She spun away, not stopping until she came to the herb bed she’d been putting to rights. Mindlessly she dropped to her knees and began to pull a few remaining weeds from around a clump of oregano that had somehow managed to thrive amid the overgrowth. As she intended to thrive, no matter how Eduard reacted to her admission.
She was aware of him following her, but kept at her task. Only when he gently lifted her to her feet was she unable to avoid facing him.
He was looking at her as if seeing her for the first time. Would she always think of him like this, standing with his estate at his back, a lord in the figurative as well as the literal sense? He had released her as soon as she regained her feet. Now he stood with his feet apart, hands braced on his hips, a man in a class by himself. “Did you just say what I thought you said?”
This wasn’t how she had wanted to tell him, but she couldn’t take the declaration back. She had never wanted a man more, nor expected to touch him less.
As if she could escape the yearnings that now could never become reality, she stood up and paced to the edge of the kitchen garden, to where a wishing well was emerging as the undergrowth was cleared away. The well was a bit of whimsy someone had built there years before. Even Eduard had said he didn’t remember seeing it, so perhaps it had been overgrown for decades.
She picked up a pebble and dropped it into the well, hearing a splash far below. “I said I’m expecting a baby.”
“When?” he demanded, sounding thunderstruck.
She turned back to him. “I’m in the first trimester, when all the fun stuff like morning sickness is at its worst.”
“Which explains your symptoms.” He raked a hand through his hair, leaving trails. “Why did you let me think you had the flu?”
She scuffed the cobblestones with the toe of her shoe. “I didn’t want you to think any less of me.”
“Is my opinion so important to you?”
“So it would seem.”
“Why, Cris?”
Because his kisses had inflamed the remnants of her teenage crush, and if she wasn’t careful, she feared they could explode into something far more adult. The prospect scared the life out of her. Even if Eduard’s royal position hadn’t made a future with him impossible, she wasn’t ready to risk her heart so soon after her experience with Mark. “I guess one rejection is enough for me at the moment.” One admission, too.
Eduard planted one foot on the stone wall surrounding the terrace, and rested his forearm on his knee. “You’re referring to the baby’s father?”
She nodded. “My brother introduced us. Mark worked with Jeff in the money market. The first few times Mark asked me out, I turned him down. I’m not sure why. An instinct for self-preservation, most likely.” Well-founded as it had turned out, she thought. “He kept asking until I agreed, and we saw one another for some months before my father died. He was even willing to move with me to Carramer. After Dad died, I felt so bereft that I turned to Mark for comfort.”
“Which he was more than willing to provide,” Eduard drawled.
Despite nerves stretched to breaking point, she managed a weak smile. She guessed that Eduard had read Mark more accurately in a few seconds than she had done in months. Was the ability to sum up people a trick of the royal trade? She wished she’d had the ability when she’d first met Mark, then she might not have been taken in by his shallow charm.
“I needed someone so badly,” she went on, as much to herself as to him. “I didn’t stop to think, to take any precautions, and by the time it occurred to Mark, it was too late. When I started to suspect I might be pregnant, it didn’t seem to matter because I thought Mark would want the baby as much as I did.”
Eduard came to her but kept a whisper of distance between them. Already the rejection was starting, she thought on a wave of pain. “I gather Lucas let you down,” he said.
She laughed hollowly. “That’s one way to describe it. When I told him I was expecting his child, he offered me money to…solve the problem, as he put it.” Her voice broke on the last part.
Eduard grasped the edge of the wishing well with both hands, hard enough to loosen some of the mortar, she saw, as she heard it tumble into the depths. “Are you sure he didn’t offer you the money to help defray your medical expenses?”
She clasped her arms around herself, knowing it was the only comfort she could expect now he knew the truth. “When Mark called me here a few days ago, he tried to convince me that’s what he meant, but I know it wasn’t.”
“Perhaps he had a change of heart.”
“Leopards don’t change their spots that quickly.”
The tremor she was unable to keep out of her voice made Eduard look at her in concern. “Don’t worry, I’m not about to fall apart,” she assured him. “I want this baby more than anything in the world, and I won’t let Mark spoil things for me.”
