His Arranged Marriage

by Tina Leonard

  As far as she was from Balahar, Serena felt farther from Cade. The idea of making love with him secretly thrilled her—and yet, she couldn’t imagine how they would ever become close enough that he would want to truly take her for his wife.

  CADE HELD HIS MOTHER’S stern gaze before glancing at his brother. Mac was distinctly uncomfortable. Mac and Serena had met briefly, and Mac had already expressed his relief at not being the one to marry the princess.

  “She’s beautiful, Cade,” Mac had said sincerely. “But she’s not my type. I certainly wouldn’t have been happy in this arranged marriage. Not that I mean for you to take care of my responsibility, but—”

  “You won’t believe this, but I had a chance to back out of the marriage. I could have walked away. Hell, I could have just said that the whole thing was a mistake. But I didn’t.” He shrugged. “That told me I wasn’t immune to the situation.”

  “My choice of words was poor,” Mac said hastily. “I didn’t mean to refer to the princess as a responsibility.”

  “I know you didn’t mean that, bro. I just don’t want you to feel I did something I didn’t want to. Nobody held a sword to my head, that’s for sure. As much as I would have thought someone would have had to before I met Serena.”

  “You like her that much?” Mac asked.

  “I don’t know.” Cade had thought that over for a moment. “She’s my wife, though, and for some reason, I’m happy about it.”

  Mac had clapped him on the back. “Congratulations, brother.”

  Now Rose stared at both of them with searching eyes. “Your out-of-town errand, Mac, was only an excuse, then?”

  “A little of both,” he replied. “I wanted to see the horses, but I also had to get away to think through my engagement.”

  “So you didn’t know that Kadar planned on marrying Princess Serena under false pretenses?” She glared accusingly at Cade. “Clearly you are totally at fault. I blame you for this lack of respect for the king and myself, Kadar. You don’t seem to take the royalty seriously.”

  “Mother—” Mac began, but Cade overrode him.

  “Maybe I haven’t taken it as seriously as you would have liked me to,” Cade said. “But once I got there, I took the whole matter very seriously. I realized that there had been an understanding, or a misunderstanding on my part, as to my presence in Balahar. Although I had not meant to accept the princess, I would not have backed out at that time. I know how much this means to you, Mother,” he said more gently. “And therefore it is important to me.”

  In the hallway, Serena backed away from the door with all the stealth of a palace spy. Not wishing to be waited upon, or to be a trouble to her new family, she had decided to hunt the kitchen up herself—and stumbled upon a private family counsel. Her heart shrank inside her for a reason she couldn’t understand immediately.

  Never had she dreamed that her husband would not want her for the wifely duties she expected to perform.

  Although she didn’t know exactly what happened when two people made love, her body had sent her signals she knew meant that she wanted to be alone with him, in his arms.

  She understood Cade’s wish to save face for his family, but…it hurt more than it should have for a marriage that had been arranged between two strangers. Apparently there was nothing the prince wanted from her, so she brought nothing to the bargaining table—no emotional dowry, in effect. Nothing for her to offer a man?

  For a princess used to negotiating as a way of life, this was a very hard fact to accept.

  “THIS MARRIAGE WILL HAVE to be annulled,” Rose announced. “As much as you may have meant well, Kadar, you are still not the prince that King Zak believed he contracted for his daughter.”

  “No,” Cade said definitively. “Mac does not want to be married to the princess.” He took a deep breath. “I do.”

  “Since when have you wished to be married?” Rose asked in disbelief.

  “Since I laid eyes on Serena.” Cade looked at his mother with eyes that communicated his sincerity. “I wouldn’t have found a woman I loved on my own, Mother. Being thrown into it is probably the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”

  “I don’t believe you can be happy this way, Kadar,” Rose said. “Believe me, your nature does not allow you to be happy when you’ve been pushed into something. You are not one to accept someone’s will over your own.”

  “No one’s will was placed over mine.”

