Courting Carolina (35 page)

Undecided whether to scold him for being late or burst into tears at the feel of his arms around her, Jane simply melted into him with a groan of utter contentment. “Um, we should probably at least
sway
,” she said thickly, “to appear
as if we’re not just standing here trying to figure out how to make love in the middle of the room.”

“Don’t tempt me,” he growled, his arms tightening as he started them swaying. He chuckled. “Please tell me that’s only wine in your mother’s glass. Because the last time I had the pleasure of her company, she got a wee drunk.”

Jane leaned away to smile at him, only to gasp instead. “You cut your—” He stifled her shout by pressing her face to his shoulder. “Hair,” she finished in a mutter. She took a deep breath and straightened again, her eyes roaming over his short—but not too short—haircut, then his clean-shaven jaw—that she simply had to reach up and touch—then down to his perfectly tied tie. She leaned away to take in the breadth of the perfectly fitting tuxedo covering his broad shoulders and chest, his crisp white shirt, and…he had a tartan cummerbund? He actually
owned
one?

He chuckled again and pulled her back up against him, then started actually dancing. In fact, the guy could really dance. Really quite well.

Sweet Athena, she needed this.

“Do I clean up okay?” he asked, twirling her across the dance floor.

“You take my breath away,” she whispered breathlessly. “You look so…so…”

“Civilized?” he finished for her, his amusement suddenly vanishing as Jane found herself waltzing backward through a door, only to just as suddenly be snatched to the side and pressed up against a wall by Alec’s very hard body. “Run away with me,” he said into her mouth, just before kissing the breath out of her.

Jane couldn’t keep her hands off him, and apparently he was having a hard time keeping his off her, as she gasped in surprise when he cupped both her breasts and ran his thumbs over her nipples—making him have to press more intimately against her when Jane’s knees buckled with her moan of pleasure.

The door slammed open followed by a snarled, “Son of a bitch!” Alec stepped away and turned, then used his back to
press her up against the wall again—which muffled Jane’s gasp of surprise when she saw Mac standing there, his jaw clenched as tight as his fists. “You get your hands off her,” he said with quiet anger, “and leave before I kill you.”

Jane felt more than saw Alec reach inside his tuxedo jacket. “I was invited,” he said calmly as she leaned far enough to see him hand a vellum envelope to her brother.

Mac tore it open, read the card, then threw it on the floor with a snort. “Mother’s invitations don’t count. Are you going to walk out of here or have to be carried out?”

Alec reached inside his jacket again and pulled out another vellum envelope, then held it toward Mac. “Maybe this one will count.”

Jane saw her brother stiffen and slowly take the envelope. He opened the flap and pulled out the card, then turned as pale as a ghost as he snapped his gaze to Alec. “Father invited you? When?”

“Two weeks ago.”

Jane felt her knees buckle again. Her
father
had invited Alec to come to Nova Mare and court her?
Two weeks ago?
She smacked the back of his shoulder. “Then where have you been for the last two weeks,” she growled, “while I was smiling my face off at a bunch of buffoons?”

“I was usually only a few yards away, watching you smiling at them.”

“Why wasn’t I smiling at
you
if Daddy gave his blessing for you to court me?”

“I did court ye, Carolina,” he said, his back still pressing her up against the wall as he kept his eyes trained on her brother. “Didn’t ye get my gifts?”

She gasped. “Did you just call me
Carolina
?” She smacked his shoulder again. “I’m
Jane
. To you, I…I’m Jane,” she whispered, dropping her forehead to his back. “I want to be Jane.”

The door slammed open again, and Jane lifted her head to see her mother come storming in with her father right behind her, followed by Nicholas—who then closed the door and stood against it, his arms crossed over his chest.

Chapter Twenty-one

Christ, he didn’t see this ending well.

