Читать книгу: «Capturing the Crown»

Capturing the Crown

The Heart of a Ruler

Marie Ferrarella

The Princess’s Secret Scandal

Karen Whiddon

The Sheikh and I

Linda Winstead Jones

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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The Heart of a Ruler

Marie Ferrarella

About the Author

USA TODAY bestselling and RITA^® Award-winning author Marie Ferrarella has written over one hundred and fifty books, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide.

To

Nickolas J. Gardner

One of the best Test Leads ever.

And to one of the most Incredible teams ever,

Brooks Rowlett, Craig Scheile,

Jarded Hickman & Paul Adriano.

You guys are the greatest!

Chapter 1

“What’s the big deal?” Reginald, the crown prince of Silvershire, asked with a laugh that only partially echoed with humor.

The other viable emotion that was present, and more than a little evident in his retort, was irritation. It was common knowledge that Reginald had never liked being challenged or questioned by anyone. His was the right to do or say whatever pleased him. Explanations did not please him. The only other person in the kingdom who dared question him—on rare occasions—was his father. For the most part, King Weston doted on him as Reginald was the single living testimony of his late wife’s love.

Obviously struggling with a temper that rarely resided in check, Reginald paced about his bedroom. He shot the companion of his childhood an impatient look.

Reginald frowned, his handsome features taking on a malevolent appearance. “It’s not as if I’m asking you to marry her in my place. Just go and fetch the damn woman and bring her back.”

“Fetch her.” Lord Russell Southgate, the present duke of Carrington, repeated the phrase the prince had thrown out so cavalierly. Because he knew her, or had known her when they were children, he took offense for the woman who wasn’t there to do it for herself. “Amelia is not a dog, Reginald, she’s a princess.”

Russell watched Reginald square his far-from-broad shoulders. Only in the privacy of Reginald’s chambers was he allowed to address him by anything other than his title. By the look on the prince’s face, Russell knew he was rethinking that. Rethinking everything. And changing. Because someday, very soon, he was going to be king. And Russell knew that once Reginald was king instead of his father, a great many things were going to change, including their relationship. Because too many people liked him, Russell thought, and the prince viewed that as a threat.

It was just a few days before the wedding, a wedding that would forever bind Silvershire with Gastonia, and it was obvious that Reginald did not want to spend the last days of his publicly recognized freedom playing the dutiful fiancé. Not when there were women to be enjoyed.

Abruptly turning on his heel, the prince looked at him. “You’re right, she’s not a dog. Dogs are fun. Dogs are obedient. Princess Amelia,” he emphasized her title with a sneer since he’d made it known that only his title mattered in this union, “is neither. And, there’re rumors that since we last met, she’s developed a nasty independent streak. Having you bring her back to Silvershire in my place will take the little tart down a peg or two.” A smile that was known to make the blood of those on the receiving end run cold spread across his full lips. “Besides,” Reginald continued loftily, “I’m going to be busy.”

Russell leaned against the overly ornate desk that Reginald felt befit him. The one the prince had yet to use for anything other than bedding a very starstruck young woman who had managed to sneak into the palace as one of the cleaning staff. Observing his future monarch, Russell wondered, not for the first time, if perhaps, in light of the century they were living in, the monarchy had outlived its usefulness and purpose. By any standard except that of birthright, Reginald hardly seemed suited to ruling over the small, independent kingdom.

Russell supposed it was up to him to somehow pull off a miracle and make the man suited. He owed it to his fellow countrymen. The question, as always, remained how.

“Busy?” Russ’s deep voice rumbled as he pressed, “Doing what?”

For a moment, Reginald looked incensed at being questioned, but then he let it pass. Instead, he smirked and replied, “Having my last fling of bachelorhood.”

Without another word, Reginald began to walk out of the room.

Russell straightened. Though his tone was deceptively easygoing, he wasn’t through trying to convince the prince not to ignore his obligations. For him not to go to the princess in person was an insult. What really galled him was that Reginald knew that.

“Forgive me, ‘Your Highness,’ but you’ve been ‘flinging’ ever since you discovered you had something to fling.” Moving swiftly, he got in front of the prince, aborting the latter’s getaway. He’d endured enough of Reginald’s evenings to know exactly what was on the prince’s mind. “Don’t you think going to Gastonia to bring back your future bride is a little more important than having some nameless, vacant-headed woman pour herself all over you?”

Reginald pretended to pause and actually reflect on the question. “Well, since you put it that way—” His eyes narrowed as his expression became cold. “No.” He sighed, irritated. “Look, Carrington, this marriage is for my father, for Amelia’s father who wants to keep that poor excuse of a little country of his safe.” His tone increased in its sarcasm. “It’s for the people of Silvershire so they can litter the streets, rubbing bodies against one another as they jockey for position, pathetically waving the flag and getting a small thrill into their dull, dull lives when the royal carriage passes them by. It’s for the news media, who just love ‘storybook weddings.’” His eyes narrowed into dark, almost malevolent slits. “It’s for every damn person in the universe except me.”

Russell struggled not to allow the contempt he felt show on his face. If this was a play for sympathy, it fell well short of its mark. All of his life, the crown prince of Silvershire had had everything he’d ever remotely asked for or wanted. King Weston had never learned how to say no to his only heir. Sadly, abundance and indulgence did not give birth to a wise, magnanimous leader. Reginald had been the Playboy Prince ever since he’d reached his sixteenth birthday.

But despite the fact that the prince was accustomed to women of dazzling beauty, the woman who was to officially share his martial bed was not someone who would fade into the woodwork. He’d seen recent photographs of Princess Amelia and thought that Reginald was getting far better than he deserved.

“Princess Amelia isn’t exactly Medusa,” he reminded Reginald.

The prince shook his head. He’d made it known more than once that he hated having no say in the matter, hated having any part of his life dictated to him. And this marriage pairing him with the twenty-six-year-old princess had been arranged years before he’d even known what the term meant.

“No,” Reginald agreed, “she isn’t. But she is undoubtedly a cold fish, because she is a princess, which means she’s pampered. And,” he recalled, “she had a willful streak as a young girl. I always had to remind her that when we grew up, she was going to have to mind me if she knew what was good for her.” He placed his hand on Russell’s shoulder. Rather than a show of affection between friends, it was a way for him to remind the duke of his powers over him. “This will be a good start. Come on, be a sport, Carrington.” The edges of his smile became slightly brittle as a sharp edge entered his voice. “Don’t make me command you.”

Russell’s face never changed, but inwardly, he felt his resentment flare. He could not remember a day that he hadn’t known Reginald. He also couldn’t remember a day in which he’d felt that the milk of human kindness even marginally flowed in the prince’s veins. They were companions because of proximity, because their ages were similar and because Reginald, although never verbalizing the thought, cleaved to him as a protector.

That was his role more than any other, more than the royal title that he bore or the fact that King Weston had appointed him as Reginald’s political advisor. He was Reginald’s protector. He knew the political climate, knew the ways of the people. But his first loyalty had always been and would continue to be to the crown, and so, to the prince.

He was Prince Reginald’s confidante, his protector and, at times, he was the man’s scapegoat. The latter occasion came about when either Reginald’s temper got the better of him or when he got into trouble and couldn’t bear the close scrutiny of his father or the kingdom for his misdeeds.

A scapegoat was one thing. Serving as a lackey was another. Russell balked at the latter and this certainly felt as if it came under that heading. Bringing the princess back was something Reginald should be doing himself. To send someone else in his place was clearly a veiled insult to the kingdom that was the place of her birth.

He considered what it was that Reginald was telling him. So Amelia had gained some spirit, had she? Good for her. Russell remembered the princess, a fair, shy girl with vivid, violet eyes, who, for the most part, attempted to hide whenever the prince and he accompanied King Weston on royal visits to Gastonia.

On those visits, the adults would converse, leaving Reginald and him to their own devices and wiles. Reginald would entertain himself by ordering around everyone—especially the princess—like a spoiled child while he, well, he had to admit he wasn’t exactly an angel in those days either, Russell remembered with a smile. He loved to play practical jokes. Still did, actually, although it was no longer dignified for him to indulge himself that way.

The poor princess had been his chosen target for water balloons. Hers was always his bed of choice when it came to depositing the vast variety of bugs that the almost fairy tale-like kingdom of Gastonia had to offer. If he closed his eyes, he could still hear her high-pitched, blood-curdling scream the night he’d slipped a huge black spider in between her sheets.

He remembered that Amelia always looked so relieved whenever their royal vehicle would be pulling away from the palace, signaling an end to their visit. Hers was always the last face he saw as he left the country. He’d focus on her, standing there, beside her father, a small vision in pinks and whites, her blond hair moving in the breeze, her smile widening as they disappeared into the distance.

