His smile had her blood pulsing. ‘I could give you the guided tour.’
‘Of the castle?’
‘Well, not all of it. It’s an unusually large building.’
Her eyes fell to her shoes as she wrestled with her conscience as to whether she should go with him or not. Obviously ‘not’ was the most sensible decision. But…to see the castle. And to see it with Seb.
Seb held out his hand. ‘Coming?’
And it seemed the most natural thing in the world to put her hand inside his. ‘I want to see the ballroom. Wasn’t it the largest room in Europe when it was first constructed?’
He threaded his fingers through hers. ‘You’ve been reading the guide book.’
Perhaps it was because it was the middle of the night, but Marianne felt as if she was in a bubble. It was as though this time was borrowed time. Outside of normal rules and considerations.
He led her out into the north drawing room. ‘You’re familiar with this room?’ he said, looking down at her.
Marianne nodded.
‘Well, I hope you’ve appreciated the stuccoed ceilings.’
She looked up. ‘I’m afraid I didn’t notice the ceilings.’
Seb smiled and pulled her on and out into the impressive hallway with the large curving marble staircase. Paintings of hunting and battle scenes lined the walls in big, heavy frames. Marianne hated them all. She paused at a particularly gruesome one.
‘Why do you have these here?’ she asked.
‘Because my great-great-grandfather hung them and no one has dared move them since.’
Marianne laughed. ‘Which one was he?’
‘Prince Hans Adam II. He reigned from 1853 to 1917. There’s a portrait of him in the long gallery, looking particularly worthy.’
‘Do you know the names of all your ancestors?’
Seb released her hand and opened the doors to a room on the left, flicking on the light switches. ‘All of them. It was part of my royal training. I had a tutor who made up a tune to help them stick in my head.’
A tune. This whole night was beginning to feel rather surreal.
‘So eventually someone will have to learn all about you.’
He smiled, his eyes glinting. ‘Scary thought, isn’t it? Now, this is the grand drawing room. And I particularly dislike the red silk-covered walls in here.’
Marianne stared past the rococo furniture and on to the huge double doors at the end of the room. ‘What’s through there?’
‘The blue drawing room. One day I intend to paint it all green for the hell of it.’
Her breath caught on a gurgle of laughter.
‘In my father’s time court etiquette still demanded both parts of those doors were opened every time he wanted to go from one room to the other.’
His voice was laced with humour and Marianne turned to look at him. Seb really loved this place. He knew its history and secrets and he loved it. Connected to it through generations.
Not the playboy prince of the tabloid press, then. Marianne could almost hear another crack appear in the shield she’d built around herself. There wasn’t a great deal of it left to protect her.
‘You’ve been very careless with Andovarian traditions.’
‘Not me. That one went when my father married my mother.’
Marianne looked up questioningly and caught the laughter in his dark eyes. ‘Both sections only had to be opened when the sovereign prince walked through. Lesser mortals could manage with just the one door and, since my mother was considered a lesser mortal…’
‘She didn’t like it,’ Marianne finished for him with a smile. ‘Neither would I.’
Seb turned to look at her and it was one of those moments where the air seemed to disappear from the room and it became, quite suddenly, difficult to breathe.
And he felt it too. ‘Marianne,’ he murmured, his eyes appearing almost black.
Her laughter died. He was going to kiss her. And she wanted him to.
‘P-please,’ she said on the tiny amount of air she had left in her lungs. She didn’t need to say what for—which was just as well because she wasn’t sure what she was asking for.
Marianne saw him swallow before he stepped back. It was the safest option, probably the right decision. Marianne opened her mouth, and then shut it again. She couldn’t think of a single thing to say as regret flooded her.
‘And through here is the long gallery,’ he said with a swift movement towards a door to the right.
She didn’t want to kiss him, didn’t want to unleash all the feelings she still had for him—but she didn’t want this either. It felt wrong.
Her feet moved slowly towards the long gallery. It was pretty much as she has expected. Windows to one side and portraits to the other.
Seb had switched on the lights and turned back to look for her. ‘This is the way to the ballroom.’
Why was she doing this? There was no possibility of friendship with Seb. She wanted more. She wanted him to love her. To hold her, keep her safe and love her.
As though he knew she was deciding whether to continue with their middle-of-the-night exploration, he stayed where he was, turning to look at one of the portraits. ‘This is Prince Josef Johann who by all accounts was a thoroughly unpleasant character.’
Marianne walked closer and looked up into a beautifully painted oil portrait. She couldn’t resist it. She felt as if a million skeins of the finest silk were pulling her towards it. Towards Seb. Inevitable.
‘He reigned from 1772 to 1781. Not particularly long, but long enough to seduce half the female population and ensure that the Rodier genes were well-established in Andovaria.’
‘He’s handsome,’ Marianne smiled. But not as handsome as Seb. Not as sexy.
‘And this is his son, Prince Hans Adam I.’
‘The man who put the pictures along the staircase?’
Seb’s dark eyes glinted down at her. ‘You’re not paying attention. That was Prince Hans Adam II and the paintings are far too modern. This Hans Adam ruled from 1871 to 1805 and he was a great traveller and amateur botanist.’
