[Montacroix Royal Family Series 02] - The Prince & the Showgirl (20 page)

His knee, pressed against her aching warmth, was making her wet. Wanting to give him a bit of his own erotic torture, she pressed her palm against his hard male heat. "I doubt that your father would be thrilled to hear you talk this way."

The touch of her hand against his sex, the caress of her fingers, made Burke feel as if he were going to explode. "He considers it sheer heresy." His breath was rough and ragged and his hands, as they struggled with the pearlized snaps on her scarlet shirt, were far from steady.

From what she'd seen of Prince Eduard Giraudeau, Sabrina knew that his reputation for an iron will and blustering temper was well deserved. That his son and heir could disagree with him and still maintain a working relationship spoke highly of Burke's diplomatic skills.

"Yet you don't hesitate to press your views," she gasped as her shirt fluttered to the floor.

Beneath the shirt she was wearing a lace-and-satin confection emblazoned with poppies. "I refuse to apologize for speaking the truth."

When he kissed her breasts, and her sweet, intoxicating, flowery scent played havoc with his senses, he felt the last of his self-control—that steely, reliable restraint he'd worn like a suit of armor for so many of his thirty-five years—ebb away.

When his hot lips captured her lace-clad nipple and tugged, Sabrina felt a tug between her thighs.

"Burke?" she said on a soft, breathless little sigh of pleasure.

His fingers deftly dispatched the bra's fastener, giving his mouth access to her fragrant, flushed skin. "What,
ma chérie
?"

The feel of his mouth against her bare flesh made Sabrina tremble. "I've decided to be gracious and forgive you for winning our race."

Her hands combed through his dark hair; her greedy, avid lips met his and clung. Outside the cottage, a hidden wood thrush sang.

Burke scooped her up into his arms and carried her across the room to the bed, covered in a gaily colored patchwork quilt.

As the perfect afternoon slowly ripened, that was the last either Sabrina or Burke said for a very long time…

It had not escaped Burke's attention that Sabrina and her sisters had a great many loyal fans. Her fame fit her well, he'd decided, after watching her sign autographs with a friendly, unaffected flair.

"The trick," she'd said when he'd mentioned her unpretentious attitude, "is never to make the mistake of believing your press. Because deep down inside, where it counts, I'll always be just a small-town girl from the hills of Tennessee."

Burke understood her words to be a warning, a vivid reminder of the vast differences in their social stratum. But her admonition fell on deaf ears. Because he was finding it increasingly difficult to remember all the reasons why the lovely American performer would not make a perfect princess for his beloved Montacroix. And more important, an exquisite wife and mother for his children.

He was pacing in the garden, considering how to broach the subject Sabrina seemed so determined to avoid, when he turned a corner in the maze and ran into his stepmother.

"I'm sorry." Burke bent down to retrieve the pink and white blossoms that had scattered over the narrow earthen pathway. "I'm afraid I wasn't watching where I was going."

Jessica smiled as she slipped the rosebuds in among the others nestled in the wicker basket she was carrying over her arm. "I assume your mind was on the lovely Sabrina?"

Burke answered her question with one of his own. "May I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"Do you remember when you first met my father?"

"I recall every detail of that day. The sky over Mykonos was a bright, cloudless Mediterranean blue. We'd been shooting all morning and I was out of sorts and tired of sitting on that hard, rough rock. While the cameraman worked out a new angle, my attention wandered and all of a sudden, I saw your father, standing on the beach. It sounds like a cliché from every movie I ever made, but our eyes met, and although I knew it was impossible, I could have sworn I heard thunder rumbling in the clear sky."

She laughed, a rich, musical sound that had entranced audiences for ten magical years. "Your father was no less affected. He told me that evening that he felt as if he'd been struck by lightning."

Burke shoved his hands into his back pockets and glared out at the diamond-bright waters of Lake Losange. "I know the feeling."

"Of course you do," Jessica agreed. "No one in the dining room could have missed your initial response to Ms. Darling."

He frowned at the idea that his emotions had been so blatantly obvious. Burke had always prided himself on keeping his inner feelings to himself. A future regent must always appear self-assured and confident, his father had told him time and time again. He must not allow his subjects to know that he suffers the same doubts and fears as they. Such apparent weakness endangers not only the monarchy, but the entire country.

This was the tenet upon which Prince Burke Giraudeau de Montacroix had been reared. And he'd succeeded, admirably. Until a dazzling enchantress had burst into his life, turning everything—including his heart—upside down.

"May I ask you another question?"

Jessica reached out with maternal concern and brushed a lock of dark hair from his furrowed brow. "
Certainement."

"How did you feel? When father told you that he loved you?"

"Terrified," Jessica answered promptly.

It was not the answer he'd been expecting. Or hoping for. "But why?"

"Our lives were so different." Jessica waved a graceful hand around the garden maze, her gesture meaning to encompass not only the palace grounds, but the entire kingdom. "Your father was a prince who grew up in a palace. And although I'd starred as a princess in an MGM musical, I honestly didn't believe that I could carry out that role in real life."

"But you were famous," Burke protested. "Your name was linked with the most influential, powerful men in both Europe and America. You were a Hollywood movie star, back when such people were viewed as the most glamorous individuals in the entire world."

Indeed, looking at her now, in her gauzy white dress and wide-brimmed straw hat, with the wicker basket overflowing with roses on her arm, she could have been that lovely young actress who'd charmed so many men on so many continents.

"That was an image carefully cultivated by my studio," Jessica corrected mildly. "The truth was, I'd never stopped thinking of myself as little Jessie Thorne, that barefoot hillbilly girl who grew up in a hollow in West Virginia's coal mining country."

