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‘Your Royal Highness, your aides will be relieved that you are safe,’ the medic told him. ‘There was great concern after radio contact with you was lost. It was an incredible chance that you found your way to Pixie Cove. Only a few people who live in these parts know that the sea around the cove is more sheltered than the rest of the coastline.’
Pixie Cove! The name was apt, Eirik thought. He pushed his fingers through his hair that was matted with salt and blood. ‘It wasn’t luck,’ he muttered. ‘I know it sounds crazy, but I was guided by a...mermaid.’
It sounded ridiculous and he expected the medic to laugh or at least reassure him that he was suffering from concussion. But the man was surprisingly unsurprised.
‘Ah, Cornwall’s very own mermaid. I’ve not seen her myself, but I have heard of Arielle.’
CHAPTER ONE
‘EVENYOUMUSTadmit that Prince Eirik is lush.’
The jeering voice startled Arielle, and she flushed when she realised that she had been caught staring at the handsome hunk across the lawn who was attracting admiring looks from every female present. She glanced at the woman who had come to stand beside her.
‘Even me?’ She was automatically defensive. Tamara Bray was a prize bitch and had been the leader of the gang of bullies who’d made Arielle’s school days hell.
‘You have never shown an interest in any of the men who live around here, but none of them would want to get involved with the daughter of a convicted criminal. Do you really think a nobody like you would stand a chance with the Prince?’ Tamara had a good reason to hate Arielle’s father for what he had done. In his absence she had directed her spite at Arielle and the name-calling when they had been teenagers had turned into something much nastier. ‘Mind you, none of the local guys look likehim.’
Arielle followed Tamara’s gaze back across the garden to where His Royal Highness, Prince Eirik of Fjernland was chatting to the commodore of the yacht club. Undoubtedly the Prince waslush—a West Country expression to describe a good-looking person. The Prince was a golden god with his tousled, dark blond hair and skin tanned to the colour of honey. The surgical dressing on his forehead did not detract from his handsome features.
In the past, photos of the dissolute, playboy prince had regularly appeared in the tabloids, although since his brother’s death Prince Eirik had dropped out of the media spotlight. Arielle had developed a bit of a crush on him, to be honest. She’d cut out his picture from the pages of a celebrity magazine and stuck it on the fridge. Every time she opened the door, she noticed his mesmerising eyes, which were the same shade of bright blue as the Cornish sky on this crisp, spring day.
The breeze blowing off the sea tugged at Arielle’s hair, which she’d piled on top of her head in an attempt to look respectable. An errant auburn curl brushed against her cheek, and she lifted her hand to tuck it behind her ear. Her eyes were still fixed on Prince Eirik.
He looked a lot better than he had done three nights ago when she’d guided him through the rough sea to Pixie Cove. She had been concerned for him when she’d left him on the beach and gone to get help. When she’d seen a news report that the Prince had been airlifted to hospital in Penzance after he’d nearly drowned at sea, she had felt relieved that he was safe.
Prince Eirik’s tall and imposing presence made him stand out from the other guests at the yacht club who flocked around him. His impressive, muscular physique and the thick blond stubble on his jaw were an indication of his Viking ancestry.
‘Where is Fjernland anyway?’ Tamara muttered. ‘I used to bunk off geography lessons.’
‘It’s an island in the North Sea between the Danish peninsular of Jutland and the coast of southern Norway,’ Arielle explained. ‘Historically, Denmark made repeated attempts to control Fjernland, but Fjernlandic men were reputed to have been the most fearsome and pitiless of all the Norse warriors and the island became an independent principality some time in the tenth century. The current monarch is His Serene Highness, Prince Otto III, who rules with his wife and consort Princess Hulda. Prince Eirik is their only surviving son and heir after the death of his older brother, Prince Niels.’
‘You always were a swot. But even though you’ve got a fancy degree, your dad is a murderer, and a lot of people around here think you should be in prison too,’ Tamara said viciously.
‘I knew nothing about my father’s activities or what happened to your cousin.’
‘Yeah, right.’
Tension twisted in a knot in the pit of Arielle’s stomach at Tamara’s mention of her father. She felt that she could never escape from her past. She looked towards the marina, where the yachts that had taken part in the famous Around the Island of Ireland sailing race were moored. All the boats had completed the race within forty-eight hours, with one notable exception. Prince Eirik’s accident had made the international news headlines, but thankfully there had been no mention of Arielle’s involvement. The last thing she wanted was to attract the attention of the press.
The clink of rigging carried on the breeze, and the boats bobbed on the swell. The salty tang of the sea made Arielle impatient to go swimming. She swam and free-dived wearing a monofin most days. The sea was her second home, and she was a strong swimmer, but the confidence she felt in the ocean was non-existent in every other area of her life.
The villagers thought she was as reclusive as her father when he’d lived at the cliff-top cottage that had been Arielle’s home all her life. It was hardly surprising she kept herself to herself, she thought bitterly. Gerran Rowse’s reputation as a troublemaker had caused people to shun Arielle, and her mother when she had been alive.
Arielle did not fit in anywhere, certainly not at the exclusive yacht club. The members were mostly wealthy, retired professionals who had swapped city life for a coastal idyll and bemoaned the lack of a well-known coffee-shop chain. None of the local fishermen who took their trawlers out to sea to make a precarious living belonged to the yacht club. But Arielle was not part of Penash’s tight-knit fishing community either. The men who had visited her father in the middle of the night had moored their boats further along the coast.
She had been surprised when the commodore of the yacht club had turned up at her studio the previous day.
‘The Prince of Fjernland has left hospital following his ordeal at sea and he will present the prize to the winner of the AII race,’ Charles Daventry had told her. ‘I have been informed by Prince Eirik’s private secretary that His Royal Highness would like to meet you.’
Arielle’s heart had given a jolt. ‘Why does he want to meetme?’ She’d wondered if the Prince had found out that she had helped him, although she had not told anyone. But then she’d had the sickening thought that he might be curious about her father’s notoriety. The press had hounded her after Gerran Rowse’s conviction and it was one reason why Arielle had changed her surname.
‘Prince Eirik is passionate about marine conservation,’ Charles had explained. ‘He supports the International Clean Sea campaign, and he heard about your project to recycle plastic waste collected from the ocean and turn it into decorative items.’
Charles had picked up a coaster that Arielle had made from recycled plastic granules and studied it with a perplexed expression. ‘The committee have decided to ask you to bring some of your products to the yacht club. If the Prince has time after the prize-giving ceremony he might want to take a look at them.’
Publicity for marine conservation was always a good thing, Arielle had reminded herself when she’d arrived at the clubhouse earlier. The guests had still been having lunch and a snooty steward had directed her outside to a table set up on the lawn where she could display her work. Some other local businesses had also been invited and Tamara was there to represent her father’s company.
Tamara gave Arielle a dirty look before she walked over to a table bearing crates of beer labelled Bray’s Brewery. ‘Why don’t you do everyone a favour and clear off? I don’t know why you are even here.’