‘And less handsome.’
‘Quite. He seduced far fewer Andovarian maidens and, in fact, I think his preference lay in quite another direction.’
‘Is seducing maidens part of the job description, then?’ The question left her mouth before she’d realised what she was saying. Marianne bit her lip.
His voice was deep, sexy. ‘No. Not since 1914.’
Marianne looked up, startled, and saw his eyes alight with laughter. She felt her skin heat.
He lifted his hand to stroke her cheek. ‘You still do that?’
‘What?’
‘Blush.’
‘Not often.’
Seb laughed. ‘Only when we’re discussing the seduction of maidens?’
‘Something like that,’ she returned, wrapping her arms protectively round her waist.
‘Still cold?’
Marianne let her arms fall back down to her sides. ‘No. Not really.’ And then, because he was watching her closely, ‘A little. Is it peculiar to know you’re related to all these people?’
‘Not really. You have as many ancestors lurking behind you. I just know who mine are, that’s all.’
Marianne walked on further down the long gallery. It was rather amazing to think that all these people’s lives were interlinked. One life leading on to the next until they reached Seb. The latest in a long line of rulers.
She glanced up at him, searching for the distinctive Rodier family features. Dark hair, dark eyes and strong cheekbones. ‘Do you have a portrait?’
‘Oh, yes. Inescapable duty. I was added to the rogues’ gallery when I succeeded my father.’ Seb walked on a few steps. ‘This is my grandfather. This is my father…and this is me.’
Marianne’s shoes sounded loud on the oak floorboards of the long gallery. She gave all the portraits a cursory inspection, before stopping next to Seb. She looked briefly at him and
then at the painting of him.
She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but this painting wasn’t it. Every other portrait, it seemed, had shown grown men, confident, steely and ready to take on the challenge of their rule.
But Seb’s portrait showed a boy. Tall, unmistakably a Rodier with his dark hair and dark eyes…but a boy, who was uncomfortable in his stiff uniform.
She let her eyes wander back along the corridor. So many paintings. A monarchy that stretched back hundreds of years. Then she looked at the young Seb. He’d taken his place, but he looked as if he was playing a man’s role before he was ready.
Was that how it had felt? She knew he’d been young and he’d told her he hadn’t felt in control of what was happening to him—and finally, seeing this, she believed him. Really believed him.
Marianne swallowed the hard lump in her throat. ‘What’s the blue sash and jewelled cross?’
‘That’s the Grand Star of the Order of Merit of the Principality of Andovaria.’
She nodded, but she scarcely heard him.
‘It’s very heavy. I don’t think I’ve worn it since.’
‘You look so young.’
She’d wanted to know why Seb had left her—and this was the ‘why’. It was a calling—almost as sacred as one to the priesthood.
‘I was young. That was painted just before Christmas the year I met you.’
Marianne swallowed again. ‘Will you change it? Later, I mean?’
‘No.’ Seb shook his head. ‘That’s a moment in time. My first official portrait as the ruling prince. There are any number of other portraits.’
‘Are there?’
‘I sit for at least one a year.’
A different life. A very different life. Marianne pushed up the sleeves of her jumper. She wanted to run away and hide somewhere. She’d known for ten years his life was different. She’d known it when she’d first arrived at Poltenbrunn Castle. And when she’d seen him leave the castle in one of those sleek, purring cars.
But now she felt he was different.
‘And through here,’ he said, crossing to another pair of double doors, ‘is the ballroom. Currently set up in readiness for the diplomatic reception.’
Light and airy because of the phenomenally high ceilings, Marianne’s eyes looked upwards at the intricate mouldings. Then they travelled to the huge mirrors…
No!
She gazed at her reflection, horror-struck. She looked as if she’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. Her hair was falling out of her pony-tail and her light summer skirt looked stupid with her heavy knitted jumper.
Marianne quickly pulled the elastic band out of her hair and ran her fingers through her natural curls. And then, of course, wished she hadn’t as she caught a glimpse of Seb’s laughing eyes in the mirror.
‘I look like the wicked witch of the west,’ she said by way of an excuse.
‘You look beautiful.’
Seb had said that before…in exactly the same way. And his brown eyes did that thing they did that made her feel as if she was burning up from the inside out.
And she wanted to cry. Marianne swung her head away so that her hair would give her some privacy. ‘Is this where the summer ball takes place?’
‘All these tables will be cleared away after tomorrow and an army of florists will set about transforming it.’
Marianne felt as if it were someone else speaking. She wanted to go back to the relative sanctuary of the guest wing. She wanted time alone to think about what she’d seen. Understand what she felt. ‘When is Princess Isabelle arriving?’
‘She spoke to Viktoria. They’ve agreed it would be better if she arrived at the last possible moment. There’ll be so many other people arriving then…’
Marianne nodded and then she tensed as she felt Seb’s hands on her arms. He spun her to face him. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘It’s nothing.’ She drew in a short breath and let it out slowly. It was nothing. Nothing new. ‘It’s an amazing room,’ she said on a croaky whisper. ‘Thank you for showing it to me.’
