‘I don’t know,’ he admitted.
‘You want her.’
‘I’d forgotten how much.’
‘Then you need to woo her,’ Sophia said wisely. ‘You have to be gentle. Give her time.’
‘There is no time. I have to get this sorted.’
‘You rush this and you’ll end up with nothing.’
‘She must-’
‘There is no must about it. She’s a smart lady and she will not take kindly to musts.’ Her wise eyes creased into a smile. ‘She will make you a woman in a million. You and Christina…no and no and no. But you and this Holly…’
‘Sophia, leave it.’
‘I leave it,’ she said, and to his astonishment she reached up and kissed him, something she hadn’t done for twenty years. ‘I leave it to you. To your good sense. To your brains, hey, and not to your balls. That’s what got you into this mess. You and your brothers and your father, messes all round. Now your brains have to get you out.’
She thumped him on the chest and chuckled, then carried her tray serenely out to the pool to clear the table.
Holly heard the gentle murmur of their voices. She couldn’t hear individual words-just that Andreas was talking. It must be to Sophia.
She was leaning heavily against her closed and locked bedroom door. It seemed too thin. It was no protection.
Sophia would protect her.
Not against herself.
This was Andreas she was talking about. She’d dreamed about Andreas for years. He was here. He wanted her. All she had to do was fall into his arms and be his princess.
See, there was the rub. It scared her so much that it overrode even the way her body reacted to his. She’d heard him tell of his family: his brutal father, his aristocratic mother and sisters, his brothers-sexy, powerful men who took what they wanted and held.
She knew nothing of their world. To give in to Andreas’s blackmailing-for that was what it was-was to abandon herself to his lifestyle; to give up all she’d ever known.
It was to abandon hope of going home. To Munwannay.
There was nothing there for her.
Her son’s grave was there. It was home.
Her home could be here.
As Andreas’s accessory? For that was what she’d be. She was fighting to get her breath back; fighting to make herself see sense. He’d made no declaration of love. He’d simply said he needed to marry her to get himself and his family out of a political mess. In return he’d pay for her father’s debts. Great. That left her…where?
They should have talked tonight. It should have been a business discussion, she thought, pressing the back of her hand against lips that felt swollen, bruised, still hot from his touch. Maybe they could work something out.
But how could they work out anything when the way she felt about him got in the way? There he was, outside talking calmly to Sophia, and she was in here like a trembling virgin.
And likely to stay here. For there was no way she was opening the door, when the minute she saw him sense gave way to…
Lust.
It was as simple as that.
Or was it?
The voices faded. There was a clink of glasses-that’d be Sophia clearing the table. Andreas would have gone. Where? To bed? To calmly think of what other ways he could coerce her to marry him?
Marriage to Andreas…
The thought was like watching the sky open-there was no way she could see through to the other side and the thought of what lay beyond was so unimaginable that she couldn’t do it. To hurl herself into the unknown…It seemed unthinkable.
But she had to think about it. She had to go to bed now and calmly consider whether such a marriage was possible. Andreas had said his country depended on their marriage. That was very well, but he was looking out for his country. He had his whole kingdom looking out for him-and she was alone.
She left the door and sidled to the drapes of the windows overlooking the pool. She slipped one back just a little so she could see.
Yes, Sophia was there, calmly gathering glasses. She looked up as the chink of light behind the curtains revealed she was being watched.
She straightened and met Holly’s look full on. And then she smiled. And winked. And put down her tray of glasses, put both hands in the air and crossed her fingers.
Then she calmly went on gathering glasses.
Holly smiled.
No, she wasn’t completely alone. She had one ally. Maybe…just maybe…
Just maybe one ally wasn’t enough. She had to figure this out. She wasn’t about to step into a royal goldfish bowl without knowing the facts.
They had to keep their hands off each other and they had to talk.
Talking was never going to work. How the hell could he talk her into something when he couldn’t make sense to himself? He couldn’t think past the fact that she was Holly and he wanted her so badly he was practically on fire.
