A Wish and a Wedding (14 page)

“You know you can send the plate back and ask for fresh?” he commented, when her face took on a stoic expression as she chewed her food.

She shook her head. “I've worked as a chef's assistant in a Thai restaurant,” she said, showing him her working-class background without shame or embarrassment. “I won't give this chef extra work because I didn't eat when the food was hot.”

“Did you eat too much at the wedding?” he asked, smiling.

Slowly, as if drawn, her eyes lifted from their determined gaze on her plate, and she looked at his mouth. A hard thrill ran through him at the half-shy wonder—then she looked in his eyes. Her brows drew together and she shrugged.

A spurt of irritation shot through him. “How much you ate today is hardly a state secret.”

Her hands fluttered up and fell back to her lap. “I don't know who you are,” she said simply. The words carried a double meaning that a trained diplomat couldn't miss…and he was in the danger zone. If she knew—

Still he couldn't keep his mouth closed. “You think I'm the media in disguise?” he asked, to get her to talk.

She shrugged again. “The Queen trusts you, so she must have had you security-cleared. If you're media you're in deep cover. And the way you speak—well, you sound like Prince William, or someone like that.”

Sander felt his heart pounding too fast. It was coming, and he couldn't stop it. “You sound like a thriller writer,” he teased, to divert her from the logical conclusion.

“You're not just a chauffeur, are you?”

There it was—the question he'd been expecting for hours and half-dreaded. He had instructions from the King and Queen, and he wondered at his curious reluctance as he said, “No, I'm not. I'm in the Royal Hellenican Diplomatic Corps.”

She nodded, as if expecting that. “I thought it might be something like that. Only titled men and women can enter the Corps in Hellenia.”

He kept the sigh inside. There went any chance to be anonymous, to just enjoy each other's company for a few days, man to woman, without titles and wealth getting in the way. “I'm the brother of the tenth Duke of Persolis. I was Lord Limontis.”

“You
were
Lord Limontis?” she asked, too languidly for him to call it jumping on the past tense, yet she hadn't wasted time.

“My brother abdicated last year to become a monk,” he said, refusing to look at her. It was strange—such an intimate conversation, yet neither one looking at the other.

After a couple of moments in which neither of them moved, she spoke. “So, then, since you're no longer Lord Limontis—does that make you the eleventh Duke?”

An even longer moment before he answered. “Yes.”

Mari pushed her plate away. Her gaze was on the exquisite candelabra to his right. “If you're a diplomat, you must have been assigned to help me. You know exactly what's been going on.”

She sounded so tense. A small corner of pity touched him. “Yes.”

“My thanks are unnecessary, since you were doing your job…but I do thank you, Your Grace. And your decision to maintain distance from me makes perfect sense.” Her chair scraped back, and she stood. Her face averted, she lifted a hand in negation as he jumped to his feet with instinctive good manners. “Please enjoy your meal. I'm tired. Good night.”

“Please, Mari, it wasn't like that. Won't you listen for a few minutes?” he asked in low, pleading tones he'd long ago learned melted the hardest of feminine hearts.

But Mari shook her head yet again, her frown deeper, as if he'd offended her. “It's been quite a long day for me, Your Grace, so if you'll excuse me—?”

The distance between them was growing by the nanosecond—and when it was Mari creating the abyss, he really didn't like it. “Please don't call me by that title. I told you—my name's Sander. ‘Your Grace' reminds me of my father, or my brother,” he added, trying to make her relax in his company. “I wasn't brought up to be the Duke. I was the spare heir who fell into the title when Konstantinos's lifelong love of the Church led him to a monastery.”

Slow-burning eyes looked into his then. “Would you have told me that—or asked me to call you by name—if I wasn't cousin to a king? Would you be so friendly to a commoner from Sydney?”

The question made him flush. “We'd never have met if you weren't cousin to a king,” he said, and it sounded more pompous than he'd meant it to be.

“Exactly.”

Strange, but when he looked at her he saw only acceptance of his snobbery. “Mari—”

“I think you're right,” she said very softly. “It's best if we maintain distance.”

Sander's mind scrabbled through options as he tried to work out how the situation had unravelled so fast. Where had all his tact gone—all the effortless charm, the light-handed control of all matters—that led kings and princes to trust his judgement?

The trouble was he wasn't used to dealing with people other than high-maintenance hyperactive politicians or languid members of born aristocracy. Mari belonged to neither class, and she was her own woman with her own set of values and a deep core of strength.

“I should have known things would end this way tonight when you moved your bags out of the Stateroom,” he muttered.

“Twice,” was her only comment, and his gaze flew to her like metal particles to a magnet when he heard the gentle laugh.

He raised his brows. She'd also refused the services of the maid, much to that lady's intense disappointment. “You moved your entire wardrobe back to the guestroom?”

