How to Love a Princess (9 page)

“That slop,” she said,
well accustomed to his wit, “is baked squid. The latest in gourmet dining,
according to Claustaud. Whom, I might add, I snatched from
you
.”

Reginald laughed out loud.
“First you steal my top chef from under my nose and now you blame me for his
mistakes?”

Catherine chuckled, noting
that Reginald nevertheless ate every morsel on his plate.

Once desert had been
served, the guests were taken into the Billiard room for coffee so that they
could mingle freely before the end of the evening. The men gathered around the
snooker table while the women chatted, Catherine doing her utmost to ensure
Eleanor was not totally ignored.

When the clock struck
eleven, the guests took their leave, escorted to their private jets waiting on
the landing strip.

Catherine looked from
Geoffrey to Nicolas and was suddenly exhausted. Thankfully, both were well
acquainted with the castle and could be left to their own devices. “Please
excuse me, gentlemen. I think I’m ready to retire.”

“So am I,” claimed
Geoffrey. “I’ll walk with you.”

Nicolas said nothing, but
his gaze hardened on her.

What am I being accused
of now?
Catherine felt
her heart sag as she said goodnight and left the room, Geoffrey trailing
behind.

They parted at the top of
the stairway and, after a lingering bath, Catherine sought her bed. But sleep
would not come. She tossed and turned until the covers lay at her feet in a
rumpled heap. What bothered her the most, she finally conceded, was Nicolas’s
denial of her proposed engagement.
No. Just no.
As if refusing to grant a
favour she hadn’t requested. As if he were denying a permission she didn’t
need. And would she have been any happier if he’d given them his blessing?

Unwilling to answer that
question, Catherine jumped up, threw on her satin nightgown and made her way downstairs
to the kitchen. As she passed through the hall, she saw the glow of soft light
from the reception room casting shadows on the polished floorboards. She popped
her head inside.

Nicolas.

The glow came from the
lights built into the bar. He had his back to her, sitting on a stool, his
elbows resting over the counter. She should walk right on; leave him to his
solitary drinking. The tumultuous day that had started with that kiss by the
stream (was that only this morning?) had all the signs of ending even worse.
She felt as if Nicolas had tossed her in the dryer and kept the spin cycle on
high throughout the day. Was his game revenge? Or was he merely as confused as
she was?

Catherine took a deep
breath, then padded up behind him. “Nicolas?”

He spun about, knocking
over his whiskey glass. He looked at her in silence, haunted shadows carved on
his face, pain and bitterness and loneliness buried in his eyes.

Whatever he’d said,
whatever he’d done, in that moment, Catherine knew. The constant ache she’d learnt
to live with was reflected in his eyes.

He might have declared
that he was through with her.

He might have taken
pleasure in torturing her with almost kisses and cruel accusations.

He might have spent the
evening subtly flirting with Eleanor.

But she knew. “Nicolas.”

He disconnected his gaze
with a jerky motion and slid from the stool. When he looked at her again, his
eyes were blank and his expression hard. “I thought you were asleep.”

He was lying. He thought
Geoffrey had followed her into bed. She knew it as surely as she suddenly knew
that Nicolas had not yet released her from his heart. Her own heart threatened
to leap ten feet in the air. And in the very next moment, she remembered how
very bad this was.

Catherine took refuge in
the simple task of going behind the bar to find a cloth, needing the
distraction as she spoke. “Geoffrey and I are not lovers.”

She kept her head down,
dabbing at the spilt whiskey, swiping the ice cubes back into the empty glass.
When there was nothing more to do, she looked up to his shadowed face and deep,
searching gaze.

She was wrong.

So very wrong.

She’d thought her heart
had already shattered into as many pieces as it could, yet here it was,
breaking all over again. “Nicolas, I never meant to hurt you.”

“Empty words. I don’t need
your pity, Catherine.”

She slumped down on a
stool and threw her arms over the counter. “I never assumed you did. If you
want an explanation, however, I do have one.”

After an air-crackling
hesitation, he took his seat again, arms folded, his back ramrod straight.
Waiting.

“I have a duty to provide
the next heir to the throne,” she said quietly. “Geoffrey is as good a choice
as any other.”

“Better than me,
obviously.” His tone was laced with caustic sarcasm.

“Yes,” she agreed
honestly. Geoffrey would never care enough to try and assert any power over
Ophella or in their relationship. There’d never be any risk that she’d hurt or
destroy his self esteem, however unintentionally. In fact, if she could keep
Geoffrey in Ophella long enough at any one time to conceive that heir once they
were married, it would be a miracle.

If a soul could
spontaneously splinter, Nicolas thought his might just have done that.

“A better choice,” she
continued, “but not a better man.”

“I told you I don’t need
pity.”

“Which is why I’m simply
giving you the truth.”

A better choice, but
not a better man.
Nicolas scrubbed at his jaw, shaking his suddenly thick head, feeling the axis
of his world spin out from under him again. “Am I supposed to even try and
understand what you’re saying?”

Her answer was a sad
little smile. Her hair was mussed, falling to her shoulders in lumps and
rat-tails and standing up a little on the one side. Her eyes shimmered an ocean
blue with unshed tears. His gaze went to her outstretched hands and caught. To
her ring finger, and held.

He’d tried hating her.

He’d tried despising her.

Enter Geoffrey.

Lust might have
temporarily seized control of him down by the stream this morning, but it was
cold, calculated jealousy that had made him taunt Catherine this evening. He’d
never known jealousy before and now he knew that it didn’t always come with a
flare of passionate rage.

And jealousy wasn’t the
only reaction he was ashamed of.

