The Prince's Bride

by Victoria Alexander

  He laughed. “I am indeed a lucky man.”

  “That you are,” she said primly. “Especially since you have no idea how to behave with a woman.”

  “I have a very good idea how to behave with a woman.” His gaze slid to the bed, then back to her. “And I would be more than happy to demonstrate.”

  She laughed and pushed out of his arms. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

  “Pity,” he said with a wicked grin and knelt down to retrieve the roses.

  “Now then.” She studied him for a moment. “Why didn’t you tell me you are a prince?”

  He paused, then continued picking up the flowers. His tone was guarded. “For the very same reason you didn’t tell me you couldn’t see. You didn’t—”

  “Yes, yes, I know I didn’t ask.” She waved away his comment impatiently. “Even you must admit the two things are not at all equal in importance. My, well, secret I suppose is relatively insignificant—”

  He glanced up at her and raised a brow.

  “Come now, you know it is. Besides, I did tell you I hadn’t seen those men and you simply took it the wrong way.”

  “Nigel told you I was a prince”—a slight smile quirked his lips—“you simply took it the wrong way.”

  “They are not the same thing and you know it.”

  “Nonetheless.” He stood and handed her the roses. Their delightful fragrance surrounded her and she wondered how any man could fail to realize how difficult it was for a woman to remain angry when presented with such beauty of sight and scent. She glanced around the room, then headed toward a pitcher.

  “I don’t consider myself a prince, you know,” he said, his tone sober.

  Jocelyn placed the flowers one at a time in the pitcher and waited.

  “I didn’t tell you because it’s not important to me. I hardly ever think of it.” He paused and she turned toward him. “It plays no role in my life. I don’t consider it significant.”

  “Alexei apparently does.”

  His expression darkened. “Alexei’s world is not mine. He was raised to become the next ruler of Avalonia. I was brought up to be the Viscount Beaumont. I am quite content with my lot in life.” He shrugged in a rather helpless manner that tugged at her heartstrings. “I can’t expect you to understand.”

  “Explain it to me then.”

  He studied her as if deciding if she really wanted to know what he thought. “I am an Englishman.” His words were deliberate and measured. “This is my country and King George is my king. My king and my country have my full allegiance and my complete loyalty. I have been willing in the past to lay down my life for England and should do so again without question if called upon.

  “Earlier today you said being pretty was very much a part of who you were, although I daresay I find those spectacles perched on your nose more and more seductive.” He shot her a wicked grin, then sobered. “The sixth Viscount Beaumont is who I am. It is ingrained in my very nature. In my soul, as it were. And England is my home.

  “Avalonia holds no interest for me, nor does any hereditary title from that land. It does not engender feelings of loyalty or desire. It is a spot on the map. Nothing more. I daresay I shall never even visit the country, nor do I particularly want to.”

  “I know this will sound mercenary and I am trying very hard to reform my nature but, Rand”—she heaved a sigh—“you could be, in point of fact you are, a prince. Think of it. A real prince. And think of everything that goes along with it. Wealth and position and ... everything.”

  “And you could be a princess, exactly as you wanted.” A wry smile quirked his lips but his eyes were solemn. “Knowing that can never be, do you think perhaps, not now of course but someday, you could be happy being a mere viscountess? Lady Beaumont and not Princess Jocelyn?”

  Her heart fluttered in her chest. “Lady Beaumont?” She walked toward him slowly. “Instead of Princess Jocelyn? That is quite a choice. Hmmm. Let me think.” She stepped in front of him and placed her hands on his chest, then slid them up to his shoulders. “If I remain Lady Beaumont do I get to keep Lord Beaumont as well?”

  “If you will have him.” He slipped his arms around her and drew her close. “I have no desire to end this marriage, Jocelyn.”

  “No annulment then?” She gazed up at him.

  “No.” His tone was adamant, and surely that was love she saw in his eyes.

