SHE LOOKED SO affronted that Cayetano rather thought she might snatch up one of the small plates and throw it at him. Or a great many of the small plates.
He could admit that no small part of him wished that she would. Because an explosion on that level would require an appropriate response from him.
And he would love nothing more than to...respond.
At length.
The hunger in him felt like a fever. Like a calling. He had no idea how he would hold himself back if she burst into a flame of temper before him.
But all Delaney did was glare at him.
“That is very rude,” she admonished him, and to his astonishment he found himself feeling...ever so slightly abashed. Or he assumed that was what the unfamiliar sensation was. “I did not come to you, claiming a throne or whatever it is people do in situations like this. You’re the one who appeared in the middle of my life. And ruined it. If you don’t like how I look, well. That sounds a lot to me like a you problem.”
And he liked the way she looked at him as she said that. As if she were prepared to launch herself over the table to make her point and was only just holding herself back.
Just as he was.
Perhaps for the very same reason.
“But you are in my valley now,” he replied, leaning back as if he was perfectly at his ease. He should have been. He had been navigating far more treacherous waters than this for the whole of his life. Why should a girl who didn’t know who she really was get beneath his skin? “My problems are your problems, you will find. My problems are everyone’s problems.”
“You are not my warlord, Cayetano.”
And she made an emphatic little noise when she said that, like punctuation.
He should not have found that charming. If it had been anyone else, he knew he would not have. He would have been far more focused on the disrespect. “I think you will find, little one, that soon enough I will be your everything.”
She didn’t like that. She sat straighter and she glared at him—but then again, her cheeks warmed.
“That is delusional.” She even pointed a finger at him, and it took him a moment to recognize that she was admonishing him. “I came here because this is an adventure for me, whatever it might be for you. And I decided it might make sense to meet the people I’m actually related to.”
“Yet you have not so much as asked after them.”
“I’m hardly going to ask you about them.” Her chin rose. “You are their sworn enemy, by all accounts, including yours.”
“I had no idea genealogy intrigued you so.” He fought to keep the smile from his face and did not think too hard about how unusual an occurrence it was that he should wish to smile at all. “You seemed uninterested in it back in Kansas. Your blood was of no matter to you. I am sure you said as much.”
“People who can trace their ancestors back several centuries shouldn’t comment on those of us who learned we were an entirely different person only days ago,” Delaney retorted. “Of course I want to meet my...the woman who actually gave birth to me. Eventually.”
He did not miss the way she looked away when she said that. As if she was in no rush to meet Queen Esme, and not for the usual reasons. He suspected that if she thought too much about the Queen, this might become real to her.
Clearly, she didn’t want that.
“I was under the impression you came here because your mother told you to,” he said. “No more and no less.”
“Thanks to you, I now have to grapple with the fact that—biologically speaking—she’s not my mother.”
And she said that tartly enough, but there was something about the way she held herself that made him regret... Well, he couldn’t regret what he had done. He could never regret something that would shortly put him on the path to finally right such an ancient wrong. But he regretted, more than he would have thought possible before this very moment, that finding her and telling her who she was had hurt her.
It changed nothing.
But still, he felt it.
And he did not like such things. Feelings. He had been avoiding them for most of his life. Feeling anything at all made him certain he was on a collision course with the fate that had met his parents. Death. Dishonor.
He refused.
“I think you’re laboring under a misconception,” he said, in a more repressive tone than he might have used had she not inspired him to emote. “I did not ask you for your hand in marriage and then wait, filled with a trembling hope, for your answer. I informed you that our wedding would take place. I imagine you think that a display of arrogance.”
“Extreme arrogance,” Delaney agreed too swiftly, color high. “Appalling, rude, delusional arrogance.”
“Little one, that is merely me,” Cayetano replied, and lifted an unconcerned shoulder. “What you should concern yourself with are the ancient laws of this island, in which I very much doubt you are conversant no matter how many internet articles you read.”
She had gaped a bit at the that is merely me bit. Now she snapped her mouth shut and glared at him. “Let me guess. You can lock a girl in a tower and everyone shrugs and says, Oh, well, I guess you get to keep her. Like women are nothing more than fireflies you can collect in a jar.”
