"Spies?" she demanded. "That's what you're talking about. You've got spies on me—and on Brit, too, right?" Suddenly, the annoying behavior of the chambermaid was starting to make sense. And if he had the chambermaid reporting to him, spying on his daughters for him, then he probably did know everything. It was altogether possible that the maid could have been there, lurking, listening to everything Liv had told Brit both last night, and the night before.
Osrik went on, "I was prepared to overlook your misadventures the other night. After all, it was Midsummer's Eve and you were raised an American. You have no real sense of your true place and responsibilities in the world. But a pregnancy cannot be overlooked."
Liv stared at her father unflinching. "With all due respect, Father, I'm not even going to dignify that bit about me and my 'place' in the world with a response. As for the rest of it—ridiculous. Prince Danelaw and I were … together for one night. It hasn't even been forty-eight hours since then. The likelihood that I'm pregnant isn't all that high—and there's no way to prove it right now, even if I am."
Osrik granted her an infuriatingly patronizing shrug of his proud, well-tailored shoulders. "I had, I confess, high hopes for you, Liv. I won't go into detail about my plans. There's no point. Now that there's a child coming, my hopes must be put aside."
The man was impossible. Assumption piled upon assumption. Liv didn't know how to answer them all. So she picked one of the major ones. "How many ways can I say it? You don't know that I'm pregnant. I don't know that I'm pregnant. There is no way for anyone to know at this point whether I might be pregnant or not."
"Of course there's a way. There's what happened to you last night."
"Who told you what happened to me last night?"
He didn't answer, only went on as if she hadn't asked the question. "Your mother had my children. I know the Freyasdahl symptoms and I know those symptoms have never been wrong. You're pregnant, Liv. I've spoken with Finn and he has agreed to marry you as soon as we can reasonably make the arrangements."
Liv could not find words blistering enough to express her unqualified contempt for virtually everything her father had said since she'd entered that room. While she cast about for them, Osrik let out a long sigh. He and Prince Greyfell exchanged knowing looks.
Osrik said ruefully, "As I mentioned, this marriage is not what I intended for you. But after what happened with Elli—which was not at all what I at first wanted for her—I find I'm learning to be more flexible." He gestured grandly at Finn, as if drawing her attention to some fine piece of horseflesh or a prime breeding bull. "Finn Danelaw is the scion of an ancient and important family. His holdings are extensive. You will not be disappointed in the wealth and influence he brings you. It's not a bad match by any means."
Liv was still seeking the right final, scathing words. They had to be just right. After all, her father was a king. And even a daughter had to use some care when giving a dressing-down to a king. She slid one more hard, burning glance at Finn. He met her look coolly, as if none of this ridiculousness really involved him, as if he were a mildly interested spectator at a melodramatic play.
Liv almost hated him at that moment. How dare he stand there, looking faintly amused as her father informed her that she had to bind her life to his?
She faced her father proudly. "Listen. Listen carefully. It is not going to happen. I am not marrying Prince Danelaw. I am … appalled at this, at all of this. I don't know which of your outrages to answer first. If you will remember, you gave up my sisters and me when we were only babies. We never knew you. We still don't know you." And I don't want to know you, she added silently. "The mere fact that you would dare to have 'plans' for me is insulting enough. But the rest is so much worse. You've spied on me. You've invaded my privacy and found out things you have absolutely no right to know. You've taken the information gleaned by your spies and used it to pressure a man who doesn't love me—a man I don't love—into marrying me. Evidently, all the awful things my mother ever hinted at about you are true. You're an impossible chauvinistic manipulator of other people's lives."
There was a rather grisly silence. Liv knew she had gone too far, but she couldn't make herself feel sorry that she'd done it.
At last, her father said, too quietly, "You would do well to guard that tongue of yours, daughter. No matter what you may think of me, I am king here."
