Prince and Future... Dad? Read online

  But instead of turning for her own room, she pushed open Brit’s door and tiptoed in. After the trouble she’d gotten herself into, she wanted to be sure that Brit was all right.

  The room was dim, all the heavy curtains drawn. The centuries-old rug—wine-red, with a golden wheellike pattern spinning out from the center of it—was wonderfully soft beneath her sore feet. The fine old mahogany bed, its four posters broad as tree trunks and intricately carved with dragons and vines and fairylike women with long, twining hair, loomed in the center of the room, the soft, old linens in disarray. Liv could see a slim tanned hand and arm hanging over one side.

  Quietly Liv moved closer. At first, she smiled at the sight that greeted her when she got close enough to see that her sister was, indeed, in bed sound asleep.

  Brit had always been a bed hog. When they were children and for one reason or another had to share a bed, Liv and Elli would whine and moan and complain that that they couldn’t sleep with Brit. Brit was always squirming around and sometimes she talked to herself in her sleep—plus, she stole the covers.

  Now Brit managed to sprawl spread-eagled, face-down, wide enough that she took up the entire bed. Liv watched her slim back moving—slow, shallow breaths. Her face was turned Liv’s way and covered by a tangled mop of straight blond hair much like Liv’s own.

  She looked so…utterly relaxed. So totally unconcerned, lying there in her usual bed-hogging sprawl.

  Liv felt the tender smile leave her lips. Brit was the “wild” one of the three sisters, the one more likely to have done the kind of thing that Liv did last night.

  But Brit hadn’t done it—though she’d danced with Finn Danelaw herself more than once, though she’d flirted and laughed and had herself a grand time. At some point, Brit had had sense enough to climb the stairs to her own bed, where she was now sleeping peacefully. When she woke, she’d have nothing to regret. She’d down her usual three or four cups of strong black coffee and she’d be ready to face the new day.

  For the first time in her life, Liv wished she’d followed her baby sister’s example. She should be in her own room, safe in her own bed. Not dressed in last night’s wrinkled, clammy clothes, sick to her stomach with a pounding head, wishing she could turn back time and do it all differently.

  And speaking of her stomach…

  Liv dropped her underwear on the thick wine-red rug, clapped a hand to her mouth and whirled for Brit’s bathroom.

  She got over the commode just in time.

  It seemed like forever that she leaned there, until everything had come up and there was nothing left—and still, her stomach kept trying to get rid of more.

  Somewhere in the middle of the unpleasantness, her sister’s bare feet appeared on the soft rug beside her.

  “Oh, Livvy. What have you been up to?” Brit’s voice was sympathetic, her question rhetorical. She turned on the shower and then knelt beside Liv and held her tenderly as she finished.

  “Come on,” she coaxed, when it looked like the heaving had stopped at last. “Into the shower…you’ll feel better.”

  After the shower, Brit produced a tall glass of bubbling headache remedy. Liv made herself drink the whole thing. Then, gentle as a loving mother, Brit led Liv to bed.

  Out in the clearing where Finn Danelaw lay, the morning mist slowly faded away. The day grew brighter. An eagle soared overhead, broad wings strong enough to carry him far to the north, to a craggy aerie somewhere high in the snow-crested peaks of the Black Mountains.

  Finn woke to the eagle’s long, hollow cry. He opened his eyes and found himself looking at a swathe of thick green grass. On the grass lay his shirt and a shoe. Beyond the two articles of clothing, fat-trunked oaks stood close together, their branches so thickly intermingled it was impossible to say where the crown of one tree ended and the next began.

  Finn’s head pounded dully, though not unbearably. It had been quite a night. A night certainly worth the price of a mild headache. He smiled to himself and rolled over to reach for the law student, his king’s daughter, Princess Liv.

  She was gone.

  With a soft groan, Finn sat up and raked his hair back out of his eyes. A quick scan of the clearing showed him the rest of his clothing but none of hers. The only proof that she’d spent the night in his arms was her scent on his skin—so sweet now, bound to fade too soon.

  He leaned back with a long sigh and his fingers touched something silky. Her underlisse. What did they call them in America? Ah. Her panties.

