She was turning her back on him? She shouldn’t do that, he thought. To turn your back on royalty…
He could have her put in prison for insubordination.
But she was already walking away. He watched her and thought she looked tired. She shouldn’t be tired. She’d had time here to rest.
There was a long, ragged scar running from the back of her knee almost to her ankle. It showed white against her tan. That hadn’t been there before.
She was a different woman from the girl he’d fallen in love with. But the girl he’d fallen in love with would never have been afraid of accusations of insubordination. Some things hadn’t changed.
She wasn’t waiting for him. She was simply ignoring him, trudging slowly back to the pavilion. He caught up with her in a few long strides and fell in beside her.
‘What happened to your leg?’
‘I don’t have to—’
‘Tell me? No, you don’t. But I’d like to know. It’s a nasty scar and I hate to think that you’ve been hurt.’
She cast him a look that was almost fearful. ‘You think a cut on the leg can hurt me? That’s a minor cut, Andreas Karedes. You have no idea what can really hurt. And don’t you turn on the royal charm to me,’ she snapped. ‘I’m impervious.’
‘Are you?’ He smiled and she gasped and turned deliberately to face ahead.
‘Leave me alone. You seduced me once. If you think you’re seducing me again…’
‘I just asked what happened to your leg. It’s hardly a come-on.’
‘I cut it on some fencing wire.’
‘You were fencing?’
‘Yes, if you must know.’
‘Your father would never have allowed you to fence.’
‘While you were around, no,’ she said. ‘There was a lot that didn’t happen when you were around.’
‘I don’t understand.’
She turned on him then, her colour high. ‘We were broke,’ she said, through teeth that were suddenly chattering. ‘I didn’t know. No one knew. Our neighbours, our friends. No one. He hid it, my father. Our homestead was grand and imposing, and the landholding vast. You know my mother was minor European royalty? She never lost her love of luxury, and my father indulged her. They both assumed things would come right. They didn’t, but that didn’t stop them spending. My father borrowed and he borrowed and he borrowed.’
‘He was rich,’ Andreas said, stunned.
‘He wasn’t,’ she snapped. ‘So when I turned seventeen they hatched some crazy plan to have me marry wealth. My mother used her connections. She wrote to every royal house in Europe; every billionaire she’d ever heard of, offering a home-stay for young men before they took over their duties. You were the first who came.’
‘There was money…’
‘It was a façade. You remember the balls, the picnics, the splendour… Until then I was a kid being home-schooled because we couldn’t afford boarding school. I worked on the farm, but as soon as you arrived I was off duty. I was a young lady. I was free to spend every minute of every day with you if I wanted. And of course it went to my head. I was free for the first time in my life and my parents were pushing me into your arms for all they were worth. Only then I got pregnant and you left and the whole pack of cards came tumbling down. My father was left with a mountain of debt. My mother simply walked out, and there I was. Pregnant. Desperate. And even lovesick, if you must know.’
‘Lovesick,’ he said faintly, but she responded with a look of scorn.
‘Leave it. You want to hear the story? I’m telling you.’ Her words were almost tumbling out, as if she was trying hard to get this over as fast as possible. ‘So, pregnant or not, I had to work, and yes I have scars but the outward ones are the least of it. No, I didn’t tell you I was pregnant even when my parents… Well, there was no way I was letting them coerce you into marriage. So I had my baby and I loved him so much he changed my world.’ She faltered but then forced herself to continue.
‘But…but when he was almost two months old he got meningitis and he died. That’s it. End of story.’ She closed her eyes for a fraction of a second and then opened them again. Story almost over. The hard part done. ‘So there it is. I got myself a university degree by correspondence so I could teach. I taught School of the Air like I’d always intended and that’s the only money that’s been coming into the farm for years. My father was incapacitated with depression but he wouldn’t hear of selling the farm and I couldn’t leave him. Six months ago he died. I put the place on the market, but it’s too run down. It hasn’t sold and I was planning to walk away when your thugs arrived. So what are you planning to do with me now, Andreas? Punish me more? Believe me, I’ve been punished enough. My Adam died.’
Her voice choked on a sob of pure fury, directed at him, directed at the death of her baby, directed at the whole world. She wiped her face desperately with the back of her hand.
He moved towards her but she backed away. ‘No!’
‘You called him Adam,’ he said, hating to hurt her more, but knowing he might never get answers at any other time than now. Now when her defences were smashed. When she was so far out of control…
‘AdamAndreas,’ she whispered. ‘For his father. He even looked like you. You should have seen… I so wanted you to see…’ She gasped and it was too much.
He moved then, like a big cat, lunging forward to grasp her shoulders. She wrenched back but he hauled her in against him and held, whether she wished it or not.
He simply held.
She was rigid in his grasp, but he could feel her shoulders heaving. ‘No…no.’
‘Let it go, Holly,’ he said, and held her tighter still and let his face rest on her lovely curls.
For a moment he thought she wouldn’t let herself succumb to his attempts at comfort. The stiffness in her body felt even more pronounced.
And then, so suddenly he almost let her go, he felt the tension release. She let her body slump against him. He tugged her into him. Her face buried into his shoulder and he felt her weep.
It lasted thirty seconds at the most. He held her close, the most primeval of emotions coursing through his veins, all to do with protection, desire, possession, and then he felt her stiffen and pull away. This woman would not give in to tears easily, he thought as she hauled herself back from him and swiped her face angrily on her towel. He remembered her refusal to weep when he’d left. He’d seen the glimmer of tears and had watched her simply shut them down, hold them back.
She did so now. Her eyes, when she finally raised them to meet his, were cold and defiant.
‘You have no right to make me feel like this,’ she whispered. ‘You have no rights at all.’
‘I had the right to know my son.’
The