Alec stepped away from Jane, then caught her when she stumbled forward in surprise, pulled her up against his side, and wrapped a protective arm around her as he faced her parents and Mac. He eyed the door leading outside to gauge his chances of making a run for it, but decided that the three men in the room actually worsened the odds over three weeks ago now that he knew brotherly Nick a bit better. And Jane—damn, he was glad she still wanted to be Jane—wasn’t exactly wearing running shoes.

Mac held the envelope in front of his father. “You invited Alec MacKeage? Two weeks ago? By the gods,
why
?”

“Because he fits all my requirements for a suitor,” Titus said, smoothing down the front of his tuxedo. “And Carolina…wanted him.”

“I invited him, too,” Rana added, sounding somewhat bewildered as she lifted her gaze from the envelope in her son’s hand to glare at her husband. “You let me play out my little charade when you had already invited him?” She turned to
glare at Nick. “And you didn’t say anything, either?” And then she turned on Alec. “Or
you
? You came here tonight carrying
two
invitations,” she growled, pointing at her invitation Mac had thrown on the floor.

Nope; not ending well.

“I don’t care who invited him,” Mac snapped. “Carolina is not marrying a MacKeage. Where in hell is Sir Garth?” he snarled at Nicholas.

“Garth decided he wanted to go home about an hour ago,” Nicholas said calmly, his arms still crossed, still guarding the door that led back into the ballroom.

Alec wondered if Kit could hear them and might be waiting at the back door like a good wingman, thinking the wolf could buy him enough time to toss Jane over his shoulder and make a run for it. At least that was the plan he was going with, until Jane suddenly broke free of his embrace and walked up to Mac. Alec sighed and silently walked up behind her as she faced her brother.

“Why, Mackie?” she whispered. “Why don’t you want me marrying a MacKeage?”

Mac moved his gaze from Alec to his sister, his eyes suddenly softening as he touched her cheek. “All I’ve ever wanted is to see you happy and fulfilled and free to follow your passions, Carolina. But the only way that can happen is for you to marry someone who’s afraid of the magic.” He slid his finger to her lips when she tried to speak. “I can’t stop your destiny, little sister, but having a husband who’s in awe of us will at least give you the freedom you crave. Choose a warrior with more muscle than intellect, Caro,” he softly urged, “because if you choose a MacKeage, you will be powerless in your marriage.”

“If her husband’s afraid of the magic, then he can’t protect her.”

Mac’s eyes flared in surprise as they snapped to his. “You know.”

“I know,” Alec said with a nod. “But don’t you think it’s time
she
knew?”

Mac stared at him in silence, then slowly turned to his
father. Alec saw Titus hesitate, then give a nod just before he took his wife by the hand and led her outside—to finally tell her also, Alec assumed.

Mac turned back and gently clasped Carolina’s shoulders, hesitated again, and took a deep breath. “The reason you have to marry a fearless mortal
now
, is that if you’re not married and pregnant in three months”—Alec saw Mac’s grip tighten—“every god and demon bent on destroying the Trees of Life will be free to pursue you the day you turn thirty-one, intending to seduce you in hopes of getting you pregnant with
their
child so Father and I won’t retaliate when they attack Atlantis.”

Carolina jerked away from him with a gasp, only to spin toward the door when a feminine shriek came from outside—which was immediately followed by Rana rushing back through the door, the look in her eyes fierce enough to stop a real bear in its tracks as Titus ran in behind her.

“Of all the pigheaded, arrogant assumptions you men have ever made,” she all but shouted as she stormed up to Carolina and wrapped an arm around her, “this one is the most outrageous.” She rounded on Titus, pulling Carolina with her to also face him. “Do you think
your own daughter
doesn’t even have the brains of a sea urchin? Or that she doesn’t have integrity? Or honor?” She turned just enough to include Mac while also giving Nicholas a speaking glare, apparently not wanting to leave him out of her little tirade. “All you had to do was
tell
us about this asinine deal with the gods, and we would have told you there
is nothing to worry about
.” She snorted, shaking her head. “It was obviously a pact made between men, because if a woman had been involved, she would have laughed you all off the planet.”

