How to Love a Princess

by Claire Robyns

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve only to raise my voice and a hundred guards will come trooping through those doors.”

  “But you’re not screaming,” he said huskily, his breath warm on her lips.

  She changed tactics. “My guests will be arriving any moment.”

  His roaming fingers stilled, then slowly retraced their way back to her chin. His lips were so close, she knew he was about to kiss her. She lowered her eyelids, unable not to, lips quivering in anticipation. She’d tried hard enough to hold him off. This was her reward.

  There was no kiss.

  He stood back, releasing her, looking at her with a teasing light in his eyes. “Hold that thought.”

  “If you had any idea what I was thinking,” she said, frustration snapping her from the trance, “you might regret that request.”

  Fool! He intimates the barest suggestion of tenderness and you jump circles to justify your instant submission.

  “But it wasn’t a request, Catherine.”

  Frustration turned to fury. “You dare order me?”

  He gave a mock shudder. “Not with your hundred guards about to burst through that door. Or was that guests?”

  “Is everything a joke with you?”

  “You’re confusing me with Geoffrey, dolce cuore.”

  Her eyes blazed into his amusement. “Leave Geoffrey out of this.”

  “I’d love to, but I’m afraid Geoffrey is yours to command, not mine.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “You tell me.”

  Catherine rolled her eyes and pushed her way past him. “I don’t have time for riddles.”

  She almost expected him to grab her from behind. He didn’t. Of course he didn’t. He came to stand beside her as she attempted to carry on a normal conversation with Geoffrey and Gascon. His arm brushed hers. His closeness overruled her senses. She almost cried out in relief when the Italian ambassador arrived with his wife, Eleanor Gavatale. After introductions were made, Eleanor quickly set about devouring Nicolas’s attention, leaving Catherine to entertain the husband with small talk that touched on political matters but skirted the boundaries of actual politicking.

  Norway arrived, then Sweden, and soon the room was filled with laughing, chatting amiability. At last, Catherine was able to relax and stand back for a moment, observing her guests converse.

  “Your cheeks are flushed and your eyes are bright.” Nicolas fell in at her side. “Power and politics agrees with you.”

  “Leave it alone,” she said, keeping her smile in place and her gaze directly ahead.

  “That was a compliment.”

  “No. That was another accusation.”

  “What are you two mumbling about?” Geoffrey demanded playfully, coming up to them.

  Catherine excused herself, murmuring something about checking up on dinner.

  Nicolas gave Geoffrey a cold look. “I’ve never mumbled in my life. As to what we were talking about, well, that was a private conversation.”

  Geoffrey proved the thickness of his skull by giving Nicolas a friendly slap on the arm and moving to stand in line beside him, his gaze following Catherine’s exit from the room. “She’s really something, isn’t she?”

  “If by that you mean beautiful, smart, charming and amusing, I have no choice but to agree.”

  Geoffrey sighed. “Sometimes I can hardly believe she’s mine.”

  A hundred alarm bells went off in Nicolas’s head. “Yours?”

  “We’re practically engaged,” Geoffrey said on another sigh.

  Engaged? Red flashes joined the clanging bells. “Well,” he ground out just before following after Catherine, “I wouldn’t hold my breath for the wedding if I were you.”

  He found her in the formal dining room, straightening an already perfect napkin while Serge gave last minute instructions to the small army of servers lined up. The bells were just an echo in his head now, dimmed by common sense. There was no way on earth that Catherine would ever consider tying herself to that foolish, ignorant excuse for a man. Either Geoffrey was boasting out of turn or, and this was not unlikely, he’d somehow plucked conclusions from one of the rainbows he partied on that were as false as the pot of elusive gold.

  Catherine glanced up. She did not usually leave her guests to tinker where she was not needed, and now the man she’d so deliberately escaped had come after her. “Dinner is about to be served,” she said coolly.

  Nicolas scoured the place settings, searching the cards for his name. “Please tell me you haven’t put me anywhere near that ridiculous baboon.”

