Affaire Royale (6 page)

“They gave me this nonsense about your not remembering. Bah!” She lifted a hand and slapped it against the arm of the chair. “My Gabriella not remembering her own nanny.”

Brie studied the woman but knew no sense of connection would come. It just wasn’t time. “I don’t remember,” she said quietly. “I don’t remember anything.”

Nanny hadn’t lived for seventy-three years, raised a nurseryful of children and buried one of her own without being prepared for any shock. After a moment’s silence, she rose. Her face might be lined, her hands curled slightly with arthritis, but she pulled herself from the chair with the grace and ease of youth. As she stood over Brie’s bed, the princess saw a small, birdlike woman in black with a stern face and rosary beads hanging from her belt.

“I am Carlotta Baryshnova, nanny to the Lady Honoria Bruebeck, your aunt, and Lady Elizabeth Bruebeck, your mother. When she became Princess Elizabeth of Cordina I came with her to be nanny to her children. I have diapered you, bandaged your knees and blown your nose. When you marry, I will do the same for your children.”

“I see.” Because the woman seemed more annoyed than upset, Brie smiled again. It occurred to her she had yet to see herself smile. She’d have to go back to the mirror again. “And was I a good child?”

“Hmph.” The sound could have meant anything, but Brie caught a tiny hint of pleasure in it. “Sometimes worse, sometimes better than your brothers. And they were always a trial.” Coming closer, she peered down at Brie with the intensity of the nearsighted. “Not sleeping well,” she said briskly. “No wonder. Tonight I’ll bring you hot milk.”

Brie angled her head. “Do I like it?”

“No. But you’ll drink it. Now I’ll run your bath. Too much excitement and too many doctors, that’s what’s wrong with you. I told that silly Bernadette I would see to your needs this evening. What have you done to your hands?” she demanded abruptly, and snatched one up. She began mumbling over it like an old hen over a backward chick. “Only a week away and you ruin your nails. Worse than a kitchen maid’s. Chipped and broken,
and with all the money you spend on manicures.”

Brie sat still while Nanny fussed and complained. There was something, something in the feel of that dry, warm hand and scolding voice. Even as she tried to hold it, it faded. “I have manicures often?”

“Once a week.” Nanny sniffed, but continued to grip Brie’s fingers.

“It appears I need another one.”

“You can have that stiff-lipped secretary of yours make an appointment. Your hair, too,” Nanny said, scowling at it. “A fine thing for a princess to run around with chipped nails and flyaway hair. Fine thing,” she continued, as she walked into an adjoining room. “Fine thing, indeed.”

Brie rose and stripped. She felt no invasion of privacy at having the woman fuss and hover around during her bath. Even as she drew off her hose, the woman was there, bundling her into a short silk robe.

“Pin up your hair,” Nanny said grumpily. “We’ll do what we can with it after your bath.” When she saw Brie’s hesitation, she went to the dresser herself and opened a small enameled box. Hairpins were jumbled inside. “Here now.” And her voice was more gentle. “Your hair is thick like your mother’s. You need a lot of pins.” She was nudging her along, clucking, into the room where water ran. Stopping a moment, Brie just looked.

There was a skylight, strategically placed so that the sun or rain or moonlight would be visible while looking up from the tub. The floor and walls were all tiled in white with flowering plants hanging everywhere in a room already steamy. Even with them, the tub dominated the room with its splash of rich, deep green. Its clover shape would accommodate three, she mused, and wondered if it ever had. Bemused, she watched the water pour out of a wide glistening faucet that turned it into a miniature waterfall.

She saw both the pristine and the passionate, and wondered if it reflected her. The scent rising out of the tub was the same that had been in the little glass bottle the prince had sent for that morning. Gabriella’s scent, Brie reminded herself.

Letting the robe slip away, she lowered herself into the bath. It was easy to give herself to it as Nanny disappeared, muttering about laying out her clothes.

The water flowed hot around her. This was something she’d need, Brie discovered, if she were to make it through the evening ahead. She must have relaxed here countless times, looking up at the sky while thinking through what had to be done.

