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He decided not to call out to her until she was on the beach so as not to startle her. A thrum of anticipation beat through him like jungle drums from a distant place. He remembered vividly how she had whispered his name in wonder as he’d caressed her.
During those moments, while the storm surged around them, the wildness of the selky had returned to her eyes. She’d been incredibly passionate, responsive to his every touch, until he, too, had felt the call of the sea in his blood, until his heart had pounded with the fierceness of the storm surge, until he’d thought it would burst from his chest…
The next moment he exclaimed in annoyance as the princess skipped lightly over the rocks in the opposite direction from him rather than walking around the cove as he’d thought she would do. Some instinct cautioned him to silence as she approached the water’s edge.
To his astonishment, she tossed off the long shawl and her sandals. Clad only in a swimsuit, she raced into the chill sea and proceeded to swim out into the bay on the morning tide.
Surprise was replaced by a surge of fear so strong he was rendered motionless for a split second. Then he was on his feet, tossing shoes and clothing aside, and diving into an oncoming wave, determined to haul her back to shore.
She was a surprisingly strong swimmer and she knew how to ride the outgoing tide to her advantage. She was almost abreast of a small rocky island centered in the bay when he caught up with her.
Her eyes opened wide in obvious shock upon discovering him when she glanced over her left shoulder. “Wha—” she began. “Who is it?” she demanded in true regal style.
He raised his head and looked at her.
Her eyes, as green as the sea could sometimes be, stared at him as if he were a strange creature she’d never seen before. Anger joined the hunger and fear and all other emotions that filled him.
“Jean-Paul Augustuve,” he informed her sardonically. “Good morning, Your Highness.” He executed a bow.
But Megan had already discerned who he was, had known it instinctively upon spying the dark hair and long, lean figure closing in on her as she neared the island.
“Hello,” she said in confusion.
Being that she was a virgin prior to her encounter with Jean-Paul, she’d never met an ex-lover face-to-face after the crime, so to speak. It was doubly awkward treading water while they spoke, like a couple of merfolk meeting accidentally. She had neither a mermaid’s nor a worldly woman’s wit and nonchalance.
“Hello, indeed.” He stretched out and in two strokes had arraigned himself beside her.
She swam to the rocky shore of the island, Jean-Paul beside her all the way.
“You didn’t answer my note yesterday,” he said when they stood side by side, water sluicing from their bodies.
A bolt like lightning hit her when she realized he wore only underclothes that clung, almost transparent, to him like a second skin. She hurriedly turned and selected a boulder to perch on so she could watch the restless ocean.
“I was busy,” she told him, groaning silently at how haughty she sounded.
“Which is why I waited for you here.”
She shot him an assessing look, not sure of his mood. His manner was calm, but she sensed the danger he could be if he chose.
“How nice to see you,” she said formally.
“Weren’t you expecting me?”
She shook her head.
His laughter was brief. “Did you think I was a callow youth who would flee in the face of fatherhood?”
A gasp tore from her throat, which suddenly seemed too hoarse to speak. She hadn’t had near enough time to prepare herself for this meeting, to find the words to ask what his intent might be, what his wishes were. “I…why do you say that?”
“A cryptic note that you needed to see me, written eight weeks and a day from our night on the sea? I would think it’s fairly obvious what conclusion should be drawn.”
“Oh.”
His hands clenched at his sides. His eyes raked her in anger. She felt like cringing but managed not to.
“Are you expecting a child?”
His voice lashed at her, shocking her as much as the question. “If I am?” she asked to gain time.
“There is no need for panic.” He gestured toward her and the sea. “I will do my duty toward you and the babe.”
The words should have soothed her troubled heart, but she was only more confused. It came to her that he perhaps thought she was considering taking her life and that of the child. Resentment, anger and other emotions whirled through her. She lifted her chin as pride asserted itself. “I am hardly in a panic. I often come out to the island when I wish to be alone and think…about things.”
Her hesitation must have given her away. “Then there is a child,” he concluded.
