His Bride for the Taking (5 page)

Ahh. So she had heard that. “Alexia, I seldom take anything seriously, so you shouldn’t take anything I say seriously, either.” Certainly his family knew better than to do that. “You’ve had a crush on Adam for years, right?”

She nodded. “Since I was twelve.”

“Wow.” He hadn’t thought it had been that long. He’d realized the night four years ago when she’d kissed him with that odd combination of passion and melting innocence, thinking he was Adam, that she’d imagined she had feelings for his brother.

“Stupid, huh?”

Privately, he agreed with the sentiment. Adam had at the time been much taken by the ambassador’s daughter, a woman of sultry beauty with ten years on Alexia in age and a lifetime in sophistication. And even now, as far as Rafe could tell, his brother was agreeing to this “courtship” primarily out of a sense of duty. “You can’t help what you feel.”

“Although I think it might even have started when I was eight and you threw that frog in my lap, and Adam caught it and took it away.”

Rafe smiled. “Arthur.”

“Arthur?”

“The frog.”

She turned her face to him, curious. “He was a pet?”

Fourteen years later and he could probably still tell
her a dozen facts about Arthur and his kind. She’d certainly be more receptive to them now than she was when she was eight, particularly given how eager she was not to have the discussion they should be having. “Let’s get back to Adam, your knight in shining armor. Saving the damsel in distress. Rescuing you from evil amphibians.”

“He doesn’t feel anything for me.”

“
Now
this is bothering you?” That earned him a small, sheepish smile. “Give him a chance. He doesn’t know you. I think he’ll like you.” He didn’t add that his father had practically ordered it.

“Do you really?” She turned toward him, all earnestness.

He looked at her pale, beautiful face, hair that begged a man to sink his hands into it, a figure he could still recall the imprint of against him.

Something of his thoughts must have shown. “I’m talking personalities here,” she added. A twinkle of mischief lit her eyes.

She had strength and humor to go with her beauty. “Yes, I do think he’ll like you. You might even still like him once you get to know him. But neither of you will know unless you give yourselves a chance. You’ll regret it if you don’t go. And if it doesn’t work, you haven’t lost anything.”

If he went back to San Philippe without her, the blame would be laid squarely at his feet. And the likely punishment would be fighting off his own wedding. Heaven only knew who his father had in mind for him,
though he’d undoubtedly have someone. He hadn’t asked—that would only encourage the old man.

“Except maybe a little bit of pride.”

“Pride, schmide, there’s more than enough of that to go round.”

“I do always enjoy visiting San Philippe. It’s funny, but I feel at home there, I get a kind of déjà vu, like it’s where I belong. More so than here even.”

“That settles it then. Let’s go.” He was about to stand when she stilled him with her delicate hand on his forearm.

“Thank you. I’m not usually indecisive. It helped.

Talking to you.”

Unaccountably aware of her touch, wanting to take that hand in his own and lift it again to his lips, he instead stood. “Don’t thank me, Alexia. I’m looking out for my interests as much as yours. There’d be no end of drama if I went home without you.”

“Thank you anyway. It helped.”

Rafe shrugged off her gratitude. “Anytime.” Unlike with Adam, people didn’t often turn to him for advice.

And he didn’t often dispense it. Didn’t want that responsibility. But if he’d helped her he was glad of it. It meant he was one step closer to getting rid of her.

She looked at him, her green eyes bright and innocent and hopeful. “My friends call me Lexie.”

Sexy Lexie. The epithet slid into his head. And she was sexy, in a way she seemed totally unaware of. It was her hair and those smiling, softly parted lips. And
that was without even starting on her body. For the first time he could remember, Rafe almost envied Adam.

Oh, yeah. He definitely needed to get rid of her.

Experiencing his own sense of déjà vu, Rafe waited by the limousine. She’d said she needed just twenty minutes to change and be ready. Rafe knew a woman’s twenty minutes, and he was prepared to wait. He looked up at the double front doors just as Alexia—he wouldn’t let himself think of her as Lexie, because he couldn’t help but rhyme it with “sexy”—stepped out, the family’s butler at her side. Together they descended the stairs. She was doing the boring thing again, with her hair drawn back from her face, its auburn lushness fiercely constrained. She wore a cream suit with a beige top beneath the buttoned-up jacket and a single strand of pearls around her neck.

