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Without warning he lifted her hand and brought it to his lips, his eyes never leaving her face. His dark gaze seemed to look deep inside her, until she wondered if he sensed her contrary thoughts.
A scorching sensation almost had her pulling her hand away until she realized it was entirely in her mind. Rowe had done no more than kiss the back of her hand in a courtly gesture such as she had seen the royal men do on many occasions. There was no call for her body to respond as if he had actually kissed her on the lips. He wasn’t likely to, and she wouldn’t permit it in any case. Would she?
“I’m glad we’ve reached an agreement,” he said, releasing her hand with what she swore was reluctance.
The move was probably as calculated as the kiss itself, she told herself, striving to still the fluttering of her heart. She might have no choice about working with him, but she could choose not to respond to such blatant gestures. Be cool and aloof. Let him know she wasn’t impressed by his practiced gallantry.
Something told her it was going to be a difficult resolution to keep, although keep it she must. By his treatment of her sister, Rowe had proved to be as self-centered and unreliable as her father, Kirsten reminded herself. Thinking of him in any other way was playing with fire.
Chapter Three
“I wish I could say you’re welcome,” she said stiffly, her senses returning.
His glittering gaze mocked her. “But you still think I’m a cultural vandal.”
She took satisfaction in throwing his own words back at him. “You said it. I didn’t.”
“Touchе. While we’re working together, I will hold you responsible for civilizing me,” he said. “You can teach me about the collections, and the history of the castle.”
She’d been hoping they wouldn’t see enough of each other for that. “Didn’t you study those things when you were growing up here?” she asked.
His expression darkened. “I didn’t grow up here.”
In her head she conjured up an image of the de Marigny family tree. Rowe’s grandmother had been sister to the grandfather of Carramer’s present monarch. “As the son of Angelique and James, surely—”
“If you know my family’s history that well, then you know that I was eight when my father went scuba diving and never returned.”
She did know the tragic story. To this day, people speculated that the previous Viscount Aragon, James Sevrin, was still alive somewhere, perhaps living abroad after spying for another country. She didn’t believe any of the fanciful explanations. More likely, he had been carried out to sea by one of the notorious riptides off Carramer’s beaches. “It was a terrible tragedy,” she murmured.
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Not an international conspiracy?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“Then you’re in the minority. After my father disappeared, my mother took me to live at one of the royal estates in Valmont province. She made sure I had a suitably royal education there, but she never wanted to return to the castle. She hoped to escape the rumors about my father, although they followed us even to Valmont.”
Having had her share of family tragedy, Kirsten knew only too well how hard it was to deal with the loss of loved ones, and she hadn’t had to cope with sensational headlines and sidelong looks from people who thought they knew the truth.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“You sound almost sincere.”
She bristled at the doubt she heard in his tone. “Believe it or not, I am. I’ve also lost people I care about, and it’s never easy, no matter who you are, or what the circumstances.”
“No.” He half turned away, exposing his impressive profile.
He may not have grown up in the castle, but his birthright was there in his every move, she thought. His bearing, his manner, his speech, all bespoke a self-assurance that few people possessed. “I would have thought Merrisand Castle was the last place you would want to return to,” she said.
“As Rowe Sevrin, I can live with it. Max and his family were incredibly supportive when my father disappeared. Helping them is the least I can do to repay him.”
She wanted to ask if he could shed his personal history as easily as his title, but decided it was none of her business. Nor had she any interest in his problems. He had done more to hurt her family than he knew, and she couldn’t forgive him for it. She didn’t want to feel compassion for him, and it bothered her to find her basic sense of decency at odds with her antipathy toward him.
He wasn’t going to be an easy man to hate.
“I’d like to go over my plans for the race with you over dinner,” he said, startling her.
Picturing herself seated across a table from him, the subdued lighting playing on his aristocratic features, she felt heat suffuse her. She felt foolishly tempted to accept, in spite of all the reasons she shouldn’t. What would it like to be the focus of his attention, to feel the touch of his hand on hers across the table as he made some point, maybe to dance with him after dinner, his body aligned with hers as they moved to the music?
Stop it, she ordered herself. If they were to work together, she had to remember who and what he was, and the threat he represented if he should discover his relationship to her son. Thinking of Jeffrey strengthened her resolve. “Thank you for the invitation, but I’m not free tonight.”
