I escaped death because of her. How could his angel turn out to be so cold?
Why did Nicolette communicate the information to him in a shocking, public manner? When she might have told him privately any number of times?
There was one unarguable fact: she took a private matter and turned it into a staged production.
Lavender chiffon floating about her, Nicolette led him past the fountain in the entry way down a long hallway of pebbles laid in stone.
Maintaining a frozen countenance, Alejandro admonished himself to go to the source.
Why didn’t he ask her?
Because I am afraid of the answer.
Clearly she wished to surprise him. Why else would she withhold the information until she had the opportunity to reveal it in a public venue?
Is her purpose to humiliate me?
Nicolette had to know his reaction would be unpredictable when the realization hit.
Whatever her purpose, a concern for him was clearly not her motive.
Alejandro narrowed his eyes. He never expected anyone to put his needs first or to consider his feelings; he was long past that.
But there was unkindness in the withholding of her secret and the subsequent explosive delivery, as if she were jabbing him in what she knew to be a tender spot.
Alejandro was generally forthright, but he couldn’t bring himself to press her for the truth.
I don’t want that beautiful memory tainted.
Maybe I don’t want the truth. It was one of few memories which was dear to him—where someone offered unconditional love—and he couldn’t bear if it turned out to be a lie as well.
Holy Mother, let me have this one thing.
Nicolette pointed out various rooms and paintings until they reached an almost hidden room overlooking a garden and an outdoor fountain.
“This is father's favorite room. He finds it very peaceful.”
“It must be very quiet here, isolated from the house as it were.”
“Yes, and the fountain masks sounds in either direction. It is a perfect study, as well as a museum of sorts.”
Why is she acting as if nothing has happened? Nicolette Genevieve Huntington should have been a spy.
Maybe she is. At this moment, engulfed in lavender chiffon, she was reminiscent of Mata Hari, the famous exotic dancer of Paris. Although he thought Nicolette was more beautiful—as well as more exotic.
With a heart as cold as ice.
“It’s as if we have stepped through a magical mirror into Arthurian times,” he murmured, somewhat awestruck at the second-floor room they now found themselves in. He glanced through the balcony windows to see another fountain.
As with every other room in the house, color, vitality and a life fully lived was evident. The library was painted in hunter green with mahogany wood paneling half-way up the wall. Above the paneling were endless built-in bookcases filled with every manner of reading material, some of the books appearing to be antiques. There was a leather seating chair next to a stone fire place which was in full flame.
“It indisputably is a working room.” Alejandro noted a large mahogany desk.
“My father used this sword in combat.” She pointed to a large sword which framed a painting over the fireplace. “In the Battle of Tel-el-Kebir in Egypt.”
“The Princess Royals?” Alejandro asked, studying the painting.
“Yes, the 7th Dragoon Guards.”
As Alejandro looked closer at the wall hangings, he observed a black and white photograph of the Dalai Lama and another painting of Lady Ravensdale and her two children. Next to the fireplace was a painting of an Arabian family absent the father: a mother and two children. A bugle hung next to the painting.
Alejandro took a deep breath as he looked about him. Wood floors, area rugs, and antique furniture. Fountains, running water, fire, rocks, and plants.
“What is it Prince Alejandro? Why does my father's study make you so silent?”
“Perhaps it is not the study but the company.” His eyes scanned the study. An old world globe, a grandfather clock chiming the hour, a leather sofa, a bouquet of red flowers, and statues of horses filled the room with warmth.
“The mood is intimate—and cherished. My home,” he added, “consists of the most lavish and valuable surroundings imaginable, and I find myself wondering…”
His eyes rested on a Persian rug under the coffee table, royal blue and plum with touches of red, which would have been at home in the Seraglio.
“Yes? Wondering what, your highness?”
“What it would be like to have a home of my own.”
Her eyes opened wide in astonishment. “You have the Palacio Real. It must be a hundred times larger than this house.”
“Much more than that.” He chuckled.
Somehow she reduced those lush, full lips the color of deep red roses into a tight smile. “You have piqued my curiosity.”
“And you mine, Lady Nicolette.”
“You mentioned your duty at dinner.”
“Was that before or after you kicked me? I forget.” And before you contrived to hit me with a thunderbolt. He would take the bodily harm any day over the betrayal.
“I am simply mortified, your highness.” She smiled sweetly, making it clear their brief interlude of tranquil harmony had passed. Even now, it slipped his mind.
The magic of the room's decor had managed to overcome their incompatibility for all of thirty seconds. “Ladies shoes are so uncomfortable these days,” she continued. “I was on my feet all day in that profession we don't like to speak of, and sometimes the muscles rebel. I am certain you have seen the same condition in your horses?”
“Not with such force.”
“And yet,” she added contemplatively as she slinked to the window. “Now as I recall the situation, it does occur to one you thought me a woman of no virtue who could be bought, when I am, in fact, British nobility. And yet how quickly I became a nonentity in the insult to my person.”