And now she was going to marry Reginald. He wondered if he would ever see her smile widening again.

That was none of his concern, Russell reminded himself. Reginald was his prince, his soon-to-be king.

The man was going to be unbearable then, Russell thought, feeling sorry for Amelia.

Reginald was shifting from foot to foot, anxious to gain the door.

“There’s no reason to bandy this about any longer,” Reginald said in a dismissive tone. “You will go in my place and you will bring Princess Amelia back. End of discussion.”

Russell found his own impatience difficult to bank down. Maybe because, as an adolescent, whenever he’d heard Reginald ordering Amelia around, something inside of him had rebelled, softening to the look in Amelia’s eyes. It was a necessary political alliance, but that didn’t mean that Reginald should be able to treat the princess like chattel. “Do you intend to be so careless of her feelings once you’re married?”

“Feelings?” Reginald jeered incredulously. He looked at Russell as if he thought that he’d lost his mind. “She doesn’t have any feelings. She’s a princess,” he pointed out. “She has duties. I’m sure she makes love that way, too. Like it’s her duty.” Reginald smirked. “It will be our royal duty to make the Princess Amelia attempt to make love like a flesh-and-blood woman.” Smug superiority highlighted his features as the prince delivered another patronizing pat to his shoulder. “That’s a royal ‘our’ in case you think that’s an invitation to sample the royal goods before delivery.”

Russell shrugged the prince’s hand off. “Have I ever told you that you disgust me?”

Reginald took a step back, hatred flashing in his eyes. Hatred, Russell knew, because the prince knew that in a contest of wills or strength, he was more than Reginald’s match.

“Frequently. With your eyes.” And just so that there was no mistake in intent, he added, “You’re the only man I’ve ever let live who did that.” The smirk on Reginald’s lips grew larger. “Because at the end of the day, I will be King and you will not.”

Russell knew Reginald thought he was taunting him. Russell was next in line for the throne. The rules of the kingdom were such that if the King had no male heirs, then the Duke of Carrington would be the next King of Silvershire. He doubted that Reginald believed that there was nothing that he would have wanted less than to be King. But his ambitions had never taken him in that direction.

As far back as he could remember, he had always hated being in the limelight. Hated being singled out for any reason, for any amount of time. He would have shrugged off the order of succession in a heartbeat, but it wasn’t his decision to make. And he was too loyal to his king, and his family’s honor meant too much to him, to ever do more than simply contemplate walking away. His path was clear. He had his duties.

As did Princess Amelia. Hers were harder, Russell thought, looking at the prince. At least he didn’t have to marry Reginald.

He supposed there was no point in arguing. Reginald wasn’t going to be dissuaded from his planned revelry. Maybe the prince did need to get it out of his system one last time. At least, Russell thought, he could hope.

Inclining his head, Russell surrendered. “All right, I’ll do it. I’ll go and bring the princess back for the wedding.”

Reginald smiled coldly, triumphant. “Of course you will. Was there ever any doubt?”

Before Russell could trust himself to safely respond, the prince had left the room, slamming the door in his wake.

Princess Amelia of Gastonia stood on the palace terrace, overlooking the lush green gardens she loved so much. The gardens where she had played with almost reckless abandonment as a child. While other little girls might have fantasized about being princesses, she, as a princess, had fantasized about being just like any other little girl.

But even then, she’d known that she wasn’t like every other little girl in Gastonia, the once-quaint country that her father had brought into the twenty-first century. She was different. On her shoulders was the weight of the kingdom. The welfare of her people. That had been taught to her from a very young age.

And if, by some wild fantasy of fate, she ever forgot for a little while, there had been Prince Reginald’s visits to remind her.

She sighed inwardly.

Prince Reginald. The toad. Her fiancé.

Not that the Prince of Silvershire was actually ugly. As a boy, he’d been decent enough to look at. Not like his companion, Russell Southgate, the current Duke of Carrington, of course, whom she’d secretly had a fleeting crush on, but decent. It wasn’t the prince’s face, but his soul that was ugly.

Amelia strove now not to shiver even as she wrapped her arms around herself for comfort. In another lifetime, she was fairly confident that Reginald could have been, and probably had been, Ivan the Terrible, the bloodthirsty Russian czar.

At least, that was the feeling she always had whenever Reginald was around. He treated everyone around him as if they were less than the bugs that were so plentiful in her garden. She was accustomed to being treated with respect, yet Reginald would order her around as if she were, in his mind, a lowly peasant.

It was Russell who would intercede, distracting Reginald and getting the prince to leave her alone. Russell who reminded her, in those instances, of a medieval knight in shining armor. With his sandy-brown hair, charismatic smile and beautiful dark brown eyes, he had been her hero.

He had also, she remembered, been her tormentor. Russell had never missed a chance to drop a water balloon on her head, or infest her bed with a myriad of bugs. Weeks after the royal party had left, she would have trouble rounding a corner beneath a balcony or getting into bed at night without first stripping off all the sheets, shaking them out and then remaking the bed.

Still, she thought, of the two, Russell was far preferable to Reginald. So when her father had just now come to tell her that Lord Carrington, not the prince, would be the one coming to take her to Silvershire, she’d received the news with a wave of relief, though she was acutely aware that her reprise was only temporary.

She’d always known this day would come, that she would be required to fulfill her obligation as Gastonia’s princess. Amelia tried not to shudder; the full impact was only now setting in. She was going to be marrying Reginald. Sharing a crown with Reginald.

Sharing a bed.

Oh, God.

Perhaps if she’d had siblings, someone could have taken this burden from her. But there weren’t any siblings. She was her parents’ only child. And her marriage was Gastonia’s only hope of security.

Still, knowing it would come intellectually was one thing. Absorbing the full impact with her heart was really quite another. Now that it was happening, she felt trapped by honor, duty and circumstance. If she hadn’t been born a princess, this wouldn’t be happening to her.

“It’s not fair, you know,” she murmured, more to herself than to the regal man who stood behind her.

Did he feel as helpless as she did? she wondered. Did some part of her father regret having to sacrifice his daughter’s happiness in order to insure his country’s continued safety?

Amelia turned around to look at her father. “In this day and age, it’s not fair, you know. Not fair to have to marry a man who, if not for his lineage, would have trouble securing a date even on the Internet.”

King Roman frowned deeply. His eyes looked sad, she thought. There was never any doubt on Amelia’s part that her father did love her. And, she hoped, if there were some other way, he would want to see her happy. But King Roman was steeped in tradition and so, she knew, should she be.

With an air of frustration, the king waved an aristocratic-looking hand at her comments. “Be that as it may—”

She wasn’t going to make this difficult for him. She was her father’s daughter, and well-taught. Amelia nodded. “Be that as it may, I will honor the treaty and my obligation, even though it’s obvious that Prince Reginald doesn’t think very much of me.” She saw her father raise his eyebrows in silent query. “Otherwise, he’d have come here himself.”

“I’m sure that Prince Reginald has other pressing business, my dear.”

Amelia laughed softly. She, like everyone else in both her kingdom and his, knew of Reginald’s reputation. “I’m sure ‘pressing’ is involved.”

Gray-and-white eyebrows rose high on her father’s forehead in shocked disapproval. King Roman was an enlightened man, but not where his daughter was concerned. Even though he had given her the best tutors and trainers he could find, in some areas he tried to keep her unworldly. “Amelia.”

Amelia forced a smile to her lips. “I will not disappoint you, Father,” she promised.

Even though I’m horribly disappointed myself, she added silently.

King Roman took her hand in both of his and then raised it to his lips. “You have always been my treasure,” he told her before he left.

Amelia turned toward the garden again. She heard her father’s footsteps recede on the stone terrace until they faded away altogether. With a sigh, she made her way down the terrace steps to the garden. Maybe the flowers and the vast green scenery would help soothe her agitated state.

They didn’t.

She was a princess; was it so wrong to hope for a prince who lived up to her expectations, not some personification of self-indulgence and sloth such as Reginald? The prince’s escapades were well-known. His face had graced covers of People magazine, not to mention that the tabloids loved him. She frowned to herself. Not exactly the prince she’d hoped for.

And this, Amelia thought darkly as she picked her way through a passageway where the shrubs were as tall as trees, giving her a measure of solitude, was what she’d been saving herself for all these years. This was why she’d remained a virgin in a day and age when abstinence and virtue were not so highly prized as they once had been. In some circles, virginity was even viewed with skepticism and no small amount of pity.

She’d done it by choice, and she felt cheated. Royally. Pun intended, she thought, her lips twisting in a self-deprecating smile.

Involved in numerous charities and educational programs throughout Gastonia as well as in matters of state, she was acutely aware of the fact that she hadn’t really lived life to the fullest. Not where it counted, she thought ruefully. She’d traveled the world over and was still sheltered.