She stopped at his side. “Let’s go, then.”

“Your mother?” Who knew how long she’d be or what kind of production she’d make over her daughter’s leaving.

“She’s at a luncheon for the Historical Society.”

Who knew indeed? Apparently, no production at all, or none more than the touching speech at dinner last night. One he’d thought at the time seemed more for the benefit of the guests than Alexia herself. Rafe understood duty and commitments better than most, but he would have thought…. It didn’t matter. It was no business of his.

“We said goodbye earlier,” she explained, and he
wasn’t sure if the explanation was for his benefit or her own.

Their driver held open the door of the dark Bentley. Rafe waited for her to get in. Instead, she turned and enveloped the butler in a fierce hug.

“Take care, miss,” the man murmured.

“I will, Stanley. You, too.”

“Of course.”

As Alexia was planting her neat behind in the car, Stanley turned to Rafe. “Look after her. Please.”

Never in his life had he been given a command by a butler, and despite the added “please” it most definitely had been a command. But the moisture in the older man’s eyes persuaded Rafe to let it pass. “Of course.” Given the absence of her mother, he was glad she at least had someone who seemed to care about her.

Rafe eased into the limo, picked up the newspaper that lay on the seat between them, and scanned the headlines. Alexia was silent as the car eased along the driveway, silent as they passed the wooded area he’d found her in last night, silent as the gates swung closed behind them.

Finally, he looked at her, expecting to see a resurgence of her regret, prepared, this time, to bury his nose in the paper. She was here now and couldn’t back out. Instead, the look of exhilaration on her face stole his breath away. She turned and caught him staring. If anything, her wide smile broadened.

“No more second thoughts, I take it.”

“If I’m going, then I’m going to enjoy it. No point doing something halfheartedly.” She glanced back over
her shoulder. “Besides, you have no idea of the sense of freedom those gates shutting behind me for the last time gives me.”

“Clearly.”

She was still smiling. “Okay, maybe you do. But still.”

“You were free to come and go, weren’t you?”

“Yes. More or less. It’s just different. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

“It may not be my place to break it to you, but if you’re expecting freedom in signing up to join a royal family, you’re sadly mistaken.”

“But if…”

He waited.

“If it does work out with Adam, I’ll be with a wonderful man, I’ll be mistress of my own house, my own life.”

It didn’t escape him that she’d omitted to mention she’d also be married to the heir apparent to the San Philippe throne. How much did the cachet of that role weigh with her? “I guess,” he said. “But have you seen the schedule arranged for you? From memory there are banquets, state dinners, garden shows, the anniversary parade and fireworks, a christening. The list goes on and on.” She’d be on the go from the minute they touched down.

“Yes. I’ve seen it.” She shrugged. “I like to be busy.”

Which reminded him of the first amendment to that schedule. “By the way. You know we’re not heading straight to San Philippe?”

“Yes.”

“Adam spoke to you?”

“Just after he spoke to you, I believe.”

After he’d been so tactless and careless as to allow her to overhear him. “And you’re…okay with that?”

“Stopping in London, or—”

“I meant the jewelry thing.” Somehow, he was taking Adam’s prospective fiancée jewelry shopping for the earrings Adam wanted to give her, or that Adam’s advisers had suggested he give her.

“It’s sweet that Adam wants me to pick something out.”

Sweet. Right. “And you don’t mind that—”

“What?”

“Nothing.” It was none of his business.

“That he’s making you do it with me?”

If Rafe wanted to give a woman jewelry, especially a woman like Alexia, he’d pick something out himself, something with emeralds that sparkled like her eyes, or amber burnished with gold, like her hair, something a little unusual, unique even. A fire opal, lit from within. “It’s no skin off my nose.”

“I’m sure it is. And naturally I don’t want to be an imposition to you. I understand that…you’ve got a life to live, but other than that—” again the smile, unfettered, joyous “—I couldn’t be happier. Besides, I love London.”