  The small triangle of dark blue satin had been pressed into the grass beneath his hip. He snagged it on a finger and twirled it. So. A proof beyond the enticing scent of her that she had been here, that he’d kissed all the most secret parts of her, that he’d pressed her down into the moist grass and buried himself to the hilt within her.

  Was he surprised she’d left him there asleep? Not in the least. Finn understood women as well as any mere man might. She didn’t see herself as the kind who could ever become involved in a wild moonlit tryst with a man she hardly knew.

  He closed the panties in his fist. On awaking, she would have been shocked at what she’d done so willingly the night before. The most natural response would be to flee before he woke and possibly did something to compound her distress—like reach for her and try to make love to her again.

  A pity. He would have thoroughly enjoyed one last time with her. It aroused him even now to imagine staring down into her face by morning light as her pleasure crested.

  Finn dropped the satin triangle to the grass. Sadly, such a moment was not to be. In fact, the night before was more than he should have dared to take. Were he a man prone to shock, he would be shocked right now. Shocked that he did take it, though last night was Midsummer’s Eve and Gullandrian tradition held that no man—or woman—could be called to account for amorous indiscretions on Midsummer’s Eve.

  Tradition aside, if the king found out, he would not be pleased. And when a man displeased his king, disagreeable things were far too likely to happen to him. And more important than the possible danger inherent in crossing His Majesty, Finn didn’t want to displease Osrik Thorson. His king happened to be someone Finn Danelaw admired and respected.

  Finn pushed himself to his feet and began gathering up his clothes.

  As he dressed, he chided himself for being an idiot. He should have stolen a few harmless kisses and left it at that. He stood for a moment, staring up at the clear summer sky, wondering why he’d found Liv Thorson so difficult to resist.

  The answer wasn’t that long in coming: her intelligence. He dropped to the grass to put on his shoes. Finn did admire a quick mind in a woman. Intelligence in a woman kept a man alert and boredom at bay. What was that old line from Chesterton? Something about one good woman eliminating the need for polygamy…

  And besides her sharp mind, there was that excess of ambition and the matching control. The woman had the kind of control Finn was accustomed to seeing only in men. It was refreshing to find it in a woman, especially one under thirty years of age. Naturally, the temptation to help her lose that control had been great.

  He stood once more, tucking and smoothing, straightening his collar, linking his cuffs. It had been an indiscretion, to put it mildly—one, he had enough self-awareness to know, given a fraction of a chance, he’d willingly commit again.

  However, he wasn’t getting a fraction of a chance. Liv was leaving the next day, returning to America. Until then, he’d lay odds she’d do all in her power to avoid him.

  The little swatch of satin glimmered at him from the grass. He bent and claimed it. As a rule, he wasn’t a man who collected intimate trophies. But it seemed somehow thoughtless—crass, even—to leave it lying there for some groundskeeper to find.

  Ah, to be able to anticipate the delicious and private moment when he might return it. But it wasn’t to be. This woman, he would never see again.

  Unless…

  He shook his head.

  The odds were very
small.

  Still the fact remained that he had been, in a second very dangerous way, indiscreet. He hadn’t been as careful as he should have been—as he always had been before. Yes, he would confess it, though only to himself: It was just possible that he’d been slightly swept away.

  But the chance that there’d be the predictable price to pay for such a foolish oversight had to be slight. It had, after all, only been one night.

  There was surely no need to worry. No need to give it another thought.

  With a grin, he snapped his fingers. There. It was gone from his mind.

  Her Highness’s underlisse, however, were still in his hand. He smiled a little wider. A swatch of blue satin, some sweet, hot memories.

  It could have been worse.

  Soon, he knew, the time would come for him to make a good marriage. The patriarch of more than one important family had approached him. All of those doting fathers kept their young virgin daughters well away from him, of course. They wouldn’t want the notorious Prince Finn plying his famed powers of seduction on their precious daughters until after the marriage swords had been exchanged.

  He’d been…what? Accepting of the situation, he supposed. Willing to do what was expected of him. A man couldn’t hop from bed to bed forever. At some point, he had to find his comfort with one woman, plant his seed, raise his sons and pamper his daughters.

