by Nora Roberts
All or nothing with her, he thought darkly as he jammed his hands into his pockets and reviewed the situation.
First, he finally figures out he’s in love with her, then he gets poked in the eye with the fact she’s been lying to him. Before he can clear his vision on that, she’s long gone. So what that he’d told her to go.
Now, after he’d realized the whole situation was totally impossible, she had to stand there looking like something out of a dream and make him see just how much he’d be losing. And just when he’d started to think maybe, maybe, with time and effort, they could get back what they’d had, she kicked him square in the teeth with marriage.
Yeah, give her a month in a trailer in Florida, toss in a few tropical storms, knee-deep mud, bugs the size of baseballs, and …
She’d be great. He stopped dead in his tracks. She’d be fantastic. She was the kind of woman you could plunk down anywhere, in any situation and she’d find a way. She just kept hacking and prodding and fiddling until she found the way.
Because that was Camilla.
He’d fallen for that, he realized. Before he’d fallen for the looks, the style, the heat, he’d lost his head over her sheer determination to find the answers.
And he was letting a minor detail like royal blood stand in his way.
He wanted the woman, and the princess came along with her. Not half the man her father was? Oh, she’d tried to slice him up with that one. He didn’t have courage, backbone. He had no romance?
He’d give her some romance that would knock her out of her glass slippers.
He turned, stormed halfway back to the ballroom before he stopped himself. That, he realized, was just the sort of thing he was going to have to avoid. If this relationship was going to have a chance in hell of working he was going to have to think ahead. A man went charging into a palace ball, tossed a princess over his shoulder and started carting her off, he was going to get them both exactly the sort of press she hated.
And likely end up tossed in some dark, damp dungeon for his trouble.
What a man had to do was work out a clear, rational plan—and carry it out where there were no witnesses.
So he sat down on a marble bench and began to do precisely that.
* * *
He got rope at the stables. There were times, he was forced to admit, where being a viscount came in handy. Stable hands were too polite to question the eccentricities of Lord Delaney.
He had to wait until the last waltz was over, and guests were tucked in to bed or were on the other side of the palace gates. That only gave him more time to work out logistics—and to wonder what his parents would do if he ended up breaking his idiotic neck.
He knew where her room was now. That had been a simple matter of subtly pumping Adrienne. He could only be grateful her windows overlooked the gardens where there were plenty of shadows. Though he doubted any guards who patrolled the area would be looking for a man dangling several stories up by a rope.
Even when that man swore bitterly when he swung, nearly face-first, into those white stone walls. Rappelling down from the parapet had seemed a lot easier in theory than in fact. He was fairly proficient at it from his work, but climbing down a building at night was considerably different. The cold reality had him swinging in the wind with scraped knuckles and strained temper.
He didn’t mind the height so much, unless he thought about the possibility of it being his last view. And all, he mused as he tried for a foothold on a stone balcony rail, because she’d pinched at his ego.
Just couldn’t wait until morning. Oh, no, he thought as his foot skidded and he went swinging again. That would’ve been too easy, too ordinary. Too sane. Why have a civilized conversation in broad daylight and tell a woman you love her and want to marry her when you can do something really stupid like commit suicide on the bricks below her bedroom window?
That made a statement.
He managed to settle his weight on the rail, and catch his breath. And the rising wind swept in a brisk September rain.
“Perfect.” He glanced up to the heavens. “That just caps it.”
While the sudden downpour had rain streaming into his eyes, he swung out again, kicked lightly off the wall, and worked his way down to Camilla’s private terrace.
The first bolt of lightning crashed over the sea as he dropped down, thankfully, to solid stone. He fought with the knot of the thoroughly wet rope he’d looped around. It took him two drenching minutes to free himself. Dumping the rope, he pushed his sopping hair out of his eyes and marched to her terrace doors.
Found them locked.
For a moment he only stood, staring at them. What the hell did she lock the balcony doors for? he wondered with rising irritation. She was three stories up, in a damn palace with guards everywhere.
How often did she have some idiot climb down the wall and drop on her terrace?
She’d drawn the curtains, too, so he couldn’t see a bloody thing. He considered, with a spurt of cheerfulness, the satisfaction of kicking in the doors.
There was a certain style to that, he thought. A certain panache. However, that would likely be squashed when alarms started to scream.
Here he was, wet as a drowned rat, on her terrace. And the only way to get in was to knock.
It was mortifying.