How could she love her people, be compassionate, if she’d never experienced real love herself? If she’d never wanted to give of herself until there was nothing left to give?

She wished now that she had been a little freer, a little more resourceful where her own pleasures were concerned. She knew of a great many high-born girls who’d been ingenious when it came to satisfying their curiosity and their appetites.

But that was just it. She’d wanted it to mean something. She hadn’t wanted the experience just to have it. She’d wanted it to be something to remember to the end of her days. And now, what she was going to remember was that horrible rutting animal mounting her. Probably issuing orders to her while he did it.

It made her want to run away. It made her want to have an affair, however brief.

She sighed, shaking her head. She knew better than that. She was the Princess Amelia and no more able to have an affair than pigs could fly. Especially not only days away from her wedding.

Oh, well, maybe she was being too hard on Reginald. Maybe he’d changed. Maybe he had gotten all the wildness out of his system and would be the good, decent husband and ruler she was praying for.

And maybe, just maybe, she thought as she turned around and began to walk back toward the palace, hell would freeze over before her wedding day. The odds, she knew, were more in favor of the latter than the former.

Chapter 2

The soft ticking of the antique clock that had once belonged to her grandmother seemed to fill the spacious bedroom, nestling into the corners and gently stroking the shadows. The sound became more audible with every passing moment.

Amelia couldn’t sleep. Try as she might to will herself into an unconscious state, she couldn’t achieve it. Usually, all she needed to do was close her eyes and, within moments, she would drift off. On those rare occasions when sleep initially eluded her, she’d employ little tricks to render her mind blank, enabling her to fall asleep.

But reading hadn’t helped. She’d gone through five chapters of the book she kept on her nightstand and was now more wide awake than ever. Silently singing the same refrain over and over again in her mind didn’t work, either. Amelia felt frustrated. That self-hypnotic trick had always worked before.

But then, she’d never been in this position before. Never suffered through a night-before-she-was-to-meet-with-the-man-who-was-going-to-take-her-to-the-rest-of-her-life before. Because that was what it was. Carrington was coming to take her to her destiny. A destiny she neither remotely liked nor wanted.

Sitting up, Amelia unconsciously doubled her hands into fists. If she had any courage at all, she’d just turn her back on everything and run away. Go to America and avail herself of all the wondrous opportunities that existed there. America, where no one was a princess.

Except perhaps in the eyes of the man who loved her.

Something else she was never going to find out about, she thought glumly. What it felt like to be loved. Because Reginald certainly didn’t love her. And she didn’t love him, either. Never had. Never would.

Amelia sighed, dragging her hand through the blond hair that came cascading down about her face and pushing it back. No, running away would be the coward’s way out. Cowards turned their backs on responsibilities and did what they wanted to, what was easier, what was more appealing. And above everything else, she had been raised not to be a coward. Meeting her destiny, that was what took courage. And she was going to have to dig deep to find hers.

Frowning, Amelia kicked off the covers, slid her slippers on and got off the wide, king-size bed. Because the nights in Gastonia were still cool, even though this was April, she slipped on her dressing gown, covering the very short nightgown that she favored. Tying it securely at her waist, she decided that she desperately needed to get some air.

More than that, she needed to walk around her garden, even though she’d just been there hours earlier. The time for walks in her beloved garden would soon be behind her, but right now, she was still the Princess of Gastonia, not yet the Queen of Silvershire. And this was still her home.

No, Amelia corrected herself as she slipped quietly down the back stairs, holding to the shadows and taking care not to run into anyone, this would always be her home. Nothing would ever change that.

Of the two countries, Silvershire was the bigger, more powerful, more impressive one. But it was Gastonia that was the more charming of the two. And it was decidedly not as backward as she knew Prince Reginald undoubtedly thought it was.

The strides the kingdom had taken were all due to her father. Oh, the country still had its charming seaside shops and internationally famous restaurants, as well as its grand hotels and the casinos that always drew in tourists by the droves. But Gastonia had also become an important industrial country producing, among other things, the very expensive, very alluring and highly reliable Gaston, an automobile reminiscent of yesterday’s romantic vehicles, with cutting-edge technology beneath the hood that had been perfected by one of their own engineers.

Her father was indirectly responsible for the Gaston as well as for the country’s modernization. It was he who had raised the caliber of education within Gastonia, funding programs, bringing in men of letters and science to teach at Roman University, the institution that bore his name. Students no longer left the country in pursuit of higher degrees, they attained them here, in Gastonia. And then went on to give back what they had learned.

Amelia wondered if Gastonia’s advancements were an allure for Reginald. Heaven knew the prince wasn’t the type of man to be herded into an arranged marriage without feeling he was getting something out of the bargain. He probably saw his personal bank account swelling if and when he thought of the marriage at all.

The Gaston was currently all the rage in Europe. Granted, her father did not believe in the government owning the companies within its borders and to his credit, neither did Silvershire’s King Weston, but she had an uneasy feeling that her future husband was not nearly so noble. He might want to change that, might want to put the money from the car company’s coffers into his own pockets.

Bypassing the main hallway, Amelia pressed her lips together. It was going to be up to her to make sure that Reginald became noble. Or, at the very least, it would be up to her to ameliorate whatever black thoughts the prince might have about raping her countrymen and helping himself to the profits that were being made. Her heart felt heavy in her chest.

Opening the terrace doors, she slipped outside and hurried down the steps. Only when she reached the garden with its tall shrubs standing like silent, dark green sentries did she slow down.

She still felt as if she were running from something, because, in effect, she was, although she knew that in reality, there was no running away from what had to be.

As she began to walk the grounds, she waited for a sense of peace to embrace her. She waited in vain. Peace continued to elude her.

What were the chances that all this was merely a bad dream? That she’d wake up an ordinary person who’d just experienced an epic nightmare? Or, at the very least, that Reginald had changed his mind about marrying her, or, better still, had gotten lost forever while on some safari deep in the heart of the African jungle?

Amelia’s generous mouth curved in a mocking smile. She was really beginning to sound like a desperate loon. Her fate was sealed, she might as well accept it.

She glanced back toward the palace. How had she managed to get this far from the terrace so quickly? Maybe it was time to—

Amelia stopped.

She could have sworn she’d heard something. A noise. Footsteps. Holding very still, her breath lodged in her chest, she cocked her head and listened intently.

And heard the noise again.

There was someone out here.

Her father had left that evening on business, so it wasn’t him that she heard. The king had told her that he wouldn’t be back until morning. When her father had left, he’d assured her that he would return well before Lord Carrington was scheduled to arrive at Gastonia’s only airport.

It was a little after midnight and she felt it safe to assume that everyone who worked in the palace had retired to their own lives for the remainder of the night. Who did that leave?

She stiffened. There it was again. Rustling. Someone brushing against the shrubs that were directly on the other side of the ones she was facing. She was sure of it.

Since there was no sound of soft laughter or lowered voices exchanging endearments, Amelia knew that whoever she heard couldn’t be any of the palace’s younger employees sneaking a moment to share the grounds with someone special.

It had to be an intruder.

A chill ran down her back. How had he gotten past the palace security?

Her heart began to hammer quickly. Her father would have ordered her to hurry back to the palace before whoever had managed to get on the grounds saw her.

But her father had also been the one to see to it that she had extensive training in self-defense, telling her that in the end, all one had was oneself to rely on. She wasn’t going to turn tail and run. This was her home, damn it, and no one was going to make her fearful while she was here.

With a rush of adrenaline, Amelia charged around the shrubs, uttering something akin to a war cry that had been designed by her trainer to help empower her and increase her adrenaline while intimidating whoever was on the receiving end.

The man who turned around to see her coming at him a second before she tackled him was tall. His muscular frame was clothed entirely in black. Like a burglar.

She’d meant to knock him down, to, at the very least, knock the wind out of him. And she succeeded.

Partially.

What she hadn’t counted on was that at the last moment, the man in black would grab her wrist. When he went down, he took her with him.

The air drained out of her lungs as she was yanked down. Her head made contact with his chin. She wasn’t sure who got the worst of it.

Within moments of her hastily devised attack, Amelia found herself sprawled out on top of the intruder, stars swirling through her head, her face a mere three inches away from his. If that.

If the intruder was surprised or dazed, it was for less than a heartbeat. And since hers was beating in a tempo that made “The Flight of the Bumblebee” sound like a tune being played in slow motion, the registry of the intruder’s emotion came and went in something less than could be calibrated by any earthly means.

And then she heard the laugh. Deep, rich, full and completely all-encompassing. A laugh that drenched whoever heard it with liquid waves of warmth. A laugh out of her past.

Amelia blinked. She stared down at the face of the man beneath her. A man who might or might not be an intruder but who definitely was having a reaction, not to what had just transpired, but to what was happening this very moment. The very intimate contact of their bodies.