  “Mine was. You did this for Mac. You went over there in his place, no doubt thinking to save him the trouble. You find yourself married and now will not admit, even to yourself, that somehow you must extricate yourself from this mistake.” Rose sighed. “I do not want to be the one to tell King Zak that his daughter’s marriage is not real. That you basically kidnapped her from under his nose.” Rose sank into a chair. “Still, this deception must be resolved.”

  “I will speak to him. Maybe I can convince King Zak of my sincerity.”

  Rose snorted. “He will want more than your sincerity. He may very well ask for your head.”

  “Why? Why is Mac a better match than me? Serena knew neither of us.”

  “You are saying he should simply be content to have a man for his daughter?” Rose asked in disbelief. “You or any other, it makes no difference whom?”

  “I’m simply saying that I want her, whereas my brother did not. I will take good care of Serena if she feels she can be happy here, and with me.”

  “Your wishes are not what matter, my son,” Rose said tiredly. “I am sorry. It is scandalous that bridegrooms switched places and that negotiations were ignored. It smacks of trickery and is no way to ingratiate one’s self with his father-in-law.”

  “What about her wishes? She may prefer me to Mac.” Cade was pretty certain the princess had not been immune to him. At least he hoped she was not.

  “These things do not matter where royal marriages are concerned.”

  “I don’t consider myself royally married. We will never live in Balahar. I will not be a ruler.”

  Rose shrugged. “This is a point on which your wishes and Serena’s may not be in harmony. She married with the expectation that she would remain a princess, not become a rancher’s wife. It is a very different world than she would expect, Cade. I don’t know many women who would want or care to make the transition.”

  This was a salient point, Cade silently conceded. Life on a Texas ranch had weeded out many a woman. “I need some time with Serena,” he said slowly. “Some time for her to adjust to the ranch before she makes up her mind that she wants to be married to me, and to live here at the ranch.” He thought for a few moments. “How long can we hold off King Zak?”

  Chapter Six

  “It is the first time I ever saw such a spark in Cade’s eyes,” Rose stated as she sat in the kitchen with her brother, Randy, and his wife, Vi. Rose knew that she could trust these two more than any other with the thorny dilemma confronting her. “My first thought was to call the king immediately. But when I saw Cade struggle not to let me know how much he wanted time for Princess Serena to fall in love with The Desert Rose, I knew he was really asking for time for her to fall in love with him.”

  “I never thought I’d see the day,” Vi said happily. “How did you end the conversation?”

  “I agreed to think over whether I could possibly stall King Zak. After all, the situation is beyond highly irregular.”

  Randy laughed. “Love can make a man do highly irregular things.”

  Rose noticed the strange look Vi gave her husband. But the moment passed, and Vi’s features relaxed into the same pleasant expression she always wore. “How can we help you with this, Rose?”

  Always one to ask how she could help, Rose thought gratefully. “I don’t know how exactly. Mainly I needed a listening ear to help me decide if I would be doing the right thing if I assisted Cade in this romance.”

  “Our ears are always available,” Randy assured her.

  “Separate bedrooms come to
mind first,” Vi said.

  “Separate bedrooms?” Randy queried his wife.

  “For Cade and Serena.” Vi looked at her husband again, her expression uncomfortable. “Don’t you think that’s a good idea?”

  “I suppose so. Women think about sex differently than men, I know. Will it further the relationship for them to be separated? Seems to me that close quarters is more likely to—”

  “Randy!” Vi exclaimed. “You are discussing a princess, remember.”

  “Who is just the same as any other woman, I would imagine. She will want to be told she is beautiful, and desirable, and—”

  “And you think that the only place to do this is in the bedroom?”

  Silence met Vi’s question. Rose felt a dismayed blush steal over her face. It was clear that her two dearest allies had something to work out between them, although clearly Vi thought that there was more of a problem than Randy apparently did. “Perhaps we should discuss this another time,” she murmured.

