The first thing Carissa noticed next morning was a sense of well-being. It was so novel that she sat up gingerly, testing herself. Her stomach stayed steady. She let a smile blossom. For the first time in weeks, she felt good. Better than good. Terrific.
“Thank you, little one,” she murmured, patting her stomach through the thin silk.
The whisper of the fabric reminded her that Eduard had chosen the garment she was wearing. Her smile dimmed further. He had also asked her to marry him. During the oh-so-civilized conversation they’d had about nothing over dinner last night, she had told him she would give him her answer today, after they got back to the lodge. She still didn’t know what that answer should be.
She knew what she wanted it to be. Despite everything, she wanted to say yes, but it wasn’t that simple. She was no longer an infatuated teenager. She needed to think this through carefully, for her baby’s sake and her own.
Not that thinking had helped her last night. Her mind had worried at the question for hours, until she fell into an exhausted sleep. Now, she decided she wasn’t going to let the question spoil the best morning she’d had since learning she was pregnant. She flung back the covers. From the bedroom window she could see the river sparkling in the bright Carramer sunshine. Birds swooped and dived above the water. She couldn’t wait to go outside and fill her lungs with the sweet air.
By the time she had showered and dressed, Eduard was enjoying orange juice on the terrace. A breakfast trolley had been set up outside, although she hadn’t heard it being delivered.
Eduard looked relaxed, but it was a wary kind of relaxation, she noticed, as if he was waiting to hear her response. She was determined not to answer yet, mainly because she didn’t know what she was going to say.
It was too soon to say yes and too scary to say no. Follow her mind or her heart? She needed more time, she thought wildly. Last night she had been too stunned to think. Logic threatened to desert her now as she looked at him seated on the banquette, his arm stretched out along the balustrade and one leg crossed over the knee of the other. Every vision she’d ever had of a prince in his castle was embodied in his self-assured pose.
Even the setting supported the vision. She couldn’t hear traffic sounds or voices, only the murmur of water and the cries of birds against a backdrop of lush forest and impossibly blue sky.
Lifting her face to the sun, she breathed deeply. If only she could freeze this moment, keep everything as perfect as it was right now. A foolish hope, she knew, one more worthy of the dreamy teenager he had first known. Everything changed. It would for her, no matter what she decided. For him, too. Her hands curved over her stomach and she mentally apologized to the life inside her. Freezing time would mean denying growth and life to her precious burden, and she wouldn’t do that for the world, no matter what the cost to herself.
Eduard got up and poured orange juice for her. When he handed her the glass, he said, “I would have brought you breakfast in bed, but I didn’t know how you would be feeling.”
A discreet way of telling her he knew how ill she had been every morning. “I feel fine today, just as Dr. Brunet assured me I would, although I was starting to doubt him.”
She carried the juice to the edge of the terrace. “It’s much too beautiful a morning to lie abed.” Although being pampered would have been nice, she thought, imagining Eduard coming into her room with a tray. Too cosily domestic for comfort, she thought, immediately pushing the thought away.
“The trolley’s heated so we can eat when you’re ready.”
Her eyebrow lifted. “Anton thinks of everything.” She wondered what he thought of this arrangement, and decided he was probably far too discreet to make any comment. She was the one who felt uncomfortable, which was crazy. They had slept in separate rooms and she doubted if Eduard had lain awake last night, imagining himself in her bed, as she had pictured herself in his.
Watching her, Eduard thought she looked beautiful this morning. Her hair curled softly around her face, and her gaze was dreamy and faraway. Leaving her to go to his room alone last night had been tougher than anything he’d done in a long time. Seeing her this morning, fresh from bed, made him ache with wanting her. He had to school himself to patience.
He didn’t blame her for reacting angrily to his proposal. She thought his only interest was in the baby. In a sense she was right. He wouldn’t have proposed to her if she hadn’t been pregnant, but it didn’t mean he wouldn’t have wanted to. Only his sense of justice would have prevented it. How could he ask any woman to marry him when it meant giving up the right to have her own child?
There would be a degree of uproar if Carissa said yes, he accepted. Even in liberal Carramer, members of the royal family were held to higher standards than other people. Announcing his intention to marry a pregnant foreigner would start tongues wagging in earnest. He didn’t care. The gossip would die down quickly enough, and he would have Carissa as his wife.
Now that was a future worth considering.
