Christmas Nights Read online

  ‘I could just as easily use that argument against you,’ Max told her curtly.

  He shouldn’t be doing this, Max knew. As Fortenegro’s ruler, he knew he had a duty of care to his people which involved questioning her motives and acting on his suspicions. But he wasn’t just Fortenegro’s ruler. He was also a man. And as that man who had held her in his arms, who had known whilst holding her there that he never wanted to let her go, surely he had a duty to that feeling?

  There was only one thing he could do now—one question he had to ask. The whole of his future personal happiness was balanced on the answer.

  Ionanthe possessed strength of will, she possessed courage, and she was passionate about what she believed in. He could think of no one better to share both his personal and his public life. But he also had to know that he could trust her with Fortenegro’s future; he had to know that she would put what was best for the island above her own personal gain. He could not and would not blame her for wanting to realise the wealth beneath the surface of her land for herself. From what he had learned, it was her grandfather who was to blame. He had taught his granddaughters to value wealth and pride, and to follow his example of always putting himself first.

  ‘If you are not lying about the mineral deposits, then tell me that you had no ulterior motive whatsoever in agreeing to marry me other than the need to protect your own safety.’

  Ionanthe looked at him, her expression anguished. She desperately wanted to win his trust, but lying was an anathema to her. She hesitated, and then admitted, ‘I did have an ulterior motive, yes. But—’

  Max didn’t want to hear any more. He had been a fool to hope that he might be wrong. He turned back towards the door, but Ionanthe moved faster.

  ‘You will listen to me,’ she told him. ‘Because for the sake of my people I cannot allow you to think what you are thinking. I did have an ulterior motive, yes, but it was not the one of which you are trying to accuse me. This island has a long history of rulers who have abused their position, and its people have suffered as a result. As you have said yourself, they are set in their ways and bound by ancient customs and laws which imprison them in a feudal system that denies their children so very much. I grew up witnessing that. I saw my parents’ attempts to change things, and I saw the power of those who opposed those changes—including my own grandfather. I saw greed and pride and a lack of compassion. And I saw too that what this island needed more than anything else was a ruler strong enough and courageous enough to lead his people to freedom.

  ‘When I heard that Fortenegro had a new ruler in you, I hoped so much that you would be that man—but then you married my sister, a woman I knew to be rapacious and selfish. Had you married her because you shared her belief that the island existed merely to fund her expensive lifestyle? I wondered. Or did you love her without sharing her views? I knew she did not love you. She wrote to me and said so. But then Eloise loved only herself, and the blame for that lay with our grandfather. I watched to see what changes you might make to benefit the people of Fortenegro, but I could find none. So I compared you with the man I admire more than any other man who walks this earth and I found you wanting.’

  Max was shocked by the violent surge of savage male jealousy that gripped him to hear Ionanthe speaking of admiring another man.

  In a manner that was completely out of character for him, he demanded contemptuously, ‘And who is this paragon you so admire? Some Brussels eurocrat who makes laws he himself will never have to obey and plays God with other people’s lives?’

  Ionanthe’s breath hissed out in furious denial.

  ‘No. He is not. He is a man who works selflessly for the benefit of others. Through the auspices of the foundation which he heads he has heard and answered the cries of the poor and the sick. He has viewed them with compassion and understood their need. He has provided money for wells for clean water, for schools to educate, for hospitals to heal, for crops to grow and for peace, so that all those who use what he has given them can flourish.’

  The passion in her voice showed how she felt, and Max had to look away from her. What she had just told him changed everything—but he could not tell her that.

  Ionanthe’s throat hurt, and her eyes ached with the tears she was not going to let Max see.

  ‘Once it was my dream and my hope that I might work for the Veritas Foundation and learn from such a master. That was not to be, but there is something I can do for the people of Fortenegro, even if it is merely a small shadow of what he has done. Just as he educates the children of today so that they can grow to be to the leaders of tomorrow, I thought that as your wife I could provide Fortenegro with the ruler it so desperately needs.’

  ‘You planned to convert me to follow the teaching of this… this man you admire so much?’ he suggested.

  Ionanthe shook her head.

  ‘No. I hoped to conceive and raise a son who would be all the things that he will need to be to help this island. That was my hidden agenda in marrying you. No scheming to sell off the minerals that lie beneath the mountains,’ Ionanthe told him on a slightly shaky breath.

  She had wanted those last words to sound proud and scornful, but she was miserably aware that in reality they sounded closer to tearful and upset.

  Battling through the complex mass of emotions Ionanthe’s speech had aroused in him, for the first time in his life Max simply did not know what to say or do to make things right. He knew what he wanted to say; he knew what he wanted to do. But he also knew that the very last thing Ionanthe would want to hear from him right now was that her hero—the man she admired more than any other, the man she had placed on a pedestal and at whose feet she had openly and proudly confessed she yearned to sit and learn—was no other than himself.

  Giving her that news now would hurt her dreadfully. Fiercely Max blinked away the telltale moisture that would have betrayed how much the thought of her pain hurt him.

