The Blackmail Marriage

Whilst his cousin watched in confusion, Luc thrust open the door and strode swiftly through it.

Carrie had no need to ask for directions to the Countess’s quarters. She knew exactly where the suite of rooms she occupied was, just as she knew how to evade having to go through the formality of entering the main doors to the castle and making herself known to the impressively uniformed major-domo stranding guard there, behind the equally impressive-looking pair of traditionally uniformed, helmeted and musket-carrying sentries.

They were there more for show than anything else, their muskets unloaded, but that did not mean that either the palace or its occupants were not very efficiently and discreetly protected by the ex-military un-uniformed men who formed the bulk of Luc’s security guards.

As she slipped through the small side door a hundred memories flooded back over her: the smell of the palace—a mixture of precious old furniture, works of art and ancient stone—and even more the smell of Luc, both before he had made love to her and after—a heady, dangerous mixture of male testosterone and those other indefinable scents that were his alone…

Or was she just allowing her imagination and her dangerous memories to play even more dangerous tricks on her?

Angrily Carrie closed her eyes, trying to blot out her unexpectedly sharply focused memories. Better that she remembered the icy hauteur of the Countess’s voice, the contempt and the cruelty with which she had been treated—at Luc’s behest after all—as well as the pain she herself had felt when…

‘So it is you! I thought so!’

‘Luc!’

Shocked, Carrie stepped back against the protection of the wall, her eyes widening betrayingly.

What was he doing here? Maria had insisted that he would be in Brussels.

And she had insisted that she was not afraid of seeing him, Carrie reminded herself! And she wasn’t! No way.

‘Well—an unexpected visitor indeed!’

Unlike her, Luc was dressed formally in a crisp white shirt and an expensive beige linen suit. His dark hair was immaculately groomed, his skin the same warm honey colour she had remembered during those long, aching nights when she had been so obsessed with the misery of losing him that all she had been able to remember was him.

His skin might look and feel warm, but his heart was icy cold—at least where she was concerned! Did the small whorls of body hair covering his chest still curl into small licks of curls, delicious to kiss in the damp heat of his bed? Did he still emerge from the shower looking like a Greek god, with the kind of physical proportions that…?

Aghast, and furious with herself, Carrie brought her thoughts to order. After all, she wasn’t some wide-eyed innocent teenager now, awash with excitable hormones!

Lifting her chin, she told him briskly, ‘Actually, I’ve come to see the Countess.’

Immediately Luc frowned.

‘My godmother? She isn’t here. She’s away visiting her niece in Florence. What did you want to see her about? As I recall there was little love lost between the two of you,’ Luc pointed out sardonically.

That he had known that and still allowed his godmother to humiliate her as she had done was all the reminder Carrie needed to make her bristle with antagonism and tell him challengingly, ‘I’ve got a message for her. From Maria!’

She was supposed to be savouring this, Carrie reminded herself, and her stomach suddenly dropped like a high-speed lift when she saw the way Luc was looking at her, his eyes narrowed intently, so dark that they looked almost black instead of the dark grey she knew them to be.

She could feel the silence stretching dangerously between them, taut with unspoken hostility and aggression.

‘What message? Give it to me!’

He was so arrogant! At eighteen she might have been so idiotically adoring that she had accepted it, but not now! She could feel the swift burn of her own immediate antagonism. Carrie took a deep breath, too infuriated to think of delaying the retribution she was about to deliver.

‘With the greatest of pleasure,’ she told him ‘She wanted you to know that she has married Harry, my brother.’ She smiled unkindly at him. ‘She loves him, and he loves her, and—’

CHAPTER TWO

‘LUC let go of me!’ Carrie demanded breathlessly, her face going hot with fury. But the relentless grip of his fingers on her upper arm did not relax one iota, and nor did the speed at which he was almost dragging her down the richly polished corridor, its walls ornamented with suits of armour and dangerous-looking heavy swords.

Carrie had a brief glimpse of the d’Urbino family crest above the imposing double doors before Luc pushed them open and half-dragged, half-thrust her into the elegantly furnished salon that lay beyond them.