  “Very well. Besides, your uncle was right.” She grinned. “Princess Jocelyn doesn’t suit me nearly as well as Lady Beaumont does.”

  Rand laughed and pressed his lips to hers in a kiss long and tender and absolutely delightful. And she kissed him back with the certain knowledge that she would quite enjoy being nothing more than Lady Beaumont and with the growing desire only Lord Beaumont could trigger. His lips moved from her mouth to kiss her throat, and she gasped with enjoyment and more than a little anticipation. He nibbled up the side of her neck to her ear, and she wondered just how hard the floor beneath them would be or if they could make it all the way to the bed.

  “Stay away from Alexei.” His voice was low against her ear.

  At once all desire vanished. She pulled her head away and looked at him. “What did you say?”

  He cast her a firm look. “You heard me.”

  “I must have heard wrong.” She pushed out of his arms and took an unsteady step away.

  “I doubt that. However, I am more than happy to repeat it. Stay away from Alexei. I don’t like the way he looked at you, and furthermore”—he crossed his arms over his chest—“I’m not overly fond of the way you looked at him.”

  “Don’t you trust me?” She narrowed her gaze.

  “I don’t trust him,” he said staunchly. “He has a considerable reputation. One he did his best to earn.”

  “You think I am too ... too”—she clenched her teeth—“stupid to recognize that?”

  “Not at all. But you are young and as such could be extremely susceptible to someone like Alexei.”

  “Do you believe I would be unfaithful to you?” Her voice rose.

  He hesitated no more than a heartbeat but it was enough. “Not deliberately, of course. However, he is a man of considerable charm, and in spite of your successful season you are still very inexperienced—”

  “You have certainly provided me with a great deal of experience!”

  “I meant in the ways of disreputable rakes like Alexei.” He spoke as if he were talking to a small child or some feebleminded creature who needed to have things explained as simply as possible. It was most condescending and altogether infuriating. “You could easily find yourself in a situation where you could be, well, swept away—”

  “Swept away!” She couldn’t believe her ears. “You think I would allow myself to be swept away?”

  “I swept you away.”

  “Hah! If I recall the sweeping was entirely mutual!”

  “Exactly. Besides, you were willing to meet with him privately once,” Rand said pointedly.

  “It certainly wasn’t for purposes of being swept away!”

  “Not on your side, perhaps, but I have no doubt what Alexei intended during that ill-fated rendezvous of yours.”

  She gasped with indignation. “He intended to ask me to be his bride! His princess!”

  Rand snorted. “Come now. As an intelligent woman surely you cannot still believe that?”

  Whether she did now or not wasn’t the least bit relevant. She certainly had at the time. “You don’t trust me!”

  “Of course I do,” he said quickly but not quite quickly enough. “It’s Alexei I don’t trust. And therefore, as your husband, I am telling you I don’t want you near him.”

  Shock stole her breath. “Is that an order?”

  “Call it what you will. I would not have put it that way but if you insist...” A challenging light shone in his eyes as if he were daring her to protest. “I am indeed ordering you to desist this ongoing flirtation with Alexei.”

  “
There is no flirtation and”—she struggled to keep her voice cool and level—“I don’t take well to orders.”

  “Nonetheless you will obey this one.”

  She stared in disbelief. Was the man completely insane? Had jealously driven him stark raving mad? Or was he nothing at all like the man she thought he was? “I will do precisely as I wish.”

  “Not when it comes to Alexei.” Determination rang in his voice.

  “When it comes to anything at all. It may well be time we completely understood each other, my lord. I will entertain requests. I will give due consideration to petitions or entreaties. I will even acquiesce to a rare demand, but I will not be ordered about like a servant. I am willing to fulfill my obligation as your wife and your viscountess but I will not be treated in any way less than those positions deserve. Not even by you.”

  “I am your husband.” He looked so indignant she would have laughed if she hadn’t been so angry.

