Marrying His Majesty

Did he plan one day to escape and leave Michales and her to represent royalty in their own rights? When the islanders hated her? Not likely.

But she couldn’t trust him.

She closed her eyes. Michales was kicking his feet in delight, splashing them both. Suddenly she was hit by an almost overwhelming longing. For someone to trust.

Her father had been in his sixties when she was born. She’d been his carer. He’d depended on her but she’d always known that when her father looked at her, he only saw echoes of the young, fascinating wife who’d deserted him. He always saw pain. Her mother and Mia had abandoned her. Mia had betrayed her in the worst possible way.

You didn’t do trust. Not ever.

But she gazed out at Alex and she couldn’t stop the feeling of indescribable pain washing through. He was her husband but she was still alone.

Not alone. Michales depended on her.

She needed to be practical and firm—for Michales’s sake.

She needed to remember who she was. A mother, yes. And a boat-builder.

Not a lover. Not a wife.

A boat-builder.

She turned deliberately from watching Alex and looked instead up the beach.

She’d been absorbed in the antics of her small son. But suddenly he saw her attention turn to the old dinghy high on the sand. She rose, cradled Michales against her and strolled up the beach to inspect the boat.

Michales waved his hands indignantly towards the sea, where the dolphins were still cavorting far out. Alex sensed her smile from this distance. She walked back to the shallows and started playing again.

She should have time to look at the boat if she wanted.

He didn’t want to go near either of them. The same feeling he’d had in the coach came flooding back. Family, he reminded himself.

He did not do family.

Maybe he could go back to the castle. There was pressure mounting from all sides. If he went quietly back, maybe the press wouldn’t discover he’d abandoned Lily here.

Maybe if he left she might feel safer, he thought. He could leave her here to have a holiday in the sun with her baby.

Meanwhile, he could get himself organised. Get this damned island organised. Meet with Nikos and Stefanos and see what they could figure out.

Leave Lily?

Yeah, that felt good. Not.

They were his family.

He didn’t do family.

Love meant grief and loss and heartache.

She wanted to look at the boat. Okay, he could take Michales for a bit. That small commitment wouldn’t hurt.

He swam slowly in to shore, catching a wave for the last part, letting the surf sweep him on. He ended up right beside her. Too close.

She rose, stepping away from him, making space.

‘Sorry.’ He swiped the water from his eyes, kneeling in the shallows. ‘I should have been taking turns with Michales.’

‘It’s your turn now,’ she said and suddenly he had his arms full of baby. And, astonishingly, her voice had turned indignant. ‘Did you know you have a treasure of a boat up there? She’s a gorgeous old clinker-built dinghy, planked in King Billy Pine with Huon Pine and a Kauri transom. What the hell are you doing, letting her rot?’

‘I… She’s old,’ he said, astounded by her sudden passion. ‘My father brought her here before I was born. I took her out a couple of years ago and knocked a hole in her on the rocks.’

‘So she’s been sitting on the beach since then.’ Indignant wasn’t the half of it. She made it sound as if he’d murdered a puppy.

‘She’s got a hole in her.’

‘You’d have a hole in you, too, if you’d hit a rock. That’s a reason for abandoning her?’ She was stalking up the beach towards the wreck, letting him follow if he wanted.

He followed, carrying Michales. She had a really cute butt.

Um… think of something else, he told himself. He’d put a hole in the boat. He was the bad guy?

Michales yelled. Lurched his small body back towards the water. Yelled some more.

‘He wants more swimming,’ Lily said without looking back.

He wants…

He definitely wanted. Michales’s full focus was on the waves.

Alex’s father had taught him to swim. It was the only memory he had of his father—blurred by time but with him still. He was floating in the water, his father’s big hands under his tummy, coaxing him to push off, to see if he could float if his father’s hands weren’t there.

And when he had… his father whirling him round and round, spinning with excitement, calling out to his mother, ‘He’s done it—our son can swim.’

Now it was… his turn?

He walked slowly back into the water, to just beyond the breaking waves. He dipped his son into the sea. He held him under his tummy.

Michales was far too young to coax as his father had coaxed him. But Michales figured out the basics as if he’d been born to the waves.

