Celebrate the legend that is bestselling author

PENNY JORDAN

Phenomenally successful author of more than two hundred books with sales of over a hundred million copies!

Penny Jordan's novels are loved by millions of readers all around the word in many different languages. Mills & Boon are proud to have published one hundred and eighty-seven novels and novellas written by Penny Jordan, who was a reader favourite right from her very first novel through to her last.

This beautiful digital collection offers a chance to recapture the pleasure of all of Penny Jordan's fabulous, glamorous and romantic novels for Mills & Boon.

Penny Jordan is one of Mills & Boon's most popular authors. Sadly, Penny died from cancer on 31st December 2011, aged sixty-five. She leaves an outstanding legacy, having sold over a hundred million books around the world. She wrote a total of one hundred and eighty-seven novels for Mills & Boon, including the phenomenally successful A Perfect Family, To Love, Honour & Betray, The Perfect Sinner and Power Play, which hit the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller lists. Loved for her distinctive voice, her success was in part because she continually broke boundaries and evolved her writing to keep up with readers’ changing tastes. Publishers Weekly said about Jordan ‘Women everywhere will find pieces of themselves in Jordan's characters’ and this perhaps explains her enduring appeal.

Although Penny was born in Preston, Lancashire and spent her childhood there, she moved to Cheshire as a teenager and continued to live there for the rest of her life. Following the death of her husband, she moved to the small traditional Cheshire market town on which she based her much-loved Crighton books.

Penny was a member and supporter of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and the Romance Writers of America—two organisations dedicated to providing support for both published and yet-to-be-published authors. Her significant contribution to women's fiction was recognised in 2011, when the Romantic Novelists’ Association presented Penny with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Blackmail Marriage
Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

PROLOGUE

‘SO, YOU realise now that I was telling the truth when I warned you that you could never be anything other than a momentary diversion to my godson?’ The Countess gave an elegant, contemptuous shrug. ‘How could it be otherwise? Luc is a prince, of noble blood and destiny. Of course he is also a man, and you are a very pretty girl, and…an available one!’ Another shrug, this time a disparaging one, accompanied her coldly dismissive words, whilst Carrie’s face burned with humiliation and anguish.

‘It was perhaps inevitable that he should pursue you. But he will never marry you! How could he? You are nothing. Nobody! The daughter of a mere employee, that is all! A foolish and immoral young woman the whole principality knows has thrown herself at him and inveigled her way into his bed! When Luc marries it has to be to someone of appropriate background and status. The most suitable candidate to become his wife is, of course, my own granddaughter. And it is to this end that she is presently being groomed and educated.’

Carrie stared at her tormentor in shocked disbelief. She had known, of course, about the Countess’s antagonism to the relationship developing between Luc and herself, but she had never dreamed that the older woman was calculatedly planning to have Luc marry her young granddaughter.

‘But Maria is only ten years old, and Luc is almost twenty-five!’

The Countess gave Carrie another cold look.

‘Age does not come into it, and besides, what is a mere fifteen years? My own late husband was over twenty years my senior! However, I digress. I have sent for you today, Catherine, in order that I may carry out Luc’s instructions. Luc wishes you to leave S’Antander immediately. Furthermore, he does not wish to have any future contact with you.’

‘No!’ Carrie protested. ‘No, I do not believe it.’

One thin arched eyebrow rose superciliously.

‘Why? Because Luc took you to his bed? You are not so naïve, Catherine. You know how the world works beyond our borders. After all, it is only your school holidays you have spent here in S’Antander with your father and your brother.’

‘But Luc—’ Abruptly Carrie stopped. Luc had not made any declarations of love to her, nor given her any promises, she knew that, but she had believed that he shared her feelings, and that it was only a matter of time before he told her that he loved her as much as she did him!

Last night when he’d informed her that he was going away on business she had never imagined that anything like this could happen! And when he had insisted that she was to return to her own bed instead of staying in his, as she had so longed to do, she had thought it was because he wanted to protect her reputation. But now her wonderful, precious romantic dreams had been brought crashing down by the cold reality of his godmother’s announcement.

How could Luc love her when he had instructed his godmother to treat her so ignominiously and to send her away?

Carrie admitted that up until this summer her feelings towards Luc had been slightly ambiguous. Seven years her senior, he was someone who had always taken his duties and his responsibilities seriously. He’d always held himself slightly aloof, which made her feel small and unimportant, even though she knew of the mutually high esteem that existed between Luc and her father, who had been commissioned by Luc’s late guardian to advise and educate Luc on the complexities of international economics and finance. She knew too that within a matter of months the present Regency of the principality’s elders, set in place to govern the country until Luc reached the age of twenty-five, would come to an end and Luc would become the principality’s ruler.

‘Luc what?’ the Countess challenged her icily. ‘It is obvious that he has now lost interest, having satisfied his sexual curiosity about you! My godson is a man of pride and principle who knows where his duty lies. All you were to him was a momentary diversion which he now wishes to forget. Surely you must realise that yourself, after hearing what he has instructed me to tell you?

‘Your father tells me that you have been offered a place in his own old university college. There must be a great many things you need to do in England in preparation for beginning your degree. A seat has been booked for you on tomorrow morning’s flight from Nice to Heathrow. My driver will take you to the airport. Oh, I almost forgot. Luc asked me to give you this,’ she added, handing Carrie a cheque. ‘He understands that university can be expensive, and he wished me to tell you that he didn’t want you to think he was unappreciative of your—’

Her face hot with chagrin and fury, Carrie broke in sharply.

‘You can tell Luc that he can keep his money and that I don’t want it—or him! Why should I? All he is—is a…a…an outdated character from a cheap operetta. A pantomime character who thinks he’s something special because he gets to dress up in a uniform and call himself Prince! The only reason he still has this stupid bit of land is because no one else wants it. He’s a joke! And you can tell him that I said so,’ Carrie finished recklessly.

‘How dare you speak so?’ The Countess had lost her haughty, cool detachment, and was now furiously angry. ‘My godson can trace his line right back over five hundred years, to the first Prince of S’Antander, who was granted this land as a gift from the Pope. His family have held it as a sacred trust against all adversity ever since. It was because Luc’s grandfather allowed the Allied Troops to land here on our beaches that he himself was shot and lost his life! S’Antander is no mere puppet kingdom, as its ruling family have proved over and over again, and with your own ignorant words you prove—if it needed to be proved—how unworthy you are of sharing Luc’s life.’

Much as she disliked the Countess, Carrie felt a tiny burn of shame. It was true that Luc’s family did have a history and a tradition of supporting those causes they considered to be just and of benefit to humankind, but she was in no mood to acknowledge any good in Luc right now. In fact at this moment in time she felt that she hated Luc even more than she did his manipulative godmother! Ignoring the cheque the Countess was still holding out to her, she spun round on her heel and headed for the door, before her emotions could totally get the better of her.

CHAPTER ONE

‘I WON’T say “be happy”, because I know that you will be. I am so pleased for you both!’

Carrie hugged her beaming newly married brother and his ecstatic bride.

‘Carrie, there is something Maria wants you to do for her,’ Harry begged her urgently.

