§ § § - July 8, 1996
Christian, who had been invited by Roarke to go to the main house in their absence and see what progress he could make on the site design, had felt the same sense of loss as Leslie, but determinedly pushed the feeling from his mind and concentrated fiercely on his work. When Roarke returned from seeing Harry Schmidt off into the last phase of his fantasy, he was a little surprised to see Christian bent low over a piece of white posterboard, sketching enthusiastically. "It appears you've been making some headway," he said.
Christian sat sharply up in his chair and then wilted a bit, grinning at Roarke. "Yes, I suppose I have. Mostly sketches of possible designs, though. Why don't you look at some of the arrangements I've thought up and see if there are any you like."
"Of course," Roarke agreed. "I apologize if I startled you."
Christian shrugged and said, "It's all right. The finished sketches are on your desk there." He indicated several other pieces of posterboard lying atop one another on the desk. Roarke smiled acknowledgment and sat down to look them over; but he was distracted by the heavy scowl Christian affected as he worked on his latest idea, and at last decided to give in to the urge to ask.
"Forgive me if I am intruding, Christian…but if there is something bothering you, perhaps I can provide some help," Roarke offered gently.
Christian didn't raise his head, but his pencil stopped moving and he sat still for a long moment. When he did look up at last, his hazel eyes carried a troubled gleam. "It's possible that I am the one intruding, Mr. Roarke, but since you offer…tell me, how often does Leslie visit her late husband's grave?"
Roarke's eyebrows shot up; whatever he had been expecting, he reflected to himself with carefully hidden rue, it hadn't been that. "In actual fact, it's rare for her to go to his grave nowadays," he said. "Might I ask why the inquiry?"
"I was walking and I happened to find her at the cemetery," Christian said, speaking a little too quickly, as though he didn't want to talk about it. Instead he asked, "What sort of marriage did they have?"
Roarke smiled unconsciously with the memory. "Theirs was a genuine love match," he recalled. "She was devastated by his death, and it took her more than a year to fully adjust to widowhood. For most of that time, she still often cried whenever someone mentioned his name. However, the passage of time seems to have been good for her, although obviously she will always reserve a piece of her heart for him. He was her first true love; in fact, so far, he has been the only man she ever fell in love with."
Christian looked stricken, just for a moment, but long enough for Roarke to notice. The prince cleared his features swiftly when he realized Roarke had focused on him and gave a stiff nod. "I see," he said quietly. "I too am a widower, although I must admit, the loss of my wife had nothing close to the impact on me that Teppo's death apparently had on Leslie. However…if, as you say, she still misses him to some degree, then I respect that." He cleared his throat and turned back to his latest sketch, as if to signal that the subject was closed; but Roarke, watching him surreptitiously from time to time, could easily see the effort Christian had to make in order to concentrate on his work.
Some twenty minutes later Leslie entered the room. "Hi, Father…hello, Christian." Her greeting to Roarke was informal, that for Christian slightly hesitant and quizzical. Roarke looked up and smiled at her, but did not miss the way Christian's head came up all at once and the way his face lit with that intoxicating grin.
"Hello, Leslie," both men said simultaneously, and she grinned in reply, taking the chair beside Christian.
"I see you've been busy," she remarked. "Is there anything definite yet?"
Roarke handed her Christian's previous sketches across the desk. "There are some very promising possibilities here. What catches your eye?" It seemed to be a cue, and for a while they all concentrated on bringing the website closer to reality. But Christian seemed strangely relaxed now, while Leslie appeared in her father's eyes to be quite receptive to his friendly, open grins. Eventually, when the phone rang and the weekend's other fantasizing guest turned out to be the caller, they took this as a cue to call a halt for the moment and agreed to meet later that evening.
‡ ‡ ‡
Crown Prince Christian Carl Tobias Enstad of Lilla Jordsö ruminated very carefully on the situation as he understood it from Leslie's actions and Roarke's remarks, trying to reconcile it with Leslie's cheerful friendliness of just now. Well, it had been six years, he told himself, and she seemed to have moved on with her life. Fate knew he had long since gotten on with his. To be totally honest, Johanna's death had been a relief. Of course, he had been sorry for the way she'd died; but the event had set him free from a very poor match. Yet in the sixteen years he'd been widowed, no other woman had ever quite caught his interest in the way that Leslie Hamilton had.
Her apparent reception of him in the main house a few minutes ago seemed at odds with the mental picture he'd been forming of a young widow still working through her grief for her first love. She was such a fascinating mystery, he thought, and he wanted to know all there was to know about her. Who was she and how had she, of all people, come under Roarke's protective wing? What had happened in her life that had brought her to the place and position she was in now? He knew little more than the surface details: she had been orphaned shortly after becoming a teenager and had been transferred to Roarke's custody; she had been married and widowed quite young; and she clearly had strong emotional ties to the man she called father. She must be a woman who feels very deeply, Christian decided, smiling at the notion. Someone with that much capability for love would be worth fighting for, worth giving his whole heart and soul to.
Yes, I'll do it, he thought. I'll take the chance and see if Leslie returns my interest. It could very well be the most wonderful gamble I ever made. With a lighter step he jogged the rest of the way to his bungalow and let himself in, laying the assorted design sketches atop a glass-and-brushed-steel coffee table and going to the bedroom to change into swim trunks for a planned walk along the beach.
