Trevani paused by the door, and Lucia walked toward her father alone. With each step, she prayed for the right words to accomplish her purpose.
Cesare was dressed in the full regalia of his rank, complete with a sash of purple draped across his chest and the Bolgheri crown of rubies on his head.
She studied him as she came closer. In appearance, they were so alike that no one who saw them together had ever doubted her paternity. Yet, there was no familial feeling in her heart when she looked at the man who bore such a striking resemblance to her. There was no respect in her heart for his royal rank. There was no admiration for his dark, still-handsome countenance. In fact, she felt nothing but a mild combination of pity and contempt. The pity was new. The contempt was not.
She couldn’t afford to show either of those emotions. Lucia knew she had to be her most deferential, her most charming, her most persuasive. Whatever it took. Whatever would work.
She halted in front of him and gave her deepest curtsy. “Your Highness.”
“Lady Moore.”
He held out his hand, she kissed his ruby ring.
“Why do you wish to see me, madam?” he asked, speaking as if she were a stranger.
Humility, Lucia. Deference and humility.
“At this moment, Your Highness, I ask that you think of me not as a banished subject in exile and disgrace,” she said softly, “though that is what I am. At this moment, I ask that you think of me only as your daughter. Your flesh and blood.”
Cesare’s mouth pressed into a thin, unforgiving line.
Lucia took a deep breath and said something she had never thought to say in her entire life. “Papa,” she said, and she sank to her knees in front of him. “I have come to ask you for a favor.”
“So, how is the world stage?”
Lord Stanton looked up from the stacks of work on his desk. “Ian,” he greeted with a smile, and stood up. “I heard your wife had an audience with her father, and I thought you might come my way.” He beckoned Ian to enter his office. “Come on in, man. Don’t hover in the doorway like a stranger. Sit down.”
Ian took the offered chair. He glanced at the documents spread across the desk as the other man resumed his seat, and the sight gave him a pang of wistful nostalgia. He shoved it aside. This wasn’t his life any longer. He had to accept that. “Busy as usual, I see?”
“Of course. Let me tell you what’s been happening in Anatolia. I know you’ll be interested.”
Ian listened, not at all surprised to learn Sir Gervase was still mucking things up in that region. The situation was still deteriorating, the Turks and Greeks were actually massing troops, and each side was demanding British assistance. Stanton was at his wits’ end. “It’s now a serious crisis,” the earl told him. “As a diplomat, Sir Gervase is hopeless, and if it were up to me, he never would have been sent there, but he’s married to the Prime Minister’s second cousin, and you know how these things go.”
He did know, and even though it was probably wrong to get any enjoyment from Sir Gervase’s incompetence and the disastrous results, there was a part of him that did enjoy it. Enjoyed it quite a bit, in fact.
“It’s amazing, really,” Stanton said, “how sometimes things just fall perfectly into place.”
This abrupt segue into the philosophical caught him by surprise, but before he could answer, Stanton went on, “For instance, it’s perfect that you’ve come down to London just now because I wanted to talk with you. I was going to pay a call later if you didn’t come by here this afternoon.”
“Indeed?” Ian leaned back in his chair. “What’s on your mind?”
“Peel’s going to be the new Prime Minister.”
“That seems a certainty. So?”
“He’ll be forming a government, choosing new people.” He met Ian’s gaze across the desk. “Given the mess Sir Gervase has made of things, Peel will need someone truly skilled to get the Turks and the Greeks calmed down enough for talks. Care to recommend anyone for the job?”
Jubilation rose within him, but he stamped it down at once, telling himself not to jump to conclusions. “Does it matter who I would recommend?”
Stanton grinned. “Not really. Peel’s already decided he wants you. He knows all about the brouhaha with Prince Cesare and you and your wife. He doesn’t care. Cesare’s leaving next week, and you’ve married the girl, so the scandal’s bound to die down and be forgotten. When Peel is confirmed as Prime Minister, he’s going to offer to give you back your ambassadorship and send you to Constantinople to patch things up. He’s sure the king will agree to the appointment.”
They wanted him back. Never in his professional career had Ian ever felt a sweeter moment of triumph than he did right now. He closed his eyes for a moment, savoring it, allowing the satisfaction of it to sink in.
Just then, a commotion was heard out in the corridor.
“Where is Sir Ian?” bellowed a deep, male, unmistakably Italian voice. “Is he with Lord Stanton? Are they in here?”
“Your Highness, if you will—”
“Out of my path.” The door opened and Prince Cesare came striding into the room, followed by Stanton’s clerk, a very embarrassed-looking Count Trevani, and a pair of Cesare’s guards.
Ian and Stanton both rose at once and bowed.