She was, Carrie recognised angrily, in the main entertaining salon that formed part of the suite of private rooms occupied by Luc. Very little had changed since the last time she had been in this room; the silks and damasks might perhaps have faded a little more, and her own eight-year absence might have given her a more mature appreciation of the exquisite beauty of the room’s furnishings, but that was all. The heavy silver-framed photograph of Luc’s parents still dominated the highly polished sofa table, with Luc himself standing between them, a child of two.

Carrie remembered how she had so foolishly and fondly believed that the fact that both of them had lost their mothers at a young age somehow forged a special bond between them.

But Luc hadn’t merely lost his mother—he had lost both his parents in the appalling atrocity of a terrorist bombing incident in South America whilst they had been there on a visit.

‘Maria has married your brother!’

There was no mistaking the cold fury in Luc’s voice.

‘I am sorry if you are disappointed.’ Carrie couldn’t resist taunting him.

‘Disappointed?’ Fury flared in the steel-grey eyes and his mouth thinned in recognition of her mockery of him.

‘Still, I am sure you will quite easily find someone else to take her place.’ The cynicism she felt darkened her own eyes and twisted her mouth.

Maria herself had made no bones about the fact that Luc’s desire to marry her had been purely practically motivated.

‘Luc does not love me,’ she had told Carrie. ‘But he has always been kind to me, and until I met Harry again and fell in love with him I had not really minded that ours would be a political union. Now, though, there is no way I could bear the thought of being married to anyone other than my dearest, darling Harry! And I am afraid that if I went back to S’Antander and told my grandmother and Luc that I couldn’t marry him they might…’

‘Force you to do so?’ Carrie had finished for her, having no qualms about saying the words she had seen Maria, out of loyalty, was reluctant to speak.

‘Luc has to marry someone.’ Maria had unexpectedly defended him. ‘The people expect it,’ she had told Carrie simply. ‘And of course he wants to have an heir.’

‘The world must be full of women who would be only too eager to marry all this, Luc,’ Carrie continued now, gesturing to the palace and the view beyond its windows. ‘Oh, and you, of course. After all, you are such a catch, aren’t you? A real-life prince, with so much to offer—your arrogance, your snobbishness, your lack of any real emotional depth.’

‘That’s enough.’ Luc stopped her coldly. ‘But you are right about one thing, Catherine. It will be easy for me to find someone to take Maria’s place. Very easy. In fact…’

The smile he was giving her was not a kind one, Carrie recognised, and something in his expression suddenly made her shudder, made her regret her emotional outburst of pent-up bitterness.

‘In fact,’ he repeated softly, ‘I have already done so!’

Already done so? Now Carrie was shocked. He had already had a second choice waiting in the background? How typical of him, she decided contemptuously. But before she could voice her contempt he was continuing smoothly.

‘If Maria is not to marry me, then, Catherine, you must!’

Carrie stared at him, speechless with shock and disbelief.

‘What are you saying?’ she demanded when she could speak, her voice cracking. ‘If this is your idea of a joke.’

‘It is no joke, I can assure you.’ Unlike hers, Luc’s voice was crisp and coldly assured.

‘My people are in almost hourly expectation of hearing me announce my marriage,’ he added grimly when she was unable to control her expression. ‘There has been a good deal of gossip and public speculation on the subject, and they will naturally feel cheated now if I disappoint them. They believe that it is time for me to take a wife.’

‘They are expecting you to marry Maria,’ Carrie reminded him numbly.

‘Who I marry is not of any real interest to them,’ Luc returned with breathtaking arrogance. ‘What concerns them is that I do marry!’

‘Maybe so. But you are not marrying me,’ Carrie told him fiercely, thankful to discover that she was beginning to recover from her initial shock.

‘Oh, but I am, Catherine. As I have just told you, my people are expecting an imminent announcement that I am to marry. As you know, this is a very traditional country, and its older generation have certain fixed beliefs and expectations. They already feel that their values are being threatened by the younger people of S’Antander who, like all youth, believe that the only way of making progress is to dismantle that which previous generations have set in place.