She lifted a shoulder and grinned. “Only the clothes that were already mine—and it's only a walk across the hall.”

“And down about sixty feet,” he retorted, enjoying the banter.

“I told you it wasn't my place to be there.” When he didn't answer, her grin grew. “You're not alone in underestimating me, Your Grace. You'll soon understand that when I say something, I mean it. My parents always say I'm too stubborn for my own good.” Her voice held sweet empathy turned against herself in bubbling mirth, and he had to gulp down a physical longing to move closer to her, to drink in that happiness by osmosis. “Um, Your Grace…” she added, a much-later afterthought, spoken in impish fun, as he'd done by calling her “miss” today, and he found himself laughing with her.

“Why do I get the feeling you're going to be harder work than—than any king or queen I've served?” he finished smoothly, almost saying
Prince Mikhail.

“Perhaps, but in a totally different way than you'd be used to.” Her voice was like champagne, filled with floating bubbles.

“I work for your cousins, too,” he reminded her, but he knew his face gave away his laughter. He might have a good poker face, but people always said his eyes were like Pinocchio's nose—always betraying him.

Did they show how much he ached to touch her, to feel her
skin and drink in the sunshine she seemed to carry around in her pocket? Were his eyes telling her that his thoughts were every bit as lustful as Mikhail's, yet somehow far more…personal, yearning?

“If you're the Duke, why are you still working as a diplomat? Don't you have a dukedom to run or something?”

The question took him by surprise, and he answered without thought. “A duchy—yes, I do. In another year or so I'll retire from my work and do my duty by my people.”

“Returning to lay down the law and make them all obey?” She laughed.

“Not quite. I'll return to Persolis from my post, marry a suitably well-bred young lady, produce heirs and let my mother retire at last,” he drawled, a little offended by her assumption that he'd rule with a fist of iron. He was a
diplomat
. He knew how to make people do as he wanted while allowing them to think it was all their own idea.

All people, that was, except this mercurial young woman, with her original ideas and unshakable stubbornness. Had he met his Nemesis—his Daughter of Night?

“Yes, I'm sure all the well-bred girls will be lining up for the opportunity, Your Grace.”

Startled anew, Sander frowned at her—then he realised what he'd said, the unintentional insult in retaliation for her little joke. He cursed his unaccountable lack of tact and his empty mind, not knowing what to say next.

Was there a handbook on how to treat an ordinary young woman with higher moral standards than the Prince he worked for?

A slight swish of air whispered by his cheek, and Sander knew that while he'd been lost in thought Mari had left the room without a sound.

“O
NE
fantasy is now fulfilled,” Mari sighed as she stood on deck the next morning, the wind in her hair and the sunshine kissing her skin.

“What's that?”

She controlled her jumpy reaction to Lysander's closeness. “This has been a dream of mine since I was a girl.” Keeping her gaze on the surreal beauty
off
the yacht, she waved around at the intense aqua of the water, dotted with islands straight from her childhood bedtime stories. “All my life I've daydreamed about
this
.” She patted the rail and sighed. “I mean, who doesn't dream of being on a yacht in the Aegean Sea, island-hopping and seeing the playground of the old gods?”

“Every time I come here I feel the same. Like it's a dream.” He leaned beside her at the rail. A glorious male scent, reminiscent of ocean and deep forest and…Lysander…wafted to her. She breathed it in, and a vision of his face filled her head.

How ridiculous was it that she was mooning over a man who was standing right beside her, a man working at being close to her? But the inches separating them were like the abyss off Santorini's cliffs—deadly dangerous to the unskilled…

“I think I'll be homesick for here when I go back—though Australia's always been home,” she said softly, watching an albatross soaring over them with minimal effort.

“You're not tempted to stay?”

The question held that odd intensity again—and suddenly she knew what he was hiding: he was attracted to her, too. A thrill ran through her, but she had to hold it in. “I can't afford to be.” She frowned at the island they were passing, so beautiful with its whitewashed stone houses and steep cobbled roads. “This is Charlie and Lia's life. I don't belong here. It's borrowed time for me—a fantasy world only few can live in every day.”

“Charlie and Jazmine are very family-orientated. You'd be welcome.”

“Don't you see that's exactly why I couldn't stay?” Was her voice wobbling with the yearning to take the hand of temptation being held out to her? Right now she didn't know which tempted her most: the country, the family or the luscious man beside her—a creation from the imagination of the gods, with an unspoken empathy that…that— “They already have too many people taking advantage of their closeness to the commoner King and Princess.”

“Do you mean the plane sent for the firemen to come over? Sending the royal jet to bring family for the wedding? I doubt anyone believes they took advantage.”