The ends of her robe were spread out on either side like the giant wings of a bird and the scrap of silk beneath seemed not to be there at all. Every inch of his rocklike body was imprinted against hers. And she was achingly aware of it.

Gastonia’s cool night breeze faded instantly, all but fried in the face of the heat that was traveling up and down her body like white lightning, desperately searching for a target.

“Russell.” Her voice sounded hoarse to her ears.

The smile that slipped along his lips was positively wicked. He made no effort to move or rectify the situation. “At your service, princess.”

As if somewhere someone had magically snapped their fingers, Amelia scrambled to her feet, vainly trying to regain her composure. Not an easy feat when her entire body felt as if it were vibrating like a tuning fork struck against a goblet filled to the brim with subtly aged red wine.

She tugged the ends of her robe together. Her insides were still trembling, but she noticed thankfully that her hands were steady enough.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

Russell rose to his feet in a fluid motion she envied. “Apparently being knocked off my feet by a blazing ball of fire.” He casually brushed himself off. Humor never left his lips. And his eyes never left hers.

The trembling had stopped. But she couldn’t get her body to stop tingling. This was like old times, she thought. Except that instead of a water balloon, she’d been hit by Russell. Sort of.

She was a woman now, not a child. Forming coherent words should not be an insurmountable effort for her.

Taking a breath, Amelia managed to restore a measure of dignity to the moment. “I mean, you weren’t due until tomorrow.”

How had he managed to sneak into the country? Just how lax was security at the airport? She made a mental note to speak to her father.

Her father.

Her eyes widened as she remembered. “My father had a ceremony all in place to greet you at the airport.”

If the information was meant to evoke remorse from the tall man before her, it failed. He gave her his trademark lopsided smile. The same one that had made her adolescent heart secretly flutter.

“Which is why,” he told her, “I came in early this evening.”

She knew what Reginald thought of Gastonia and the crown. Did his chief political advisor and cohort share that view? Her eyes narrowed as a wave of protectiveness passed over her. “To humiliate my father?”

He made no effort at denial. He thought her intelligent enough to know that none was needed. “To avoid attention.”

Still smarting from Reginald’s high-handed snub, she looked for the insult in Russell’s actions. “Why? Are you ashamed to have to come to bring me back to your prince, Lord Carrington?”

She was being formal. Somehow, he hadn’t expected her to be. He’d expected her, he supposed, to be exactly the way she’d been the last time he’d seen her. Sweet. Unassuming. And open.

But nothing in life, Russell reminded himself, stayed the same. Things changed, they evolved or they died. There didn’t seem to be any other choice.

He saw the way her mouth curved, saw the displeasure when she uttered Reginald’s title. It was obvious that the princess was no happier about the union than Reginald was. And in her case, Russell couldn’t blame her. At least Reginald was getting a beautiful woman. All Amelia was getting, beyond a treaty, was an egotistical, self-indulgent, power-hungry, spoiled brat of a man who seemed too besotted with his womanizing way of life to appreciate even marginally what he was being handed on a silver platter.

“No,” he answered her question quietly, “I’m not ashamed to be the one to bring you back to Silvershire. I just don’t care for any kind of unnecessary fanfare. Unlike the prince, I never really liked being in the spotlight, however briefly.”

The moon was full tonight and its silvery light was caressing the man standing before her. Amelia realized that she’d stopped breathing only when her lungs began to ache. As subtly as she could, she drew in a long breath.

“Then perhaps political advisor shouldn’t have been your first choice of a career, Carrington.”

“It wasn’t. But my father couldn’t see his way clear to his only son being a beachcomber. And I liked it better when you called me Russell. No fanfare,” he reminded her.

“No fanfare,” she repeated with a nod, then forced her mind back on the conversation and not on the fact that somehow, during the years since she had last seen him, Russell had come into the possession of a very muscular-looking body. “Beachcomber,” she echoed. “Do they still have that sort of thing?”

He laughed. The moonlight wove through her hair, turning it the color of pale wheat. He caught himself just before he began to raise his hand to touch it. He’d been sent to bring her back, not to familiarize himself with the packaging. “If I had anything to say about it, they would.”

God help her, she could see him, lying on the beach, wearing the briefest of bathing suits, the tide bringing the waves just up to his toes, gently lapping his tanned skin.

She had to swallow twice to counteract the dryness in her mouth. It was a credit to her breeding and training that she could continue without dropping the thread of the conversation.

“Seriously, if you don’t like the attention, Russell,” she emphasized his name and he nodded with a smile in response, sending her pulse up another notch, “there had to be something else that you could have become.”

He shook his head. He knew better. “Not with my lineage. Besides, someone needs to be there to temper the prince.”

She looked at him for a long moment. There was more to the man than just practical jokes and devastating good looks. Or was he ultimately cut out of the same cloth as Reginald and just bragging?

“And you can do that?”

Russell heard the skepticism in her voice. Not that he blamed her. He had no reputation by choice. Reginald’s was international.

“I have a modest success rate, but in comparison, it’s still better than anyone else’s.” He didn’t want to talk about Reginald. Not tonight. There was more than enough time for that later. He looked at her, thinking about what she had just done. “You thought I was an intruder.”

“Yes, obviously.” As she moved her shoulder, the robe began to slip off. She tugged it back into place, aware that he had looked at the exposed area. That he was still looking. She felt naked. And unashamed at the same time.

“Why didn’t you get someone from security?” Russell asked.

Pride had her lifting her chin defiantly. She wasn’t a helpless little girl anymore. “Because I could handle it myself.”

She hadn’t struck him as being reckless, but tackling him like that hadn’t been the act of a intelligent person. “You’re the princess,” he pointed out. “It doesn’t behoove you to take chances.”

Amelia rolled her eyes. Was he like all the rest of them? Why wouldn’t he be? she challenged silently. He was part of Reginald’s inner circle. “Oh, please, no lectures.” And then she sighed. It was a losing battle. “Or if you feel you simply must, take a number. There are a few people ahead of you.”

“Such as?”

She saw his lips curving. Was he laughing at her? Having fun at her expense? Try as she might to take offense, she couldn’t. There was something about his smile … But then, there always had been.

“Such as my father. His advisors. It seems these days, everyone feels they have to tell me what my duty is.”

“I won’t,” he promised, dropping the subject for now. And then he looked at her, compassion filling his eyes. “You’re not having an easy time of it, are you, princess?”

She thought of denying it, of saying everything was fine and that she had no idea what he was talking about. But everything wasn’t fine and, very possibly, never would be again. Not once she left for Silvershire and married Reginald.

With a feeling of longing wrapped in futility, she thought of the past. “Things were a lot simpler when all I had to worry about was ducking out of the way of water balloons and checking my bed half a dozen times to make sure I didn’t find any surprises in it before I got in.”

He laughed. He’d been a hellion back then, all right. The thing was, he couldn’t really say he regretted it. Teasing Amelia was the one way he had of making her notice him. He had no crown in his arsenal, but he had been clever and he’d used his wiles to his advantage. He remembered how wide those violet eyes could get.

“These days, I’m sure the surprises in your bed are far more pleasant,” he told her. “And come with less legs.”

The moment the words were out, he waited for the anger to gather in her eyes, the indignation to appear on her face. Without meaning to, he’d crossed a line. But he’d always had a habit of being too frank and with Amelia, he’d felt instantly too comfortable to censor himself.

She surprised him by exhibiting no annoyance at his assumption. “The only thing my bed contains, besides sheets and blankets, is me.”

The moment was recovered nicely. “The prince will be very happy to hear that.”

As if she cared what made that thoughtless ape happy, Amelia thought darkly. “Speaking of the prince, why didn’t he come himself?”

He’d expected her to ask and shrugged vaguely. “He had business to attend to.” If it were him, he added silently, nothing on heaven or earth would have kept him from coming for her.

Amelia laughed shortly. “What is her name? Or doesn’t he know?”

Russell looked at his prince’s intended bride for a long moment. For all his wealth and fame, he’d never envied Reginald. Until this moment. “You’re a lot more worldly than I remember.”

“You remember a thirteen-year-old girl who was afraid of her own shadow.” Her eyes held his. “I’m not afraid of my shadow anymore.”

He rubbed his jaw where her head had hit against it just before recognition had set in for her. For him, it had been immediate, because he’d followed the stories about her that appeared in the newspapers. Stories that were as different from the ones about Reginald as a robin was from the slug it occasionally ate. While stories about Reginald went on about his various less than tasteful escapades, hers told of her humanitarian efforts.

“I noticed,” he replied with an appreciative, warm laugh.

Amelia felt the laugh traveling straight to the center of her abdomen, before it seemed to spread to regions beyond, like a sunbeam landing on a rock, then widening as the sun’s intensity increased.