Cayetano could not remember the last time he had stopped to appreciate the fireflies that heralded the summers here. When as a small child, he had delighted in them. He could recall running, barefoot, through the fields while his parents walked behind, trying to catch the little bursts of light that popped in the air all around them—
The memory fell like ice water through him, horrifying him. He was not a man given to nostalgia. It smacked of those emotions he abhorred.
“This is not a jar,” he replied with what he thought was admirable patience. “It is Arcieri Castle, built with painstaking care across the ages. First hidden, its residents and servants risking death if they were discovered here. Sometimes its own kind of cell, because my ancestors weathered many a siege within these walls. Now open to celebrate the peace. But never a mere jar.”
Naturally, his farm girl did not look impressed by anything he said. He had never encountered another human so devoutly unimpressed, in fact. She sat there on a priceless settee in jeans and a T-shirt, in an ancient castle renowned for its beauty, and dared to glare at him as if he was the offending party here.
“None of that makes it any less of a cell,” she told him, in a tone he could only call mulish. “Whether it was built in two days or two millennia, and no matter what it means to you and your people, it amounts to the same thing.”
Cayetano sighed. “There is no need for cells. Still, as I said, there are old ways. This is a very old place.”
“I may be American, but I’m capable of understanding dates. And history.”
He found her tone excessively dry. But once again, the problem with his lost princess was that he found himself fascinated by her total lack of awe in his presence. He had seen a hint of it in that dusty yard in Kansas, but it had faded. Quickly.
It was the novelty, nothing more, he told himself. Any moment now, he would stop thinking about her as a woman, as an individual, as his. And get back to thinking about her role here and how best to deploy her upon the unsuspecting House of Montaigne.
Before he’d gone to Kansas, that deployment had been his fondest fantasy.
“Some of our old ways are enshrined in law as well as custom,” he told her, maintaining his posture of seeming ease when he did not feel easy. He was not making up the old ways here. He could marry her in the morning if he chose, ending this farce that she had a choice in the matter that quickly. Cayetano liked that notion. A lot.
But it did not strike him as particularly strategic. He reminded himself that he had already won—she was here. What would it hurt to attempt to woo her a little?
Or, at the very least, not rush her.
“Let me guess,” Delaney said in the same dry way. “The men in charge forgot to update things around here because why bother? They like it medieval.”
Cayetano ran his tongue around his teeth and abandoned any wooing plans. “It is not necessary to imprison you, Delaney. I need only keep you for a night, then claim you in front of my brethren come the dawn. Only one, if I like, though at least three is more traditional.”
She stared at him as if waiting for more, then scowled when no more was forthcoming. “That’s barbaric.”
“It was necessary in a certain era.” Cayetano waved an idle hand. Mostly to infuriate her. A success, if the look in her blue eyes was any indication. And he should not have taken such pleasure in these games. This woman was a means to an end, not a pleasure. He could not fathom why he kept forgetting that. Or why, despite himself, the way he wanted her felt more like a roar within him every moment. “There was a time when this island was far more lawless than it is now. Times were perilous and lives were short. Men in need of wives took them where they could, and it became necessary to make sure that their children were legitimate.”
“You can’t take me,” she said. And it took tremendous control on his part to refrain from pointing out that he had already done just that. That she had packed for the privilege. “I demand that you release me.”
“Little one,” Cayetano said, his voice rich with amusement, “where do you think you are? This is not the American Embassy. The only person who can intercede on your behalf with me...is me.”
Her breath left her in an audible rush. Her mouth opened and shut more than once, before her cheeks flushed red and she snapped her teeth closed. It took her a fair few moments to gather herself once more.
“You cannot think that this will actually work,” she seethed at him.
He found himself caught, anew, at her reaction. There was no hint of fear on her face, which would have stopped him at once. Or made him approach this differently, at any rate. But she didn’t look remotely uncomfortable. If anything, she was ablaze.
At the injustice, unless he missed his guess.
And Cayetano was very rarely wrong when it came to reading people.
Though he was finding it difficult to read himself tonight. Why should her reaction, whatever it might be, make his body tighten with desire? He was not used to this intensity. Not for anything but his purpose, his promises.
He hated the very idea that a person could turn him from his lifelong path. Was he no better than his parents after all?
The very notion appalled him.