There would be dinner. In her mind she could imagine a complex, formal place setting. The silver, linen, crystal and china. It wasn’t difficult for her to conjure up a menu and choose which wines with which course. That all seemed basic somehow, a knowledge that remained like knowing which articles of clothing to put on first. But she had no idea what pattern the china would have any more than she’d known what she’d find behind the wall of closets in her bedroom.

Struggling with impatience, she slipped lower in the water. Impatience, she’d discovered, was very much a part of her. Memory would come, Brie assured herself. And if it didn’t come soon, naturally she’d find another way.

Reeve MacGee. Brie reached for the soap and a soft, oversized sponge. He might be her access to another way. Who was he? It was a relief to think of him rather than herself for a while. A former policeman, she remembered, and a friend of the family. Though not a close enough friend, Brie remembered, that he knew her well. He had his own life in America. Had she been there? He’d said she had.

She lay there, willing her mind to open. Only impressions came to her. Stately marble buildings and long formal dinners. And a river, a river with lush green grass on its banks and much boat traffic. It tired her, she discovered, to push herself to remember something even so unimportant. Still, she thought she’d been to Reeve’s country.

Concentrate on him, Brie told herself. If he were to be any help to her she had to understand him. Good-looking, she thought, and very smooth on the outside. She wasn’t so sure about what lay within. He seemed to her a man who would be ruthless and solitary, a man who did things in his own style. Good, she thought. That was precisely what she needed.

He had no reason, as her family did, to want to shield her. Nor did he have a reason, she added with a frown, to give her the help she wanted. Perhaps he’d agreed only to keep close to her so that he could do the job
her father had commissioned him for. Bodyguard, she thought with annoyance. She wanted no one’s shadow falling over hers.

And yet, Brie continued as she dipped the sponge into the water, isn’t that what she’d asked for herself when she’d spoken to him? Because she’d felt … what, when she’d seen him standing in the hall? Relief. It shamed her to admit it. Her family had been there, concerned and loving, and yet she’d felt an overwhelming sense of relief seeing a stranger standing behind them.

Perhaps it was better that she’d forgotten herself. Brie threw down the sponge so that water splashed up and hit the side of the porcelain. How was she to know if she would like the woman she was? She might easily find herself to be someone cold, unfeeling, selfish. All she had discovered was that she was a woman who liked beautiful clothes and manicures. Perhaps she was just that shallow.

But they loved her. Brie picked up the sponge again to press it against her face. The water was hot and smelled like an expensive woman. The love she’d seen in her family’s eyes had been real. Would they love her if she didn’t deserve it? How long would it take to discover what depths there were in her?

Passions. She remembered the flare she’d felt when Reeve had kissed her hand. It had been sharp and raw and stunning. Didn’t that mean she had normal feminine needs? But had she ever acted on them? With a half laugh, Brie lay her head back and closed her eyes. How many women could honestly say they didn’t know if they were innocent or not?

Would he know? Would a man like Reeve sense such things about a woman? Sometimes when he looked at her Brie felt him reaching inside and finding nerves no stranger had a right to find. Now when she thought of him, she wondered what it would be like to have him touch her—really touch her. Fingertips against the skin, palm against flesh. She felt the arousal start deep, and let it work through her.

Was this a new experience? Brie wondered as she pressed a hand to her stomach. Had other men made her feel so … hungry? Were there other men who had sent her mind to wandering, imagining, dreaming? Perhaps she was a careless sort of woman who desired a man just because he was a man. Was she a woman a man would desire?

Rising from the tub, she let the water cascade from her. Reeve had been right about the possible advantages of her situation. She could watch and observe what reactions she brought to others. Tonight she would.

*   *   *

On the arm of her father, Brie walked down the long stairway. There’d be cocktails in the
petit salon
, he’d told her, but hadn’t added he’d come for her because she wouldn’t know the way. He did pause at the base of the stairs to kiss her hand. It was a gesture much like Reeve’s, but brought her a smile rather than excitement.

“You look lovely, Brie.”

“Thank you. But it would be difficult not to with the collection of clothes in my room.”

He laughed and looked young. “You’ve often said clothes were your only vice.”

“And are they?”

He heard the need behind the light question and kissed her hand again. “I’ve never been anything but proud of you.” Tucking her hand through his arm again, he led her down the corridor.