  It wasn’t difficult to guess whom he was referring to amongst her distinguished guests. Loyalty to Geoffrey and an unwillingness to accommodate Nicolas in any way after his last performance kept Catherine silent. She watched him flick up another place card.

  “I’m referring to Geoffrey. The idiot thinks he’s engaged to you.”

  “Oh.” Her disconnected aloofness collapsed. She should have seen this coming. “That is…”

  Panic kicked Nicolas in the gut. “You’re not, are you?”

  The pause was but a moment. It felt like a month.

  “Not yet,” Catherine said, suddenly unable to meet his eyes.

  And Nicolas wished that pause had gone on forever. That he’d never had to hear those words. “No.”

  “No?”

  He looked at her downcast eyes. Waited until she finally raised her head to face him.

  No. That single word reverberated in his skull. It drained his blood. Wound tightly around his lungs. Knocked behind his knees. Shot arrows through his heart. “Just no.”

  Catherine took a steadying breath. She could have softened the truth, but there were enough misunderstandings between them and, apparently, not nearly enough barriers. She was still upset at the incident outside the bathroom. Her body was still on high alert to everything about the man. She was holding onto her composure by a thread and Nicolas’s reaction stunned her. She might have expected some caustic remark, a jaded referral to their aborted engagement, but this, she didn’t know how to interpret.

  “You’re not making any sense,” she said, deciding it would be wise to keep the edges of this particular conversation fuzzy. With that, she swept around him in a wide berth to make yet another exit. At this rate, there were too few doors in the castle to contain the many exits she required.

  Catherine put her smile in place before moving between the natural groups that had formed while she waited for Serge to announce dinner. Abandoned by Nicolas, Eleanor had attached herself to Geoffrey. Reginald Arratore was bemoaning some hot spot situation to the Swedish ambassador while both their wives were standing to the side, throwing looks as sharp as daggers at Eleanor that no doubt matched bitchy comments that stopped as soon as Catherine was within hearing.

  “I hear that Alice finally got Hammond to say yes,” Catherine told the ladies as she walked with them to the dining room.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “I do, my dear. That woman has more tricks up her sleeve than David Copperfield,” Reginald’s wife said of Alice, a mutual acquaintance who’d broadcast her intentions to marry the cosmetic billionaire at a gathering last Christmas. Since then, the bets were on, aided and abetted by Alice herself, who thrived on attention almost as much as Eleanor.

  Their attention and gossip successfully diverted from Eleanor, Catherine was free to ensure that everyone found their seats and to indicate with a discreet signal for the first course to be brought in. Nicolas had recovered sufficiently to charm his dinner partners on either side, but that didn’t surprise her. He was a diplomat in his own right, accustomed to dealing and negotiating at the highest levels for the many grants he’d secured.

  Right now, for example, he was chuckling heartily at something Eleanor had said, something obviously meant for his ears only. Could their two heads be any closer together?

  “Amelia?”

  She started, then guiltily lifted a smile at
Reginald who’d been regaling her with stories of his son. She thought to brazen her way through a plausible response, then decided on the truth. “I’m sorry, Reginald. My thoughts tend to drift these days.”

  He put a hand to her arm and squeezed gently. “No need to apologise, my dear. How is your mother faring?”

  “We’re still not sure what is wrong with her.” Catherine forced a light tone, not wishing to weigh down the dinner party. “But I for one feel much better with Nicolas Vecca on the case.”

  Reginald glanced across the table to where Nicolas was conversing in undertones with Eleanor, then back to her with a reassuring smile. “He’s quite a remarkable man. I’ve heard only good things about him.” He chuckled softly. “For a man so much in the public eye, that’s quite an achievement.”

  “Yes,” she agreed sincerely. “And I’m sure that what we’ve seen so far is just a scratch on the mark he’ll leave on this world.”

  Reginald took his hand back from her arm and ate in silence for a few minutes, then looked at her with a curious expression. “You could do worse than him, you know.”

  She didn’t even pretend to misunderstand. “Oh, no, there’s nothing between Nicolas and me.”

