The Princess and the Duke

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  Marissa pinched her cheeks, bringing more color to them. Then, annoyed with herself, she turned to face Gwen. “Yes?”

  “Meredith never left Colonel Prescott’s flat in Sterling last night. A reporter I know called to warn that someone was peddling a photograph of her leaving his place early this morning. They were looking extremely cozy, apparently.”

  She caught herself from smiling. “I suppose we’ll be in for more gossip.”

  “Quite possibly.”

  “Well. At least Meredith must have made some inroads with our stubborn colonel.”

  Lady Gwen smiled at that, and since Marissa was very nearly running late for her afternoon appointment with Morgan, she excused herself.

  Marissa headed out of the residence toward the King’s office, located in the public portion of the palace, and nearly bit her tongue with frustration when Sir Selwyn appeared in the corridor, blocking her way.

  He looked so serious that her stomach clenched a little. “Selwyn?”

  “Your Majesty. I need a word with you.”

  “The King isn’t able to meet with me, after all,” she assumed aloud.

  “Not exactly.” He pushed open a door to an empty office. “Please.”

  Frowning, Marissa entered. She sat down in one of the leather chairs he indicated. “What’s this about?”

  “The King,” he said. He closed the door, looking distinctly uncomfortable. “Your Majesty, I’m afraid I have some news that will undoubtedly shock you.”

  Ten minutes later, Marissa was prowling the small confines of the office. “Shock me?” She wanted to screech at Selwyn, but a lifetime of good manners prohibited it. “The man who has been portraying the King all these weeks is, in fact, not the King? What on earth possessed you to keep such a thing from me?”

  “It wasn’t intentional,” Selwyn said quietly. “Not at first. We fully expected His Majesty to rebound quickly. But one day led to another, and by then we’d brought in Broderick to keep Majorco pacified when they went skittish.”

  “I want to see him.”

  “Of course. He’s in the infirmary.”

  “What are you doing to find treatment?”

  “The Centers for Disease Control in America is working on it. We have the finest researchers and physicians in the world looking for an answer.”

  “And none of them know who the patient is.”

  “No, Your Majesty.”

  Marissa felt like weeping. She lifted her chin. “Quite a charade you’ve all managed to pull off. Even I was fooled.”

  “I am sorry.”

  Oddly enough, Marissa believed Selwyn, but she was furious. With them. With Broderick, for daring to so much as look at her as if he’d had a right to do so.

  However, there was more than fury and humiliation. Both would pass, she knew. She was also terrified. And that wouldn’t pass. Not until she knew Morgan would recover.

  When Selwyn escorted her down to the excruciatingly well-secured infirmary and into the private room where her husband was being kept, she looked at him through the glass wall separating the unconscious King from a bank of monitors and one uniformed nurse. “I’d like to be alone with him,” she said clearly.

  Selwyn nodded and spoke quietly to the nurse, who left the room with him.

  Left Marissa alone with the King of Penwyck.

  Her husband.

  A man she loved but didn’t really know.

  Chewing her lip, she walked around the glass enclosure, pulled up a little rolling stool and sat on it beside Morgan’s bed.

  He looked so pale. So still.

  “Oh, Morgan,” she whispered, picking up his hand. Pressing her cheek to it. “What has happened to you? To us? That there be such distance between us that I didn’t know? I didn’t even suspect.”

  And then the tears did come.

  And after the tears, sitting there alone in that room while monitors bleeped and machines sighed, Marissa, the wife, prayed.

  “He’s dead.”

  Pierce’s head jerked up, his attention ripping from the latest intel reports he’d brought home with him to study. He rose from the couch, turning to see that Meredith stood in his doorway, her face unusually pale. Concern pushed back hard at the tidal wave of pleasure at seeing her. “Your father—”

  She wasn’t listening. “Major Fox,” she said huskily and stepped over the threshold, shutting the door with the same extreme care she must have used to open it without him hearing.

  The relief that hit him ought to have shamed him. Of course she didn’t know about the King. His Majesty was still in his private infirmary, stable if not conscious, with the Queen watching over him in addition to the highly secure medical staff.

  But he was sorry about the major. He rounded the couch, walking over to her. “I know you thought you wanted to be with him.”

  “I was.”

  His nerves rocketed to full alert. Not because of her words, but because of the way she moved aside when he reached for her. His arms lowered. Her hair was pinned in a tight coil, and the lines of her un-compromisingly black dress were severe.

  The dress left the taut curve of her shoulders and the hollow at the base of her long neck bare, and instead of looking businesslike, she only looked heart-breakingly beautiful. “You were.”

  “There was a message waiting for me from Lissa Lowell when I returned to the palace this morning.” She crossed her arms in front of her, pressing a pad of paper to her chest. “She’d been trying to reach me all night, apparently.” Color appeared in her cheeks and her eyes were like feverish emeralds. “I changed and immediately headed for North Shore. He died, peacefully, seven hours after I arrived. He never regained consciousness after a heart attack during the night.” She looked brittle. As if one sharp move would shatter her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Her eyebrows drew together. “Are you?” Her gaze glanced over him, never seeming to settle anywhere.

