The Blackmail Marriage

And she had insisted that she was not afraid of seeing him, Carrie reminded herself! And she wasn’t! No way.

‘Well—an unexpected visitor indeed!’

Unlike her, Luc was dressed formally in a crisp white shirt and an expensive beige linen suit. His dark hair was immaculately groomed, his skin the same warm honey colour she had remembered during those long, aching nights when she had been so obsessed with the misery of losing him that all she had been able to remember was him.

His skin might look and feel warm, but his heart was icy cold—at least where she was concerned! Did the small whorls of body hair covering his chest still curl into small licks of curls, delicious to kiss in the damp heat of his bed? Did he still emerge from the shower looking like a Greek god, with the kind of physical proportions that…?

Aghast, and furious with herself, Carrie brought her thoughts to order. After all, she wasn’t some wide-eyed innocent teenager now, awash with excitable hormones!

Lifting her chin, she told him briskly, ‘Actually, I’ve come to see the Countess.’

Immediately Luc frowned.

‘My godmother? She isn’t here. She’s away visiting her niece in Florence. What did you want to see her about? As I recall there was little love lost between the two of you,’ Luc pointed out sardonically.

That he had known that and still allowed his godmother to humiliate her as she had done was all the reminder Carrie needed to make her bristle with antagonism and tell him challengingly, ‘I’ve got a message for her. From Maria!’

She was supposed to be savouring this, Carrie reminded herself, and her stomach suddenly dropped like a high-speed lift when she saw the way Luc was looking at her, his eyes narrowed intently, so dark that they looked almost black instead of the dark grey she knew them to be.

She could feel the silence stretching dangerously between them, taut with unspoken hostility and aggression.

‘What message? Give it to me!’

He was so arrogant! At eighteen she might have been so idiotically adoring that she had accepted it, but not now! She could feel the swift burn of her own immediate antagonism. Carrie took a deep breath, too infuriated to think of delaying the retribution she was about to deliver.

‘With the greatest of pleasure,’ she told him ‘She wanted you to know that she has married Harry, my brother.’ She smiled unkindly at him. ‘She loves him, and he loves her, and—’

CHAPTER TWO

‘LUC let go of me!’ Carrie demanded breathlessly, her face going hot with fury. But the relentless grip of his fingers on her upper arm did not relax one iota, and nor did the speed at which he was almost dragging her down the richly polished corridor, its walls ornamented with suits of armour and dangerous-looking heavy swords.

Carrie had a brief glimpse of the d’Urbino family crest above the imposing double doors before Luc pushed them open and half-dragged, half-thrust her into the elegantly furnished salon that lay beyond them.

She was, Carrie recognised angrily, in the main entertaining salon that formed part of the suite of private rooms occupied by Luc. Very little had changed since the last time she had been in this room; the silks and damasks might perhaps have faded a little more, and her own eight-year absence might have given her a more mature appreciation of the exquisite beauty of the room’s furnishings, but that was all. The heavy silver-framed photograph of Luc’s parents still dominated the highly polished sofa table, with Luc himself standing between them, a child of two.

Carrie remembered how she had so foolishly and fondly believed that the fact that both of them had lost their mothers at a young age somehow forged a special bond between them.

But Luc hadn’t merely lost his mother—he had lost both his parents in the appalling atrocity of a terrorist bombing incident in South America whilst they had been there on a visit.

‘Maria has married your brother!’

There was no mistaking the cold fury in Luc’s voice.

‘I am sorry if you are disappointed.’ Carrie couldn’t resist taunting him.

‘Disappointed?’ Fury flared in the steel-grey eyes and his mouth thinned in recognition of her mockery of him.

‘Still, I am sure you will quite easily find someone else to take her place.’ The cynicism she felt darkened her own eyes and twisted her mouth.

Maria herself had made no bones about the fact that Luc’s desire to marry her had been purely practically motivated.