  Reginald grunted. “Does the young man know that?”

  Catherine laughed from pure nervousness. “Now you’re pulling straw from an empty haystack.”

  “I’m old, my dear, not blind,” he scoffed. “I’ve seen the way his eyes follow— I’ve seen the way he follows you.”

  “Reginald,” she protested.

  He shrugged his shoulders, then grinned in defeat. “All I’m saying is, you could do worse. Now,” he added, holding up his forkful, “what is this slop I’m eating?”

  “That slop,” she said, well accustomed to his wit, “is baked squid. The latest in gourmet dining, according to Claustaud. Whom, I might add, I snatched from you.”

  Reginald laughed out loud. “First you steal my top chef from under my nose and now you blame me for his mistakes?”

  Catherine chuckled, noting that Reginald nevertheless ate every morsel on his plate.

  Once desert had been served, the guests were taken into the Billiard room for coffee so that they could mingle freely before the end of the evening. The men gathered around the snooker table while the women chatted, Catherine doing her utmost to ensure Eleanor was not totally ignored.

  When the clock struck eleven, the guests took their leave, escorted to their private jets waiting on the landing strip.

  Catherine looked from Geoffrey to Nicolas and was suddenly exhausted. Thankfully, both were well acquainted with the castle and could be left to their own devices. “Please excuse me, gentlemen. I think I’m ready to retire.”

  “So am I,” claimed Geoffrey. “I’ll walk with you.”

  Nicolas said nothing, but his gaze hardened on her.

  What am I being accused of now? Catherine felt her heart sag as she said goodnight and left the room, Geoffrey trailing behind.

  They parted at the top of the stairway and, after a lingering bath, Catherine sought her bed. But sleep would not come. She tossed and turned until the covers lay at her feet in a rumpled heap. What bothered her the most, she finally conceded, was Nicolas’s denial of her proposed engagement. No. Just no. As if refusing to grant a favour she hadn’t requested. As if he were denying a permission she didn’t need. And would she have been any happier if he’d given them his blessing?

  Unwilling to answer that question, Catherine jumped up, threw on her satin nightgown and made her way downstairs to the kitchen. As she passed through the hall, she saw the glow of soft light from the reception room casting shadows on the polished floorboards. She popped her head inside.

  Nicolas.

  The glow came from the lights built into the bar. He had his back to her, sitting on a stool, his elbows resting over the counter. She should walk right on; leave him to his solitary drinking. The tumultuous day that had started with that kiss by the stream (was that only this morning?) had all the signs of ending even worse. She felt as if Nicolas had tossed her in the dryer and kept the spin cycle on high throughout the day. Was his game revenge? Or was he merely as confused as she was?

  Catherine took a deep breath, then padded up behind him. “Nicolas?”

  He spun about, knocking over his whiskey glass. He looked at her in silence, haunted shadows carved on his face, pain and bitterness and loneliness buried in his eyes.

  Whatever he’d said, whatever he’d done, in that moment, Catherine knew. The constant ache she’d learnt to live with was reflected in his eyes.

  He might have declared that he was through with her.

  He might have taken pleasure in torturing her with almost kisses and cruel accusations.

  He might have spent the evening subtly flirting with Eleanor.

  But she knew. “Nicolas.”

  He disconnected his gaze with a jerky motion and slid from the stool. When he looked at her again, his eyes were blank and his expression hard. “I thought you were asleep.”

  He was lying. He thought Geoffrey had followed her into bed. She knew it as surely as she suddenly knew that Nicolas had not yet released her from his heart. Her own heart threatened to leap ten feet in the air. And in the very next moment, she remembered how very bad this was.

  Catherine took refuge in the simple task of going behind the bar to find a cloth, needing the distraction as she spoke. “Geoffrey and I are not lovers.”

  She kept her head down, dabbing at the spilt whiskey, swiping the ice cubes back into the empty glass. When there was nothing more to do, she looked up to his shadowed face and deep, searching gaze.

  She was wrong.

  So very wrong.

