The Marquis And The Mother-To-Be

She felt a frown etch itself between her eyes. “That must be why it was on the market.”

He took her arm. “You and I need to talk, Cris… Carissa.”

“It’s okay. Cris sounds good the way you say it.” Like a homecoming, she thought.

Telling herself she was bemused by his sudden appearance, not by his kiss, she let him steer her back along the hall toward the kitchen. She saw his look register that the laundry had been removed from the line, and felt herself color, thinking of him seeing the lacy garments. She was glad she had moved them on the way in. Her days of hoping to attract Eduard’s attention with her feminine wiles were long gone, although the way she felt now suggested otherwise. It was the aftermath of shock, nothing more, she reminded herself. Until a second ago, she had thought he was an intruder.

“Are your father and brother with you?” he asked.

She lowered her long lashes. “Dad died a year ago from a sudden heart attack.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

She inclined her head in silent acknowledgment.

“Is Jeffrey still in Australia?”

“Dad left the family home to him.” She couldn’t disguise the bitterness she’d felt when she’d found that out. No doubt Graeme Day had believed he was doing the right thing by specifying in his will that Jeffrey was to look after Carissa until she married. Embarrassed, Jeff had insisted on paying her half of the house’s value in cash, but it hadn’t assuaged her hurt. Or eased the sense of rootlessness that had plagued her all her life.

Their mother had died soon after she was born, and the family had lived in the Australian house for only a handful of years, so there was no reason for Carissa to think of it as home. But it was the only one she had. To have it bequeathed to her brother alone had hurt beyond measure. She had known her father had old-fashioned views about women, but had never dreamed he would do such a thing.

“Your accent doesn’t sound as Australian as I remember,” Eduard said, drawing her back to the present.

“I spent the last few years studying hotel management in Switzerland. After I graduated, I worked there for a while before being offered a job in Sydney.”

Eduard took a seat at the huge kitchen table and his palms skimmed the scrubbed pine surface. “Sitting here takes me back. My brother and I must have spent hours at this table, eating slabs of bread fresh from the oven, swearing the cook to secrecy so our parents wouldn’t find out we’d been fraternizing with the staff.”

Eduard had always been the more informal of the royal brothers, she recalled, unwillingly reminded of how she had once mistaken his friendliness for something more. She busied herself filling a kettle. “Do you still like your coffee black?”

He nodded. “You have a good memory.”

She forebore telling him that she hadn’t forgotten anything that had passed between them. Moments later she carried two cups of coffee to the table. Between them she placed a sliced tea cake. “I made it this morning.”

He took a slice and bit into it. “No wonder I could smell baking when I walked in. This is good.”

Her face twisted into a frown. “The agent selling this place told me the owner was away in the navy. Did he mean you?”

Eduard nodded. “The lodge originally belonged to my uncle, Prince Henry de Valmont.”

“The agent mentioned the former owner’s name. I knew de Valmont was a royal family name, but that’s all. I wonder why the agent didn’t tell me the house had been a royal lodge?”

“Probably because it still is.”

She felt the color drain from her face and gripped the edge of the table so hard that her knuckles whitened. “Oh no.”

“I’m sorry if that comes as a shock to you, Cris.”

Her eyes brimmed and she blinked furiously. “You don’t know the half of it.”

“You’d better tell me the rest.”

She drew a shuddering breath. “You didn’t authorize an agent to sell the house discreetly for you, did you?” She was afraid she already knew the answer.

“I’m afraid not. Tiga Lodge is part of Carramer’s national estate. I have the right to live here and use it as I see fit, but I hold the title in trust for my heirs. No one in the family would consider selling it.”

He leaned forward. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Actually I’m not.” She pushed her chair back so hard that it tumbled over, and ran from the room.

There was a maid’s powder room down the hall, and he followed her to it, finding her kneeling over the pedestal, her shoulders heaving.

