Charles, her husband’s twin brother? What on earth was he doing here. Anything, anyone connected with her ex-husband was upsetting and an intrusion in her new life. She’d left Wilhelm and wanted no reminders of the biggest mistake of her life.
“May I come in?” he asked.
As annoyed as she was, she couldn’t help but notice the difference. Wilhelm would have barged in. His brother waited to be invited.
She opened the door. And stared at the man who stood there. He looked disturbingly like her ex-husband and yet the expression on his face was nothing like Wilhelm’s arrogance. She barely remembered Charles from her wedding at which he had been the best man; she hadn’t seen him since that fateful day, but she knew this was a man who was self-confident but not arrogant. Maybe it was the way his rain-dampened hair fell across his forehead or the way he’d stuffed his hands into the pockets of his cashmere coat, still, the resemblance bothered her and brought back unpleasant memories. She wanted nothing to do with Wilhelm or any member of his family. She was doing her best to forget all of them. And now this….
“May I come in?” he asked again.
What was wrong with her? She’d been raised with better manners than to let a guest stand in the doorway. But he was so big, so broad-shouldered, so startlingly like his brother, she’d thought he was in.
“Of course,” she said briskly.
He stepped into the small greenhouse with the earthen floor and suddenly the glassed-in room was crowded to overflowing. She had no space, no room to breathe or think. There was a fluttery feeling in the pit of her stomach. She tried to think of something to say, but her mind was blank. All she could do was to stand there and wait for him to say something.
After a long silence during which he looked her up and down with a shade too much intimacy and she continued to stare at him, she finally found her voice.
“What is it, Charles? What do you want?”
He frowned at her lack of civility. What did he expect, that she’d welcome him with open arms, after what his brother had done to her?
“I came when I heard the news, about the divorce…to see if…to see what I could do.”
“Nothing. You can do nothing. You can’t stop your brother from divorcing me, you can’t make my parents’ marriage valid, you can’t find an heir for our country, and you can’t bring my father back to life. So go back to your country and tell your brother I don’t need him or any of his family.”
Charles looked surprised at her angry words. “I haven’t been in my country for months nor have I seen much of my family. Perhaps you aren’t aware, but my brother and I have never been close. And now we are hardly on speaking terms,” he said stiffly. “We lead separate lives, both professionally and personally. I’m in charge of the wine business of Rhineland and Wilhelm is managing the family’s investments abroad. I’ve been in the U.S. for the past six months. When I ran into Wilhelm last week in Los Angeles he told me about the divorce. I couldn’t believe it. It’s only been, what…?”
“Eight months,” Lise said. “Eight months that I am doing my best to forget. So if you don’t mind, I’ll get back to work.” She pivoted on her heel and turned back to her frame. If only she’d been wearing a gown and a tiara, she might have pulled off this obvious dismissal and he would have left. She used the imperial tone. She had the movements down pat. Those years of training came in useful at times. But not today. He didn’t leave. He did just the opposite. He stepped forward. He was right behind her, leaning over her left shoulder.
“What are you doing?” he asked in a deep voice, so much like his brother’s she shivered involuntarily. And yet, the tone was altogether different. Wilhelm gave orders. Charles had asked a question as if he was interested. Wilhelm never asked about her work. Never wondered if she missed it or how she would fill the empty hours in Rhineland while he was working.
She sighed. “I’m doing some restoration work on an eighteenth-century frame for the palace archives,” she said. She couldn’t help it. She should have said it was none of his business, but she had so few people to share her enthusiasm for her work. Not that he cared. Of course he didn’t. He was just making conversation.
“I would guess it held a portrait at one time,” he said coming even closer, so close he brushed her shoulder with his arm. She felt a wave of heat sweep through her body.
“A portrait,” she repeated. “Yes, it did.” She wished he would move away. His warm breath fanned the back of her neck and made her knees weak. It was difficult to concentrate on the subject of the painting. “It was one of my royal ancestors. Frederic the Second.”
“Frederic the Bold, I believe they called him, for his acquisition of the lowlands,” Charles said.
Lise nodded slowly. She was impressed by his knowledge of history. It wasn’t even his history. She’d thought she was the only one who could keep the ancestors straight. How did he know?
“And for his wooing of my royal ancestor, Princess Gabrielle,” Charles added. Though she couldn’t see his face, she thought his voice held the hint of a smile.
“Which resulted in a royal scandal, because she was affianced to someone else. How do you know all this?” she asked, turning to face him. He was so close she could see that though his eyes were the same color as his brother’s, they were a softer brown, almost velvety. Wilhelm had the coldest eyes she’d ever seen, as cold as the stones from the river. She couldn’t drag her gaze away. She couldn’t stop comparing the two brothers. They looked so much alike, but acted so differently. Or was this just an act? He really hadn’t explained why he was here.
He shrugged. “My grandfather used to tell me stories. My parents were too busy with their own lives to pay much attention to me or my brother. Wilhelm had other interests, but I was fascinated by the history of my country. And Grandfather was a great storyteller. He’d walk me through the portrait gallery at the palace and tell me about the people in the paintings. Before he died, he wrote a history of Rhineland, which includes quite a bit about St. Michel. One can’t study one without getting involved with the other, as you know. We can’t ignore each other, whether we want to or not. We’re too close, have too much in common, too many ties going back over the centuries.”
The way he said it, the way he looked at her, with such warmth in his gaze, she felt the heat. Lise wondered if he was talking about their countries or themselves. She didn’t dare ask. Why was he here? If he wondered if she’d been devastated by the divorce, he could see she hadn’t been.
When she didn’t say anything, he continued. “History is your field, isn’t it?”
She was surprised he knew. Wilhelm had thought it a useless hobby, but it was her passion, along with art. “History and art restoration. I’ve been criticized more than once for living in the past.”
Get your nose out of that book, her mother had said.
You’ll never find a man in a museum, her father had cautioned.
What are you doing in the library all day? her husband Wilhelm had demanded.
“That’s ridiculous. Who was it who said if we don’t study history, we’re doomed to repeat it?”
She smiled. “It’s true, but you didn’t come here to discuss history,” she said. If he did, she could go on all day, having
