Too handsome for her own good, too. And reasonable, logical, and possessed of every other vice.
She wasn’t fooling him a bit; he already knew she was crying. So she stripped off her gloves, dug her handkerchief out of her pocket, and mopped at her face. Then she looked at him with as much honesty as she could muster. “If I had to, I’d put an apple in your mouth and roast you for dinner.”
He smiled at her, a double-dimple affair. “You’re not just saying that because you’re irate with me?”
She hated being wrong. “My first duty is to my country.”
His smile widened—perfection taken to its ultimate. “In the rather extended conversation I shared with your father after he threatened to throw me from the country, we discussed you, and he said you had learned to value duty above passion.”
“He discussed me with you?” Such a conversation outraged and alarmed her. The two men who knew her better than any others had compared their thoughts? How unfair! What had ever possessed her father? “What did my father think when you told him that Weltrude had told de Emmerich about our deal with Sereminia?”
Dom scowled. “How the hell did you find that out? Did Brat tell you?”
She found herself obscurely pleased to have flummoxed him. “It doesn’t matter. What did His Majesty think?”
“I didn’t tell him.”
“Why not?”
“Because it doesn’t matter. I had made a deal. I was determined to win a fortune for Ruby. So if Weltrude hadn’t told de Emmerich I would have.”
Laurentia was astonished to hear herself repeat Chariton’s words. “We don’t know that.”
“Yes, we do,” Dom said stubbornly. “Once I agree to a deal, I never renege, regardless of the consequences.”
Did he have to be honest about everything?
Dom continued, “I pointed that out to His Majesty, and he suggested that made me unlikely to disregard my wedding vows.” He lavished his smile on her again. “He’s right. When I give you my pledge, it will be forever, and it will include all of myself— my body, most joyfully, and my soul, for all that it’s worth.”
“My father wants me to get married at any cost.”
“If that was all His Majesty wanted, you would have been married to Francis for four years.”
All this sound reasoning was giving her a headache. She closed her eyes for just a moment, and when she opened them, Dom’s smile had disappeared.
Leaning forward, he said, “I haven’t ever loved a woman—not like my woman. I’ll admit it, I don’t know what I’m doing. I know how to pleasure you. I know which fork to use and just how low to bow, but I don’t know how to be a prince consort. Part of finishing de Emmerich’s assignment was wanting to put my past behind me, truly behind me. Finish the last job cleanly, settle Ruby’s future, before I came to you. Part of it was pride—you’re never going to need me to support you, I know that, but I wanted to demonstrate that I can take care of you. If the world goes up in flames tomorrow, you’ll still eat. I’ll keep you safe.”
“I know that.” She’d never entertained any other thought.
“So we’ll try this again. We’ll get married and I’ll devote my life to making babies with you.” He leaned forward, all the way forward, and lifted her chin with his fingers. “I’ll make you happy, Laurentia. I do love you.”
His words had eased the pain of his betrayal, there could be no doubt about that. But even if she could forgive, she couldn’t forget. It would always be there between them, this dreadful distrust.
She jerked her chin back. “No.” Standing, she stuck the shovel into the earth and lifted it from the hole. “Dom, it all comes down to the fact I don’t trust you anymore.”
He looked at her, standing in a hole, working with the shovel. “What are you doing?”
“I’m digging up the money Sereminia paid us for the royal maywort.” She tossed more dirt out onto the stable floor, and said churlishly, “After that little war you caused, Bertinierre needs this money to replenish our treasury.”
Dom didn’t say anything. He just sat there, lips puckered, elbows on his thighs, hands clasped, and looked at her.
It took her a moment to understand. A moment to try and think of some way out of this hole she’d dug herself into, literally and figuratively. She ran her hand up and down the shovel handle, watching her own motion with preternatural fascination. “I suppose you’re thinking that if I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t dig up my country’s fortune in front of you.”
He lifted his eyebrows.
“There could be a different explanation.” She observed nervously as he stood. “The money might not really be here. I might be testing you to see if you—”
“Throw you over my shoulder and take you away to ravish to you until you make sense?”
“No!”
He halted.
She was getting good at saying that word. Maybe he could be trained.
He took another step.
Maybe not.
As rapidly as she could, she said, “I am tired of being shoved around. Kidnappers grab me, you grab me, I’m always being carried hither and yon like a sack of onions.” Layers again. She continued hastily, “I am an adult woman who has just directed a revolt, who carries a nation’s hopes on her shoulders, and I will make my own decision in this affair.”
As he warily watched, she leaned on the shovel and climbed out of the hole. Then she tossed the shovel back and strolled to the stable door. Pausing there, she looked over her shoulder, gave him a smile and fluttered her eyelashes. “Last one to the cottage has to be on the bottom.”
And as she ran, his boots thundering behind her, she thought, I wonder how he’s going to get my corset off.
But in the end, he once again proved himself resourceful.
Version History
V1.0—Sept2004—Proofread and formatted.
Someday My Prince Page 28