So he didn’t knock so much as hammer.
* * *
Inside, Camilla was using a book as an excuse not to sleep. Every fifteen minutes or so, she actually read a sentence. For the most part, one single fact played over and over in her head.
She’d handled everything badly.
There was no way, around it. When she stepped back to look at the big picture, Del had reacted exactly as she’d expect him to react. She had leaped, heart first, into an assumption of marriage.
She’d have been insulted if he’d been the one doing the assuming.
Did love make everyone stupid and careless, or was it just her?
She sighed, turned a page in the book without particular interest. She’d bungled everything, she decided, right from the beginning. Oh, he’d helped. He was such a … what had his mother said? Bonehead. Yes, he was such a bonehead—but she loved that about him.
But the blame was squarely on her head.
She hadn’t been honest with him, and her reasons for holding back now seemed weak and selfish. His anger, and yes, his hurt, had so shattered her that she’d turned tail and run rather than standing her ground.
Then he’d come to her. Was she so steeped in her own self-pity that she refused to acknowledge that no matter how much pressure had been put on him, he’d never have traveled to Cordina unless he’d wanted to see her?
Even tonight he’d taken a step. Instead of taking one in return, she’d recklessly leaped. She’d taken for granted that he’d simply fall in line. Obviously she was too used to people doing so. Wasn’t that one of the reasons she’d taken a holiday from being the princess? Had she learned nothing from those weeks as just plain Camilla?
It wasn’t just marriage that had caused him to balk. It was the package that came with it. She closed her eyes. She could do nothing about that—would do nothing even if she could. Her family, her blood, her heritage were essential parts of her.
And yet, she wouldn’t want a man who shrugged off the complexities of her life. She couldn’t love a man who enjoyed the fact that they’d be hounded by the press.
So where did that leave her? Alone, she thought, looking around her lovely, lonely room. Because she’d pushed away the only man she loved, the only man she wanted, by demanding too much, too fast.
No. She slammed the book shut. She wouldn’t accept that. Accepting defeat was what had sent her running from the cabin. She wasn’t going to do that again. There had to be an answer. There had to be a compromise. She would … no. She took a deep breath. They would find it.
She tossed the covers aside. She’d go to his room now, she decided. She’d apologize for the things she’d said
to him and tell him … ask him if there was a way they could start again.
Before she could leap out of bed, the pounding on her terrace doors had her jumping back with her heart in her throat. She grabbed the Georgian silver candlestick from her nightstand as a weapon, and was on the point of snatching up the phone to call security.
“Open the damn door.”
She heard the voice boom out, followed by a vicious crack of thunder. Astonished, still gripping her makeshift weapon, she crossed to the doors, and nudged the curtains aside.
She saw him in a flash of lightning. The furious face, the dripping hair, the sopping tuxedo shirt. For a moment she could do nothing but stare with her mouth open.
“Open the damn door,” he repeated loudly. “Or I kick it in.”
Too stunned to do otherwise, she fumbled with latch and lock. Then she staggered back three steps when he pushed the doors open.
“What?” She could do no more than croak it out as he stood, glaring at her and dripping on the priceless rug.
“You want romance, sister.” He grabbed the candlestick out of her numb fingers and tossed it aside. It looked a little too heavy to risk any accidents, and he had enough bruises for one night.
“Del.” She backed up another two steps as he stepped forward. “Delaney. How did you … your hand’s bleeding.”
“You want backbone? You want adventure? Maybe a little insanity thrown in?” He grabbed her shoulders, lifted her straight to her toes. “How’s this?”
“You’re all wet,” was all she could say.
“You try climbing down the side of a castle in a rainstorm, see what shape you end up in.”
“Climb?” She barely registered being pushed across the room. “You climbed down the wall? Have you lost your mind?”
“Damn right. And you know what the guy gets when he breaches the castle walls? He gets the princess.”
“You can’t just—”
But he could. She discovered very quickly that he could. Before she could clear sheer shock from her system, his mouth was hot on hers. And shock didn’t have a chance against need. A thrill swept through her as he dragged her—oh my—to the bed.
He was wet and bleeding and in a towering temper. And he was all hers. She locked her arms around his neck, slid her fingers into that wonderful and dripping hair, and gladly offered him the spoils of war.
Her mouth moved under his, answering his violent kiss with all the joy, all the longing that raged inside her.
