The Royal Doctor’s Bride

by Jessica Matthews

  “I can’t thank you all enough,” Gina said as she hugged each tired helper to their sheepish embarrassment. “You are all the best.”

  “We were pleased to do this for you,” Hugh said before the three of them disappeared, leaving Gina alone with Ruark.

  “They didn’t have to rush off,” she said, surprised by how quickly they’d left.

  “They probably thought they should go before you asked them to rearrange the furniture again,” he said dryly.

  “I did work them rather hard,” she admitted.

  “And what about your poor husband?” he asked.

  She slipped her arms around his neck. “He was sorely used, too. I’ll have to make it up to him.”

  He groaned as she squeezed. “I believe every muscle in my body aches.”

  “Why don’t you soak in the Jacuzzi for a while? I’ll bring a snack to tide us over until Henri calls us to dinner.”

  “An excellent suggestion,” he said, planting a swift kiss on her mouth before they parted company.

  Fifteen minutes later, she found him in the master bathroom’s whirlpool tub, eyes closed. “How’s the water?” she asked as she placed her tray of cheese and fresh fruit on the ledge.

  “Great. Care to join me?”

  “Maybe later. You need to recharge your batteries first.”

  As he opened his mouth to protest, she popped in a cube of Cheddar cheese and noticed the purpling bruise on his shoulder.

  “You did hurt yourself,” she accused, hating to think he’d injured himself because of her. If she hadn’t loved him before, his actions today would have tipped the balance.

  “It’s nothing. What else did you bring?” he asked, peering at the tray.

  She speared a chunk of pineapple and fed it to him. “Fruit. I chose all of your favorites, so lie back and enjoy.”

  He leaned back in the whirlpool. “I could get used to this,” he said as she offered a grape this time. “We could make this a nightly event.”

  She chuckled. “Annually.”

  “Weekly,” he countered.

  “Monthly.”

  “Sold.”

  While they devoured the food she’d brought, they talked of inconsequential things, but Gina knew in her heart that the moment she’d been waiting for, the moment when she opened herself up and revealed her feelings, was fast approaching.

  “Last bite,” she said as she placed a grape in his mouth.

  He grabbed her free arm. “I’m still hungry.”

  “I’ll see if Henri—”

  “Not for food,” he said as he tugged her shirt upwards. “For you.”

  She grinned. “But I’m out here and you’re in there.”

  “A problem easily rectified. Join me.”

  “We can’t both fit.”

  “Trust me. We can and we will.”

  She didn’t hesitate. Her clothes disappeared in short order, discarded in an untidy heap near the tub.

  The water was warm and only added to the sensual spell. He positioned her in front of him, between his legs, and she leaned against his chest, enjoying the feel of his muscles against her back. He began soaping her skin as his mouth trailed kisses down the side of her neck. He gently caressed, stroked, and teased every nerve ending of her entire body until she was certain they’d raised the temperature of the water swirling around them.

  They might have been there for minutes or hours, she didn’t know because she was too caught up in his tender assault of her senses. Finally, he rose with a growl, wrapped a towel around her and himself, then carried her to their bed.

  Eager for him, she gratefully accepted his weight as he covered her completely. The ache inside her demanded ease and she dug her fingers into his back as he nuzzled her neck.

  “Ruark, please,” she murmured.

  “Please what?”

  “Please…hurry.”

  With one touch he sent her to the stars. With one smooth thrust he filled her, then began a fierce rhythm that didn’t end until he groaned and collapsed against her.

  Gina drifted back to earth, her arms and legs intertwined with his as she rested her cheek against his chest and listened to his steady heartbeat. Her scattered thoughts slowly coalesced into one that summed up everything in her heart.

  “I love you,” she confessed softly as her fingertips traced swirls on his chest.

  His grip around her tightened. “I told you we’d be good together.”

  She heard the pride, the self-satisfaction in his voice. “Pretty sure of yourself, weren’t you?”

  “You bet.”

  “And you based this on…?”

  “Sixth sense. Intuition. Gut feeling.”

  Certain she’d taken him by surprise with her declaration of love, she pressed on. “Does your sixth sense tell you anything else besides we’re good together?”

  He hesitated. “Is it supposed to?”

  The excitement of saying she loved him dimmed, but perhaps he simply needed coaxing. “After all this time, I thought maybe our relationship had grown past the we-get-along-great stage.”

  She sensed his mental withdrawal. “Is that what you want from me?” he asked. “To tell you what you want to hear? To say I love you?”

  Hardness had replaced the lazy quality of his voice and she winced at the sudden loss of their closeness. “Only if you mean it,” she said.

  He rolled off her to sit up on the edge of the bed, his bare back toward her. “We’ve talked about this concept of love before. You entered into this marriage knowing it was to fulfill a duty, knowing we would build a relationship based on respect and mutual interests, rather than feelings.”

  “I know what I agreed to,” she said. “But my feelings changed.”

  “Exactly my point. Emotions shift as easily as the tide. Today you say you love me—who knows what you’ll feel tomorrow?”

  She pulled the sheet around her, suddenly uncomfortable at baring her body as well as her soul. “My feelings didn’t just change, Ruark. They grew. They’ll be the same tomorrow as they are today.”