Enquiringly Carrie looked at the pretty dark-haired girl wrapped in her brother’s arms.

‘Please, Carrie, will you go to S’Antander and tell them that Harry and I are man and wife?’

‘You want them to know?’ Carrie questioned a little warily.

She had been taken completely by surprise by her beloved younger brother’s announcement only a matter of days ago that he and Maria were to marry. After all, hadn’t it always been a given that Maria was going to marry Luc?

While no official announcement of an engagement or forthcoming wedding had actually been publicly made, Maria herself had admitted that everyone expected her and Luc to marry—including Luc himself! But when Carrie had reminded Maria of this, Maria’s response had been that her grandmother might have decided that she and Luc were going to marry, but Maria had absolutely no intention of being coerced into a cynical marriage of convenience—especially not now, when she and Harry had fallen so deeply in love!

‘Of course I want them to know. I have nothing to hide!’ Maria answered, tossing her head proudly. She looked up at Harry, her whole face alive with her love for him as she added sweetly, ‘Nothing and no one can part us or hurt us in any way now!’

Looking into their delighted faces, Carrie acknowledged that she envied them their confidence. And their shared love. It was plain that they were totally besotted with one another. Harry looked as proud as any ancient knight who’d rescued his lady from death by dragon. Though Harry was a man now, Carrie remembered, and not the boy she had cherished and protected as they grew up without a mother. The last thing she wanted to do was go to S’Antander, but Harry was looking at her pleadingly, and—as always—she couldn’t bear to let him down.

‘It’s all right!’ she heard Maria telling her confidently. ‘I know that you and Luc don’t get on, but you need not be afraid of seeing him. Luc…His Highness…will not be there! He’s away in Brussels on important business. When he gets back he will be expecting me to be there, and I feel I owe him.’

Infuriated by Maria’s assumption that she might feel fear at the thought of confronting Luc, Carrie told her fiercely, ‘Maria, you don’t owe that sexist brute of a puppet prince anything! Nothing at all! If he had had his way—’

Maria stopped her, her eyes filling with tears.

‘He must be informed, Carrie. I know you don’t like him, but Luc has never done me any harm. And…and it isn’t just that!’ Her chin tilting proudly, she went on, ‘I want everyone at home to know how much I love Harry and how proud I am to be his wife—especially my grandmother.’

As she looked across at Harry Carrie’s heart melted, and she was reminded again of the almost maternal sense of responsibility as well as the great deal of sisterly love she felt for her younger brother. She was inclined to be a little bit too indulgent towards him, or so her friends claimed, but Carrie could not help feeling very protective of him, and she was delighted to see him looking so happy. His love for Maria and their marriage had given him a maturity that he’d perhaps previously lacked.

It was true that she had had her concerns about him recently, specifically where his work was concerned, and indeed, if she was honest…But she was not going to dwell on past problems now, nor take him to task for not confiding in her about his relationship with Maria. She was far too happy for him to do that!

Happy for him, but Maria’s mentioning of her grandmother had awoken some far from happy memories for herself!

Oh, yes, Maria’s grandmother! Carrie’s eyes suddenly glinted with a certain steeliness.

‘Carrie, please,’ Maria pleaded, ‘There is no one else I can ask to do this for me. No one else I could trust…who understands just how things are at home in S’Antander…just how things are with Luc! If you would just go there for me and tell my grandmother. So that she can tell Luc.’

The very mention of Maria’s grandmother was enough to raise the most ignoble and tempting thoughts in Carrie’s mind!

She wasn’t a naïve eighteen-year-old any more, she reminded herself sternly. She was now a mature, confident and successful woman! A highly acclaimed economist, working freelance as a financial journalist.

Determinedly she tried to refuse, but Maria remained stubbornly insistent that Luc, His Serene Highness, ruler of the small but perfectly formed principality of S’Antander, had to be told that his prospective bride had instead chosen to marry the man who had been her childhood playmate—Carrie’s younger brother.

‘Please, Carrie,’ Harry begged her, and Carrie could feel her resistance weakening.

A little ruefully she admitted that there was a part of her that could not help feeling a certain degree of valedictory triumph in being the one to carry the news to the Countess that her granddaughter was not after all going to meekly accept her grandmother’s plans for her and fulfil her ambitions to make her Luc’s wife.

After the misery of a cold, wet British spring, the warmth that met Carrie as she stepped out of the airport at Nice and set off to collect her hire car was indeed a welcome relief.

Despite her fair English skin and straight silky shoulder-length naturally blonde hair, Carrie had never enjoyed the discomfort of her home country’s grey winter climate. Perhaps it was the fault of all those school holidays spent in S’Antander with her father—they had given her a taste for the warmth of its sunshine!

Her father was retired now, and lived in Australia with his second wife who, like him, had been widowed when they met.

Carrie liked her stepmother who, having no children of her own, had expressed herself delighted to be gaining two adult stepchildren. Carrie’s own mother had been killed in a car accident when Carrie had been seven and Harry only two. It had been one of the reasons why her father had accepted the post in S’Antander, which had included the benefit of proper domestic care for his young children—although that had not stopped Carrie from adopting her almost motherly attitude towards her younger brother.

Although Nice was its closest airport, S’Antander, which occupied a small strip of land between France and Italy, had been influenced by the Italian way of life as much as the French. Its people spoke Italian with a smattering of French names and vocabulary, and privately Carrie had always thought that there was a certain macho, Italian latinness about Luc himself.

The principality boasted a small seaport and harbour town, and its walled capital city was the site of an imposing castle which was both Luc’s principal home—he also had a hunting lodge high up in the Alps, which he used as a winter skiing retreat—and seat of the country’s government offices. It was set back from the coast, commanding a strategic position which overlooked both the main roads that gave access to the country.

Since the only way to get there was either to drive or to hire a private helicopter, Carrie had elected to drive. She might earn a very good living for herself, but it was not good enough to run to such extravagances as private helicopters! Unlike the new breed of entrepreneurs who were flocking to S’Antander to take advantage of its tax laws—just one of the innovative schemes and incentives that Luc was putting in place to attract income to the small principality!

‘You’re going where?’ her agent and close friend Fliss Barnes had demanded in excitement when Carrie had told her what she was doing. ‘You’ve got to do an article on the place whilst you’re there, Carrie,’ she had insisted. ‘I’ve heard that it’s awash with rich sports personalities and the like, and that you can’t so much as buy a one-bedroomed apartment there for under a million!’

The young Frenchman who had handed the hire car over to Carrie watched appreciatively as she walked over to it to check it over, admiring the length of her slender legs encased in a pair of low-slung jeans. A soft white tee shirt discreetly covered rather than hugged the rounded swell of her breasts, and the sunglasses she had put on to shade the cool jade-green of her eyes, whilst designer-logoed, were subtly discreet rather than flaunting their origins.

Quickly checking the time on the businesslike watch strapped to her narrow wrist, she unlocked the car. It was just ten a.m. That gave her time to drive to S’Antander and back again to the hotel she had booked herself in to for a brief self-indulgent stay before returning home.

Spring on the Côte d’Azur was a wonderful season, Carrie reflected, as she headed towards Menton, leaving the A8 behind to take the coast road.

