Royal - Danielle Steel Page 0,92
leave you is harder,” he said, expressing his own fears.
“Maybe you don’t know the right women,” she said, and he stared into the fire as he thought about it and then looked at her.
“Probably not. The ones that sparkle like diamonds in the snow are always the most dangerous. I don’t trust them, but they’re always so damn tempting. I think my mother was like that. She was the daughter of a marquess, and she was a famous beauty. My father was dazzled by her. But she left him for another man, as you know.”
“Love seems complicated,” Annie said softly, and he nodded.
“It does, doesn’t it? It shouldn’t. It should be so simple between two good, honorable people. The trouble is, so few people are honorable. And the ones who are can be damn boring,” he said and then laughed. “Like your aunt Alexandra. She’s a woman of duty and honor, and a profoundly good person, but I don’t imagine she’s much fun to live with and must be rather dull. Victoria is a great deal more amusing, but I wouldn’t trust her. I suspect she can be very naughty, and even wicked. Her love affairs never last and they’re never with suitable people. She prefers the high-risk ones, but when you do that, you wind up alone like her.” He was in a serious contemplative mood, but Annie suspected that his analyses were correct. “Who knows, maybe your mother would have left your father by now, if they’d survived.”
“I don’t know much about her. No one likes to talk about her. It makes them too sad. She was so young when she died.”
“I can understand that. And one thing I do know,” he said, looking seriously at her, as he slid out of his chair across from her and came to sit on the floor next to the low chair where she was sitting. “I know you’re an honorable woman, Annie, and you’re not boring. I always have fun with you, that’s a rare combination.” She smiled down at him, and always felt comfortable with him.
“Thank you. I have fun with you too, except for the time I nearly killed myself racing with you.”
He winced. “Christ, I thought you were dead. I’ve never been so frightened in my life.”
“Well, I wasn’t,” she said. “I was lucky.”
“We both were.” He leaned forward and the next thing she knew he was kissing her, not violently or passionately, but tenderly, as though he meant it. She was shocked and hadn’t seen it coming.
“What are you doing?” she said in a whisper, and he kissed her again, and this time she kissed him back. She hadn’t expected anything like this from him.
“I’m kissing you.” He answered and smiled at her, and did it one more time. “Every time I see you, something happens to me. You’re everything I want in a woman, Annie. But I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of ruining what we have. Of you leaving me one day. Of the royal rules squeezing the life out of both of us. It terrifies me, but I know I want to be with you one day, and be married to you, and have babies with you, and I won’t let it kill you, I promise.” He sounded frighteningly serious about all of it.
“You don’t know that it wouldn’t kill me,” she said, remembering her mother.
“I don’t want anything bad to ever happen to you. I hate the idea of your being a jockey. You could break your neck and die, a lot easier than in childbirth. What I can never figure out is how we get from here to there. I’ve thought about it. How do we get from where we are now to a grown-up married life with children and dogs and all the good things that go with it?” He looked genuinely worried.
“Maybe we just wait till we’re ready.” He had opened new doors and windows to a vista she had never even considered, but she liked it. He put his arms around her and held her close as the fire crackled and she felt the warmth of him around her and on her lips when he kissed her. She had never felt anything like it for any man, until now.
“I don’t want to wait,” he whispered to her, and then pulled away slightly to look at her, “and this isn’t just a clever plot to get you into bed on Christmas Eve and walk away the next day. I’m in love