"Yes, you are," Liv readily agreed. "And that's why I'm going back to my country. Today. I am not—"
"Stop!" Osrik cut her off with a booming shout and then instantly lowered his voice to an ominous growl. "You will go nowhere. No daughter of mine will bear a bastard. It's a crime against humanity and I won't have it."
"You?" Liv went nose to nose with him. "You won't have it? You don't have a thing to say about. No horse in this race. No dog in this show. If, by chance—and believe me, I don't think it's so—I do turn out to be pregnant, I'll be the one deciding what to do about it. And one thing I can tell you right now, I won't be marrying Finn Danelaw and I'm going home today—and all right, that's two things, and I'm doing both of them."
"You will stay!" Her father shouted. "You will marry!"
"No, I won't!"
"Don't you dare to disobey me!"
"Disobey you? How could I possibly disobey you? I am not one of your subjects, nor am I a—" Liv broke off with a cry of surprise. Finn had stepped up and snared her hand. She rounded on him. "Let me go, you—" Something in his eyes stopped her, just cut her off cold.
She glared at him, fuming, as he tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. It was smoothly done—lightly, with what seemed like no effort at all.
His grip, however, wasn't light in the least. It was warm steel.
He leaned too close and whispered silkily, "Come with me, my darling. We'll talk."
A shiver went through her, purely sexual, at the sound of that whisper, at the feel of his breath against her cheek. Her own response stunned her. How could she even think about sex at this moment, let alone shiver over it?
She opened her mouth to announce that she was not, by any stretch of a wild imagination, his darling, and he'd better let go of her or she'd break his damned arm—but then she noticed that her father had stepped back.
Apparently, Osrik was willing to let Finn handle this.
Ha. Finn Danelaw was not the one who'd be doing the handling here. The man was a player, after all.
Not the marrying kind, as they say. If she got him alone, it should be easy to make him admit he was only doing this because he felt he had to. Once she made it clear to him that he didn't have to, they could come to an understanding—one in which he could go his way and she would go hers.
"All right," she said loftily. "We'll go to my rooms."
Her head high, she allowed Finn to lead her out.
* * *
Chapter Five
« ^ »
When they reached the pair of expressionless soldiers at the doors to her suite, Liv commanded, "Out of here. Both of you. Now."
She got no response aside from the usual twin fist-to-heart salutes.
"You two, you guards. I mean it." Her too-loud voice echoed in the wide hallway. "Get lost."
They didn't move.
Beside her, Finn said quite calmly, "By the king's command, you are both dismissed. Go to your quarters. Await further orders."
In unison, the soldiers barked, "Yes, Your Highness." They pivoted on their black boot-heels and marched off down the hall.
Liv couldn't believe it. "That's what you say to them, by the king's command, and they do what you tell them to?"
Prince Finn sketched the most elegant of shrugs. "Plausibility was on my side."
She frowned. "Meaning it's not on mine?"
"Liv," he said tenderly, "you are such a pugnacious creature."
"Creature? I'm a creature?"
"No need to screech."
"I'd say I have a right to do a little screeching at this point. Answer my question."
He gave her a patient look. "Since I'd assume they were stationed here to guard you, it's unlikely they'd believe you were authorized to send them away."
This whole situation irritated her no end. "Guard me? Oh, please. They weren't here to guard me. They were here to make note of the comings and goings of Their Royal Highnesses and report what they saw back to my father."
Finn chose, probably wisely, not to reply to that one. Instead, he reached for one of the door handles. "Shall we go in?" He ushered her over the threshold, pulling the door shut behind them. They proceeded, Liv in the lead, to the formal drawing room.
She threw out a hand in the direction of a chair. "Take a seat. I'll be right back. I want to make certain we have this discussion alone." She headed for the hallway that led to the kitchen.
She caught the maid just beyond the open doorway-lurking as usual. "All right. I want you out of here."
"But, Your Highness—"
"Out. I mean it. Go."
The maid backed up and Liv advanced. Finally, with a cry, the maid turned and fled.
