A Night in the Prince's Bed

by Chantelle Shaw - A Night in the Prince's Bed

  ‘What in God’s name...?’ Conscious that the stowaway could have a weapon, Aksel grabbed hold of an arm, and with his other hand yanked the hood back to reveal a tumbling mass of silky auburn hair and a pair of deep green eyes.

  ‘Mina?’ His brain could not comprehend what his eyes were telling him. He was halfway up a glacier in the middle of a snowstorm and it was beyond belief that the woman who had haunted his thoughts all day was staring mutely at him.

  ‘What are you doing? How did you get into my truck? Hellvete!’ He lost his grip on his temper when she made no reply. The snow was swirling around him and he impatiently raked his damp hair off his brow and glared at her. ‘What crazy game are you playing? Answer me, damn you. Why are you pretending to be deaf?’

  ‘I’m not pretending.’ At last she spoke in a tremulous voice that Aksel struggled to hear.

  Mina stared at Aksel’s furious face. She could tell he was shouting at her from the jerky way his lips moved, but she couldn’t hear him. She could not hear anything. When she had woken, dazed and disorientated in the back of the four-by-four, it had taken her a few moments to work out why everything was silent. She had realised that her hearing-aid batteries had run down and remembered that she had fitted a new set at Aksel’s hotel that morning, but the rechargeable batteries in her handbag had probably not been fully charged.

  The faint gleam of the car’s interior lamp cast shadows on Aksel’s face and highlighted his sharp cheekbones and strong jaw. He was forbiddingly beautiful, and, despite the freezing wind whipping into the four-by-four, Mina felt a flood of warmth in the pit of her stomach.

  She said shakily, ‘I have a severe hearing impairment and rely on hearing aids to be able to hear.’ She opened her hand and showed him the two tiny listening devices that she had removed from her ears. ‘The batteries are dead, but I can lip-read if I watch your mouth when you speak.’

  For one of only a handful of times in his life, Aksel had no idea what to say. ‘Are you serious about being unable to hear, or are you playing some sort of sick joke?’ he demanded.

  ‘Of course I wouldn’t joke about something like that,’ Mina snapped. ‘I’ve been deaf since I was a child. Most people don’t know I can’t hear because my hearing aids allow me to lead a normal life, and I’m good at hiding my disability from strangers,’ she added with fierce pride.

  ‘Last night we were as intimate as two people can get,’ Aksel reminded her. ‘I wouldn’t call us strangers. Why didn’t you tell me you are unable to hear?’

  ‘I suppose for the same reason that you didn’t tell me you are a prince.’ Mina shrugged. ‘I didn’t feel ready to share personal confidences with you. And clearly we are still strangers, because otherwise you wouldn’t have believed that I told the press about us.’

  Aksel frowned. Snowdrifts were already forming around his legs, and more importantly around the wheels of the truck, and he knew he must keep the vehicle moving or risk becoming trapped on the exposed mountain road. But there were still a couple of questions he needed answered. ‘Why the hell are you wearing a fancy-dress costume?’

  Mina glanced ruefully at the horrendous purple coat. ‘My friend lent me her coat because I only had a thin jacket. Kat has an...unusual fashion sense, but it was kind of her,’ she said loyally.

  ‘Do you mean to say that underneath that thing you’re not wearing protective cold-weather clothing?’

  ‘I didn’t know I would need them when I got into your car at the palace. You had gone inside to talk on your phone and I decided to wait for you, but I fell asleep,’ she explained when Aksel gave her a puzzled look.

  That cleared up one mystery. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t bring your journalist friend with you,’ he said bitterly.

  ‘I’m not friendly with any journalists.’

  ‘The man in the pub,’ he reminded her.

  She grimaced. ‘I promise you Steve Garratt is no friend of mine.’

  Aksel shook the snow out of his hair. He wished he could turn the truck around and drive Mina straight back to the airport, but the weather was worsening and his only option was to take her to the cabin.