  So it would be with him.

  And last night?

  Finn smiled up at the clear morning sky. When he was old and stooped and slow, when death was near and the frost giants hounded him through haunted dreams, he could remember his glorious, wild night with the princess from America. It would help him to hold back the encroaching cold.

  Finn slid the panties into a pocket and turned for the silver-slate palace gleaming above the last of the mist.

  Chapter Two

  Liv woke to a muffled clicking sound—someone tapping on computer keys.

  Brit. Liv’s sister had opened the ornate Victorian-style secretary at the foot of Liv’s bed and set up her laptop on the desk within. She was typing away, her pale hair anchored in a messy knot at the back of her head, shoulders slightly hunched, strong chin jutting toward the screen in fierce concentration. Next to the keyboard sat an open bag of peanut M&M’s. Brit loved her M&M’s.

  Liv watched her for a while. The sight was soothing, somehow: her baby sister working on her novel—which novel, Liv hadn’t a clue. Brit had started writing novels before she even reached her teens—and started was the operative word. Brit had begun ten or fifteen of them, at least. When she got bored with one, she’d drag out another and type away at it for a while. To Liv’s knowledge, Brit had yet to actually finish any one of them.

  With a sigh, Liv turned to the travel clock she’d set on the marble-topped nightstand. Past two in the afternoon. My how time did fly when you were passed out drunk.

  Brit must have heard the sigh. She turned in her chair. “Sleeping Beauty awakes.”

  Liv dragged herself to a sitting position. “Ugh.”

  “Coffee? Toast?”

  Liv pushed her tangled hair out of her eyes. “I suppose I’d better.”

  The skinny, sneaky chambermaid was summoned and returned a short while later with a tray.

  Brit played nurse, plumping Liv’s pillows, getting Liv’s tray arranged just so. Then she dropped into the claw-footed velvet wing chair next to the bed. “Want to talk about it?”

  Liv shot Brit a look over the rim of her eggshell-thin china cup. In spite of their differences, the sisters loved each other and trusted each other implicitly. There was no one, outside of their third sister, Elli, in whom Liv would rather confide.

  And she needed to confide, after what she’d done. The more levelheaded Elli, leaving that day on her wedding trip, wasn’t available to lend an ear.

  So Liv told Brit. Everything. Brit, who was wearing a pair of short-short cutoffs and a tight semi-tube knit top that tied on one shoulder, dragged her long bare legs up, rested her chin on her knees and listened patiently to the whole story.

  “Oh, I am so disappointed in myself,” Liv cried once she had told it all.

  Brit swiped at a swatch of hair that had fallen into her eyes. “Oh, come on. I think it’s great.”

  Liv sat up straighter, deeply offended. “Great?”

  “That’s what I said. G-r-e-a-t.”

  “What, may I ask, is great about what I did?”

  “Well, just that you busted out a little, Livvy.” Brit shifted in the chair, letting go of her legs, stretching them out and studying the polish on her toes. “That you had yourself a wild, hot, monkey-sex night.”

  “Monkey sex?”

  “Is there an echo in here?”

  “Is that really what it’s called?”

  Brit dropped her feet to the floor and lifted a shoulder—the bare one—in an elaborate, oh-so-cool shrug. “Monkey sex. Jungle sex. Crawl-all-over-each-other sex. Am I making myself clear?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “Admit it. You loved it.”

  “Oh, puh-leese. You’re practically salivating. I don’t need this.”

  “Slurp, slurp. And, IMO, you do need it. Why beat yourself up? Why not just accept that you did it and admit it was great?”

  Liv slumped back to the pillows. “I can’t. I hate myself for it. And I have to say it would be more appropriate if you could just…well, sympathy is all right. But don’t tell me it’s great. It’s not great. It’s awful.”

  Brit shook her head. “Livvy, give it up. I know you want to run the world, but you’ll never run me. I get to have my own opinions and I also get to express them.”

