Page 6 of Stranded with His Runaway Bride

She couldn’t think of any of that right now. She had to get through the next thirteen hours without succumbing to the faux charms of her groom and remain unwed. At one minute past midnight, she’d become Grand Duchess and no man would have any say in her life again.

‘May I sit?’

She started. How could she have become so lost in her thoughts with him standing there?

The palm he ran over his face was the first sign of vulnerability she’d ever witnessed in his company, and now she noticed the sheen of sweat on his forehead. He’d marched the last five hundred metres up that bank, in heavy military uniform and full summer heat. It was tempting to leave him where he stood but she was not a vindictive woman. She shuffled sideways, making room for him on her chaise.

As he prowled towards her Violetta wondered had she just invited a stalking tiger to come closer.

For heaven’s sake, Violetta, make up your mind. Is he a wolf or a tiger?

With a click of his heels and a brief bow he sank down beside her. As his large frame lowered and his long legs folded beneath him, she decided he was a mix of both and all of him dangerous.

This close up he smelled amazing. But then he always did. It had taken at last twenty-four hours each time they’d met to expunge the effects of him from her consciousness.

A large and rather beautiful hand rested on his knee. The gleam of the ruby in his signet ring reminding her of another ring she should be wearing about now.

But here they were instead. Decked out in all their wedding regalia, perched together in this abandoned house of dust covers and long-ago laughter. The image, a stylist’s dream. And a publicist’s nightmare.

But as a portrait of a couple, it was quite fitting. The space between them a physical reminder of emotional ties between them. As in, there weren’t any.

Violetta shot her former groom a sideways glance. There was an uncharacteristic weariness to the set of his shoulders and, she noted, a tiny nick on his jaw. As if the hand usually adept at the task had not been so steady shaving this morning.

She sent her gaze front and centre.

It really wouldn’t do to dwell on anything so intimate as this man’s toilette, or that he might have been nervous and that he had any vulnerabilities. That could lead to a host of other, less innocent and more dangerous thoughts.

What was he really but another in a series of powerful men who saw her as a commodity to be bartered? No different from her father or uncle. She despised each of them and this prince most of all because he was ready to marry a woman he barely knew, the sister of a woman who’d very publicly jilted him, to get his hands on the grand duchy. What a mercenary act.

And yet he called to her in some deep, dark, sensuous way. His presence throbbing through her like a heartbeat.

Needing to put some space between them again, Violetta stood and walked to the window. Beyond the gravel driveway the once immaculate lawns were lost beneath a riot of wildflowers. Uninvited, still they’d made it a refuge. Rather like her, fleeing to one of the few places she’d ever been happy, shown any genuine love. Her grandmother and Leo’s had been bosom friends and every summer, even though their grandmother had been long gone, she and her sister had visited for a holiday. The only place in Grimentz she’d been permitted to see.

Grimentz. It had loomed over her, physically and emotionally, throughout her life. Every San Nicoloan knew that Grimentzian eyes turned covetously towards their lush pastures and elegant architecture.

But her uncle had decided that the time for the old animosities was over.

And her marriage was to be the means to that end.

Leo watched as his bride paced restlessly, as if even in this empty house she felt confined. Her trailing skirt sent up blooms of dust from the neglected floor.

She was small and slender with the dark hair and the brown eyes of her people. Certainly no beauty, but she had a warmth to her that could draw the eye; if you had the time or inclination to look.

She turned to him, instantly spoiling the effect. Her delicate heart-shaped chin had a mulish turn to it. It angered him. He had every right to expect nervous and abject apologies, not this hostility.

‘Do you know when Marie Antoinette arrived in France for her wedding, they’d erected a tent that exactly straggled the border,’ she said. ‘They took her in there, stripped her of everything she wore and replaced each item so when she stepped onto French soil, she was dressed head to toe with French-made items. Even down to her underwear. As if they were trying to expunge what she was, as if it wasn’t good enough.’

He experienced a faint sense of alarm. Had his people done something similar without his knowledge? No, surely not! He’d had approval of everything, including that dress.

The closely fitted, high-necked bodice and long sleeves were made of the finest ivory lace. A silk cummerbund circled her slender waist and beneath that a full skirt of plain ivory silk fell to the floor to cover her toes.

It pleased him, as it might any man in his position. The perfect, virginal bride in a gown fit for the princess consort she was meant to be.

‘The dress, I think, is rather beautiful,’ he said. Adding, for good measure, ‘You look very lovely in it.’

‘You don’t have to wear it. And it’s not me. It’s not close to being me.’

His brow knotted. ‘Then why, may I ask, did you choose it?’

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