‘And so it will be.’
‘No, Leon.’ Cally shook her head. ‘How can this ever become my home if there are parts of it I am forbidden to enter? Unless all you want is a wife in name only ’ She looked out at the horizon, still trying to come to terms with her discovery. ‘Yes. I suppose that is all you want.’
‘I do not want you as my wife in name only!’ he protested—too loudly, she thought, as he raised back up to his full height and began to pace.
‘But unless you’re prepared to be honest,’ she whispered brokenly, ’how could I ever be anything else?’
Leon stilled, and, lowering his eyes, he caught sight of a single tear rolling down her cheek. As it splashed onto her pregnant belly, something unbearable began to invade every organ in his body. Shame? Regret? Fear? No, all three. That afternoon, when she’d left here for Paris, all he had wanted was her trust, to believe that her hysterics weren’t some attempt to weasel something out of him. Now he realised that in agreeing to become his wife she had put her trust in him unquestionably, but he’d been so bloody single-minded—so driven by the solution she presented, by his own libido—that he’d trampled all over the one thing he had wanted to protect.
He dropped to the grass beside her, knowing it was too late, but that more than anything she deserved to know the truth, however shameful. ‘How I became the prince isn’t exactly something I’m proud of.’
Cally read the look of agony on his face. ‘Well, you should be,’ she said grudgingly. ‘Whatever else is true, giving up a career you were passionate about because your country needed you is admirable.’
‘It was my duty. It’s complicated how that came to be the case, but it was.’ He took a deep and ragged breath, his eyes fixed on the horizon. ‘My mother’s marriage to Arnaud was arranged by her social-climbing parents. It was an entirely loveless match, but she provided him with the son he desired and stayed loyal to him until he passed away. A few months after that, when she was still only in her late thirties, a sailor ran into trouble in the bay and she offered him shelter inside the palace whilst he repaired the engine on his boat. His name was Raoul Rénard.’ Leon paused over his name, a tortured expression in his eyes, and suddenly its significance dawned on Cally. ‘According to my mother, he was a descendent of the great artist Jacques Rénard. She fell deeply in love with him, and within weeks she was pregnant.’
Cally looked at him in wonder. That was why he had been willing to pay any sum for the paintings, and why he’d done so anonymously too: Jacques Rénard was one of his ancestors! She immediately felt guilty, for all the accusations she’d thrown at him about wanting them purely to boast about, and for how quickly she had jumped to the wrong conclusions about him. But they hadn’t been all wrong, she thought, wiping the stream of tears from her eyes with the sleeve of her cardigan. Even if he did have a deep attachment to the paintings, he still had no real attachment to her. If he did, he would have told her sooner, would have understood that her own passion for the Rénards ran just as deep. And he would have proposed because he loved her, she thought, stifling a renewed sob, not just because he needed a son.
‘And did he love her?’ Cally asked, wondering why, in spite of everything she had always known about true love being the stuff of legend, not history, she wanted to hear that he had.
‘Yes.’ Leon nodded gravely. ‘I believe he did. But my mother’s moment of happiness was short-lived. The next time my father returned to sea, the boat’s engine caught fire and he was killed.’ His eyes clouded as he recalled that the twist of fate which had been responsible for the start of his life had also led to his father’s death. ‘The shock sent my mother into labour early, and as a result the people of Montéz simply presumed that Arnaud was my father. My mother’s closest advisors suggested that was for the best. And, besides, I was the next in line regardless.’
Cally frowned. ‘But how?’
Leon replied in a voice that seemed to come from a long way off, and Cally realised that the guard she had been wanting him to drop ever since that night in London was slowly coming down before her eyes. But only now did she see that she had been wrong to assume that behind that closed door would be the proof that he loved her; the reality was that he felt nothing for her at all. Which probably ought to have fuelled her anger, but all she could think about was how much he’d had to deal with, how much she wanted to hold him.