Balanced on his father’s hands, his legs and arms went like little windmills. He was a ball of splashing, chortling delight. He had no fear. He knew his father’s hands would keep him safe.

His son.

Lily was up the beach, inspecting his old boat.

His wife.

The sensations were almost overwhelming.

But then his thoughts were interrupted. Out to sea, a boat rounded the headland. A cruiser. Thirty feet long or more. New.

There were a couple of men in the bow and they had binoculars in their hands. Or cameras.

Hell, he’d wanted privacy. He might have known reporters would try and get in here.

He lifted Michales into his arms. The little boy must have finally had enough. He snuggled into his father’s bare chest—and here were more of those sensations he didn’t know what to do with.

He strode up the beach to his wife. His wife. She was still focused on the boat.

‘Lily, let’s go,’ he said urgently.

‘Why?’

‘These people… ’ He motioned back towards the cruiser and she glanced at it without interest. ‘I suspect they’re reporters.’

‘So?’ To his frustration, her attention was all on the boat. She’d crouched down to look closer. ‘She’s looking great for two years stuck on the beach. Look at the workmanship. All she needs is a couple of new spars and calking. New expoxy resin. I could make her fabulous.’ The edge of one side of the boat was half buried in the sand and she started digging.

‘Lily… ’

‘I want to see if this is intact. I bet it is. I’m wondering if the sand’s been covering her. Sometimes boats buried in the sand can last for half a century or so before they start rotting, especially if the sand stays dry.’

‘I don’t want these people to photograph you.’

‘Why not?’

Good question, he thought. Because she wasn’t glamorous? Because she wasn’t made-up for the cameras?

She was wearing a cheap, ill-fitting bathing costume and no make-up. Her short-cropped curls clung wetly around her face, escaping from her wetly limp scarf. Did she care?

‘Look at the rear thwart,’ she said reverently. ‘It’s gorgeous. That’s Huon pine. Tasmania’s the only place it grows. It’s a dream of mine, to build a boat all of Huon, only of course there’s so little left. Those babies take centuries to grow. The Tasmanians flooded a valley last century and they’re diving for the timber now. If I could get some… ’

She was lost, he thought, fascinated. She had eyes only for the boat.

The cruiser had come into shallow waters. Two men jumped overboard.

With cameras.

They were photographing as they came, as if expecting any minute they’d be noticed and their quarry would run.

Lily wouldn’t run, he thought. Not the first Lily he’d met. Not the passionate Lily. Not when she had her hands on a sick boat.

Real Huon pine. Her eyes were shining with missionary zeal.

‘Lily… ’

She didn’t look up. He groaned inwardly but gave up. How could you protect someone from herself?

Did she want protecting?

His protectiveness was mixing with something else now. Pride?

The thought was novel but there it was. She knew the reporters were here, but she wasn’t losing concentration. She’d finished digging out the side of the boat and was running her fingers gently round the timbers. Taking in every square inch of the ancient dinghy.

‘Can I fix it for you?’ she asked.

‘It’s a wreck.’

‘It’s not a wreck. Look at these timbers. They look almost as watertight as the day she was made. All she needs is lots of TLC.’

‘TLC?’

‘Tender loving care,’ she said and ran her hands over the old timbers with such a look on her face that he felt…

Jealous?

Whoa, that was nuts.

He was holding Michales. Michales was gazing down at his mother as well.

‘You’ve been usurped,’ he told the baby ruefully. ‘Your mother’s fallen in love with a boat.’ But then he figured maybe he’d better pay attention to the press. The two men were getting closer. Their trousers were wet from wading ashore. They were snapping for all they were worth, as if they thought they were about to be thrown off the beach.

He should have brought a couple of security guys down here. Instinctively, he moved to put his body between Lily and the photographers but, apart from one uninterested glance, all Lily’s focus was on the boat.

‘Ma’am?’ the younger man called and Lily tore her attention from the boat again.

‘Lily,’ she corrected him. ‘I don’t do ma’am.’ She’d spoken in Greek, almost absently. Now she went back to inspecting the boat.

The photographers were taken aback. Whatever they’d expected of her, it wasn’t this.