Liv chased her into the suite's small kitchen, where she found the cook playing solitaire at the table. "Okay. You, too. Out. Now." She made broad shooing motions.
The cook, looking terrified, shoved back her chair. Liv herded her toward the maid and then urged them both toward the door to the back stairs. "Go on. Out." Finally the maid flung the door wide and fled, the cook close on her heels. "And stay out!" Liv slammed the door behind them.
She stalked back down the hall and into the drawing room.
Finn had taken the seat she'd offered him. He stood when she came toward him, still wearing that exasperating expression of aloof good humor. His eyes met hers. Her pulse quickened—why, she could hear her heart beating.
Oh, this was way, way disturbing. She not only had to be disappointed in herself for her actions of two nights ago. She also displayed all the indications of an ongoing attraction to this patently unsuitable man.
How was that possible? Hadn't being attracted to him gotten her into enough of a mess already? "Look, Finn, I—"
He shushed her with a finger to his fine, sensual mouth—and reached for her hand. Scowling, she let him drag her toward the hall where she'd found the spying maid. How, she wondered as he led her along, could the mere clasp of his hand around hers send a thrill racing through her? Stuff like that didn't happen in real life—or at least, not in Liv Thorson's life.
He paused before the open door to the suite's informal sitting area and looked in. "This will do."
"I don't—"
He turned again, winked and once more brought his finger to his lips. She almost snapped at him to stop shushing her, but he was already dragging her into the room, across the fine Persian rugs to a fat velvet sofa. He sat her down in the middle of it and went to switch on the TV and the radio, too.
"What in the world is the matter with you?" she asked as the radio blared Norwegian pop and a gorgeous Gullandrian weather girl pointed at a map on the TV and babbled cheerfully about the North Atlantic drift.
With that stunning lazy grace of his, he dropped down beside her. "Speak softly." His beautiful, tender mouth was not all that far from her ear, his voice low and seductive, his breath, as before in her father's chambers, warm and sweet against her cheek.
Through the fog of despicable desire he aroused in her, she took his meaning. "You think the suite is bugged?"
He nodded.
And she supposed he could be right. If her father would plant spies in her rooms, there was no reason he wouldn't throw in a little electronic surveillance, as well.
But what did Finn care? She asked him, whispering, "What does it matter to you if my father hears us?"
"It doesn't," he whispered back. "But I thought it mattered to you."
"Ah," she said, absurdly touched by his thoughtfulness. "Well. Okay…"
So the radio and the television stayed on and they remained close together there on the couch, speaking in near whispers—a truly nerve-racking way to speak with a man as dangerously seductive as Finn. But it couldn't be helped. With superhuman effort, Liv managed to maintain something resembling a train of thought.
She spoke the truth. In a civil and reasonable tone. "Finn. Seriously. You have to see that a marriage between you and me would be a disaster. We're strangers, really. Strangers from completely different worlds. And neither of us is ready for marriage. You're a confirmed bachelor who until this morning has shown no inclination to marry anyone." She tried a little joke. "I mean, what will all the ladies around here say? They'll be so disappointed…" She waited for him to chuckle.
He didn't. "I'm sure they'll survive." He took her hand, turned it over and traced a heart in the center of her palm, his head bent to the task. Then he looked up and met her eyes again.
That amber gaze seduced her. Her palm seemed to sizzle where his finger had brushed it. And her foolish heart was knocking so loudly she knew he had to be able to hear it, even over the chatty Gullandrian weather girl and the haunting Secret Garden tune on the radio. Liv had a fine brain. Too bad it ceased to work properly when this man was around.
She cleared her throat and forged on. "Finn, I'm, well, I'm on a career fast track right now. I've got to finish getting my education and then I've got to build a reputation as an attorney. I have plans for myself. Important plans. I'm sure it's not easy for a lot of men to understand—particularly, forgive me for saying it, men from Gullandria—but I've got a future, in the law, in the political arena. As far as my life goes, marriage and babies are a long way off."