  “Yes. Fox was a good man.” He tried to guide her from the foyer, thinking she needed to sit, but again she avoided him. “He served the guards well.”

  “Protecting the family,” she said. “My father.”

  “Yes,” he said carefully, his nerves tightening even more.

  “Protecting your secrets.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Meredith—”

  Her head snapped back, and he saw the tears in her eyes. “Your Royal Highness,” she said flatly, and slapped the pad she’d been holding against him. “You…bastard. I didn’t understand, you know. Why you kept showing up. Kept coming around. After all these years of avoiding me, then, suddenly, there you were. Again and again and again. I was so stupid. It never dawned on me that you were just keeping me—” her voice went hoarse “—preoccupied.”

  “Meredith—”

  “No.” She shook her head fiercely. “Don’t. Just…don’t. You didn’t want me to find out your secret, and this was your means of doing it. By using the f-feelings I had for you.”

  “Which secret?”

  Her lips twisted. “Of course. There are so many you must surely be forgiven for not knowing which one!” She waved her hand. “Look at the pad, Colonel. It’s right there. Poor Major Fox, rambling as his death drew near. Determined that the nurse who was with him take it all down so he could die with a clear conscience.”

  Feeling cold inside, Pierce looked at the pad. The writing was slanted, hastily written. “What was the nurse’s name?”

  Meredith gaped. “That’s all you have to say?”

  He’d known there was no future for him and Meredith. No matter what weak insanity had led him to take her into his bed, he’d known better. And the part of him that made him good at what he did kept right on going despite it all. If Fox’s last words were as incoherent as the notes on the pad, maybe the situation was still salvageable. Yes, there were some statements that were revealing. But only when viewed with the overall situation. “What do you want me to say, Me—Your Royal Highness?”


  Meredith’s heart was breaking. She wanted him to tell her that he hadn’t sought her out for any reasons other than that he loved her, too.

  But he’d never said those words to her. Not even when he was so closely a part of her that they’d been nearly indistinguishable. She’d been the one to voice those words. Not he.

  “I want you to tell me the truth,” she whispered. “If you even know what that is.”

  “You already know the truth,” he said flatly.

  “Edwin didn’t die in Majorco. He died in Penwyck. And for some…some reason that was important enough for you to pretend an interest in me, you didn’t want me finding out that fact.”

  His face could have been carved from stone. “It was the King’s wish.”

  “That I not find out? It was his wish that you distract me, even if the only way you could do it was with your body?” She struggled to control her voice.

  “That the location of Edwin’s death be kept confidential.”

  “How nicely phrased. I still don’t believe you. My father is an honorable man. He’d never perpetuate a lie. For what reason? To avoid some embarrassment that there’d been a criminal element in Penwyck? It was okay to say that Edwin was in the wrong place at the wrong time as long as the unsavory event happened on Majorco?”

  She was so angry she could hardly think straight. And still she was aware that the only thing she wanted was for Pierce to convince her he hadn’t used her own feelings against her. That he take her in his arms and tell her she was wrong. That he did love her. That he had all along.

  “His Majesty is honor. He wanted to protect the Queen. All of it was about protecting the Queen.”

  Meredith’s throat was knotted. “It was ten years ago,” she said. “Why does it even matter anymore? Why go to such lengths?”

  “I told you I’d hurt you.”

  “Then how foolish of me to have not believed your promise.” She shook her head, turning away. Dashing her fingers over her wet cheeks. “Well, congratulations, Colonel Prescott. You’ve succeeded in once again making me feel the fool. My own fault, really. I just couldn’t get it through my head that what I…felt…was one-sided.” She reached for the door, her trembling fingers circling the knob.

  “It wasn’t.”

  She yanked open the door, only to jump when he reached over her head and planted the flat of his hand against it, making it slam shut. “It wasn’t, dammit to hell, Meredith, it wasn’t one-sided. I love you. I’ve always loved you.”

  She leaned against the door because her legs were in danger of giving out. She wanted so badly to believe him. “Then why?”

  “Because you were too young. I was a commoner.” He shoved his hands through his hair, striding from the foyer into the living room. “Then later, after you came back from studying abroad, I couldn’t even be around you without wanting you.”

  “I wasn’t too young then.” Her voice was thick. “And you were a duke.”

  “I told His Majesty I didn’t want the dukedom.”

  “Why?” Despite everything, because of everything, she still needed to understand him. “You saved his life from the palace attacker.”

  Pierce stared at her. He’d moved toward the French doors, as far from her as possible, to keep from reaching out for her even now. But there wasn’t enough space in the world to keep him from wanting to reach for her. “You still don’t get it, do you? Despite everything, you don’t see. Your intelligence may be staggering, but your heart is just too good to let you understand the facts even when they’re staring you in the face.”

  She crossed to the couch, closing her hands over the rich leather. Tears stood out on her lashes, diamond bright, each one a stabbing pain in his soul. “Then explain it to me.”

  “I killed him. All right? I didn’t catch him. I killed him.”

  Her brow wrinkled. “The palace attacker?”

  “Edwin.” He bit the word out. “The palace attacker was Edwin. Your uncle. And I killed him.”

