Royally Seduced

by Marie Donovan

  “Go ahead and tell us the details. It’s about a woman,” he stage-whispered to George. He had always been Mr. Fix-It, leaping in to help whenever he could.

  “Let the man think, Frank.” George sounded amused. He well could afford to be, having gone through his own struggles with the female sex earlier in the spring.

  “I can’t think, that’s the problem. I can only think about—about Lily, this woman I just met last week. I can’t sleep unless I’m next to her. I can’t be away from her without wondering where she is, if she’s enjoying herself, if people are being kind to her…” he wound down, verbally if not mentally.

  “Jack, Jack,” George soothed. “It’s okay. You’ve had a rough few months stuck off in Asia. No wonder you’re attracted to the first pretty face that came along.”

  “Pretty face?” For the first time in his life, Jack wished he could hit George. “Lily is smart, beautiful, talented, witty—not just a pretty face,” he spit out.

  After a few seconds of tense silence, Frank cleared his throat. “George didn’t mean it that way, Jack. She sounds great, she really does.”

  “Well, she is.”

  “I am sorry, Jack. I didn’t know you felt that way about her,” George apologized.

  “What way?” he demanded. Another awkward silence. Jack realized he was totally losing his grip. Chewing out his best friends, for crying out loud, letting a woman come between them?

  Frank jumped in again, hating to see them argue. “George and I are glad you met somebody nice. Does she like Provence?”

  Glad for a more neutral topic, Jack readily said, “Oh, she can’t get enough of the landscape and the food, but it’s really the people that fascinate her. I spend hours translating for her with all her questions about how they grow lavender, what their mangy hunting dogs are named, how many children they have, anything at all.”

  “Well, that sounds promising,” George said. “You’re tied to the land, like we are. Any woman you are serious about would have to understand the pros and cons of you being the Comte de Brissard.”

  “That’s my problem. I haven’t told her who I am.”

  There was another second of silence. “She doesn’t know?” Frank asked in amazement. “But you’re staying at your own home, harvesting your own lavender and roaming your own estate. She must think you’re the biggest moocher in France—the houseguest from hell.”

  “Really, Frank,” George chided him. “I’m sure Jack had his reasons for portraying himself as a simple disaster-relief physician.”

  “She doesn’t know I’m a doctor, either,” he mumbled.

  Frank guffawed. “You’ve really stepped in the cow patties now.” Frank had always loved American farming colloquialisms. “Your only hope is to tell her the truth—and pronto, before someone else does.”

  “I have to agree with him, Jack. It sounds as if you’ve been less than forthcoming. And especially if you like her, and she likes you. It sounds as if you have much in common—both the adventurous types and you both like Provence.”

  “Like? Aside from the language, it’s as if she were a native. Lily loves it here.”

  The L-word hung significantly over them. Lily loved his homeland. What else did Lily love? She couldn’t love…him, could she?

  No, of course not. Why would she love him? He was a skinny, pasty Frenchman who knew too much about dying and not enough about living. “Another thing just came up. The agency wants me to go to Malaysia. Just short-term,” he hastily added. “I haven’t told them my answer yet.”

  The air of disapproval was palpable. “I know what you can tell them,” Frank announced. “You can tell them you almost died earlier in the year and they can go to hell.”

  George cleared his throat. “I have to agree with Frank, though not quite as bluntly. What would you say to a patient who wanted to do the same thing? You’d keep them home for much longer, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, but they need me.”

  “So do we, Jack,” said George.

  “You guys are fine. This farm runs well without me. My mother is tied up in her social events. I’d be at loose ends if I didn’t have someone to help.”

  Frank made a sound of exasperation. “We all need to be needed. You don’t have to become a martyr for it.”

  It was as if someone had chopped him in the gut. Nadine had said almost the same thing to him at his disastrous homecoming party. Had called him St. Jacques and told him he wanted a statue to himself. “Guys, I have to go.”

  “Oh. Right,” Frank said hesitantly. “Take care of yourself, okay?”

  “Yes, please do,” echoed George. “And again, accept my apologies in casting aspersions on your ladyfriend. I misspoke.”