Interest gleamed in his flinty gaze. “Another date?”
Tempted to remind him that her private life was none of his concern, she said, instead, “A family commitment.”
“Ah, yes, your son.”
She’d been right—he had been reading her file. How else would he know she had a child? “I have to collect Jeffrey from school in ten minutes.”
He picked up a file from the desk and tucked it under his arm. “I’ll walk with you.”
Having him meet Jeffrey was the last thing she wanted. “My workday finished half an hour ago,” she reminded him.
He seemed unperturbed as he held the office door open for her. “Mine, too. I’m staying in the state apartments, so the school is on my way.”
To go through the door she had to brush past him. As she did so, a force like electricity crackled through her, sensitizing her nerves to an alarming degree. Despair quickly followed. How could she work with him and remain aloof when he had such a disturbing effect on her?
It seemed she had no option but to let him accompany her. She could hardly deny him the freedom of the castle grounds when he had more right to them than she did. Perhaps she could convince him not to wait when they reached the school.
She had no more luck with that than with denying his powerful impact on her, she found when they reached the building housing the school for the children of castle employees. Once a hunting lodge, the late-nineteenth-century building was as large as many mansions. Built of creamy Carramer sandstone, it was two stories high with mullioned windows, heavy timber doors and ornate wrought-iron gates. A garden of fragrant rambler roses edged a large swath of lush green lawn where children played. One fenced-off area was reserved for the smaller children, and it was here she often found Jeffrey playing with his toy cars in the sandpit. The playground was empty today, the children still inside.
“I mustn’t keep you,” she said by way of a hint to Rowe that it was time for him to leave.
He angled his shoulder against the stone wall of the building. “I’m in no hurry. I remember this place.”
“You went to school here?”
He nodded. “Until I was seven. I missed a lot of the next year because of the turmoil surrounding my father’s disappearance. After we moved, I was provided with tutors, then I attended school and university in Valmont. They were admirable places of learning, but never had the atmosphere I remember from the Castle School.”
She thought the same and considered herself fortunate to be able to enroll Jeffrey in such a wonderful place, one of the key reasons she was determined not to jeopardize her position at the castle. Did Rowe suspect that when he threatened her job in order to gain her cooperation?
A fresh wave of anger toward him swamped some of the attraction. Whatever his effect on her, she should remember that he wasn’t above using blackmail to get his way. “You must have more pressing things to do than wait for a group of schoolkids,” she said pointedly.
“Undoubtedly, but they can wait. I want to meet your son.”
Fear shrilled through her like a fire alarm. She didn’t want him to meet Jeffrey. Rowe had no idea of his relationship to the child. If he remembered Natalie’s letter at all, he wouldn’t necessarily connect Natalie with Kirsten. Bond wasn’t an uncommon surname. As far as he knew, Jeffrey was Kirsten’s son. As long as she kept it that way, she and her child were safe.
She didn’t feel safe at all.
Other parents drifted up to collect their children. Many greeted her warmly, although they left her alone in deference to the man beside her. She was aware of their speculative glances at Rowe and their murmurs of recognition. The automatic preening gestures from the women, touching their hair and smoothing their dresses, weren’t lost on her, either.
She resisted the urge to feel proud of having Rowe at her side, but it was hard when he was obviously making such an impression on the other mothers. Occasionally she had wished for a more conventional family structure, for Jeffrey’s sake if not her own, and Rowe’s presence gave her more of a taste of what it would be like than she wanted.
He could never be part of that structure, she told herself firmly. She would work with him because she must, but to think of him as anything but her temporary boss was courting disaster.
The doors of the school swung open and a group of six-year-olds surged through, marshaled by their teacher. Among them, Kirsten spotted Jeffrey with his best friend, Michael, a red-haired terror whose father was head groundsman at the castle.
Jeffrey looked up and saw her, his small face lighting with pleasure. She felt an answering rush inside her, filling her with such love for him that she could barely restrain herself from pushing through the crowd of children and grabbing him up in a hug. She knew he considered himself a big boy now and wouldn’t thank her for being what he called smoochy in front of his school friends.
