She spoke the truth. In a civil and reasonable tone. “Finn. Seriously. You have to see that a marriage between you and me would be a disaster. We’re strangers, really. Strangers from completely different worlds. And neither of us is ready for marriage. You’re a confirmed bachelor who until this morning has shown no inclination to marry anyone.” She tried a little joke. “I mean, what will all the ladies around here say? They’ll be so disappointed….” She waited for him to chuckle.
He didn’t. “I’m sure they’ll survive.” He took her hand, turned it over and traced a heart in the center of her palm, his head bent to the task. Then he looked up and met her eyes again.
That amber gaze seduced her. Her palm seemed to sizzle where his finger had brushed it. And her foolish heart was knocking so loudly she knew he had to be able to hear it, even over the chatty Gullandrian weather girl and the haunting Secret Garden tune on the radio. Liv had a fine brain. Too bad it ceased to work properly when this man was around.
She cleared her throat and forged on. “Finn, I’m, well, I’m on a career fast track right now. I’ve got to finish getting my education and then I’ve got to build a reputation as an attorney. I have plans for myself. Important plans. I’m sure it’s not easy for a lot of men to understand—particularly, forgive me for saying it, men from Gullandria—but I’ve got a future, in the law, in the political arena. As far as my life goes, marriage and babies are a long way off.”
He was watching her, leaning in, listening so patiently. So attentively. He was very good at that. At listening, one on one. He made a woman feel so…cherished and important. As if he was literally hanging on her every word.
It was very seductive.
And there it was, that word again. Seductive. Various forms of that word popped into her head with scary frequency when Finn Danelaw was near.
He said softly, “Are you finished?”
As an undergraduate, Liv had taken Speech as her minor. She was a killer in debate; she did her homework and knew how to think on her feet. As a rule, she won. Often, like many high achievers, she’d dream of blowing it big time, of getting stuck debating a crack team on a subject of which she knew nothing, of trying to fake it, of failing miserably.
It was very strange. Back in her father’s chambers, she’d felt so strong and sure. She’d known herself to be in the right, known exactly what to say. She’d lined up her points and fired them off straight on target.
But now, here, alone with Finn…
She felt as though she’d somehow wandered into her own bad dream: the nightmare debate. She wasn’t prepared. He would triumph utterly, with patience and good humor. With understanding.
With sheer seductiveness.
She blinked. “I…uh, go ahead. What is it? Say what you have to say.”
Somehow, he had captured her hand again. He kept doing that, taking her hand after she pulled it away. And then, for a while, she would let him hold it. Because it felt so good, so right, so natural, that he should.
And then she would realize what she was doing and pull it away.
Only to have him capture it once more.
She stared at him. He stared back, the beginnings of a smile on that mouth she couldn’t make herself forget she had kissed.
That mouth, God help her, she wouldn’t mind kissing again.
That mouth began to move. “Darling Liv…”
She pulled her hand free. “There. Now. That.”
“What?” His voice was teasing. Gentle. In the background, the weather girl had finished. A man was talking now. The music on the radio droned on.
“I…well, Finn. You shouldn’t call me that. I don’t want you to call me that.”
“What should I call you, if not by your name?”
“I don’t mean my name, you know I don’t. I mean ‘darling.’ I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t call me darling.”
He considered for a moment, his head tipped slightly to the side. And then he caught her hand again. They both stared downward, at his hand around hers. His skin was so warm. His fingers were long, the pads smooth, but callused at the inner joints—the hands of a man who rode. He had a spectacular seat on a horse.
And those hands…oh, they felt delicious against her skin.
She remembered, in a vivid flash, the other night. Those hands rubbing in the hollow of her back, brushing over her belly, sliding down into the secret wetness between her open thighs…
She looked up. “Please. This is disorienting.”
“All right,” he said, as if he had seen what was going through her mind and had decided to take pity on her. He let go of her hand. The minute he did, she found herself wishing he hadn’t.