He was watching her, leaning in, listening so patiently. So attentively. He was very good at that. At listening, one on one. He made a woman feel so … cherished and important. As if he was literally hanging on her every word.
It was very seductive.
And there it was, that word again. Seductive. Various forms of that word popped into her head with scary frequency when Finn Danelaw was near.
He said softly, "Are you finished?"
As an undergraduate, Liv had taken Speech as her minor. She was a killer in debate; she did her homework and knew how to think on her feet. As a rule, she won. Often, like many high achievers, she'd dream of blowing it big time, of getting stuck debating a crack team on a subject of which she knew nothing, of trying to fake it, of failing miserably.
It was very strange. Back in her father's chambers, she'd felt so strong and sure. She'd known herself to be in the right, known exactly what to say. She'd lined up her points and fired them off straight on target.
But now, here, alone with Finn…
She felt as though she'd somehow wandered into her own bad dream: the nightmare debate. She wasn't prepared. He would triumph utterly, with patience and good humor. With understanding.
With sheer seductiveness.
She blinked. "I … uh, go ahead. What is it? Say what you have to say."
Somehow, he had captured her hand again. He kept doing that, taking her hand after she pulled it away. And then, for a while, she would let him hold it. Because it felt so good, so right, so natural, that he should.
And then she would realize what she was doing and pull it away.
Only to have him capture it once more.
She stared at him. He stared back, the beginnings of a smile on that mouth she couldn't make herself forget she had kissed.
That mouth, God help her, she wouldn't mind kissing again.
That mouth began to move. "Darling Liv…"
She pulled her hand free. "There. Now. That."
"What?" His voice was teasing. Gentle. In the background, the weather girl had finished. A man was talking now. The music on the radio droned on.
"I … well, Finn. You shouldn't call me that. I don't want you to call me that."
"What should I call you, if not by your name?"
"I don't mean my name, you know I don't. I mean 'darling.' I would appreciate it if you wouldn't call me darling."
He
considered for a moment, his head tipped slightly to the side. And then he caught her hand again. They both stared downward, at his hand around hers. His skin was so warm. His fingers were long, the pads smooth, but callused at the inner joints—the hands of a man who rode. He had a spectacular seat on a horse.
And those hands … oh, they felt delicious against her skin.
She remembered, in a vivid flash, the other night. Those hands rubbing in the hollow of her back, brushing over her belly, sliding down into the secret wetness between her open thighs…
She looked up. "Please. This is disorienting."
"All right," he said, as if he had seen what was going through her mind and had decided to take pity on her. He let go of her hand. The minute he did, she found herself wishing he hadn't.
Oh, she was thinking. This is bad, bad, bad…
He began to speak in a half whisper. "As to your plans for your education and future career, I don't see a problem." How did he do that, manage a tone both reasonable and intimate at the same time? "I'm sure you'll get to all that. In good time. But right now, you're having a baby. My baby."
She couldn't let that pass. "But I'm not—"
He raised a hand. "I believe I'm the one speaking now."
She pressed her lips together and nodded. "Go on."
"Thank you." His brows drew together. He looked so serious, so very concerned. "I want you to know that I do regret having put you in this position. It shouldn't have happened. I should have used more care. But now that it has happened, well, you see, this is Gullandria. It's a terrible thing to be born a bastard here. Perhaps you've spoken to your sister, Princess Elli, on the subject…"
She didn't care how serious and concerned he looked. She didn't like where he was headed. "Was that a question?"
"Well, have you?"
Elli's new husband, Hauk, had been born of unmarried parents. When he and Elli declared they would marry no matter what, Osrik had legitimized Hauk. Until then, Elli's warrior had carried the shameful prefix of "fitz" before his name. His childhood, Elli had implied more than once to Liv, had been deeply stigmatized, a living hell.
Prince and...Future Dad Page 4