Seeing the maternal pride and love on Kirsten’s face as the children appeared, Rowe felt a stirring of jealousy. When he had attended school here, he had been collected by a nanny; his mother hadn’t collected him until the day his father vanished, and her appearance at the school was indelibly connected with tragedy in his mind. These days the unexpected appearance of his mother still sparked a twinge of anxiety in him, until he assured himself that nothing was wrong.
Kirsten’s son apparently had no such problem. From the way the little red-haired boy and his darker-haired companion made a beeline for her, the child was eager to be with her.
Before they reached her, the redhead peeled off and threw himself into the arms of a man in castle uniform waiting on the sidelines, proudly thrusting a paper kite under the man’s nose. “Daddy, Daddy! Look what I made.”
The dark-haired child came to Kirsten, also trailing an object made of brightly colored paper. “I made a kite, too, Mommy. We flew them in the garden today. Mine flew the best.”
“I’m sure it did, sweetheart.” Crouching down, Kirsten enveloped the boy in a hug, her eyes gleaming.
Rowe watched them, feeling a frown furrow his brow. His glance went from the red-haired child chattering to the man he called Daddy and back to Kirsten. Her son had inherited none of her bright coloring, but there was no mistaking the bond between them.
He suppressed a smile as he saw Jeffrey squirm out of his mother’s arms. He was at the age when being cuddled in public was embarrassing. He had felt the same at that age, Rowe thought. Releasing Jeffrey with a wry expression, Kirsten stood up.
Only then did she seem to remember Rowe’s presence. Color flooded her face and she took the child’s hand in what looked to Rowe like a protective gesture. He didn’t like the way he felt left out. He and Kirsten might not have gotten off to the best start, but he had tried to smooth things over. What more did she want?
“Jeffrey, say hello to Viscount Aragon. Rowe, this is Jeffrey,” she said. He got the feeling she would have preferred not to make the introduction.
“Hello, Viscount Aragon,” Jeffrey repeated dutifully. Being the kind of school it was, the children were taught early how to behave around royalty.
“Hello, son,” he said. He dropped to the child’s level and met huge, dark eyes that struck him as familiar somehow. Probably because Jeffrey looked a lot like himself at the same age. Same lustrous dark hair falling over his eyes. As a boy, Rowe had been forever brushing his hair out his eyes. For a meeting with the monarch when he was five, his nanny had even used her hairspray on it in desperation, he recalled with an inward shudder.
He offered his hand and the little boy shook it solemnly, the comparative size of their hands giving Rowe a strange sensation. This was how a son of his would look if he had one. In fact…He dismissed the thought out of hand. Kirsten’s record didn’t name her child’s father, but Rowe knew without a shadow of doubt that if they had ever gone to bed together, the occasion would be burned into his memory.
Kirsten wasn’t the kind of woman you made love to, then forgot about. He wondered if some man had done just that, or if Kirsten had made the choice of single parenthood herself. Either way, Rowe knew if Jeffrey had been his son, he would never have walked away, no matter what.
“Mind if I take a look at your kite?”
Jeffrey glanced at his mother for reassurance. She nodded and Jeffrey held out the mangled paper object. “Miss Sims put the string on, because we’re not s’posed to use the stapler yet, but I did the rest,” he explained.
Rowe restrained the smile he felt tugging at his mouth. “You can’t be too careful with staplers,” he agreed. “I got a staple in my thumb once.”
Jeffrey looked fascinated. “Did it hurt?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe, and there was lots of blood. I didn’t make a fuss, though.”
No, he wouldn’t, Kirsten thought, hovering nearby. One quality she suspected Jeffrey had inherited from Rowe was the desire to keep his feelings concealed.
Now where had that idea come from? She barely knew the man, except through her sister’s experience. She didn’t want to concern herself with his feelings or, worse, see signs of him in Jeffrey. Jeffrey was her child, hers alone. Watching them together as Rowe admired the kite, she couldn’t help wondering for how much longer.
“I have to get Jeffrey home,” she said, unable to watch them together a moment longer. She hadn’t expected to feel guilty for keeping them apart, especially since the decision had been Rowe’s to begin with, but they looked so much alike that guilt assailed her now.