“No,” she denied.
He was silent while his eyes swept over her figure. “No?”
Her two-piece swimsuit suddenly seemed much too revealing. She opened her mouth, but no lie flowed from her lips. “I haven’t seen a doctor yet,” she confessed.
With a quick move, he caught her shoulders. “You said you didn’t play games. Don’t start with me,” he warned.
She took a deep breath. “Then yes, I think I am…that there is…”
“I’ll go to your father at once.”
She stared into his clear blue eyes. He seemed to have no problem accepting this possibility at all. “Why?”
“To ask for your hand. We must follow protocol. After all, you are a royal princess.”
“Wait,” she said, laying a hand on his chest as if he might dash up the knoll and confront her father on the spot. “I must think.”
Heat pulsed from where she touched him, running up her arm in waves that reminded her of the passion she’d found in his embrace. She pressed a hand to her temple, the world spinning completely out of control.
“We have some time,” he conceded, “but it isn’t infinite. Royal weddings take preparation. Or were you planning to elope?”
Now there was open amusement in his manner, as if he laughed at her expense.
“I wasn’t planning anything,” she informed him sharply, stepping away from his touch.
“I’ve heard pregnant women are often unreasonable,” he remarked, his smile widening.
“I’m not unreasonable! You can’t just waltz in here and start planning a wedding as if…as if…”
“As if we were lovers who’d been unable to wait for official blessings on our union?”
She stared at him aghast. He was twisting everything she said. And confusing her. Drawing courage around her like a cloak, she said, “I must go back. I have an appointment.”
His smile said he knew she was lying, but he spoke quite gently. “We’ll have dinner tonight and talk then. In the palace, or shall we go out?”
Everyone would notice if they went to a restaurant. Desperation seized her, and she said the first thing that came to mind. “In my chambers. I’ll arrange it.”
“Good.” He guided them into the sea, staying by her side until they reached the mainland.
She kept her gaze carefully averted from the enticing flex of his muscles as they donned their garments. He escorted her to the palace gate, then lifted her chin with a finger and gazed into her eyes.
“Marriage to me may not be so bad as you obviously think,” he suggested with a touch of bitterness.
She avoided his gaze. “We’ll talk tonight. At eight.” She unlocked the gate and fled, rushing to her chambers in a welter of undefined emotion. “Hurry,” she said to her maid. “We have things to do.”
Then she sank into a chair and sat there in a daze, doing nothing at all.
Chapter Three
Megan paced from her desk to the window, then started back. She paused in front of the hearth and considered ordering a fire. But that might be construed as too intimate. God forbid she appear eager for intimacy with the handsome Earl of Silvershire.
She would have laughed at the irony but she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stop. Poor princess, everyone would say as they carried her away. She just couldn’t handle the affairs of state.
It was affairs in general that she couldn’t handle, she admitted with gallows humor.
An authoritative knock sounded at the door. Candy, her personal maid, hovering over the table set for two, glanced her way in question. Megan nodded and stayed at the hearth.
Jean-Paul entered, thanked the maid, then looked directly into Megan’s eyes, trapping her with his commanding presence when she really wanted to bolt to her bedroom and hide in the closet. He bowed with careless grace.
Tonight he wore all black—slacks, shirt, sans tie, and velvet jacket. He looked like a storybook prince.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, as if this were such a simple truth it should be obvious to anyone who saw her.
Although the night often grew cool due to the sea breeze, she’d chosen a long summer dress of golden silk with satin leaves of deep green around the neckline and elbow-length sleeves and hem. He handed her a golden rose wrapped with ribbons of variegated green.
“Thank you. That was thoughtful.” She slipped the wrist corsage over her left hand, staring at it in confused wonder.
“I called and asked Candy about your outfit,” he explained.
An odd resentment flowed through her at the casual use of her maid’s name. Then it was gone as she recalled the whisper of her own name on his lips. Megan, he’d said in a husky murmur that magic night. Sweet selky.