“Truly your feelings are the only relevant ones, Lady Nicolette. How could I have not known that? Forgive me for not keeping the conversation entirely about you. It must be unusual in the circle with which you surround yourself.”
She turned abruptly to look at him, copper fringe spangles flying with her motion. Her countenance nonplussed, only her knitted eyebrows revealed any deviance from conviviality. She moved closer to him, and it seemed the room was suddenly over warm. He rested his hand casually on her father's desk.
“Now that you know my lineage and ancestry, it does not occur to you I am owed an apology, Prince Alejandro?” Her eyes were flashing.
“Are you quite serious, Lady Nicolette? Illustrate to me how it is done.”
“Prince Alejandro,” she sighed heavily, as if she were dealing with a five-year-old. “Discovering who I am must be a revelation of enormous proportions to you and yet no mention is made of this.” She tapped her hand on the desk impatiently, her sea-green eyes cool as they stared at him unwaveringly.
“You forget yourself, Lady Nicolette,” he uttered softly under his breath.
“Have I? Or perhaps you do not care for a woman who knows who she is and does not conform to what you wish to see, your highness.”
Alejandro raised his eyebrows as he ran his finger along the mahogany wood, attempting to break her spell, though it pleased him to see she was irritated by his silence.
He turned from her and began to study a painting on the wall. He was growing weary of this vainglorious woman’s constant demands and contempt for his position.
She harped on his disrespect when she was the master! Never in his life had he been addressed in such a fashion. When Alejandro satisfied himself she had waited long enough, he returned his attention to her. “I pray you will enlighten me.”
“I am not any man’s paramour,” she said in the slightest whisper. Her sea-green eyes were cool as they stared at him unwaveringly. Sometimes they were the color of emeralds, but now they seemed l
ighter and yet deeper, like the color of the Mediterranean, illusive, home to mermaids, sunken treasures, and pirates. The faint scent of the sea reached him: lilies, salt, moss, and cedar.
He was lost in those eyes. She leaned towards him, affording him an incomparable view of milky white breasts framed in copper and lavender.
“Did I ever say such a thing?” he demanded, his voice hoarse.
“You know very well you treated me as such, offering me jewelry, no less.” She scoffed. “Is this how you treat daughters of the peerage, your highness?”
“Do forgive me, Lady Nicolette.” He huffed at the unfairness of her assault. “Can you blame me for my assumptions? You were on the stage in front of hundreds of strangers flaunting your…your…” Alejandro felt flushed. He had perfect control of himself except when in the company of this woman. “And I am to be blamed for not thinking you a prim and proper lady?” He chuckled. “I have never seen any other daughter of the peerage act thus. You gave a performance which was the most sensuous display I have ever seen. Forgive my bluntness as I will forgive yours, even in the boudoir I never witnessed anything to match it. Every man in the room felt it.”
“It was a role, a part.” She bit her lip.
“Ah, I see. I understand now. It wasn't real.” He straightened his white tie and the pale blue sash across his torso, feeling his body quake even as he envisioned her performance. “Believe me, it felt real.”
“Of course it was real. It was…it was…”
He studied her red lips set against porcelain skin. She was indisputably a temptress. But he must not give in to his urges.
I need this redemption. For myself. For my country. I need to be free.
This sorceress with dark hair and blazing eyes was his angel.
And though every one of her movements was a calculated invitation, no doubt there was no actual invitation.
It was merely a game she played to tantalize—and reject.
“You see everything in regards to yourself, Prince Alejandro. I am only an extension of how you view yourself. I am not a person to you; no one is.” There were darts of anger in her eyes.
“Is that what this tiresome discussion is about?” Suddenly comprehension dawned. “That I am not perceiving you, Lady Nicolette? That, for once in your life, someone is not falling on the ground before you?” He laughed without his accustomed restraint.
Alejandro surprised himself at how easily the words poured forth when he was with Nicolette.
Where is the control? Where is the guarded language?
“There is a vast difference between not wishing to be treated as a lady-of-the-night and wishing to be worshipped.”
“Is this the reason why you felt no compunction at playing with my feelings after dinner as if I were a mouse to your cat?” he added.
She blushed. “I have no idea what you mean.” It was her turn to feign ignorance.
“Why, may I ask, did you not tell me it was you who sang in the Sultan's Palace, Lady Nicolette?” he demanded, circling towards her.
“I believe I did, in my way.”
“Precisely.” He felt his fury rising. “It is a cruel game of chess you play, Lady Nicolette. You punish your opponent for not knowing all that you keep hidden. Why are you determined to keep every last point about yourself a secret from me, at the same time venomously insisting I should know your true nature, while attempting to humiliate me in the process? And it is not your place to place demands on me. If I do not know who you are, you forget who I am.”
“I never wished to humiliate you, Prince Alejandro,” she said softly, moving closer to him. Was he mistaken, or did she appear to be recalcitrant?
I must be mistaken.
“And that public display after dinner in which you dropped a bombshell on me?”
“I merely wished to learn if it was you.” Her eyes suddenly glistened as she turned away momentarily, dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief.
