Affaire Royale (12 page)

“I’m not sure I like that any better. You also said spoiled.”

“Yes.” He let his hand fall away so that they faced each other without touching.

“I refuse to accept that.”

“Sorry.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re sorry because you said it?”

“No, because you refuse to accept what you are.”

“You’re a rude man, Reeve MacGee. Rude and opinionated.”

“True enough,” he agreed, and rocked back on his heels. “I also said you were willful.”

Her chin came up. “That I accept,” she told him coolly. “But you haven’t the right to say it to me.”

He gave her a very slow, very arrogant bow. It wasn’t difficult when she chose to play the princess for him to play the pauper. “I beg your pardon, Your Highness.”

Fire flared, in her blood, in her eyes. She found the fingers in her pockets itched to make solid contact with his face. Breeding hampered her, and she found she didn’t care for the restriction. “Now you’re mocking me.”

“We’ll add ‘astute’ to the list.”

Amazed at how quickly the anger rose, she took another step toward him. “You seem to be going out of your way to insult me. Why?”

There was something irresistible about her when she was haughty, angry, icy. Reeve took her face in one hand, holding it firmly when her mouth dropped open in surprise. “Because it makes you think of me. I don’t give a damn how you think of me, Gabriella, as long as you do.”

“Then you have your wish,” she said evenly. “I do think of you, but I don’t think well of you.”

He smiled slowly. She found this made her throat dry and her skin hot. “Just think of me,” he repeated. “I won’t strew roses on the floor when I lead you to bed. There won’t be any violins, and satin sheets. What there’ll be is you and me.”

She didn’t step back. Whether it was shock or excitement that kept her still she didn’t know. Perhaps it was pride. That’s what she hoped. “You seem to be the one in need of the analyst now. I may not remember, Reeve, but I feel certain I choose my own lovers.”

“So do I.”

She felt light-headed. Frightened? No—yes. When he spoke she felt the decision had already been made. Another lack of choice. “Take your hands off me.” She said it quietly, with a hint of arrogance that hid the fear.

He drew her closer, just a little closer. “Is that a royal command?”

She might have been wearing a robe and a crown. “Take it however you choose. You need my permission to touch me, Reeve. A man of your background knows the rules.”

“Americans aren’t as subject to protocol as Europeans, Brie.” His lips hovered over hers, but didn’t quite touch. “I want to touch you, so I touch. I want you, so I’ll take—when the time’s right for both of us.” As he said this, his fingers tightened.

Her vision blurred, her knees shook. It was dark again, and the face close to hers was indistinct. She smelled wine, strong and stale. Fear tripled, pulsing through her like a drug. Abruptly she struck out at him, swaying as she did. “Don’t touch me! Don’t!
Relâchez-moi, salaud
—”

Because her voice was more desperate than angry, he let her go, then almost immediately grabbed her again when she swayed forward. “Brie.” He had her back in the chair, her head between her knees, before she could think. Silently cursing himself, his voice was gentle, calming. “Breathe deep and relax. I’m sorry. I’ve no
intention of taking any more than you want to give.”

He wouldn’t. No, he wouldn’t. Her eyes shut, she tried to clear her mind, clear the dizziness.

“No.” When she struggled against his hand, he released her. Her face was still pale when she looked up at him, but her eyes were dark and intense. Terrified. “It wasn’t you,” she managed. “It wasn’t you at all. I remembered—I think …” On a frustrated breath, she closed her eyes again and fought for composure. “It was someone else. Just for a minute I was somewhere else. A man was holding me. I can’t see him—it’s dark or my mind just won’t let me get through to his face. But he’s holding me and I know, I know he’ll rape me. He’s drunk.”

Her hand reached out for Reeve’s and held it. “I could smell the wine on him. Just now I could smell it. His hands are rough. He’s very strong, but he’s had too much wine.” She swallowed. Reeve saw her shudder just before she took her hand from him and straightened in her chair. “I had a knife. I don’t know how. I had a knife and its handle was in my hand. I think I killed him.”

She looked down at her hand. It was steady. Turning it over, she stared down at her palm. It was white and smooth. “I think I stabbed him with the knife,” she said calmly. “And his blood was on my hands.”

“Brie.” Reeve started to reach out for her, then thought better of it. “Tell me what else you remember.”