He’d been raised to think marriage was a duty. Royal marriages were political gamesmanship. Passion was something you had on the side. His parents’ marriage had been loveless. Even when he’d been with Holly all those years before, when they’d talked wildly about running away, the duty that had been instilled in him since birth took precedence.
But now…suddenly he was in a situation where he was being ordered to marry a woman who set him on fire.
Take it easy. Act with care. This was too precious to mess with.
But he couldn’t take time. The hounds were baying. Sebastian would be here himself any minute to marry them by force if he didn’t get this right, and he knew enough of his brother to believe that force was an option. Sebastian cared about his country in a way their father never had. He’d make a good king, and if all that stood between him and that kingdom was a slip of a girl…
Hell.
He walked out of the pavilion, down to the beach. He had so little time. Holly said she needed thinking space-she did. But he couldn’t afford to sit back and wait for her to come to her verdict.
So what to do, short of firing Sophia, hammering down Holly’s bedroom door and taking things to their natural conclusions. Which might not exactly work against Holly’s spirited will. He’d known her as a girl, proud, independent, strong. She’d lost none of it; had gained more.
She was a woman in a million. He wanted her.
So tell her. Make love to her in the literal sense.
She’d believe him why? He’d been married to Christina. He hadn’t been in contact with Holly for years. How could he persuade her how he felt, when he didn’t know how he felt himself?
He did know how he felt. He stopped and stared out over the moonlit sea.
He wanted this woman. He wanted her more than life itself. If he had time he’d woo her as she ought to be wooed. He’d love her as she deserved to be loved.
So compress it. See what you can do in the time you have available. Think, man. He had to talk her into a short-term marriage at least. That’d buy him time.
He’d brought her here as his captive. What would keep her?
He forced himself to keep walking, thinking back to all the things he knew of the Holly he’d once loved. He conjured up her memory. Holly, wild and free. Holly, meeting him that first morning when her father had brought him home, coming out to the veranda, her old dog by her side.
He stopped.
It was a wild thought. Stupid. Sentimental. But this was no ordinary need. What was needed was a gesture.
He was already turning back to the pavilion. He had work to do this night. Thank God for the Internet. Thank God for servants back on the mainland. He’d wake half the palace up to get what he needed.
So little time…
He had to move.
CHAPTER SIX
I T WAS ten in the morning before Holly ventured to open her bedroom door. Sophia was sweeping the tiles around the pool-normally something Nikos did. Holly had been listening to her singing as she worked for the last hour and she’d finall
y figured Sophia was giving her reassurance that it was fine to come out. Not that she felt very reassured, but the moment she opened the door, she was.
‘He’s gone,’ Sophia said and Holly gasped.
‘G…gone.’
‘He says he should be back tonight but he commands you not to worry.’
‘Not to worry…What sort of a command is that?’
‘He says go for a swim. Enjoy the day, hey? You are not to trouble your head. But first, breakfast.’
‘I don’t think I’m hungry.’
‘Of course you’re hungry,’ Sophia said and beamed. ‘Courtship always makes a girl hungry. When such a man looks at you with such eyes…ooh, all the senses come alive. Smell, feel, touch, taste…I’ve been young too, remember.’
‘Courtship doesn’t come into this,’ Holly said, trying not to sound cross. She was wearing one of the most demure outfits from Andreas’s outrageous wardrobe-a silk kimono. It covered her but not enough. Still, if he’d really gone…She peered around the courtyard as if she thought Sophia might be telling lies. As though Andreas might be yet to pounce.
‘He’s really gone,’ Sophia said, smiling.
‘Where?’
‘Who knows? The royal princes…they are here, there, everywhere. The fuss about the old king’s death is such that there are a million things to do. His mother may want him home.’ Her face softened. ‘She’s had a hard time of it, the queen, no matter how brave a face she puts to the world.’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘That’s right. You’ve never met her. There’s so much in front of you,’ Sophia said and beamed.
