The Prince's Love-Child (The Royal House of Cacciatore 2)

‘You haven’t been to see the doctor?’

‘Not yet.’

She saw the anger and the disbelief which sparked flames in the coal-dark eyes, and yet with a blinding blow of surprise she realised that not once had he interrogated her about who the father was. Which meant he believed her. A relief she hadn’t been anticipating washed over her and she felt compelled to offer some kind of explanation. ‘I was…in denial, I guess.’

‘You did not plan it?’ he questioned coldly.

A wave of dizziness swept over her. ‘Plan it? You think I planned it? What? To try to trap you or something? Well, think again, Guido, that isn’t my style—and even if it were there were two of us. It isn’t just the woman who is responsible for contraception—it’s the man’s responsibility, too!’

Something unfamiliar stole over him. A sense that here was something which he couldn’t just have someone solve for him by snapping his fingers.

‘Sit down,’ he ordered quietly.

Maybe if she hadn’t been feeling so woozy and so perilously close to tears she might have told him that she didn’t need permission to sit down in her own home. As it was, she collapsed in one of the armchairs as if her knees had been turned into gelatine.

His eyes narrowed as he did a swift mental calculation. ‘I remember when it was,’ he said slowly.

He had been showing her round the Palace and she had made him laugh, made him feel…normal in those formal surroundings, and something primitive had ripped through him. Something so primitive that he had neglected to protect himself and her—and when before in his life had that happened?

There had been an overwhelming need to take her swiftly and without ceremony—a truly novel experience for a man whose upbringing had been swamped with ceremony. No, she was right. It had been his responsibility, too—and passion had made it fly straight out of his head. Damn the witch! He had recognised that for him she spelt danger, and it seemed that he had been right.

His eyes sparked with black fire, but what good would anger do him now? He needed his wits about him to achieve what he needed to achieve.

‘Nearly three months, I make it,’ he said.

Some of her strength began to return as she heard the clipped note in his voice, and her eyes flashed defiance at him. ‘I’m having the baby!’ she declared. ‘No matter what you say!’

He registered this, his mind sifting through all the possibilities. He was left with the same and only one which had occupied his mind all during the flight. The question was how he should go about achieving it—for he knew that beneath today’s rather shaky Lucy lay a woman with steely resolve. Who could walk out of his door without turning back.

‘I agree,’ he murmured.

She was in such turmoil that it didn’t even occur to her to tell him that she didn’t actually need his consent. Instead, she looked at him with suspicion. ‘You want me to keep the baby?’

He flinched as if she had struck him. ‘Did you imagine that I would contemplate any alternative?’ he questioned, in a low, shocked voice.

For a moment she felt like a drowning woman who had been offered not just a lifeline but a warm change of clothes at the end of it. And then he snatched them all away with his next words.

‘Have you not considered that you carry within you a child of noble blood?’

‘Every baby—any baby—is noble in my view!’ she declared.

A faint smile curved the cruel lips. ‘I commend you for your passion, Lucy,’ he said softly. ‘But I am looking at this from a purely practical point of view.’ The black eyes bored into her, as coolly analytical as a lawyer’s eyes might have been. ‘You are carrying my child—a child in whose veins beats the Royal blood of Mardivino.’

Now who was being passionate? she thought tiredly.

‘By birth, that child will have certain rights and privileges. He or she could one day become King or Queen if Gianferro does not produce an heir—which looks increasingly likely.’

No, Lucy had been wrong. It had not been passion she had heard in his voice—it had been practicality. Now he was discussing their child’s position in Mardivinian society as a conquering army might discuss dividing up the spoils of a country.

She rubbed her fingers over her forehead. ‘I don’t know what you think we can do about it. If anything. We aren’t a couple any more.’ She gave a short laugh. ‘If indeed we ever were.’

He stared at her. Was she mad? Did she think he was just going to accept her momentous piece of news and walk away from her? Allow her to bring up his child—a Mardivinian Prince or Princess—in this little house in the middle of suburban England?

Like a chess master edging towards a win, he considered his next move with care. The burning question was whether the baby was indeed his. He looked down into her pale and beautiful face. The faint tremble of her bare lips unexpectedly stabbed at his conscience and as he gazed into the honey-coloured eyes the burning pride and dignity he read there left him in no doubt. And doubt, he recognised with an overwhelming certainty, would be the one thing guaranteed to thwart his wishes. Her baby was his.

He felt the rapid acceleration of his heart, accompanied by an almost dizzy feeling and a strange, blunted pain where his heart should be—if every woman he’d ever known hadn’t accused him of not having one. He shook his head, shaken by the unfamiliar physical sensations and the random process of his thoughts.

He was in shock!