His mouth thinned. “Do you think he might try?”
“He told me he intends to come after me, although I warned him not to waste his time.” She lifted a trembling hand to her face. “I guess I have you to thank for his sudden turnaround.”
Shock made Eduard’s features pale and he jammed his thumbs into his belt, to keep them away from her, she assumed, not sure if that was good or bad. She ached for his touch so badly that she swayed toward him before she got herself under control.
“Considering I’ve never met Lucas, you’d better explain my supposed influence on his behavior,” Eduard ground out.
She didn’t blame him for being angry. “That came out wrong. I only meant that Mark changed his mind after he found out from Jeff that I’m staying with a member of the royal family. According to Jeff, Mark’s business is struggling. Knowing him, he probably hopes I can convince you to get involved in one of his deals.”
Irony suffused Eduard’s expression. “Scruples as well as honor, he sounds like quite a guy.”
“Go ahead, tell me what good taste I have in men.” She let her tone tell him she was already well aware of it.
“You can’t judge all men by the actions of one.”
“Can’t I? You haven’t exactly welcomed my news.” She didn’t add that she had dreaded his rejection most of all. His reluctance to come near her had confirmed her worst fears.
He straightened. “If you must know, I’m stunned. Blind Freddie could tell that something was wrong with you, but I never suspected the real reason.”
She felt the urge to lash out, recognizing disappointment as the goad. “Nothing is wrong with me. I’m having a baby, that’s all. I shouldn’t be surprised you don’t understand, after being rejected by an expert.”
He moved so fast that he had pulled her against him before she had time to react. “Does this feel like rejection to you?”
Her breathing had become so ragged that she felt light-headed, and she clung to him. “No, it doesn’t,” she whispered hoarsely. It felt more like he intended to kiss her.
Eduard knew he was going to kiss her as soon as he saw her apprehensive expression, and realized she cared what he thought of her. He was still having difficulty coming to terms with her news. She wasn’t a teenager any longer, but a mother-to-be. He let his breath whistle out as he struggled to make the mental leap.
She still looked like a girl, felt like one in his arms, he thought, feeling a surge of response he could barely control. Pressed against him, her stomach felt smooth under her jeans and skimpy shirt that revealed her tanned midriff. Nothing showed yet. But for her pallor and difficulty keeping food down in the mornings, he’d never have known.
Did she have any idea how worried he’d been? His mind had worked overtime on possibilities, although obviously never the right one. His hold on her tightened. She’d scared the devil out of him, worrying about what might be wrong with her. What that said about his feelings for her, he would need time to consider.
Right now he felt his spirits rise to giddy heights that he had to work to restrain, as he thought what her pregnancy might mean to him. The possibility was too new, too precarious for him to raise with her yet. First he had to convince her that rejecting her was the last thing he intended to do.
Telling himself the kiss was to reassure her, he almost laughed at the transparency of his motives. He had ached to taste her lips again since the night he followed her into the rain forest. Something he’d said had panicked her into walking away. Since then, he’d controlled the impulse to take her in his arms, although not without considerable effort.
He should probably resist the temptation now, considering her condition, and what she’d evidently been through with Lucas. But Eduard had always subscribed to the notion that the best way to resist temptation was to yield to it.
Under his hands, she quivered, making him wish he could don a suit of armor and take on the world as her champion. She didn’t want protecting. She’d made that clear enough to Lucas as well. But a man could dream, couldn’t he?
He felt as if he was dreaming now as he held her, the sight of her wide eyes, dark with uncertainty, playing havoc with his wish to be gentle.
He framed her face in both hands, feeling his breath become increasingly uneven. She licked her lips, the childlike gesture dissolving the last of his restraint. He had to taste her. He lowered his mouth to hers.