Oh, goody. There was a reassurance.
‘But you need feeding,’ Sophia said, watching her face and deciding, obviously, that Holly needed distracting. ‘You want to talk to me as I cook?’
‘I can cook my own toast.’
‘You’re to be a princess,’ Sophia said seriously. ‘You need to get accustomed. You make your own toast-you offend a whole hierarchy of kitchen staff.’
‘Really?’
‘Really,’ she said. ‘Me, I don’t mind for you are not yet a princess. But when you are…’ She was still watching Holly’s face, but it was as if this was too important not to be said, just because she was risking upsetting the girl in front of her. ‘When you are, you’ll be taking on a whole role. You represent our country. You are royalty.’
‘I’m not royalty.’
‘What I see in Prince Andreas’s eyes…you will be.’
She wasn’t royalty.
She ate breakfast-as much toast as she could get down without choking-and then she escaped to the beach. Sophia packed her lunch so she could stay as long as she wished. ‘I’ll send word if His Highness returns,’ she told Holly and Holly thought it sounded like a warning.
But there was no escape. She was on Andreas’s island. She was bound to Andreas’s rules. She was bound to wait for Andreas, and think and think and think.
He didn’t come. She’d know if he came for if he’d left by plane he’d return by plane, but as the sun sank low in the sky she’d seen no sign of him.
Was it safe to go back to the house? It had to be. She was weary of lying on the sand trying to sort out her thoughts; floating in the surf trying to block out memories of last night’s kiss; trying to read and seeing only Andreas instead of the print on the page.
Nothing was clear except her fear for the future and her longing for the past.
She walked slowly back to the pavilion. Sophia and Nikos were in the kitchen-she could hear them arguing as they commonly did when they were alone. Loud, voluble arguments, highly passionate over who knew what. They’d been married for forty years, Sophia had told her. Forty years and five children. What did they have to be passionate about?
Why was she feeling like this? So lonely she could weep. She’d been solitary all her life. For the last few years it had just been herself and her father and her job, and her students were dislocated voices on the end of the radio. Now she was with people, yet her sense of alienation was so strong it was threatening to overwhelm her.
Maybe it was seeing Sophia and Nikos and what a long-term marriage could be.
Maybe it was seeing Andreas again and seeing what could have been if they’d been different people, in different worlds.
Maybe she could marry him. Maybe it wouldn’t be worse than living alone for the rest of her life. Maybe…
Maybe nothing. A plane was coming in fast from the east, a black blur against the sky. Andreas. She looked up and practically whimpered-and bolted for the safety of her bedroom.
‘Dinner is served.’
The knock on the door wasn’t Sophia’s stern rap, or Andreas’s autocratic thump. The voice was that of Nikos. They’d sent a stooge, Holly thought. Nikos was timid around her. She couldn’t yell at him.
Nor would she.
Dignity. There was the thing. She’d spent the last hour trying to summon it. She’d decided to wear the same dress as last night-the way Andreas’s eyes had devoured her then, she wasn’t giving him the satisfaction of having something new to look at.
Boring, boring, boring, she thought. He was a prince. He might well be accustomed to a new woman a night. If he was going to get bored with her, it was better that she knew it now.
Or whatever. Nothing she was thinking was making sense. This whole situation didn’t make sense.
So go out and get it over with.
She opened the door. Nikos was waiting, smiling anxiously. He beckoned toward the dining table set once again under the stars.
Andreas was already seated, but he rose the minute he saw her. He was dressed to kill. Full evening attire. A dinner suit of deep, rich black, his white shirt brilliant against his dark skin. His eyes were black as night. He smiled at her and his smile flipped something inside her that stayed decidedly flipped.
He was sex on legs, she decided. It wasn’t fair for a guy to have so much…so much…Andreas.
‘You look beautiful,’ he murmured, crossing to meet her, and she tried to glower.
‘I look exactly the same as last night.’