She cleared her throat and looked back toward the palace. It was obvious that he had to have come through there to wind up here. “How did you get into the palace?”

She watched as a smile entered his eyes, shadowing a memory. “Remember that old underground passage you once showed me?”

Amelia’s eyes widened. He was referring to something that was forever burned into her memory. She’d slipped away from her nanny, leaving the poor woman to deal with Reginald, while she took it upon herself to share her secret discovery with Russell. It was the one bold incident she remembered from her childhood.

Remembered it, too, because the episode had ended in a kiss. A soft, swift, chaste kiss that Russell had stolen from her.

A kiss, Amelia thought, that she still remembered above all the others that had subsequently come in its wake.

She was glad for the moonlight, fervently hoping that it offered sufficient cover for the blush that she felt creeping up her neck and onto her cheeks.

Chapter 3

“So that’s how you got in,” Amelia finally said, finding her tongue.

Strangely enough, the air was not uncomfortable, but it had grown far too still between them. And she found herself feeling things. Things that, at any other time, she would have welcomed, would have enjoyed exploring, things she had never felt before, had only thought about. But feelings like this, if allowed to flourish, to unfold, would only get in the way of her obligations.

She suddenly felt a great deal older than her twenty-six years.

“That’s how I got in,” the tall, handsome man at her side confirmed needlessly.

They had begun to walk back to the palace, to the world where their lives were, for the most part, completely laid out for them. Where obligations constricted freedom and feelings were forced by the wayside. All that mattered were boundaries.

“I had to do a lot of stooping,” Russell continued. His mouth curved as he spared her a glance. “The passageway beneath the garden to the palace is a great deal smaller than I remembered.”

Amelia paused for a moment, reluctant to leave the shelter of the garden. Here, for a fleeting amount of time, she could pretend to be anyone she wanted to be.

Banking down her thoughts, Amelia began to walk again as she smiled at Russell. “You’re a lot bigger than you were then.” And you’ve filled out, she added silently.

“I suppose,” he allowed with a self-deprecating laugh she found endearing as well as stirring. “Funny how you never really think of yourself as changing.”

Moving to one side, he held the terrace door open for her. Amelia looked up into his face as she entered the palace. “Is that a warning?”

His eyebrows drew together over a nose that could only be described as perfect. Entering behind her, he closed the French doors. “I don’t follow.”

Amelia led the way to the rear staircase. As before, she kept her path to the shadows that pooled along the floor. The palace seemed empty, but that was just an illusion. There were more than a hundred people on the premises.

Though she sincerely doubted that Russell didn’t understand her meaning, she played along. “Should I be looking over my shoulder for water balloons?”

Cupping her elbow, he escorted her up the stairs. Perfectly capable of climbing them on her own, she still enjoyed the unconscious show of chivalry, not to mention the contact. It was hard to believe that this was the same mischievous, dark-eyed youth who’d simultaneously tortured her and filled her daydreams.

“The water balloons were never over your shoulder,” Russell pointed out as they came to the landing. “They were always dropped from overhead.” His mouth curved a little more on the right than on the left. “I’m sorry about that.”

Amelia tilted her head and looked into his eyes. They were the color of warm chocolate. How strange that she could pick up the thread so easily, as if no time had gone by at all since his last visit. As if more than twelve years had merely melted away into the mists that sometimes surrounded the island kingdom and they were children again.

“No, you’re not.”

She was rewarded with the rich sound of his laugh as it echoed down the long, winding hallway lined with portraits of her ancestors. They seemed to approve of him, she thought.

“All right, maybe I wasn’t,” Russell admitted. “Then,” he quickly qualified. “But I am now.” He saw her raise her delicate eyebrows in a silent query. And just for the tiniest of moments, he had an overwhelming urge to trace the arches with the tip of his finger. He squelched it. “I frightened you.”

“You made me jumpy,” Amelia corrected, then in case that would arouse some kind of unwanted pity, she quickly added, “You also made me strong.”

He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

With the grace of a princess trained at putting others at ease, Amelia slipped her arm through his and urged him down the hallway. If her heart sped up just a little bit at the contact, well, that was a secret bonus she kept to herself.

“Because of you, I became disgusted with myself. With being a mouse.”

“You were thirteen.”

“I was a mouse,” she repeated, then added with the loftiness that befitted her station, “I resolved to be a tigress.”

Russell looked at her for a long moment. “A tigress, eh?” At first, he’d thought of her as too sweet, too innocent. But there was something in her eyes, something about the way she carried herself. Maybe the image was not as far-fetched as it initially seemed.

He felt his blood stirring again and this time upbraided himself. He had no business reacting like this to his future queen.

“A tigress,” she repeated with a lift of her head. “I pleaded with my father to get me trainers, not just for my mind, but for my body.”

Short on water balloons, Russell sought refuge in humor. “So that you could flip intruders who crossed your path?”

Her eyes danced. “Exactly.”

Another woman, he thought, might have taken insult just now. While he had his doubts about the kind of king Reginald would ultimately make, he was beginning to feel that at least Silvershire’s future queen was a woman who did not take herself too seriously. That spoke of a magnanimous ruler.

He laughed softly under his breath. “Judging from the way that ended up, I’d say you need a little more training.”

“I’ll work on it.”

They had come to a split in the hallway. Her rooms were on the far end at the right. The guest quarters were in the opposite direction, on another floor. It wouldn’t seem proper for her to walk him to his room, even though she found herself wanting to. Rules, always rules, she thought impatiently, chafing inwardly.

She forced a smile to her lips. “I’ll have someone show you to your quarters.”

“No need. I’ve already settled in.” Russell saw the protest rising to her lips and knew just what she was going to say. “I assumed that I would be staying in the same quarters I occupied the last time I was here.”

What had been adequate for the boy was not so for the man. She was surprised that he wouldn’t know that. “Actually, my father had left instructions for a suite of rooms to be prepared for you.”

But Russell shook his head. “The room I’m in will do just fine. I don’t need a suite of rooms,” he told her. “After all, I’m only going to be here long enough for you to gather together your entourage.” Since she’d been forewarned, he assumed that would only take her perhaps a day.

“My entourage,” she echoed. The term made her want to laugh as she imagined traveling about with an entire tribe of ladies-in-waiting trailing after her. The very idea made her feel trapped, hemmed in. And she was experiencing enough of that already without adding to it.

“You mean Madeline.” Madeline Carlyle was the Duke of Forsythe’s youngest daughter. With fiery red hair and a fiery spirit to match, Madeline was the perfect companion in her opinion. Madeline could always be counted on to tell her the truth.

Russell looked at her, mildly surprised. “Madeline? Just the one companion?”

“Just the one.”

Russell paused to regard her with deepening interest. Princess Amelia was certainly different from the man she was betrothed to, he thought. Reginald never went anywhere without at least a dozen people in tow. The prince had a hunger for an accommodating, accepting audience observing his every move.

“What about a bodyguard?”

Unconsciously rocking forward on her toes, Amelia raised her eyes to his, unaware of how terribly appealing she looked. “I expect that would be you.”

There was something about the way she looked at him that stirred things deep within him. It made him want to stand in the way of an oncoming bus just to protect her.

It also made him want to tell her to turn and flee before it was too late. Before Reginald had an opportunity to defile her.

But he couldn’t say that. Couldn’t warn her in any way. His duty, first and foremost, was to his king, to his country and to his prince. Not to a princess from another kingdom. The fact that his duty was elsewhere stuck in his throat.

After a beat he finally replied quietly, “That would be me. I suppose that means there won’t be much ‘gathering’ involved.”

“I suppose not.”

Amelia tried not to think of what she was saying. Of what her words actually meant. That she was leaving Gastonia, leaving everything she loved for a man she didn’t. For a man she didn’t even like.

With just the faintest inclination of his head, Russell bowed. It was time to take his leave before he forgot himself and misspoke. “Until the morning, then.”

“Until the morning,” she echoed.

She stood there for a long moment, watching the man who had become the Duke of Carrington, who would always be the boy who reveled in ambushing her with water balloons and bugs, walk down the hall. Away from her.

She didn’t know what to do with the emptiness inside.

“We can’t leave.”

Those were the first words Amelia uttered in greeting him the following morning as she swept into the dining room. Rather than take his breakfast in the formal dining room, Russell had chosen to take his first meal in Gastonia in the palace’s informal dining room, the one that only sat twenty people instead of fifty.

Preoccupied with his thoughts, with disturbing dreams that all centered around Amelia and the marriage that was to be, Russell hadn’t even heard her enter. He rose quickly to his feet now in acknowledgment of her presence. They might be friends of a sort, but there were traditions to honor and he had been trained long and well in them.