“We won’t be there long. Just a few hours.”

“And then you can offload me onto Adam.” She said it with such a smile that he knew she wasn’t still upset by his words, though the faux pas still irked him. He
was better than that. Usually. It was just this whole thing with Alexia. He wanted no part of it.

Her gaze stayed on him, innocent and curious. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

The question, coming out of the blue, caught him by surprise. “No.”

“What about—”

She was about to refer to the fiasco with his ex, Delilah. “That’s over. It was over from the moment I found out she was married. Unfortunately, that was the moment I read it in the papers.”

“You hadn’t known?”

“She and her husband were having a trial separation. She neglected to mention his existence.” Rafe was still angered by her deception, and even more annoyed at himself for being taken in by it. The media had had a field day with the story. Delilah had made a killing from selling her version of events to a prominent women’s magazine.

“Did you love her?”

Rafe smiled. “No. Of course not.”

“Oh.”

She sounded so disappointed he almost laughed. “I don’t do love. I don’t even do serious. In case anyone else gets to thinking it’s love.”

He could see disappointment in her eyes. Her kind of naivety was exactly why he preferred to date older women. Women who knew the score. She had so much to learn, and there was a good chance she was going to get hurt in the process.

And he’d been the one to talk her into it.

L
exie stood staring absently out the window at the fog shrouded London skyline. The fog lent the city an ethereal beauty, but it had closed the airport, necessitating an overnight stay.

A door shutting in the adjoining room alerted her to Rafe’s return. The staff in his family’s London apartments closed doors soundlessly, so it had to be him. He’d disappeared while the jewelers were still with her, leaving no indication of where he’d gone or when he’d be back. One of the staff had enquired as to whether she had any preferences for dinner and she had asked him to wait awhile. She’d been going to give Rafe another five minutes and then see about dinner for just herself, because she was ravenous. And if he didn’t have the decency to tell her when, or even if, he was coming back, why should she wait?

She took a deep breath. Her emotions were all over the place—she knew that—fuelled by tiredness and anxiety. Her best course of action, she’d decided, was to remain aloof from him. Tomorrow they’d be in San Philippe and she would, she was certain, see very little of him. He, after all, had a life to live. A life she was currently interrupting.

And yet, for a few minutes as they’d sat together on the log yesterday morning, she’d imagined a connection with him. She realized now he’d just been doing what he deemed necessary to get her to come with him.

She turned as he entered the room, his long stride halting abruptly. The aura of tension that had shrouded him when he’d left had diminished, but not by much. He still radiated a barely contained, frustrated energy. It was there in the tightness of his jaw and shoulders, there in the depths of his eyes.

He didn’t want to be stuck here. “The fog isn’t my fault,” she said in her defense. And more specifically he didn’t want to be stuck here with
her.

That much was clear from the way he tensed up around her. It would have been obvious even if she hadn’t heard his phone call with Adam. He was watching her now, his steady gaze unreadable and disconcerting. “I’ll be just as glad as you when we’re on our way again. But in the meantime it’d certainly be a lot nicer if we could find a way to get along. And I know you don’t owe me anything, but I’d appreciate it if you’d at least let me know whether or not to expect you back when you go out. So I know whether or not to eat without you.”

The tension around his eyes had eased as she spoke, changing into surprised amusement. “Are you done?”

Amusement hadn’t been the reaction she expected, and she sighed, realizing how petulant she’d sounded. Not in the least aloof. She had to fight not to respond to that warming humor in his eyes. “Yes,” she said feeling more than a little foolish.

“And are you hungry?” he asked, a half grin lifting one corner of his lips.

“Yes.” Her stomach grumbled audibly, confirming her answer. “And sometimes,” she admitted, “I get a little cranky when I’m hungry.”

“You don’t say?” He was still trying to quell his grin. “And do you like pizza?”

Just the mention of her favorite fast food had her imagining she could smell it. “I love it,” she said with possibly more enthusiasm than was appropriate, given the surprise that registered on Rafe’s face. “Did that dossier on me go into that much detail?”

