* * *
Resting her aching hip, Samantha ate supper in her own chamber. She did, however, emerge briefly to say good night to the boys and the prince’s daughter.
When she walked into the little girl’s chamber, Samantha stopped short. Rudolf was there, sitting on the edge of the bed. She would have backed out of the room, but the girl spied her.
“Lady Samantha,” Zara called.
Pasting a smile onto her face, Samantha crossed the room to the bed. “I wanted to wish you a good night.”
“Daddy is telling me a story,” Zara told her. “Do you want to hear it, too?”
“No, thank you, but I would like a good night kiss,” Samantha said. “May I have one?”
When the girl nodded, Samantha leaned close and kissed her cheek. “Will you play with me tomorrow?”
Zara nodded. “Will we watch the cloud pictures?”
“We will do whatever you want. Good night.” She turned to leave and walked toward the door, calling, “Sweeting, sleep in here tonight.”
When she awakened the next morning, Samantha rolled over and reached for the slice of bread her aunt had left there. A short time later, she entered into the dining room, expecting to see the children. Instead, she saw the prince sitting alone and reading the papers in his portfolio while he ate.
“Good morning,” Rudolf greeted her.
“Good morning.”
At the sideboard, Samantha selected two hard-boiled eggs, a scone, and vanilla jelly. Then she grabbed the Times and turned around. Indecision gripped her. Where should she sit? Next to the prince or not?
Deciding that sitting away from the prince would be churlish, Samantha set her plate on the table beside the prince’s. Then she sat down and began reading the newspaper.
“I wish you would not read that anymore,” Rudolf said.
Samantha looked at him, which was a mistake. The sight of his handsome face tugged at her heart. Without replying to him, she began eating her breakfast and reading the newspaper. Again, the society column on page three caught her attention.
Prince Rudolf was seen with several acclaimed beauties at the opera last night. Where is his betrothed? When will she return to London?
“Why didn’t you escort me to the opera?” Samantha asked.
“You have a black eye,” Rudolf said.
“So do you.” Samantha turned in her chair to look at him. “Does your betrothal to me embarrass you?”
“Arguing over breakfast will give me indigestion,” Rudolf said.
“I pass more hours with indigestion than with you,” Samantha said, rising from her chair. “If I read about your nocturnal activities one more time, I will stuff the newspaper down your throat.” At that, Samantha marched out of the dining room.
Chapter 14
She missed him.
Rudolf avoided her almost completely after that morning. No matter what time she went to breakfast, he wasn’t there. During the day, the prince used the duke’s study to conduct his business affairs. Sometimes when she sat with the children in the garden, Samantha felt him watching her. Whenever she looked toward the window, he stepped away.
Dinner was the only time Samantha actually saw him. Immediately after dinner, Rudolf excused himself and left the mansion.
Why did Rudolf distance himself from her? Samantha did know what the prince was not doing, though. The Times had not mentioned the prince since that morning.
By the end of the second week, Samantha couldn’t bear the emotional turmoil another moment. She missed the man she had known in Scotland and wanted him back. Unlike her sisters, she had never in her entire life taken the initiative, but she needed to do something soon.
Arguing and nagging would do no good. She must assume a casual attitude and pretend she didn’t care.
Exactly two weeks before her wedding, Samantha stood in front of the closed study door. The prince was working inside.
Samantha felt queasy at the thought of walking into the study and talking to him. Her heartbeat quickened, and her hands shook like the palsy.
Closing her eyes, Samantha took a deep breath and summoned her courage. She raised her hand.
“Enter,” she heard the prince call.
Samantha pasted a smile on her face and opened the door. He watched her cross the study. Reaching the desk, she was relieved to see two of his ships’ captains sitting in the high-backed chairs. The prince couldn’t very well refuse her in front of his employees. No, he would be especially polite with strangers listening.
“The children and I are picnicking in the garden for lunch and—” He was staring at her. She suffered the almost overpowering urge to bolt from the room.
“And?”
“I thought you might want to join us,” Samantha said, her fright making her breathless.
“You can see that I am busy,” Rudolf said, gesturing to his desk.
“You need to eat lunch,” she pressed him.
“No.”
“You aren’t eating lunch?”
Rudolf fixed his black gaze on hers. “Please, leave me to my work.”
Humiliation paralyzed her. Samantha wanted to leave, but her feet wouldn’t move.
“Damn it, get the hell out of this room and stay out.”
Samantha flushed, her humiliation complete. “I’m sorry I interrupted.”
Without looking at the captains, Samantha left the study and closed the door behind her. She leaned against the wall.
“My lady, are you ill?” Tinker asked, materializing from nowhere.
“I just need a moment.” Samantha had never felt worse in her life.
Closing her eyes Samantha took deep breaths in an effort to calm herself. In the next instant, her eyes flew open when she realized the majordomo had opened the study door and was calling, “Your Highness, Lady Samantha—”
“No,” she cried.
“What in hell is going on out there?” Rudolf asked.
“Lady Samantha is ill,” Tinker told him.