The possibility that she might refuse troubled him. It wasn’t that he expected to have his wishes met without question. The navy had disabused him of any such expectations long ago. He wanted her in his life. They had made a good team when they were younger, and recent experience at the lodge showed they still did.
The prospect of sharing in the baby’s birth, being a father to her child, were undeniably powerful attractions, but it was the thought of possessing Carissa that set his thoughts on fire.
She wouldn’t like that word, he chided himself. Satisfying? Satiating? Just working his way through the options sent his temperature climbing. Whatever he called it, he knew his life would be far poorer without her in it.
He refused to think he was in love. No need to confuse things when, in his experience, love didn’t last anyway. His experience with Louise, and Carissa’s rejection by her baby’s father, proved the point. It didn’t mean they couldn’t base a great relationship on what they did have. All she had to do was agree.
Her sunny smile made his heart beat faster. “I think I’m actually hungry. What have you got hidden in that trolley?” she asked.
He opened the heated cabinet beneath the table, and extracted a platter of scrambled eggs, bacon, mushrooms and tomatoes, as well as a basket of fragrant baked goods. The table was soon crowded with tantalizing offerings. He held a chair out for her with a flourish, enjoying the moment. Enjoying her. “Would madam care to join me?”
Her silvery laughter mingled with the bird calls. “Mademoiselle would.”
As Eduard’s wife, this could be her life, Carissa told herself, joining him at the table. Not the idyllic surroundings and the pampering, but the sense of togetherness, of belonging to him and to this lovely place. Her need was so overwhelming that she almost said yes there and then. If she hadn’t had the baby to consider…
If she hadn’t had the baby to consider, he wouldn’t have asked her to marry him, she reminded herself. She was no longer anxious to please by falling in with his wishes at the crook of a royal finger. She needed to think about his proposal coolly, balancing the prosagainst the cons, and arrive at a logical, sensible decision.
With Eduard across the table, offering her delicacies that made her mouth water, she felt neither logical nor sensible. Wearing yesterday’s clothes, he managed to look as if he had stepped into them fresh from the hands of a valet. She had the advantage of a new T-shirt, and had rinsed out her underclothes in the bathroom before going to bed, but still couldn’t manage his new-minted look. “Do you always look so together first thing in the morning?” she asked, annoyed with herself for letting him get to her.
He indicated the sun already well up in the sky. “It’s hardly first thing. I’m usually awake at five and can’t see any point in going back to sleep.”
“Royal habit?” she asked.
His lips curved. “Navy discipline.”
She helped herself to more scrambled eggs, added tomatoes and a buttery croissant and made a face at the plain toast. Not needed this morning, thank goodness. “What made you go into the navy?”
He spooned honey onto a croissant and bit into it. After a pause, he said, “Royal sons have a limited range of career choices. I didn’t see myself going into government like Mathiaz, so…” His voice trailed off on a shrug.
She wasn’t fooled by his offhand tone. “You love the navy, don’t you?”
“It’s challenging,” he said carefully. “Flying is amazing, and there’s a chance to make a difference. I don’t see the service as a lifetime commitment, but it serves for now.”
She swallowed a mouthful of the creamy eggs, wondering if royal brides could have anyone they wanted as their chef. If so, she wanted Anton. Not that she had made a decision yet, she assured herself hastily. It was just nice to dream. “And in the navy you’re treated like a normal person,” she guessed.
Bull’s-eye, she saw when his eyes became hooded, as if she had touched a sensitive spot. “I can’t deny it’s part of the attraction. I’ve had to battle all my life for the right to live my life my own way.” He gestured around them. “When I told Mathiaz I intended to come to Tiga Falls, he wanted to send a team of bodyguards and palace staff with me.”
From what she had seen when he caught up with her con man, Eduard could take care of himself. The knowledge didn’t prevent her slight shiver as she thought of all she knew about prominent people being stalked, threatened, even kidnapped. She bit her lip. “Don’t you worry about security?”
“I’ve trained in everything from unarmed combat to defensive driving.” He leaned across the table, his fingers brushing her hand. “Does the prospect of a royal lifestyle frighten you, Cris?”
Not as much as the prospect of a marriage without love, she thought. She shook her head. “With a father in the diplomatic service, I had to learn a few things about protecting myself, too. Over the years we lived in some risky places, but Dad believed if you live your life in fear, your enemies have already won.”
Eduard nodded his agreement. “Yet you haven’t married.”