“I do not wish it to work,” he told her, more severely than was necessary. Perhaps he was directing that at himself. “I would far prefer that you decide, of your own volition, to marry me. Freely. Who would not wish this? I do not want a prisoner for bride, Delaney. But you should know this about me now. I will always do what I must. When it comes to this island, and my people, I always will.”
She seemed almost electrified, as if a current ran through her. She shook slightly—but with temper, he thought, still not fear. Then, suddenly, she shot to her feet, her hands in fists at her side that suggested that he was right. “None of this is okay.”
He might not understand himself this day, but he did like to be right.
“I do not think this the tragedy you’re making out to be,” he countered, and it was easy, in the face of her outrage, to sound very nearly lazy again. “Please bear in mind that in order to achieve my goals, I am forced into the match as much as you. There are worse things than wedding a stranger, Delaney. Trust me on this.”
Her blue eyes were a storm. “That’s easy for you to say. You’re the one doing this.”
“Because I must,” he said again. With finality.
“But why?” she threw at him, as if the query was torn from somewhere deep inside her.
He would not have responded to temper. He would have laughed at a demand. But he found he couldn’t ignore a plea like this, as if it hurt her.
“This is a fractured place,” he told her, and this was no prepared speech. The words simply welled up from within him. “It has been broken for so long that the people here have come to imagine that they are broken, too. And nothing will fix it. No talks. No treaties. No wars. As long as there are two sides, there will be conflict. It is my job—my calling—to do what I can to dispel it. Not because I do not have the same urges as the rest of my people, to rise up and take what was taken from us. Of course I do. But I know that in these skirmishes, we all lose. I am so tired of loss, Delaney.”
He had never said such a thing out loud before. He had not known the words existed within him.
He wasn’t at all sure that he liked knowing that they’d been there all along, but he pushed on. “But there is only one way we can do away with these sides. Not so that I can win a throne, but so all of us can win back what was taken from us so long ago. So that we can move forward without this loss that marks all of us, royalist and rebel alike. We can only be whole if we come together.”
She stared at him, round-eyed. “You truly believe this.”
“I do.”
And he had made a great many vows in his life. To himself. To his people.
This was not a vow, but it felt like one. Like bright, hot steel pressed into flesh.
He could feel it in his skin. Directly over his heart, a terrible, marvelous brand of truth.
Cayetano hardly knew what to do with the storm in him then. Instead, he watched as she blew out a breath, punched those fists of hers into place on her hips, and began to pace around the room.
“I don’t understand this...sitting around in pretty rooms and talking,” Delaney seethed at him, her blue eyes shooting sparks when they met his. “I like to be outside. I like dirt under my feet. I like a day that ends with me having to scrub soil out from beneath my fingernails.”
She glared at the walls as if they had betrayed her.
Then at him, as if he was doing so even now.
For a moment he almost felt as if he had—but that was ridiculous.
“When you are recognized as the true Crown Princess of Ile d’Montagne, the whole island will be your garden,” he told her. Trying to soothe her. He wanted to lift a hand to his own chest and massage the brand that wasn’t there, but soothing was for others, not him. He ignored the too-hot sensation. “You can work in the dirt of your ancestors to your heart’s content.”
Delaney shot a look at him, pure blue fire. “Even if I did agree to do such a crazy thing, you still wouldn’t get what you want. It doesn’t matter what blood is in my veins. I am a farm girl, born and bred. I will never look the part of the Princess you imagine. Never.”
She sounded almost as final as he had, but Cayetano allowed himself a smile, because that wasn’t a flat refusal. It sounded more like a maybe to him.
He could work with maybe.
In point of fact, he couldn’t wait.
He rose then. And he made his way toward her, watching the way her eyes widened. The way her lips parted. There was an unmistakable flush on her cheeks as he drew near, and he could see her pulse beat at her neck.
Cayetano was the warlord of these mountains and would soon enough be the King of this island. And he had been prepared to ignore the fire in him, the fever. The ways he wanted her that had intruded into his work, his sleep. But here and now, he granted himself permission to want this woman. His woman. Because he could see that she wanted him.
With that and her maybe, he knew he’d already won.
“Let me worry about how you look,” he said as he came to a stop before her, enjoying the way she had to look up to hold his gaze. It made her seem softer. He could see the hectic need all over her, matching his own. “There is something far more interesting for you to concentrate on.”
Delaney made a noise of frustration. “The barbaric nature of ancient laws and customs?”
