Cordina's Royal Family Collection Read online

  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.

  Chapter 6

  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.”

  “And my feelings?” Abruptly her calm vanished. She turned to where the doctor now stood beside her bed, his hands locked comfortably behind his back. “Are they considered? This—this pretense that all is well, this farce that I’ve had a whirlwind romance with the son of my father’s friend. They infuriate me.”

  She snatched up a mother-of-pearl comb from her dresser and began to tap it against her palm. “The announcement of my engagement was made only yesterday, and already the papers are full of it. Crammed with their speculation, their opinions, their chatty little stories. Everywhere I go there are questions and flutters and sighs.”

  The impatience was obvious and, to the doctor, familiar. With his fingers still linked behind his back, he remained silent and waited for it to run its course.

  “Just this morning while I’m trying to organize for the ball, I’m asked about my wedding dress. Will it be white or ivory? Will I use my dressmaker, or go to Paris as my mother did? My wedding dress,” she repeated tossing up her hands. “When I have to finalize a menu for fifteen hundred people. Will I have the ceremony in the palace chapel or the cathedral? Will my good friends from college be in the wedding party? Will I choose the English princess or the French countess as my maid of honor—neither of whom I remember in the slightest. The more we try to gloss over and hide what’s real, what’s true, the more absurd it becomes.”

  “Your father is protecting your welfare, Gabriella, and his people’s.”

  “Are they never two separate things?” she demanded, then tossed the comb back on the dresser. “I’m sorry.” Her voice calmed. “That was unfair. Deception is difficult. It seems I’m involved in it on so many levels. And Reeve—” Brie broke off, annoyed with herself for permitting her thoughts to travel in his direction.

  “Is attractive,” Franco finished.

  With a slow, cautious smile, she studied her doctor. “You’re an excellent physician. Dr. Franco.”

  He gave her a quick, dapper bow. “I know my patients, Your Highness.”

  “Attractive,” she agreed. “But not in all ways likable. I don’t find his consistent dominance particularly appealing, especially in the role of fiancé. However, I’ll play my part. When my memory returns, the American can go back to his farm, I can go back to my life. That’s how I feel, Dr. Franco.” She put both hands on the back of a chair. “That, simply stated, is how I feel. I want to remember. I want to understand. And I want to get back to my life.”

  “You’ll remember, Gabriella.”

  “You can be sure?”

  “As a doctor, nothing is ever sure.” Bending, wheezing a bit with the movement, he picked up his bag again. “As someone who’s known you from the cradle, I’m sure.”

  “That’s the opinion I prefer.” She stepped forward toward the door.

  “No need to see me out.” He brushed her back with the habitual pat on the hand. “I’ll give your father my assurances before I go.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Franco.”

  “Gabriella.” He paused with the door just opened. “We all have our pretenses to keep up.”

  The inclination of her head was cool and regal. “So I understand.”

  Discreetly she waited until the door closed behind him before she whirled away, fuming. Pretenses. Yes, she’d play them, she’d accept them. But she detested them. With her temper unsteady, she pulled out of the trash the paper she’d wadded up and discarded that morning.

  PRINCESS GABRIELLA TO WED

  Brie swore as princesses are only allowed to do in private. There was a picture of her and one of Reeve. With her head tilted and the sun streaming in on the newsprint, she studied him.

  Attractive, yes, she decided. In that just-on-the-edge-of-rough, just-on-the-edge-of-sleek sort of way. Like a big predatory cat, she mused, who could swagger away or pounce as the mood struck. He’d make his own choices. A man like that caused mixed feelings. Not only in her, she noted with some satisfaction. The press was of two minds, as well.

  There was obvious excitement and a proprietory sort of satisfaction that one of the royal children was to wed. It was pointed out, she noted, that she, of all the princesses in the history of Cordina, had waited the longest to take the plunge. About time, the paper seemed to say with a brisk nod.

  The family tie between the Bissets and MacGees counted in Reeve’s favor, as did his father’s reputation. But he was, after all, an American, and not precisely the ideal choice according to the citizens of Cordina.

  Whatever satisfaction Brie might have gained from that was offset by the mention of several more eligible options. It was disconcerting to find herself matched, if only in the press, with a half a dozen eligible bachelors. Princes, lords, marquesses, tycoons. Obviously from the brief stories attached to the pictures, she’d met and spent time with them all. One of them might have meant something to her, but she had no way of being sure. She could study their names and faces for five minutes, an hour, but there’d be no change. She turned back to Reeve. At least with him, she knew where she stood.

  Apparently the press was prepared to reserve final judgment on the American ex-policeman—son of a well-known and respected diplomat. Instead it chose to speculate on the wedding date.

  She tossed the paper on the bed so that it fell with the photos up. Her father had accomplished his purpose
, she reflected. The focus was on the engagement rather than the kidnapping. No one would question Reeve’s presence in the palace, or his place at her side.

  No one would question him—no one would question her. Slowly Brie turned her hands over and stared down at them. There was something she’d been unable to speak of to either of her doctors. Something she’d been unable to put into words to anyone other than Reeve.

  Had she killed a man? Had she taken a knife and … Good God, when would she know?

  Trying to force herself to remember brought nothing but frustration. Concentration on this would cause her head to pound until she couldn’t concentrate on anything at all. What snatches came, came in dreams. And like dreams, when she awoke, the images were vague and distorted. But the images, rather than easing the pressure, only increased it. Every morning she lay quietly, hoping the memories would come naturally. Every day there was only the dregs of dreams.

  She could work, Brie reminded herself. Filling the hours each day was anything but a problem. The work was enjoyable, fulfilling—but for the fact that she now had this foolish engagement to contend with. The sooner she could brush that aside and go on, the better. She’d view it as one more goal to reach—or one more obstacle to overcome.

  “Come in.” She answered the knock at the door, but she was frowning. The frown didn’t diminish when Reeve walked in.

  “Surely I’m considered safe in my own bedroom.”

  The room smelled subtly of flowers. They were there in a vase on a table by the window, on a stand beside the bed. Through the open window, the breeze traveled in and tossed the scent everywhere. “Dr. Franco says you’re recovering nicely.”

  Brie deliberately took her time settling on the long, cushioned window seat. It gave her the opportunity to control her temper. “Does the doctor report to you, as well?”

  “I was with your father.” He saw the newspaper on the bed, the photos, but said nothing. It wouldn’t do to admit that the front-page splash had given him quite a jolt that morning. It was one thing to agree to a mock engagement, and another to see evidence of it in black and white.