  Jack accepted, of course, feeling grumpy and irritable and generally pissed off—at himself, not George.

  Jack hung up. He could go to Malaysia without having some kind of martyr-complex. His friends just didn’t understand the shortage of willing doctors. Jack should know better than to get all worked up over trivialities. After all, he was the cool, collected Dr. Montford, trained physician, award-winning philanthropist—and all-around jerk to his friends.

  “DID HE HANG up, George?”

  “I believe so, Frank.”

  “He’s a goner for this girl, George.”

  “I think you’re right, Frank.”

  “I usually am.”

  “Ha.”

  “Ha, yourself. Go give Renata a kiss for me.”

  “Ciao, Frank.”

  “Ciao, George.”

  15

  LILY FINISHED HER blogpost for Fashionista Magazine and checked the clock again. Jack had been working outdoors for several hours and she hoped he wasn’t overdoing it. Maybe he was back at the manor house with Marthe-Louise. Her stomach growled. And if not, maybe there was something to eat there.

  Lily wandered down to the kitchen garden. Tomatoes, herbs and various squash overflowed the beds. Mrs. Wyndham’s gardener would be pea-green with envy. He fought humid weather and various related plant ailments all summer. Marthe-Louise was stooping over to clip some chives. “Ah, bonjour, Lily. You desire Jacques?”

  Heck yes, she desired him, but probably not what Marthe-Louise meant since even Lily knew the French verb to want in a generic sense was désirer. Her cheeks heated. “Oui. Where is he?” She mimicked searching for him and Marthe-Louise laughed.

  “The lavender, it is ready. Men working together in field.”

  Ooh la la. The memory of Jack, a sweaty field hand, stripped to the waist was hot. Maybe she could see him from the side of the house that had a view of the hills. “Can I…” She gestured at the doorway leading to the formal living area of the manor.

  Marthe-Louise waved her on. “Go. I cook nice dinner, eh?”

  “Good.” She smiled at the older woman. She and Jack would have to get her a fancy gift before they left. Cooking for them all the time was above and beyond what she had expected.

  Lily had asked Jack when the de Brissard family would return, but he said the lady of the house preferred Paris and probably wouldn’t be back this summer. Lily had no idea why not. She’d enjoyed Paris but loved Provence.

  Lily walked down the hallway past the dining room and turned into the formal living room, or salon. Undoubtedly this was used for parties and maybe even weddings, being able to hold over a hundred people by her calculations.

  She peered out the large French doors leading to the stone terrace, but no sight of Jack in the lavender fields. Maybe they were farther up the hill. She turned and caught sight of a large framed photograph hung on the wall that hadn’t been there during her tour. She would have remembered it because Jack was the subject.

  Her eyebrows shot up as she peered closely at it. Jack in some fancy tux and tails, with a red sash across his chest, complete with a large gold sunburst medal pinned to it. And there was a woman in the photo. Unless Jack had a thing for older women with hair the same shade of auburn as him, she was his mom.

>   Lily looked closer and found several similarities in their high cheekbones, strong jaw and wavy hair. His mom was dressed just as fancily in a copper silk dress with a full skirt, and she was seated on an elaborate French-style chair upholstered in white and trimmed in gold. Jack stood behind her, his hand on her shoulder.

  Pieces of the puzzle were starting to fit together, and she had the feeling it wouldn’t be a cute puppy puzzle or panoramic lavender field jigsaw.

  Lily went back into the kitchen. “Marthe-Louise?” she called.

  “Oui?” The housekeeper came out from the butler’s pantry, wiping her hands on a white towel.

  “Photo.” Lily jerked her thumb backward at the salon. “Grand photo.”

  The guilty look on Marthe-Louise’s face confirmed her suspicion. When Jack had brought her for the tour, he’d sent Marthe-Louise in there first to take down the evidence that he owned all of this.

  Not only was he probably ten times richer than Mrs. Wyndham back in Philly, but he owned a huge chunk of France, the farm, this giant house plus the guesthouse. Where he had pretended to be a guest.