‘I am currently engaged in some extremely delicate and protracted negotiations, involving not only the views of these opposing groups within S’Antander but also the views of our “guest” residents, whose financial input into the country is not merely a valuable asset but also a necessity without which it would be impossible for us to fund such things as the extremely high standard of health care and education our people receive. My marriage will reassure the older generation that customs that are important to them are being respected and at the same time send a clear message to everyone else of my own commitment to my country and its future.’

Carrie stared at him in contemptuous disgust.

“No wonder Maria preferred to marry my brother. He might not have your wealth, or your position, but at least Harry is human, with human feelings and reactions. Not cold and calculating, like you.’

‘I think you’ve said enough. In fact, I think you’ve said more than enough.’

Carrie could almost feel the steely implacability of his will-power reaching out to surround her, but stubbornly she refused to give in to it—or to him.

‘I’m not an awestruck teenager any more, Luc,’ she warned him. ‘If you want a wife, then find someone else. You can’t make me marry you!’

‘No?’ The look in his eyes sliced straight into her heart. ‘I have recently heard some interesting things about your oh, so wonderful brother, Harry. Tell me? Are you still as protective of him, as devoted to him? Still as ready to fly to his defence? Of course you are.’ He answered his own question tauntingly. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t be here, would you?’

Without allowing her to answer he continued, ‘He works for a merchant bank, I believe? Would it surprise you to know that he’s been taking some very dangerous risks with the bank’s clients’ money? That he’s been on the verge of making some very bad decisions? No, of course it wouldn’t, would it?’ he mocked softly. ‘Not a devoted, caring sister like you! You were the first person he turned to when he realised the mess he was getting himself into, weren’t you?’

Carrie felt as though her vocal cords had completely seized up. Unable to respond, or refute his savage indictment, she could only listen to him in growing shock and discomfort whilst an icy fist of fear embraced her insides. No one, but no one—apart from herself—could possibly know about the problems Harry had been having, the danger he had been in. But somehow Luc knew! Did that mean that he also knew…?

‘How fortunate for him that he has such a devoted and clever sister there, not only able but also willing to help him out of a mess of his own making. A sister, moreover, who was prepared to risk her own career and professional reputation to do so. Because that is exactly what you did, isn’t it, Catherine.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’ At last she had got her voice back, but Luc was quite plainly unimpressed and unconvinced by her immediate denial.

‘Liar!’ he told her. ‘You know exactly what I mean. Harry got himself into a mess and you got him out of it by advising him on what shares to buy to undo the damage he had done.’

Carrie looked away from him. How on earth had he managed to find out about that? She had sworn Harry to total secrecy, too shocked and worried for him when he had shamefacedly told her what had happened to be able to refuse to help, even though…

‘He’s my brother,’ she responded woodenly. ‘Naturally I wanted to help him.’

She hated the look of cynical satisfaction she could see in Luc’s eyes.

‘Even if in giving him that help you were guilty of insider trading?’ he challenged softly.

Carrie heard her own audible indrawn breath of anguished despair.

‘No, that’s not true,’ she protested ‘It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t insider trading at all. I—’

‘Not in your eyes, maybe, and perhaps not under the strict terms of the law. But, as I am sure you will agree, Catherine, in the right hands and with the right kind of publicity—or rather in the wrong hands and with the wrong kind of publicity—what you did could be made to look very bad indeed for you. For starters you’d probably lose your job and your professional status, and without you to rely on your little brother would certainly lose his. I could quite easily destroy you both, Catherine.’

‘You’d do that? But what about Maria? Or is it Maria you really want to hurt?’ she demanded.

‘Certainly not! My proposed marriage to Maria was a diplomatic arrangement, not a love-match. She is the last person I would want to hurt in any way. As a matter of fact I am extremely fond of her, more than enough to keep a watchful eye on your young brother. If he does anything—anything—to hurt her or make her regret her decision to marry him—’

‘You say that, and yet you’re the one who is threatening to…to lose him his job,’ Carrie reminded him fiercely.

‘And you are the one who has the means to make sure that I do not,’ Luc reminded her smoothly. ‘The decision is yours, Catherine.’