At that moment, had she been such a creature, she would never have traded her human form for that of the sea mammal, although selkies supposedly yearned to return to their watery home.
She was brought back to the present when Jean-Paul crossed the carpet and lifted her hand to his lips. His kiss was brief and formal. But only for a moment, then he turned her hand and kissed her wrist. She gasped.
The maid gave a surprised exclamation, then quickly coughed to cover it. When Megan frowned her way, the girl smoothed an imaginary wrinkle in the tablecloth.
“You may serve the first course,” Megan said, sweeping past the earl and hearing the whisper of the silk against her thighs at the same instant she inhaled his scent, which was that of balsam cologne, shampoo and talc…and one she was thoroughly acquainted with.
She had to stop thinking like that!
“Please join me,” she invited, stopping at the table, which, set for two, seemed much too confining. However, they could hardly discuss their problems at the family table.
Besides, her mother was filling in at some royal function for the king this evening and the twins were out of the country, so only the princesses were at home. Megan didn’t want to share Jean-Paul with her sisters at present.
Thinking of the king, Megan wondered what important project had come up. Her father hadn’t been seen the past five days. Neither Megan nor her sisters knew what was up, which was not unusual; their father had left the raising of the children to his queen while he attended royal affairs.
On second thought, Meredith, who worked with the Royal Intelligence Institute, might know, but she hadn’t said.
Growing up in a palace, one learned to discern the faintest nuances of intrigue. Megan had discovered long ago that things were seldom as they seemed in a royal household and that personal matters always were last in priority. Her gaze went to her handsome guest.
“Deep thoughts?” Jean-Paul’s smile was mocking but not sarcastic or cruel. She’d never seen him act in a mean-spirited manner, a good trait in a father.
Quickly, before her unruly mind went off on another tangent, she sat and arranged her skirts while he took the chair opposite her. Candy served a chilled plum soup from fruit grown on the royal farm. Megan saw Jean-Paul’s eyes linger on the girl, a frown in the blue depths.
“That will be all for the evening, Candy,” Megan told the maid. “We’ll serve ourselves.”
With a confused bow, the young woman, recently turned eighteen, left the sitting room.
“Alone at last,” her guest murmured, his face relaxing into a pleased expression.
Startled at the laughter in his eyes, she managed a smile and picked up her spoon. The meal was consumed in near silence. She was glad she’d chosen only four courses, for she couldn’t come up with a topic of small talk, and he didn’t try.
After they finished the white chocolate mousse, they returned to the sitting area. He chose the sofa after she took a chair at right angles to it.
She poured him a cup of coffee, black with no sugar as she remembered from their week in Monte Carlo, then prepared her own with half milk and one spoon of sugar.
“What is your position on marriage?” he asked as soon as the formalities were complete.
The question shook her composure like a broadside hitting a sailing ship. “I don’t approve of arranged ones.”
A frown snapped a groove between his eyes. “Has one been proposed for you?”
The fury startled her. “No. Of course not. Meredith would be wed first.”
He leaned forward and rested his forearms on his thighs. “Life as a royal is damned difficult. I suppose we would need to spend most of the year here. That wouldn’t be a problem while my father is alive. When I inherit, we’ll have to spend at least half the time at Silvershire.”
“This is absurd,” she began. He was planning where they would live while she hadn’t yet come to terms with a possible marriage.
His eyes met hers in a brilliant glance of blue fire. “You’ll like it there. We have the sea and the mountains just as you do here. I’ll show you my secret places.”
“Wait!” she cried softly. “You’re…this is going too fast. I haven’t told my parents yet.”
“I said I’d speak to your father. Do you think I’d let you take the heat alone?”
“That’s noble of you, but as you noted, there’s no need to rush into anything.”
“Yet,” he added, his gaze sweeping over her. “You’re small. A child will show soon. Have you been ill in the mornings?”
She nodded, shy about admitting it. The fact seemed more intimate than the night they’d shared.
“And there is this,” he murmured, continuing his train of thought.