“Your Highness,” Ian greeted his father-in-law with cool civility and nothing more. He glanced past Cesare, Count Trevani, and the guards, but he did not see Lucia. “Have you finished your visit with my wife?”
“Visit?” Cesare spat the word at him. “Is that what you call it?”
By now, Ian figured he ought have some understanding of the Italians, but he didn’t. They still had the power to confound him. “I beg your pardon?”
Cesare’s face flushed with rage. “Never in her life has Lucia asked me for anything. Always when I see her, she puts her chin up, so, and looks ready to spit in my face. But not when she comes on your behalf. No! For you, she asks for favors. For you, she goes down on her knees. A daughter of my blood on her knees?” His voice rose to a shout. “It is unpardonable that you send her to beg for you!”
“What?” Ian did not need to feign his astonishment. Lucia on her knees to her father? It wasn’t possible. “Your Highness, I have no idea what you are talking about. You summoned—”
“Hah!” Cesare raked his gaze over Ian with venom. “She wrote the letter asking to see me, but I am not fooled.” He pointed an accusing finger at Ian. “You sent her to me. Get him back his profession, she says. Please, Papa, talk to his government, she says. I want him to be happy, she says! Happy?” Prince Cesare slapped the back of one hand against the palm of the other three times in rapid succession. “I ask her what right has he to be happy after what he did, and she says what happened was all her fault! What have you made her, Englishman, that she comes so to me and takes the blame for your dishonor? Did you make her say these things? She says no, but I think, yes!”
Ian stared at the prince, and as he understood just what had happened and what Lucia had done, he realized William was right. There were times when everything in life fell perfectly into place. The aimless lethargy that had been haunting him for weeks vanished, and in its place was something else. A feeling of coming home. He knew who he was and what he wanted and where he belonged. He stepped around Cesare and walked to the door.
“I am not finished!” Cesare roared, turning. “Where are you going?”
Ian paused and looked at Stanton. “Well, I’m bloody well not going to Anatolia.” With that, he walked out the door, leaving William to the unenviable job of international diplomacy. He had far more important work to do.
Lucia went into the library at Portman Square and sat in her favorite place on the desk, remembering the times she and Ian had sat here talking in the wee small hours. She wondered how long it would be before they sent him to Constantinople, or some other place. He’d come home sometimes, she reminded herself, but that wasn’t much consolation. The only thing that comforted her was kno
wing Ian would soon have his life back the way he wanted it.
At first, Cesare had refused to grant her request. She should have known even begging on her knees wouldn’t move him. She had been forced to use blackmail, and she was relieved he had complied, for she couldn’t really have written her memoirs for the scandal sheets. Ian wouldn’t have liked it.
A home without a husband beside her wasn’t what she had envisioned for herself, but that was the way it had to be. For her, a home and a family were enough for happiness, but she had fallen in love with a man for whom those things would never be enough. Perhaps that was because he did not love her in return. Though he had done the honorable thing and married her, love had not been his reason for doing so. Nonetheless, he had given her a home, a place in the world. Now, she had given him back his purpose, and he would be himself again. That was all she wanted.
She imagined him sitting in the chair as she had seen him so many times. The night he’d told her about his first love. How they’d gotten drunk, and she’d told him about her past.
“I love you,” she said as if he was sitting there. “I hope the Turks don’t give you too much trouble. Just—” She caught back a sob. “Just remember not to show your emotions, and you’ll keep the upper hand.”
“Don’t cry.”
She lifted her head and turned to see him standing in the doorway. Only when he blurred before her eyes did she realize what he’d said. “I’m not crying,” she said, then immediately bit her lip and had to turn her face away.
“Liar.”
She stared at his chair, blinking back tears. She’d hoped for more time before he came back from Whitehall. Time to compose herself. But it was too late. Now she was unraveling, and he’d see it. Being so honorable, he’d feel guilty about going away.
He walked around in front of her, put a hand under her chin, and tilted her head back to look at her. “Lucia, what have you done?”
He knew.
“I suppose Cesare told you.” She scowled through tears. “I asked him not to, but I should have known he wouldn’t listen. Damn him.”
“He burst into Stanton’s offices in a fury, shouting at the top of his lungs, blathering about how you came and begged him to help me get my job back.” His hands slid down her arms. “Wife, I don’t know whether to kiss you or shake you. When I think of what it must have cost you to go to him—” He broke off and his hands tightened on her arms. “Why did you do it? Why?”
“I love you. I had to give you back what I took from you.”
He pulled her off the desk and kissed her hard. “Don’t ever do anything like that again,” he ordered. “I mean it. Don’t ever sacrifice your pride for me or anyone else!”