Taking a seat, Amelia waved for him to sit down again. Since the king had yet to arrive at the palace, she sat at the head of the table. Russell was to her right. Having him there made the room seem oddly intimate, despite its size.

Instead of exchanging obligatory small talk, Russell picked up the conversation she’d started up as she’d entered the room. “By leave, are you referring to leaving the palace, Princess?”

“No, the country,” she corrected.

He looked confused. And sweetly adorable. Did he accompany Reginald when the prince made his endless rounds at the various clubs where they knew him by sight rather than reputation? Was Russell just as eager as the prince to have women pour themselves all over him?

That’s not supposed to matter, she reminded herself sternly.

But she went on wondering.

“Madeline is ill,” she explained, “and I won’t leave without her.”

Amelia’s position seemed reasonable enough to him, seeing as his assignment had been to bring back the princess and “her entourage.” Curiosity prompted him to ask, “What’s wrong with her?”

“Madeline has always had a passion for exotic foods.” She spread the gleaming white linen napkin on her lap. “Sometimes that’s not such a good thing.” Madeline was up for anything; when they were children, Madeline was the one who could be counted on to swallow a bug whole to discover what it tasted like. “Something she ate yesterday didn’t agree with her. From what she told me, she’d been up all night, reacquainting her knees with the tile on her bathroom floor. The doctor gave her something. Depending on how she feels, she might not be able to travel for at least two, perhaps three days.” She watched his expression for signs of irritation.

But Russell took it in stride and nodded his head. “I’ll inform King Weston to have the tubas put in storage for a few days,” he deadpanned.

“Tubas?”

The somber expression vanished as he flashed a grin. She caught herself thinking that he had a delicious smile. “You didn’t think you could enter Silvershire without a parade, did you?”

A parade. Amelia groaned inwardly. “I thought you hated the spotlight.”

“I do. But it won’t be shining on me,” he pointed out. “The parade is for you.”

She would just as soon have it canceled. But she knew that was asking for too much. Fanfare was something that was required by the people. And something, she had learned, that had to be borne with quiet, resigned dignity.

On impulse, Amelia leaned in toward him, lowering her voice even though there were only the two of them in the room, not counting the man whose duty it was to serve the meal. “I’ll let you in on a secret. I don’t like fanfare, either.”

A breeze from somewhere brought just the subtlest whiff of her perfume to him, teasing his senses. Russell did his best to ignore it, succeeding only moderately.

“Must be hell for you, then,” he commented with sympathy.

“At times,” she acknowledged.

Feeling comforted by the fact that her departure was postponed for at least two days, and just a tad guilty that her unexpected boon was due to Madeline’s misery, Amelia nodded toward the palace servant who stood unobtrusively at the ready. Words were not necessary. She’d had the same thing for breakfast for the last three years. Three slices of French toast. The man slipped away to bring it to her.

Feeling progressively more cheerful by the moment, Amelia let impulse continue to guide her. “Since we’re not going away, I’ve decided to take you sightseeing.”

He was surprised by the offer. And pleased. He’d assumed that he’d be left to his own devices until departure. This promised to be a great deal more entertaining than the book he’d brought along.

“Oh, you have, have you?”

The servant returned with her plate and placed it before her before deftly standing back. Amelia offered the older man a smile of thanks before continuing. “Yes, I have.”

“Is that a royal decree?”

She couldn’t read his expression. It was completely inscrutable. Had she been too quick to judge him so favorably? Or was he just teasing her, the way he used to? “Does it have to be?”

He thought of stretching out the moment. He liked the way her eyes widened when she seemed confused. But it wasn’t fair to her and besides, he had no business placing things on anything but a respectful footing. They weren’t children anymore.

Maybe that was just the problem, he thought. They weren’t children anymore. And he was having some definitely unchildlike feelings about her.

Tread lightly here, Carrington, he cautioned himself. This is going to be your queen, not your consort.

“No,” he answered. Then, because he’d been on more than one tour during his visits here, he added, “I’d love to see your country through the eyes of an adult.”

She gave her own interpretation to his answer. “Then you have given up dropping water balloons?”

Amelia slipped the fork between her lips. Finding the action arousing, Russell forced himself to look away. “Why do you keep bringing that up?”

Slim shoulders rose and then fell again in a careless motion. “Once burnt, twice shy …”

He didn’t bother to suppress the laugh that rose in his throat. “As I remember it, it was a few more times than once.”

That it was, she thought. “Twenty-three times to be exact.”

Mild surprise highlighted his features as he looked at her. “You kept score.”

“I did.”

His eyes met hers. He saw humor there. “Should I be worried?”

She deliberately took a few bites of her breakfast before leaning in his direction and saying, “Be afraid, Carrington. Be very afraid.”

Though neither one of them had planned it initially, they wound up spending the entire day together. Acting as his guide, Amelia took him to two museums, one devoted to art, the other to history. Though neither had ever really interested him, Russell discovered that, seen through her eyes, both had a great deal to offer. In between, she took him to one of Gastonia’s many parks for an impromptu picnic lunch.

“I’m not the picnic type,” he’d protested.

And she’d laughed as if he had said something really amusing and told him with a knowing look that yes, he was, and she was going to prove it.

So he ate the healthy-size sandwiches she’d produced out of a picnic basket while sitting on a maroon-colored blanket beneath the drooping shade of a weeping willow. If asked, he couldn’t have said what, exactly, was between the two pieces of bread. It wasn’t that it was tasteless, it was just that his attention had been completely and utterly taken by his companion.

She charmed him with her wit, with her knowledge, with her laugh … with the shape of her mouth as it pulled into a smile. Over and over again, he kept thinking that Reginald should have been there, in his place, learning to appreciate this woman who had miraculously been given to him on a platter.

And secretly he was glad that he was here instead.

Russell found himself not wanting the day to end.

And in the evening, with a myriad of stars littering the sky, they returned to the palace.

The second they came through the massive double doors, they were informed by the butler that King Roman was waiting to meet with the duke.

“I’ll come with you,” Amelia offered.

“Your Highness, he asked only for the duke,” the butler said tactfully.

Russell expected Amelia to back away. Instead, she tossed her head and said, “But he will get a princess, as well.” She looked at him. “My father will undoubtedly say something that will either concern Gastonia or me. In either case, I should know.” Slipping her arm through his, she said, “This way,” and brought him to the royal study, her father’s favorite place.

Her father often retired to the study to contemplate matters of state and to partake of his evening brandy. More often than not, she would join him for the latter. His life centered around his country and his daughter, in that order. Amelia took no offense. It was just the way things were. But if she took no offense, she also did not take a back seat.

King Roman looked far from surprised that his daughter was accompanying his royal guest. Looking up from the book he had been casually perusing, he asked, “What’s this about you creeping in like a leper, Carrington?”

“The duke doesn’t care for fanfare,” Amelia said, taking the liberty to answer for the man she’d taken sightseeing.

The king nodded. “Refreshing.” Setting aside his book, he picked up his goblet of brandy. “This aversion of yours, I trust, does not extend to the reception I have arranged in your honor.”

Russell glanced at the woman beside him. He noticed that the princess had caught her bottom lip between her teeth. Obviously, she had forgotten to tell him about that. “Reception, Your Majesty?”

“The one in the royal ballroom taking place in—” the king paused to look at the timepiece he kept in his pocket “—oh, I believe half an hour.”

Having learned long ago to have nothing rattle him, Russell inclined his head. “Then I had better go and get ready. If you will excuse me?” He bowed first to the king, then to Amelia.

She was born to this, Amelia thought. To pomp and circumstance and tradition. But it still felt strange, at times, when she stood back to analyze it, to see someone bowing to her just because whimsical fate had bestowed a title on her. It could have just as easily been someone else.

Her father turned to her. He looked pleased, she thought, and not at all upset by the note she’d left in her wake informing the king on his arrival that Carrington was already here and that she had taken charge of him. “I see you two have buried the hatchet.”

“There was never any hatchet, Father,” she corrected gently. “Not between the duke and myself.”

Roman caught the inference and looked at his daughter. “And the prince?”

“Is another story,” she concluded evasively.

“Amelia,” he began, his voice heavy with regret. “Amelia, you know that if there were any other way to secure Gastonia’s safety against her enemies, I would do it. In these modern times, there are terrorists and countries that would take us over in an instant if not for—”

“I know.” For her father’s sake, because she didn’t want him feeling guilty over something they both knew had to be, she forced a smile to her lips. “I’d better go and get ready for the reception. I’m afraid it completely slipped my mind.”

She’d seemed unusually happy when she’d entered the room just now, the king thought. He looked after his daughter’s departing figure, wondering what else might have slipped her mind today.

