to jelly and she sagged against him. “I won’t stay here under false pretenses,” she insisted, trying to ignore the tattoo her heart had set up. It was a symptom of her weakened state, nothing more, she insisted to herself.
His deeply vibrant voice was very close to her ear. “Obviously you have yet to learn that one does not say no to royalty.”
Lorne might be used to his subjects shaking in their shoes when he looked at them, but she came from stock that had made an art form of equality. Respect was another matter, but it had to be earned, and riding roughshod over her preferences was no way to earn it. “And you have yet to learn that we Australians are an independent lot who prefer being asked to being told,” she said as coolly as she could manage.
His expression turned grim. “During my marriage, I was made well aware of your Australian disdain for authority, but you are in Carramer now. You will stay because the doctor advises it.” He didn’t add “and I command it” but he might as well have. She heard it in his steely undertone.
“Or you’ll do what? Throw me over a cliff like the guidebook says your ancestors did?” Her chin came up and she almost closed her eyes as the gesture brought her face alarmingly close to his. She settled for lowering her lashes slightly so she looked at him through a feathery screen. It softened the strong contours of his face but not by much.
The glint in his gaze clearly said “don’t tempt me” but the only outward sign of his anger was in the rigidity of his arm around her and the sudden tightening of his jaw as he said, “Please get back into bed.”
Surprise almost knocked the wind out of her. “There, see? Saying please didn’t hurt a bit, did it?”
As soon as the whispered words were out, she cursed herself. What was it about the prince that made her open her mouth and say stupid things? Lorne was a man who plainly wasn’t used to deferring to anyone. What would it have cost her to be gracious? Instead she had to issue what amounted to a challenge.
She should have known better, she grasped, as she glimpsed the light of battle in his eyes. Then his head came down and his lips claimed hers. Like many grown women, inside Allie was a little girl who had dreamed of one day being kissed by a prince, but nothing in her childhood fantasies had prepared her for the reality. Instinct told her that Lorne was only showing her who was boss, but the molten way he made her feel overruled logic, leaving a sensation so all-consuming that she didn’t want it to end.
When he put her away from him, she was glad of the bed at her back as her knees buckled. She curled her fingers around the edge of the mattress for support. “I wasn’t aware that your customs included the one about droit du seigneur,” she said shakily.
“Supposing it was not just a medieval myth. The right of the ruler to have any woman of his choosing before any other man hasn’t been claimed for centuries,” he said equably. The coldness in his expression reminded her that he hadn’t kissed her out of desire, but because she had challenged his authority.
“But you think it did exist?” She suppressed a shiver at the possibility.
His mouth curved into a perceptive smile, making her wish she had fought him when he kissed her. Why hadn’t she? “It would be…edifying,” he confirmed after a long pause, “but it has nothing to do with why I kissed you.”
She tossed her head, wishing she had more energy to put into the defiant gesture. His kiss had added to her feeling of weakness in ways she was probably better off not thinking about. “I know perfectly well that you did it to show that I may have won the round but you will win the match because of who and what you are.”
He inclined his head in agreement. “Then we both know where we stand.”
He was only confirming what she had suspected, but part of her rejected the thought that it was his only reason for kissing her. In the midst of her own maelstrom of feelings she had sensed an equally strong response in him. Clearly he did find her attractive, but it was plain that she reminded him painfully of the Australian wife he had lost, so he was unlikely to give in to it.
It was fine with her, too, she thought. After years of burying her own needs and desires in favor of her mother’s and sister’s, she wasn’t interested in exchanging one form of tyranny for another. Lorne was the last person in the world who should interest her romantically. He was too hard-headed and his position made him far too inflexible for there to be any common ground between them.
All the same, his kiss lingered on her lips long after he left her to sleep, and although she closed her eyes, it was a long time before her need for rest overcame the turmoil racing through her mind.
Chapter Three
The morning was well advanced by the time Lorne dismissed his aide and stood up from his desk. He stretched luxuriously, feeling his muscles unknot. He wondered briefly what it would be like to enjoy a vacation as others did, totally free of the responsibilities that even rested on his shoulders when he was at his summer residence, away from the capital. Like Alison, came the involuntary thought. No affairs of state troubled her, not even affairs of the heart, it seemed.
The state of her heart wasn’t his concern, he told himself fiercely. Until the doctor cleared her to return to her hostel, she was merely another responsibility. Lorne had no need to see her unless he chose to. The villa had more than enough staff to take care of one stray Australian who had had the misfortune to wash up on their private beach. Why was he wasting time thinking about her when his son was waiting?
Alison continued to occupy his thoughts as he changed for Nori’s daily swimming lesson. The task could have been delegated to the palace’s personal trainers, but Lorne enjoyed teaching his son himself, and Nori looked forward to having his father to himself and showing off what he had learned.
Today, however, Nori sat on the edge of the pool looking downcast. Lorne dropped to the marble coping beside his child. “What’s the matter, coquine?”
Nori’s small chin jutted out. “I’m not a little rogue. I’m a good boy.”
Lorne nodded, careful not to smile. “Of course you are.”
Nori’s huge baby eyes flashed to him. “Then why can’t Allie give me a koala? She promised, and I want it more than anything.”
The passion in his son’s voice caught Lorne by surprise. “But you have so many toys already.”
“I don’t have a koala from Australia.”
Lorne winced inwardly but kept his face impassive. So that was what this was all about. He dropped an arm around his son’s small body and pulled him close, reminding himself that as well as crown prince, Nori was still a baby who missed his mother. “Did talking to Miss Carter remind you of your mama?” he asked carefully.
Nori’s full lower lip quivered, and his shoulders trembled under Lorne’s hand, but he didn’t cry, eliciting a pang of empathy in his father. How many times in his own youth had Lorne fought to contain his emotions because of his position? “It’s all right to admit that you miss your mama, you know,” he said softly. “You’re very brave but when we’re alone you can tell me how you really feel.”
Nori turned lambent eyes to him. “You won’t mind if I cry a bit?”
Lorne shook his head. “Not even if you cry a whole swimming pool.”
Nori