She thought the connection between fear and marriage an odd one, and said so, adding, “I’ve always assumed I would marry when the time was right.”
Was the time right now? he wanted to ask, but held himself back. “Living the way you did as a child had to be an influence.”
She crumbled a piece of croissant between her fingers. “Not having a mother made me less concerned about parents coming in pairs. That’s why the prospect of raising my baby alone doesn’t alarm me.”
Watching the absent way she licked her fingers made the pulse drum in his ears. “You’ll make a good mother,” he said. A good wife, he wanted to add, but restrained himself. It was killing him not to demand an answer, but royal training made it easier. A de Marigny does not beg, his mother had reminded him more than once, when as a boy, he’d tried to wheedle some favor out of her. Asking Carissa to marry him was hardly begging, so why did her stubborn silence make him want to?
“I hope so,” she said softly. She finished her coffee. “Shouldn’t we get back to the lodge?”
“There’s no hurry. Anton operates the restaurant and the suite as his own business, but this place belongs to the royal family. We can stay as long as we like,” he said.
A bright flash of annoyance lit her gaze, making him wish he’d kept his mouth shut. “I wish you’d told me that last night. I’d have insisted on going to the hotel.”
Her stiff neck would be the death of him, he decided. What was the difference between sharing the lodge and sharing this apartment? “Good grief, whatever for?” he demanded.
“I’m already far more in your debt than I can repay for a long time.”
Her direct gaze met his in fierce challenge. Almost drowning in that molten look, he said hoarsely, “The only debt between us is in your imagination.”
“And I can wipe the slate clean by becoming your wife,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper.
“One has nothing to do with the other. I didn’t ask you to marry me to repay any debt, real or imagined.”
“Why did you ask me?”
“Because…” He paused. Had he really almost said, “Because I love you”? Instead, he said, “… I think we’re well suited.”
Because she could provide him with the child he couldn’t otherwise have, she understood as her eyes remained on him. She thought she saw something flicker in his dark gaze, something like a confession, but it was gone as quickly as she noticed it. His face became a regal mask, his true feelings buried as deeply as ever. The price of being royal, she gathered. He had probably been taught to conceal his feelings as soon as he was old enough to appear in public.
If they married, she would have to learn the art, she supposed, as would her child. They would make a happy family, outwardly at least. No one would suspect that the Marquess of Merrisand wasn’t loved by her marquis. But she would know.
She blinked hard. “Sometimes being well suited isn’t enough. We should go back.” She didn’t add that in her case, it would be to pack. This interlude had convinced her that the longer she remained under Eduard’s roof, the harder it would be to tear herself away. She was already half in love with him. She couldn’t risk staying much longer, or she wouldn’t have to agonize over his proposal. Saying no was already becoming less of an option. Time she left while the choice existed at all.
Returning to the lodge felt uncomfortably like a homecoming, she thought, as Eduard steered her car into the clearing. A strange car was already parked out front.
“Expecting anyone?” Eduard asked.
Her surprised look flickered to him. “Perhaps it’s someone from the police with news about my money.”
“Possible, but unlikely. The car has rental plates.”
She hadn’t noticed. Nor had she seen that a man was sitting in the front seat until he heard them arrive and got out. Eduard helped her out of the car, and her heart began to hammer. There was no mistaking the tall, sandy-haired figure approaching them. “Mark.”
His grin brightened and he held out his arms. “Carissa, sweetheart. I’ve been waiting for over an hour. I was starting to think Jeffrey sent me to the wrong place.”
She didn’t miss Eduard’s frown at Mark’s use of the endearment. She dodged the outstretched arms. “Jeff shouldn’t have sent you at all.”
He had the grace to look abashed. “He didn’t actually send me. He only gave me your phone number and told me what you were up to here. I sneaked a look at a postcard you sent him and got the address off that.”
Jeff must have had some doubts about telling Mark where she was. Did that mean her brother had begun to suspect Mark’s true character? She had sent her brother a card soon after she moved into the lodge. Pride had prevented her from telling her brother how she had been conned out of most of her money, so Mark wouldn’t know about that. But she had told him about meeting Eduard again when they talked on the phone, and Jeff must have shared the information with Mark.
Eduard moved up beside her. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
The other man held out his hand. Eduard made no move to take it. Carissa said, “Commander Eduard de Marigny, Marquis of Merrisand, this is Mark Lucas.”