Is it real?
“I have prayed for that young boy every night of my life since then.”
He swallowed hard, her words so tender and sweet, the scent of roses and jasmine wafting through the air, too close for comfort. “Why did you not simply ask me then? Rather than putting me on display?”
It was her turn to laugh. “How would you have known? I could tell you I sang in the palace, but you still would not have known with a certainty it was me. Not in your heart. Only the music can answer that question and leave no doubt.”
She is right. He nodded solemnly. “There is no doubt.”
He fingered the handkerchief in his pocket as if it were a rosary.
I hope the time has come for the answer to my prayers.
“So you see, now we both know with a certainty.” Her eyes sparkled. “The music told us something which conversation and logic never could have.”
“Why was it necessary to perform this test in front of others, where I might react in a manner compromising for me? In front of a newspaper reporter no less?”
Her red lips formed a sudden frown, her softness turning cold. “You are perfectly capable of managing him. And your reaction is not my concern nor my responsibility, your highness.”
“You forget yourself, Lady Nicolette.”
“And you forget yourself, your highness. I am not a subject of Spain.”
She smiled coyly. Damnation, this was odd behavior for the daughter of a diplomat.
“And, as such, are you without manners, Lady Nicolette? Do I deserve none of your respect or regard, then? Does anyone?” He reached past the six inches between them—far too close—and ran his finger along her chin, the softness of her skin distracting him for an instant.
“You are not entitled to anything from me, Prince Alejandro. You are only entitled to that which you can discern for yourself, which, as it turns out is very little.” She bit her lip. “Which does not excuse you from your judgments nor from your immediate transformation of every revelation about me into a statement about you. And worse, a disrespect of the music. If I have disrespected you, then you have disrespected the music.”
“Explain to me this, Lady Nicolette.” His voice grew very quiet. “Why it is necessary to hide who you are from me?”
“Because I want you to value me even believing I am a mere opera singer, not the daughter of an earl, not someone who…”
“Who once saved my life?” On a sudden impulse he quickly closed the distance between them, taking her by the waist.
What is wrong with me? Alejandro never gave into his impulses.
But other sensations were clouding his mind. He could feel the rough seam of her gown under his fingertips and longed to feel her skin touch his. He felt the smallness of her waist in the crook of his hand.
What he did not feel was any hesitation from her—which excited him all the more. Instead of wanting to control or tame her, he was surprised to realize he wished to unleash her.
God save me. His lips drew dangerously close to hers. He could feel her breath on his. “And who will again,” he murmured softly, believing it to be true.
Alejandro had finally broken through that serene facade and the real Nicolette was emerging.
I welcome it.
“More than anything in the world, I want to hear you sing privately to me. Only me.” He held her tightly, moving his lips towards hers, and he felt an instant and unexpected charge rush through his body even without touching.
In realizing he trusted her where it now mattered most to him—he who trusted so few people—the inexplicable hope in his heart was fanned. His conviction grew that Nicolette’s private performance would mark a turning point in his life.
If I don’t mess it up by crossing the line with her.
Alejandro wanted this concert more than he had ever wanted anything since he had prayed to be reunited with his parents.
At that time my prayers were not answered. He hoped with all his heart this was different.
She looked up at him defiantly, se
emingly unconcerned by his grasp. Her eyes dared him to kiss her.
Alejandro was right all along: she was pleased to be the focus of his attentions.
Releasing her, Alejandro turned and paced in front of the fireplace. He was the crown prince of Spain and he was asking a stage actress how she wished him to behave. She practically had him on his knees.
He despised himself for the power she had over him.
Behind the desk in proximity of the window he saw a decanter of sherry and two glasses. Alejandro moved to the table, grateful to create some distance between them.
He was relieved to have his hands occupied. The feel of her in his arms had been heavenly: confident, fiery, explosive. He had wanted to kiss her with every fiber of his being.
I cannot risk it. I have come too far. I need to see this through.
He glanced at her dark hair falling over milky white shoulders.
And she would no doubt kill him if he tried anyway.
Lure the creature in and then stab it.
32
I’m rich and you’re beautiful
“I’m rich and you are beautiful
I’ve got ducats
and you’ve got charm
Don’t refuse me,
Girl mine, what more could you want?”
- “The Elixir of Love” by Gaetano Donizetti
“I see now. All you want is your little recital, Prince Alejandro.” Nicolette was astonished he had cast her aside. She felt the sting of rejection and dismissal.
How dare he demand so much of me and then toss me aside!
How many times must prove myself before he treats me as his equal?
Prince Alejandro swirled the sherry inside his glass. “True.”
“So you admit it?” Prince Alejandro was determined to insult her at every turn. To act as if her favor was easily won—and of little value.
Nicolette had certainly felt the attraction. But he did not.
“Of course I admit it. I believe I make it exceedingly clear on every occasion this concert is of supreme importance to me. I cannot let a moment of weakness ruin it for me.”
The Serenade: The Prince and the Siren Page 25