The storm burst through the open doors as she released him long enough to tug at his sodden shirt. It landed, somewhere, with a wet plop.
He was surprised his clothes didn’t simply steam off him. The heat of his temper paled with the fire that she brought to his blood. So soft, so fragrant, so wonderfully willing. Her face was wet now with the rain he’d brought in with him. He could’ve lapped it—and her—up like cream.
Undone, he buried his face against her throat. “I need you, damn it. I can’t get past it.”
“Then have me.” Her breath hitched as his hands roamed over her. “Take me.”
He lifted his head, looked down at her. Her eyes were dark now, tawny as a cat’s. And as her hands came up to frame his face, she smiled. “I’ve waited so long for you,” she murmured. “And I didn’t even know.”
To prove it, she drew his mouth down to hers again.
Everything he felt for her, about her, from her, bloomed in the kiss. She trembled from it, and the quiet hum in her throat had his pulse bounding.
That long, white throat fascinated him. The strong slope of her shoulders was a wonder. Damp with rain now, the thin night slip she wore clung provocatively to her body. He took his mouth, his hands over the wet silk first, then the hot, damp flesh beneath.
She moved under him. A graceful arch, a quick shiver. Slowly first, savoring first, he explored, exploited. Excited. When her breathing was thick, her eyes dreamily closed, he dragged her to her knees and ravaged.
He’d catapulted her from quiet pleasure to reckless demand so that she floundered. Drowned in him. Those hard hands that had been so blissfully gentle were now erotically rough. Bowing back, she surrendered to that hungry mouth. Moaned his name as he tore reason to shreds.
She went wild in his arms. As her need pitched to meet his, she tore and tugged at his clothes. Kneeling on the bed, they clung, flesh to flesh, heart raging against heart.
Once more, in a flash of lightning, their eyes met. Held. In his, at last, she saw all she needed to see. And it was she who shifted, taking him in. Wrapping her legs around him to take him deep until they both trembled.
“Je t’aime.” She said it clearly though her body quaked. “I love you. I can’t help myself.”
Before he could speak, her mouth covered his. What was left of his control snapped, whipping his body toward frenzy. She met him, beat for frantic beat. When she closed around him, he swallowed her cry of release. And emptied himself.
“Camilla.” He couldn’t think past her name, even as he slid down her body to nestle between her breasts. He felt her fingers stroke through his hair and wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and stay steeped in her for the rest of his life.
But his gaze skimmed toward the terrace—and the rain cheerfully blowing in the open doors and soaking floor and rug.
“I didn’t close the doors. We’re starting to flood. Just stay.”
As he rolled away, she watched him lazily. Then she bolted up as he started to cross the room. “No! Wait.” She scrambled out of bed, snatched the robe that had been draped over the curved back of her settee. “Someone might see,” she muttered, then, with her robe modestly closed, hurried to close the doors herself.
Control, he thought as he watched her draw the drapes. Even now. A princess couldn’t walk around naked in front of the windows—not even her own. And certainly couldn’t have a man do so.
She turned, saw him eyeing her speculatively. “The guards. Guests,” she began, then dropped her gaze. “I’ll get some towels.”
While she walked into the adjoining bath, he untangled his damp tuxedo pants. They were ruined, he decided, and would be miserably uncomfortable. But if they were going to have a conversation, he wanted to be wearing something besides his heart on his sleeve.
She came back, got down on her hands and knees and began mopping the floor. It made him smile. Made him remember her in his cabin.
“I have to be practical, Delaney.”
His brows drew together at the strained edge in her voice. “I understand that.”
“Do you?” She hated herself for wanting to weep now.
“Yes, I do. I admire the way you manage to be practical, self-sufficient—and royal.”
Her head came up slowly. She eased back to sit on her heels, and the look of surprise on her face was enough to have him shoving his hands in his wet pockets. “I admire you,” he said again. “I’m not good with words, these kinds of words. Damn it, do you think I’m an idiot? That I don’t have a clue what kind of juggling act you—your whole family—has to perform to be who you are and manage to have any sort of life along with it?”
“No.” Looking away from him again, she folded the damp portion of the rug back, then dried the floor beneath it. “No, I believe you understand—as much as you can. Maybe more than another man might. I think that’s why, in some ways, we’re at odds.”
“Why don’t you look at me when you talk to me?”
Struggling for composure, she pressed her lips together. But her gaze was level when she lifted her head again. “It’s difficult for me. Excuse me a moment.” She rose, and shoulders straight as a soldier’s, carried the damp towels back to the bath.
