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Nausea churned in Arielle’s stomach. ‘I...’
‘You changed your name to Tremain, which was your mother’s maiden name, after your father, Gerran Rowse, was convicted of murder and sent to prison.’
‘H-how did you find out?’
‘At a dinner party I gave for Prince Eirik’s birthday, I happened to mention you to one of the guests whose family are landowners in the south-west of England. Lady Laura Hammett recognised the name Arielle, but she thought your surname was Rowse. Your father had the dubious distinction of being Cornwall’s most notorious drug dealer until his criminal activities were exposed when he shot and killed a police officer who had been investigating his illegal activities.’
‘Does Eirik know?’ Arielle whispered.
Princess Hulda arched her brows. ‘So, you have not told my son about your family background. I rather thought you would not have done. But it was possible that you had convinced Eirik you were unaware of your father’s crimes.’
‘Iwasunaware...’
The Princess held up her hand imperiously, and Arielle fell silent. ‘It is Prince Eirik’s duty to marry a high-born woman who will be the Princess Consort. You mean nothing to him.’ She gave a humourless laugh. ‘Eirik has always allowed his urges to override his judgement. It is time that his dalliance with you finished.’ The Princess’s curiously colourless eyes raked over Arielle’s ashen face. ‘I suggest that you end your affair with the heir to the throne and leave Fjernland, Miss Rowse. There is no reason for you to remain here. Secrets rarely stay secret for ever.’ Princess Hulda’s lethally soft voice felt like a knife through Arielle’s heart.
She swallowed. ‘Are you blackmailing me?’
The cold eyes flicked towards her. ‘I will do whatever is necessary to ensure the continuation of Fjernland’s monarchy.’
‘Even if it means pressurising Eirik into a loveless marriage?’
‘Ah, you are in love with the Prince.’
‘N-no.’ Arielle frantically denied it to the Princess and herself.
‘And you hope that my son might fall in love with you? Let us suppose he did.’ Princess Hulda tapped her fingernails on the leather armrest. ‘The Fjernlandic people would not accept a criminal’s daughter as the Princess Consort. If you had a child with Eirik, the future heir to the throne would share the bloodline of a murderer.’
Arielle drew a sharp breath. She felt tainted by her father’s crimes, but far worse was the realisation that any children she might have would carry the same burden of shame. Eirik’s mother had said that secrets rarely stayed secret for ever, and it was true. The story was bound to crop up from time to time, or feature on one of those true crime programmes that were so popular. She would never escape her association with a cold-blooded killer.
Princess Hulda tapped on the privacy screen, and the chauffeur got out of the car and opened the rear door for Arielle. ‘Goodbye, Miss Rowse,’ the Princess said briskly. ‘I do not anticipate that we will meet again.’
As Arielle let herself into her flat, her phone rang. She stared at Eirik’s name before she dropped the phone and ran to the bathroom to be violently sick. Staggering into the living room, she shoved her phone under a pile of cushions when it rang again. The third time Eirik called, she switched her phone off and curled up in a ball on the sofa. Her body was icy cold and hot tears streamed down her face.
CHAPTER TEN
EIRIKKNOTTEDHISgrey silk tie before he slipped his waistcoat on. His valet held out his suit jacket for him to slide his arms into the sleeves. ‘That will be all, thank you, Mikkel,’ he murmured.
His phone was on the table in his dressing room and the ping of a new message arriving had him stride across the room and snatch up the device. Disappointment left a bitter taste in his mouth when he saw that the text was not from Arielle. Since they had returned from his cabin in the mountains three days ago, he had not been free to see her, but he’d looked forward to their nightly phone conversations. However, when he’d called her yesterday she had not answered. He’d left numerous messages, asking her to get in touch, but she hadn’t responded. He looked at the last text he had sent her.
Miss you. Please call me.
Eirik swore and shoved his phone into his pocket. He was behaving like a lovesick teenager, but he couldn’t stop thinking about Arielle and wondering why she had cut off communication with him. Guiltily, he remembered how in the past he’d stopped taking calls from his ex-lovers when they hadn’t wanted to accept that the affair was over.
He reminded himself that the speech Arielle was due to give to the National Council tomorrow was a big deal to her, and it was likely she wanted to focus on preparing her report.
His private secretary was pacing up and down the carpet when Eirik walked into the sitting room of his private apartment in Sejrrig Palace.
‘Sir, you need to see this.’ Gustav’s usually calm demeanour was missing, and he looked rattled as he held out a newspaper.
Without a word Eirik took it and stared in shock and mounting fury at the picture on the front page, of him and Ida Lundberg in what looked to be a close embrace. In the photograph, Eirik had his arm around Ida’s waist, and her body was turned into his. Her head was tilted towards him while his cheek rested against hers. It was difficult to tell from the angle of the shot, but they appeared to be kissing. The headline on the paper saidRoyal Betrothal Announcement Expected Within Hours!
Eirik’s first thought was that the photo was a fake. With modern technology it was easy to create an image that looked genuine. But as he studied the picture, he recognised that it had been taken the previous day, outside an art gallery that he had visited in his role as Patron of the Arts. He was meant to have been accompanied by Princess Hulda, but at the last minute she had suffered a migraine and had sent her lady-in-waiting to take her place.
‘As you can imagine, the picture is all over social media sites,’ Gustav told him.
There had been literally hundreds of messages on Eirik’s phone, but he hadn’t bothered to look at them when he’d seen that none were from Arielle. Now he remembered that when he had emerged from the art gallery Ida had been beside him. She had stumbled as she’d walked down the steps, and Eirik had reacted automatically and wrapped his arm around her waist to prevent her from falling. For a few seconds as Ida had regained her balance, her body had been plastered against his, and he’d felt nothing. She was an attractive young woman, but his libido had not shown the slightest interest.
The incident had been so brief that he had forgotten it. Camera flashbulbs had been going off, but he hadn’t considered how damaging a photo of him and Ida would look. Had it been a genuine accident when she’d tripped on the steps? Eirik swore. He suspected that his mother and Ida had hatched the plan, which they’d believed would force him into marriage. His mother did not suffer from migraine attacks. And if she had actually been unwell, surely she would have kept her lady-in-waiting at the palace to attend to her.
