Pure Princess, Bartered Bride

He decided it was a small one. He decided that he, Luc Garnier, who prided himself on a life lived free of the cloying perfume of emotions, could tolerate hers. Even indulge them on occasion.

“You have made him proud,” he told her, nodding at her father, feeling benevolent. “You are the jewel of his kingdom.”

Finally she turned her head and met his gaze. The shine of tears was gone, and her sea-colored eyes were clear and grave as she regarded him.

“Some jewels are prized for their sentimental value,” she said, her musical voice pitched low, but not low enough to hide the faint tremor in it. “And others for their monetary value.”

“You are invaluable,” he told her, assuming that would be the end of it. Didn’t women love such compliments? He’d never bothered to give them before. But Gabrielle shrugged, her mouth tightening.

“Who is to say what my father values?” she asked, her light tone unconvincing. “I would be the last to know.”

“But I know,” he said.

“Yes.” Again that grave sea-green gaze. “I am invaluable—a jewel without price.” She looked away. “And yet somehow contracts were drawn up, a price agreed upon, and here we are.”

There was the taint of bitterness to her words. Luc frowned. He should not have indulged her—he regretted the impulse. This was what happened when emotions were given rein. Was she so foolish? How had she imagined the courtship of a royal princess, next in line to her country’s throne, would proceed?

“Tell me, Your Royal Highness,” he said, leaning close, enjoying the way her eyes widened. Though she did not back away from him. He liked her show of courage, but he wanted to make his point perfectly clear. “What was your expectation? You are not, as you say, other girls. Did you expect to find your king in the online personals? How did you think it would work?”

Her head reared back, and she straightened her already near-perfect posture.

“I…Of course I didn’t—”

“Perhaps you thought you should have a gap year from your duties,” he continued in the same tone. Low and lethal. “A vacation from the real you, as so many of your royal peers have had—to the delight of the press. Perhaps you could have traveled around the world with a selection of low-born reckless friends? Taken drugs in some dirty club in Berlin? Had anonymous sex on an Argentine beach? Is that how you thought you would best serve your country?”

If he’d thought she was in the grip of emotion before, that had been nothing. Her face was pale now, with hectic color high on her cheeks and in her eyes. Yet again she did not crack or crumble. Someone sitting further away would not have seen the difference in her expression at all.

“I have never done any of those things,” she said in a tight, controlled voice. “I have always thought of Miravakia first!”

“Do not speak to me of contracts and prices in this way, as if you are the victim of some subterfuge,” he ordered her harshly. “You insult us both.”

Her gaze flew to his, and he read the crackling temper there. It intrigued him as much as it annoyed him—but either way he could not allow it. There could be no rebellion, no bitterness, no intrigue in this marriage. There could only be his will and her surrender.

He remembered where they were only because the band chose that moment to begin playing. He sat back in his chair, away from her. She is not merely a business acquisition, he told himself, once more grappling with the urge to protect her—safeguard her. She is not a hotel or a company.

She was his wife. He could allow her more leeway than he would allow the other things he controlled. At least today.

“No more of this,” he said, rising to his feet. She looked at him warily. He extended his hand to her and smiled. He could be charming if he chose. “I believe it is time for me to dance with my wife.”

His smile was devastating.

Gabrielle gulped back her reaction to it, suddenly worried that she might scream, or weep, or some appalling combination of the two. Anything to release the pressure building inside her, restless and intense all at once. But that smile—

It changed him. It took stone and forbidding mountain and softened it, illuminating his features—making him magic. He was, she realized with a delicate shiver of foreboding, a dangerously attractive man.

Dangerous to her, specifically.

For she was helpless before him. He held out his hand and she placed hers within it. Without comment, without thought. Meekly. Obediently. Despite the fact she’d been trying to keep from touching him for hours now. Was she losing her mind?

But she did not dare disobey him. Had anyone ever disobeyed him? And lived to tell the tale?

