In the Royal's Bed. Marion Lennox

have the new bed, she thought. She wanted to be like a forgotten relation, left to penury while on the other side of the castle, on the royal side, Rafael swanned round in luxury, enjoying his magnificent suite of rooms, being…Prince Regent.

      ‘I’d hate it,’ she muttered.

      She didn’t hate Rafael. She’d loved it tonight, she conceded. She’d loved feeling beautiful. She’d loved standing side by side with Rafael while he’d organized affairs of state. She’d loved the way he’d gasped as she’d walked into the room. And the way the warmth had stayed in his eyes.

      In fact, the way she was feeling about Rafael…had to be suppressed. The part of her that had been wounded to the core five years ago clenched into horror.

      To fall in love with another prince…

      What was she thinking? How could she be falling in love? Just because the man had kissed her…

      ‘The man’s seriously fabulous,’ she told the ceiling and closed her eyes, as if she could block out the thought of him.

      His partner would be here tomorrow—a woman called Anna. They’d get on with the ruling Laura told them was needed and she’d retire to her books. For the next twenty years.

      ‘Which is what I want,’ she whispered into the dark, ‘isn’t it?’

      ‘Yes,’ her mind screamed but there was a tiny part of her that was stubbornly refusing to agree.

      Why had he kissed her? Did he have no sense at all?

      Yes, he’d agreed to take on the Regency, but that was as far as it went. He didn’t want to get any more fond of Matty than he already was, and he sure as hell didn’t want to get any more fond of Matty’s mother.

      But he’d kissed her.

      The thought shocked him. He hadn’t known what he intended to do until it happened and then…then it was too late. It was lucky that Kelly had sense for the pair of them.

      It’s like quicksand, he thought savagely, the royal quagmire hauling him in.

      He thought back to the days after his father’s accident. Up until then, Rafael had been cool with being royal. Kass, his older cousin, had been an arrogant, egotistical bore. Worried about the influence Kass might have, his parents had sent Rafael to boarding school. He’d thoroughly enjoyed it, but he’d loved coming back in the holidays. He’d lived on horseback, roaming this beautiful little country with an ever-growing appreciation.

      But then his father had been injured, and over the course of one summer life had changed. Kass and his father had simply cut off the brother and uncle who’d once been useful to them, but whose use-by date had been the moment he’d become uncomfortable to look at.

      The last time he’d come outside… It had been just before Rafael was due to go back to school. Laura had convinced her husband to get some sun, so she and Rafael had pushed him into the garden.

      Kass had walked past and had stopped dead. ‘He’s not to stay here,’ he’d said harshly, speaking to Laura and not directly to his uncle. ‘It upsets the staff. It makes me feel sick. He’s not to come within sight of the castle.’

      That one vicious order had been enough to make Rafael’s father return to the house. He’d died two months later, without having set foot in the garden again.

      Rafael had made that vow as well. There was no way he ever intended to be of use to royalty. He wouldn’t set foot in the castle. He’d hoped his mother would move. She hadn’t and their access to each other had become confined to Laura’s visits to the States.

      And now, like it or not, here he was—of use to royalty as his father had once been of use to the old Prince and to Kass. It made him feel ill.

      And tonight he’d kissed Kass’s wife.

      Why?

      It was a web, he thought, a fine, gossamer web drawing him in tighter and tighter. Conscience and duty had him stuck here.

      Like Kelly was stuck.

      She wasn’t stuck, he thought savagely. She could stay up in her attic and be an academic and not do anything, not be a part of it. Or do as she’d done tonight, emerge from her attic for a moment and then retreat the moment things got intense.

      So why had he kissed her?

      ‘Because I’m a fool,’ he told the darkness and he rolled over in the royal bed and thought he could roll over six or seven times and not reach the edge.

      ‘It’s ludicrous.

      ‘It’s life as you’ll know it for the next twenty years,’ he said grimly. ‘So get used to it. And keep your hands off that woman!’