“Not really. I like Preston McCade. He’s a good man. Solid. Dependable. Strong. But we hardly became friends.”
“It must be a lonely kind of job, watching over someone for months like that, having to stay close to them constantly, but not really being a part of their lives.”
“I never thought of it that way. It’s a job that I’m good at. And an honor to be chosen, to be counted on, trusted to protect the ruling family.”
She touched his face again. “Lonely, though.”
“Yes, I suppose. A little.”
“Do you plan to be in security for all of your military career?”
He buried his nose in her hair, loving the scent of it. So sweet. So tempting. “We’ll see.”
She canted up on her elbow once more and gazed at him with reproof in those soft, dark eyes. “You’re being secretive again.”
“No. It’s only that it’s hard to know what opportunities might present themselves.” She just went on staring down at him, waiting for more. So he continued, “The Covert Command Unit is a force of only fifty. And the Sovereign’s Guard, of which the CCU is part, has two hundred and thirty-three men and women in total. I hope someday to reach the top rank of colonel.”
“Would that be so impossible?”
“In such a small force, commissioned officers are few and far between. And as for earning more bars and stars, well, there are the French to consider. By tradition, French officers always claim the highest ranks among us. However, my prospects are even brighter now, with His Highness Alexander so closely involved. And I’m in the CCU, which he created, so that’s also a plus in terms of my advancement. His Highness approves of raising up those of us who are Montedoran by birth. But still, we can’t all be at the top, can we?”
She laid her hand against his heart. “I think you could achieve just about anything you set out to do.”
He looked in her eyes and saw her sincerity. “Marry me.”
She came back down to him, resting her head on his chest, where her hand had been. “Time, Marcus. Give us some time.”
* * *
Rhia thought that things went well between them over the next few days. He left her early in the morning to go to CCU headquarters. But he came home for dinner. They took more walks down by the pier and along the beaches near the casino. And he moved his few toiletries to her bathroom, hung his clothes in her closet.
And every night they shared her bed.
That was wonderful. To spend her nights with him. And not only for the heady magic of their lovemaking. There was so much more. She loved to hear his even breathing beside her as he slept, to wake in the morning with him wrapped around her, so big and warm and strong.
He had always made her feel safe. Cherished. Protected in the purest sense of the word. But now, living openly with him at last, she felt more content and more truly at home than she’d ever felt in her life before.
She only hoped that it could last.
On Saturday, the first story about them appeared in a certain tabloid paper. It included several pictures of the two of them, pictures snapped on the Promenade that first night he’d moved in with her. The headline? The Princess and the Bodyguard. As usual with the tabloids, the story was full of trite phrases and heavy on the innuendo. The upshot was that there must be romance in bloom between Her Highness Rhiannon and Captain Marcus Desmarais.
Marcus hated it.
Rhia laughed and reminded him that it was only the truth. “And it doesn’t say anything bad about either of us.”
“It says that I was a foundling child raised by nuns and that you have been twice engaged and never quite made it to the altar.”
“The truth. How terrible.” She faked a shiver. “Honestly, we couldn’t ask for more.”
“Yes, we could. How about if they all learned to mind their own business?”
“Please. That is never going to happen.”
He grumbled, “Even if I finally convince you to marry me, those bastards can count.”
“Yes, I’m afraid that’s true.”
“The world will know that you were pregnant before the wedding.”
“Undoubtedly so.”
He tossed the tabloid aside and pulled her close. “Marry me now.”
She kissed him. “Give it time, Marcus.”
He grumbled something under his breath. But then he pulled her back to him and settled his warm lips on hers again. That led to a much more satisfying activity than arguing over what the tabloids would say.
Sunday, together, they went to breakfast at the palace. It was something of a family tradition. She and her brothers and sisters and their families would join her mother and father in the sovereign’s apartments for a private family meal.
That Sunday, the last Sunday in June, Alex and Lili were in Alagonia, and Belle and Preston were in Montana. But everyone else came. Marcus didn’t say much through the meal, but her siblings and her mother and father each made a point to engage him in friendly conversation, to show him he was welcome among them.
Rhia knew by the way they all behaved that her parents or Allie or Alex must have told the rest of them exactly what was going on.
Later, when she and Marcus were alone at the villa, he said, “They all know, you realize that? About the baby, and that I’m living here, that I want you to marry me and you haven’t said you will.”
“Yes. I gathered that everyone was up to speed on our situation.”
“Our situation?” He repeated the word as if it were an obscenity. “I’m surprised one of your brothers didn’t grab a weapon and run me through.”
“As a matter of fact, my brothers respect and like you. You’re quite admired in my family, you know.”
“Admired, humph.”
“Everyone knows you’re a good man to have at one’s back. They know that you came up from nothing and have done very well for yourself. And that you will forever and always strive to do the right thing.”
“They also know that I have no fortune and I seduced their sister.”
“Well, I have a fortune, so if we do marry, we have that covered. And the seduction, as we both know, was probably more my doing than yours.”
“That is not the point.”