Mark’s eyebrows flickered in evident surprise. Had she been wrong about his reason for wanting to come? Did he really not know that Eduard was her host? His response to Eduard belied any such notion. “I’m delighted to meet you, Lord Merrisand,” he said, inclining his head slightly. “I had no idea that my fiancée was in such distinguished hands.”
She felt Eduard grow rigid with tension beside her. “As I had no idea of your relationship.”
Something snapped inside her. “Mark has no idea of our relationship either. I am not, and never have been, his fiancée.”
“You are carrying my child,” the other man said smoothly. “And I do want to marry you.”
She had to count to five before she could be sure of responding civilly. “That isn’t what you said when I broke the news to you.”
“I was in shock, sweetheart. It isn’t every day a man finds out he’s going to be a father.”
Mark couldn’t have said anything more cruel in Eduard’s hearing, and her heart bled for him, but before she could intervene, he handed her his keys. “I’m going to check on the helicopter while you entertain your guest.”
Don’t go, not like this, she wanted to cry out. The words choked in her throat. By the time she had herself under some semblance of control, Eduard had rounded the lodge out of sight. She whirled on Mark. “You had no right to come here.”
He made a slow perusal of her figure. “The baby gives me the right.”
She couldn’t listen to any more of this. He had given up any claim on her child when he made his vile suggestion. With shaking hands, she put the key into the lock and pushed the door open. Mark was right behind her, following her into the kitchen before she could stop him.
“Quite a place,” he commented, looking around. “You should have told me you had renewed your royal connections.”
“And you’d have done what? Pretended you love me so you could make use of my friends?”
“This pregnancy thing is making you too emotional. I don’t use people, I make business deals.”
“Jeffrey told me you’d lost a great deal of money recently.”
He shrugged. “It happens. I’ll make it back in one or two good trades.”
“Where will the money come from to finance these…trades?”
He hesitated before saying, “Investors.”
So she was right. As soon as Mark discovered where she was living and with whom, he had decided to turn the situation to his advantage. It mattered not when he had found out. The result was the same. What would Mark say when she told him that she was merely Eduard’s employee, after losing her money through her own foolishness?
“Some coffee would be nice,” he said when she didn’t offer anything. “Hanging around for an hour was no picnic.”
“You didn’t have to wait.” For want of something better to do, she began to make coffee. Part of her was listening for Eduard’s footsteps, hoping he would come in so she could make it clear to him that whatever Mark wanted, she had no part in it.
He didn’t come.
Uninvited, Mark had seated himself at the table. She placed a cup of coffee in front of him, not caring that some of it ended up in the saucer. She remained standing.
He left the cup untouched, folding his arms on the table. “I had hoped we could be civilized about this, Carissa, but I can play hardball if you insist.”
A tight knot formed in her stomach. “What do you mean?”
“I have as much right to custody of the child as you do.”
She knew her color had ebbed, and she gripped the back of a chair. “What do you really want?”
“Clever girl, you know it isn’t fatherhood, although if you force me to, I’ll swear blind it’s my only concern. However, I might lose interest in the baby if you were to persuade your royal lover to invest in my company. Once he comes on board, his name will convince others.”
“He isn’t…” she began, then stopped as she saw Eduard standing in the doorway. His parade-rest stance made him look like a knight without armor, she thought, blinking away wetness at how hungry she was for the sight of him.
“How much do you want?” he said, in a tone that dripped ice.
Mark seemed unperturbed. He named a figure that made Carissa gasp, but Eduard barely blinked. “How often?”
“I don’t understand, Lord Merrisand.”
“I think you do. Blackmailers seldom stop at extorting one payment from their victims. How long before you’re back demanding more?”
Mark stood up. She didn’t blame him. Although only a couple of inches taller than Mark, Eduard managed to give the impression of towering over him. She wondered if he kept his hands behind him to keep them away from Mark’s throat.
“Look, this isn’t blackmail. It’s a business proposition.”
Eduard shifted slightly. “That’s not how the Carramer courts will regard it.”
Mark looked seriously worried now. “You’d have to prove it first.”
Slowly, Eduard eased his hands out from behind his back, revealing a portable disk player he must have brought back from his helicopter. “From the moment you threatened to seek custody of Carissa’s child, I recorded every word you said. In this country, blackmail is a federal offence.”
Mark blanched. Carissa almost felt sorry for him. Almost. Falling over his words, he said, “I love Carissa. I want our child. This is all a misunderstanding.”