Oh, she was thinking. This is bad, bad, bad….
He began to speak in a half whisper. “As to your plans for your education and future career, I don’t see a problem.” How did he do that, manage a tone both reasonable and intimate at the same time? “I’m sure you’ll get to all that. In good time. But right now, you’re having a baby. My baby.”
She couldn’t let that pass. “But I’m not—”
He raised a hand. “I believe I’m the one speaking now.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded. “Go on.”
“Thank you.” His brows drew together. He looked so serious, so very concerned. “I want you to know that I do regret having put you in this position. It shouldn’t have happened. I should have used more care. But now that it has happened, well, you see, this is Gullandria. It’s a terrible thing to be born a bastard here. Perhaps you’ve spoken to your sister, Princess Elli, on the subject….”
She didn’t care how serious and concerned he looked. She didn’t like where he was headed. “Was that a question?”
“Well, have you?”
Elli’s new husband, Hauk, had been born of unmarried parents. When he and Elli declared they would marry no matter what, Osrik had legitimized Hauk. Until then, Elli’s warrior had carried the shameful prefix of “fitz” before his name. His childhood, Elli had implied more than once to Liv, had been deeply stigmatized, a living hell.
“Have you?” Finn asked yet again.
She gave him his answer, grudgingly. “Yes.”
“Then you have some idea,” Finn said, “of what it’s like to grow up a fitz in this country. No man would willingly do that to his own child.”
A shiver ran beneath her skin—this time one that hadn’t a thing to do with sex. He looked so determined. She never would have imagined Finn Danelaw would be determined about anything.
The first time she saw him—it would be exactly a week ago tonight—he had been dancing. With a beautiful woman, Lady Something-Or-Other. Liv couldn’t recall her name at the moment. The lady had looked up at him dreamily as she whirled in his arms. Liv could have sworn that the woman’s feet had never once touched the ballroom floor.
An hour later, Liv was the one in his arms. They danced several dances. And they talked—flirtatious talk. As a rule, Liv Thorson didn’t flirt. What was the point of it? If she liked a man, they had things that mattered to talk about: politics, corruption in big business, recent Supreme Court decisions and how they would impact the practice of law in courtrooms all over America.
Flirting, as far as she was concerned, was a little silly. Definitely lightweight. Fine for other women, if that was how they chose to spend their time.
But with Finn…
Well, somehow, he made flirting feel exciting and fun, not a waste of time at all. When Finn Danelaw flirted, it was the next thing to an art form.
She’d asked—flirtatiously—if a prince had to work for a living.
He’d chuckled. “Depends on the prince.”
“Well, you, for example.”
“If I did work, I would never admit it while dancing with you.”
Brit had danced with him later. And much later, when the sisters were alone in their rooms, they’d agreed he was a total charmer, killer handsome, yum-yum and all of that. Eye candy.
Ear candy. Easy on the senses all the way around.
But someone to be taken seriously? Someone who would ever be very determined about anything?
Uh-uh. No way.
Somehow, he had managed to take possession of her hand again. His thumb slid very gently back and forth, caressing the cove of her palm, creating lovely ripples of sensation, making her think of the other night when he had—
Liv cut off the dangerous thought before it could go where her thoughts had no right at all to be wandering. She reclaimed her hand. Where were they?
Oh, yes. On the subject of growing up a fitz, which was a terrible thing. In Gullandria. “But Finn, I don’t live in Gullandria. I’m an American and in America there are lots of happy children raised in single-parent homes. Now, I’m not saying it’s usually the best choice for a woman to bring up her baby on her own. But there are times when it can’t be helped.”
He was doing it again, leaning in close, listening as if her voice was the only thing that mattered in the world. More men should listen like that….