Her lips were still parted, still moist, offering no resistance when he kissed her. Deliberately he kept the kiss light, although everything in him wanted more, wanted to carry her inside and lose himself in her softness until they were both boneless with pleasure. Never before had he felt so driven by desire, so capable of taking what he wanted and never mind the consequences. But he wouldn’t. The civilized part of him held the beast at bay, barely. Through the exquisite kiss, Eduard felt that primitive part of him battling the chains, demanding just this once…just this once.
“No.” He wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d spoken the denial out loud. This wasn’t the way or the time. If he allowed himself to take advantage of her vulnerability for his own satisfaction, he was no better than the man who had given her a child then rejected them both.
The beast within him howled again, this time at the injustice of such treatment. If the child had been his, Eduard knew nothing on earth could have made him turn her away. He began to hope that Lucas would show his face here, for the simple pleasure of rearranging it for him.
What was it about Carissa that brought out such tendencies? Eduard didn’t think of himself as a violent man. The navy had trained him in the killing arts, but he had hoped never to have to use them. Yet within a heartbeat of touching her, he was fighting the urge to possess her in the most primeval way, and relishing the thought of hurting the man who had hurt her.
Her pulse hammered under the fingers he slid over her face and throat. He cupped her face for an instant longer before releasing her, feeling the flame of desire slowly dampen and his breathing ease. The need for her still sang in his blood, but softly, a dull ache rather than a ravening demand.
Soon, he would make love to her, he promised himself. Not yet. Not while she still felt uncertain of him. He read it in her eyes, making him want to kill Lucas for what he’d done. Eduard’s kiss had subdued some of her doubts, but there was still a way to go to convince her that she had nothing to fear from him.
She looked as shaken as he felt. “What happens now?” she asked, her voice not quite steady.
His wasn’t much better. “I take you to Tricot to keep that appointment with Dr. Brunet.”
“But I don’t need…”
With his finger, he brushed away a smudge of dirt from her cheek, feeling his insides clench in response. This delicate woman was having a child. The instinct to care for her and her baby gripped him so hard, it was all he could do not to carry her off to the doctor then and there.
He shuddered at the thought of how he’d encouraged her to walk to the waterfall and to climb with him into the attic. If he’d harmed her or the child, however inadvertently, he would never forgive himself. “You need to take better care of yourself than you’ve been doing.”
She gave an irritable shake of her head. “I’m pregnant, not incapacitated. Women have been having children for years while going about their normal lives.”
He almost said, “They weren’t having my baby” but of course, he didn’t have that right. He settled for, “They didn’t have me around.”
She released a deep breath. “I won’t have you around for much longer, either. So there’s no point in wrapping me in cotton wool. I have to stand on my own feet sooner or later.”
He heard what she didn’t say, that Lucas had made her believe she had no other choice. One was slowly dawning on Eduard, but he didn’t think now was the right time to raise it with her. “Humor me,” he said. “Keep the appointment with Dr. Brunet and I’ll treat you to lunch at Anini’s.” The restaurant was the perfect place for them to talk about the idea that increasingly held him in thrall.
Her eyebrows lifted. “Anini’s is one of the most famous restaurants in the province.” She had been surprised to see it was located in such an out-of-the-way place as Tricot, and had intended to treat herself to a celebratory meal there as soon as the lodge was up and running. Of course, that was before she lost most of her money to a con man. “I won’t have you feeling sorry for me,” she said, suspicion coloring her tone.
“You’ve guessed my hidden agenda,” he said, the teasing note in his voice taking the wind out of her sails. “I take all my charity cases there.” He tilted her chin with one finger. “I always eat there when I’m in town. If I go anywhere else, Anton Anini will think he’s lost royal favor and slash his wrists.”
“I wouldn’t want to be responsible for anything like that,” she said with mock seriousness, her eyes sparkling. His acceptance had given her a great gift, she knew. She had braced herself for him to react the way Mark and her brother had done, but Eduard had surprised her.
She shouldn’t be surprised, she told herself. He had always been different. While his brother, Mathiaz, had awed her with his royal dignity, Eduard had been approachable, willing to listen to her concerns and share her dreams. No wonder she had convinced herself she was in love with him. Now, his concern made her feel cherished, something she’d definitely been lacking of late. This time she would be careful not to misread his response as anything more, she resolved.