  ‘We’ll have to save the rest of this discussion for later.’ He turned away from her as he spoke. When she did not respond he realised that she had not heard him, and the only way they could communicate was for Mina to read his lips. Things were starting to fall into place—like the way she had focused intently on his face last night. He’d thought that she couldn’t take her eyes off him because she found him attractive, but now he knew she had watched his lips when he spoke to disguise the fact that she was deaf.

  She must have some guts to be so determined not to allow her hearing impairment to affect her life, he thought, feeling a grudging admiration for her. He wondered if she felt vulnerable without her hearing aids. He couldn’t imagine what it was like to live in a silent world, but he guessed it could be lonely being cut off from ordinary sounds that hearing people took for granted.

  A muscle tightened in Aksel’s jaw. He did not want to admire Mina, and he did not want to take her to the cabin. She was a dangerous threat to his peace of mind, especially when he could not forget the searing passion that had burned out of control between them last night. With a curse he slammed the rear door and climbed behind the wheel to drive the last part of the journey that could be made in the four-by-four.

  * * *

  ‘Where are we?’ Mina asked as she climbed out of the truck and caught hold of Aksel’s arm to make him turn around so that she could see his face. They had arrived at a building that had suddenly loomed out of the snow and seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. Aksel had driven the four-by-four inside the building, and the light from of the car’s headlamps revealed that they were in some sort of warehouse. The place wasn’t heated and Mina was already shivering from the bone-biting cold.

  ‘This is as far as we can go by road. From here we’ll be travelling on the snowmobile.’ He pointed to a contraption that looked like a motorbike on skis.

  Travelling to where? Mina wondered. She eyed the snowmobile nervously. ‘You expect me to ride on that?’

  ‘I didn’t expect you to be here at all.’ Aksel spoke carefully so that Mina could read his lips. The glitter in his ice-blue eyes warned her that he was furious with her. He strode over to a cupboard and pulled out several items of clothing, and then walked back to stand in front of her so that she could see his face. ‘Luckily my sister keeps spare gear here for emergencies.’

  Mina seized this tiny snippet of information about the man who had shared his body with her but nothing else. ‘I didn’t know you have a sister.’

  ‘There are a lot of things you don’t know about me.’ He ignored her curiosity and handed her the clothes. ‘Put a couple of sweatshirts on under the snowsuit. The more layers you wear, the warmer you’ll be.’

  Mina doubted she would ever feel warm again. She had to take her skirt off before she could step into the snowsuit and her numb fingers would not work properly. But at last she pulled her boots back on and Aksel handed her a crash helmet. He swung his leg over the saddle of the snowmobile and indicated that she should climb up behind him.

  ‘What if I fall off?’ she asked worriedly.

  ‘Then you’ll be left behind,’ was his uncompromising reply, before he closed the visors on both their helmets and cut off communication between them.

  Mina had never been so scared in her life, as Aksel drove the snowmobile across the icy wasteland that stretched endlessly in all directions. There was a grab-rail behind her seat, but she felt safer with her arms wrapped around his waist. At least if she fell off he would be aware of it and might stop.

  It had stopped snowing, but the freezing air temperature even through the snowsuit made her blood feel as if it had frozen in her veins. The wind rushed past as the snowmobile picked up speed, and she squeezed her eyes shut and clung to Aksel. His muscular body was reassuringly strong and powerful, and an image flitted into Mina’s mind o
f him naked; his golden-skinned chest crushing her breasts, and his massive arousal pushing between her thighs. Her fear faded and she put her trust in the giant Viking who was confidently steering the snow bike across the ice.

  In the light from the snowmobile’s headlamp the snow was brilliant white, and above them the vast black sky was crowded with more stars than Mina had known existed. The birch forest became sparser the higher into the mountains they went, and at last a log cabin with lights blazing in the windows came into view.

  Mina was relieved to see a house, thinking that she would be able to charge her hearing-aid batteries. She always carried the charger with her but the device needed to be plugged into an electricity supply to work.

  As Aksel helped her climb off the bike a strange-looking man stepped out of the shadows. He was wearing what looked like a traditional costume, with an animal hide draped around his shoulders. Mina watched him and Aksel talking and could tell that they were not speaking English or any other language she recognised.

