Kitabı oku: «The Marquis And The Mother-To-Be», sayfa 2
“I’m afraid not. Tiga Lodge is part of Carramer’s national estate. I have the right to live here and use it as I see fit, but I hold the title in trust for my heirs. No one in the family would consider selling it.”
He leaned forward. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Actually I’m not.” She pushed her chair back so hard that it tumbled over, and ran from the room.
There was a maid’s powder room down the hall, and he followed her to it, finding her kneeling over the pedestal, her shoulders heaving.
As a navy man, he’d dealt with his share of seasick crewmates, although he’d never suffered from the malady himself. He leaned over Carissa, stroking her hair and murmuring reassurance until the dreadful retching sound stopped. Then he helped her to stand, flushed the toilet and dipped a cloth into water to bathe her face. She felt as cold as ice and she trembled in his grasp. Her face was chalk-white as she sipped the glass of water he handed to her.
“All right now?” he asked.
She nodded. “Much better, thanks.”
“Come back to the kitchen and finish your coffee. Unless you’d prefer to lie down. We can sort everything else out later.”
“I would like to lie down, if you don’t mind.”
He helped her back to the room she had claimed, deciding to use another one for the time being. Something was wrong with her. Surely it wasn’t only the shock of finding out that the lodge she thought she owned belonged to him? “Would you like me to send for a doctor? There’s one in Tricot, about twenty minutes’ drive away.”
She stopped turning down the bedcovers and looked back at him. “I’ve already met him. He won’t appreciate being dragged out here.”
He gave a self-deprecating smile. “Rank has its privileges.”
Carissa’s face underwent a sea change. “I should have remembered. But there’s no need, I’ll be fine soon.”
The coldness he heard in her tone puzzled him. He tried to think of a time when they were teenagers when he’d used his rank in some way she might have resented, but too much had happened today. “I’ll let you get some rest,” he said. “If you still feel ill later, I’m calling a doctor whether you want one or not.”
She got into bed fully clothed, as if she felt too weary to undress. He debated whether to offer to help, then decided it wasn’t such a good idea. Kissing her had already affected him more than was good for him. He had always been attracted to Carissa, even when she had been too young for him to make his feelings known except in a teasing way. Now that she was a woman, and a beautiful one at that, teasing hardly seemed appropriate. And he couldn’t risk anything more.
Rank may have its privileges, but it also carried responsibilities. He had to be careful about indulging in romantic dalliances. The consequences could be dire, as he’d seen when his cousin, Michel, had been dubbed the playboy prince, his romances splashed across every newspaper in the country. And when Michel’s sister, Princess Adrienne, had spent a night on a mountain alone with a man, they’d been forced to announce their engagement to avoid public censure. Eduard didn’t want to put himself or any woman he cared about in such a position.
He frowned, thinking of his last disastrous attempt at romance. Lady Louise Mallon had been eminently suitable for him in every way, and Eduard had started to think something might come of their relationship.
The rest of his family would have been delighted, he knew, wondering what they would think if he told them she had become pregnant by another man, then tried to convince Eduard that the child was his. Her face had been a study when Eduard told her he could give her everything except children, which was why he had balked at proposing.
The real father of Louise’s baby had come to Eduard and told him he wanted to marry her and raise the baby no matter who the father was. Eduard didn’t intend to share the truth with a stranger. Prolonged exposure to toxic chemicals while helping to rescue the crew of a damaged ship had left Eduard unable to father children of his own. Apart from the royal physician, the only people who knew the truth were his immediate family.
He suspected he’d accepted the Australian assignment as much to get over the affair with Louise as to strengthen the ties between Carramer and Australia.
The last thing he needed was to create new problems for himself with Carissa. Bad enough that she was already living under his roof. That alone could cause difficulties. So he had two choices—get back into the chopper and go somewhere else, or arrange alternative accommodation for her as soon as possible.
Having just arrived, he didn’t feel inclined to go somewhere less secluded, where his movements might be spied on by the paparazzi. In Tricot, the local people were used to the royal family’s presence and respected their privacy. And no matter what Carissa believed, he owned the lodge. From the sound of things she had been the victim of a clever con artist. However sorry Eduard felt about that, she would have to be the one to leave.
When he looked in on her, she was asleep, her features at rest so she looked like a beautiful porcelain doll. She wasn’t going to go quietly, he suspected, remembering what an emotional teenager she had been. If he’d had the slightest inkling that his intruder was Carissa, he would never have kissed her so impulsively. At least she behaved as if she was long over the crush she’d had on him when they were younger, but there was no point playing with fire.
As he unloaded the rest of his gear and provisions from the helicopter, he let his thoughts linger on the woman sleeping in his bed with one arm over her head and the other curved across her slim body. He’d been tempted to stay and watch her for the sheer pleasure of it, but he’d made himself move. She’d mistaken his attention for something stronger once. He wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
He winced, remembering what a complete klutz he had been around women when he was in his teens. Carissa had been the only female with whom he could relax and be himself. Whether her Australian informality was the reason, or whether it was something about Carissa herself, he didn’t know. But he had talked to her for hours as they took long walks along the beach at Chateau Valmont.
He had been stranded in the breach between school and university while Carissa was on vacation from the diplomatic high school. Already ahead of her age group, she had intrigued him with her intelligence and quick wit. Laughter had been their common bond and he’d thought she was as comfortable with their friendship as he was himself.
When Carissa threw herself into his arms and kissed him, telling him she was falling in love with him, he simply hadn’t known how to react. He had treated her declaration as a joke. Not knowing what else to do, he had walked away, avoiding her for the rest of her vacation.
Before he left for university, he had tried to apologize and Carissa had accepted his apology stiffly, making him worry that her declaration of love hadn’t been a joke to her. By the time he came home on vacation, her father had been posted back to Australia. Eduard hadn’t heard from her again, so he’d had no further opportunity to make amends.
He knew he would respond differently if she threw herself at him now. She had turned into a beautiful, desirable woman. Holding her had felt better than anything Eduard had done in a long time.
Kissing her had felt better still. Unlike the last time, he knew exactly how to react. He was doing it now, just thinking about her. He would have preferred to send her on her way today, although he wasn’t sure for whose benefit. By the time she woke up, it would be too late for her to go anywhere.
He carried the last of his gear inside, then went out and secured the chopper for the night. He was rated for night flying and could have flown Carissa wherever she wished to go, but he couldn’t bring himself to eject her while she was so obviously unwell, assuming she had somewhere else to go.
Where she went wasn’t his problem, he told himself. He hadn’t conned her into buying the royal retreat. A few simple checks would have revealed the truth, then she wouldn’t be in this fix. Why was she here anyway? She may have fallen in love with Carramer; foreigners frequently did. But lots of places were more accessible than Tiga Falls. The family had built the lodge precisely because of its location, to provide an ideal retreat from royal duty. What was Carissa retreating from?
He let out a long breath. Common sense dictated that he stop wondering and concern himself with seeing her on her way. But common sense had nothing to do with the instant, primitive way he responded to thoughts of her. He had a feeling that getting her out of his hair was going to be easier than getting her out of his mind.
Chapter Two
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.
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