A Royal Marriage Of Convenience

It wasn’t a bad thought, she conceded, and she found herself smiling wistfully into the night. She was married. Yes, sex with Nick could be more than fun. But…

The only true contraceptive was a brick wall.

Or a bed and a settee in different rooms.

She sighed again, rolled over and buried her head in her pillows.

A royal bride on her wedding night. Without even her dog to keep her company.

Nick stayed awake for longer than she did. He wasn’t a good sleeper-four or five hours usually did him, and tonight even this eluded him. So he was awake when the door opened.

He was drifting, letting his thoughts go where they willed. Which was right through the door to Rose. So at first he thought he dreamed it.

The settee was on the far side of the sitting room, facing the fireplace. The fire had burned down, so there was only a soft glow of embers. Nick sensed rather than heard the door open; the soft creak of moving hinges was barely audible.

Rose must be up and moving about. But why? Had she passed him? Was she leaving the suite to fetch her dog, or returning to her bedroom?

But then the door closed again, and whoever it was hadn’t left. He or she was still in the room. Footsteps went slowly past him, so muted that if he wasn’t straining he would never have heard them.

Not Rose. He knew that with a certainty that had nothing to do with logic but everything to do with self- preservation. If it had been Rose going to get her dog he would have heard her go out, and there’d have been no need for her to creep back through the room with stealth. She knew him well enough to accept he wouldn’t jump her. Surely.

But if it wasn’t Rose, then who?

The settee he was on was ancient, down-filled, a great, squishy, luxurious pile of feathers. No modern springs here to squeak as he moved. So he did move, inch by cautious inch, away from the end of the settee closest to the fire so as he edged around he wasn’t in line of sight.

One of Nick’s foster brothers, Sam, was in the SAS. From the time Sam had come into Ruby’s care as a battered nine-year-old, he’d been intent on joining the armed services. Sam had lived and breathed action comics, James Bond movies, superheroes, and by the time he had been in his mid-teens he was reading how-to manuals that were deadly serious.

There’d never been any money living with Ruby. The boys had been expected to entertain themselves, but they’d never had to think how when Sam had been around. He’d had them organised into Boys’ Own adventures every minute he could persuade them to leave off cricket or football.

And Sam’s semi-serious instructions came back now: never put your body between an opponent and the light. Never move until you’re sure of what you’re doing. They’d played tag in the back yard, creeping up on each other, touching and winning by stealth alone.

Boys’ fantasies. All of a sudden serious. All of a sudden imperative to remember.

For whoever it was meant no good. Whoever it was, he or she had almost reached the bedroom door. Nick was used to the dim light, and he could see the shadow now. One man, he thought, one man with his back to him. One man, slowly lifting the latch to the bedroom beyond.

The bedroom door opened slowly, slowly.

Hell, he needed a weapon.

The fire-iron. He slid forward, and the cold steel of the massive poker slid soundlessly into his grasp. He moved back, still crouched behind the settee, waiting.

His heart felt as if it had stopped beating. Sam, where the hell are you?

Whoever it was had opened the door fully now. There was an almost-full moon. The curtains in the sitting room were drawn but Rose must have opened hers, letting the moonlight flood her as she slept. As the bedroom door opened wide, Nick had a clear, full view of the man’s silhouette. Long and lean and all in black. One hand on the door handle.

The other…The other holding a gun.

How he moved, he didn’t remember afterwards. The man’s arm was raising. He was moving inside the bedroom, intent, concentrating fiercely on his target. His hand came up further…

And Nick’s poker smashed down with all the force he could muster.

He must have made a sound, slight but a sound for all that, for the man jerked to one side so that the poker didn’t smash down on his head but hit him hard, sickeningly, where neck met shoulder, then slid down, still with force, smashing into his gunarm, causing the gun to drop and skid and spin across the room.

And Nick had him, hauling him round, bringing his knee up, fighting foul as he’d learned to fight with six brothers. Ruby had hated their fighting, but they’d all been brought up tough and they knew the ways of the world. They’d practised constantly. Every single one of Ruby’s boys had learned the hard way that you could never depend on others to defend you.

But the man whirled and smashed back. Nick was too close to raise the poker again. He punched with all the power he had.

‘Rose!’ Nick roared as the man staggered against the wall, and he powered in again. ‘Get the gun.’

‘Wha…?’ Wakened from deep sleep, it took Rose all of two seconds to snap to wakefulness. ‘The gun?’ she said blankly.

‘Under the bed, your side!’ Nick yelled, and hit the guy again. If this guy knew any martial arts, Nick was in big trouble. Nick was a lawyer. Yeah, he’d learned to fight, but he hadn’t fought for years. But he wasn’t giving the guy room to do anything, punching him against the wall, hitting him, hitting him until the guy lashed out again…

‘Move one muscle and I’ll shoot.’ Rose’s voice rang out clearly over the moonlit room. The nightlight snapped on.

She must have been brought up in the same school as him, Nick thought approvingly, for she’d flicked the bed-lamp on and moved away up to the back of the bed so she could see but was in the shadows.

All the same, he could see enough to know she had the gun.

He moved back, which was a mistake. The guy lurched forward and his hand suddenly glinted in the light.

A knife…

The gun fired, a heavy, dull pop into the stillness. And everyone froze. For a moment.

The black figure cursed, grabbed his shoulder and lurched backwards. The knife, a wicked-looking stiletto, clattered onto the bedroom floor and slid harmlessly away.

‘I’ll shoot again,’ Rose said in a voice devoid of all inflection. ‘I’d advise you to keep very still indeed.’

The guy did. So did Nick. This seemed dream-like. Like a game with his brothers. But it was no dream. He was wide awake now and he felt sick.

Hell, she’d shot the man…

‘Back against the wall,’ Rose said, still in that cold, dead tone, and she jumped lightly from the bed and flicked the overhead light on. Nick grabbed the huge gold tassel of the bell-pull and pulled for all he was worth.

The bell pealed out so loudly that you could have heard it in the middle of next week. Not a nice, discreet, ‘hear it only in the butlers pantry’ bell. If the old Prince had wanted something he’d wanted the whole castle to know about it. The man made an involuntary lurch towards the door.

‘Still,’ she snapped. ‘I will shoot.’

‘Rose…’

‘Get right away from him,’ Rose said.

He couldn’t believe it. She was standing in her chemise, barefoot, her hair tousled from sleep, her face deathly pale. She was holding the gun in both hands and she was aiming it straight at the intruder.

The intruder had frozen. And why wouldn’t he? The man was young, thickset, dressed all in black with a balaclava covering his face. He was holding his arm, and blood was dripping slowly onto the polished floor.

And then there were people in the doorway. An elderly liveried manservant. A couple of dignitaries who were staying in the castle, in their nightwear. And behind them, blessedly, one of the castle security-guards. The man edged through the crowded doorway and stopped dead in astonishment.