He’d allowed no press conferences before the wedding. There’d been such hostility towards her that he’d worried she’d get a really hard time—certainly be treated with contempt. Now he thought maybe a restricted conference might have been better—with pre-approved questions. As it was, these men knew nothing about her and they were able to ask anything.

The first question was harmless enough. ‘You speak Greek?’

‘Yes.’

‘Queen Mia didn’t.’

She sighed as if vaguely irritated but not much. ‘Mia and I were raised by different parents. My father taught me Greek. My maternal relatives were Greek and they taught me boatbuilding. My boss is Greek and I like learning. Okay?’

‘Are you really Mia’s sister?’

She didn’t answer straight away. Instead, she crawled around to the other side of the boat where the hole was a gaping mass of shattered timber. She touched the fragments of timber as a doctor might touch a fractured arm—with all the care in the world.

‘Of course I am,’ she said at last, without looking up.

‘And the baby… He’s really yours?’

‘Michales really is mine,’ she agreed. ‘Prince Alexandros has proved it. Who wants to know?’

‘Just about all the world.’

‘So how did you feel when you discovered the Queen had stolen your baby?’ one of the reporters asked and Alex stopped thinking about language. How could she answer this?

But she didn’t even have to think about it. ‘There’s no need to be melodramatic.’ She was using her hands to measure the width of the hole. ‘Mia didn’t steal him. I was ill and she cared for him.’

‘And passed him off as her own.’

‘I know nothing about that,’ she said. ‘Mia cared for my little boy, and when I was well enough I came here to fetch him. Alex supports me. So what else do you want to know?’

She’d said it as if what had happened was an everyday occurrence. As if there was no controversy at all.

‘Prince Alex says he didn’t know he was your baby’s father.’ The younger man had lowered his camera and was holding out a voice recorder. Alex thought about objecting, but then thought why? Maybe Lily’s calm pragmatism was just what was called for.

What the country needed?

What he needed.

She didn’t seem to be aware that she looked… dowdy.

No, he thought. Dowdy was the wrong word. A woman as cute as Lily could never look dowdy. Her swimsuit must have been bought before her illness—it was too big for her. Her nose was turning pink from the sun. Her scarf was slipping backwards, and her curls were twisting in damp tendrils across her forehead.

Cute? More. She was gorgeous. He was starting to feel…

‘Yes, I was dumb enough not to tell him,’ she said to the reporters. She might have been discussing the weather.

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘I had my reasons.’ She sounded a bit irritated. But then she seemed to think about it. She sat back on her heels and gazed up at Alex, as if assessing him and rethinking her answer.

‘You know, the first time I met Prince Alex I thought he was wonderful,’ she admitted. ‘But I was ill and on medication and maybe I wasn’t myself. Alex didn’t know I was ill—or pregnant—only a rat would have taken advantage of me and you must know by now that the Prince is an honourable man. Now that Alex knows the truth, he’s made me an honest woman. I intend to stay here with my son and my husband, build boats and live happily ever after. I’ll start with repairing this one. Is that okay with you?’

What were the reporters supposed to say to that? They were staring at her, open-mouthed. It was so obviously not a rehearsed speech that she’d taken their breath away.

She’d taken his breath away.

She’d been ill.

She’d downplayed it, but suddenly he thought, how ill? She’d said it before, but it had been brushed aside. She’d implied she’d had a minor operation. Maybe she’d had morning sickness as well.

But… ill when she’d conceived?

And… she’d made their marriage sound ordinary.

He wouldn’t have minded if she’d looked up and smiled at him, formed some sort of connection to make these guys think that their initial attraction still held.

To make him think that initial attraction still held.

Hell, what was he thinking? One part of him wanted a marriage of convenience. The rest of him wanted to claim this woman as his.

Which was ridiculous. What had changed to make him trust her?

‘Do you have any more questions?’ she asked, rising and wiping sand from her hands on the sides of her bathing suit. ‘Michales has been in the sun for long enough. I need to take him up to the house.’ She lifted Michales from Alex’s grasp and waited—politely—for the reporters to leave.