After all, she was in no hurry to get to S’Antander—and revenge, so they said, was a dish best eaten cold!

She had never forgotten the cruelty of the way the Countess had spoken to her, and she had never forgiven the man who had given that woman authority to do so!

The naïve eighteen-year-old so desperately in love with Luc that he had filled her emotions and her thoughts to the exclusion of everything and everyone else had had to grow up very quickly since then.

A brief sadness darkened her eyes before she pushed her unwanted memories away as the once familiar countryside claimed her attention. Three years at university, followed by her father’s retirement and remarriage, had ensured that there had been no need for her to return to S’Antander since the Countess had delivered Luc’s dismissal to her.

A discreet signpost indicted the road to S’Antander’s border. Unlike Monaco, S’Antander had never touted itself as a tourist attraction. Olive groves flanked the road, and in the distance she spied the turquoise brilliance of the sea. Winding down her window as she approached the border post, Carrie breathed in the warm fragrant air of the South, with its intoxicating blend of perfume and sunshine.

A guard stepped forward as she stopped her car, dressed not in the pageantry of the country’s historic military uniform but instead in a much more serviceable police uniform. Handing him her passport, Carrie waited as he inspected it, and her, before handing it back to her.

It was only as she put the car in gear that she realised that she had been holding her breath.

Why? After all, Luc wasn’t even in the country—never mind likely to have placed her name on a ‘not to be admitted’ list! That was if he could even remember it!

As she drove further into the country Carrie was again entranced by its beautiful scenery. Centuries ago, before the country had been gifted to Luc’s forebears, it had been owned by a reclusive order of monks. The monastery high up in the Alps was now an exclusive skiing centre owned by Luc, but the monks’ careful husbandry of the land had been passed on to the people of the area, and as Carrie drove towards the capital she couldn’t help but admire the neat, orderly rows of vines and the small olive groves.

It had been her own father who had encouraged Luc to make his people as self-supporting as possible. Every acre of agricultural land was used as productively as it could be, and Carrie could see the sun glinting on the plastic coverings that housed the country’s much sought-after organic fruit and vegetable crops

The road had started to climb now. Below her was the sea and the small port, whilst up ahead of her…

Her heart did a slow somersault as she spied the rich terracotta walls of the city towering over the landscape. Built on a rocky outcrop and surrounded by a fertile plain, the castle commanded an excellent defensive position. Carrie remembered how shocked her twelve-year-old self had been when Luc had shown her the castle’s dungeons.

The steep incline of the road momentarily cut off the warmth of the sunlight, making her shiver in the coldness of the castle’s imposing shadow. Even if she had not known the history of this place it would still have been easy to imagine how daunting it would have appeared to any invading force.

Grimly Carrie drove under the narrow, tunnel-like entrance into the city, blinking as she emerged into the brilliant sunlight.

Maria had told her that her grandmother would be in residence at her grace and favour apartment in the castle, rather than staying in her country villa, and so Carrie parked her car in the small town square and got out, squaring her shoulders before making her way through the market stalls towards the castle.

High up above the city, in the eyrie he had made his private office, Luc D’Urbino, His Serene Highness, Prince of S’Antander, frowned. He had just returned from Brussels, where he had been involved in protracted and complex negotiations with regard to his country’s tax-free status, to discover that the political unrest which had been simmering between the traditionalist old guard of his grandfather’s generation and their younger, far more politically radical opponents had reached boiling point.

Still frowning, he listened as his elderly cousin and Prime Minister told him tersely, ‘The people want to see you married, Luc. The fact that you don’t as yet have a son, an heir, makes them feel insecure! And besides, your wedding would help to take people’s minds off all this fuss that’s going on with these foolish young hotheads who are claiming that we are guilty of allowing criminals and murderers to make use of our country to hide their blood money, as they insist on calling it.’

Luc suppressed a sigh as he listened. From a personal point of view he completely sympathised with the opinions expressed by the so-called ‘foolish young hotheads’, but his position meant that he could not publicly take sides—and besides, he naturally felt honour-bound to protect not just his late grandfather’s reputation but also the now sadly out of date and, because of that, vulnerable remaining members of the government who had been his grandfather’s peers.

‘I have already made it clear that as ruler of this state there is no way I intend to allow anyone guilty of profiting from the death of other human beings, or indeed any other illegal activities, to take advantage of our tax laws here,’ Luc began quietly, and then stopped as he looked down from his window into the market square below.

There was a woman standing there with her back to him, the sun shimmering on the tousled silky fall of her blonde hair. Lifting a hand, she raked her fingers through it, as though impatient with its waywardness. Immediately he stiffened, his stance unconsciously that of a hunter, silent but awesomely effective, as if he instinctively scented a prey. There was something about her bearing, about the fiercely eloquent independence of it, that he instantly recognised.

‘I am sorry, Giovanni, but I will have to discuss this with you later.’

Whilst his cousin watched in confusion, Luc thrust open the door and strode swiftly through it.

Carrie had no need to ask for directions to the Countess’s quarters. She knew exactly where the suite of rooms she occupied was, just as she knew how to evade having to go through the formality of entering the main doors to the castle and making herself known to the impressively uniformed major-domo stranding guard there, behind the equally impressive-looking pair of traditionally uniformed, helmeted and musket-carrying sentries.

They were there more for show than anything else, their muskets unloaded, but that did not mean that either the palace or its occupants were not very efficiently and discreetly protected by the ex-military un-uniformed men who formed the bulk of Luc’s security guards.

As she slipped through the small side door a hundred memories flooded back over her: the smell of the palace—a mixture of precious old furniture, works of art and ancient stone—and even more the smell of Luc, both before he had made love to her and after—a heady, dangerous mixture of male testosterone and those other indefinable scents that were his alone…

Or was she just allowing her imagination and her dangerous memories to play even more dangerous tricks on her?

Angrily Carrie closed her eyes, trying to blot out her unexpectedly sharply focused memories. Better that she remembered the icy hauteur of the Countess’s voice, the contempt and the cruelty with which she had been treated—at Luc’s behest after all—as well as the pain she herself had felt when…

‘So it is you! I thought so!’

‘Luc!’

Shocked, Carrie stepped back against the protection of the wall, her eyes widening betrayingly.

What was he doing here? Maria had insisted that he would be in Brussels.

And she had insisted that she was not afraid of seeing him, Carrie reminded herself! And she wasn’t! No way.

‘Well—an unexpected visitor indeed!’

Unlike her, Luc was dressed formally in a crisp white shirt and an expensive beige linen suit. His dark hair was immaculately groomed, his skin the same warm honey colour she had remembered during those long, aching nights when she had been so obsessed with the misery of losing him that all she had been able to remember was him.

His skin might look and feel warm, but his heart was icy cold—at least where she was concerned! Did the small whorls of body hair covering his chest still curl into small licks of curls, delicious to kiss in the damp heat of his bed? Did he still emerge from the shower looking like a Greek god, with the kind of physical proportions that…?

Aghast, and furious with herself, Carrie brought her thoughts to order. After all, she wasn’t some wide-eyed innocent teenager now, awash with excitable hormones!