  He turned to face her, his expression disbelieving. “What if I suddenly refuse to grant your every whim? To give you the things that you like and enjoy? What then?”

  A disquieting thought rushed forward in her mind. “Is that what you’ve been doing, Ruark?” she asked quietly. “Was today just one more instance of you acting like a benevolent genie? Did you really want a happy marriage, or did you only want the illusion of one?”

  “I didn’t want an illusion,” he insisted. “As far as I’m concerned, our marriage is everything we’d expected and tried to make it. Five minutes ago we proved how good it is.”

  She released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. For a minute there she’d been afraid he’d only been deceiving her, using her as a pleasant perk associated with performing his duty.

  “Happiness is a feeling,” she pointed out. “But love is stronger because it grows, which is what happened to me. As I got to know you, I fell in love.” She paused. “I’d hoped you’d had the same experience.”

  He turned to face her. “I do care about you,” he said soberly. “Why can’t that be enough?”

  “Because it isn’t,” she said, saddened that he’d still closed his heart off to her in spite of everything they shared. “Love makes the day seem brighter, problems less insurmountable, life more enjoyable. Without it, you’re not really living, only going through the motions.”

  “Love is simply a word. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  She rose as regally as possible and twisted the sheet toga-style around herself. “You loved a woman once—”

  “I was wrong,” he said.

  She ignored his interruption. “And she told you what she wanted you to hear. I’m not her, though, so don’t transplant her flaws onto me. I have enough of my own.

  “I know she left you, but I won’t,” she stated, knowing that was part of his concern. “Not because I can’t give up the
princess lifestyle but because I made a promise which I intend to keep. Our marriage can either be heaven or hell. The choice is yours.”

  She swept from the room and locked herself in the master bathroom. The need to weep swept over her, but she gritted her teeth and held back the sob. Instead, she splashed water on her face and patted her skin dry, wishing she could wash away the pain of his rejection as easily.

  He didn’t love her. Maybe his caring was simply a way to make the performance of his duty more palatable. She couldn’t deny they were compatible in many areas, but she didn’t want to be his consolation prize, the reward granted to a good obedient little prince for services rendered to the Crown.

  For a moment she felt trapped in a loveless marriage, but as she remembered all the things he’d done to ease her into her new life, all the ways he’d made her feel special, she couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe that he didn’t feel something beyond companionship. Yesterday he’d worried about failing her, and he wouldn’t have done that if she wasn’t important to him. He simply couldn’t admit that his caring was love in disguise.

  Considering all his experiences with women who’d pretended to care because he was a prince, she was fortunate he cared at all. He could so easily have held himself back and turned their relationship into a case of “married singles”.

  Maybe that was the problem, she thought as hope edged away her sense of entrapment. He was afraid to believe her, afraid to let himself love her. Married or not, they’d only known each other for a few weeks and he obviously didn’t trust her yet with something as important as his heart. She’d simply have to prove that her declaration hadn’t been as a result of her hormones or gratitude for his generosity. That she’d fallen in love with the man, not his title.

  It would take patience and effort to smash through his walls of skepticism, she consoled herself. He’d spent years building his defenses, so she couldn’t expect to tear them down on her very first try. She’d inherited enough of her father’s stubbornness to keep swinging and stay in the game.

  She would show him that love, not companionship or mutual interests, made a marriage happy. Teach him that love meant strength, not weakness or vulnerability.

  If he didn’t learn the lesson? What then?

  She didn’t know, she thought miserably, but the picture of her life if she failed was too bleak and too miserable to contemplate.

  Ruark jerked on clean clothes, irritated at how easily the afternoon had turned from pure bliss into sheer agony. Gina had known from the beginning that he didn’t want or expect love to be a part of their marriage and suddenly, because he’d done a few nice things, she went and changed the rules.

  Well, he wouldn’t have it. The foundation for their relationship had been set. Trust, companionship, respect, and attraction had been part of the package. He hadn’t planned to invest himself emotionally in their arrangement and she shouldn’t have either.

  Oh, he truly cared about her, more than any other woman he’d spent time with, and that should have satisfied her. Why did she want words that were often uttered carelessly or with deceit? Didn’t she know that they only gave false hope and made one vulnerable?

  As far as he was concerned, actions spoke louder and more honestly than words ever could. Gina would simply have to accept and be contented by that.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “HAVE you seen the latest People magazine?” Lucy asked Gina a week later.

  Gina sighed. Ever since photos of the women’s shelter project charity ball had hit the tabloids, her excited staff had gone out of their way to hunt down every bit of publicity about the royal couple they could. At first, it had been sweet, but now she found it irritating, especially as her grand plan seemed to be failing.

  She’d done her best to act as she always had, with one exception. Now, every chance she got, she told Ruark both in word and deed that she loved him. Unfortunately, he wasn’t replying in kind, and she’d given him ample opportunity.

  A relationship expert on the Internet had claimed that men who couldn’t say they loved someone had commitment issues. As marriage was a huge commitment which they’d already undertaken, she discarded the theory soon after she’d read it. She was simply expecting too much, too soon, but her continued failure was disheartening.