  “Womanly feelings aside, King Zak is not going to want his daughter returned to him in any condition other than that in which she left his palace,” Vi said sternly, “should she decide that The Desert Rose—or Prince Kadar—is not to her liking.”

  “Your point is taken.” Rose shifted in her chair. “I may ask the two of you to assist me in some matchmaking if necessary.” It suddenly hit her that if anyone was in need of assistance in the love department, it might be Randy and Vi. Which was strange, as they had an upcoming anniversary for which Randy was busily planning a surprise celebration. “And yet perhaps quiet time alone away from court manipulations—or even matchmaking here—might be the better thing.”

  “Will you want them to stay married?” Randy asked. “Is there a problem with it?”

  “I simply do not know how to explain it to the king. He is going to feel that we pulled the wool over his eyes. He may demand that his daughter return at once. With arranged marriages, everything is supposed to be laid out on the table at the beginning. Both sides know what they are getting, and what they are giving. But it is very difficult for me, because I saw the possessive gleam in my son’s eyes. Believe me, I would like him to fall in love with a strong, intelligent woman like Princess Serena. I am most impressed with her. I want him to have this marriage, if indeed the two of them are meant for each other.”

  “You would be willing to intercede for Cade if you saw that the two of them had mutual ground to build on?” Vi asked.

  “For that I would be willing to intercede,” Rose admitted. “I, too, remember the feeling of wanting a love to last beyond all expectations that it should.” She sighed, her eyes misty with memory. “It is exquisite beyond all compare when the heart sees its mate in another soul.”

  IF HER PRIDE WAS a bit tattered, Serena was determined no one would know it. She would not force Cade to stay in a marriage he had found himself in unexpectedly. She had dreamed of a prince for too long to be unwanted.

  She tied on a half apron similar to the one she had seen Rose wearing, and began to peel the potatoes that were set out in a bowl atop the kitchen counter.

  “We have a cook,” Cade said as he came into the kitchen. “You don’t need to do that.”

  “I will do it,” Serena said, “as your mother did the cooking this afternoon. I saw the apron she wore when we arrived, and I saw her peel a potato. I can do it.”

  The glance Cade sent her was puzzled. “My mother likes to cook.”

  “You think I do not? I like to cook.” If she hadn’t in several years, and nothing more than popcorn in the dormitory, it was her business to know and not Cade’s. Of course, the knife she was using to peel the potatoes did not move as smoothly as it had for Rose, who had cut off the skins in deft, even swirls. The potato seemed to squirm in her hand, an unwilling ally in her show of pride.

  “You are going to end up getting a tour of an American emergency room like that,” Cade warned. “Let me show you how to do that before you cut yourself.”

  “Men do not peel potatoes,” Serena said, ignoring his request but trimming the vegetable more slowly.

  “This man does whatever he likes,” Cade said, putting his hands over hers as he stood behind her.

  Serena froze. Never had a man stood with such proximity to her! Her father’s palace guards, indeed her own servants, would be shocked. “You mustn’t stand so close,” she said, embarrassed and unable to pay attention to the lesson she was supposed to be receiving as the peels flew into the sink.

  He hesitated, the sure stroking ceasing. “I am not standing close, Princess. Not as close as I hope to one day.”

  She could feel his breath on the back of her neck where she had pulled her hair up into a long ponytail suitable for kitchen work. Tingles stormed her arms and legs. “You must forgive me, but I am not used to such familiarity.”

  “You asked me to consummate our marriage,” he pointed out. “That seemed very familiar to me.”

  Heat flushed into her face as she recognized laughter in his tone. “A consummation would be merely an act to legitimize our union.”

  “Hmm. I don’t think that’s what you’d say when we were through consummating, as you like to call it, Princess.” He put the potato, cleanly peeled, into an empty bowl and reached for another, his hands still on top of hers with every movement.

  She stiffened as he began moving her fingers with his in the orchestrated peeling motion that left another potato neatly exposed, its skin lying in the sink in one long, circular ribbon. Her emotions felt like that, easily peeled from her to reveal a virginal heart.