Lifting her chin, she told him briskly, ‘Actually, I’ve come to see the Countess.’

Immediately Luc frowned.

‘My godmother? She isn’t here. She’s away visiting her niece in Florence. What did you want to see her about? As I recall there was little love lost between the two of you,’ Luc pointed out sardonically.

That he had known that and still allowed his godmother to humiliate her as she had done was all the reminder Carrie needed to make her bristle with antagonism and tell him challengingly, ‘I’ve got a message for her. From Maria!’

She was supposed to be savouring this, Carrie reminded herself, and her stomach suddenly dropped like a high-speed lift when she saw the way Luc was looking at her, his eyes narrowed intently, so dark that they looked almost black instead of the dark grey she knew them to be.

She could feel the silence stretching dangerously between them, taut with unspoken hostility and aggression.

‘What message? Give it to me!’

He was so arrogant! At eighteen she might have been so idiotically adoring that she had accepted it, but not now! She could feel the swift burn of her own immediate antagonism. Carrie took a deep breath, too infuriated to think of delaying the retribution she was about to deliver.

‘With the greatest of pleasure,’ she told him ‘She wanted you to know that she has married Harry, my brother.’ She smiled unkindly at him. ‘She loves him, and he loves her, and—’

CHAPTER TWO

‘LUC let go of me!’ Carrie demanded breathlessly, her face going hot with fury. But the relentless grip of his fingers on her upper arm did not relax one iota, and nor did the speed at which he was almost dragging her down the richly polished corridor, its walls ornamented with suits of armour and dangerous-looking heavy swords.

Carrie had a brief glimpse of the d’Urbino family crest above the imposing double doors before Luc pushed them open and half-dragged, half-thrust her into the elegantly furnished salon that lay beyond them.

She was, Carrie recognised angrily, in the main entertaining salon that formed part of the suite of private rooms occupied by Luc. Very little had changed since the last time she had been in this room; the silks and damasks might perhaps have faded a little more, and her own eight-year absence might have given her a more mature appreciation of the exquisite beauty of the room’s furnishings, but that was all. The heavy silver-framed photograph of Luc’s parents still dominated the highly polished sofa table, with Luc himself standing between them, a child of two.

Carrie remembered how she had so foolishly and fondly believed that the fact that both of them had lost their mothers at a young age somehow forged a special bond between them.

But Luc hadn’t merely lost his mother—he had lost both his parents in the appalling atrocity of a terrorist bombing incident in South America whilst they had been there on a visit.

‘Maria has married your brother!’

There was no mistaking the cold fury in Luc’s voice.

‘I am sorry if you are disappointed.’ Carrie couldn’t resist taunting him.

‘Disappointed?’ Fury flared in the steel-grey eyes and his mouth thinned in recognition of her mockery of him.

‘Still, I am sure you will quite easily find someone else to take her place.’ The cynicism she felt darkened her own eyes and twisted her mouth.

Maria herself had made no bones about the fact that Luc’s desire to marry her had been purely practically motivated.

‘Luc does not love me,’ she had told Carrie. ‘But he has always been kind to me, and until I met Harry again and fell in love with him I had not really minded that ours would be a political union. Now, though, there is no way I could bear the thought of being married to anyone other than my dearest, darling Harry! And I am afraid that if I went back to S’Antander and told my grandmother and Luc that I couldn’t marry him they might…’

‘Force you to do so?’ Carrie had finished for her, having no qualms about saying the words she had seen Maria, out of loyalty, was reluctant to speak.

‘Luc has to marry someone.’ Maria had unexpectedly defended him. ‘The people expect it,’ she had told Carrie simply. ‘And of course he wants to have an heir.’

‘The world must be full of women who would be only too eager to marry all this, Luc,’ Carrie continued now, gesturing to the palace and the view beyond its windows. ‘Oh, and you, of course. After all, you are such a catch, aren’t you? A real-life prince, with so much to offer—your arrogance, your snobbishness, your lack of any real emotional depth.’

‘That’s enough.’ Luc stopped her coldly. ‘But you are right about one thing, Catherine. It will be easy for me to find someone to take Maria’s place. Very easy. In fact…’

The smile he was giving her was not a kind one, Carrie recognised, and something in his expression suddenly made her shudder, made her regret her emotional outburst of pent-up bitterness.

‘In fact,’ he repeated softly, ‘I have already done so!’

Already done so? Now Carrie was shocked. He had already had a second choice waiting in the background? How typical of him, she decided contemptuously. But before she could voice her contempt he was continuing smoothly.

‘If Maria is not to marry me, then, Catherine, you must!’

Carrie stared at him, speechless with shock and disbelief.

‘What are you saying?’ she demanded when she could speak, her voice cracking. ‘If this is your idea of a joke.’

‘It is no joke, I can assure you.’ Unlike hers, Luc’s voice was crisp and coldly assured.

‘My people are in almost hourly expectation of hearing me announce my marriage,’ he added grimly when she was unable to control her expression. ‘There has been a good deal of gossip and public speculation on the subject, and they will naturally feel cheated now if I disappoint them. They believe that it is time for me to take a wife.’

‘They are expecting you to marry Maria,’ Carrie reminded him numbly.

‘Who I marry is not of any real interest to them,’ Luc returned with breathtaking arrogance. ‘What concerns them is that I do marry!’

‘Maybe so. But you are not marrying me,’ Carrie told him fiercely, thankful to discover that she was beginning to recover from her initial shock.

‘Oh, but I am, Catherine. As I have just told you, my people are expecting an imminent announcement that I am to marry. As you know, this is a very traditional country, and its older generation have certain fixed beliefs and expectations. They already feel that their values are being threatened by the younger people of S’Antander who, like all youth, believe that the only way of making progress is to dismantle that which previous generations have set in place.

‘I am currently engaged in some extremely delicate and protracted negotiations, involving not only the views of these opposing groups within S’Antander but also the views of our “guest” residents, whose financial input into the country is not merely a valuable asset but also a necessity without which it would be impossible for us to fund such things as the extremely high standard of health care and education our people receive. My marriage will reassure the older generation that customs that are important to them are being respected and at the same time send a clear message to everyone else of my own commitment to my country and its future.’

Carrie stared at him in contemptuous disgust.

“No wonder Maria preferred to marry my brother. He might not have your wealth, or your position, but at least Harry is human, with human feelings and reactions. Not cold and calculating, like you.’

‘I think you’ve said enough. In fact, I think you’ve said more than enough.’

Carrie could almost feel the steely implacability of his will-power reaching out to surround her, but stubbornly she refused to give in to it—or to him.

‘I’m not an awestruck teenager any more, Luc,’ she warned him. ‘If you want a wife, then find someone else. You can’t make me marry you!’

‘No?’ The look in his eyes sliced straight into her heart. ‘I have recently heard some interesting things about your oh, so wonderful brother, Harry. Tell me? Are you still as protective of him, as devoted to him? Still as ready to fly to his defence? Of course you are.’ He answered his own question tauntingly. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t be here, would you?’