“What? About you getting cranky when you’re hungry?” He was still grinning.

“No. About the pizza.”

“No. Just asking. Hoping, actually.”

At that moment, a liveried servant walked into the room carrying an incongruous-looking large, flat, card board box in his white-gloved hands. “The usual, sir?”

Rafe nodded.

Quickly, Rafe and the servant rearranged furniture so that two of the ornate and probably priceless dining chairs were placed in front of the wide window Lexie
had recently been staring out of. An ottoman was set in front of the chairs and a side table between them.

The cardboard box, linen napkins, a bottle of pinot noir and two crystal goblets were placed on the side table.

As the servant left, Lexie glanced from the box to Rafe, and her stomach grumbled again. “Is that…?” The aroma of tomato and basil permeated the air.

Rafe smiled properly, looking inordinately proud of himself. “Sure is. The uncle of a friend of mine has a place not too far from here. He makes the best pizza outside of Italy.” Rafe crossed to the table and folded back the lid of the box. “It’s simple, but exquisite. And we don’t have time for much else.”

He gave a small bow and a theatrical sweep of his arm. “Take a seat, and help yourself.”

They sat, feet almost touching on the ottoman, snow-white linen napkins on their laps, and ate looking out at the glowing lights of the fog-shrouded city.

For the first time in days the tension seeped from Lexie’s shoulders and her breath slowed. She didn’t speak until she’d finished her second slice of pizza. “Thank you. That was divine, and just what I needed.”

“I figured it’s going to be banquets from here on in till the end of the anniversary celebrations and that this might be…nice.”

“It was better than nice. It was perfect.”

The chimes of Big Ben rang out, carrying on the night air. Lexie took a sip of the pinot noir. “What did you mean, we don’t have time for much else?”

Rafe glanced at his watch as he finished a mouthful
of pizza. From an inside pocket of his blazer he pulled a slip of paper and held it out to Lexie.

“What is it?”

“Look at it and find out.”

She wiped her fingertips and took the paper, eyeing both Rafe and it suspiciously.

“Tickets,” she ascertained quickly, then read the print, and then read it again. “Shakespeare. At the Globe.” She stood, her napkin falling to the floor, and hugged the tickets to her chest. “I can’t believe it. I didn’t think there’d be any chance. I never even thought to ask.”

“Royalty, even foreign and relatively minor, carries a certain amount of weight.”

Lexie laughed with delight. “Thank you.”

“Don’t. I did it for both of us. It beats staying cooped up in these apartments all evening.”

There was nothing
cooped up
about the expansive suites. But maybe to a prince? “Thank you, anyway. You have no idea how thrilled I am. I studied Shakespeare.”

“At Vassar. I know.”

Wow. He really had read, and paid attention to, whatever background information he’d been given on her. “So you can guess what this means to me.”

“What it means is that I don’t have to worry about you donning a wig and climbing out the window to go clubbing.”

“I didn’t bring my wig.” She still clutched the tickets in her hand. “I’ve left my clubbing days behind.”

The look Rafe cast her told her clearly he didn’t believe her.

“I’m going to be a model of respectability.”

His gaze swept her from head to toe. And though she knew there was no fault he could find with what she wore—it was all designed for the image she needed to project, elegant and stylish—still she sensed something close to disapproval in his frowning assessment.

“So, you didn’t even bring the shimmery little dress from the other night?”

“I left it behind with instructions for it to be taken to a charity shop.”

“Pity.”

“Are you absolutely determined to bait me?” She knew he didn’t like the dress; he’d as good as told her. “If you want an argument, just say so. I’ll happily give you one.” She was still smiling, content and looking forward to the Shakespeare, but she meant what she said.

Something in the vehemence of her response actually seemed to please him. “Just get ready to go out, Precious. We’re leaving in fifteen minutes.”

As the actors took their final bow after a stunning performance of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
a tale of love most definitely not running smoothly, Lexie sat back and sighed with pure pleasure.

She glanced at Rafe beside her in their private box. He turned to her, affecting bored indifference. She wasn’t going to let him diminish her enjoyment. “That was wonderful. Amazing. Fantastic.”