‘Not so. Your nose has started to peel. Just a little.’
‘Leave my nose out of it.’
‘But it’s such a beautiful nose…
‘Andreas…’ Her voice broke and he stepped back. He’d been about to lightly touch her nose. Now he looked down at her in concern.
‘You haven’t had a good day?’
‘What do you think?’ she snapped. ‘You give me these appalling options and then you walk away and leave me with nothing to do but think and think and think.’
‘So what have you thought?’ he asked gravely and she tried to make her mind focus.
What had she thought?
‘That you’re a nutcase,’ she muttered. ‘That what you’re demanding is unbelievable. Totally unjustified.’
To her astonishment he smiled and kissed her lightly on the forehead, then led her over to the table.
‘I agree. I thought so last night. I left you and thought what we were asking was a one-sided agreement where we win. You get to play a princess but I, of all people, should accept that this is no great bargain.’
She felt as if all the wind had been sucked out of her. Andreas held back the chair and waited ’til she sat. She plumped down and stared at him.
‘Well, then?’ she managed.
‘Well, then,’ he agreed gravely, and rounded the table to sit opposite.
‘So I can go home?’
‘You see, you can’t,’ he said apologetically. ‘The fate of too many people would be changed irrevocably for the worse if you refuse to marry me.’
‘Then nothing’s changed.’
‘Only my attitude,’ he said softly. ‘And the rules. I’ve spent the day negotiating. Oh, and shopping.’
‘Shopping,’ she said blankly. ‘You’re kidding.’
He smiled again. ‘Sophia?’ he called.
Nikos had d
isappeared back to the kitchen, back to Sophia’s comfortable presence. But he came out now, holding the door wide so Sophia could come after him.
Sophia was carrying…
A puppy.
It wasn’t just a puppy. Holly rose in astonishment as she saw the creature held in Sophia’s ample arms. It was a border collie, a ten-to-twelve-week-old bundle of wriggling pup, black and white, with big, intelligent eyes and a tail that was threatening to wag so hard a lighter pup might have taken off like a hovercraft.
‘He’s attached to you already, Your Highness,’ Sophia told Andreas, reproving. ‘He didn’t like you leaving him in the kitchen. See? He finds you and his tail starts to whir again.’
‘What…?’ Holly could barely get the words out.
‘You see, there was something absent,’ Andreas explained. He didn’t walk forward to the pup but instead stood back and watched Holly’s face. ‘Yesterday I saw you and I thought there was something missing. And then…it came to me. From the first time I saw you back at Munwannay, you had a shadow. Always. A black and white shadow wherever you went. Deefer, I believed you called him.’
‘Deefer Dog,’ Holly murmured, stunned.
‘An ancient cattle dog.’
‘A border collie.’ Like this pup. She couldn’t keep her eyes off the pup in Sophia’s arms.
‘My people told me everything about your circumstances,’ Andreas said, still watching her. ‘But there was no mention of a dog. There was no dog on the place when our people inspected it.’
‘I haven’t had a dog since Deefer died.’
He frowned. ‘Deefer was an old dog when I was there.’
‘Yes,’ she said, not trusting herself to go further. In truth Deefer had lived for only three weeks longer than Adam. Her baby and then her dog…
‘Can I ask why you never bought another?’
‘My father wouldn’t have one.’ The puppy was wriggling in excitement. She longed to reach out and touch him…
She wouldn’t. This was seduction at its finest.
‘But it’s a farm. A working farm,’ Andreas said, obviously still waiting for an explanation. She had to try and give him one.
‘Yes, but…it was also my father’s folly. Deefer wasn’t Deefer’s real name. He had a pedigree a mile long. All our dogs did. He was Cobalt Royal Rex or some nonsense. Deefer for short. But when he died that was it. My father had such pride-he’d never have a mongrel on our place and pedigree working dogs cost a fortune. I was never permitted to have another dog.’
The Prince’s Captive Wife Page 7