‘The royal bloodline in Montéz differs from that of other countries, or at least it has since the turn of the sixteenth century,’ Leon continued, watching the breeze blow wisps of her hair out of her ponytail, wishing he had the right to smooth them away from her face, hating that he didn’t.
‘At that time, the king of the island, who had subjected the islanders to a long reign of oppression, was overthrown by a hero amongst the people named Sébastien. He was the tyrannical king’s illegitimate half brother—the son of the old king’s widow and one of the palace advisors. Sébastien declared that the royal family should be abolished and that Montéz should become a democracy. The people were overjoyed, but they clamoured for him to become the king. He was reluctant, but eventually he agreed, on one condition: that he and his future successors should only ever be known as Sovereign Prince, not King, as a reminder that the greatest power should always remain with the people.’
At what point had he lost sight of what mattered? Leon wondered, and what made him even think that his son would be the worthiest successor to the throne with him as a role model? He shook his head and continued. ‘But the rest of France was reluctant to accept Sébastien as the new sovereign, because he couldn’t prove that he was royal. The citizens of Montéz were outraged, and so, to grant him legitimate status, they voted for a change to the law. It states that any widow of the sovereign retains her royal status after his death, and thus any child she bears afterwards inherits that status and a claim to the throne, so long as she never marries again. Therefore, they argued, Sébastien’s mother had passed her royal status on to him.’ Leon took a deep breath. ‘As my mother did to me.’
Cally stared at him in amazement as all he had said sunk in, and the knock-on effects of the ancient and remarkable law began to crystallise in her mind. No wonder he had always spoken of his title as if it was something that didn’t really belong to him, but a job that he had reluctantly taken on. And no wonder he had always found the concept of marriage so intolerable. For when the sovereign of Montéz took a bride, he had to trust her to honour him not only during his lifetime but even after his death.
Which meant he had been willing to place that trust in you, a voice inside her whispered, but she ignored it, for what good was that if she couldn’t trust him? And what good had it done her to think this was just about feelings like trust or love, when he was a prince for whom marriage and children would always mean something more? Or was it really something less? she wondered sorrowfully.
‘So, there you have it,’ Leon concluded uneasily. ‘I am the prince, but only because of an ancient technicality. In terms of the usual rules of patrilineal descent, I do not have a drop of royal blood.’
Cally’s heart filled with empathy. ‘Do you really suppose it matters whose blood runs through your veins, Leon?’ she answered croakily, conscious that not so long ago she had been guilty of pigeonholing anyone with a title. ‘Why should it matter who your father was, whether you inherited the throne because of a technicality or because of biology? What matters is that the prince has the best interests of his country at heart. That was why the people supported Sébastien all those years ago, the same way your people would support you.’
‘Perhaps.’ Leon turned back to her, his eyes searching her face in wonder, wishing he hadn’t allowed the shame he felt for a past over which he had no control jeopardise his future with the only woman he had ever met who hadn’t cared who he was, who had cared only whether he was a decent man. Well, he thought grimly, he had proved that he wasn’t that all by himself. ‘Not long after Girard passed away, the truth bega
n to gnaw at me so badly that I almost made up my mind to find out. But I realised it would not only cause enormous unrest during an already turbulent time, but it would become common knowledge that any man who got Toria pregnant would be the father of the next Prince of Montéz, the consequences of which could have been catastrophic.’
‘But Toria herself has always known?’ Cally replied, her mind returning to the agonising present.
‘Girard explained the intricacies of the law when they married, but it wasn’t until after his death that she saw the opportunity to use what she had once seen as some boring old decree to benefit herself. When I resisted her advances, she realised that if she went to the papers with it it would ensure her a permanent following. That was what finally convinced me to reinstate the law against the press.’
‘So the only way left for her to take revenge on you was by actually getting pregnant?’ Cally stared agog, horrified that any woman could possibly use their potential for motherhood in such a despicable way.
