The Marquis And The Mother-To-Be

Looking confused, she backed away a little, but her cheeks glowed and her eyes glittered as if she had also enjoyed the experience more than she thought she should. “What did you do that for?”

“When I arrived, I thought the place was haunted. I had to make sure you aren’t a ghost.”

“You’re crazy.”

“And you’re trespassing. Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

She made a choking sound. “I’m trespassing? You’re the interloper. I own this place.”

His intense gaze raked her, what he saw distracting him from the obvious foolishness of her claim. “You look familiar. Who are you?”

She’d been thinking the same about him. “Carissa Day, and this is my home.”

She saw his memory return in a rush. “Good grief, it is you, Cris.”

“Nobody has called me Cris since I was fifteen. Except… Eduard? It really is you.”

He had changed, she saw. As a teenager, he had worn his dark chestnut hair longer. In the navy he had grown from a shy, slightly bookish teenager into a solidly built man who looked as if he could handle himself in most situations. He folded his arms over his chest, evidently enjoying her astonishment. “Told you so.”

She had also changed, but she doubted if he saw as much progress as she did in him. When he’d last seen her, she had been long-legged and coltish, as if her limbs had outgrown her body. Her hair had been shorter and darker, and she’d worn glasses instead of the contacts she wore now.

Unwillingly reminded of the last time he had kissed her, all those years ago, she struggled to compose herself. “Of all the people who might have walked in here, you’re the last person I expected to see.”

“I don’t know why,” he observed. “Tiga Lodge has been in the family for a century. Prince Henry owned it until he died last year.”

She felt a frown etch itself between her eyes. “That must be why it was on the market.”

He took her arm. “You and I need to talk, Cris… Carissa.”

“It’s okay. Cris sounds good the way you say it.” Like a homecoming, she thought.

Telling herself she was bemused by his sudden appearance, not by his kiss, she let him steer her back along the hall toward the kitchen. She saw his look register that the laundry had been removed from the line, and felt herself color, thinking of him seeing the lacy garments. She was glad she had moved them on the way in. Her days of hoping to attract Eduard’s attention with her feminine wiles were long gone, although the way she felt now suggested otherwise. It was the aftermath of shock, nothing more, she reminded herself. Until a second ago, she had thought he was an intruder.

“Are your father and brother with you?” he asked.

She lowered her long lashes. “Dad died a year ago from a sudden heart attack.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

She inclined her head in silent acknowledgment.

“Is Jeffrey still in Australia?”

“Dad left the family home to him.” She couldn’t disguise the bitterness she’d felt when she’d found that out. No doubt Graeme Day had believed he was doing the right thing by specifying in his will that Jeffrey was to look after Carissa until she married. Embarrassed, Jeff had insisted on paying her half of the house’s value in cash, but it hadn’t assuaged her hurt. Or eased the sense of rootlessness that had plagued her all her life.

Their mother had died soon after she was born, and the family had lived in the Australian house for only a handful of years, so there was no reason for Carissa to think of it as home. But it was the only one she had. To have it bequeathed to her brother alone had hurt beyond measure. She had known her father had old-fashioned views about women, but had never dreamed he would do such a thing.

“Your accent doesn’t sound as Australian as I remember,” Eduard said, drawing her back to the present.

“I spent the last few years studying hotel management in Switzerland. After I graduated, I worked there for a while before being offered a job in Sydney.”

Eduard took a seat at the huge kitchen table and his palms skimmed the scrubbed pine surface. “Sitting here takes me back. My brother and I must have spent hours at this table, eating slabs of bread fresh from the oven, swearing the cook to secrecy so our parents wouldn’t find out we’d been fraternizing with the staff.”

Eduard had always been the more informal of the royal brothers, she recalled, unwillingly reminded of how she had once mistaken his friendliness for something more. She busied herself filling a kettle. “Do you still like your coffee black?”

He nodded. “You have a good memory.”

She forebore telling him that she hadn’t forgotten anything that had passed between them. Moments later she carried two cups of coffee to the table. Between them she placed a sliced tea cake. “I made it this morning.”

He took a slice and bit into it. “No wonder I could smell baking when I walked in. This is good.”

Her face twisted into a frown. “The agent selling this place told me the owner was away in the navy. Did he mean you?”

Eduard nodded. “The lodge originally belonged to my uncle, Prince Henry de Valmont.”

“The agent mentioned the former owner’s name. I knew de Valmont was a royal family name, but that’s all. I wonder why the agent didn’t tell me the house had been a royal lodge?”

“Probably because it still is.”

She felt the color drain from her face and gripped the edge of the table so hard that her knuckles whitened. “Oh no.”

“I’m sorry if that comes as a shock to you, Cris.”

Her eyes brimmed and she blinked furiously. “You don’t know the half of it.”

“You’d better tell me the rest.”

She drew a shuddering breath. “You didn’t authorize an agent to sell the house discreetly for you, did you?” She was afraid she already knew the answer.

“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?”