She looked at him then and her face was as it had been in the hospital. Colorless and strained. “Nothing. I only remember struggling and the smells. I can’t be sure if I killed him. There’s nothing after the struggle, nothing before.” She folded her hands in her lap and looked beyond him. “If the man raped me, I don’t remember it.”

He wanted to swear again, and barely controlled the impulse. Everything she said made his little power play of a few moments before seem hard and crude. “You weren’t sexually assaulted,” he told her in brisk, practical tones. “The doctors were very thorough.”

Relief threatened to come in tears. She held them back. “But they can’t tell me if I killed a man or not.”

“No. Only you can—when you’re ready.”

She merely nodded, then forced herself to look at him again. “You’ve killed before.”

He took another cigarette and lit it with a barely restrained violence. “Yeah.”

“You—in your work. It was necessary for defense, protection?”

“That’s right.”

“When it’s necessary, it doesn’t leave any scars, does it?”

He could lie, make it easy for her. He was tempted to. When he looked at her, her eyes were so troubled. Inadvertently he’d forced a memory out of her. A dark, horrible memory. Did that make him responsible? Hadn’t he already chosen to be responsible?

He could lie, but when she learned the truth, it would be that much worse. Yes, he’d chosen to be responsible. “It leaves scars,” he said briefly, and rose, taking her hand as he did. “You can live with scars, Brie.”

She’d known it. Even before she’d asked, before he’d answered, she’d known it. “Do you have many?”

“Enough. I decided I couldn’t live with any more.”

“So you bought a farm.”

“Yeah.” He tossed down the cigarette. “I bought a farm. Maybe next year I’ll even plant something.”

“I’d like to see it.” She saw his quick, half-amused look, and felt foolish. “Sometime, perhaps.”

He wanted her to, and felt foolish. “Sure, sometime.”

Brie let her hand stay in his as they walked through the gardens, back toward the white, white walls of the palace.

Barefoot, wrapped only in a thin silk robe, Brie sat dutifully on the bed while Dr. Franco took her blood pressure. His hands were deft, his manner kind, almost fatherly. Still, she wasn’t entirely accepting of the weekly examinations by her family’s doctor. Nor was she resigned to the biweekly sessions with his associate, Dr. Kijinsky, the eminent and scholarly psychiatrist. She wasn’t an invalid, and she wasn’t ill.

True, she tired more easily than she might have liked, but her strength was coming back. And her sessions with the renowned analyst, Dr. Kijinsky, were no more than conversations. Conversations, she mused, that were really no more than a waste of time. And it was time, after all, that she was so determined to recover.

The plans for the charity ball the first week of June were her priority. Food, wine, music, decorations. Entertainment, acceptances, regrets, requests. Even though she seemed to enjoy the preparations, they weren’t easy. When someone paid a good sum of money to attend an affair, charitable or not, he expected and deserved the best. She’d spent three long, testy hours with the florist just that morning to guarantee the finest.

“Your pressure is good.” Franco tucked the gauge back into his bag. “And your pulse, your color. Physically, there seem to be no complications. My complaint would be that you’re still a bit thin. Five pounds wouldn’t hurt you.”

“Five pounds would throw my dressmaker into a frenzy,” she returned with a half smile. “She’s thrilled with me at the moment.”

“Bah.” Franco rubbed a hand over his trim white beard. “She looks for a coat hanger to drape her material on. You need some flesh, Gabriella. Your family has always tended to be just a bit too slim. Are you taking the vitamins I prescribed?”

“Every morning.”

“Good. Good.” He pulled off his stethoscope, dropping that into the bag, as well. “Your father tells me you haven’t cut back on your schedule.”

Her defenses came up immediately. “I like being busy.”

“That hasn’t changed. My dear …” Setting his bag aside, he sat down on the bed next to her. The informality surprised her only because she’d become accustomed to the rules she was bound by. Yet Franco seemed so at ease she decided they must have sat just this casually dozens of times. “As I said, physically, you’re recovering perfectly. I have great respect for Dr. Kijinsky’s talents, or I wouldn’t have recommended him. Still, I’d like you to tell me how you feel.”

Brie folded her hands in her lap. “Dr. Franco—”

“You’re weary of doctors,” he said with a wave of his hand. “You’re annoyed by the prodding, the poking, the sessions. Questions, you think, too many questions. You want to get on with your life.”