Chapter 4

From as far back as he could remember, Russell Southgate, III, Duke of Carrington, had been trained to keep his wits and composure about him at all times. Eventually, it had become second nature to him, like breathing. Never was it more important than during the most stressful occasions. To his late father’s never-ending pride, he was considered to be a tower of strength among his peers. While others lost their heads, Russell did not. He remained calm and clear-thinking. Being rattled was not something that he could ever recall happening to him.

So it came as a complete and utter surprise to Russell that, while assuring King Roman that no disrespect was meant by either Prince Reginald or the realm of Silvershire by His Highness not coming in person to escort his bride home, he found himself stopping midword. The rest of his sentence, as well as what had come before, had simultaneously and instantly evaporated from his tongue and his mind. Everything had been eclipsed by the vision in blue he saw entering the ballroom.

He felt warm. Disoriented. And completely captivated. Only past training had him closing his mouth before his jaw slackened and drooped.

Puzzled, his back to the entrance, King Roman stared at the young duke before him, waiting for the man to continue. Turning, the king looked to see what it was that had caught the man’s attention so completely, to the point of suddenly rendering him mute.

And then he saw her.

His daughter.

He saw the way Prince Reginald’s more-than-able-bodied representative was looking at her. While his father’s heart took pride in the fact that Amelia was a vision of loveliness that could even distract the well respected Duke of Carrington, when he viewed the moment with the eyes of the ruler of Gastonia, he was more than a little dismayed. Instincts that had allowed Roman to guide his small country from its past quaint state to what it had now become, a country devoted to both industry and the pursuit of knowledge, sent up red flags of alert and alarm.

Roman waited a moment longer. He told himself that his never-failing concern for the country’s welfare, his anxiety that all go well these next few weeks, not to mention the heavy guilt he bore as a father, were responsible for his overreaction. The duke was just taken with the sight of a beautiful woman. There was nothing more to it than that.

The king fervently hoped he was right.

Forcing a smile to his lips, he leaned slightly toward the man who, until a moment earlier, had been setting his mind at ease.

“She is beautiful, isn’t she?” Roman acknowledged softly.

Like a man suddenly in the grip of a hypnotic trance, his eyes never wavering from their target, Russell slowly nodded his response. And then he roused himself, regaining control over all but what he had just been saying. The subject eluded him as completely as if it had never been raised.

“But that was always understood, even when the princess was a child,” he managed to murmur, hoping the king would take up this new avenue of conversation.

But the child, Russell conceded silently, did not hold a candle to the woman she had become. And even having spent almost the entire day in her presence hadn’t quite prepared him for how regal, how utterly breathtaking and captivating Princess Amelia could look.

It took effort to draw his eyes away, effort he couldn’t quite seem to muster, so he continued to look, telling himself he needed a moment longer just to absorb the vision that she was. Russell made a silent vow to Amelia that Reginald was never going to cause her any pain if he had anything to say about it.

Amelia walked into the room very slowly. Not because she wanted to draw out the moment, or because all eyes in the ballroom suddenly seemed to be turned in her direction, but because the heels of the shoes she wore were exceptionally high. Walking quickly could bring about a misstep. Or worse, cause her to fall down. That would not exactly be a royal moment, she mused, and she was fairly certain that if that did happen, a photographer would somehow magically pop out of the woodwork, immortalizing the moment for all time.

Making her way across the threshold, feeling as if she were moving in slow motion, a speed she was not on friendly terms with, she smiled warmly at everyone around her.

And then her eyes were drawn to the young man standing beside her father. Her heart whispered in her chest, undecided whether to beat quickly or freeze.

God, but he was handsome.

Gatherings parted, allowing her to pass unobstructed. She hardly noticed. Her destination was fixed. She could not seem to shake the feeling that all her steps up until this very moment had been designed to bring her to this man.

And with each step she took, her heart began to beat a little faster, like a drumroll growing in volume, in tempo. It seemed to swell within her chest. She was never more grateful than now for the upbringing which allowed her to keep her thoughts and reactions from showing on her face.

Otherwise, she thought, both she and Russell would be lost. Especially her.

Though she shouldered it well, she had never cared for duty. But in a way, duty was responsible for the moment. For bringing Russell here.

Despite the way she had to address him in public, always in the secret recesses of her mind, she thought of him not as the prince’s cohort, not as the Duke of Carrington or by any of the titles that protocol dictated. To her, he had always been, would always be, Russell.

As she drew closer to Russell and her father, she heard the orchestra begin to play. Her mouth curved as the old familiar melody unfurled its notes through the vast room. A waltz. She might have known. Her father’s favorite. The king thought she fancied them, as well. And while she liked them, she had yet to let her father know how much she enjoyed something contemporary even more.

Amelia sincerely doubted if the monarch knew that Black Eyed Peas were something other than a vegetable found on a side dish at a dinner.

Her eyes danced as she joined the two men. “I believe they’re playing our song, Carrington,” she teased and, to his credit, he neither looked confused nor tried to contradict her. “Dance with me.” Russell glanced toward the king, who inclined his head, giving his permission. Humor curved her lips as she saw the silent exchange. “I asked you to dance with me, Carrington. You can dance with my father later.”

King Roman shook his head as Russell placed a hand respectfully on her waist and took her hand in his. He watched his daughter place her other hand on the duke’s shoulder. “Always outspoken,” he said as the couple began to dance away. “From the moment she said her first word.”

“Funny,” Russell observed as their steps took them farther onto the dance floor and away from the king. “I don’t remember you being outspoken when we were children.” He liked the way laughter entered her eyes. Liked the way she didn’t take herself too seriously. Liked the way her waist felt beneath his hand. “You clean up well, Princess.”

“So do you, Carrington.” She cocked her head as if she were studying him while the music moved them about the floor. “You’re almost not ugly.”

“I do my best.”

And his best, she thought, as the music began to swell, matching the tempo within her chest, was more than enough.

Russell had had no intention of walking the princess to her chambers. He’d had every intention that they would part company within the ballroom, or perhaps just at the door as they exited. More than anyone, he was well aware that his role in the scheme of things was to be polite, to strive not to look bored even though he would rather have been in his quarters with a good book than exchanging meaningless conversation with a collection of royals who spent the evening vying for his attention.

He would have been more than content, he silently insisted to himself, to just watch Amelia from afar. Undoubtedly he’d have been safer, too.

The problem was, the princess hadn’t remained afar. She had purposely remained close to him, as if she had decided that he was her one true friend and it was his company that gave her pleasure instead of any of the others.

Toward the end of the evening, she’d almost said as much, but had stopped short before uttering the words. Her eyes had told him. That was approximately around the same time that the princess had consumed her sixth glass of very aged, very fine wine. Wine that had been expressly brought out to toast the princess’s upcoming nuptials.

He had the distinct impression that rather than commemorate it, the princess was trying to blot the moment, the thought, out.

So, toward the fourth hour, as the reception was definitely winding down, when Amelia appeared to be just a hint unsteady on her feet, he’d offered to escort her to her rooms before anyone else took note of the fact that her eyes appeared just a tad too bright. His duty, he reminded himself, was to ensure the future queen’s dignity.

When he made the suggestion about seeing her to her rooms, Amelia saw right through the excuse. “You’re trying to help me maintain my dignity,” she guessed in hushed tones, leaning her head into his. Her words ended in a small giggle he found utterly infectious and endearing.

Tact gave way to honesty. Something told him that unlike Reginald, Amelia appreciated honesty. “I’d rather not see the future Queen of Silvershire guilty of a pratfall.”

She gave him no argument. Instead, she laughed, delighted. “Ah, chivalry is not dead.”

“Only slightly wounded,” he replied as he offered her his arm. She slipped her hand through it. Luckily. Because the next moment, the simple action was instrumental in preventing her from having a misstep end embarrassingly. She flashed him a guileless smile of thanks that was completely devoid of self-consciousness.

Carefully, he guided her from the room, thinking it best not to take his leave of his host. The king was embroiled in a heated discussion he assumed the monarch wouldn’t want interrupted, and besides, he decided that perhaps it was a bit more prudent not to draw attention to the fact that he had to bring the princess upstairs because she was just this side of inebriated.

“This is very nice of you,” Amelia said as they entered the hallway. The heat and the noise of the ballroom was left behind them.

Or at least the noise, she thought. The heat that came from too many bodies too close to one another seemed to linger on even though there were just the two of them. “But then, you’re a very nice person, aren’t you Carrington?”

He wasn’t feeling all that nice right now. What he was feeling he didn’t want to begin to examine. “I try to be, Princess.”

“Not like Reginald,” she concluded knowingly. Though her path and Reginald’s had not crossed in a great many years, she kept up on the stories. And she hadn’t liked what she’d read, even when she tried to view the articles in a charitable light.