“And you’re the one who made it,” Eduard stated. “Now get out before I call the law and give them the recording. If you’re out of the country within the next two days, I may see fit to destroy it instead.”
Looking as if he could hardly believe he was getting off so lightly, Mark bowed in earnest, but it was a scrabbling effort, as he was moving crabwise toward the door at the same time.
“There’s one more thing,” Eduard added.
Mark shrank away from Eduard as if the marquis might harm him physically. A distinct possibility, judging from Eduard’s murderous expression, Carissa thought. Mark asked sullenly, “What is it?”
“I want a written agreement that you relinquish any claim to Carissa’s child now and in the future. The document is to be drawn up and notarized, and couriered to me here before you leave the country.”
“You’ll have it.”
The eagerness she heard in Mark’s tone came as a bitter blow. She had known how he felt and should be relieved to know he wouldn’t trouble her again, but she couldn’t help the bitterness that welled inside her. How could anyone behave so callously toward an innocent life?
The door slammed behind Mark. Moments later, tires screeched on gravel as Mark’s car screamed away at high speed.
Her breath whistled out in a rush, and the tears she had held at bay quivered on her lashes. She fought them still, not wanting Eduard to see how close to collapse she felt.
He sensed it and gathered her into his arms. “It’s all right, he’s gone. I don’t think he’ll be back, but I’ll check with the airport later in the week to make sure he’s left the country. If he tries to return at a later date, he’ll find he’s not welcome in Carramer.”
She rested her head against Eduard’s shoulder as the tension slowly ebbed out of her. “Thank you for what you did.”
He tilted her chin up. “Why didn’t you tell me he was threatening you?”
“He wasn’t until now. Mark was always an opportunist. Finding out I was staying with you must have given him ideas.”
His taut smile reassured her. “I doubt he’ll entertain any more of those ideas for a long time, at least not with you.”
She shifted in his arms, looking at the disk player he’d placed on the table. “What will you do with the evidence?”
He looked puzzled. “What?”
“The recording you made of his attempt to blackmail me?” She didn’t like the idea of the conversation being dragged through a court, but the next step was up to Eduard.
His smile widened. “The court isn’t likely to be impressed by a CD of the Carramer Symphony Orchestra.”
She stilled in his arms. “You were bluffing.”
“The main thing is, Lucas believes it. You’re free to make your own choices now.”
His lips moving over her hairline made her wonder just how much freedom she had. She touched her cheek to his. When his mouth reached hers, the breath she drew in tasted of him. She had hoped that by returning to the lodge she could disarm the need for him that raced through her like a lit fuse. Instead, the fire burned more brightly. She couldn’t stay around for the inevitable conflagration.
Only a moment more, then she would tell him, she promised herself as he rained kisses down the side of her neck. If she was truly free, he would let her go in peace.
She might go, but she sensed she would know little peace. How could she, after this?
How could her daydreams not be haunted by his gliding touch over her hips, setting off such a clamor of sensations deep inside her that she could hardly breathe. His hands moved lower, cupping her against him and making her aware that he was no more immune than she was.
Unable to resist, she linked her arms around his neck, leaving barely a breath of space between them. He took her mouth again with an urgency she felt all the way to the soles of her feet. They weren’t touching the ground, she realized. She was held up by his embrace.
“Eduard.”
The alarm in her voice broke through the fog in his brain. He eased her gently to her feet and stepped back. “Did I hurt you? Is it the baby?”
Always his concern was for the baby. The disappointment made it easier to say, “No, I’m not hurt.” Not in the way he meant, anyway. “This isn’t right.”
Horrified by how close he’d just come to taking what he wanted without considering her needs, he nodded. “It isn’t the way I want it to happen, either.” Moonlight, roses, champagne, soft music. He wanted them all for her, to set the scene when he made her his, so she would remember their first time as special, not as a moment of mindless passion that consumed where it touched.
She shook her head. “That isn’t what I mean. I have to go, Eduard.”
A fierce pain stabbed through him, a forewarning that he wasn’t going to like this. “You want to rest?”
“I have to leave.”
He could hardly force the word out. “When?”
“Soon. I have to find a job and a home, and get back on my feet before the baby comes.”
“You don’t have to. You could stay with me. As my wife.”
The bleakness in his expression almost destroyed her until she reminded herself that he didn’t want a wife, he wanted a child. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
Her defenses were too fragile. Before he could say anything more to undermine them, she walked out of the room, steeling herself not to look back.