Jeffrey seemed fascinated with the viscount. She was horrified to hear Rowe say, “This is too good a kite to live in a cupboard. How would you like to fly it in the park sometime?”
The little boy’s face shone. “Can we, Mommy?”
Furious with Rowe for putting her into such an awkward position, she said, “Viscount Aragon is a busy man, sweetheart. I’m sure he has more important things to do than fly kites. You and I will do it on our own.”
Jeffrey’s face crumpled. “You don’t know how to fly a kite. ’Member the time you smashed my airplane?”
She remembered only too well. Last Christmas Santa Claus had visited the Castle School and had given a model plane to Jeffrey. She had painstakingly glued the model together, frustrated to find she had several bits left over afterward. Jeffrey hadn’t cared. His eagerness to see the plane fly had lasted only as long as it took Kirsten to crash it into a bush a dozen feet from the launching site. One of the missing pieces had turned out to be the ballast that kept the plane on an even keel.
“This time I’ll let you fly the kite,” she promised.
“Why can’t Viscount Aragon fly it with me?” He turned to Rowe. “You’re not too busy, are you?”
Rowe gave her a searching look. “If I was, I’d have said so. But Mommy is the boss in these matters. She can tell me her decision later at the office. We’re going to be working together a lot,” he said for the little boy’s benefit. “If she says yes, we’ll go kite flying next Saturday.”
Jeffrey nodded eagerly. “I’ll be really good till Saturday, promise.”
“Till Saturday then.”
Kirsten kept her anguish from showing as she tucked her son’s hand in hers, ignoring the tug that told her he’d prefer to walk by himself. She needed to feel his hand in hers to reassure herself that he was fascinated only because Rowe was a man. The Castle School had some male teachers and Jeffrey had contact with the other children’s fathers, but he had no male role model at home.
And whose fault is that? she asked herself angrily, the pain in every step reminding her of the too-tight shoes. Rowe could have been involved in Jeffrey’s life from the beginning. He had been the one to ignore Natalie’s letter, not caring, it seemed, how the child turned out. He couldn’t come along now and simply take over. She wouldn’t let him.
Unaware of her fury, Rowe was continuing to walk with them. “Don’t you have a home to go to?” she demanded, not caring how rude she sounded.
“My home is in Solano, the capital city of Carramer,” he explained for Jeffrey’s sake, adding, “Not that I’ve spent much time there up to now.”
“You prefer to be free, I suppose.” Just like her father. As a free spirit, Felix hadn’t wanted to be tied down, either. Her family had lived in a series of rented houses as their father moved from one short-lived job to another. When their parents died, there had been no family home they could retreat to while they dealt with their grief. No inheritance for Jeffrey, either, making Kirsten determined to give him the most secure childhood she could, with none of the anxiety that had plagued her and Natalie while they were growing up.
Even if it meant putting up with Rowe’s presence in her life until his cycling race was over, she would do it for Jeffrey’s sake. Moving him from home to home was not going to happen if she could prevent it. One day she intended to buy them a place of their own. For now, they were happy here, and she would not allow Rowe’s arrival to interfere.
Chapter Four
Key members of the castle staff were housed in pretty stone retainers’ cottages arranged around a village green where the children often played while their parents socialized over coffee. Although the houses looked to be hundreds of years old, in reality, they had been built by the previous Marquis of Merrisand so that he could have his staff on call in case he needed them. Direct lines still connected each of the cottages with the castle switchboard.
Built on an area once known as The Tennis Courts, each cottage had its own vegetable and flower gardens, and backed onto a stand of woodland. Ring-necked partridges, quails, doves and wild turkeys frequented the woodland, attracted by Angel Creek, which crossed a corner of the castle grounds. It was an idylic place for children, and at night Kirsten liked to pretend that the cottage and the lovely surroundings were hers alone.
“Which cottage is yours?” Rowe asked, signaling his intention to accompany her all the way home.
She gestured vaguely. “The one with the blue curtains on the other side of the green. Really, there’s no need.”
“It hasn’t escaped my notice that you’re limping,” he said quietly. “I want to see that you get home in one piece.”
She didn’t need or welcome his concern. “I’m fine, really.”
“So I can see. How did you hurt your foot?”
She was forced to be honest. “New shoes.”