  ‘His name is Isku,’ Aksel told her when the man got onto a sledge pulled by huskies and drove off into the night. Mina could feel the vibration of the dogs racing across the snow long after they had disappeared from sight. ‘His people are called the Sami. They are reindeer herders and still live according to their ancient traditions. Isku’s family are camping near here, and he came to the cabin to light the boiler and make a fire.’

  Mina was thankful that Aksel hadn’t planned to camp out in the sub-zero temperature. The log cabin looked well built to withstand the Arctic storms. Snow was piled high on the roof and a wisp of grey smoke curled up from the chimney. ‘It’s so pretty,’ she murmured. ‘It reminds me of the fairy-tale cottage of the Three Bears.’

  Aksel unstrapped the bags from the back of the bike and remembered to turn to her so that she could watch his mouth as he replied. ‘There are no brown bears in Storvhal, and it is very rare that polar bears come this high into the mountains. Their territory is lower down near the coast. The largest predators you might see near the house are wolves.’

  He noticed the fearful expression in her eyes as she hurried inside and thought it was probably a good thing she could not hear the howling of wolves close by.

  Inside the cabin, a fire blazed in the hearth. Mina quickly started to overheat and had to strip out of the snowsuit and the layers of sweatshirts Aksel had lent her. Her face was flushed by the time she was down to her own shirt, and only then did she realise that she must have left her skirt in the four-by-four where she had got changed.

  Aksel pulled off his boots and ski jacket and strode over to the drinks cabinet, where he sloshed neat spirit into a glass and gulped it down, savouring the fiery heat at the back of his throat. He glanced at Mina undressing in front of the fire and felt a tightening sensation in his groin. He recognised her shirt was the same one he had peeled from her body at the hotel in London the previous night. God knew where her skirt was, but he wished she would hurry up and put it on because the shirt only fell to her hips, leaving the creamy skin of her bare thighs above the lace band of her stockings exposed.

  With her auburn hair tumbling around her shoulders, and her huge green eyes fixed on him, she was incredibly sensual, and Aksel wanted to forget that he was a prince and kiss her until she pleaded with him to pull her down onto the rug and strip off the remainder of her clothes.

  He picked up a second glass and the bottle of liqueur and walked over to join her in front of the fireplace. ‘Here.’ He half filled the glass and handed it to her.

  Mina took a cautious sip of the straw-coloured liquid and choked. ‘That’s strong! What is it?’

  ‘Akevitt is a traditional Scandinavian spirit. The Storvhalian version is flavoured with aniseed.’

  A few sips of the fearsome drink would be likely to render her unconscious, Mina thought. She put the glass down on a table and took the battery charger out of her handbag.

  ‘I need to plug this into an electrical socket to recharge the batteries for my hearing aids.’

  Aksel frowned. ‘There is no electricity at the cabin. The lamps are filled with oil, and the wood-burning stove heats the hot-water tank. The only modern convenience I keep here is a satellite phone so that my ministers can contact me if necessary. Don’t you carry spare batteries for your hearing aids?’

  ‘Both the sets I have with me are dead.’ Mina had not anticipated being without her hearing aids. Her degree of hearing loss meant that she could hear certain sounds above a high decibel, but even if Aksel shouted at the top of his voice she would be unable to hear him. She chewed on her lower lip. ‘I’m sorry I’ve spoiled your trip, but I’m going to have to ask you to take me back to civilisation.’

  He shrugged. ‘I can’t take you anywhere. The heavy snowfall will have blocked the roads further down the valley, and it’s snowing again.’

  Aksel folded his arms across his chest and a nerve flickered in his jaw as he surveyed her half-undressed state. ‘We could be trapped here for days,’ he told her grimly.

  CHAPTER SIX

  MINA’S HEART SANK as she looked over to the window and saw the blizzard that was raging outside. Evidently they had reached the cabin just in time before the weather worsened.

  Aksel slid his hand beneath her chin and tilted her face to his so that she could read his lips. ‘Why did you come to Storvhal?’