Carrie stared at him. The room was warm, but she felt as though she were encased in ice. She could feel the coldness seeping into her bones, dripping through her veins, as deliberate and insidious as Luc’s threat to compromise and ultimately ruin her brother!

‘You would do that?’

All the horror and disgust she felt was in her voice, but Luc seemed impervious to it.

‘I am glad to see that you do not question that I can do it, Catherine. That shows an admirable grasp of reality. What would be even more admirable would be for you to show an equal grasp of the inevitability of our closer relationship. Don’t worry. No one expects a modern marriage to last for very long. I am sure I shall very quickly realise the error of my ways in marrying you and we shall be free to go our separate ways.’

‘You’re threatening me with blackmail!’ Carrie accused him, adding darkly, ‘There’s a law against that kind of thing.’

‘You seem to forget,’ Luc returned in an ominously silky tone. ‘In S’Antander, I am the law!’

‘You’re despicable!’ Carrie told him, her voice thick with loathing.

‘The choice is yours,’ Luc told her calmly. ‘Either you agree to marry me or your brother—’

‘You know I can’t do that to Harry. I have no choice,’ Carrie told him bitterly. ‘You haven’t changed, have you, Luc? I can’t imagine why I was ever naïve enough to—’

Carrie stopped, her face beginning to burn.

‘Go on…’ Luc taunted. ‘To…what, exactly? Beg me to take you to bed…to show you what it meant to be a woman…to…?’

‘Stop it. Stop it!’ Frantically Carrie covered her ears with her hands as she tried to blot out not just his cruel words but also the haunting and disturbingly clear images they were conjuring up inside her head.

‘It’s a bit too late to take on the role of injured innocent now, Catherine. After all, you never made any secret of the fact that you put what you learned in my bed to good use during your time at university.’

Carrie’s teeth sank into her bottom lip as she forced back her instinctive response.

After all, it was true that she had written to her father describing her social life at university in terms which had made it seem as though her life was one long party—and that she was dating a different boy virtually every week. But nothing could have been further from the truth. The pain of Luc’s rejection had caused her to retreat into herself and hold the opposite sex at a distance, concentrating instead on her studies. It had only been her pride that had made her write to her father pretending that she was having the time of her life! She knew that her father had never been entirely happy about her youthful passion for Luc.

‘You’re only eighteen, Carrie, with your whole life and its opportunities ahead of you,’ he had told her. ‘Whilst Luc already knows what his future and its responsibilities will entail.’

Her father, Carrie remembered, had felt that the task that lay ahead of Luc was an extremely daunting one.

‘His grandfather ruled S’Antander as though it was still a medieval state,’ he had once told Carrie. ‘And it will be Luc’s task to broker a way of bringing S’Antander into the twenty-first century. I certainly don’t envy him!’

He had admired him, though; Carrie knew that…

‘Luc, you’re back! How did it go in Brussels?’

Carrie tensed as the salon door was suddenly thrown open, her breath catching in her throat as she stared in shock at the man who had walked in. His physical resemblance to Luc was so extraordinarily marked that it was obvious that they had to share the same blood—indeed, could have been brothers, if not twins!

Carrie didn’t recognise him, though, and she frowned slightly, detecting an American accent.

‘Oh!’ As he saw Carrie he stopped speaking and looked enquiringly at Luc. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise that you weren’t alone!’

‘It’s all right, Jay. In fact you can be the first to hear our news and to congratulate me. Allow me to introduce you to my bride-to-be—Catherine Broadbent.’

His eyes were a different colour from Luc’s, Carrie recognised as he focused on her. A bright warm blue instead of that cold steely grey, and she guessed that he was probably a couple of years younger in age—maybe a thousand years younger in terms of personality and self-will.

‘Your bride-to-be? But I thought that Maria…’ Jay stopped, looking uncomfortable.

‘A common misconception,’ Luc told him calmly. ‘But, as it happens, Catherine and I go back a long way. Circumstances beyond our control led to us parting, but happily we have now rediscovered one another.’