  She’d thought her heart had already shattered into as many pieces as it could, yet here it was, breaking all over again. “Nicolas, I never meant to hurt you.”

  “Empty words. I don’t need your pity, Catherine.”

  She slumped down on a stool and threw her arms over the counter. “I never assumed you did. If you want an explanation, however, I do have one.”

  After an air-crackling hesitation, he took his seat again, arms folded, his back ramrod straight. Waiting.

  “I have a duty to provide the next heir to the throne,” she said quietly. “Geoffrey is as good a choice as any other.”

  “Better than me, obviously.” His tone was laced with caustic sarcasm.

  “Yes,” she agreed honestly. Geoffrey would never care enough to try and assert any power over Ophella or in their relationship. There’d never be any risk that she’d hurt or destroy his self esteem, however unintentionally. In fact, if she could keep Geoffrey in Ophella long enough at any one time to conceive that heir once they were married, it would be a miracle.

  If a soul could spontaneously splinter, Nicolas thought his might just have done that.

  “A better choice,” she continued, “but not a better man.”

  “I told you I don’t need pity.”

  “Which is why I’m simply giving you the truth.”

  A better choice, but not a better man. Nicolas scrubbed at his jaw, shaking his suddenly thick head, feeling the axis of his world spin out from under him again. “Am I supposed to even try and understand what you’re saying?”

  Her answer was a sad little smile. Her hair was mussed, falling to her shoulders in lumps and rat-tails and standing up a little on the one side. Her eyes shimmered an ocean blue with unshed tears. His gaze went to her outstretched hands and caught. To her ring finger, and held.

  He’d tried hating her.

  He’d tried despising her.

  Enter Geoffrey.

  Lust might have temporarily seized control of him down by the stream this morning, but it was cold, calculated jealousy that had made him taunt Catherine this evening. He’d never known jealousy before and now he knew that it didn’t always come with a flare of passionate rage.

  And jealousy wasn’t the only reaction he was ashamed of.


  Faced with losing Catherine irrevocably, not to death this time, but to another man, exposed all his hating and despising these past weeks for what it was. Hurt pride. Leaving behind a chasm of unrequited love.

  Nicolas unfolded his arms, took her left hand in his, his thumb and eyes grazing the finger that would one day display another man’s ring. Admitting, finally, that it was over.

  Catherine hadn’t died. She’d chosen to leave him.

  He’d been dumped. Rather callously and abruptly, but would he feel any better about it if she’d used sweet words and let him down easy over a reasonable period? The result remained unchanged. He’d loved Catherine. She hadn’t loved him. He could blame her all he wanted, but that didn’t change a damn thing.

  And here she was again, making it absolutely clear that she chose Geoffrey over him. The man was a buffoon, but it wasn’t even that.

  No man would ever be good enough for her.

  Other than himself.

  Nicolas looked to her worried face as he dropped her fingers and braced his hands on his knees. Hands that had saved lives, cured epidemics, uncovered untold secrets of the human body. He could do so much, but he couldn’t make this woman love him, he couldn’t force her heart to feel what wasn’t there.

  “You do what you have to do, Catherine,” he said softly, tenderly, resigned, “and I’ll do what I have to. Don’t say it,” he added when she opened her mouth. “Don’t ask me again to not abandon your mother. You know I won’t.”

  4

  Catherine let herself into her mother’s room. The heavy brocade curtains were drawn, allowing the morning sun to filter soft light through the net lace. Dr. Stanzis glanced up from the makeshift office he’d established in one corner near the window and she gave him a nod. She came here every day to sit with her mother for a couple of hours and he appreciated the break.

  Once he’d left, she pulled the chair closer to the bed and settled in, holding her mother’s hand. Sometimes her mother was strong enough to sit up and talk. Other times she merely dozed on and off. Catherine looked over her mother with a careful eye, searching for signs of improvement. Pronounced blue veins showed on her lowered lids. Her dark hair was shot with silver and terribly thinned. Her cheeks were gaunt, her skin pale, hanging off her like a white T-Shirt stretched from too many bad washes.