  If only he hadn’t been so darned sweet during the past week!

  First, he’d ventured into the kitchen and mixed a batch of her favorite double chocolate peanut butter chip cookies with Henri’s help. The only way he could have known she enjoyed them so much was if he’d noticed she always added them to her lunch tray.

  Then he’d sent her a basket of tiger lilies, admitting he’d known how much she enjoyed them. How he’d learned they were her favorite, she couldn’t begin to guess because none of her friends knew just how special those flowers were. Her father would send them on special occasions or whenever she’d had a really tough week at school. She’d deck her parents’ graves with them every year on their birthdays and Memorial Day, and whenever she felt especially blue, she bought them for herself.

  As for her nights with Ruark, they were as fantastic as always. She would always tell him she loved him, but she’d stay awake long after he did, hoping to hear a whispered endearment before he fell asleep. Unfortunately, she never did.

  For the first time in her career she almost wished she’d studied psychology instead of emergency medicine.

  “Hello?” Lucy asked. “Anybody home?”

  Gina focused on the nurse. “Sorry. Don’t mind me. My mind was…elsewhere.”

  “Can’t imagine why,” Lucy said cheerfully. “Want to hear what they said about you in Home and Garden?”

  “No.”

  “Too bad. It’s quite flattering.” She closed the magazine and laid it on the stack of other publications that contained some mention of the royal couple.

  “I don’t know why you guys are collecting all this,” Gina said, wishing she could make the pile vanish and knowing she’d cause an outcry if she did. “The entire department sees us almost every day. You don’t need photos.”

  “Hey, these are for posterity,” Lucy protested. “You’re the closest we’ll ever come to knowing a celebrity so we’re milking it for all its worth. We get so little enjoyment out of life here in the trenches.”

  “Yeah, right. Speaking of trenches, do we have the lab work back on room four?” At Lucy’s blank look, Gina pointed to the scheduling board. “Does chest pain ring a bell?”

  “Oh, yeah, him. I’ve been busy with the guy whose nail gun misfired and shot a nail into his hand. Before you ask, Dr Holman is making arrangements to admit him for surgery.”

  Owen Holman was a top-notch orthopedic surgeon who specialized in hand injuries. “Great. But what about—?”

  “The lab work isn’t back yet. I checked the printer a few minutes ago. My bet’s on indigestion.”

  “Hold onto your money,” Gina advised. “He could fool you. What else do we have?”

  “Nothing our PA can’t handle. Before I forget, Dr Thomas wants to see you. Preferably before his meeting with Dr Lansing at ten.”

  Frankly, she’d like some distance from the man until she sorted through her troublesome thoughts, but apparently she wouldn’t get any. “OK, but the minute those lab results come through, I want to see them.”

  “Will do. Oh, and, Gina?”

  She turned and faced the nurse. “Yes?”

  “You’ve seemed rather preoccupied today.” Lucy’s face registered concern. “Is everything OK?”

  “Sure. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  The nurse shrugged. “You seem different. More…restrained, I suppose. Are you feeling well?”

  “I’m fine. Truly,” she replied, as much to assure Lucy as herself. “And remember, I’m waiting for those results.”

  As directed, Gina went to Ruark’s office. His desk was covered in what she knew were budget proposals and cost analyses, but he was leaning back in his chair, reading a magazine arti
cle.

  She groaned as she rubbed the back of her neck in abject frustration. “Not you, too.”

  He grinned sheepishly as he straightened. “Couldn’t resist. According to this, ever since we announced our wedding, the incidents of vandalism and other property crimes have dropped significantly. People are speculating on the details and what long-term effects our marriage will have on the two countries. It’s obvious the mood in Avelogne and Marestonia has improved.”

  Just what she needed—to be reminded of why they’d gotten married. “I’m glad,” she said simply. “Is that why you wanted to see me?”

  He closed the magazine and tossed it onto his desk. “No.” He studied her. “Are you OK?”

  Irritated that he was the second person to ask the same question, she ground her teeth together before she evened her tone. “I’m fine. I’m swamped outside, and all this press is getting to me.”

  “The novelty will wear off soon.”

  “I hope so.”

  “As you’re busy, I won’t keep you, but my father called a few minutes ago. Apparently, in spite of the good news I just told you, the royal family is under pressure for us to have an official state wedding ceremony.”

  The idea struck fear into her heart. Although part of her had anticipated the possibility, when the subject hadn’t resurfaced since the charity ball, she’d hoped it wouldn’t.

  “Do we have to?” she asked. “I mean, will we start an uprising if we don’t?”

  “No, but as I’ve been living in the US for some time, he’s afraid the people will believe I’m dismissing my heritage if I don’t honor our royal traditions.”

  “I see.” In other words, his duty hadn’t ended yet and, if the truth be known, never would. “What would be involved?” she asked, certain she wouldn’t like her options.

  “Our ceremony won’t be as elaborate as my brother’s,” he assured her. “A trip down the main thoroughfare in a horse-drawn carriage, I would guess, then on to St Gregory’s Cathedral for the formal church blessing. After that, we’ll greet the public at the palace and host a small reception for family and friends.”