  Mina might not be able to hear the anger in his voice, but the rigid set of his jaw was an indication that his temper was on a tight leash. She had as much right to be angry about the photographs in the newspapers as him, she thought, her own temper flaring. His royal status had made them both a target for the paparazzi.

  She focused on his question and decided to be honest. ‘Before we left the hotel this morning you asked me to meet you in Paris.’

  She paused, hoping that her voice did not sound too quiet or flat-toned. She felt self-conscious not being able to hear herself when she spoke, but speech therapy had taught her breathing techniques, and she took a steadying breath before continuing.

  ‘You said that when we made love it had been perfect.’ She stared into his eyes, daring him to deny it. ‘But later, at the theatre, why did you walk away without listening to me?’

  His eyes blazed. ‘You tipped off the press that we spent the night together and used me for a publicity stunt. You know damn well the media hype that you are having an affair with a prince will raise your profile when you perform Romeo and Juliet in New York.’

  Aksel’s nostrils flared with the effort of controlling his anger. ‘The journalist who was waiting for us outside the hotel this morning was the man I saw you looking at in the pub. He called out your name. You obviously know him so don’t try to deny it.’

  ‘His name is Steve Garratt.’ Disdain for the journalist flickered across Mina’s face. ‘It’s true that I recognised him when he came into the pub, but he’s not a friend—in fact he’s the reason I left early. I hate Garratt after he wrote a load of lies about me.’

  She bit her lip. ‘I know your PA has dug up all that regurgitated rubbish about my supposed affair with Dexter Price, but most of what has been written about me is untrue. I had no idea that Dexter was married or that his wife was ill. He had told me he was divorced and we grew close while we were working on a film in LA. But Steve Garratt accused me of having a torrid affair with him and made me out to be an unscrupulous marriage-wrecker.’ Memories of how hurt and humiliated she had been left feeling by the journalist’s assassination of her character, and by Dexter Price’s refusal to defend her, churned inside Mina.

  ‘No one ever listens to me,’ she burst out. ‘Not the press, or my father—or you. I may be deaf but that doesn’t mean you can ignore me. I didn’t tell anyone that you had invited me to your hotel. I didn’t know when I met you that you are a prince.’

  She wished her hearing aids were working. Standing close to Aksel and looking directly at his face so that she could read his lips created an intense atmosphere betwee
n them.

  ‘You were just a man,’ she said huskily, ‘a handsome stranger. I couldn’t take my eyes off you and I agreed to go to your hotel because you...overwhelmed me. Making love with you was the most beautiful experience I’ve ever had, and I...I thought it might have been special for you too—not just a one-night stand—because you asked me to spend a weekend in Paris with you.’

  ‘It wasn’t special.’ Aksel ignored the stab of guilt he felt when he saw Mina’s green eyes darken with hurt. He had been convinced that she had tipped off the press, but now he was beginning to wonder if he might have been wrong about her. Mina’s feeling of disgust for the journalist who had taken photos of them outside the hotel had been evident on her expressive features. However, he reminded himself that she was a talented actress. And his instincts were not infallible. Once he had trusted Karena, he remembered grimly.

  ‘Having sex with you was an enjoyable experience, but it was just sex,’ he said bluntly, ‘and I can’t pretend that last night was anything more than a few hours of physical pleasure.’

  It felt brutal to look into her eyes as he spoke such harsh words. Usually when he gave women the brush-off he avoided eye contact with them, he acknowledged with savage self-derision.

  ‘Look...’ He raked a hand through his hair, feeling unnerved by Mina’s intent gaze. He felt as though she could see into his soul—and that was a dark place he never allowed anyone access to. He wanted to step away and put some space between them, but she needed to read his lips.

  ‘I was carried away by the play. When I saw you on stage I was captivated by Juliet.’ A nerve flickered in his jaw again. ‘But Juliet isn’t real—the woman I saw on stage was make-believe. It was my mistake to have forgotten that fact when we met in the pub.’

  It was the only explanation Aksel could find for his behaviour that had been so out of character. In all the years he had been Storvhal’s monarch he had never picked up a woman in a bar, never done anything to risk damaging his reputation as a responsible, moral prince who was the exact opposite of his father.