‘Are you in love with Prince Alex?’ the older reporter asked and Alex drew in his breath. Of all the impertinences…

But Lily didn’t seem perturbed.

‘I’d imagine half the hot-blooded women in the western world are in love with His Highness,’ she said and she grinned. ‘Ask your readers.’

‘But your marriage… ’

‘The Prince is an honourable man,’ she said again, flatly. ‘He’s my husband and he’s doing right by me and my son. I think he’s wonderful. You should all be very proud of him. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really must go. I’ll leave you with Prince Alexandros—he can answer any more questions you might think of. Good evening.’

‘Can we have a photograph of the three of you together?’ the cameraman pleaded. ‘One?’

‘Okay.’

Alex was too bemused to protest. Mia would never have agreed to a photograph like this, he thought, but Lily seemed unperturbed. How many photographs had been taken of her today? Obviously one more wasn’t going to do any harm.

She turned and stood beside him, holding her son. She smiled.

‘Can you lift Prince Michales a little higher?’ the cameraman called and Alex thought, damn this, he was going to be part of this photograph, too.

He took Michales from Lily’s arms and he held him between them.

Michales gave an indignant squeal, twisted and grabbed for his mother.

He caught the tail of her scarf. And pulled.

Maybe if her hair hadn’t been wet he wouldn’t have seen. But her hair was tugged upward with the scarf.

For a moment, before the curls fell again, he saw a scar.

A huge scar—from behind her ear almost to her crown.

The photographers hadn’t seen. But Lily… She knew he’d seen it. Her face stilled.

Don’t say anything, her face said. Please…

He didn’t.

In one fluid movement he was tight against her, blocking the reporters’ view, twisting her to face the camera slightly side on. So the scar was invisible.

He was holding her close, as if he cared.

Hell, he did care. Why hadn’t he asked. Why hadn’t he asked?

He forced a smile. The photograph was taken. He handed Michales back to Lily—still standing as close as he could. He took the scarf from Michales’s chubby fingers and tied it gently around his mother’s curls.

‘I’ll not have you sunburned,’ he growled.

‘It’s almost dusk. There’s no need to fear sunburn,’ the reporter said.

‘No matter. It’s time you went up to the house, Lily,’ he said and gave her a gentle push.

She got the message. She gave the reporters a brief smile and turned and trudged up the beach. Leaving three men gazing after her. Two reporters who thought they’d just gained a scoop.

One Prince who felt ill.

She’d called him honourable, wonderful even…

He didn’t feel either.

‘You look confused,’ one of the reporters said. He tried to get his face under control again. He was watching Lily walk up the beach. What the hell… ?

‘You look like you’d like to bed her again,’ the man said.

Enough. There was only so much a man could take and this was well over the boundary.

‘Excuse me,’ he said coldly. ‘This is a private beach. You have no right to land here. I think we’ve given you enough. Can you please leave now?’

‘We’re going,’ the man said and then he hesitated. ‘She’s a bit different from her sister, then?’

This was where he should turn haughty, supercilious, as if reporters were somewhere beneath pond scum. This was where he should produce a dose of royal arrogance.

He couldn’t do it. Not when they were saying something he agreed with so entirely.

‘Do you think I’d have married her if she was like Mia?’ he demanded.

The reporter hesitated. He looked as if he wanted to say something and finally decided he might as well.

‘We came here on the spur of the moment,’ he said. ‘We never dreamed of getting this close. The old King and his bride… they never let us near.’

That was what he should have done, Alex thought. He knew he needed to protect Lily. Standing on the beach, watching Lily’s departing back, the reporters with bare feet and soggy trousers, Alex in his swim shorts and bare chest… It didn’t feel like a them-against-us situation. It felt like three guys admiring a cute woman. Three men thinking about how this situation affected the country.

‘You know what the headlines are going to be tomorrow?’ the reporter asked, still not taking his eyes from the departing Lily. ‘They’re going to be: “Don’t Call Me Ma’am. Call Me Lily.” I just figured the angle. A Princess of the People. As a question. Like we need to get to know her before we pass judgement. You want to add anything to that?’