Without allowing her to answer he continued, ‘He works for a merchant bank, I believe? Would it surprise you to know that he’s been taking some very dangerous risks with the bank’s clients’ money? That he’s been on the verge of making some very bad decisions? No, of course it wouldn’t, would it?’ he mocked softly. ‘Not a devoted, caring sister like you! You were the first person he turned to when he realised the mess he was getting himself into, weren’t you?’

Carrie felt as though her vocal cords had completely seized up. Unable to respond, or refute his savage indictment, she could only listen to him in growing shock and discomfort whilst an icy fist of fear embraced her insides. No one, but no one—apart from herself—could possibly know about the problems Harry had been having, the danger he had been in. But somehow Luc knew! Did that mean that he also knew…?

‘How fortunate for him that he has such a devoted and clever sister there, not only able but also willing to help him out of a mess of his own making. A sister, moreover, who was prepared to risk her own career and professional reputation to do so. Because that is exactly what you did, isn’t it, Catherine.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’ At last she had got her voice back, but Luc was quite plainly unimpressed and unconvinced by her immediate denial.

‘Liar!’ he told her. ‘You know exactly what I mean. Harry got himself into a mess and you got him out of it by advising him on what shares to buy to undo the damage he had done.’

Carrie looked away from him. How on earth had he managed to find out about that? She had sworn Harry to total secrecy, too shocked and worried for him when he had shamefacedly told her what had happened to be able to refuse to help, even though…

‘He’s my brother,’ she responded woodenly. ‘Naturally I wanted to help him.’

She hated the look of cynical satisfaction she could see in Luc’s eyes.

‘Even if in giving him that help you were guilty of insider trading?’ he challenged softly.

Carrie heard her own audible indrawn breath of anguished despair.

‘No, that’s not true,’ she protested ‘It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t insider trading at all. I—’

‘Not in your eyes, maybe, and perhaps not under the strict terms of the law. But, as I am sure you will agree, Catherine, in the right hands and with the right kind of publicity—or rather in the wrong hands and with the wrong kind of publicity—what you did could be made to look very bad indeed for you. For starters you’d probably lose your job and your professional status, and without you to rely on your little brother would certainly lose his. I could quite easily destroy you both, Catherine.’

‘You’d do that? But what about Maria? Or is it Maria you really want to hurt?’ she demanded.

‘Certainly not! My proposed marriage to Maria was a diplomatic arrangement, not a love-match. She is the last person I would want to hurt in any way. As a matter of fact I am extremely fond of her, more than enough to keep a watchful eye on your young brother. If he does anything—anything—to hurt her or make her regret her decision to marry him—’

‘You say that, and yet you’re the one who is threatening to…to lose him his job,’ Carrie reminded him fiercely.

‘And you are the one who has the means to make sure that I do not,’ Luc reminded her smoothly. ‘The decision is yours, Catherine.’

Carrie stared at him. The room was warm, but she felt as though she were encased in ice. She could feel the coldness seeping into her bones, dripping through her veins, as deliberate and insidious as Luc’s threat to compromise and ultimately ruin her brother!

‘You would do that?’

All the horror and disgust she felt was in her voice, but Luc seemed impervious to it.

‘I am glad to see that you do not question that I can do it, Catherine. That shows an admirable grasp of reality. What would be even more admirable would be for you to show an equal grasp of the inevitability of our closer relationship. Don’t worry. No one expects a modern marriage to last for very long. I am sure I shall very quickly realise the error of my ways in marrying you and we shall be free to go our separate ways.’

‘You’re threatening me with blackmail!’ Carrie accused him, adding darkly, ‘There’s a law against that kind of thing.’

‘You seem to forget,’ Luc returned in an ominously silky tone. ‘In S’Antander, I am the law!’

‘You’re despicable!’ Carrie told him, her voice thick with loathing.

‘The choice is yours,’ Luc told her calmly. ‘Either you agree to marry me or your brother—’

‘You know I can’t do that to Harry. I have no choice,’ Carrie told him bitterly. ‘You haven’t changed, have you, Luc? I can’t imagine why I was ever naïve enough to—’

Carrie stopped, her face beginning to burn.

‘Go on…’ Luc taunted. ‘To…what, exactly? Beg me to take you to bed…to show you what it meant to be a woman…to…?’

‘Stop it. Stop it!’ Frantically Carrie covered her ears with her hands as she tried to blot out not just his cruel words but also the haunting and disturbingly clear images they were conjuring up inside her head.

‘It’s a bit too late to take on the role of injured innocent now, Catherine. After all, you never made any secret of the fact that you put what you learned in my bed to good use during your time at university.’

Carrie’s teeth sank into her bottom lip as she forced back her instinctive response.

After all, it was true that she had written to her father describing her social life at university in terms which had made it seem as though her life was one long party—and that she was dating a different boy virtually every week. But nothing could have been further from the truth. The pain of Luc’s rejection had caused her to retreat into herself and hold the opposite sex at a distance, concentrating instead on her studies. It had only been her pride that had made her write to her father pretending that she was having the time of her life! She knew that her father had never been entirely happy about her youthful passion for Luc.

‘You’re only eighteen, Carrie, with your whole life and its opportunities ahead of you,’ he had told her. ‘Whilst Luc already knows what his future and its responsibilities will entail.’

Her father, Carrie remembered, had felt that the task that lay ahead of Luc was an extremely daunting one.

‘His grandfather ruled S’Antander as though it was still a medieval state,’ he had once told Carrie. ‘And it will be Luc’s task to broker a way of bringing S’Antander into the twenty-first century. I certainly don’t envy him!’

He had admired him, though; Carrie knew that…

‘Luc, you’re back! How did it go in Brussels?’

Carrie tensed as the salon door was suddenly thrown open, her breath catching in her throat as she stared in shock at the man who had walked in. His physical resemblance to Luc was so extraordinarily marked that it was obvious that they had to share the same blood—indeed, could have been brothers, if not twins!

Carrie didn’t recognise him, though, and she frowned slightly, detecting an American accent.

‘Oh!’ As he saw Carrie he stopped speaking and looked enquiringly at Luc. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise that you weren’t alone!’

‘It’s all right, Jay. In fact you can be the first to hear our news and to congratulate me. Allow me to introduce you to my bride-to-be—Catherine Broadbent.’

His eyes were a different colour from Luc’s, Carrie recognised as he focused on her. A bright warm blue instead of that cold steely grey, and she guessed that he was probably a couple of years younger in age—maybe a thousand years younger in terms of personality and self-will.

‘Your bride-to-be? But I thought that Maria…’ Jay stopped, looking uncomfortable.

‘A common misconception,’ Luc told him calmly. ‘But, as it happens, Catherine and I go back a long way. Circumstances beyond our control led to us parting, but happily we have now rediscovered one another.’

‘Well, I guess the old brigade don’t mind too much who you marry, just so long as you do! They were beginning to get real twitchy that you might decide to step down and turn the country over to self-rule because of all the hassle you’ve been getting. I suppose as an American citizen I ought to claim that is what you should do, but I confess that I kinda like being able to boast that I’m related to a real-life ruling prince—even if it is on the wrong side of the blanket. I guess that tracing my family tree has to be one of the most rewarding things I have ever done.’

‘You’re a billionaire, Jay, and you’ve earned that success by your own efforts. I should have thought that was something to be far more proud of than any merit bestowed by a mere act of birth.’