‘Well, I guess the old brigade don’t mind too much who you marry, just so long as you do! They were beginning to get real twitchy that you might decide to step down and turn the country over to self-rule because of all the hassle you’ve been getting. I suppose as an American citizen I ought to claim that is what you should do, but I confess that I kinda like being able to boast that I’m related to a real-life ruling prince—even if it is on the wrong side of the blanket. I guess that tracing my family tree has to be one of the most rewarding things I have ever done.’

‘You’re a billionaire, Jay, and you’ve earned that success by your own efforts. I should have thought that was something to be far more proud of than any merit bestowed by a mere act of birth.’

‘Careful, Luc, otherwise I might begin to believe that you think I got the best out of our shared gene pool. Remember, I know for a fact that you could have done exactly what I’ve done. You’ve got one of the best financial brains going, and don’t forget I had the advantage of being handed my first million by my old man. All you inherited was a load of problems and a set of state regalia!’

Carrie’s eyes rounded as she listened to the two of them subtly teasing one another. This was quite definitely a side to Luc she had never seen before.

‘By the way, do I get to be the first to kiss the bride-to-be?’

Carrie smiled as he came towards her, but to her bemusement, just as he reached her, Luc put his hand on her arm and drew her to his side, keeping his own body between them.

‘Catherine, allow me to introduce you to my second cousin—Jay Fitz Kleinburg. As you will probably have gathered, Jay and I have only recently discovered our shared relationship.’

‘Yup, that’s true. Luc’s granddaddy was also mine! Only thing was he kinda neglected to put his name on my father’s birth certificate! It’s my grandmother I’ve got to thank for the “Fitz” in my name. Seems she’d read that in olden days in England royal bastards were given the prefix “Fitz” to their names, so she decided to do the same for my dad, and he passed it on to me!

‘She only told us what had happened when she knew she was dying. Up until then she pretended that she’d married during the war and lost her husband! But I’m boring the pants off you. I guess what you both really want right now is to be on your own…’

Being on her own with Luc was the very last thing she wanted, Carrie acknowledged, but before she could say anything Jay was turning to Luc.

‘I guess we can talk later about Brussels. You ought to know, though, Luc, that there’s one hell of a lot of speculation going on amongst the tax exiles. Seems like most of them fear that you might be forced to make a change of policy, and give in to those young hotheads who are causing you so much trouble.’

‘There’s no question of that.’ Luc’s voice was terse. ‘For one thing this country is almost wholly dependent on the income it derives from its tax exile inhabitants, although…’ He started to frown. ‘There are certain issues to do with the way things were conducted here during my grandfather’s time which are going to have to be addressed.’

‘Well, at least the news of your coming marriage will put a stop to the gossip going round that you intend to sell out to the money men wanting to take over the country and step down as ruler.’

As an economist herself Carrie was well versed in the financial status of S’Antander, but she had not realised that there was internal pressure on Luc regarding the way the country was run.

‘Nice to meet you, Catherine.’ Jay was smiling. ‘You’ll both have to come down to the yacht and have dinner with me—although I guess you’ll both be pretty busy with formal engagements from now until the wedding. When is it to be, by the way?’

‘At the end of the month. We shall be getting married on the same day as we celebrate our country’s National Day. As you know, it is five hundred years this year since my family were given the country by the Pope. It seems fitting to celebrate my marriage at the same time.’

‘As a symbol of your intention to see that the family continues to rule for another five hundred years?’ Jay suggested.

Carrie was too shocked to speak. When Luc had told her that she must marry him she had had no idea he intended that marriage to take place so speedily! Maria had implied that her marriage to Luc was something that was to take place at some unspecified date well into the future.

Luc’s cousin was leaving. Shaking herself free of the disbelief immobilising her, Carrie waited until the door had closed behind him before pulling away from Luc and telling him fiercely, ‘This has gone far enough. We can’t do this, Luc. It’s crazy. No one is going to believe this marriage is anything other than a pathetic sham! We don’t have the slightest thing in common!’

‘No? What about this?’

Before she could say a word, Luc’s hands had clamped on her upper arms and she was being jerked towards him. His head bent over hers, his body language predatory and dangerous.