The Marquis And The Mother-To-Be. Valerie Parv

eject her while she was so obviously unwell, assuming she had somewhere else to go.

      Where she went wasn’t his problem, he told himself. He hadn’t conned her into buying the royal retreat. A few simple checks would have revealed the truth, then she wouldn’t be in this fix. Why was she here anyway? She may have fallen in love with Carramer; foreigners frequently did. But lots of places were more accessible than Tiga Falls. The family had built the lodge precisely because of its location, to provide an ideal retreat from royal duty. What was Carissa retreating from?

      He let out a long breath. Common sense dictated that he stop wondering and concern himself with seeing her on her way. But common sense had nothing to do with the instant, primitive way he responded to thoughts of her. He had a feeling that getting her out of his hair was going to be easier than getting her out of his mind.

      Chapter Two

      When Carissa awoke, she was surprised to find it was morning. Although she had slept well enough, she felt lethargic. Last night, Eduard had insisted she stay in bed and had brought her an omelet and a sliced Carramer peach. Impressive for a man who was accustomed to being waited on, she told him, using humor to disguise her reaction to him.

      He had learned to cook in his spare time while at sea, he explained. While she ate, he had kept her company, but had refused to let her talk about the lodge, insisting that the problem could wait until morning when she felt better. She wondered if he would be so tolerant if he knew the real cause of her “flu.”

      She was violently ill almost as soon as she arose, and was glad that Eduard didn’t see her undignified dash into the en suite bathroom. Why didn’t she tell him she was pregnant? she wondered, as she returned to the bed to catch her breath.

      The answer came straight away. She didn’t want to disappoint him. After all this time, she still cared what he thought of her. Fool, she lectured herself. How many times did he have to reject her before she accepted that he wasn’t interested? If he were, he’d have answered at least some of the letters she wrote to him after returning to Australia. But he hadn’t. After his stiff apology for hurting her feelings, she hadn’t heard from him again.

      She sipped a glass of tepid water, knowing she didn’t regret the baby she was carrying. She had met Mark Lucas, a handsome, personable investment broker, through her brother, who was in the same field. She had been assistant manager of a boutique hotel. After she had learned that her father hadn’t left her a share in the family home, she and Mark had already discussed moving to Carramer, and had set the wheels in motion. Mark had assured her he wanted the move as much as she did, but for different reasons, she knew now. According to her brother, Mark’s business was struggling. He had probably thought moving to Carramer would give him a fresh start.

      She and Mark had been seeing one another for six months before they had made love. Mark had wanted to long before, but she had preferred to wait. Then in the aftermath of her father’s death, she had turned to Mark for comfort, too grief stricken to think of taking precautions. When she found out she was pregnant after only one night with Mark, she was so delighted she wondered if that had been her unconscious wish all along. A baby would give her the family she so longed for. Foolishly she had expected Mark to feel the same way.

      Her fantasy had been shattered when she’d discovered he didn’t want children. He’d been one of six brothers, and he didn’t intend to struggle like his parents, he told her. When she informed him that she was expecting his child, he had offered her money to, as he put it, “solve the problem.” She realized what he meant and had thrown the offer back at him and walked out.

      Whatever her motive for getting pregnant, she wanted this baby with an intensity that astonished her. She linked her hands in front of herself in a protective gesture, although it was too early to feel any changes yet. Mark might think of the baby as a problem, but Carissa cherished the life growing within her because it meant having someone upon whom she could lavish all the love inside her at long last. She didn’t expect Eduard to understand any more than Mark had done.

      Finding the lodge had seemed like fate. She had paid the con man half the money Jeff had given her as her share of their father’s house, keeping the rest for redecorating. The con man had told her she could move in right away, assuring her that her mortgage repayments wouldn’t start until the lodge was earning an income. With a doctor available in Tricot to see her through her pregnancy, she had felt like the luckiest person in the world.

      Lucky? She almost laughed out loud. If she’d suspected that Eduard really owned the lodge, she would have had nothing to do with it.

      She shuddered, remembering how she had believed herself in love with him when she was a teenager. With the Australian Embassy located next door to Eduard’s home in Perla, their paths often crossed socially. In the eighteen months she had lived in Carramer, they had become friends.

      On Eduard’s part, that’s all it was, she understood now. Perhaps her lack of family and roots, and her father’s emotional distance, had made her susceptible to reading too much into the relationship, but she had believed that Eduard had shared her feelings.

      Knowing he would soon be leaving for university, she had kissed him with all the passion in her soul. He had stood like a statue, his mouth cold against hers and his body stonily unresponsive. When she’d stammered out her feelings, he had dismissed them with unfeeling arrogance. She had wanted the ground to open up and swallow her. The stiff apology he made before he left had only made her feel more stupid and naive.

      She pressed her hands to her cheeks, which burned as hotly as her memories. When he’d swept her into his arms yesterday, he must have been aware of her instinctive response. Was she destined always to make a fool of herself around him?

      Her only consolation was that Eduard didn’t seem to remember that teenage kiss. He had been the one to kiss her yesterday. She touched her fingers to her mouth, as if she could still feel the pressure of his lips against hers. He was no man of stone now. No statue could generate the heat inside her that his touch had done. She felt a resurgence of it now, just thinking about him.

      Annoyed with herself, she drowned the feelings under a cool shower then dressed in a white shirt and olive cargo pants. Leaving her feet bare, she went to the kitchen to make toast, which was about all the breakfast she could face at present. From the plate and cup on the drainer, she saw that Eduard had already beaten her to it.

      Later she tracked him down to the study she had looked forward to using as her own. She felt cheated at seeing him looking so at home behind what she’d thought of as her desk. Nor did she welcome the quick flutter in her stomach at the sight of him.

      She placed the worthless sale contract on the desk in front of him. “I should have known this deal was too good to be true.”

      Eduard leafed through the papers, stopping to read a clause now and then. When he looked up, he said, “These are good, very good. But the royal family only uses one intermediary and it isn’t…” he glanced at the name of the selling agent “… Dominic Hass. Where did you meet this man?”

      She sighed. “I was staying at the Monarch Hotel in Tricot. He must have overheard me talking on my cell phone to my brother. I told Jeff that I was going to look at a property for sale out this way. After I hung up, Hass came up and asked my advice about where to take his mother sight-seeing. His mother! I must have sucker written on my forehead.”

      Eduard tilted the swivel chair backward, resting his fingertips on the desk for balance. “Don’t blame yourself. People like Hass can be very convincing.”

      “He struck up a conversation. When I told him I planned to open a bed-and-breakfast place in the area, he told me he was the agent for a property that might interest me.” She looked around her. “I should have smelled a rat when he didn’t have a key. The lock was broken, probably by him. He said the keys had been lost.”

      This elicited a frown from Eduard. “That explains how he managed to gain entry. The lodge has never been up for sale.”

      She couldn’t conceal her bitterness.