‘Careful, Luc, otherwise I might begin to believe that you think I got the best out of our shared gene pool. Remember, I know for a fact that you could have done exactly what I’ve done. You’ve got one of the best financial brains going, and don’t forget I had the advantage of being handed my first million by my old man. All you inherited was a load of problems and a set of state regalia!’

Carrie’s eyes rounded as she listened to the two of them subtly teasing one another. This was quite definitely a side to Luc she had never seen before.

‘By the way, do I get to be the first to kiss the bride-to-be?’

Carrie smiled as he came towards her, but to her bemusement, just as he reached her, Luc put his hand on her arm and drew her to his side, keeping his own body between them.

‘Catherine, allow me to introduce you to my second cousin—Jay Fitz Kleinburg. As you will probably have gathered, Jay and I have only recently discovered our shared relationship.’

‘Yup, that’s true. Luc’s granddaddy was also mine! Only thing was he kinda neglected to put his name on my father’s birth certificate! It’s my grandmother I’ve got to thank for the “Fitz” in my name. Seems she’d read that in olden days in England royal bastards were given the prefix “Fitz” to their names, so she decided to do the same for my dad, and he passed it on to me!

‘She only told us what had happened when she knew she was dying. Up until then she pretended that she’d married during the war and lost her husband! But I’m boring the pants off you. I guess what you both really want right now is to be on your own…’

Being on her own with Luc was the very last thing she wanted, Carrie acknowledged, but before she could say anything Jay was turning to Luc.

‘I guess we can talk later about Brussels. You ought to know, though, Luc, that there’s one hell of a lot of speculation going on amongst the tax exiles. Seems like most of them fear that you might be forced to make a change of policy, and give in to those young hotheads who are causing you so much trouble.’

‘There’s no question of that.’ Luc’s voice was terse. ‘For one thing this country is almost wholly dependent on the income it derives from its tax exile inhabitants, although…’ He started to frown. ‘There are certain issues to do with the way things were conducted here during my grandfather’s time which are going to have to be addressed.’

‘Well, at least the news of your coming marriage will put a stop to the gossip going round that you intend to sell out to the money men wanting to take over the country and step down as ruler.’

As an economist herself Carrie was well versed in the financial status of S’Antander, but she had not realised that there was internal pressure on Luc regarding the way the country was run.

‘Nice to meet you, Catherine.’ Jay was smiling. ‘You’ll both have to come down to the yacht and have dinner with me—although I guess you’ll both be pretty busy with formal engagements from now until the wedding. When is it to be, by the way?’

‘At the end of the month. We shall be getting married on the same day as we celebrate our country’s National Day. As you know, it is five hundred years this year since my family were given the country by the Pope. It seems fitting to celebrate my marriage at the same time.’

‘As a symbol of your intention to see that the family continues to rule for another five hundred years?’ Jay suggested.

Carrie was too shocked to speak. When Luc had told her that she must marry him she had had no idea he intended that marriage to take place so speedily! Maria had implied that her marriage to Luc was something that was to take place at some unspecified date well into the future.

Luc’s cousin was leaving. Shaking herself free of the disbelief immobilising her, Carrie waited until the door had closed behind him before pulling away from Luc and telling him fiercely, ‘This has gone far enough. We can’t do this, Luc. It’s crazy. No one is going to believe this marriage is anything other than a pathetic sham! We don’t have the slightest thing in common!’

‘No? What about this?’

Before she could say a word, Luc’s hands had clamped on her upper arms and she was being jerked towards him. His head bent over hers, his body language predatory and dangerous.

It had been eight years since she had last felt his mouth against hers, since she had last tasted the sweet savagery of his kiss, since she had last felt the shocking pleasure of the hardness of his body, all lean muscle and bone, against her own, and in those eight years she had, she had believed, taught herself to forget the pleasure her foolish, immature self had felt at his touch, and to remember instead the corrosive pain of her disillusionment and humiliation.

And yet…and yet…

Some instincts…some senses…some memories were perhaps so deeply etched on a person’s consciousness that nothing could ever erase them.

Her lips softened and parted, her brain clouded by a dizzying swarm of disempowering pleasure. A feeling like an electric shock jolted through her, heightening every one of her senses.

Desire, pain, anger—she could feel them all, and could have wept tears of aching anguish for the girl she had been and the memories Luc was forcing on her. It wasn’t fair that he should do this to her—but then, when had Luc ever been fair? When had he ever done anything that wasn’t motivated entirely by self-interest? He had taken her to his bed because he had desired her and then he had rejected her, dismissed her from his life like a toy he had grown bored with.

‘No!’

Frantically, Carrie tried to pull away, but Luc was too powerful for her. His mouth possessed hers with an easy strength, his tongue reinforcing his control of the situation, snaking between her lips, thrusting powerfully into the tender, vulnerable warmth she was trying to withhold from him.

The fog clouding her brain became a white-out of sheeting panic. She should not be feeling like this. She lifted her hands and pushed against Luc’s chest, at the same time wrenching her mouth from beneath his. Abruptly he released her, freeing her to drag air into her aching lungs.

‘Odd. You still kiss like an innocent.’

The way he was looking at her made Carrie’s stomach lurch with anxiety. That steely grey gaze was far too sharp and penetrating.

Defensively she snapped back at him, ‘Actually, I wasn’t doing any kissing. But of course it’s typical of you, Luc, that you were too intent on doing what you wanted to notice. You are the last man I would ever want to kiss. In fact, you are the last man I would ever want in any way at all.’

‘Really?’ His tone was even more sardonic than the look he was giving her. ‘That’s not what this says,’ he told her mercilessly, and he reached out and very deliberately ran his finger down the curve of her breast, to where her nipple jutted tightly against the fabric of her tee shirt.

Carrie’s face flamed in angry humiliation.

‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ she told him fiercely, pushing his hand away. ‘I—’

‘You what?’ Luc challenged her ‘You react to every man who touches you in that way? Well, let me warn you, Carrie, that from now on, for as long as our marriage lasts, there will be no other men in either your life or your bed.’

‘You can’t tell me what to do—’ Carrie began, but Luc stopped her immediately,

‘You have no option other than to do as I say, Carrie,’ he said gently, but there was no gentleness in his eyes, just a hard, implacable determination that warned her he meant every word he was saying. ‘Because if you don’t, both you and your brother…’

She couldn’t allow him to carry out his threats against Harry, Carrie acknowledged, no matter how strong her feelings of outrage and disgust towards him were.

‘Very well,’ she told him through gritted teeth. ‘As you say, it seems that I have no option, Luc. But I promise you that I shall hate every single day, every single minute, every single second I spend shackled to you, and I shall do my utmost to make sure that you hate them too.’

‘My charming wife-to-be…so loving, so tender, so complaisant.’ Luc taunted her. ‘I am sure that ours shall be a match made in—’

‘Hell,’ Carrie supplied savagely for him.

‘So much passion! But then, you always were…passionate.’

The look he was giving her was an open insult, but somehow Carrie managed to bite back the words she was longing to throw at him.