Eduard offered to take her to Tricot in the helicopter but she declined, preferring the compact car she’d bought when she arrived to riding in the alarmingly small acrylic bubble.
“My stomach couldn’t handle flying, even if my nerves could,” she assured him.
He was equally unappreciative of her car, but insisted on driving. Even with the seat pushed back as far as it would go, he barely fitted behind the wheel.
The road to Tricot wound through forests of tropical and endangered plants that Eduard explained belonged to the Royal National Parks Authority. The gardens had been established to protect and restore some of Carramer’s oldest plant species.
Beyond the plantation, the drive paralleled the Tiga River, the banks crowded with banana trees, bamboo thickets and stands of wild ginger. Snow-white egrets, night herons and rare Carramer waterbirds resided in the valley. Occasionally she caught a glimpse of the scarlet plumage of the Ramer parrot, the kingdom’s bird emblem.
“Originally, this road was an ancient path that wound down to the riverbed,” Eduard said, adopting the tone of a tour guide. “In the eighteen hundreds, the path became a horse trail, then a cobblestone carriage road. My forebears were fond of slipping away from Chateau Valmont to this cooler retreat.”
The scenery was breathtaking, and the narrow, winding road suggested care, but surely not as much as Eduard was taking. Was he worried about the car holding together? “Aren’t we going rather slowly?”
He kept his gaze on the road. “I don’t want to shake you up too much.”
Her sigh of exasperation exploded between them. “There’s no need to treat me like glass. I promise I won’t break into little pieces.”
His look said she understood him too well. “I’ll try to keep it in mind.” He sped up, although not much, and she resigned herself to a leisurely journey to the town.
With its royal patronage, the area had become a fashionable place for the province’s well-to-do to establish their own holiday ranches. As a result, although Tricot had only a few thousand permanent residents, the town was a stylish center of beautifully maintained old buildings and galleries showing the work of local artisans. The thriving tourist trade was the reason why she had thought the vicinity ideal for a bed-and-breakfast place.
Dr. Brunet’s surgery was located in a restored timber house standing a few doors away from the Monarch Hotel, at one end of the main street. Bougainvillea twining around the veranda posts added a splash of brightness to the weathered exterior. “I’ll be fine from here,” she said as Eduard moved with her toward the building. She could imagine the rumors that would start flying if he insisted on escorting her in to see the doctor.
He nodded in reluctant agreement, and turned back to the car. “I’ll come back for you in half an hour.”
As soon as Carissa approached the reception area and identified herself, a petite, dark-haired local beauty in her late twenties jumped to her feet. “Dr. Brunet is expecting you. You can go straight in.”
The waiting room held half a dozen people and Carissa felt uncomfortable at the obviously preferential treatment. She was sure it wouldn’t have bothered Eduard. He was probably used to being given priority. Again, Carissa felt conscious of the gulf between them. In the isolation of the lodge, she had been less aware of his royal status. Seeing the way people reacted to him in the town made it harder to overlook.
As soon as he helped her out of the car, she had heard the murmured greetings, seen the heads bob in deference, and also noted the curiosity her presence aroused. She contrasted today with her first visit to Tricot to buy supplies soon after she moved into the lodge. No one had given her a second glance.
The doctor’s manner had changed toward her as well, she noticed. This time he was far more solicitous of her welfare, and didn’t chide her for choosing to live in an isolated location in her present condition. Being a friend of the marquis had its advantages, she decided.
She returned to the car to find Eduard leaning against it, his arms folded and a look of concern on his face. “The doctor prescribed an iron supplement for me, but otherwise everything’s fine,” she told him. His look of relief suggested that he was glad she was well enough to be on her way.
It was time anyway, she decided. She couldn’t impose on him for much longer. After lunch she would visit the local real estate office and see if there was anything available to rent within her budget. The thought was surprisingly unappealing.
As he had promised, Eduard took her to Anini’s, the building reminding Carissa of an old plantation house from the American South, with a columned porch, high ceilings and louvred windows to catch the breeze.