Mari slanted him a look filled with irony. “You're born to this life, Your Grace. You go home to a palace probably not far removed from the Summer Palace. You were born in Persolis, which is part of Hellenia. It's easy to leave knowing you'll go back. You have no idea how the temptation to never leave grabs hold of me here.” She laid a hand over her heart. “This land—in hours it felt like part of who I am, as if I belong here. But I don't.”

“Actually, I was born in Paris,” he said quietly, “but I know what you mean. I do take it for granted now. But ten years ago, when I joined the Diplomatic Corps, Hellenia was at war with itself. I was glad to be posted elsewhere and leave the high-pressure decisions to my father, and then my brother.” Low, he added, “Then Father died, Konstantinos renounced his position to become a monk—and I became Duke.”

All he hadn't said played in her mind like a re-run of the last scene of
Casablanca
: the impossible decision facing a young man who'd never seen the choice coming. A new, reluctant duke in a nation with divided loyalties, and a royal family imploding. No wonder Sander had decided to remain a diplomat when he'd become Duke.

“I'm sorry.” She laid a hand over his for a moment, her eyes shimmering with pity for a man born to more wealth and privilege than she'd ever have. “It must have been so hard. Is— Was your duchy…damaged?”

“Yes.” He spoke in a strange blend of remoteness and warmth, as if an internal war raged in him and he couldn't decide how to feel. “My brother left as the war ended, and I inherited a duchy in a shambles. I stayed on in the Corps in order to create ties to nations that could help us in the long term.”

Feeling intense curiosity and sympathy mingled, she asked, “Then who—?”

“My mother agreed to handle my duties for a year or so while I finish my tenure and—and learn the minutiae of being Duke. My brother and I talk for an hour at night. His abbot allows him that much speaking for the good of the nation,” he added with a wryness she couldn't describe. “If I can combine both duties for a few years, perhaps rise to Ambassador, it can only do my people good.”

Mari understood far more than he'd said. She'd been the one Charlie and Lia had talked to when she'd arrived for both royal weddings. She'd heard stories of the hardship as well as privilege. “I saw the effect on Charlie when he lost his parents and Great-Uncle Kyri. It would have been just the same for him if he'd been here, if he'd been King.” Wanting to give him comfort, she smiled at him and squeezed the hand she still held. “Love and grief are the same in any class of humanity—hard decisions, too.”

“Except that our decisions affect more people than our families alone.” He turned to her with that dark intensity that
fascinated her. His eyes could dance or create a tempest in the ocean, as they did now. “Your great-uncle's decision sent our nation into over twenty years of war, and still he never came back, nor told his family who he was.”

Mari couldn't answer that. It was too hard to reconcile the loving, giving old man she'd known with the one who'd created a war and done nothing to end it. “And your decision to remain a diplomat—who else does
that
affect?”

Lysander's face darkened still more. “I'd say the same amount of people that my brother's decision to enter a monastery did—no, one less, because his decision surely changed
my
life.”

She tilted her head, studying him. The unplumbed depths of this man fascinated her. For a duke, a man with wealth and privilege, he seemed so—alone. “Your decision has obviously affected your mother.”

He turned on her, stepping an inch too close in his passionate denial. “You think what Konstantinos did didn't affect her? I wasn't
trained
to be the Duke. I was the spare—the one destined for the Navy, the Air Force or the priesthood. Everyone says Konstantinos's decision was a noble one. I was supposed to step in and act like I was always meant to be the Duke. But I wasn't born for it. My brother never asked me how I felt about it until he was safely installed in his peaceful life inside the monastery.”

Her breathing shifted; she willed her heart to slow its racing at the masculine heat only inches from her.
How can anyone find this man a disappointment?
her mind screamed. Standing this close to him, she certainly couldn't find a single fault. “Maybe he was afraid to ask, because then he'd have felt too guilty to go where he knew he belonged.”

Slowly the storm clouds faded in his eyes; he stared at her and shook his head, but didn't speak.

“Maybe he had more faith in you than you do in yourself,” she added gently. “Maybe he knew in his heart he wasn't meant to be the Duke, but you were.”

His frown intensified, but it wasn't frightening. “He always loved the Church—the rituals and the chanting.” A smile glimmered. “It only ever put me to sleep.”

She gave him a lilting smile. “So we do have something in common—a lack of interest in the Church. My parents think I'm the next best thing to a heathen because I crash when they start droning in the old Greek.”

His whole face came alive as he threw back his head and laughed. “Droning—I love it. I always start yawning within seconds.”

Mari stared at his smiling mouth, fascinated beyond decency, aching to move closer, to touch her fingers to the living beauty of his face, the warmth of his skin. “And don't talk to me about the incense. Our church was small, but they used enough sandalwood for a cathedral.”

His grin was the splitting-face variety of a man who'd found a soul mate at last. “I always felt the urge to bring a breathing apparatus.”