CHAPTER THREE

THE soft swish of her bedroom curtains being opened followed by a bright shaft of morning sunlight woke Carrie from the sleep she had only finally fallen into a couple of hours previously. For most of the night she’d been kept awake by a turbulent inner warfare in which her instinct for self-preservation had battled with her lifelong elder sister instinct to protect her younger brother—and lost! She had eventually fallen into an exhausted sleep, knowing that she could not expose Harry to Luc’s diabolic cruelty!

Her mouth compressed now as she was dragged back into the dilemma which had tormented her all through the previous evening and into the soul-searching long night.

Nothing would have given her a greater sense of satisfaction or…or fierce justification than to expose Luc for what he was: to state publicly the contempt she held him in and to give him a taste of just how it felt to be helpless within someone else’s power, devoid of pride and self-respect. But how could she, knowing the power he had to destroy her younger brother?

It was not the farce of marriage itself that bothered her; she knew Luc well enough to know that he meant exactly what he had implied by that throw-away comment about modern marriages being of short duration. Once Luc’s purpose was served their marriage would be brought to a very swift and uncompromising end, and of course it would not be a marriage at all, merely a pretence to suit Luc’s own ends.

No, it was the fact that he had the power to force her to do as he wished that she hated, the fact that once again she was allowing herself to be used and manipulated to suit him!

The maid had finished opening the curtains and was standing at a respectful distance from her bed.

‘My name is Benita. I am to be your maid. If you wish to have breakfast here in your suite…’

Her English was perfect, if slightly stilted—it had been Luc who, during the years of his minority, had insisted that S’Antander’s schools taught all its pupils English as a second language. Even then he had been strong-willed enough to oppose the old-fashioned views of the Regency of Ruling Elders, who had felt that such a course was an unnecessary expense.

‘S’Antander is a very small country,’ he had told them. ‘It is only to be expected that many of my people will want to go and live and work in the wider world, and when they do it is only right that they should be equipped with the means to do so. They must have the opportunity of learning a second language!’

Carrie remembered sardonically now how much she had admired him for his stance when her father had related the episode to her! But at that time, of course, she had been only too inclined to admire anything and everything that Luc did. As well as admiring Luc himself. Admiring? She had adored him, worshipped him…’

‘Thank you, Benita. Breakfast would be—’ she began, and then stopped speaking as the door to her bedroom was thrust open and Luc strode in.

The maid, round-eyed and pink-cheeked, took one look at him, dipped a nervous little curtsy and fled, leaving Carrie to glare unwelcomingly at him and to curse the fact that she had not seen fit to pack something to sleep in!

The beautifully soft towelling robe she had found in her bathroom and left last night on the chair beside the huge six foot square bed she was now occupying had already been removed—no doubt by the attentive maid!

A little unexpectedly Luc was wearing a body-hugging white tee shirt, a pair of easy fitting jogging bottoms and running shoes.

She remembered that he had always been insistent on adopting a healthy lifestyle. His own private suite of rooms included its own indoor swimming pool, and he was a virtually championship class skier and an Oxford Blue.

Carrie well remembered the intoxication of crewing for him on board his racing yacht, and recalled that he had even played polo for a while, whilst at university in England.

But though he might work to keep healthily fit, it was Mother Nature who had originally given him his superbly muscled and even more superbly male body, Carrie decided grimly. She was the one who was responsible for the havoc that Luc created, the desire and wanton longing he aroused so easily in Carrie’s own sex.

Put Luc in any kind of clothes and any kind of setting, no matter how humble, and he would immediately stand out and catch women’s eyes.

Of course she wasn’t the least bit impressed by the air of arrogant superiority that cloaked him—quite the opposite. Nor was she susceptible enough to have her heart almost stop beating at the very thought of him wearing the dress uniform that denoted his position as the Commander of the country’s small military force, never mind actually seeing him doing so!

Her days of feeling her insides melt with a hot rush of desire brought on by the thought of seeing Luc dressed in a pair of shiny top boots, tight-fitting trousers, white trousers and a military-style jacket of rich blue with yards of heavy gold braid were long since over!

She could still remember, though, how Luc had teased her by offering to prove to her that the impressive jacket was worn next to bare skin.

However, there was nothing remotely teasing in his voice now as he told her sharply, ‘Our betrothal is to be announced at noon today, in the castle square, along with the date of our wedding…Oh, and my cousin Jay has invited us to join him on his yacht this evening, for an informal celebration of our betrothal. The press will be informed that, in view of the rekindling of our passion for one another, we could not bear the thought of a lengthy engagement.’

‘So you still intend to go ahead with this farce?’ Carrie challenged him fiercely. ‘I should have thought that a night of sensible reflection would have shown you—’ she went on loftily, only to be stopped as Luc advanced towards the bed.

‘You haven’t changed, have you, Catherine? You still like playing dangerous games. When you were a teenager it was obvious what you hoped to achieve, but I do not understand just what it is you expect to gain by baiting me now. Unless, of course…’

As he waited Carrie felt her face begin to burn. It was true that when she was younger she had innocently attempted to provoke a masculine reaction of desire from him, but for him to throw that at her now—!

‘You are despicable, Luc,’ she threw at him, enraged. ‘Totally and utterly despicable!’

Although he shrugged her comment aside, Carrie could see the glint in his eyes.

‘You have, I trust, something suitable to wear? A formal business suit, perhaps, in view of your career? You know, Carrie, I must say how surprised I was to learn what an excellent degree you obtained, in view of the lifestyle you led at university. You obviously have your father’s flair for economics, although I suspect from the tone of your articles that you are more in sympathy with the views of certain young hotheads amongst my own people than those of the establishment. But then you always were an intensely passionate creature.’

‘No, Luc,’ Carrie corrected him bitterly. ‘What I was was a foolishly vulnerable young girl. But fortunately I had the good sense to realise how empty and…and valueless the relationship we had was.’

Carrie watched as his mouth thinned. It surprised her that he actually knew so much about her, but presumably her father had informed him of what she was doing.

‘Be careful,’ he warned her silkily, ‘otherwise I might be tempted to show you that there could be certain aspects of a relationship between us that you—’

‘No way! Never!’ Carrie denied vehemently. ‘I might once have been foolish enough to…but I was very quickly cured of that error of judgement, Luc.’

‘In the arms and the beds of the other men you gave yourself to so eagerly when you left here for university?’

‘How dare you presume to speak so sanctimoniously about my sexual history? Every summer the glossy magazines carry a new story about your latest piece of ‘‘arm candy’’, Luc—models, actresses, pop singers…’

‘The people you are talking about are new tax exile residents to this country. It’s not my fault if the popular press chooses to deliberately misconstrue matters, and besides, it is not—’

‘My business?’ Carrie finished for him. ‘No, it isn’t, and neither is my sexual past any business of yours!’

Not for anything would she have him know of her stubborn insistence on reading each word published in those magazines, describing the beauty of his female companion and his attentiveness towards her. But it had only been to reinforce to herself how much better off she was without him!

And as for his comments about her clothes! Well, yes, she did have a plain, businesslike designer suit in her case!