  It wasn’t that he had deliberately set out to deceive her. No, it was simply that it had never occurred to him that it might be necessary for him to tell her about the foundation and his role in it.

  He breathed in, and then exhaled.

  ‘So you agreed to marry me hoping that I would give you a child—a son who, with your guidance, would in time become the ruler you believe the island needs?’

  He sounded remarkably accepting of her plan, Ionanthe acknowledged, but instead of reassuring her that only served to increase her hostility and pain.

  ‘Yes,’ she confirmed.

  ‘And those times when you lay in my arms, when my body possessed yours, for you it was only because you wanted me to give you my child?’

  Ionanthe’s heart bumped treacherously into her ribs. She looked at Max, and then wished she hadn’t.

  ‘Yes… of course.’ Something about the way in which Max was looking back at her drove her into adding recklessly, ‘What other reason could there be?’

  Max’s silence made her nerve-endings prickle with tension.

  Please God, don’t let him tell her mercilessly and truthfully that he knew from the minute he had touched her she had had no thoughts in her head for anyone or anything but him and the need he aroused in her.

  ‘And now—if I have? If you are carrying my child?’

  The question slipped under her guard and made her eyes widen and her heart thud.

  ‘It’s… it’s too soon to know,’ she protested.

  ‘That was not what I asked you,’ Max pointed out. ‘You have told me of your plans for my son’s adult future, but what of his childhood? You have said nothing of that.’

  Ionanthe frowned.

  ‘What I want to know is how will he grow up?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You and I both lost our parents before we were fully adult. You were pushed into the shadows by a grandfather who lavished all his attention on your sister. You must know as I do how much every child yearns for the security of being loved?’

  ‘Yes, of
course I do. I shall love my son.’

  ‘But you do not love me, and he will sense that and be confused and hurt by it. Children always are when their loyalties are claimed by two parents who are opposed to one another.’

  Both Max’s voice and his expression were grave and heavy.

  He genuinely cared about the emotional welfare of a child who might never exist, Ionanthe realised, with a small ache of surprise and sadness.

  ‘You’ve been so long I’ve had to come and find you, and it’s a long walk from my kitchen.’

  Ariadne’s arrival as she puffed towards them brought an immediate end to their conversation.

  ‘The men are still waiting for you to come and look at the tree,’ she told Ionanthe in a chivvying voice.

  ‘I’ll come and look now,’ Ionanthe said.

  ‘Christmas trees! A whole lot of fuss and bother, if you ask me,’ Ariadne complained.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE Christmas tree was a perfect fit, with the star which Max had placed on its topmost branch just touching the ceiling of the great hall. Its branches were now decorated with the homemade garlands and painted cones that she and the children had been busy making for the last two days, along with the familiar decorations Ionanthe remembered from her own childhood.

  She touched one of the fragile glass baubles with a tender finger. It was from the set that her parents had bought one year when they had taken them to a German Christmas market. The bauble might be slightly tarnished, but Ionanthe saw it with the eyes of love and it was still beautiful. Just looking at it reminded her of the smell of warm gingerbread and the wonderful warmth of her father’s large hand holding her own.

  So many happy memories of a childhood in which she had felt loved and safe until her parents’ deaths. Her mother and father had adored one another. Even as a young child she had somehow sensed that and been warmed by it. Ionanthe frowned. She was not going to allow Max’s comments underlining the fact that he did not love her and that any child they had would suffer because of it to affect her.

  They were still sharing the same bedroom and the same bed, but for the last two nights, since the confrontation between them in the library, they had slept in it as though they were miles apart. Max hadn’t made one single move to approach her, or to apologise for what he had said. She certainly wasn’t going to be the one to approach him. After all, she had done nothing wrong.

  Except plan to bring up his son and heir to ultimately act against him and everything she thought he stood for.

  It wasn’t easy trying to pretend that nothing was wrong, but for the sake of the children so excitedly waiting for Christmas, and for the sake of their parents and grandparents who had made it plain how thrilled and honoured they felt to have them both here, Ionanthe felt that she had to make an effort. It was hard when she was having to strive desperately to pretend that she felt nothing for Max other than anger and contempt when the truth was—

  Blindly she stepped backwards, gasping in shock as she bumped into the heavy wooden step ladders she had forgotten were there, striking her funny bone against one of the steps. A wave of nauseating dizziness from the sharply acute pain surged over her, causing her to sway slightly.

  Max, who had been talking to Tomas, saw Ionanthe bump into the ladders and then clutch at her elbow, her face losing its colour as she swayed giddily. Immediately he hurried to her side, taking hold of her hand and demanding, ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Of course I’m all right,’ Ionanthe lied, trying to pull free.

  The truth was that she felt terribly weak and sick, and would have given anything to rest her head on Max’s shoulder and feel his arms close round her.

  ‘All I did was catch my elbow,’ she continued, when he refused to let her go.