His smile might have made him momentarily beautiful. His hand was firm around hers, brooking no argument, allowing her no concession as he led her from the high table. The faces of the wedding guests blurred, becoming as indistinct as the flickering candles. She wondered briefly—in a kind of panic—what he would do if she pulled back, tried to move away as she wished. Would he simply tow her along beside him? Or would her body refuse the order and follow his lead without consulting her? She did not think that now—in public, on a dance floor in front of so many onlookers—was the time to test the theory.

He was no playboy, like the few other suitors her father had considered since Gabrielle had reached her majority. This man did not flirt or cajole. There were no pretty words. Only that brief, glorious smile that had jolted through her like an electric shock. Everything else he would demand. Or he would simply take.

He led her to the center of the dance floor. Gabrielle’s heavy dress clung to her hips, her legs—made her feel as if she waded through honey. Luc pulled her close, one lean and muscled arm banding around her back, holding her. Caging her.

It had been hard enough to sit next to him throughout the meal. But this—this was agony.

In his arms, there was nowhere to hide. Face-to-face with him, she felt exposed, vulnerable. Trapped. Her breasts felt heavy and tight against the brocaded bodice of her gown. It took her long, panicked moments to register the fact that she was not having a dizzy spell, that he was moving them around the ballroom with an easy grace and consummate skill, never releasing her from that commanding gray gaze that seemed to see into her very core.

She felt as if she were made of glass and might shatter into pieces at any moment.

“I always wondered what couples talk about,” she blurted out, desperate to lessen the tension between them, to divert her attention from that hard mouth now so breathlessly, intimidatingly close to hers, “when they dance at their weddings.” She laughed nervously. “But then we are not like most couples, I suppose.”

“Again, you forget yourself,” he said dismissively, though his gray eyes seemed to darken as she stared up at him. “You are surrounded by a collection of aristocrats, some with ancient family names and kingdoms at their disposal. Do you imagine they are all passionately in love with their politically expedient spouses?”

Infuriating, pompous, rude man. How could he speak to her so condescendingly? How could he be her husband?

“I’ve never thought about it,” she flared back at him. “I’ve hardly had time to adjust to my own ‘politically expedient’ marriage, much less critique anyone else’s!”

His expression did not change, though the arm around her back tightened just a fraction—just enough to make Gabrielle gasp, but not enough to make her miss her step as their dance continued. She was suddenly certain that she did not want to hear whatever he might say next.

“Have you been married before?” she asked hurriedly, hoping to fend him off.

“Never.” His brows arched, making him seem both regal and inaccessible at once. Gabrielle swallowed nervously.

“You must have had long-term relationships,” she continued. She had no idea what she was saying. “You are forty, are you not?”

“Is this a blind date, Gabrielle?” he asked, his voice dangerously low. “Do you plan to sort out my character through a series of inane questions?”

“I’m trying to get to know you,” she replied evenly, raising her chin in defiance. “It seems a reasonable thing to do, under the circumstances. What else should we talk about? The weather?”

“You have the rest of your life to get to know me,” he said, with a Gallic sort of shrug. The ultimate dismissal. “Or do you think knowing the way I take my coffee will give you insight? Will it make you more comfortable? The end result is the same. I am your husband.”

He was hateful. And his derisive tone ignited the temper she’d worked her whole life to keep under wraps.

“I think you must be the one who is afraid,” she declared, anger making her brave. “Why else react so strongly to simple questions?”

She expected him to lash back at her—to try to cow her with his dark gaze or that sharp edge in his voice.

But instead he threw back his head and laughed. It was not long, or loud, but it was real. His gray eyes gleamed almost silver for a moment, and she saw an indentation in his lean jaw—far too masculine to be called a dimple. His eyes crinkled in the corners, and he was once again magical and irresistible.

Suddenly Gabrielle had the sensation that she was standing on a ledge at the edge of some vast cavern, and the ground beneath her feet was shaky. Again that restless tension swelled inside her, terrifying her. Her skin was too small, too sensitive. He filled her senses. And when he looked down at her again, his expression sobering, she felt something shift inside her. It felt irrevocable. Or possibly insane.

Nerves, she thought, desperately trying to maintain her calm. Nothing but nerves—and too much champagne on an empty stomach.

Chapter Four