She smiled, more amused than disconcerted. “It doesn’t seem you need me to tell you how I feel. Do you always read your patient’s mind, Dr. Franco?”

He didn’t smile, but his eyes remained kind, tolerant. All at once, she felt petty and rude. “I’m sorry.” She touched him because it was her nature to do so when she apologized, and meant it. “That sounded sarcastic. I didn’t mean it to be. The truth is, Dr. Franco, I feel so many things—too many things. Everyone I know seems to understand them before I do.”

“Do you feel we’re simplifying your amnesia?”

“No …” Unsure, she shook her head. “It just seems as though it’s taken for granted that it’s a small problem that should resolve itself. Politically, I suppose it’s necessary to think that.”

The resentment, ever so slightly, was there. Franco, who knew what her father was going through, refrained from commenting directly. “No one, especially your doctor, makes light of what you’re going through. Yet it’s difficult for those around you, those close to you, to fully understand and accept. It’s because of this that I’d like you to talk to me.”

“I’m not sure what I should say—even what I want to say.”

“Gabriella, I brought you into the world. I ministered to your sniffles, treated you through chicken pox and took out your tonsils. Your body is no stranger to me, nor is your mind.” He paused while she took this in. “You have difficulty talking to your father for fear of hurting him.”

“Yes.” She looked at him then, the pleasant face, the white beard. “Him most of all. Before Bennett left—he went grumbling back to Oxford yesterday.”

“He’d prefer to stay here with his dogs and horses.”

“Yes.” She laughed, shaking back her hair. “With Bennett here, it was easier somehow. He’s so relaxed and open. With him I didn’t always feel compelled to say the right things—the kind thing. Alexander’s different. I feel I should be very careful around him. He’s so, well, proper.”

“‘Prince Perfect.’” Franco smiled at her expression. The vague disapproval was a good sign. “No disrespect, Gabriella. You and Bennett dubbed him so when you were children.”

She nearly smiled herself. “How nasty.”

“Oh, he can handle himself. Bennett’s called ‘Lord Sloth.’”

She made a sound suspiciously like a giggle and folded her legs under her. “Natural enough. I volunteered to help him pack. It wasn’t easy to believe anyone could live in such a sty. And me?” She lifted a brow. “Did my brothers give me a title?”

“‘Her Obstinacy.’”

“Oh.” Brie sat for a moment, then chuckled. “I take it I deserved it.”

“Then and now, it suits.”

“I think— I feel,” Brie amended, “that we’re a close family. Is this true?”

A simple yes would mean nothing, Franco thought. A simple yes was too easy. “Once a year you go to Zurich,
en famille.
For two weeks there are no servants, no outsiders. You told me once that this was what helped you cope with the other fifty weeks.”

She nodded, accepting. And, gratefully, understanding. “Tell me how my mother died, Dr. Franco.”

“She was delicate,” he said carefully. “She was speaking for the Red Cross in Paris and contracted pneumonia. There were complications. She never recovered.”

She wanted to feel. It would be a blessing to feel grief, pain, but there was nothing. Folding her hands again, she looked down at them. “Did I love her?”

Compassion wasn’t something a doctor carried in his bag, but something he carried with him. “She was the center of your family. The anchor, the heart. You loved her, Gabriella, very much.”

Believing it was almost, almost as comforting as feeling it. “How long was she ill?”

“Six months.”

The family would have drawn together, knotted together. Of that she was certain. “We don’t accept outsiders easily.”

Franco smiled again. “No.”

“Reeve MacGee, you know him?”

“The American?” Franco moved his shoulders in a gesture Brie recognized as French and pragmatic. “Only slightly. Your father thinks highly of him.”

“Alexander resents him.”

“Naturally enough.” Franco spoke slowly, intrigued by the turn of the conversation. Perhaps she didn’t know her family yet, but they were still, as they had always been, her chief concern. “Prince Alexander feels protective of you, and doesn’t welcome the assistance of anyone outside the family. The pretense of your engagement …” He paused at Brie’s narrowed look, but misinterpreted it. “I don’t gossip. As physician to the royal family, I’m in your father’s confidence.”

She unfolded her legs and rose, no longer content to sit. “And do you agree with his opinion?”

Franco lifted one bushy white brow. “I wouldn’t presume to agree or disagree with Prince Armand, except on medical matters. However, the engagement is bound to annoy your brother, who feels personally responsible for your welfare.”