Samantha turned her back on the door. Holding onto the wall, she took three steps down the corridor.
“What is the problem?” Rudolf asked, his hand on her arm, holding her steady.
His question surprised her. The prince had just humiliated her beyond endurance, and the problem eluded him?
“I’ll help you to your chamber.”
Samantha lifted her gaze from his hand on her arm to his dark gaze. “Remove your hand from my person.”
Rudolf snapped his brows together. “What did you say?”
“Don’t touch me.” She looked at the majordomo. “Where is my aunt?”
“Her Grace is in the drawing room,” Tinker answered.
“Is His Grace with her?”
“Yes.”
She looked at the prince. “Excuse me, please.”
“I will not excuse you.” Rudolf tightened his grip on her arm.
Samantha raised her voice. “You are dismissed, Your Highness.”
Something flickered in his dark eyes. Almost immediately, he masked his feelings.
“If that is pity I see in your eyes,” Samantha told him, “I will shoot you with one of the duke’s pistols. By the way, the wedding is off.”
“The wedding is not off.”
“They can’t force me to the altar,” Samantha told him. “If you want a wife, marry one of those acclaimed, blond beauties.”
“For God’s sake, don’t fight me.” Rudolf lifted her into his arms. “Tinker, tell Her Grace that her niece is hysterical and needs her in her bedchamber.”
“I want to go to the drawing room,” Samantha said when they reached the second floor.
Rudolf paused and then set her on her feet. When he put his arm around her, she turned on him. “I am not hysterical.”
“What are you, then?”
“I am furious,” Samantha said. “Don’t ever treat me so disrespectfully again. If you do, I swear I’ll kill you.”
Samantha shrugged his hand
off. Turning away, she walked down the corridor to the drawing room.
“Darling, whatever is the matter?” Aunt Roxie asked.
“I need to speak privately with both of you.”
“Sit here beside me,” her aunt invited her, patting the settee.
Samantha sat down and folded her hands in her lap. She didn’t know how to start this discussion without upsetting them.
“Tell us what is bothering you,” Duke Magnus said, his voice kind. “If it is within my power, I will fix it.”
Samantha looked at him and then her aunt. “I want—no, need—to cancel the wedding.”
“I can’t do that,” the duke said. “You are already with child.”
“You care for the prince, darling,” her aunt said. “I know you care for him a great deal.”
“The prince does not care for me.”
“He does care for you,” her aunt disagreed. “Your relationship is progressing nicely.”
“We don’t have a relationship,” Samantha told her. “He hasn’t spoken to me in two weeks.”
“I told you to watch—”
“Damn it, I did watch,” Samantha interrupted her. “The prince took himself to several balls and an opera.”
Aunt Roxie laughed. “Darling, that’s a good sign.”
Samantha stared in horror at her aunt. She couldn’t believe what her aunt was saying. The woman was as crazy as the prince.
“Prince Rudolf is fighting his feelings for you,” Aunt Roxie told her.
“His feelings are losing,” Samantha said. “He just humiliated me in front of two of his captains.” She turned to the duke and pleaded, “Please, Your Grace, cancel the wedding.”
“I’ll speak to him about his behavior,” Duke Magnus said.
“I don’t want you to do that,” Samantha cried. “I want you to cancel the wedding.”
“Think of your baby,” the duke tried to reason with her.
“I am thinking of my baby,” she said. “The man hasn’t even bothered to ask me how I am feeling in two weeks.”
“Do you care so little for our child that you would refuse to give him his father’s name?” Rudolf asked, standing in the doorway.
“How long have you been eavesdropping?”
“Long enough to know what you are asking the duke.”
Samantha rose slowly from the settee and gave her aunt a quelling look. Then she crossed the drawing room toward the door. She would find no help here.
“Your guardians are only doing what is best for you,” Rudolf said as she passed him.
“You are not what is best for me, sir.”
“I am sorry to hear that, Princess,” Rudolf said in a quiet voice. “I was hoping to attend your picnic.”
Samantha gazed into his dark eyes. He was patronizing her because she was pregnant. The prince felt sorry for her. Being pitied was an old friend whom she would recognize anywhere.
“The picnic has been canceled.”
Rudolf cocked a dark brow at her. “Why?”
“Lack of interest.”
Raising her chin a notch, Samantha left the drawing room and climbed the stairs to her bedchamber. She locked the door and sat on the chaise.
I should never have gone into the study and forced the issue. The prince had not wanted to marry, nor did he love her. He had shown her that in dozens of different ways since returning to London. He tolerated her for what she carried within her body. She suffered the awful suspicion that she was about to marry the prince and live alone.
Not quite alone, Samantha reminded herself. She had Grant, Drake, and Zara to love as well as the baby. Her family life would be a distortion of her dream. God had found a way to torment her with what she wanted. She should have been more careful what she wished for.
If she wasn’t such a coward, she would pack her bag and run away. But how could she abandon Grant and Drake? They’d already had one mother abandon them.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Samantha knew who stood outside her door. The prince had come to reprimand her disrespect in front of others, not to apologize for his disrespect.
“Who is it?”