“Rapturous?”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” he said.

“You enjoyed it, too, didn’t you?” She was fairly sure the distant superiority was an act.

“Of course.”

“You were laughing.” She’d heard him several times throughout the performance. He had a laugh so low and deep and rich it seemed at times to wrap itself around her.

“I said I enjoyed it.”

“Then what’s with the grumpy act? Did you see one of your girlfriends in the audience, out with another man?”

“No. Let’s just go.” He stood.

Lexie was loath to leave. “Wasn’t Puck fabulous? And this theater…” She looked round the wooden, open-roofed facility, a replica of the one used in Shakespeare’s time that had burned down when a prop cannon misfired.

“Save it for Adam,” he said, not unkindly. “He’s the Shakespeare buff.”

“I know. It’s just one of the things we have in common.”

He rolled his eyes in a most unprincely gesture. “Are you ready yet?” He held out his hand.

“It was really sweet of you to bring me here tonight, when you don’t love it.”

“Sweet?”

“Yes.” He clearly wasn’t used to being called sweet, and clearly didn’t like it. She took the hand he was still holding out for her, felt his strong fingers fold around hers and, still floating from the performance, stood.
He’d averted his face, was in fact studying the audience as though there was something or someone of the utmost importance out there. He needed to loosen up. Not something she’d ever thought she’d think about Rafe. Whether he’d enjoyed the performance or not, she’d been enraptured, and she was more grateful than he could know that he’d brought her here. On impulse, Lexie leaned forward to kiss his cheek.

At that moment he turned.

For a second, maybe two or three, her lips touched his, warm and soft. And for that sublime second, or two, or three, that simplest of kisses consumed her. Stopped the world around her, stilled everything within her, and then threatened to buckle her knees as heat shot through her.

The rapture of the play was nothing compared to this.

Strong fingers wrapped around her upper arms and set her away from him.

Lifting her hands to her lips, she met his gaze, saw the mirror of her own shock in his darkened eyes. “I’m
so
sorry.” She stepped back. “That was not what I meant to happen. I was aiming for your cheek.” Lexie pointed at the cheek in question, as though to reinforce her statement. And still he said nothing, didn’t laugh or brush off the incident. Surely he realized it
was
unintentional. “You turned.” It hadn’t even been entirely her fault. Beneath his unflinching scrutiny she faltered. “It was an accident. I’ve said I’m sorry.” He didn’t so much as blink. “Say something. Please.”

He opened his mouth. It was several seconds before
the words came out. “I guess we’re even. Let’s go.” He pushed aside the curtain behind them and held open the door.

Ten minutes later in the car, as their driver negotiated the London streets, Lexie stared through the window. She’d give anything for the kiss not to have happened. To not have the fact that it did happen hanging between them. Besides, it was a nothing kiss, chaste, and as she’d pointed out, accidental. He couldn’t know of the strange heat it had ignited. The heat that had flared further when he’d wrapped his fingers around her arms, when for an instant she had seen fire in his eyes. Fire that she realized now was anger.

Rafe had scarcely spoken since they’d left the theater. They were nearly back at the apartments, and she didn’t want the strained silence to go on any longer. He sat leaning back against the seat, as far from her as the confines of the Bentley allowed, head tipped back on the soft leather, eyes closed. But she knew he wasn’t sleeping.

Lexie pivoted in her seat to face him. “We’re not even.”

The eyes opened halfway, the head turned slowly toward her. From beneath his hooded lids, he studied her.

“When you said we were even, were you referring to the time you kissed me at the masquerade ball?”

His response was the barest nod.

“Then I have to disagree.”

The angle of his head changed. His eyes widened ever so slightly. It was enough of a reaction that she
interpreted it as curiosity, or at least tacit permission to continue.

“There was no tongue in mine.” His kiss had been shockingly erotic, igniting her strange, forbidden desires. She sat back in her seat.

There was a moment of surprise, and then the deep rumble of his laughter rolled through the interior of the vehicle, pleasing her inordinately. “Only because I knew who I was kissing this time.”