“Yes, to a great extent, it is.”
“The point is that I presumed to have sex with a princess of the blood.”
“Yes, but the good news is that you’re a commissioned officer, which makes you a gentleman—self-made, but still. They see you as someone dependable who can be counted on to be a good husband and father. And as for having sex with me, well, these things happen.”
He paced the living room. “No. No, they don’t. Or they shouldn’t.”
“Marcus, you are such a complete snob. And so annoyingly straitlaced.”
He stopped, whirled. Faced her with a lowering frown. “I am not straitlaced.”
“No complaints on being called a snob, eh?”
“I didn’t know which insult to tackle first.”
She stifled a chuckle. “Marcus. You are a bit of a moralist, really.”
He dropped to a chair as though the conversation had exhausted him. “Never mind. It’s enough. Believe I’m a straitlaced snob, if it makes you happy.”
She told him gently, “Well, I suppose you’re not really a snob....”
“Enough, I said.”
“Very well.” She went and stood over him and put her hands on his wonderful, hard shoulders.
He muttered, “Your family is wonderful.”
“Yes, they are.” She bent and kissed the top of his head.
He groused, “And I’ve never felt so out of place. Breakfast in the sovereign’s apartments. Never in a hundred thousand years...”
“You got through it. And quite gracefully, I thought.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“No. I do mean it. I truly do, Marcus.”
He took her right hand from his shoulder then, and pressed his lips to her palm and tipped
his head back to look up into her eyes. “Marry me.”
She almost said yes right then and there. But she caught herself and gently withdrew her hand. “It’s only been four days since you moved in here. I do think that we really need a little more time.”
* * *
At ten on Monday, Hector Anteros showed up in Marcus’s cubicle at CCU headquarters.
He shut the door, eased himself down into Marcus’s one extra chair and said, “Am I hearing wedding bells?”
Marcus sent his mentor a weary glance. “I think she has to say yes first. The wedding bells come after.”
“So you have asked her again?”
“And again. And again.”
The space was small. Hector turned the chair so he could stretch out his legs. He groaned a little as he straightened them. “It hurts being old. Take my word for it—or don’t. You’ll find out for yourself one day.”
Marcus closed the report he’d been working on. “You’re working up to something. I can always tell. Just say it, whatever it is.”
“I’m old.”
“I’m clear on that. Go on.”
“I find that living with guilt weighs on me.”
“All right. You’re guilty. Of what?”
Hector didn’t look all that guilty. He looked a bit smug, really. He arched a bushy brow in Marcus’s direction. “Did you really think that no one knew about you and Her Highness Rhiannon eight years ago?”
Marcus’s heart lurched in his chest. His mouth dropped open. “You...? No.”
Hector nodded. “At that time, as you are well aware, security was less of a focus. We didn’t have round-the-clock protection for Her Highness while she was studying at UCLA. But of course, it was the duty of the Sovereign’s Guard to see to her safety. We hired a trustworthy American security team to keep an eye on her, and—once you began spending time with her—on you.”
We? “Who else knew?”
Hector named two officers of the Sovereign’s Guard, good men, and discreet. “And the Americans who reported to us.” But Marcus wasn’t thinking of his fellow soldiers or the Americans. “Her Sovereign Highness and Prince Evan? Did they know?”
Hector gazed at him so calmly. “No.”
“But it would have been your duty to—”
“Not necessarily. You see, Her Sovereign Highness made a special point, with each of her sons and daughters once they were of a certain age, to give them the freedom to make their own choices. I was instructed to allow Princess Rhiannon to test her wings, to find her own way as much as possible. It was most important to the sovereign and Prince Evan that their sons and daughters never felt spied upon. In my judgment, you posed neither a danger nor a threat, so I didn’t approach the sovereign about what was going on.” The explanation did make sense, given what Rhia had always said about her parents giving her the freedom to live her own life.
But that didn’t absolve Hector from his responsibility to report what he knew to the sovereign. “You should have told Her Highness Adrienne.”
Hector only grinned. “But I didn’t. I chose to take my sovereign at her word and protect the privacy of Her Highness Rhiannon. And I don’t think you’re in any position to judge my decisions during that time. It was long ago, and it’s over and done—and what happened way back when is not what I’ve come here to clear my conscience about.”
“My God. There’s more?”
“Consider. I knew about your past with Her Highness Rhiannon. And yet I was the one who suggested to His Highness Alexander that you be assigned to provide her security for the wedding in Montana.”
“You...? I don’t... You can’t...” He seemed to be having difficulty forming actual sentences.
“Yes. I did. I provided, you might say, a window of opportunity for you. And for the princess you could never forget.”
Marcus strove for calm as the man he respected most in the world sat there and told him that he had intentionally broken a critical rule. “But...it makes no sense that you would do such a thing. Hector, you know better. It wasn’t safe. If you knew that she was important to me, that we had history, then you knew I didn’t have the necessary objectivity to protect her effectively.”
Hector waved a hand. “Perhaps.”