“May I come inside?”
“No.”
“I want to speak to you.”
“Then speak.”
“I cannot speak through the door,” Rudolf said. “Please.”
Samantha hesitated for a brief second but then unlocked the door. She opened it and stepped aside so he could enter.
“Leave it open.” She walked away from him.
“How do you feel?” Rudolf asked.
Samantha ignored his question. “Your Highness, what do you want?”
“I want to know how you feel.”
“Why?”
Rudolf shrugged. “For the usual reasons.”
“And those reasons would be?” she asked.
“Princess, you are carrying my child.”
“Please, Your Highness, do not remind me of my folly,” Samantha drawled, holding her hand up.
His lips quirked as if he wanted to smile. “I want to apologize for my rudeness,” Rudolf said. “I was hoping you would forgive me.”
“Forgive you for your rudeness?” Samantha asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Or those balls you attended? Perhaps the opera?”
“Your sarcasm is understandable but unbecoming,” Rudolf said.
“Do yourself a favor,” she said. “Find yourself a bride who can’t read.”
“You sound like a jealous wife,” he remarked.
“I passed jealousy last week.”
“What lies beyond jealousy?”
“Dislike,” Samantha answered, unable to say the word hate. “I don’t like you.”
The man had the audacity to look hurt before he shuttered his expression. “In two weeks, you will be married to a man you dislike,” the prince told her. “Prepare yourself.” At that, he quit the chamber.
During the next two weeks, Samantha turned the tables on the prince by avoiding contact with him. The prince turned the tables on her by seeming to dog her every step. He didn’t speak to her unless she spoke to him, but his constant watching was beginning to unnerve her. She almost wished he would resume his social life. Almost.
Though confused by his behavior, Samantha knew one thing for certain. When the moment arrived, she could not walk down the aisle to marry a man who cared nothing for her.
* * *
He could not marry her unless she knew the truth. Rudolf knew that as surely as he knew his wedding day had arrived.
Early on April twenty-third, so early only the servants were up and about, Rudolf climbed the stairs to the third floor. He carried two objects for his betrothed. The first was a plate holding a piece of bread, and the other was a large velvet pouch containing the jeweled tiara his grandmother and his mother had worn on their wedding days.
Rudolf knew he loved Samantha but could never tell her. Once a woman knew a man’s tender feelings, she used them against him.
True, he hadn’t wanted to marry. Losing Olga had left him bitter. Had he ever been as idealistic about love as Samantha? If he had, he’d lost his innocence a long time ago, long before he’d even met Olga, probably when his father had his mother confined to the asylum.
Marrying Samantha under false pretenses would be unfair, Rudolf told himself as he walked down the third-floor corridor in the direction of her chamber. Poor Samantha had almost no choice about marrying him. He would give her a choice this morning, though. There was no other alternative for him because he couldn’t live with her unless she could live with the truth. He had stayed away from her this past month deliberately because he knew this moment would come.
Without bothering to knock, Rudolf opened her door and crossed the chamber to her bed to leave her bread as he’d done each morning. Only this day was different.
She was awake.
“What are you doing?”
Rudolf sat on the edge of the bed and offered her the bread. She
sat up, leaned against the headboard, and lifted the bread off the plate.
“You left me the bread each morning?”
Rudolf inclined his head. “We must discuss a matter of some importance before we marry.”
Samantha set the bread aside and waited for him to speak.
“I am going to tell you something,” Rudolf said, staring into her eyes. “Afterward, I will not object if you want to cancel the wedding. My own preference is to marry and then divorce once the babe is delivered.”
He was frightening her. Was he trying to get rid of her before she even married him?
A woman’s wedding day was one of life’s milestones and should be one of her happiest memories. Apparently, that was not to be. Heartache and anguish, two of her oldest acquaintances, had walked into the room with the prince. She should have known this moment would come. He hadn’t wanted to marry her.
Samantha watched the prince stand and cross the chamber to gaze out the window. He couldn’t even look at her as he let her down.
Rudolf turned around. “I am not the man you think l am.”
“You aren’t Prince Rudolf Kazanov?”
“I meant, I am not my father’s son,” Rudolf explained. “I am a bastard.”
Samantha closed her eyes against the pain etched across his face as a soft moan escaped her lips. His startling revelation explained many puzzling things. Now she knew why the prospect of fathering a bastard had upset him, why his brother wanted the Kazanov Venus, why his mother had been locked in an insane asylum.
Opening her eyes to look at him, Samantha felt her heart breaking. The prince had turned his back on her and stood facing the window. Pride made him keep his head held high and his shoulders squared, but he seemed so alone.
“Which will it be, Samantha?” Rudolf asked, without looking at her. “Shall we cancel the wedding, or divorce after you deliver the babe?” When she remained silent, he continued, “If you cancel the wedding, I will support you and the child for as long as you live. Money is no problem.”
Samantha knew she needed to choose her words carefully. Her prince was in pain but needed to be soothed with no trace of pity. She slid out of the bed and padded on bare feet across the chamber.
To Charm a Prince Page 21