‘At the time I thought so, but now I believe that angering me, attempting to drive a wedge between you and me, was a convenient by-product of an accidental pregnancy.’
‘Just like the solution to that problem was a convenient by-product of mine,’ Cally said despondently, tugging on a piece of grass.
‘I can’t pretend that isn’t partly true.’ Leon’s eyes were hooded, self-condemning. ‘But it isn’t that simple. I was always adamant that I never wanted to marry.’
She could understand that now, Cally thought, if not because of the peculiarities of the law then because of the loveless marriage his mother had endured, the union of misplaced trust his brother had fallen into.
He continued. ‘I’ve always been adamant that I didn’t want to marry, but once I met you I had to keep inventing new reasons why that was the case, because you kept proving all the old ones wrong. Like thinking all you wanted was fame or sex. By the time you went to Paris there weren’t any reasons left.’
‘Even if that is true—’ Cally shook her head ‘—you still didn’t do anything about it until you discovered that it was in the interests of your kingdom to act. And maybe I would have understood that too if you’d told me. But you didn’t.’
Leon nodded remorsefully. ‘I suppose I was still reluctant to admit it to myself, too scared you’d walk away if you knew and And then it stopped having anything to do with my kingdom anyway.’
‘What?’ Cally searched his face as he reached into his pocket and unfolded the newspaper article he had put there that morning, the one he had refused to show her, and placed it down on the grass.
At the centre was a wedding photo, Toria’s wedding photo, taken yesterday. Cally ran her eyes over the frothy white dress, the groom’s garish white suit and their baby son dressed like a cherub as she tried to process what it meant. Leon’s words rang through her mind: Any widow of the sovereign retains her royal status after his death, and thus any child she bears afterwards inherits that status and a claim to the throne, so long as she never marries again
What it meant was that the second that Toria had got her figure back marrying a high-profile footballer had appealed to her more than revenge. It meant that Toria’s son was no longer in line to the throne. And that meant, as of a few hours ago, Leon had had every reason to call their wedding off.
But he hadn’t, because he’d taken their marriage licences to the priest after that. She looked up into his face, her eyes enormous. ‘You mean you don’t need to marry me, but you were going to anyway?’
Chapter Fourteen
LEON nodded slowly, and part of Cally’s heart felt like it was about to explode with unmitigated joy.
He doesn’t need to, but he wants to marry you anyway, she repeated to herself.
Yet the other portion of her heart knew that whatever his reasons for wanting her to be his wife now, love couldn’t possibly be one of them. If he had loved her, he would have told her the truth about his past months ago, or a week ago, or even this morning. He would have wanted to be open with her and to find out how she felt about him. But he hadn’t, and he’d only told her now because she had accidentally stumbled upon his family tree.
‘I understand why you were reluctant to tell me,’ she said hopelessly. ‘I even admire the whole host of practical reasons you had for proposing. But when I agreed to marry you ’ She shook her head, knowing that now was the time for honesty on her part too, however futile. ‘It was because I was in love with you. I think I was from the first moment I laid eyes on you in London, and because of that I thought I could marry you even if you never loved me. But I can’t.’
As Leon listened, he felt something deep within him shift. Once he’d believed that women only used words like ’love’ as a means to an end, but Cally meant everything and wanted nothing. And that was the blinding moment when he realised that her love was everything he wanted, but the last thing that he deserved. Which was why, though the three little words hovered on his lips to say right back, he knew they weren’t enough.
He took a deep breath, wondering if he was capable of even half her integrity. ‘Let me show you something.’
‘What?’
‘Let me show you something.’ Leon rose to his feet, tentatively reaching out his hand to lead her somewhere—to the car parked on the driveway, by the looks of things—but not daring to touch her. He was probably afraid her emotion was contagious. So, the L word really did mean nothing to him, she thought. Was he just going to pretend she hadn’t mentioned it at all?