"Sabrina said she never believed her press," Burke murmured, realizing exactly how much this woman he'd come to think of as his mother and the woman he wanted for his wife had in common.

"Sabrina Darling is not only beautiful, she's talented, intelligent, and obviously has her feet well planted on the ground."

"She doesn't think she's princess material."

Jessica reached up and patted his taut cheek. "Then you'll just have to think of something to change her mind, won't you?"

And he would, Burke vowed. After the coronation.

The mood on the day of the precoronation public celebration was definitely festive. This afternoon's performance would be held outdoors in order to accommodate the vast crowd. A stage, along with the towering screen that was so essential to the Darling's performance, had been set up at one end of the parade grounds; across the expanse of dark green grass, vendors from all over the country had set up gaily decorated stalls selling food and drink and hand-crafted, one-of-a-kind items. Members of a Russian circus, dressed in native cossack uniforms, performed daring stunts on horseback, while sad-faced clowns did pratfalls and pretended to throw buckets of water onto the crowd impatiently waiting in the tiered grandstand for the three American performers' arrival.

Raven, Ariel and Sabrina ran onto the stage to a thundering round of expectant and appreciative applause. And they did not disappoint. As he watched their hour-long performance, Burke, who'd seen them rehearse, found himself absolutely spellbound.

What Drew had said was true, Burke decided. Ariel, clad in a shimmering white gown, was the most conventionally beautiful of the three sisters, and Raven, with her throaty contralto, had obviously inherited Sonny Darling's talented voice.

But it was Sabrina who possessed the late country singer's ability to capture an audience and sell a song. When she stood in front of the enormous screen, facing the larger-than-life image of her father, and sang a soulful ballad about two star-crossed lovers finally united in honky-tonk heaven, the more emotional members of the audience began to sob quietly. Indeed, Burke felt a suspicious moisture burning at the back of his own lids.

And then, the tempo changed and Sabrina was strutting across that vast stage on her long lissome legs, belting out an up-tempo rockabilly tune of her father's that had topped the country charts for an unprecedented twenty-six consecutive weeks.

Burke joined the audience in a standing ovation. And by the end of their third encore, he vowed to do whatever it took to convince Sabrina to remain here in Montacroix. With him.

Her sisters had joined the public party. At Chantal's request, Sabrina had remained behind in the tent that had been erected to serve as a dressing room.

"Although I hadn't thought it possible," Chantal said with a smile, "you and your sisters actually managed to top your Washington performance."

Sabrina did not believe the princess had asked to speak to her alone in order to compliment her on her performance. "We received a lot of energy from the crowd. That always helps."

"I would imagine it would," Chantal agreed. For the first time since Sabrina had met the princess, she seemed decidedly uneasy. "Sabrina, I want you to understand that it is not my habit to interfere in the lives of my brother or sister. However—"

Here it comes
, Sabrina thought when Chantal paused.

"I love my brother very much."

When Sabrina didn't answer, Chantal took a deep breath and probed a little deeper. "I believe you do, too."

Unnerved by feelings that she'd tried desperately not to feel, let alone put into words, Sabrina sat at the dressing table, plucked a handful of tissues from a nearby box and began to remove her heavy stage makeup.

A pregnant silence swirled around them. "All right, I do," she said on a soft sigh of surrender.

"
Bon
." Chantal nodded her glossy dark head. Her dark eyes, so like her brother's, met Sabrina's gaze in the mirror. "But why does this make you so unhappy?"

Sabrina's hands trembled as she spread the fragrant white cream over her face. "Because the entire situation is impossible."

"But why?"

"Our lives are light-years apart," Sabrina said on a burst of feeling.

Chantal's answering sigh was audible. "Caine felt the same way, in the beginning. But finally he came to understand that the love we had for each other was stronger than any differences in our bank accounts or the size of our homes."

"No offense intended, Chantal," Sabrina said, scrubbing viciously at her cheeks, "but it's a whole lot easier for you and your husband. You moved to Washington. You chose to live your husband's life. Caine doesn't have to live here in Montacroix, being smothered in that museum you and your family call a home."

Sabrina shook her head as she heard how mean-spirited her words sounded. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that about your home. It's truly lovely."

In truth, during her time in the palace, Sabrina had been surprised to find herself actually growing accustomed to being surrounded by so many treasures. She could even walk across a room now without worrying about knocking a priceless vase off its marble pedestal. Such confidence was, she supposed, in its own way, progress.

Chantal lifted a dark brow. "You believe my brother would smother you?" She graciously did not, Sabrina noticed, respond to the impolite dig about her family's home.

"No. I think Burke would try his best to make me feel comfortable. But it wouldn't work. Besides, it's a moot point. Because your brother hasn't proposed."

"He will," Chantal predicted.

"It wouldn't work," Sabrina insisted, wishing she sounded more vehement.

"Because of these so-called differences in your lives?"

"Yes." Sabrina tossed the soiled tissues into the wastebasket. "Stories about handsome princes rescuing fair damsels and carrying them off to their castles make nifty fairy tales, Chantal. But they don't play in real life."

"Giraudeau men have a history of falling in love and marrying exciting, independent women," Chantal argued, displaying a deep-seated tenacity that was an obvious genetic gift from Prince Eduard.

"Grandfather Phillipe married Katia, the gypsy, and my father wed an American film star. So, you see—" she shrugged her silk-clad shoulders "—it's only natural that Burke would chose an actress as his bride."

After receiving Sabrina's reluctant promise that she would at least give Burke the opportunity to state his own case before making up her mind, Chantal left.

Outside the gaily striped tent, mere was the sound of music and laughter. Inside, there was only a deep, lonely silence.