Reeve noticed a certain tension between Alexander and Loubet, Armand’s minister of state. It came out in politeness, the rigid sort. When Alexander takes the throne, Reeve thought dispassionately, Loubet would not be at his side.

Alexander interested Reeve. The young prince was so internal. Control didn’t sit on him as easily as it did his father; he worked for it. Whatever simmered beneath was kept there, never permitted to boil—at least not in public. Unlike Bennett, Reeve thought, shifting his gaze to the other prince.

Bennett was relaxed in his chair, only half listening to the conversation around him. He didn’t seem to be compelled to analyze words and meanings as his brother did. His willingness to enjoy what came interested Reeve, as well.

As Gabriella did. Reeve had no way of knowing if the girl he’d met once had become an intense woman like her first brother, or a cheerful one like her second. Perhaps she was nothing like either. After two short
conversations, he was as curious to find out as Brie herself.

Who was she? He asked of her the same question Brie had asked of him. Beautiful, yes. Classic looks and elegance hadn’t been lost along with her memory. He sensed a steel will beneath them. She’d need it, he decided, if she was to discover herself.

Attraction. He certainty felt it for her. It wasn’t anything like the dazzle he’d experienced ten years before. Now he saw her as a woman who struggled every moment not to lose control of a situation she couldn’t even understand. If she could hang on while her world turned upside down around her, she wasn’t a woman to underestimate.

Desire. He’d felt that, as well, each time he saw her. She had a way of looking at a man with those topaz eyes. Had she always? he wondered. Or was it simply now, when she was groping? A man had to be careful. She might look like a woman who could be touched, seduced, bedded, but she was and would always be a princess. Not the frothy fairy-tale sort, he thought, but flesh and blood.

When he turned and saw her, she seemed to be both.

Her head was lifted, as if she were walking into an arena rather than a salon. Clusters of pearls gleamed at her ears, at her throat, in her hair where it was swept back from her face. Her dress was the color of grapes just before they ripen. The silk and pearls suited her skin. Her stance suited her title. She didn’t cling to her father, though Reeve thought she might have liked to cling to something. She was braced and ready. And, he thought with approval, she was watching.

“Your Highness.”

Brie waited calmly while Loubet crossed the room and bowed. She saw a man, older than Reeve, younger than her father. His blond hair was just touched with gray, his face just touched with lines. He smelled distinguished, she thought, then smiled at how her mind worked. He walked with a slight stiffness of the left side, but his bow was very elegant and his smile charming.

“It’s good to see you home.”

She felt nothing when their hands touched, nothing when their eyes met. “Thank you.”

“Monsieur Loubet and I had some business to attend to this evening.” Her father gave her the cue smoothly. “Unfortunately he won’t be able to join us for dinner.”

“Business and no pleasure, Monsieur Loubet,” Brie said just as smoothly.

“It’s a pleasure just to see you home safely, Your Highness.”

Brie saw the quick glance that passed between the minister and her father. “Since the business pertained to me, perhaps you’ll elaborate over drinks.”

As she crossed the room, she caught Reeve’s small nod of approval. Some of the knots in her stomach loosened. “Please, gentlemen, be comfortable.” She indicated for everyone to sit. Everyone, she noted with a smile, but Bennett, who was already at his ease. “Do I have a favorite?” she asked him with a gesture toward the bar.

“Artesian water and lime,” he said with a grin. “You’ve always said there’s enough wine served at dinner without fuzzing your mind beforehand.”

“Very sensible of me.”

Reeve walked to the bar to see to her drink while Brie took a seat on one of the sofas. The men settled around her. Was her life so dominated by men? she wondered briefly, then took the glass and sipped. “Well, shall I tell you what I see?” Without waiting for a reply, she set down her glass and began. “I see Alexander is annoyed, and that my father is picking his way carefully, as a man through a minefield. I’m at the core of this.”

“She should be left alone,” Alexander stated suddenly. “It’s family business.”

“Your family’s business remains Cordina’s business, Your Highness.” Loubet spoke gently but without, Brie thought, any affection. “Princess Gabriella’s condition is a matter of concern both personally and for the government. I’m very much afraid that the matter of the temporary amnesia would be exploited by the world press if news of it leaks. We’re just now settling our people down after the kidnapping. I wish only to give them and Her Serene Highness an opportunity to rest.”