‘Now?’ she asked disbelievingly.
‘Yes, now.’ His brows creased with concern as he eyed her bump. ‘If you can.’
Cally was too emotionally exhausted to argue. So she let him help her into the passenger seat of the car. The plain and perfectly ordinary black car, she noticed dismally as he pulled away, wishing it could have been some ridiculous sports model so that she could loathe its excess. That would have been easier. Easier than thinking about the real reason he had spent a fortune on those paintings, or why he had always been happiest out in the ocean. Things that reminded her that he was not just a billionaire prince with an overly complex family tree, but a man, a man who she admired more than she’d ever thought possible.
Eventually, after what felt like an age of twisting and turning along the coast road—Cally staring helplessly at her puffy eyes and red cheeks in the wing mirror—he rolled the car to a standstill outside a modern white building just on the outskirts of the main town.
‘Where are we?’
Leon unfolded his lithe frame from the seat beside her and walked round to open her door. ‘That day when you called the university and I wasn’t there—I was here.’
Cally sighed. Four months ago, she had wanted nothing more than for him to show her where he had been all those mornings. Now it just seemed too little, too late. ‘You don’t need to show me.’
‘Yes, I do.’
Reluctantly, Cally followed him round to the front of the elegant building. He swiped a card and led them inside. It smelled of fresh paint, and there were workmen’s tools scattered on the floor.
‘This part should be finished by the end of the week,’ he said. ‘The rest is complete.’
Stepping over plastic sheeting, he led her through to an enormous atrium, and that was when she saw them. There, on the wall in front of her, were the Rénards, flanked by enormous windows which looked out over the Mediterranean.
Cally immediately hurried closer, her mind suddenly oblivious to everything except the ingenious way in which they’d been displayed. ‘His love by the sea,’ she whispered in disbelief, her eyes darting between the paintings and the view, then falling to the beautifully presented accompanying details which gave information on their composition and credited her with the restoration work. ‘When, how—What is this place?’
‘Ever since my mother told me I was descended from a great painter, it occurred to me that Montéz was lacking its own art gallery.’ Leon shrugged
, as if it had ceased to matter now. ‘Once I started working with Professeur Lefevre, I realised that the students at the university were going to need somewhere to showcase their own work too. So I started to have this place built. I just hadn’t planned to tell anyone until it was completely finished.’
‘It’s perfect,’ Cally said slowly, the genius of it running through her mind. ‘The big names will draw hundreds of visitors, and the students’ work will immediately be in the public eye.’ She shook her head in wonder. ‘Do you mean to tell me that you planned to display the Rénards here all along?’
Leon ran a hand over his forearm uncomfortably. ‘Much as I would like to say yes, that was not my intention initially. I bought that Goya in London, amongst others, to display here. But I bought the Rénards for myself. I suppose I wanted a little of my father’s history inside the palace.’ His eyes lifted to meet hers. ‘Until you made me realise that if I kept them there I would have more in common with that tyrannical sixteenth-century king than with my own ancestors.’
‘If I had known why you wanted them I would never have been so tactless,’ she said regretfully.
‘But, like you said, the blood that runs through my veins ought to be irrelevant. They deserve to be enjoyed by everyone. Besides, when it came down to it, they were not as hard to part with as something else.’ Leon nodded to the wall behind her and she turned.
‘My painting!’ Cally cried, utterly overwhelmed, and yet also wholly embarrassed to see her landscape, beautifully framed, hanging just a few feet away from the Rénards. An enormous lump rose in her throat that she had a job to swallow. ‘I—I thought if you found it you’d throw it in the sea.’
Leon shook his head. ‘It’s brilliant, Cally.’
‘Hardly.’
Leon raised his eyebrows. She looked at it again, and was forced to concede that it didn’t look as dire as she had imagined it might. Not that she had ever expected to see it again.
Prince of Montez, Pregnant Mistress Page 15