  Liv made a growling sound and picked up her nearly empty cup. She gestured with it, frustrated. “And what about poor Simon?” She sipped, swallowed, set the cup down. “He’ll be crushed when he hears about this.”

  “Don’t tell him. Simon doesn’t own you.”

  “Well, of course he doesn’t. But still, it’s only right that I tell him.”

  “You have some agreement with him that you won’t see other people?”

  “No. But we are very…close.”

  Brit lifted one eyebrow but kept her mouth shut.

  Liv glared at her. She knew what Brit thought of Simon—and if she hadn’t known, she could have figured it out just by looking at her face right then. “You never liked Simon,” she muttered accusingly.

  “That’s so not true. I think Simon’s a fine man. He’s just…not the man for you.”

  “And why not?”

  “Oh, Liv. Because he doesn’t thrill you, that’s why.”

  “Thrills aren’t everything.”

  Brit looked thoroughly put-upon. “Haven’t we been through this before?”

  “Simon,” Liv couldn’t stop herself from insisting, “is a good man.”

  “He certainly is.” Brit sat up straighter and offered with nerve-flaying cheerfulness, “More coffee?”

  Liv huffed out a breath and wrinkled her nose. She felt out of sorts to the max, disgusted with being in her own skin. She knew she was a fight looking for a place to happen. And Brit really did seem to be trying to keep from getting into it with her. She felt a wave of warmth and gratitude toward her baby sister.

  “Sorry.” Liv held out her cup.

  “Forgiven. You know that.” Brit took the small silver pot to the suite’s kitchen and returned with it. She poured more for Liv and a cup for herself.

  Liv nibbled her toast. She really was feeling better. The toast—lightly buttered with a dab of marmalade—tasted good. “At least this is it. We’re out of here tomorrow. If I’m lucky, I won’t have to see Finn Danelaw’s face again.”

  Brit was significantly silent.

  Liv let out a groan. “Oh, just say it, why don’t you?”

  So Brit did. “Don’t blame poor Finn for giving you what you wanted. And face it. You had a fabulous time.”

  Liv opened her mouth to do some more denying.

>   Brit put up a hand. “I’ll bet you’ve never before in your life got so carried away the night before that you couldn’t find your panties the morning after.”

  Liv looked at her sideways and accused in a mumble, “You noticed. About my panties.”

  Brit wiggled both eyebrows. “Slurp, slurp.”

  “Don’t make fun, please. I’m really upset at myself. You know I’m thinking of going into politics eventually. Who’s going to vote for a woman who can’t keep track of her own underwear? It’s not…confidence-inspiring.”

  Brit raised both hands then, palms out. “Okay, okay. Have it your way. What you did is horrible and disgusting and if you hide out here in your room like a big, fat coward, you might not have to see Finn again. And while we’re on the subject of leaving…”

  Liv knew that something she didn’t want to hear was coming. “What about it?”

  “I’m not.”

  “Not…?”

  “Leaving.”

  Liv stared. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am.”

  “I do not believe this.”

  “Whatever.” Brit was sounding infuriatingly offhand. “I’m staying for a while.”

  Their mother would burst a blood vessel when she heard. Ingrid hated their father and all things Gullandrian.

  And what was to stay for, anyway? More tours of fisheries and offshore oil derricks, of rolling, charming farmland, more tall pines and spruces and distant views of fat-tailed karavik?

  More chances, a salacious voice in the back of her mind whispered, you might run in to Finn…

  “This is nuts.” Liv scowled. “We came for Elli’s sake, remember? We swore to Mom we’d fly right home after the wedding. Father agreed to that.”

  “So?”

  “So it’s after the wedding. Time for you and me to keep our word to our mother and go home.” Liv picked up her cup—and set it down without drinking from it. “Anyway, I’ve got to be at work on Monday—and I thought you said you did, too.”

  “Yes,” said Brit, her tone only slightly bitter. “You’ve got your plum summer internship with the State Attorney General’s Office that you can’t wait to get back to. And me? Well, I’ll return to dealing ’em off the arm at the Pizza Pitstop in East Hollywood, listening to my boss yell at me, looking forward to going home to my charmingly seedy courtyard apartment.”