“Well, it’s done now.” She swallowed hard and stared at the perfect knot of his cravat. “So when do you leave for Anatolia?”
“I’m not going to Anatolia.”
“You’re not?” She lifted her face. “Where are you going?”
Ian wrapped his arms around her waist. “Devonshire.”
Lucia’s heart gave a leap, and she was terribly afraid she’d misunderstood. “What do you mean?”
“I’m saying I turned them down. Told them no.”
“You did? But why? Your work is everything to you. If you do not have your work, what will you do?”
He pretended to think it over. “Arrange marriages, perhaps? I’m getting rather good at that, I think.” He tightened his arms around her waist. “By the way, I’ve been to see your mother.”
Lucia blinked at the abrupt change of subject. “You went to see Mamma?”
“Yes. I called on her after I left Whitehall. It was a diplomatic assignment to arrange her marriage to Lord Chesterfield.”
“What?” Lucia was becoming more astonished by the moment. “Mamma will never marry Chesterfield. She told me so.”
Ian kissed her nose. “That’s why I’m the diplomat, my dear, and you’re not. I have gotten both parties to come to terms, and the wedding is in December. I had to do it, so I hope you don’t mind. After all, I couldn’t possibly stand for Parliament if my mother-in-law is a courtesan. I’d never get the votes.”
“You’re going to be in Parliament? You would rather do that than be an ambassador?”
“I told you I wouldn’t drag a wife and children all over the world. Don’t you remember?”
“You said it wouldn’t be right,” she choked. “But you didn’t marry me by choice, so I thought—”
“So you thought I’d just go off and resume my old life without you?”
“I thought returning to your profession would make you happy. I thought it’s want you wanted.”
“You’re what I want. How could leaving you ever make me happy?” He cupped her face in his hands. “Do you remember the day of our picnic, and how you said I had this strange look on my face?”
“Yes.”
“That was the moment I realized how much I need you, need you more than anything else, including my career.”
“Oh, Ian!” she cried, afraid to believe it. “I don’t want you to ever regret that you married me.”
He smiled, and his fingertips caressed her cheeks. “Regret it? How could I?” You are my passionate Italian wife. You are the woman who is going to give me children and whose bed I intend to sleep in every night. You’re the reason I’ll wake up every morning with a smile on my face. I love you, I will be in love with you every day of my life, and the only day I’m leaving you is the day they put me in the ground.”
He loved her. He wasn’t leaving. Joy welled up inside Lucia, flooding up and spilling over until she couldn’t contain it. She began to laugh and cry at once.
“Here we go again.” He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to her.
“You turned them down,” she said, her voice muffled by his handkerchief. “For me.”
“Damned right. Why should I settle for being a mere ambassador when I can be treated like a king? I believe that was what you promised your husband, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.” Lucia tossed his handkerchief aside and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Does that mean I’m truly royal now?”
“You? My dear, you may be Prince Cesare’s daughter, but you’re no princess. Most of the time, you’re a blight on my sanity.” His arms tightened around her. “By the way, there’s one thing I want to know.”
She raked a hand through his hair, messing it up with a sigh of pure contentment. “What?”
“Did you let me win that chess game on purpose?” He pulled back and looked at her. “Did you?”
Lucia opened her eyes very wide. “Of course,” she said. Deliberately, she bit her lip.
He laughed, his arms tightening around her again. “I want a rematch.”
“All right.” She paused with a wicked smile. “On one condition.”
“No. The condition was that I teach you to play billiards, and I did. No more conditions.”
“You’ll like this one.”
“I liked the last one. Too much if I recall.” His mouth curved up at one corner. “So what is this new condition I’m going to like?”
“That you take me upstairs right now and start treating me like a queen.”
Ian didn’t need to be told twice. “Yes, Your Highness,” he said, lifted her into his arms, and headed for the door.
Acknowledgments
My warmest thanks to fellow author Eloisa James and her husband, Alessandro Vettori. Their assistance with Italian language was invaluable to me during the writing of this book.
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
SHE’S NO PRINCESS. Copyright © 2007 by Laura Lee Guhrke. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the
nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition February 2007 ISBN 9780061736773
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Author
LAURA LEE GUHRKE graduated from Boise State University with a business degree. After seven years in advertising, a stint as a caterer, and several years managing the offi ces of her parents’ construction and development companies, she decided writing was more fun. She has written eleven historical romances and has been honored with the prestigious RITA® Award from Romance Writers of America. Laura lives in Idaho. Please visit her on the web at www.lauraleeguhrke.com, or you may write to her at PO Box 1143, Eagle, ID 83616.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
http://www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollins.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand
Unit D, 63 Apollo Drive
Rosedale 0632
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
Guilty Series Page 108