‘I don’t think I do,’ he said, thinking maybe that was where he’d gone wrong in the first place. We need to get to know her before we pass judgement…

‘You want us to say you threatened to throw us off the beach?’

‘I want you to say I’ll do anything in my power to protect my own.’

‘Nice,’ the guy said, grinning and scribbling himself a note. ‘Now, all you need to say is that you fell in love with her the first time you saw her… ’

‘For our women readers,’ the younger guy said apologetically. ‘They want a love story.’

‘I’m not buying into that,’ he snapped.

‘You can’t keep your eyes off her,’ the older guy said.

‘Neither can you.’

‘Yeah, well… ’ They watched as Lily rounded the last curve in the path and disappeared. There was a communal sigh of regret. ‘I expect our readers will add two and two… ’

‘I hope they will.’

‘I’m sure they will,’ the reporter said cheerfully. ‘We’ve got some great shots here. You know, if I were you, I’d show her off. You need the rest of the island to take her to their hearts.’

‘Just like you have,’ the younger reporter said and grinned. ‘Can I quote you as saying that, sir?’

CHAPTER NINE

HE’D seen the scar.

No matter, she thought. She’d never consciously hidden her illness from him. If he’d asked, she’d have told him.

But…

But she hated him knowing. That was why she’d consciously played it down, blocking his questions. She hadn’t lied to him about it, but neither had she told the truth. For the truth still hurt. The memory of her illness was still terrifying. Even thinking about it—how helpless she’d been—left her feeling exposed. Vulnerable. More vulnerable even than she’d felt getting married, which was really, really vulnerable.

Think about the house, she told herself. Think about practicalities.

Think about anything but Alex.

The house was fabulous.

Lily had spent only a few minutes here while she’d dumped her bridal gear and donned her swimsuit. The beach, the sea, the need to stop being a bride and have a swim, had made her rush. Now she had time to take it in.

Her apartment—a guest wing?—was beautiful: a long, wide room with three sets of French windows opening to the balcony and the sea beyond. The windows were open, the soft curtains floating in the breeze.

Everywhere she looked there were flowers. The boundaries between house and garden were almost indistinguishable.

Fabulous.

So think fabulous, she told herself.

Don’t think about Alex.

Was he still at the beach?

Maybe he’d only caught a glimpse of the scar. Maybe he wouldn’t ask.

She showered with Michales in her arms. When she emerged, wrapped in one vast fluffy towel, and Michales enclosed in another, birds were doing acrobatics in the vines on the balcony. Finches? Tiny and colourful, they made her feel as if she’d wandered into a fairy tale.

‘But this is real,’ she told Michales a trifle breathlessly. ‘Paradise.’

With Alex?

She thought of his face when he’d seen the scar. He’d looked… numb.

At least she had something she needed to focus on other than Alex’s reaction. Michales was drooping. The little boy had been wide-eyed since their arrival, crowing in delight at the sea, soaking it in with all the delight at his small person’s disposal. Now he was rubbing his eyes, snuggling against her and beginning to whimper.

He needed to be fed and put to bed. She needed to find the kitchen. She should have checked she had what she needed before she’d gone for a swim, she thought ruefully. She needed to dress fast, but if she put him down he was going to wail.

There was a knock on the door. It swung open—and there was Alex.

He’d moved faster than she had. Showered and dressed, he looked slick and handsome and casually in control of his world.

He was carrying one of Michales’s bottles. Filled.

How did he know what was needed?

‘I watched the nursery staff feed him a few times before you took him away,’ he told her before she asked. ‘I know he’s a man who doesn’t like to be kept from his meals. We knew your formula and… ’

‘We?’

‘Me and my hundred or so staff,’ he said and smiled, and she was suddenly far too aware of being dressed in only a towel, which was none too secure.

She was none too secure.

‘Why don’t you dress while I feed him?’ he said and held out his hands to take his son, and that made her feel even more insecure.

‘He’ll need it warmed.’

‘It’s already warmed.’

‘By your hundred or so staff?’

‘Only me here,’ he said apologetically. ‘A housekeeper comes here every morning, and a gardener when I’m away. When I’m here the gardener doesn’t come. That’s it.’

‘So you live here all by yourself?’