‘Luc does not love me,’ she had told Carrie. ‘But he has always been kind to me, and until I met Harry again and fell in love with him I had not really minded that ours would be a political union. Now, though, there is no way I could bear the thought of being married to anyone other than my dearest, darling Harry! And I am afraid that if I went back to S’Antander and told my grandmother and Luc that I couldn’t marry him they might…’

‘Force you to do so?’ Carrie had finished for her, having no qualms about saying the words she had seen Maria, out of loyalty, was reluctant to speak.

‘Luc has to marry someone.’ Maria had unexpectedly defended him. ‘The people expect it,’ she had told Carrie simply. ‘And of course he wants to have an heir.’

‘The world must be full of women who would be only too eager to marry all this, Luc,’ Carrie continued now, gesturing to the palace and the view beyond its windows. ‘Oh, and you, of course. After all, you are such a catch, aren’t you? A real-life prince, with so much to offer—your arrogance, your snobbishness, your lack of any real emotional depth.’

‘That’s enough.’ Luc stopped her coldly. ‘But you are right about one thing, Catherine. It will be easy for me to find someone to take Maria’s place. Very easy. In fact…’

The smile he was giving her was not a kind one, Carrie recognised, and something in his expression suddenly made her shudder, made her regret her emotional outburst of pent-up bitterness.

‘In fact,’ he repeated softly, ‘I have already done so!’

Already done so? Now Carrie was shocked. He had already had a second choice waiting in the background? How typical of him, she decided contemptuously. But before she could voice her contempt he was continuing smoothly.

‘If Maria is not to marry me, then, Catherine, you must!’

Carrie stared at him, speechless with shock and disbelief.

‘What are you saying?’ she demanded when she could speak, her voice cracking. ‘If this is your idea of a joke.’

‘It is no joke, I can assure you.’ Unlike hers, Luc’s voice was crisp and coldly assured.

‘My people are in almost hourly expectation of hearing me announce my marriage,’ he added grimly when she was unable to control her expression. ‘There has been a good deal of gossip and public speculation on the subject, and they will naturally feel cheated now if I disappoint them. They believe that it is time for me to take a wife.’

‘They are expecting you to marry Maria,’ Carrie reminded him numbly.

‘Who I marry is not of any real interest to them,’ Luc returned with breathtaking arrogance. ‘What concerns them is that I do marry!’

‘Maybe so. But you are not marrying me,’ Carrie told him fiercely, thankful to discover that she was beginning to recover from her initial shock.

‘Oh, but I am, Catherine. As I have just told you, my people are expecting an imminent announcement that I am to marry. As you know, this is a very traditional country, and its older generation have certain fixed beliefs and expectations. They already feel that their values are being threatened by the younger people of S’Antander who, like all youth, believe that the only way of making progress is to dismantle that which previous generations have set in place.

‘I am currently engaged in some extremely delicate and protracted negotiations, involving not only the views of these opposing groups within S’Antander but also the views of our “guest” residents, whose financial input into the country is not merely a valuable asset but also a necessity without which it would be impossible for us to fund such things as the extremely high standard of health care and education our people receive. My marriage will reassure the older generation that customs that are important to them are being respected and at the same time send a clear message to everyone else of my own commitment to my country and its future.’

Carrie stared at him in contemptuous disgust.

“No wonder Maria preferred to marry my brother. He might not have your wealth, or your position, but at least Harry is human, with human feelings and reactions. Not cold and calculating, like you.’

‘I think you’ve said enough. In fact, I think you’ve said more than enough.’

Carrie could almost feel the steely implacability of his will-power reaching out to surround her, but stubbornly she refused to give in to it—or to him.

‘I’m not an awestruck teenager any more, Luc,’ she warned him. ‘If you want a wife, then find someone else. You can’t make me marry you!’

‘No?’ The look in his eyes sliced straight into her heart. ‘I have recently heard some interesting things about your oh, so wonderful brother, Harry. Tell me? Are you still as protective of him, as devoted to him? Still as ready to fly to his defence? Of course you are.’ He answered his own question tauntingly. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t be here, would you?’