  “Marthe-Louise.” Her tone was harsher than she had planned and Marthe-Louise shrank back. Lily took a breath. “What is Jack’s real name?”

  The older woman frowned. “Jacques Charles Olivier Fortanier Montford. Comte de Brissard.”

  De Brissard. The lavender family. “Comte?” She’d never heard that name before. “In English, count. His mother is the Dowager Countess de Brissard.”

  Lily made a choking noise. “Royalty?” That jerk. He had said the de Brissards were a dull lot, and not to bother writing about them. No wonder.

  “Oh, no.” The older lady chuckled, relieved to give Lily some good news for once. “Nobility.”

  “Oh, is that all?” Lily gave an appalled laugh. “Good grief. I should have been curtsying before getting into bed with him.”

  Marthe-Louise had caught the gist of Lily’s statement and pulled her wide cheeks back in a nervous grin. “Ah, the food—it burns.” She scurried away before Lily could say that it didn’t smell like anything was even cooking.

  The mythical food wasn’t the only thing burning—so was Lily’s temper. She glared at the photo of the lying Comte de Brissard and stalked through the kitchen and out the back door.

  She hit the stone pathway leading from the kitchen garden to the guesthouse.

  Jack was walking shirtless down the hill from the lavender fields, wiping his face with a cloth, bits of lavender blossom and twigs stuck to his chest and back. “Ah, chérie, there you are. Did you get a lot accomplished this afternoon? I hope so, because I have plans for you this evening.”

  He smelled of lavender and sun and heat. Yummy. She tamped down any wayward twinges of desire. She was mad at him and had to remember that. “Hello, Your Royal Highness.”

  “Oh.” He stopped. “Lily, I was going to tell you, but the time was never right and then…” He tried to hug her but she pushed him away.

  “Forget it! You can go be a sweaty field hand for all I care. I never thought it was such a hot look anyway.”

  “What?” He raised his eyebrows. “It is hot outside.”

  “Never mind!” Lily tapped her foot. “Any other secrets I should know about?”

  He looked away guiltily.

  “Oh, milord, now what? Are you next in line for the French throne?”

  “I wouldn’t take that job for a million euros. Look what happened to Louis the Sixteenth.” He laughed but quickly became serious at her cold gaze. “Nothing so glamorous. My training for disaster-relief work is in medicine. I’m a physician. They want me to go to Malaysia, but I told them no this morning. I’m staying in Provence.”

  Lily exhaled a long breath and slowly circled him.

  He stared at her warily, craning his head over his shoulders. “What is it?”

  “Looking for either a halo or a superhero cape.”

  “Lily…” He held out his hands to her.

  “No wonder you knew the names of all those tropical diseases. You probably teach a course in that stuff.”

  “Some seminars at the tropical medicine institute in Paris,” he admitted.

  “A professor, as well. And yet you have time to chat with the rest of us mere mortals. How ever do you do it?”

  He set his jaw. “And you wonder why I don’t tell everyone about my background?”

  “I am everyone. That’s really nice.”

  “You know what I mean. You’re more than that.”

  “So you should have told me. Madame Finch should have told me.”

  “I asked her not to. I wanted you to get to know the real me, and I wasn’t sure if you’d be thrilled or repulsed at my circumstances.”

  “Lots of gold diggers?”

  “Another entirely appropriate American saying.” He took her hand, but she let her arm dangle loosely. “But I knew from the beginning that you weren’t like that. In fact, from what you said, you didn’t care for rich men anyway. I was afraid you would lump me in with them and not see me for myself.”

  “I would have seen you for yourself,” she protested.

  He shook his head. “What if I had said, ‘I am the Comte de Brissard, physician and nobleman. Come to my luxurious villa in Provence where I can woo you with my worldly riches’?”

  Lily automatically made a face and he pounced. “You see? That would have been your honest reaction and that would have been the end of any possibilities between us.”

  She considered her gut reaction and admitted he was probably right. “But that doesn’t mean you should have waited until I found out. You could have told me you were a doctor when we talked about infectious diseases. And you could have told me you owned this whole place when we first came here.”