“Hector, it was wrong. Dangerous. She ran away from the wedding party because she couldn’t stand to be near me. Anything might have happened to her. We were in an auto accident. She could have been hurt. She could have died.”
“But she wasn’t hurt and she didn’t die.”
Marcus fisted his hands on the desktop to keep from leaping up and wrapping them around Hector’s throat. “I have a powerful urge to throttle you, old man.”
“Keep your shirt on. Hear me out. Yes, I took a risk.”
“A foolish, pointless, dangerous risk.”
Hector was unperturbed. “A risk that needed taking. For both of your sakes.” With another pained groan, he pulled himself to his feet. “I’m an old man. And I’m alone. No wife to nag me, no children to give me grandchildren. I don’t especially like being alone and I didn’t want that for you. Now, because of what I’ve set in motion, you won’t be alone. You will have a family. I don’t regret the chance I took.”
“Regret? You seem downright proud of yourself.”
“Just get her to say yes. Be happy. That’s all I’m asking of you.”
Marcus gaped up at him. “And now you’re leaving? Walking out, just like that? I should file a report on what you just told me.”
Hector chuckled merrily. “What? To get me booted from the guard? That would be difficult, as I’m already retired.”
“You could lose your position as advisor to the commander.”
Hector limped to the door. “Do your worst, Marcus my lad. I’m going home where I can put my feet up.”
* * *
That night, in the spirit of openness and sharing that Rhia had demanded—and also to ease his conscience a little for continuing to keep his deepest secret from her—Marcus told her what Hector had told him. They were in bed by then and had made slow, satisfying love. She’d already turned out the light and they lay beneath the covers, side by side.
He stared up toward the dark ceiling and told her what Hector had said that day.
When he was finished, she laughed in delight. “Oh, I knew it couldn’t be only coincidence that you were assigned to me for that trip.”
“It’s not anything to laugh over, Rhia. It was a dangerous thing for him to do. A bodyguard cannot be allowed to have any personal relationship with someone he’s assigned to protect. He must be cool-headed and objective at all times.”
She made a distinctly undignified sound then. “I’m sure you’re right.”
“There is no doubt that I’m right.”
“Well, I think it’s very sweet that he wants you to be happy, to have a family, not to be alone. If he did something he shouldn’t have, it was for a good reason.”
“I should report him.”
“Don’t you dare.”
He rolled to his side then and braced his head on his hand. “You are much too cavalier about this.”
She gazed up at him, her eyes shining through the dark. “You’re not going to report him. You couldn’t do that.”
He drew her close against him. “You’re right. I couldn’t.” He smoothed her hair off her forehead. “Marry me.” He kissed her.
She kissed him back.
But she didn’t say yes.
* * *
The next day in the early afternoon, Marcus left for Italy to provide security for Prince Damien, who was speaking at a gala fundraising dinner for the victims of a recent flood. It was only a two-day trip.
Still, Rhia missed him. A lot. Wednesday, she got a call from Montana. Belle was happy in her new life and deeply in love with her new husband. Rhia told her older sister everything at last, about her past with Marcus, about what had happened the night of Belle’s wedding and about the coming baby, too.
“
So now you two are together,” Belle said in a musing tone. “Will you marry him?”
“I want to. So very much. But I need to be sure that it’s something that can last.”
“I understand.” Belle made a soft sound low in her throat. “Marcus. I never guessed it was Marcus that you loved all those years ago....”
“It was a secret he insisted I keep.”
“He’s a good man, Rhia. Considerate. Trustworthy.”
“Yes, I know he is.”
“Be happy, Rhia.”
“Oh, Belle. I promise you, I’m working on that.”
* * *
On Thursday evening, Rhia came home from the museum complex to find Marcus waiting for her.
Her heart lifted at the sight of him. She ran to him and he opened his arms to grab her close. He kissed her until her head spun.
And then, his mouth still fused with hers, he lifted her high in his strong arms. He carried her straight to the bedroom, where he swiftly took off all her clothes and showed her that he had missed her, too.
It was only afterward, as they lay there holding each other close beneath the sheet, that she sensed something wasn’t right.
She lifted up so she could see his face. “Something’s going on. You’re much too quiet.”
He ran the back of his finger down the side of her arm, stirring goose bumps in his wake. “I’m always quiet.”
She wasn’t buying. “Uh-uh. There’s quiet. And then there’s...quiet. You’ve got something on your mind.”
He glanced away.
She caught his beard-rough jaw and made him look at her. “What’s happened?”
He drew a much-too-careful breath. “You are not going to like this.”
She held his gaze. She refused to let go. “Tell me.”
“Before I get into it, I just want you to know that I honestly have been trying to find a way to explain this to you. I thought I would have more time to work up to it. But then, this morning, I found out I really can’t afford to put it off any longer.”
“Put what off? Marcus, you’re scaring me. What are you talking about?”
“Just...wait.” He put a finger to her lips, so gently. “Let me say this in my own stumbling way.”
37 Her Highness and the Bodyguard Page 13