‘Your sexual past might not be my business, but so far as your sexual present and future is concerned, Carrie, I warn you now—’

‘You warn me! You might think you can act however you want in this…this soap operetta of a country of yours, Luc,’ Carrie began furiously, pushing herself up in the bed in a sudden flurry of angry activity, ‘but there is no way—’

Halfway through gesturing vigorously to underline her point, Carrie suddenly realised that the bedclothes were sliding off her body.

Automatically she made a quick, protective dive for them. But Luc beat her to it, his lean fingers tanned, nails immaculate but wholly masculine, curling round the edge of the covers and wresting them away from her, holding them flat to the bed.

His grey gaze on hers pinned her into immobility.

Carrie could feel the colour come and go in her face as it burned with furious emotions.

‘So, the girl I remember slept in a nightshirt printed with puppy dogs and bows. Only a very sensual and sexually confident woman sleeps naked in a strange bed, Carrie.’

‘Or one who just happens to have forgotten to pack her nightdress,’ Carrie returned acidly.

She could feel the warmth of the sunshine on her bare breasts.

‘You don’t sunbathe topless.’

Now Carrie could feel her face really burning. How had he managed to notice that, when so far as she was aware he hadn’t even glanced at her breasts? He had kept his gaze fixed on hers, as though her body was of so little interest to him than it didn’t even merit a brief look!

‘My last holiday was in America. They don’t favour topless sunbathing at the resort where I stayed.’

‘So your partner was able to enjoy the knowledge that only he was able to fully view your body?’

‘My ‘‘partner’’, as it happened, was a woman-friend,’ Carrie told him pithily, her eyes flashing storm signals at him. ‘Not that it would have been any of your business if it had not been.’

So why had she felt such a furious need to leap to the defence of her virtue? Carrie wondered grimly. It didn’t matter what Luc thought of her any more, did it? And besides, as she had just reminded him, he hardly lived like a monk, did he? At least not if the popular press were to be believed!

Angrily she tugged hard on the bedclothes, trying to drag them upwards to cover her naked breasts. When Luc refused to allow her to do so Carrie took refuge in the only protection left to her: the acid sharpness of her contempt.

‘I suppose there’s something of the voyeur in all men, a sort of base instinct, but I must say that I’m surprised to see it surfacing in you, Luc. After all, you’ve always made it quite your thing to elevate yourself to a higher and more rarefied plane than everyone else, haven’t you? Your Serene Highness!’

Luc cast her a narrow-eyed look, and she was satisfied to discover that her words had made an impact as she read the flicker of grim male fury in his eyes. But retaliation was swift and merciless as he dropped his gaze to her breasts and studied them with an insolent thoroughness that made her face burn. ‘You obviously wanted to flaunt yourself in front of me. I didn’t want to—’

Carrie stopped him angrily. ‘Flaunt myself? You’ve got to be joking.’

He frowned, suddenly and unexpectedly releasing the bedcovers to slide back his jacket cuff and glance at the elegant gold watch he was wearing.

‘You have two hours in which to have breakfast and get yourself ready. I have some telephone calls to make.’

Carrie gaped at him, thrown by his abrupt change in demeanour, only realising as he started to turn away from her that she had not taken the opportunity to cover herself up.

Pink-cheeked, she quickly did so.

‘We shall meet in the Green Salon at eleven-thirty,’ Luc told her coolly. ‘My press secretary is already preparing the announcement of our betrothal.’

Carrie gave a small sigh of satisfaction as she studied her reflection in the huge floor-to-ceiling mirrors in the dressing room of her suite.

Her classic tailored suit was perfect for such an occasion, if perhaps a little bit on the formal side.

A wide grin curled her lips and made her look like a naughty urchin.

And that was why the suit was still hanging in the closet whilst she was wearing a pair of clean but very old and very faded narrow-fitting jeans topped with a tee shirt cropped just above her waist to display a couple of taut, creamy, warm inches of bare female skin.

A much heavier application of mascara than she would ever have normally worn, combined with a very pale pink lipstick and enough product in her hair to glue wallpaper, had transformed her from her normal sleek, soignée self into a very passable replica of the kind of hip-swinging, head-turning modern and feisty ladette currently so much in vogue on the celebrity circuit.

It was the kind of look she would never normally have adopted, and Luc was bound to loathe it, she decided gleefully.

Twenty-five past eleven. She had timed it perfectly!

Grinning to herself, she opened the door to her suite and stepped into the corridor.

The Green Salon was one of the less formal of the palace’s state rooms, if such a description could be applied to a room decorated with enough gilt rococo and plasterwork to make one’s jaw drop. The carpets had been made at the famous Aubusson factory, especially to match the design of the plasterwork ceiling, and the room had two sets of double French doors which opened out onto an elegant balcony which in turn overlooked the beautiful private gardens enclosed by the walls of the castle. On formal occasions liveried footmen were posted either side the elegant double doors, as with the other formal state rooms.

Carrie was relishing the impact her appearance was likely to have on Luc. Her behaviour might be childish, but it was the only way she had of demonstrating how she felt about what he was doing—the only way she had of rebelling against it and him without hurting her brother.

She had almost reached the bottom of the flight of stairs that swept down to the impressive oval hall when the double doors to the Green Salon were thrust open and Luc strode out, coming to an abrupt halt as he saw her.

For a moment neither of them moved. Carrie could see the fury in Luc’s eyes, and a tiny quiver of triumph shot through her.

It was like watching a storm approach, she acknowledged, and a fine shiver galvanised her flesh. She had that same sense of smelling sulphur in the air, of feeling unmistakable threatening tension and brooding danger; feeling the tiny hairs lifting at the back of her neck.

‘Is this some kind of a joke?’

The question was delivered in tone so flat that it immediately increased the tension by several notches.

‘Excuse me?’ Carrie feigned innocent ignorance, but the light of battle was fierily visible in her eyes.

‘You know perfectly well what I mean,’ Luc snapped icily. ‘Your clothes—!’

‘Are my clothes.’ Carrie stopped him sharply. ‘These are my clothes, Luc,’ she repeated, ‘and this is me. I don’t intend to change either to suit you. You can take me or leave me, as you wish. It was your choice to blackmail me into this abhorrent betrothal and marriage, but how I dress is my choice! Oh, and I still prefer Carrie to Catherine, Luc. It may not be as formal, but it’s a name I’m comfortable with.’

Carrie watched at his mouth compressed.

‘I have seen the photograph accompanying your articles, Carrie, and I know perfectly well that this is not how you normally appear in public. Your hair…’

Carrie frowned. He had seen her work…read it? Something unwanted and dangerous was trying to flower into painful life inside her. Fiercely she smothered it.

‘You don’t like it?’ She threw him a challenging look and tossed her head. ‘It’s the latest thing.’

‘It looks as though you’ve emptied a pot of wallpaper paste on it,’ Luc told her uncompromisingly, ‘and you certainly can’t appear in front of my people looking like that. They would be affronted…insulted…’

‘Luc…What are you doing? Luc, let go of me,’ Carrie demanded when he suddenly strode towards her and took hold of her arm, turning her round and almost marching her back up the stairs.

‘If you don’t stop it I shall pick you up and carry you bodily, Catherine,’ he warned her, when she continued to struggle.

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