  “I don’t especially care. Now,” she ground out the words, “get out.”

  “Now that sounded like an order.”

  “How very astute.”

  Rand stalked to the door. “I am only leaving because I have nothing more to say at the moment.” He jerked open the door. “As far as I’m concerned the subject is closed. I have made my position perfectly clear.”

  “Your position?” She sputtered with rage. “Your position!” Jocelyn whirled around, stalked to the pitcher of roses, and grabbed it.

  “Don’t throw that at me,” he warned.

  “Is that an order?”

  “Yes!”

  “I don’t take orders!” She flung the pitcher with all her strength.

  He ducked behind the open door a split second before the pottery shattered against the wall barely a few feet from his head in a satisfying spray of water and white petals. There was something to be said for being able to see well enough to aim.

  He glanced at the scattered roses and raised a brow. “Well, that’s the last time I accompany an apology with flowers.”

  “Hah! There aren’t enough flowers in the world! Now get out!”

  “Another order, my dear? You should know I’m not fond of them either. I’m leaving now only because that’s exactly what I had planned to do.” He smirked, backed out, and slammed the door.

  She stared at the closed door wishing she had something, anything, to fling once again and struggled to slow her breathing to a more sedate rate.

  That certainly hadn’t gone at all well. Not in the least what she’d had in mind. Why, at this very moment he was supposed to be sharing her bed doing all those lovely things to her she had grown quite fond of in recent days. And she should be doing equally lovely things to him in return.

  She crossed her arms over her chest and paced. She did tend to think better on her feet. What, precisely had gone wrong? Nothing she could pinpoint on her part. It was his fault, all of it.

  Of course, she had set out to make him jealous. And had, perhaps, paid a bit too much attention to Alexei in the process. Still, she’d made it a point to favor Nigel equally, although that had slipped Rand’s notice. There was the distinct possibility she’d gone a bit too far.

  It was that question of trust that was disturbing. Of the two of them, Jocelyn would have thought she was the one who would be unwilling to trust. Her father hadn’t been the least bit reliable, and even her brother could not be depended on for much of her life, although ultimately he had made up for it. But hadn’t she trusted Rand right from the beginning?

  For Rand, trust might well require a leap of faith. And love.

  It was, no doubt, his secretive government background that made him so hesitant to trust her as completely as she trusted him. She’d not given him any reason to distrust her, at least not since their marriage. Oh, certainly she had once planned a private meeting with Alexei, but that seemed like a lifetime ago even if, in truth, it was little more than a week. She’d done nothing to betray Rand, nor did she intend to, even if, with Alexei’s presence, the opportunity might arrive. No, she was as content with her lot as Rand’s wife as he was with his position in life.

  Perhaps she simply needed to make that clear to him, although, at the moment, he well deserved to stew in his own turbulent juices. A night apart would probably do him good.

  He was undeniably jealous and that was exactly what she’d wanted. She’d simply never expected that jealousy on the part of a man went hand in hand with stupidity.

  Her husband had quite a bit to learn about women in general and especially about his wife. He had to learn when to speak and when to keep his mouth shut. He had to learn to trust her. And he had to understand she never had, and never would take well to orders.

  ———

  Well, he certainly told her!

  Rand stalked through the wide corridor.

  If he wished to issue orders, he would bloody well issue orders. His position was perfectly understandable.

  He stomped down the spiral stone stairs. That’s the way it would be. There would be no debate, no discussion. He was the husband. She was the wife.

  And apparently he was sleeping by himself.

  His step slowed with the awful realization that he was something of a fool. He groaned aloud. How could he have thought, even for a moment, that she would respond well to his issuance of orders. In point of fact he hadn’t thought. He’d simply opened his mouth and the most outrageous things flowed out.

  Certainly he was well within his rights to insist that Jocelyn stay away from Alexei, but it wasn’t necessary to sound like an unyielding general commanding disobedient troops. He should have known she wouldn’t take it at all well. Who would?

