a mere trickle.

‘It’s just a scratch,’ she said, more forcefully than she intended. Maybe she even sounded indignant, for the faces around her sagged in relief. But she only had the most fleeting of glimpses, for Andreas was bending over her, his fingers touching her face, his eyes searching for something more serious than the scratch on her cheek.

‘My love,’ he breathed, his voice cracking with raw fear, and he gathered her into his arms and tugged her hard against him. Somewhere in the middle Deefer, squashed, gave a muffled yelp of protest. But he was ignored.

Was she dreaming? She didn’t care. Holly abandoned herself to the feel of Andreas holding her, to the feel of his shirt against her face. She’d be bleeding all over him and how much was the royal shirt worth? She didn’t care. She stayed right where she was, unmoving, feeling his heartbeat, feeling his strength and his protection.

Her man had come home. When she most needed him, he was there.

It couldn’t last. There were voices behind them, the men around them trying to explain, trying to justify. Finally Andreas put her back from him. Deefer stuck his nose out from between them, but both of them were holding him now. Andreas swung Holly and dog into his arms, then sank so he was sitting on the grass with his wife cradled against him, the little dog held in their four loving hands.

‘Who shot my wife?’

It was a voice she’d never heard before. It held such anger, indescribable fury mixed with the remnants of fear, that Holly shivered. Andreas’s hold on her tightened.

‘Well?’

‘If you please, sir…’ It was the youngest of the groundsmen, the one with the gun. He took a step forward, and by the look on his face it was clear he was expecting the step to be his last.

‘He was trying to shoot Deefer…’ Holly managed, though her voice only managed a squeak. She looked up at the boy and thought he shouldn’t be so afraid. Not when things were okay. Not when she had Andreas. ‘I… At home we have to shoot wild dogs that get into the cattle.’

‘That’s it,’ the boy said eagerly, and the eldest of the groundsmen nodded.

‘That’s right,’ the man said. ‘We’ve had five swans killed over the last year. Something’s getting in through the boundary fences. The king’s orders are to shoot to kill whatever it is that’s killing them.’

‘When my wife’s in line of sight?’ Andreas said incredulously. ‘When you all know it’s her dog?’

‘I didn’t know it was her dog. And she just came flying from nowhere,’ the young man muttered, sounding sullen now. ‘No princess can run like that. And she just threw herself at the dog…’

‘If I hadn’t you would have killed him,’ Holly managed, defiant from the safety of Andreas’s arms.

‘Is she safe?’

The imperious demand from behind made them all start. A woman was making her way through the group of groundsmen and the men were falling back to let her past. It was Tia—of course it was. She was dressed in an immaculate linen suit and pearls that must be worth a king’s ransom. Her heels were totally unsuitable for walking on the grass, but then would any shoe dare to sink if Tia was wearing it?

But she looked… frightened.

‘She’s safe, Mother,’ Andreas said thickly and Tia’s face showed instant relief. But only fleetingly. She had herself under control in an instant.

‘I saw the dog attack the swans. You know your father’s orders. These are his swans. He’ll protect them at any cost.’

‘At the cost of Holly’s life?’ Andreas demanded incredulously. ‘I can’t believe you’d think that.’

‘Your father—’

‘My father’s dead,’ Andreas said flatly. ‘It’s not what he thinks now. It’s what you think.’

‘Of course it’s not what I think.’ She turned to the groundsmen, dismissing them with a wave. ‘Go back to work. I don’t hold you responsible for the girl’s hurt. You were following the king’s orders.’

‘But…’ the young groundsman stammered, still dazed.

‘My son’s wife will recover,’ Tia said. ‘I can see from here it’s a scratch.’ She permitted herself a wintry smile. ‘She’ll hardly sue.’ Then as the men hesitated she lowered her voice a notch. ‘Leave. Now.’

They went. Leaving Andreas holding Holly and Deefer, and the queen looking down at them, her face impassive. With Andreas glaring back at his mother as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

‘I don’t understand why the swans didn’t just fly away,’ Holly muttered, searching for something—anything—to take the look of anger from the faces of both mother and son.

‘They have their wings clipped,’ Tia told her. ‘They can’t.’

‘Despite the fact that swans will always come back to their home lake,’ Andreas said softly, his voice still laced with fury. ‘But my parents clip their wings to make sure.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake… These are your father’s orders,’ Tia said. Her voice wasn’t as sure as it had been. She sounded suddenly shaky. ‘You know that, Andreas. It’s the way things are. And I told her to keep the dog in the stables.’

‘Holly comes with a dog. This is Holly’s home, Mother.’

‘It’s not my home,’ Holly said, struggling in his arms. He released her, reluctantly. She pushed herself to her feet and Andreas followed. She was feeling a little bit sick, she discovered. Her legs weren’t as steady as she wanted them to be. She needed to pull away from both of these royals—she needed to face them square on—but she needed Andreas’s support. But she still knew what needed to be said. ‘My home’s in Australia and I’m leaving.’

‘You can’t leave yet,’ Tia said, shocked, as Andreas’s expression snapped into a frown, and Holly shook her head.

‘I can leave any time I want. Isn’t that so, Andreas?’

He tugged her tight against him. She could feel the tension in his body; she could feel how close he was to snapping. There were tensions here that didn’t have anything to do with her. There were tensions she didn’t understand.

‘That’s right,’ he said softly, but there was no mistaking the steel behind the quiet words as he met his mother’s gaze, unflinching. ‘Holly married me to get us out of a mess. She’s fulfilled her part of the bargain. We’ve told the press that she’ll keep her property back in Australia, with intermittent visits from me. She’s free to go.’

‘Sebastian thinks it will be better if she stays,’ Tia said sharply.

‘Sebastian does not rule my private life,’ Andreas snapped. ‘As my father no longer rules yours. Maybe we both have to learn that. Meanwhile my wife is my business. If I say she can go, then she can go.’

‘Thanks very much,’ Holly managed and would have wrenched away but he was still holding her hard against him. Her face was still bleeding. A droplet splashed on the white cotton of her shirt. She put her fingers up to her cheek and he noticed.

‘I need to get you inside and have that seen to,’ he said ruefully.

‘She will stay,’ Tia said in a voice that sounded almost desperate.

‘How are you going to clip my wings?’ Holly said shakily. Shock was setting in for real now. Deefer was limp in her arms as if the little dog also realized just how close they’d come to calamity. ‘I’m free,’ Holly said, forcing herself to continue. ‘Andreas… Andreas is my husband but that’s not enough to hold me. I’m going home.’

Ignoring her protests, he carried her out through the palace kitchens to a room that was set up as a first-aid centre. The vast palace staff would make a first-aid centre essential, Holly thought, though she wasn’t up to thinking much. She lay back in Andreas’s arms, she hugged Deefer and she let him take her where he willed. She might have sounded defiant before Tia, but inside she was a wimpering wreck.