She drew herself up. “And you know, we’re getting way ahead of ourselves here. As I keep trying to remind everyone, we can’t be sure I’m pregnant. Yes, I’ve shown the family signs. But what is that? Superstitious nonsense, really. I will not start stewing over what to do about being pregnant until I’ve taken a nice, safe, dependable home test and know for a fact I’ve got something to stew about. And, well, I can’t take a home test for a while yet.”
He asked, a look of great interest on his wonderful, sensitive face, “How long is a ‘while’?”
“Well, I’m not sure. I’ve never taken one—and I doubt I’ll be taking one anytime soon.”
One corner of his mouth quirked up—in amusement, or maybe in a sort of gentle impatience. “But if you find you do have to take one…”
“I would guess a couple of weeks, at least. Maybe more.”
“A couple of weeks.” He said the words so thoughtfully. Imagine that. Finn Danelaw, thoughtful. Too, too strange.
“Yes,” she said, and wondered why it mattered.
A second later, she had her answer. His eyes lit up and his face became suddenly so handsome it almost hurt to look at him. “Then come with me. For two weeks. Until you know. Let me show you Balmarran, my family home. You’ll love it there, I know you will. You’ll meet my family—what there is of it, and we can—”
She couldn’t let him continue. “No, Finn.”
The music on the radio played on and the newscaster kept talking, but still, at that moment, the silence seemed deafening.
Finally he said very quietly, “No?”
“Well, you have to see, there’s no point in my running off to your family castle with you. Oh, Finn. I have a life, important work that I need to get back to. Even if I am pregnant, I won’t be marrying you.” She expected him to cut in about then and argue with her. It didn’t happen. Vaguely nonplussed by his sudden complete lack of resistance, she babbled on. “A marriage between us would never work. I mean, honestly, we hardly know each other. We come from truly, uh, diverse backgrounds. There’s no…commonality. Is there, really?” He didn’t answer, so she did it for him. “None at all. We had a lovely, um, summer fling. I truly did, er, enjoy it. But really, what happened between us on Midsummer’s Eve is hardly a basis for marriage, now, is it?”
For several uncomfortable seconds, he didn’t say anything. There was a lull—in the music on the radio, in the news on the TV. The ticking of the gilded French clock on the mantel seemed to rise up loud and gratingly insistent.
She was just about to ask him what kind of scheme he was hatching now, when the music swelled again and the newsmen began chatting and Finn inquired softly, “What will you do?”
She almost asked, You mean, if I am pregnant? But she stopped the words just in time, drawing back, thinking, I will not start making plans that probably won’t even be necessary.
She told him in a tone that allowed no room for argument, “I’m going home, Finn. Today. And no matter what results I get, if it turns out I have to take that pregnancy test, I’m not going to marry you.”
He rose—a portrait of purest male grace. “I see.”
She looked up at him, narrow eyed. “What is that? ‘I see.’ What does that mean?”
In lieu of an answer, he offered his hand. Warily she laid hers in it. He gave a gentle tug and she was on her feet beside him.
He raised her hand and kissed the back of it, just the faintest, most incredibly seductive brush of his lips against her skin. “Necessity, Fate and Being,” he whispered. “May the three Norns of destiny show you the way.”
Lovely, she thought. Yet another of those archaic Gullandrian sayings. She’d heard a lot of them in the past week. What, exactly did he mean by this one? Damned if she was going to ask him.
And really, men didn’t kiss women’s hands anymore. Yet, when Finn did it, it seemed so perfectly natural, so right.
He was such an anomaly: kissing her hand, whispering baroque Norse axioms; determined to win her to his way one minute, bowing himself out the next. She simply could not figure him out.
And so what? It didn’t matter. It was okay. Let Finn Danelaw remain a mystery to her, a tender, naughty memory to bring a secret smile now and then as the years went by.
“Come,” he said, guiding her fingers over his arm. “Walk me to the door.”
Finn was hardly in his rooms five minutes when the summons came from the king. He returned to the private audience room, where His Majesty and Prince Medwyn awaited him.