  He strode into the shadowed library and headed straight for the brandy decanter, aided by the light from the still-burning fire in the hearth.

  What was it about the blasted woman that made him firmly put his foot in his mouth every time he was with her? She’d lull him into some sort of vulnerable state where all was going well and just when he’d relax enough not to watch every word, he’d say something absurd again. So far he’d called her shallow, accused her of lying, indicated he regretted their marriage, and now had approached her in a manner guaranteed to overset her. What was wrong with him?

  He tossed back two full glasses of brandy in quick succession, then poured another.

  “Argue about Prince Alexei, did you?” Nigel’s amused voice came from a chair near the fireplace.

  “It’s that obvious?”

  Nigel snorted.

  Rand started toward the chair opposite his uncle’s, pausing only long enough the grab the decanter. “She’s turned me into a complete and total idiot, Nigel.”

  Nigel chuckled. “That does tend to happen.”

  Rand collapsed into the chair. “What? Insanity? Is it a by-product, then, of marriage?”

  “Not necessarily of marriage but”—Nigel paused— “perhaps of love.”

  “Love? Hah,” Rand scoffed. “If this is love, I want no part of it. It’s driving me mad. She’s driving me mad.” He leaned forward and rested his forearms on his legs. “Tell me this, Uncle, am I a reasonable man? An intelligent person? Do I rely on logic and rational thinking to make decisions?”

  “I have always thought so.”

  “As have I, but apparently I’ve changed.” He sank back and drained his glass. “Whatever reason and good sense I might have previously possessed has vanished. Gone. Like that.” He tried to snap his fingers but oddly enough couldn’t quite manage. Instead he refilled his glass and sighed heavily. “It’s a pity.”

  “What is?”

  “I’ve been felled by a mere woman. She might as well have cut off my hair like, oh, who was that fellow?”

  “Samson?”

  “That’s him. He trusted a woman and look what happened to him.”

  “Jocelyn has given you no reason to distrust her.”

  “I have no reason to trust her either.” And wasn’t that a point in his favor? It
did seem rational at the moment. “People have to earn trust. When you trust blindly, well, terrible things can happen. Battles can be lost. People can die.”

  “This is not war, Rand,” Nigel said gently.

  “It feels like war,” Rand muttered. “Different battlefield, that’s all.”

  “I’m confident you can trust your wife.”

  “Hah. She didn’t want to marry me, you know.” He lowered his voice in a confidential manner. “She wanted to marry him. She wanted to be a princess.” He smiled smugly. “I could make her a princess if I wanted. I don’t, but I could.”

  “Tell me something, my boy, does Jocelyn trust you?”

  “Of course,” he said indignantly, then raised his glass and grinned. “I saved her life.”

  “And then you were forced to take any decision she might have made as to the rest of her life away from her,” Nigel said gently. “Not your fault, of course, but there it is. Still, she has not held that against you, has she?”

  “No.”

  “She has tried to make the best of it, has she not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even to the point of being your wife in every sense of the word?”

  “Yes.”

  “And have you tried as well to be the husband she deserves?”

  “Well...” Rand resisted the urge to squirm. Had he indeed made an effort to make their marriage work? Or had he simply let events unfold as they would?

  Neither of them had had any choice initially. Marriage was the only option if he was to take her away and keep her safe. He hadn’t really considered until now what she’d been forced to give up.

  Oh, not Alexei. Rand was confident Alexei’s intentions toward Jocelyn had never been especially honorable. But Jocelyn could have made a far better match than the sixth Viscount Beaumont.

  Yet it didn’t appear she regretted it. No, she seemed to be making the best of their marriage. In those rare moments when he wasn’t drawing her annoyance, she seemed to be enjoying their newfound life together. She laughed a great deal and he rather liked the sound of it. In his rooms and in his bed. And she’d certainly scarcely hesitated to join him there.