His right hand slipped up to her shoulder and the other hand gently pushed back her fine blonde hair. With one thumb he brushed across her eyelids as though he could erase whatever it was that was making her look so sad.
His warm hand moved from her shoulder to tilt her chin. ‘What have I done to make you sad?’
Marianne let out her breath on a broken laugh. ‘Nothing. It’s not you. It’s me.’ She tried to step away from his intense scrutiny, but he didn’t release her. ‘It’s not your fault. It’s mine. M-my fault.’
‘What’s your fault?’
He looked completely bemused and she couldn’t really blame him. Seb didn’t possess the single most significant fact about their time together. He didn’t know they’d made a baby together. So for him it was all relatively simple.
Her eyes searched out his dark ones. ‘I didn’t understand. You told me in London, but I didn’t really understand.’ She tried hard to find the words that would convey what she was trying to say—without telling him about Jessica. He didn’t need to know that. ‘I’ve finally seen you as a prince. I really believe it. I don’t think I did before. Not really.’
He brushed his knuckles over her cheekbones and ever so gently down her cheeks.
‘This is all so impossibly big.’ Marianne took another breath in on a hiccup. ‘Your life is different from mine. You belong here and I d-don’t.’
‘Marianne.’
Her name on his lips unlocked the first tear. It carved a warm furrow down her cheek and Marianne tried to turn her head away from his incredible eyes. His thumb moved gently across it and his warm hands held her steady.
‘I—I understand now what you meant in London. I needed to see this to really understand. For ten years I’ve been so angry at you for something you couldn’t help.’ She took her shaking bottom lip between small white teeth.
She wanted to die. Not really. Of course, she didn’t really want to die, but she wanted him to stop looking at her that way. That mixture of compassion and tenderness. It hurt to see him look like that. It reminded her…
Another tear spilled onto her cold cheek and she felt his right hand burrow deep in her hair, moulding itself round her scalp. She should pull away, but it was what she needed. Seb was the only person who had any hope of understanding how bereft she felt. How utterly…hopeless.
Because, finally, she had to accept she could never have played a part in Seb’s future. Whether he loved her or not—she was not part of this…however you chose to describe this.
She came from a long line of farm labourers. Their marriage certificates signed with their ‘mark’ rather than a signature. Only when free education had been introduced had anyone from either side of her family done anything other than live a hand-to-mouth existence in extreme poverty….
Not better. Not worse. Just different.
Seb kissed the teardrop away, and then her right temple, each kiss seeming to brand her as his. Warm and moist. She wanted him. Had always wanted him. But she wanted the man, not the prince.
She heard the small moan that came from deep within her throat, felt the lean muscle tone of his back as her fingers splayed out across it.
And then he kissed her lips. Soft and questioning at first. He drew back and looked deep into her eyes. He was waiting, asking for her permission. Marianne closed her eyes and leant into him.
His strong hands moved to cradle her face and his thumb moved against her softly parted mouth before he kissed her. Hard. Possessive. She opened her mouth to him the merest fraction and allowed her tongue to touch his.
She remembered this. Exactly this. The feel of his body pressed up against hers, the taste of him, the scent of his skin…
It was as familiar as walking from one room into another—and yet so, so sexy. Easy to forget that Seb Rodier didn’t really exist. That the man she was kissing was Prince Sebastian—a man who’d left her because she wasn�
�t ‘suitable’.
She pulled back, her body suddenly tense.
‘Marianne?’ His dark eyes were so close to hers. She could feel his breath. ‘What is it?’
‘I—I can’t do this.’
His thumb moved across her sensitised lips and she forced them not to open beneath it. ‘What can’t you do?’
‘This. Us,’ she whispered. ‘It wouldn’t work. I wouldn’t be happy.’
Seb stepped back and pulled his hands through his hair. ‘We need to talk—’
‘We don’t, Seb.’ Marianne cut him off. ‘There’s nothing to talk about. What we had in France was special, so it’s natural we should still feel something for each other, but you can never go back.’ She tried to smile. ‘It wouldn’t be the same.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
A DOOR banged in the next room and Marianne looked round. ‘What’s that?’
‘One of the night-time security staff, I imagine.’
Marianne drew in a shaky breath. ‘He’ll be wondering what we’re doing here. We’d better go.’
‘I imagine he knows.’ Seb rubbed his hand across the back of his neck, reluctant to tell her how public their kiss had been. ‘There are security cameras in all the state rooms.’
‘Wh—’
‘Most of the castle, in fact.’
Marianne wrapped her arms around her waist. ‘We’re being watched? Now?’
‘As long as we’re in the state rooms. Come.’ He held out his hand, but she didn’t move towards it. ‘There are no security cameras in my private rooms.’
‘What about the guest wing?’
‘Not inside the suites themselves. Come with me,’ he repeated. She didn’t move. Her eyes were wide with shock—and he could understand that. He was used to living with people watching his every move and tended to forget it was happening. But for Marianne it was a new experience and, no doubt, unnerving. ‘This way,’ he said quietly.
She followed him wordlessly until they reached the grand staircase. ‘I know my way from here. I can—’
‘We can talk in your suite or in my rooms—I really don’t care which you choose, but let’s finish this. One way or another.’
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