The phone rang as he was crossing the room and he detoured to an end table to pick it up. "Enstad," he said, employing his usual telephone greeting.
"So, lill'bror, you are still on Fantasy Island," said an authoritative voice in jordiska, the variation of Swedish that all citizens of Lilla Jordsö used. Christian tried to suppress a sigh. Only Arnulf persisted in calling him "little brother", a term that had always rankled with him. The ten years Arnulf had on Christian had given the older man the idea that he was allowed to control his younger brother's life. "When are you returning home?"
"When my work here is done," Christian replied in the same tongue. "Don't hold your breath, Arnulf. It may be some time. Mr. Roarke himself has requested that I design a website for the island, and I'm determined that it will be flawless."
"You spend too much time on that business of yours and not enough on official affairs of state," King Arnulf II said. "You may not be king, Christian, but you are still royalty, and as such, you do have duties pertaining thereto. It's time you began to fulfill those duties."
"Exactly what duties would those be?" Christian asked with strained patience. "If all you mean is the occasional formal dinner with other European royal houses, or playing host to visiting presidents and assorted dignitaries on their sightseeing tours…why don't you delegate that task to Anna-Kristina or Gabriella? They're both old enough, certainly. You don't need me for that. If I am useful in only that capacity…"
"Quite frankly, lill'bror, you're becoming repetitive with that litany of yours," Arnulf broke in. "But before I let you sidetrack me, I called to remind you that it's time for you to fulfill your end of the bargain we struck six months after Johanna died."
Christian stared blankly at the wall, groping through his memory for some hint of what Arnulf was talking about. "What bargain?"
Anger tinged Arnulf's voice. "Don't try to pretend you can't remember," he snapped. "You are contracted with the younger daughter of an Italian count, and when she came of age the two of you were to be wed. At the time she was barely old enough to go to school. Now she is twenty-one and ready to marry, and you are the designated groom. You must come back home immediately."
Incensed and disbelieving, Christian exploded. "Herregud, Arnulf, I can't simply walk out in the middle of a job! You yourself warned me that Father's policies wouldn't change once you became king, and that now, as then, I would not be allowed to live off the royal coffers. How do you expect me to make a living—never mind support this alleged fiancée you claim I have?"
Arnulf seemed surprised. "All right, lill'bror, calm down. Can't you think back to the day Marina arrived here with her father? For such a small girl, she was impeccably well-behaved, and all of us agreed that she would make the perfect consort for a younger prince such as you. She was a lovely child, too…long dark curls and intelligent eyes…"
"You seem enthralled with the girl. Why don't you set her aside for one of Carl Johan's boys?" Christian suggested sarcastically. "I don't remember being present at this agreement of yours. Did I even sign the contract?" He knew full well he hadn't, because he hadn't been there—and he knew Arnulf knew it too.
There was a silence before Arnulf spoke; the harshness of his voice didn't completely conceal the underlying uneasiness. "There was no need. Father signed on your behalf, and the count on Marina's."
"So I had no say in my own life even after I was of age and widowed once already," Christian said slowly, his voice freezing over with every word. "Tell me, Arnulf, have you any idea how old I really am? Even now you continue to call me 'little brother', no matter how many times I ask you to stop. My life is my own and I insist on being left to make my own choices. Just for your information, I have an interest in a woman already, and it's not Marina. Contract or not, I want you to get me out of this wedding. I don't feel particularly obliged to carry through, since it's not my signature on the document."
"Do you realize what that would mean? Reneging on a marriage contract?"
"You can't enforce something so archaic, even if Father thought to conveniently appoint himself acting signatory on my behalf. No one has any right to control others like this. Marriage contracts have been obsolete for decades, Arnulf. I refuse to dignify this farce by agreeing to go through with it. Tell the count and his daughter that I've changed my mind. There's nothing you can do about it—far didn't bother to get my consent, and that means I'm not obligated. Do it, Arnulf. I refuse to let you attempt to pull any more puppet strings on me. Don't contact me again unless it's to tell me the contract has been canceled, do you understand me?" Without waiting for an answer, he hung up with a furious bang. How dare he…? Fuming, Christian stalked into the bedroom and swiftly changed clothes; he needed a long hard run on the nearest beach to cool down before he was fit to be around people again.
An hour and a half later, he had run himself into sheer exhaustion and was on his way back to his bungalow to shower and change again—and of course, that's when he ran into Leslie. She brightened at sight of him and then grinned. "I see you've been getting in some serious exercise."
Red-faced, Christian shrugged and essayed a return grin. "I apologize for my current condition, but I promise you, I clean up well." They both laughed. "Before you go, Leslie, I'd like to ask something. If you can get away, perhaps you'd consent to have dinner with me at the pond restaurant this evening? I understand the food is excellent."
She considered it for just a moment, thinking over her schedule, then found herself nodding agreement, despite the spontaneous generation of butterflies in her gut. "I'd like that very much, Christian. What time should I be ready?"
His eyes lit and he beamed. "Wonderful! I'll stop at the main house for you at six, if that's enough time."
"It's more than enough. I'll be ready and waiting," Leslie promised. He grinned yet again, bade her a quick goodbye and jogged away toward his bungalow, as if he had found his second wind. Leslie shook her head slightly to herself, happy yet surprised at herself all at once. Oh, lighten up, Leslie Susan. It's just a dinner date. Can't you enjoy an evening out with a really nice guy for a change? Thus resolved, she headed back to the main house.