“Or this.”
And then Cayetano followed the urge that had been with him since he’d seen her standing in a dirt-filled yard with a battered kerchief on her head and kissed her.
He expected her to be sweet. He expected to enjoy himself.
He expected to want her all the more, to tempt his own feverish need with a little taste of her.
But he was totally unprepared for the punch of it. Of a simple kiss—a kiss to show her there was more here than righting old wrongs and reclaiming lost thrones. A kiss to share a little bit of the fire that had been burning in him since he’d first laid eyes on her.
It was a blaze and it took him over.
It was a dark, drugging heat.
It was a mad blaze of passion.
It was a delirium—and he wanted more.
He drew her closer to him, then hauled her up into his arms, letting the fever take hold of him, a delicious madness. He kissed her again, then again. Delaney made a low, broken sort of sound and he made as if to retreat, but she threw her arms around his neck and held on.
And then there was nothing at all but the pounding of his heart, and the hard pulse of need in his sex. The slick fire with every angle, every dance of his tongue and hers.
The glory of it. The desire.
He found his hands moving over her, wild with need. As if they moved of their own accord, and ached to glance over each and every part of her—
My God, you’re losing control—
That voice inside him shocked him into stillness.
Cayetano set her aside abruptly, his breath hard and raw.
And almost lost control of himself again when he saw that her blue eyes were two shades darker. While her pretty mouth was faintly swollen from his.
Not reaching out for her again felt like a blow.
“Is that reason enough?” he managed to grit out. “Do you think that happens every day?”
Delaney blinked at that, then swallowed hard. She looked vulnerable for a moment, and that clawed at him, but then she straightened her shoulders and lifted that stubborn chin. “Speak for yourself. It happens three times a day for me. Sometimes more.”
He moved away from her, because it was that or continue as he had been and take her right there against the wall, and he couldn’t allow that. He needed to figure out how it was he had lost his composure here. He had to make sure that he was in control of himself the way he always, always was.
Because this flirtation with chaos could never happen again.
“You have two choices,” he told her when he could speak without shouting—another red flag—and he was aware that his voice had gone arctic. There was no helping it. Everything inside him was on fire, but God only knew what would become of him if he showed her that. If he allowed himself such a display. The very idea chilled him to the bone. “You may agree to marry me. If you do this, our wedding will take place in one month. It will give us time to prepare the perfect way to launch you and what you mean upon the House of Montaigne, and the world. Because it must be perfect. Meanwhile, you can study up on your relatives, if you wish. We have a great many books on the topic in our libraries, plus any number of personal experiences. And while you are learning where you come from, we will prepare for where you’re going. We’ll make you the Queen my country deserves.”
“And the second choice?” she asked without missing a beat.
Her eyes were glittering with temper now.
Cayetano inclined his head. “The second choice is simple enough. My men will stand guard outside your door. Come the morning, I will gather my people in the courtyard and claim you as mine as if it is still the Dark Ages. It will be done, and we will spend the same amount of time readying ourselves for our unveiling. But you won’t be trusted, and I fear that you might find Arcieri Castle more of a cell than you might otherwise.”
“So the choice you’re offering me is really no choice at all.”
There were too many competing shadows inside him, and he did not have the grip on himself he should. “If I were you, my little farm girl, I would count myself lucky I had any choice at all.”
“And do I get two different marriages to choose from, too?” she asked, folding her arms in front of her. As if she had all the self-control he was appalled to discover he lacked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Does a barbarous beginning lead to brutality?” she demanded. “Is that what I have to look forward to?”
She could not have said anything that would have cut him more.
“I would never lift my hand to a woman,” Cayetano bit out, though even as he did, something in him pointed out that if she thought otherwise she surely wouldn’t have said such a thing, and so baldly. Maybe that was what spurred on the words that came out of him then, as if the desire in him had taken him over completely. “The only battles you and I will have will be in bed. But both of us will win. And the only question will be how much you can take.”
There was something about the stunned sort of way she stared back at him that got to him. That made him think she was not necessarily as sophisticated as she pretended in the midst of her defiance. And that would mean...
But he dismissed it.
And then Cayetano forced himself to leave her in that sitting room before he could think better of it.
Before he could show her what he meant, there and then.
Before he betrayed himself any further.