Faced with losing
Catherine irrevocably, not to death this time, but to another man, exposed all
his hating and despising these past weeks for what it was. Hurt pride. Leaving
behind a chasm of unrequited love.

Nicolas unfolded his arms,
took her left hand in his, his thumb and eyes grazing the finger that would one
day display another man’s ring. Admitting, finally, that it was over.

Catherine hadn’t died.
She’d chosen to leave him.

He’d been dumped. Rather
callously and abruptly, but would he feel any better about it if she’d used
sweet words and let him down easy over a reasonable period? The result remained
unchanged. He’d loved Catherine. She hadn’t loved him. He could blame her all
he wanted, but that didn’t change a damn thing.

And here she was again,
making it absolutely clear that she chose Geoffrey over him. The man was a
buffoon, but it wasn’t even that.

No man would ever be good
enough for her.

Other than himself.

Nicolas looked to her
worried face as he dropped her fingers and braced his hands on his knees. Hands
that had saved lives, cured epidemics, uncovered untold secrets of the human
body. He could do so much, but he couldn’t make this woman love him, he
couldn’t force her heart to feel what wasn’t there.

“You do what you have to
do, Catherine,” he said softly, tenderly, resigned, “and I’ll do what I have
to. Don’t say it,” he added when she opened her mouth. “Don’t ask me again to
not abandon your mother. You know I won’t.”

4

C
atherine
let herself into her mother’s room. The heavy brocade curtains were drawn,
allowing the morning sun to filter soft light through the net lace. Dr. Stanzis
glanced up from the makeshift office he’d established in one corner near the
window and she gave him a nod. She came here every day to sit with her mother
for a couple of hours and he appreciated the break.

Once he’d left, she pulled
the chair closer to the bed and settled in, holding her mother’s hand.
Sometimes her mother was strong enough to sit up and talk. Other times she
merely dozed on and off. Catherine looked over her mother with a careful eye,
searching for signs of improvement. Pronounced blue veins showed on her lowered
lids. Her dark hair was shot with silver and terribly thinned. Her cheeks were
gaunt, her skin pale, hanging off her like a white T-Shirt stretched from too
many bad washes.

“I love you so much,
mother.” She stroked the limp hand and choked down a rising sob. “Don’t leave
me. Please…”

“Catherine?” Her mother’s
eyes fluttered open. “Darling, you’re here.”

“Of course I’m here,”
Catherine said lightly, forcing a gaiety she was far from feeling. “Tell you
what! Why don’t I take you outside for half an hour? The sun is warm today and
we’ll wrap you up tightly.”

“Why not?” Some familiar
mischief seeped into her mother’s faded eyes. “Dr. Stanzis specifically forbid
it.”

Catherine chuckled. “We’ll
make a point of letting him find out what we’ve done, unintentionally, of
course.”

She quickly called for
Gascon and, between the two of them, trussed her mother from head to toe in a
luxurious quilt and carried her downstairs. Catherine ran to retrieve the
wheelchair and Gascon tucked her mother in comfortably.

“Leave us for a while,”
she told Gascon, then pressed her mother’s shoulder gently and added, “Don’t
forget to mention our little outing to Dr. Stanzis. We want to hear all the
details of his apoplexy.”

“The two of you are acting
like teenagers,” Gascon groused, but he could not hold off a wide grin.

In the end, they stayed
out the entire morning. The winter day was truly mild and Catherine was too
heartened by the life in her mother’s eyes and the colour on her cheeks to
argue when she insisted she wasn’t ready to go back inside.

“There you are,” called
the familiar voice that never failed to stutter her heart. Nicolas sprinted the
last few yards to reach them. He moved to stand in front of the queen. “I heard
that Catherine had broken you out and I was starting to worry that you’d
actually made it to the border.”

Queen Helene laughed. A
little croaky, but it was a laugh.

Catherine was too on edge
at their discovery to appreciate the joke. Defying Dr. Stanzis was one thing,
but Nicolas was another kind of beast altogether. “We didn’t mean to stay out
so long. I hope I haven’t—”

“Fresh air and sunshine
hasn’t harmed anyone to date, Catherine.” He turned dark brown eyes on her,
deep, sincere, clouded. His gaze seemed trapped, unable to move on.

She wanted to say
something. But after their midnight conversation, everything that could be said
was said. The final curtain was down and calling for an encore would just
extend the agony. The show was over.

A slow, hard grin did
nothing to release the tightness in his jaw. “Come, let’s walk a little
further. I’ve got news that both of you should hear.”

He nudged her aside with a
shoulder to take control of the wheelchair and Catherine fell in step beside
him.

“Did you find something in
the pills?” she whispered.

“Pills?” her mother
queried, glancing up over her shoulder.

“I’ve been analysing your
hormone pills,” Nicolas said. “I found nothing unusual at first. You had an
expired packet in your medicine cabinet, however, with two unused tablets. I
decided to test them as well.”

“You did
find
something,” Catherine exclaimed.

Nicolas grunted.
“Something, yes. What, I’m not yet sure. But it isn’t synthetic and it isn’t
anything I’ve ever come across before.”

Her expression fell.

“I’m not done yet. I won’t
be done until I know exactly what we’re dealing with,” Nicolas reassured her,
even though he knew his next words would do anything but. He stopped pushing
and stepped around the wheelchair to hunker before the Queen. “You had six
packs.”

“I usually keep six months
supply.” She shrugged. “Some days, I forget to take them.”

“The pack that expired two
months ago was the only one with traces of the suspect element.” He glanced up
at Catherine to see if she understood. By the way her knuckles whitened on the
pushing handle of the wheelchair, he assumed she did. He met the queen’s eyes
again. “Your majesty—”