She laughed, wondering if he felt a tenth of the violent need to touch that she did. She'd never become so enthralled with a man so fast before. He was like—dangerous magic.

“Are your parents disappointed in you now?” he asked, racking up the conversation another notch in intimacy.

She sighed and nodded. “They think Mikhail will marry me because of Charlie. Why shouldn't their daughter become a princess?” Her eyes met his, and she immediately wished they hadn't, because the mixture of mirth and empathy was—compelling. “I don't know if your parents have the same need to brag about their children as mine do, but in their minds I'm denying them the opportunity to have a royal daughter. They seem to think I deserve it.”

Lysander's gaze softened as he looked down at her. “Well, why wouldn't they? All families want the best for their children, and with your cousins having become royal it must seem within the bounds of reality. And you're beautiful, with strong morals
like Charlie, Lia and Toby. And, as we've said, they've been a breath of fresh air to the country.”

“Well, I don't like Mikhail,” she almost snapped, the sense of being hunted filling her again. “He's selfish and arrogant, and no title makes that appealing to me.”

“You weren't tempted by his wealth or power?” he asked, sounding totally unoffended by her anger—more curious, if anything.

She shrugged. “I've learned the past year that there are other, more valuable things. What's the point of wealth if you don't have love, family or self-respect?”

He kept his eyes on her face, and seemed to take a half-step closer before he halted. “I think you're a very wise as well as a lovely woman, Mari Mitsialos,” he said quietly.

Blushing, she turned away. “What's so wise about knowing the one basic fact of life?”

A quizzical look touched those amazing eyes of his. “You don't think much of yourself, do you?”

She was lost in the feeling his closeness and his smile engendered in her body, and the question confused her. “Why would I?” she asked. “I'm just an average woman. My only claim to fame is through a couple of suddenly royal cousins.”

He chuckled. “‘Suddenly royal'—you have an interesting turn of phrase, Mari.”

She felt a little shiver run through her as he said her name on its own for the first time. Intimate and beautiful and
dangerous…

As if he'd seen her internal reaction, he took a step closer, his eyes lighting with a candle of open desire. “The Captain told me to ask you if you'd like to stop at Santorini, which is a really beautiful place, with loads of things to do, or move on to a less populated island. He said we could sail around, finding places to swim until we reach Patmos—” his eyes twinkled again “—which I suspect is his personal favourite, since he was born there.”

She gulped against the yearning threatening to send her into total stupidity.
He's not a chauffeur; he's not married…
“Ah,
and here I was thinking he must be a Bible fan,” she croaked. “Isn't that where some books of the Bible were written?”

Lysander's brows lifted, as if she'd surprised him again. “I know St John was imprisoned there. There are some tours you can take, if you're interested in Bible history.”

She chuckled. “And have my parents think I'm ready to return to the fold?”

“Drone…drone…” he chanted, deadpan. When she stopped laughing, he said, “So, what is your choice for the day? The yacht is at your disposal.”

She looked at him with a hopeful, wistful feeling. “I know it's touristy and all that, but I'd really like to see Santorini. They say it could be the real Atlantis…”

He smiled down at her. “Then Santorini it is. Would you like some company?”

Wistfulness grew in her. “Yes, please—if you don't mind. I might get lost, or not know how to bargain for things.” And just because she wanted him beside her—and the least of his attraction was his title. She'd been just as fascinated when she'd thought him a chauffeur. Even now she knew who he was she couldn't go back, couldn't think of him as a duke, couldn't distance herself. She couldn't stay away…

One day. How had she become so enthralled by him in a single day?

As if he understood her inner dilemma, Lysander sobered. “I think you could probably bargain your way into whatever you want by just smiling.”

Mari caught her breath. As if they were in a go-cart on a steep hill, she saw the inevitable crash before them—but they were going to do it anyway, going to take the ride and endure the fall.

She was already on that go-cart, already falling. And she couldn't make herself care.

“I'll tell the Captain to head for the dock, then,” Lysander said abruptly, and walked off, his clean stride seeming somehow hunted.

That evening

“Oh, my goodness, how wonderful was that?” Mari walked along the pier to the yacht beside a loaded-down Lysander, who was carrying her bags for her. “I can't decide which was best—the markets, the tomato balls and couscous, or the volcano.” She gave a delicious shiver. “To think half the island just disappeared in an hour…a minute…”

Lysander smiled down at her, those dancing eyes shining in the light of the setting sun. He looked five years younger than this morning—his load lightened, just a man having fun. “I would have thought you liked the swimming best.”

She shook out her still-damp hair, falling in a corkscrew mess around her shoulders. “Well, wasn't it wonderful? I know Australia's famous for its beaches, but the water's never like that—so gloriously warm, but not hot—except in the North, and then you have to watch for crocodiles. I felt like I was floating around in a warm salt bath.”