  Meredith swayed.

  He rounded the couch and pushed her into a chair before she could sink to the floor. But as soon as he knew she was safe, he pulled his hands back. He didn’t deserve to touch her. He’d never deserved it.

  From the night when she—little more than a girl dressed in a fancy gown—put her slender arms around him on a ballroom floor. He’d been simply an army lieutenant who knew he had no business touching a princess, much less thinking the heated thoughts about her that had filled his mind. So he’d been unthinkingly harsh with her. And now she was an adult. A beautiful, compassionate, loving woman. While he had the blood of her uncle’s life on his hands.

  She was staring straight ahead. And already he could see her begin to connect the signs that had always been too obvious for his comfort. “My mother’s brother. Scaled the walls of the residence. To harm the King.”

  “And the Queen.”

  Her eyes widened, and she paled even more. “What?”

  “You need to know the rest, Your Royal Highness.”

  A tear slipped past her lashes. “Meredith.”

  He ignored her pained whisper. There was no future for them. He had to start acting on what he knew to be true. Even if it felt like he was ripping out his heart in the process. While it was difficult enough to divulge this particular truth that would finally finish any feelings she had for him, there was one other that wasn’t his to share. The truth about her father’s health.

  He paced. “For whatever reasons, Edwin wanted to throw Penwyck into chaos by removing the King and Queen. Permanently.”

  “His own sister?” She looked ill. “What about the rest of us? Would he have…never mind. I don’t want to know.”

  “Your mother openly adored Edwin. Penwyck openly adored your mother. His Majesty never wanted her to be hurt by learning the truth. He didn’t want the truth to escape and harm her public image. Everything the King ordered was always done in order to protect the Queen.”

  “It would devastate her,” Meredith whispered, nodding. “All over again.” She sat up straighter. “This could all have been avoided, you know.”

  He stopped dead still. “What are you talking about?”

  “My looking into Edwin’s death. I only grew curious because of the expression you always got whenever someone mentioned his name.”

  “He’d become a lunatic.”

  “I think you wanted me to find out.”

  He stared at her. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “I think it’s been weighing on your conscience all these years.”

  “I’d do it again,” he said flatly. “To protect your family. In a heartbeat. And as you’ve plainly discovered, I’m not the only one who knew the circumstances of that night ten years ago.”

  “Did you mean it, Pierce? That you love me?”

  “Yes.” He was incapable of lying about that.

  She slowly rose. Moved the few feet to stand in front of him. “I think you believed your secret would always separate us. But the truth—”

  “The truth is worse. There is no future for us, Meredith. Whether or not I love you. I killed your uncle.”

  Her fingertips grazed his forearms. “You killed a madman set on destroying my family.”

  “Dammit, Meredith—”

  “Stop blaming yourself,” she whispered. Her gaze, like wet emeralds, searched his. “I agree that there is no useful purpose for my mother to ever learn of this. But even if she did, she wouldn’t blame you, Pierce. There is nothing my mother values more than her husband and her children. She’d be devastated to know what her own brother had been capable of doing, but she’d never blame you for doing what you had to do to stop him.”

  “I had nightmares.” The words came out before he could stop them. “For years. I’d wake in a cold sweat because I’d failed to stop him in time.”

  “But you did.” Her voice was impossibly gentle.

  “Alex Corbin slowed Edwin just enough. But it was close. Too damned close. We never
had a chance to interrogate him. Was he working alone? Was someone else in on the plot? It’s still a mystery.”

  She looked a little green. “A mystery ten years gone. If he hadn’t been working alone, there would have been some follow-up…efforts…by his partners.”

  A little green, he thought. But not fearful. She was a Penwyck. And Penwycks were made of stern stuff.

  “That was the conclusion the King and the rest of us ultimately came to.”

  “And your nightmares went away.”

  His jaw tightened. “Eventually,” he lied.

  She tsked. “Pierce.”

  The clock on his fireplace mantel chimed melodically. He focused on it like a drowning man. “It’s nearly midnight. How did you get here? Do you have a car down there waiting for you? I’ll drive you back.”

  “I drove myself,” she said. “I stopped at the base on my way down from North Shore and was told you’d returned here for the night. Are you going to send me away?”

  “Would you go if I tried?”

  Her eyes were serious. “If you really don’t want me with you, Pierce, then I will go. I won’t stop loving you. Not now. Not ever. But I will go because the last thing I want in this world is to cause you pain. You’ve been causing yourself enough pain all these years by blaming yourself for what you had to do. If being with me makes that worse for you, I will go.”

  He walked to the door.

  Looked over his shoulder to see her standing there. Tears glazing her eyes. Elegant. Strong despite the pain etched in her face.

  He reached for the knob.

  And he flipped the lock.

  Then he turned to her, seeing the way her eyes closed for a long moment in stark relief. And then she looked at him again. And whether or not he believed there was a future for them, in her eyes it seemed he could see forever.

  He took her hand and led her down the hall.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Meredith stretched, her eyes slowly opening to the sensation of sunshine on her face. She pushed up on her elbows, looking around Pierce’s bedroom. Flushing a little at the items of clothing scattered about the room. “Pierce?”