She was walking slowly, Russell thought. Was that because she was afraid of falling down? He found he practically had to crawl not to outdistance her. And her words made him uncomfortable. His own personal opinion of Reginald wasn’t very high, but he was nothing if not loyal to the crown. He couldn’t share his feelings with her, or agree with what she was saying.

“Your Highness,” he began tactfully, “I really don’t think—”

She waved her free hand at him and then swayed ever so slightly. She paused to regain her composure. “Oh, please stop with the titles, Russell. I’m Amelia, just call me Amelia.”

“But you are not just Amelia,” he corrected gently. “You’re the Princess of Gastonia. And the future Queen of Silvershire.”

She sighed. “Yes, yes, I know.” They’d come to the foot of the stairs. One hand on the banister, Amelia stopped and looked all the way up the long, winding staircase. She made no effort to take another step.

Russell looked at her, concerned. “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t think my feet will go.” Each leg suddenly felt as if it weighed a hundred pounds apiece. It was as if the weight of her position was pressing her down.

He laughed, thinking she was joking. The expression on her face had him changing his mind. “You’re serious.”

She nodded. “Very.” In her present state, she wasn’t sure if she could negotiate the stairs wearing the shoes that she had on. Maybe if she kicked her shoes off, she thought.

But before she could act on that, she found herself being swept off the floor and into Russell’s arms. He picked her up as if she weighed no more than a cast-off sweater. Holding her against him, Russell began to make his way up the staircase.

Had she been thinking a little more clearly, she might have protested, saying something about being perfectly capable of walking on her own. Except that she wasn’t perfectly capable of that right now. And this was infinitely preferable to either sauntering up the stairs in tottering heels, or scampering up them barefoot.

Her body was tingling and after a moment, she allowed herself to enjoy the sensation as she laced her arms around his neck. God, but he felt muscular, she thought. Like a rock. Except that rocks were not nearly so warm.

With a slight toss of her head, she smiled up into his face. “I could get used to this. Maybe we should give you another title, Carrington. You can be the official princess carrier.”

“Yes, Princess,” he murmured indulgently, wishing he wasn’t quite so aware of her. Wishing he didn’t like the way she felt in his arms as much as he did.

She was going to hate herself in the morning, he thought. And probably him, too.

When he reached the top of the stairs, Russell looked down the hallway. It wasn’t that far to her room, he thought. He might as well carry her all the way. That left less chance for her to stumble and possibly hurt herself.

Without a word of protest or an attempt to regain her feet, Amelia curled against him.

Warmth from her body seemed to penetrate every point of its contact with his. He found that his breathing was growing labored, more pronounced. And the climb up the stairs had had absolutely nothing to do with it.

As swiftly as he could, Russell brought her to her door, grateful that no one had crossed their path. He didn’t want her to be any more embarrassed than he assumed she would be.

Shouldering open the door, he walked across the threshold, then pushed it closed again. Once inside the room, he gently released her, setting her feet back on the floor.

She made no attempt to back away, to break the connection. Her arms remained around his neck. When he began to remove them, she whispered, “Don’t leave.”

Something surged inside his gut. “Princess, I have to go.”

“No.” Amelia rose on her toes, her arms still around his neck. He felt her breath on his lips as she spoke. “You have to stay.” Her eyes searched his. “Unless you don’t want to.”

That was just the problem. He wanted to. In the worst way, he wanted to. And it would be for the worst if he did.

As gently as he could, Russell attempted to disengage himself from her. “Princess, you’ve had too much to drink.”

“No,” she contradicted, “I’ve had just enough to drink. Just enough to bank down my inhibitions.” She drew her courage to her, knowing that the next steps she was going to take were right. “To give me the freedom, just for a little while, to be me.”

He began to protest, to make another halfhearted attempt at doing the right thing. And then the princess caught him completely off guard by blindsiding him.

His resolve broke, like a dried twig under a heavy boot. Suddenly, he was kissing her. As heat flared through his body with the speed of a summer fire rushing through drought-withered grass, Russell closed his arms around her. Pulling her to him, he eliminated the sliver of space that had remained between them and brought her soft curves against the hard contours of his own.

Desire raced up and down his limbs, nibbling chunks out of his belly. Making him want her the way he had never wanted any other woman. The way he had never wanted anything or anyone before.

Later, when his blood had cooled and he could look back, he would know that nothing short of madness had possessed him. Because nothing short of madness would have allowed him to do this, to make love with the woman that destiny had chosen to be his queen.

Which was what she was. For one brief, shining self-contained moment in time, the Princess Amelia was his queen. Not of his country, but of his soul.

The realization throbbed through his brain that he was going to burn in hell for this. But that was tomorrow.

Tonight he would gain heaven first.

Because holding Amelia in his arms like this, kissing her and losing himself within the act, was nothing short of pure heaven.

Amelia felt her insides trembling like a leaf in the wind. It was all she could do to keep the tremor from spreading to her limbs. It seemed so juvenile to do that, to tremble like some untried virgin. Never mind that she was one; she didn’t want him to think of her that way, didn’t want pity to enter into this.

Despite the wine that she had consumed, the wine that allowed her to be what she wanted to be, not what she had to be, Amelia felt amazingly clearheaded. She knew exactly what she wanted. And it was all here, standing before her in her bedroom.

She wasn’t going to spoil it by telling Russell that she had been a little in love with him for what seemed like forever. Even before his lips had touched hers so fleetingly in that darkened passageway all those years ago, she’d been in love with him. She had always known that, despite the practical jokes and pranks, he was a protector. That she could be safe with him.

It had aroused all sorts of fantasies in her young, fertile mind. Fantasies that had had to be put aside as she grew older and came face-to-face with her destiny and duty. She was trading her dreams and her soul, allowing herself to be bartered away to secure her beloved country and she accepted that. It was just the way things had to be.

But first, she desperately wanted to be permitted a single sampling of passion, a single night of tenderness and love. The kind of night she already knew in her heart that her husband-to-be, Reginald, would never give her.

Amelia moaned as she pressed her body to his. Moaned as the kiss and her desire deepened.

He had to stop her. It was his duty to stop her, damn it, not encourage her. Not allow this to happen.

But when Russell put his hands over hers, meaning to still them as her fingers fluttered along his chest, all he could think of was how soft they felt. How delicate her skin seemed to the touch. How completely intoxicating her taste was.

And how insatiable he was for it. For her.

So, instead of applying the brakes, he pressed down on the accelerator and roared into oblivion, losing himself in the taste, the sight, the very feel of her.

He felt like kneeling before her in silent worship. He felt like ripping the clothes away from her body. She’d made him completely insane simply with one taste of her mouth.

His fingers strumming along her spine, he sought out the zipper that had been so skillfully hidden in the folds. Finding it, he tugged, even as his mouth covered hers. The beautiful shimmering blue gown that had captured his imagination slid like a sigh to the floor. Beneath it, he discovered that she was wearing undergarments in the same vivid shade of royal blue.

Stop! Stop! Unheeded commands roared through his brain. He couldn’t stop, couldn’t pull back. Strapped into the first car of a roller coaster that was plunging down a three-hundred-foot incline, he no longer had a choice; he was committed to the ride.

His heart hammering so hard it echoed in his ears, Russell coaxed first her bra, then the lacy thong from her smooth, firm limbs. He wasn’t even aware of breathing. Maybe he had stopped breathing. Stopped, died and entered heaven without realizing it had happened.

The threads of the thong tangled in his fingers. He’d never been clumsy before. But he had never felt anything like this before, either.

“I didn’t know princesses wore thongs,” he said thickly. Her fingernails were digging into his arms. He could see the passion flaring in her eyes. It mirrored his own.

“And here I thought you were worldly.” Her voice, her laugh, were deep, husky and caused his adrenaline to almost overflow.

She didn’t want to seem overly eager, but she gave up the ruse in a little more than a single heartbeat. This was no time for games, it was a time for honesty. She was eager. Eager to enter this mysterious world that had been blocked from her. Eager to enter it with a guide she trusted.

It was becoming more and more difficult to catch her breath. Her lungs felt as if they were going to explode as she eagerly tore the clothes from his body. Buttons were sacrificed, as was material. She didn’t care. All she wanted was for him to be as naked as she was.

Demands pounded through her body as she felt his lips on the hollow of her throat.

Wild sensations were charging through her body, centering at the very core of her.

And then they were both as naked as the moment that they had entered life, experiencing life now, perhaps, for the very first time.

Amelia pressed herself against the man she had chosen to give herself to as each pass of his mouth made the passion within her grow, made the demands become more urgent until she thought she would either explode or go out of her mind.

And then she was exploding. Exploding with delicious, wondrous sensations that rocketed through her body, making her feel as if she was inwardly scrambling for some mystical peak.

Reaching it, she discovered to her joy that the end had not come yet.

There was more. Because there was him.