She shot her angry gaze around again—alarming Alec when she included
him
this time. “One,” she said, her words directed at Titus, “we—no,
I
raised an intelligent, strong-minded, astute daughter Eros himself couldn’t seduce, not some simpering miss who would be taken in by trickery or flattery. And two, there will be such a stampede racing after her that the idiots will go to war trying to stop one another
from being the one to reach her, and Carolina will be forgotten in their madness.” She actually laughed, although Alec could see she was far from amused. “Every woman knows that if you dangle a prize before a group of males, they’ll start fighting one another to the point they’ll forget
why
they’re fighting.”

His face darkening with either anger or chagrin, Titus brushed down the front of his tuxedo. “I wouldn’t say all men are that single-minded.”

“No?” Rana returned as she arched a brow. “You don’t recall how the first time we met it took you
three days
to realize I was no longer even at the tournament?” She snorted. “You were so busy trying to impress me by challenging every competitor that you didn’t even know
I had already left
.”

“It’s not the same, wife,” Titus snapped. “This isn’t about—”

“Oh, it’s the same, husband,” Rana snapped back, cutting him off. “And just like
her mother
,” she said, giving Carolina’s shoulders a squeeze, “our daughter would simply walk away from your god and demon buffoons, laughing her head off.” She glanced around at all of them again, and Alec saw her anger suddenly disperse on a heavy sigh. “We don’t need strong and fearless men to fight our battles for us, Titus,” she said softly, “or to protect us from life’s worries. We want husbands who stand beside us, and who take our breaths away by treating us as equals.” She lowered her gaze. “And up until three weeks ago, I thought that was the definition of our marriage.”

“It was,” Titus said gruffly, stepping forward and pulling her into a fierce embrace as he buried his face in her hair. “It
is
.”

Deciding he at least had the brains of a sea urchin, Alec took Carolina’s hand and started leading her toward the outside door.

Of course she wouldn’t go peacefully.

“No, wait,” she said, pulling him to a stop. “You can’t just
walk off with me. You have to ask for my hand in marriage, and Daddy has to give us his blessing.”

“But I don’t want your hand in marriage, lass,” he said, grinning at her surprise. He leaned closer. “All I’m wanting at the moment is your body,” he whispered, “and I really don’t think I should be asking your father for that.” He shrugged when all she did was continue gaping, and turned away. “Okay, I’ll ask him if ye want me to.”

She caught the back of his tuxedo jacket, and Alec let her drag him to the far corner of the room, returning Nicholas’s grin on his way by. “Are you nuts?” she hissed after spinning Alec around to face her. “I can’t just run off with you without our being married. I’m a
princess
, and we do not have sex outside of marriage.”

Alec sighed to hide his grin. “Ye need to make up your mind if you’re Jane Smith or Princess Carolina so I can stay with the program.”

“Dammit, I’m both,” she snapped, actually stamping her foot—then nearly falling when her spiked heel broke off.

Alec caught her with a laugh and swept her into his arms. “So, was that a Carolina show of temper?” he asked, striding toward the outside door. “Because I’m thinking Jane would have taken a swing instead.”

“Oh, look, husband,” Rana said rather cheerily as he passed her still wrapped up in her husband’s arms, “they’re already bickering just like an old married couple.”

“Wait,” Nicholas said, making Alec turn to see him step forward and nod at Jane’s feet. “You might want to lose the tracking device.”

Jane gasped and started struggling, and when Alec wouldn’t set her down she finally did take a swing, smacking the back of his shoulder. And when that didn’t work, she pulled her dress up past her knee, waved the leg wearing the ankle bracelet, and looked over at her father. “Daddy, you need to take this damn thing off me. Mama, make him take it off,” she pleaded in a growl, waving her leg again when Titus merely stood eyeing Alec speculatively.