The Baron and The Bodyguard

She should have left after the man threatening Mathiaz was caught, but she’d agreed to stay for another month, telling herself she needed the pay check. The truth was, she needed Mathiaz. And she didn’t want to need any man.

Unconscious, he was no threat to her peace of mind, she told herself. When she had agreed to Dr. Pascale’s request to help Mathiaz, she hadn’t counted on the strength of her own feelings at being so close to him. She dragged a hand through her hair. When she’d walked into the room, found him tangled in tubes and medical monitors, her heart had almost stopped.

She’d taken his hand without thinking, unprepared for the electric jolt that arced through her. His fingers had closed around hers so strongly that she had to remind herself he was unconscious. He’d felt as if he was holding on to her. According to Dr. Pascale, he possibly was.

She cleared her throat. “Dr. Pascale asked me what’s my passion? Being strong, having answers. Only this time I don’t have any. He thinks I can help you by talking to you. But you have to do your part. You have to wake up.”

The man on the bed stirred, his fingers flexing. With a sigh she slid her hand into his, and he seemed to settle. She wished she could say the same for herself, but the pulse at her throat fluttered like a trapped bird, and she could feel her heart hammering. She told herself she was scared for Mathiaz, but knew some of her discomfort was for herself. For the pleasure she felt at his touch and didn’t want to feel. Could you turn off feelings by wanting to? In the ten months since she’d left him, she’d tried with everything in her. Thought she had succeeded. Knew she was kidding herself the moment she walked into his hospital room.

She still cared about him, and it scared the life out of her.

She untangled her fingers from his and straightened. “I’m sorry, Mathiaz, but I can’t do this anymore. I have to go.” His eyelids began to quiver.

Mathiaz had no idea how long he drifted, dreaming of the woman called Jacinta. Gradually he became aware that she was calling to him more and more urgently. He grasped her hand because the gesture seemed natural. How warm and soft she felt, but she wasn’t, he knew. How did he know that?

This time he was able to force his eyes open, and saw a vision bending over him. Jacinta. A head sculpted by Michelangelo was capped with shining blond hair, neat except for a few stray wisps curling across her forehead and around her ears. The effect suggested an abandoned nature kept under firm control, but not quite. His blurred gaze gave him an imperfect view of her unusual gray blue eyes, enough to see that they glistened, as if she was trying not to cry.

He moved restively, wanting to stroke her lovely face, to reassure her that tears were unnecessary. He was fine. But his arms were held to his sides by a web of tubes. He couldn’t summon the energy to wonder what flowed through the tubes, or why they snaked into his veins. He was too busy trying to focus on what Jacinta was saying to him.

His hold on consciousness was too precarious to sort out her words, so he concentrated on her generous mouth, finding that he remembered exactly how her lips felt against his own, and how much heat her touch could ignite inside him. He groaned again, this time with the remembered pleasure of holding her, caressing her. In the vestiges of his floating cocoon, the image was so vivid that he raised himself to take her into his arms, desperate to turn the dream of closeness into reality.

She pressed against his shoulders, settling him back. “Don’t try to move, you’ve been hurt.”

As if he hadn’t worked that out for himself. He didn’t normally wake up in this much of a mess. “What…” he tried hoarsely. His mouth was too arid for speech.

She lifted his head and slid ice chips into his mouth. The coolness eased the burning in his throat, but not in his body. The brush of her fingers against his lips made him ache to embrace her and kiss her again.

Again? Had he really kissed her, or only in his dream? Surely if he was dreaming, he should be able to control the outcome? Which didn’t include being pinned to a bed, restricted to looking at his ministering angel, when his imagination stretched to far more enjoyable ways they could spend the time.

“I see our patient is finally coming around. Nice work, Ms. Newnham.”

The gravel voice dissipated some of the mist surrounding Mathiaz, and he felt the pain settle around him like a cloak, unable to be pushed away. His vision cleared, revealing a steel-haired man in a white coat looming above him, coming between Mathiaz and the angelic vision. Mathiaz made an involuntary sound of protest as the doctor checked him over with professional skill.

When he finished, he peered intently at Mathiaz. “Do you know who you are?”

Mathiaz croaked out an unsuccessful reply, coughed, and tried again with better results. “Mathiaz Albert Alphonse de Marigny, Baron Montravel.”