  No. She was a princess. She could restrain her emotions as she was accustomed to doing. “What do you think I would call it, Prince Kadar, other than consummation?” she asked icily. “Are you correcting my use of the English language, or bragging like a schoolboy?”

  He moved closer, and she felt hot hardness nestle at the base of her spine. She gasped. A gentle, lingering kiss was placed at the back of her neck under her ponytail, and Serena jumped, the potato dropping into the sink as she whirled to face him. She stared up at him, seeing the playfulness in his eyes.

  “I would never correct your English, Princess Serena, but I wouldn’t brag, either.”

  He rubbed his palms up over her arms but didn’t attempt to kiss her again. She waited for the frenzied dance of her heart to subside so that she could breathe, and yet, she became aware of the presence of his heat at her waist even as she tried to edge back against the sink counter. Her heart danced harder, leaving her unable to do anything but wait for him to move away.

  “When I make love to you, Princess,” he said huskily, “I want you to call it heaven. I want you to know that you have been loved in a way no other man could make you feel.” He pressed his lips to her forehead, her temple, the tip of her nose, lingering just at her cheekbone. “If I make love to you, and you get out of my bed unsatisfied that we have consummated our union, I will put you back in my jet and take you home to Balahar. I make that promise to you.”

  She shivered, down to her sandaled toes. “I did not mean to insult you…your, um…lovemaking ability, Prince Kadar.”

  He laughed, moving his lips to her hairline. He warmed her with his nearness, even to the middle part in her hair. “I am not insulted. I am telling you that I want to please you and make you happy, not conform to a legal definition. When I am inside you, we will be man and woman, not prince and princess.”

  “Oh, my goodness,” she murmured. Her mind had never stretched to hearing words like these. Never had her imagination conjured up a romantic relationship. She had always thought in terms of royal lineages, countries bonded through mutually advantageous arrangements, marriages of respect but not necessarily love. “You are not what I expected in a man at all.”

  “I can breed horses all day long if I want to, Serena. Breeding is for animals. Making love is part of marriage.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, at her part. “I am trying to seduce you.”

&nbs
p; “It’s working, I think,” she said on a nervous laugh. “In the palace, many people say flowery things to earn favor, but I look upon them with scorn. I do not like flowery words, and yet I like yours.”

  “You’re talking about bootlicking, or in your case, maybe it’s sandal-slobbering,” he told her, brushing his lips against hers. “I’m romancing you, and glad to hear you like it.”

  “I do,” she said softly. “Let me romance you.”

  He lifted a brow, yet his smile was kind. “Go ahead.”

  She cleared her throat. “Ah, let me see. Okay. Prince Kadar, when I make love to you, you will know that strands of ephemeral silk tie your heart to mine, and you will never want to break them.”

  She leaned up against him, lightly pressing her breasts against his lower chest, and Cade felt his own body igniting.

  “And,” she continued, her eyes full of earnest purpose, “you will thank the stars that you are not a palace eunuch because you have known such pleasure at my hands.”

  He closed his eyes, unwilling to allow her to see the laughter there. His princess’s first attempt at seduction should be cherished. “I can’t wait, Serena,” he said with a smile.

  “I am pleased that you are happy,” she said with a sweet smile for him. “I appreciate you explaining to me the difference between consummating a marriage and making love.” She turned back to the sink. “And I very much appreciate you teaching me how to properly peel potatoes.”

  He frowned at his princess’s back. Her swift escape from the romantically playful mood they’d been in spoke to her innocence, but it also made him wonder if he’d had Serena under his spell as much as he’d thought, or if she’d merely been pleasing him—humoring him.

  Less sure of himself now, Cade said, “It was no trouble at all. I’ll see you at dinner,” and excused himself from the kitchen. A ride on his favorite horse would give him time to think over his marriage—and his wife. Perhaps he could come up with some answers as to how to convince this beautiful princess that there was a huge difference between consummate and conjugate.