Women, Del thought, were a hell of a lot of work.
She came back, went to a small cabinet and took out a decanter. “I think some brandy would help. I was wrong,” she began as she poured two snifters. “Tonight in the garden, I was wrong to say those things to you. I apologize.”
“Oh, shut up.” Out of patience, he snatched a snifter out of her hand.
“Can’t you at least pretend to be gracious?”
“Not when you’re being stupid. If I want an apology, you’ll know it.” She’d beat him to the damn apology. Wasn’t it just like her? He paced away and though he didn’t care for it, took a slug of the brandy. “When you’re wrong, I’ll let you know it.”
He spun back, temper alive on his face. “You hurt me.” It infuriated him to admit it.
“I know. The things I said—”
“Not that. That just pissed me off.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “You lied to me, Camilla. Or the next thing to it. I started counting on you. And I don’t mean to clean up after me. I started thinking about you—about us—a certain way. Then it all blew up in my face.”
“I handled it badly. It was selfish—I was selfish,” she corrected. “I wanted some time—then more time—to just be. I ran. I told myself it wasn’t running away, but it was. Last summer, it was all suddenly too heavy, too close. I couldn’t …”
“Just be?”
“I couldn’t just be,” she said, quietly. “Last summer there was an incident with the press. Not much more, really, no less than so many others the past few years. But it had been building up inside me, all of it until it just got to be too much. I couldn’t eat. I wasn’t sleeping well, I couldn’t concentrate on what I was meant to do. I …”
“No, don’t stop. Tell me.”
“This incident,” she said carefully, “wasn’t so different from others. But while it was happening I could hear myself screaming. Inside. I thought—I knew—that unless I got away for a while, the next time it happened, the screams wouldn’t be just inside. I was afraid I was having some sort of breakdown.”
“Camilla, for God’s sake.”
“I should’ve spoken with my family.” She looked back at him because she’d heard that unspoken question in his shocked tone. “They would have understood, supported me, given me time and room. But I just couldn’t bring myself to confess such a weakness. Poor Camilla, who’s been given every privilege in life, and more—so much more—the unquestioning love from family, is suddenly too delicate, too fragile to deal with the responsibilities and difficulties of her rank and position.”
“That’s malarkey.”
The term made her laugh a little. And steadied her. “It didn’t feel like it at the time. It felt desperate. I was losing myself. I don’t know if you can understand that because you know yourself so intimately. But I felt hounded and hunted, and at the same time so unsteady about who I was, inside. What I wanted to do with my life beyond what I was supposed to do, beyond duty. I had no passion for anything, and there’s a horrible kind of emptiness to that.”
He could imagine it—the pressures, the demands—and the nerves of steel it took to be who she was. The courage, he thought, it had taken to break from all that to find the woman inside.
“So you took off, with a couple suitcases in a rental car, to find it?”
“More or less. And I did find it, though as I said, in the end, I handled it badly.”
“We handled it badly,” he corrected. “I was over my head with you, and that was when I thought you were a weird rich chick in some kind of trouble. When I found out, I figured you’d used me for some kind of a lark.”
She paled. “It was never—”
“I know that now. I know it. I had feelings for you I’ve never had for anyone else. I’d worked myself up to tell you—and came into the kitchen and heard you talking on the phone.”
“To Marian.” Eyes closed, Camilla let out a long breath. “The timing,” she murmured, “couldn’t have been worse. I’m surprised you didn’t throw me out bodily.”
“Thought about it.” He waited until her eyes opened, met his again. “It felt better when I sat around feeling sorry for myself. It took me a while to start considering what it’s like for you. The people, the press, the protocol. It’s pretty rough.”
“It’s not all that bad. It’s just that sometimes you have to—”
“Breathe,” he finished.
“Yes.” Tears swam into her eyes. “Yes.”
“Don’t do that. I can’t have a rational conversation if you start dripping. Look, I mean it, plug the dam. I’ve never told a woman I love her, and I’m sure as hell not going to do it for the first time when she’s blubbering.”
“I’m not blubbering.” But her voice broke on a sob as joy leaped into her. She yanked open a drawer, tugged out a lace-trimmed hankie and wiped at tears. She wanted to leap again, just leap. But this time, she knew to keep quiet. “So, tell me.”
“I’ll get to it. You’re not fragile, Camilla.”