The room was large, with tall diamond-paned windows. Bookcases filled with gold-tooled leather volumes lined two walls. A huge heavily carved antique desk with an inlaid top stood on a raised platform not far from the windows. There were a number of beautiful old chairs and couches arranged in separate conversation areas, and a thronelike seat, also slightly raised, with lower chairs grouped around it, used when her father granted private audiences to those who served him, or to freemen who had earned a coveted few moments of his undivided attention.
Liv didn’t see the other man until she cleared the massive arch that separated the antechamber from the main room. He stood off to the side, near a rather devilish looking bust of some Norse god or other. He wore a suit every bit as beautiful as the one her father wore, though it was lighter in color, a soft charcoal-gray. His eyes were the honeyed amber-brown she remembered from the magical, impossible, reprehensible night-before-last.
Liv froze at the sight of him, a small sound of distress escaping her before she could collect herself and call it back.
Intimate images insisted on flashing, unbidden, through her mind. Those eyes…
They had seemed to see right inside her—all her secrets, all her longings—as his lean naked body pressed her down into the green sweet-smelling grass.
She thought of her lost panties. Did he have them? Did he know where they were?
Oh, this was awful. It was exactly what she’d hoped to avoid at all costs: the chance of running into him again.
And there was absolutely no reason she could see why he should be here.
Unless…
But no. That was impossible. He would never tell her father what had happened between them the night before last. Why should he? What could that possibly get him? Except maybe the king’s ire.
Oh, God. Had someone seen them? And then carried the tale to her father?
And even if such a thing had happened, well, why call a meeting about it? It was acutely embarrassing, yes. It showed a distinct lack of judgment on Liv’s part and on Finn’s.
But this, after all, was an era when royals sometimes cohabitated without benefit of matrimony. That an unmarried princess and an equally unattached prince might spend a few passionate, imprudent hours together simply wasn’t the end of the world.
Plus, it had happened on Midsummer’s Eve. In Gullandria, the way she understood it, Midsummer’s Eve was the one night a year when, as the old saying went, anything goes.
Her father spoke again, his tone irritatingly neutral. “Of course, you know Prince Greyfell. And Prince Danelaw.”
Liv nodded at each man in turn, taking care not to meet Finn’s eyes. “Yes, hello. Good to…see you both.” The old prince and the young one honored her with the usual fist-to-chest salute.
As Liv concentrated on not looking at Finn, she found herself pondering the whole prince question. In Gullandria, all male jarl born of married parents were princes, each a possible successor to the throne. When her father, for whatever reason, could no longer rule, the princes would gather in the gold-domed Grand Assembly building down in the capital. They would hold a special election, know as the Kingmaking, and a new king would be named from among them.
Thus, in her father’s palace, virtually every man she met who wasn’t a servant or a soldier was a prince. Kind of diluted the meaning of the word, if you asked Liv—which, of course, no one had.
Liv faced her father. She gave him a big smile. “Well, I’m glad you sent for me. I did want to say goodbye and—”
Her father raised a hand for silence. “Liv, my dear. I didn’t call you here to tell you goodbye.”
A weighty sense of foreboding caused her to swallow. Convulsively. “You didn’t?”
“No. I called you here so that we might discuss your upcoming marriage to Prince Danelaw.”
Chapter Four
Liv stared at her father. Surely he hadn’t said what she’d thought he’d said.
She heard herself croak in sheer disbelief, “You can’t be serious.”
“Ah,” said her father in a gentle, kindly tone that made her want to grab a heavy, blunt object and break it over his head. “But I am serious. A marriage has become imperative. And I think you know why.”
Liv kept her shoulders back and her hands at her sides. Of course, it didn’t matter what he knew or what he commanded her to do—at least, not aside from how utterly mortified she felt at the thought that somehow her father had found out about Friday night. She was her own woman and would run her own life.
And never in a million years would she marry Finn Danelaw.
Still, she did want to know what information he actually had and where he might have gotten it. She sent Finn a hot glare. He looked back at her, one bronze eyebrow slightly lifted—cool, collected. Giving her nothing.
Her father continued, “I know that you and Finn spent Midsummer’s Eve out in my parkland, indulging in…amorous adventures, shall we say?”
“Who told you that?”
Osrik didn’t even blink. “You deny it?”
She did not. She wasn’t proud of the truth, but she had more respect for herself than to tell lies about it. “I only asked who told you.”
Her father waved a hand. “Suffice to say, there is nothing you do in Isenhalla or on the grounds surrounding it that I won’t learn about.” He paused, then swept his arm out toward the windows—and the world beyond. “There’s nothing you do in the whole of my kingdom that I won’t hear of, eventually.”
“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.
Prince and Future... Dad? Page 4