The doctor’s concerned expression eased, although it was hard to tell because his face was as craggy as clothing that had been slept in for several days. “Beats me how you remember all that even when you’re not injured. Now who am I?”

This was much easier to answer. “A pain in the neck.”

The doctor shot a relieved look at Jacinta. “He’s himself all right. Like the rest of the de Marigny family, he has no respect for my medical skills. You’d think I’d be entitled to some respect after bringing most of them into the world, Lord Montravel here included.”

Alain Pascale, personal physician to Mathiaz’s cousin, Prince Lorne, ruler of Carramer, Mathiaz’s mind slowly supplied the details. The doctor had served the family for decades, as he said delivering many of the royal babies in that time. He was the only man in Carramer who could speak so familiarly to members of the royal family, his unique place in their affections giving him immunity from the demands of protocol. He wasn’t above taking advantage of it when he thought one of the family needed his guidance, Mathiaz knew. But the doctor was semiretired now. Whatever Mathiaz had gotten himself into must have been drastic to drag the doctor away from his beloved orchid growing.

“What happened?” he struggled to ask.

The doctor shook his head. “Plenty of time for that. Right now, you need rest.”

Pascale did something to the equipment beside Mathiaz’s bed and he felt himself slipping back into sleep. He didn’t resist. Jacinta waited for him there.

Chapter Two

When next Mathiaz awoke, some of the pain has dissipated and he felt stronger. Sunlight streamed across the room. He recalled it had been dark when last he awoke. He must have slept around the clock.

He turned his head, smiling at the sight of his ministering angel seated beside his bed. She was asleep and looked even more beautiful than she had in his dreams.

Within minutes of the medical equipment registering his return to consciousness, Dr. Pascale hurried to his side. Instantly Jacinta stirred and came to her feet almost in the same moment. “Is something wrong?” she asked the doctor.

“You can ask our patient,” Pascale said with a smile.

“Mathiaz, you’re awake.”

Wishing he knew what he’d done to deserve the look of delight on her face, Mathiaz managed to nod. “Looks like it.”

“Do you know what happened?” Dr. Pascale asked.

Mathiaz struggled to think around the fog in his mind. The answer refused to come.

The doctor rested his fingers against Mathiaz’s wrist and frowned at the fast-beating pulse Mathiaz could feel from the inside. “Don’t agitate yourself. It will come back,” the doctor assured him.

“You were on your way to the royal treasury. You were caught in an explosion,” Jacinta supplied.

“Accident?” Mathiaz asked. Surely he should be able to remember such an event? When he tried, he met only blankness.

“The police and palace security are still investigating,” she said, but her expression told him she had her own theory. “If I’d been working for you…”

He narrowed his eyes. “Why weren’t you? You’re my bodyguard.”

She and the doctor exchanged concerned looks before the doctor asked, “What’s the last thing you remember before waking up here?”

Mathiaz had to think. “Taking Prince Henry some books for his nurse to read to him.”

“Prince Henry?” she said, sounding troubled.

Mathiaz’s uncle, Prince Henry, ruled Valmont Province under an ancient charter granted to the de Valmont family by the Carramer crown. “You should remember. You came with me.”

She took his hand, her grip warm and firm in his. “Mathiaz, the day you remember happened over a year ago. Henry died six months ago. In his will, he left you the Antoinette wedding ring. You were on your way to the treasury to have the ring valued when you were caught in the explosion.”

Mathiaz clung to her hand, wondering why holding her felt so right. Henry hadn’t been anyone’s favorite member of the family, but he and Mathiaz had respected each other. The old prince didn’t deserve to have his death erased from Mathiaz’s memory.

“What are you talking about? As far as I know, we saw my uncle yesterday. If he’s gone, then who…”

Her touch soothed some of his agitation. “Your cousin, Prince Josquin de Marigny, rules the province as Crown Regent until his stepson, Christophe, comes of age,” she anticipated his question.

That meant Josquin had married Sarah de Valmont, the American-born princess who had grown up in an adoptive family and borne Prince Henry an heir without knowing that she was Henry’s granddaughter, Mathiaz worked out. Their wedding and Josquin’s elevation to the Regency had vanished from his memory as if they had never taken place. He had missed baby Christophe’s accession to the throne, his cousin’s wedding, everything.

“How long have I been here?” he asked.