  A surge of love for her so strong that it felt as though it was drawn from the deepest core of him rolled over Max. Initially, in the aftermath of their quarrel, he had handled things badly, Max admitted to himself. He had spent most of the previous night lying awake, longing to turn back the clock. And not just because of the suspicions they’d had, the misjudgements they had both made about one another which had led to their quarrel.

  Ionanthe’s impassioned outburst about the Veritas Foundation and the man who controlled it, her obvious partisanship and admiration for both the organisation and the man behind it had, even if she herself could not know it, put him in a completely untenable position. He could not in all good conscience continue to withhold the truth from her—but how was he to tell her?

  She was very angry with him, and her pride was hurt by his misjudgement of her. He knew that and he understood why. But that meant that this was not a good time to tell her that the man she so admired and had put on a pedestal, scornfully telling her husband of her hero’s moral and charitable achievements, and how far short of him he fell, was actually the same man—him. She would be justifiably angry and—far more important to him—she would also be hurt.

  On the other hand, if he didn’t tell her, now that he knew how she felt, wasn’t he going to be guilty of an even less excusable offence? One which in the long term would cause even more damage to their relationship because it would inflict a wound that would fester? They needed to be able to trust one another if the love Max was sure they felt for one another was going to be able to grow and flourish.

  His only excuse for his omissions and failures was that he had never loved before, and that therefore everything he was learning was new. No matter how careful he was, no matter how much he wanted her happiness before anything else, he was fallible and liable to make mistakes.

  Right now what they needed more than anything else was the two things they did not have: privacy and time. He looked round the hall; the ebb and flow of everyday life was going on around them but at that moment they were in some sense isolated from it in this shadowy corner of the great hall. The time was far from perfect, but Max admitted to himself that he couldn’t trust himself to endure another night of the torture of sharing a bed with her—knowing that she was so close and yet at the same time so very far away from him, without reaching for her. He might not know much about love, but he did know that breaking down Ionanthe’s barriers so that they could share the intimacy of sex without telling her that he was Veritas would be unforgivable.

  He had to tell her now. He couldn’t endure another day of cool silence, during which he was deprived of those small, sometimes silent exchanges of mutual awareness to which he had become accustomed without knowing it until the intimacy was denied him. He had misjudged her, and without meaning to he had also misled her.

  When she made to pull away from him a second time, Max bent his head and begged in a low voice, ‘Wait. There’s something I have to say to you.’

  Ionanthe’s heart lifted. Hope swelled and rose inside her. He was going to tell her that he loved and needed her more than life itself. He was going to apologise and beg her forgiveness.

  She looked over his shoulder. Although the great hall was busy with people, none of them were paying them any particular attention. The hope that he was going to say the words she most longed to hear grew inside her and took wing—only to crash to earth to die painfully when he said, ‘You won’t like it, I know, but it has to be said.’

  The words were enough to send an icy trickle of despair down her spine. She couldn’t, she mustn’t let him see how she really felt.

  ‘If you’re going to make more accusations,’ she threw back at him, rallying her pride to her defence, ‘then I dare say I shan’t.’

  Max shook his head.

  ‘No, I’m not going to accuse you of anything. The truth is…’

  His voice died away as he struggled to find the right words. He was still holding her hand, and now he played with her fingers, stroking them and holding them, his actions such that, had he been a different kind of man, Ionanthe might have thought they betrayed uncertainty. But Max was never uncertain—about anything, she decided bitterly.

  ‘T
he truth is what?’ she pressed him.

  ‘You may remember that you mentioned the Veritas Foundation to me?’

  Ionanthe nodded her head, although she couldn’t imagine what her praise of Veritas had to do with Max telling her something she wasn’t going to like hearing.

  ‘You said how much you admired the… the man who runs it?’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ Ionanthe agreed, her eyes darkening with anger. ‘You want me to retract what I said because if offends your pride? Is that it?’ she guessed.

  ‘No.’ Max’s voice was terse. His fingers interlaced with her own. ‘The truth is—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I should have told you this before, but at the time I didn’t think there was any need. It never occurred to me that you’d even heard of Veritas, never mind…’He said the words. ‘The Veritas Foundation was originally set up by my father. I inherited it from him.’

  ‘No…’ Ionanthe protested, but somehow she knew that Max was telling her the truth.

  ‘I’m sorry. I never imagined… If I’d known…’

  This was so humiliating, so shaming. Hot blood forced its way up under her skin, but she couldn’t afford to give way to the chagrin she was feeling. She had made a fool of herself, but Max surely had made even more of a fool of her. Her pride stung, as though it had received a thousand savage cuts.

  ‘You never imagined what?’ she demanded angrily. ‘You never imagined that I might be someone who admired everything I believed Veritas and the man in charge of it stood for?’

  Red flags of angry pride might be burning in Ionanthe’s face, but because he loved her Max knew that what she was really feeling was pain—the same pain he himself would have felt had their situation been reversed. More than anything he longed to hold her and to take that pain from her.