The king wasted no time on amenities. “Well? Will she marry you?”
“Your Majesty, she says not. She says she’s returning to America today, as planned—and alone.”
“You used all your skills of persuasion?”
Finn nodded. “I am ashamed, Your Majesty, to admit they were not enough, not at this point. She is too wary. I need time.”
The king’s usually kind eyes grew hard as agates. “She’s leaving, you said. That means you have no time.” Osrik began to pace back and forth between the leaded windows and the archway to the antechamber. Finn and Medwyn waited, deferentially silent, until he chose to speak again. Finally His Majesty stopped and turned. “Liv is too proud. Too opinionated. Her tongue is as sharp as the beak of a raven. There is, in the end, no reasoning with a woman like that.” Those dark eyes leveled on Finn. Finn met them, unblinking.
The king said, “You will have to take her. I regret the necessity for such a move, but I see no other way. My grandchild will not be born a fitz. Have her car waylaid en route to the airport and transport her to a tower room at Balmarran. Keep her there until she agrees to the marriage.”
Finn felt a tightness in his chest. Regret. “She will hate me.”
“It can’t be helped.”
“As soon as she gets the chance, she’ll divorce me. Our own laws make it so.” No Viking woman could be held to a marriage against her will.
“Keep her at Balmarran until the child is born. Then let her do as she pleases. Your child will be legitimate, and that’s what matters above all.”
“Your Majesty,” Finn said respectfully.
The king looked at him, narrow eyed. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“I would prefer, sire, to capture my wife in my own way.”
“What way? With Liv, there is no other way than force.”
“Sire. I assure you. There is a way.”
Osrik waved a dismissing hand. “Come now. Listen to your king. Distance has not kept me from watching over my daughters as they grew to womanhood. I know their lives, the choices they’ve made, the men who swarm around them, like bees to hollyhocks in high summer. Liv’s men? Every one of them, soft and giving. Tender as women themselves. They talk with her of changing the world—and they do as she tells them to do.” The king’s look turned crafty. “Did you know she’s got one of those poor fools squirming on the hook of her considerable charms right now?”
<
br /> “Yes,” Finn said dryly. “Simon Graves is his name. She spoke of him once or twice in our time together.”
Osrik strode to his desk and lowered himself into the velvet-padded, intricately carved chair behind it. He laid his hands flat upon the inlaid desktop. The bloodred ruby in the ring of state caught the light streaming in the beveled windows behind him and glittered like fire in a dragon’s eye. “Finn, we all know that no woman can resist you. As a rule, they don’t even try. But Liv is not a woman in the sense that any true man can understand.”
“I know that, Your Majesty.”
The king studied him for a long, uncomfortable moment. “She’s not like Elli, who understands her womanliness in the deepest way. And not like Brit, who is wild and willful, yes, but still knows herself as a woman and glories in the fact. Liv’s spent her life training herself to assume high office, shuffling her womanhood aside. And that means this may be one game of love you can’t hope to win.”
“My lord, that’s altogether possible.”
“You’ll end up with the ashes of regret in your mouth, bitter that you played at all.”
“Perhaps so.”
But Finn didn’t feel regret right then. Right then, his blood raced and his mind was clear and sharp as the edge of good sword. He knew his king, could see where this interview was going. He would have His Majesty’s blessing to seduce Princess Liv. To go after her and run her to ground, armed only with his wits and his quick tongue. He would outtalk her—and yet he would hang on her every word. He would touch her, kiss her, caress her—only when she allowed it.
Until she begged for his kisses, pleaded for his touch, yearned only to have him, once again, inside her.
Until she moaned beneath him.
And writhed on top of him.
And crawled all over him.
Whenever he wanted her.
Until he said, Marry me.
And she cried out, Yes! tears of joy streaming from those blue, blue eyes.
It was what he did best.
And he did love a challenge.
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