Protected by the Prince

Tamsin’s heart clenched at the guilt and self-loathing in his voice. She remembered Peter, his livid scar and how he’d talked of Alaric’s sense of responsibility. Now it made terrible sense.

‘Far better if I’d died too.’

‘Don’t say that!’ Her fist clenched on his chest.

For a moment Alaric let himself enjoy the pleasure of her innocent belief in him. It was novel to have anyone so vehemently on his side.

The whole truth would rip the scales from her eyes. Part of him wanted to keep her in ignorance.

But he didn’t deserve her charity.

‘I came back to Ruvingia.’ He’d been at a loose end, unable to settle, finding it hard to carry out the most routine official duties whilst memories of the deaths plagued him. ‘I spent my time amusing myself. Fast cars, parties, women. Lots of women.’ Sex had at least brought the oblivion of exhaustion, allowing him to sleep.

‘My older brother, Felix, welcomed me.’ His gut twisted, remembering Felix’s patience with his wayward and tormented younger sibling. ‘He was full of plans, even talking of marriage, but I wasn’t interested. I was too wrapped up in my own troubles to listen.’

Some days it had been almost too hard to see Felix, so successful, capable and grounded. The epitome of what Alaric had aspired to be but not achieved.

Felix wouldn’t have let those he was responsible for die. Felix would have found a way to save them.

‘Alaric?’

‘There was a girl,’ he said, eager now to get this over. ‘A beautiful girl. I first noticed her at a function when I saw Felix watching her.’ He hefted a breath into tight lungs. ‘Two days later she was in my bed.’ Another of the stream of women he’d used to lose himself for a while.

Tamsin’s body stiffened. Grimly he ploughed on, knowing by the time he’d finished she’d never want to look at him again. He ignored the shaft of pain that caused.

‘I didn’t love her. I never pretended to. And she… I think my reputation appealed. She wanted the thrill of being with someone notorious.’ He grimaced. ‘It was mutually satisfying. Till Felix discovered us and I found out she was the woman he’d already fallen for. The one he’d wanted to marry after a proper courtship.’

Tamsin gasped. ‘You didn’t know?’

‘I knew he planned to marry but I assumed it would be an arranged marriage. He hadn’t mentioned a name and frankly I wasn’t interested.’ Alaric paused, forcing out the truth. ‘But I knew he was attracted to Diana. Most men were.’

Again he wondered if his pleasure in winning her had been fuelled in part by the need to best Felix. To prove that in this one thing, the ability to get any woman he wanted, Alaric was superior.

Could he have been so shallow? So jealous? What did that say about him?

He’d never before thought himself envious of Felix. But now he couldn’t banish telling doubts about his motives.

‘Felix was furious when he found out. I’d never seen him like it.’ Alaric remembered not only his anger, but his pain. The disillusionment of finding out the woman he’d put on a pedestal had sullied herself with his scapegrace brother. ‘He accused us of betraying him.’ That memory alone crucified Alaric. Felix was the only person with whom he’d been close. The only person who’d ever really cared.

‘And Diana?’

‘She was angry she’d made such an error. She hadn’t realised he intended marriage. She didn’t love him but she liked the notion of being a princess.’

‘So what happened?’

Typically, Tamsin was intelligent enough to sense there was more. He let his arm tighten round her soft body, knowing it would probably be for the last time.

‘Felix changed. He became short-tempered, not just with me, but everyone. He grew erratic, increasingly unreliable and he began drinking heavily.’ The memory of that time, and his inability to stop his brother’s slide into depression, chilled Alaric.

‘One day I found him climbing into my sports car, determined to drive himself to a function. He reeked of whisky.’

‘Oh, Alaric.’ Tamsin’s palm flattened on his chest and he covered it with his own.

‘I couldn’t stop him but I couldn’t let him go. I jumped in just as he accelerated out of the courtyard.’ He drew a deep breath, letting the familiar, corrosive pain claim him. ‘We argued.’ And each word of Felix’s accusations was branded in Alaric’s memory, reinforcing every doubt he’d ever harboured about himself.

‘Felix lost control on a hairpin bend and I grabbed the steering wheel. We didn’t make it around the next curve. We went into the embankment.’ His breath grew choppy and sweat prickled his skin. ‘I’d buckled my seat belt and the airbag saved me. Felix wasn’t wearing his belt. He died instantly.’