  “I know, mon coeur, and I am so sorry. My only excuse is selfishness. I did not want to risk having you leave me before we got to know each other, but I should have been up-front and honest with you as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, you should have.” But she wasn’t so angry anymore. “And I’m actually more impressed with your education. You had to earn that, not inherit it.”

  “Exactly.” He smiled in relief. “I am not ashamed of my heritage, but the title of Comte de Brissard would have fallen to me if I were the biggest idiot in France. But being a physician, that is my real accomplishment.” He tugged her closer. “And that is why I appreciate your hard work, as well. You are a writer, an entrepreneur. You are not relying on any family wealth or connections to succeed.”

  “Oh, Jack.” She blushed a bit but rallied. “No more secrets.” She started to shake her finger at him but instead started picking lavender bits off his firm, sweaty chest.

  “I promise.” He leaned down to kiss her but she turned away at a sudden loud engine noise. “What is that?”

  Jack’s eyes bugged out. “Oh, no.”

  “What?”

  “Look, promise me you’ll take the next ten minutes with a grain of salt.”

  “Oh, come on, are we in a soap opera? If you have an evil twin or are getting over amnesia, I swear I’m leaving right now. I knew I should have looked you up on Google, but you said you kept yourself off the internet.”

  “As much as possible, but you would have gotten several hits.” The engine got louder, traveling along in a cloud of dust so Lily couldn’t see what was coming.

  “Grrr.” Lily felt like kicking herself. Crack Reporter-Girl had fallen down on the job.

  A big silver Rolls-Royce pulled up in the driveway, looking exactly like the old TV ad. The window rolled down, but instead of a distinguished gray-haired gent asking for American-made French-style mustard, the middle-aged, very well-preserved Frenchwoman whom she’d seen in the family photo gave them a startled look before stepping out of the car. Lily dropped his hand.

  She kissed him on both cheeks, skillfully avoiding his damp skin, then scolding him. “Oh, Jacques.”

  “Oh, Maman,” he groaned. Lily was so shocked b
y everything that was happening that she almost missed the fashionable blonde sliding out from the backseat.

  Almost. “If that’s Jack’s mother, then who are you?” Lily asked. “His sister?”

  The blonde gave what might be called a tinkling laugh by writers more twee and fanciful than Lily, and Lily disliked her immediately. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m Nadine, his fiancée.”

  Lily’s dislike for the blonde turned to hate. And Jack the Count wasn’t far behind.

  “WAIT!” JACK BELLOWED, seeing Lily sprint up the hill toward the guesthouse. His mother deftly blocked him as if she were some kind of American football linesman and he had to stutter-step past her. “Maman, please get out of my way.”

  “Jacques, we just got here. Nadine found your photo online on Fashionista Magazine and we recognized the birthmark on the back of your neck right away. Whoever that girl is who is calling you Pierre in her blog, she certainly is temperamental. Standing here shouting at you and then running away. Not very dignified, if I may say so.”

  “Forget about dignified, Maman. What are you doing here? What is Nadine doing here?”

  “Making sure you’re all right.” She lowered her voice. “Nadine says the dysentery can affect your brain.” The last word came out in a horrified whisper.

  Damn Nadine for scaring his mother. “Dysentery affects your guts, not your brain, and besides, where did Nadine go to medical school anyway?”

  “You know I’m concerned about you, Jacques.” She made as if to embrace him but realized he had dead plant matter all over his sticky skin. Lily would have hugged him anyway if she’d thought he had a brain disease. Nadine would probably welcome a bit of brain damage in him, preferably in his frontal lobe to destroy his long-term memory of all the crappy things she’d done to him.

  He gave her a hard look and ran after Lily. She was moving at a good clip, but he caught up to her when she slowed for a corner. “Lily, wait!”

  She spun to face him. “Another woman, and you didn’t think to mention this, either.” She gave him a disappointed stare. “What did I do to you to deserve this?” She gestured at the house. “Not trusting me to tell me who you actually are. And after I was so careful to keep you anonymous in my blog. Apparently I could have made much more money by revealing your true identity to one of the tabloids and giving them all the inside gossip.”