Again, Eduard’s royal status worked its magic. As Eduard had anticipated, the owner, Anton, personally escorted them to a table in the center of a covered terrace at the back of the building, looking onto a vista of mature trees draped with hanging vines and surrounded by impatiens, angel’s trumpet plants and the vivid teacup-sized flowers of the golden-cup bush.
Beyond the garden, the river sparkled in the sunlight. A narrow path wound along the bank, little used except for the occasional jogger or dog walker, she noticed.
She gave a sigh of pleasure. “This is lovely.”
Without taking his eyes off her, he murmured, “Lovely.”
She couldn’t fool herself that they were two ordinary people on a date, but she felt a tingle suffuse her. If she hadn’t known better, she could easily have mistaken his frankly admiring gaze for that of a lover.
Wishful thinking, she told herself. Men often treated women differently once they knew they were pregnant. Eduard wouldn’t have driven here at a snail’s pace, nor would he look at her as if she were the eighth wonder of the world if not for her condition.
Conscious of her color heightening, she buried her face in the extensive leather-bound menu, but finally gave up and closed it. Eduard raised an eyebrow at her. “You’re not going to tell me you’re not hungry.”
“I’m not…” she began.
He gestured for Anton, who came to his side at once. “We’ll go with your recommendations.” He glanced back to Carissa.
A soft smile spread across the man’s florid face. “It will be my pleasure to create a meal you will not easily forget,” he said with a bow, and left them.
She refused Anton’s offer of wine in favor of iced water. Eduard chose the same. He sipped it before saying, “Are you sure you’re all right? Both of you?”
Unconsciously she crossed her hands over her stomach. “We’re doing really well.”
He frowned. “Then why were you so ill?”
“Dr. Brunet says it’s nature’s way of making sure new mothers don’t gain too much weight too soon.” She grimaced. “Although I would wish for a more pleasant solution. The doctor promised me things will improve in the next couple of months.”
“They would want to.”
He sounded so fierce that she laughed. How different he was from Mark, who had behaved as if the baby was an inconvenience. For a moment, she wished…no. She put a lid firmly on the thought. Eduard was only being kind, as was his nature. Once in her life was enough to misread his kindness. She was a lot older and wiser now.
Anton excelled himself with a meal consisting of a variety of Asian delicacies to start, followed by truffled mushroom pie, roasted quail with coconut rice, stir-fried ocean trout and an asparagus and cashew salad, arranging the dishes so they could both sample a little of everything.
By the time he brought the dessert, she felt as if she would burst. “No, really, I couldn’t manage another bite.”
“The raspberry soufflé is Anton’s specialty,” Eduard said.
It was such a refreshing change to enjoy her food that she weakened. “I know I’ll regret this, but okay.”
The owner looked vindicated as he refreshed their water glasses. When he left, Carissa looked around, realizing belatedly that they had the terrace area to themselves, although the main part of the restaurant buzzed with activity. She sipped her water then asked, “Does Anton always clear the decks for you?”
Eduard’s gaze became hooded briefly. “I don’t always allow it. I requested privacy now because there’s something I want to ask you.”
Here it comes, she thought, aware of a sweeping sense of disappointment. She should have known he had taken her news too well. Now he was about to ask her to leave before her condition became common knowledge. She had expected it, so why did she feel so disconsolate?
Her eyes brimmed and she blinked hard, looking toward the river while she fought to keep composure. She would not, repeat not, break down in front of Eduard. None of this was his fault. She should be thankful that he had allowed her to remain at the lodge this long.
“I know what you’re going to say,” she said when she could trust her voice. “I intend to start looking for a new place to live this afternoon.”
Her quick glance at him revealed a look of puzzlement. “A new place? Cris, that wasn’t…”
Suddenly she put a hand on his arm. “Look, down there.”
He followed her gaze. “The man walking beside the river? Sorry, I don’t recognize him.”
Her fingers tightened on his arm. “I do. I’m sure it’s Dominic Hass, the man who tried to sell me the lodge.”