As a navy man, he’d dealt with his share of seasick crewmates, although he’d never suffered from the malady himself. He leaned over Carissa, stroking her hair and murmuring reassurance until the dreadful retching sound stopped. Then he helped her to stand, flushed the toilet and dipped a cloth into water to bathe her face. She felt as cold as ice and she trembled in his grasp. Her face was chalk-white as she sipped the glass of water he handed to her.

“All right now?” he asked.

She nodded. “Much better, thanks.”

“Come back to the kitchen and finish your coffee. Unless you’d prefer to lie down. We can sort everything else out later.”

“I would like to lie down, if you don’t mind.”

He helped her back to the room she had claimed, deciding to use another one for the time being. Something was wrong with her. Surely it wasn’t only the shock of finding out that the lodge she thought she owned belonged to him? “Would you like me to send for a doctor? There’s one in Tricot, about twenty minutes’ drive away.”

She stopped turning down the bedcovers and looked back at him. “I’ve already met him. He won’t appreciate being dragged out here.”

He gave a self-deprecating smile. “Rank has its privileges.”

Carissa’s face underwent a sea change. “I should have remembered. But there’s no need, I’ll be fine soon.”

The coldness he heard in her tone puzzled him. He tried to think of a time when they were teenagers when he’d used his rank in some way she might have resented, but too much had happened today. “I’ll let you get some rest,” he said. “If you still feel ill later, I’m calling a doctor whether you want one or not.”

She got into bed fully clothed, as if she felt too weary to undress. He debated whether to offer to help, then decided it wasn’t such a good idea. Kissing her had already affected him more than was good for him. He had always been attracted to Carissa, even when she had been too young for him to make his feelings known except in a teasing way. Now that she was a woman, and a beautiful one at that, teasing hardly seemed appropriate. And he couldn’t risk anything more.

Rank may have its privileges, but it also carried responsibilities. He had to be careful about indulging in romantic dalliances. The consequences could be dire, as he’d seen when his cousin, Michel, had been dubbed the playboy prince, his romances splashed across every newspaper in the country. And when Michel’s sister, Princess Adrienne, had spent a night on a mountain alone with a man, they’d been forced to announce their engagement to avoid public censure. Eduard didn’t want to put himself or any woman he cared about in such a position.

He frowned, thinking of his last disastrous attempt at romance. Lady Louise Mallon had been eminently suitable for him in every way, and Eduard had started to think something might come of their relationship.

The rest of his family would have been delighted, he knew, wondering what they would think if he told them she had become pregnant by another man, then tried to convince Eduard that the child was his. Her face had been a study when Eduard told her he could give her everything except children, which was why he had balked at proposing.

The real father of Louise’s baby had come to Eduard and told him he wanted to marry her and raise the baby no matter who the father was. Eduard didn’t intend to share the truth with a stranger. Prolonged exposure to toxic chemicals while helping to rescue the crew of a damaged ship had left Eduard unable to father children of his own. Apart from the royal physician, the only people who knew the truth were his immediate family.

He suspected he’d accepted the Australian assignment as much to get over the affair with Louise as to strengthen the ties between Carramer and Australia.

The last thing he needed was to create new problems for himself with Carissa. Bad enough that she was already living under his roof. That alone could cause difficulties. So he had two choices—get back into the chopper and go somewhere else, or arrange alternative accommodation for her as soon as possible.

Having just arrived, he didn’t feel inclined to go somewhere less secluded, where his movements might be spied on by the paparazzi. In Tricot, the local people were used to the royal family’s presence and respected their privacy. And no matter what Carissa believed, he owned the lodge. From the sound of things she had been the victim of a clever con artist. However sorry Eduard felt about that, she would have to be the one to leave.

When he looked in on her, she was asleep, her features at rest so she looked like a beautiful porcelain doll. She wasn’t going to go quietly, he suspected, remembering what an emotional teenager she had been. If he’d had the slightest inkling that his intruder was Carissa, he would never have kissed her so impulsively. At least she behaved as if she was long over the crush she’d had on him when they were younger, but there was no point playing with fire.