Watch Over Me

Watch Over Me

Ann Somerville

This story is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Watch Over Me © 2016 by Ann Somerville

Cover images copyright © Roman Bodnarchuk and © opolja with additional manipulation by the author

All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

For more information please visit my website at http://annsomerville.net

Smashwords Edition 2, May 2016

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Published by Ann Somerville

Chapter 1

Prologue

Imagine your reaction, as a faithful and brave member of the noblesse d'épée, when your king rewards you for some particularly useful bit of loyal service with an isolated island in the Bay of Biscay, populated solely by several million seabirds and called, with no irony at all, ‘Île de Désespoir’. Your reaction is tempered somewhat by this reward coming with a hereditary title of ‘prince’, but essentially, it’s the geographic equivalent of one of those covers made out of nylon and topped by a female figurine wearing an expression of unutterable joy at having a toilet roll shoved between her legs.

You and your descendents endure the jokes about being the Prince of No Hope until the island, and the title, pass in obscurity, though your descendents are canny enough to hold onto both, hoping that one day they might be worth something.

And strangely, finally, they are. Because philately becomes lucrative, and so does being able to claim rights over the rich and diverse waters around your ‘island of no hope’. And when one of your descendants marries a rich American obsessed with conservation in the 1950’s, your family acquires a number of valuable properties in London and Paris and Switzerland, which prove to be attractive to wealthy, secretive individuals looking for diplomatic and taxation immunity. Flogging off citizenship and residency rights at several million dollars a pop for a principality on an island with no actual residents at all, is highly profitable, as is rent on your embassy’s properties in London and Paris and Switzerland. Pay enough, and anyone of sufficient stature can become not only a citizen and resident of what is now known as Cap de l’Espoir, but a diplomatic official with all the perks attendant on that office.

Unsurprisingly, Cap de l’Espoir becomes amazingly popular with stamp collectors, marine biologists, and some of the richest people you’ve never heard of.

You are Etiènne Louis Donadieu, and in three hundred or so years, your descendant of the same name will benefit from your stroke of good luck under the Bourbon kings. Unfortunately, the latest heir to the title of Prince de Cap de l’Espoir, may also be the last.

Chapter 2

Maman, do you expect me to simply invite some woman off the street and impregnate her, to provide you and Papa with an heir?

Don’t be so vulgar, Etiènne.

Then how am I supposed to ‘do my duty’ while unmarried and uninterested? Not to mention the fact I don’t even have the time to do everything you expect of me, let alone look for a wife?

I’ve told you before, we would find—

My charge, Prince Etiènne Louis Donadieu, turned to me and rolled his eyes before facing his mother again. We’ve tried this, Maman. With a conspicuous lack of success.

A conspicuous lack of cooperation, you mean. We found you several charming, eligible girls—

‘Charming’? Etiènne spat. A gold digger with nothing but her lineage to recommend her. Another who was already pregnant, and in love with the father. And the last one utterly without wit or charm or basic kindness. A fine selection. Anyway, I’m only twenty-nine. What’s the rush. Albert was fifty-three before he married Charlene.

Princess Marie shuddered. ‘Charlene’—what a perfectly common name.

He’s not exactly the catch of the century either, Maman.

"Well, we are not Grimaldis and we are not waiting until you’re in your dotage for an heir. Do you want to risk everything this family has achieved in marine conservation for the sake of sowing more wild oats?"

If it weren’t for the Foundation, Maman, I’d have— Etiènne remembered his manners. I’m not sowing anything. I’m busy running your estates and the Foundation. I barely have time to socialise, and when I do, I want to spend it with someone I consider compatible, not some brainless brood mare who can’t spell ‘cetacean’ or tell me what one is. Why don’t you let Claude’s children be your heirs? It’s allowed.

They’re not suitable, as I’ve told you over and over. They’re not Catholic. And their father is....

Not white.

Not European!

Etiènne threw up his hands. Whatever, Maman. I’m sick of this conversation over and over and over, and I have things to do. I’ll see you soon.

Etiènne!

But the prince walked out, and I followed him. I hailed a taxi on Knightsbridge which took us out into the London traffic to head to the Cap de L’Espoir Marine Conservation Foundation’s office near Regent’s Park. I’m seriously considering banking my sperm and faking my own death, Paul, he said through gritted teeth.

Might cause more problems than it solves, sir.

Would certainly solve one problem. Claude’s sons would be perfectly fine heirs, and Nasim’s a wonderful man. I’d marry him myself if he wasn’t taken.

I coughed. Wouldn’t solve the problem of an heir though.

No. But it would be worth it for the look on Maman’s face. Here we are, spitting distance from the best evidence ever for not forcing heirs to marry unsuitable partners, he waved towards the Diana Memorial Fountain in Hyde Park, now behind us as we headed up Park Lane, and she’s still ignoring reality. If I have to marry a Catholic, then I can’t divorce her, or she me, if the marriage is a failure. Does she expect me or this imaginary bride to live in misery together for the rest of our lives if we’re unsuitable?

Princess Caroline was divorced, sir.

"And look at the mess that made. Anyway, ‘we are not Grimaldis’, he quoted, mimicking his mother’s tone. Sorry, boring you again."

No problem, sir.

You have the patience of a saint, Paul. I don’t know what I’d do without you.

How little he knew.

Hello, I’m Paul Villeneuve, and I’ve been Prince Etiènne’s bodyguard for one year, three months, and four days. Which, coincidentally, is exactly the same length of time I’ve been in love with him.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Etiènne’s business at the Foundation office took more time than expected, and so it was something of a rush to get to St Pancras for the six-thirty Eurostar to Paris. Business class was packed with it being Friday night, but since Etiènne was absorbed in reading on his laptop, he probably didn’t even notice. He ate while reading, barely looking at the food, while I could take my time over the meal. The Channel Tunnel, Tom Cruise-fuelled fantasies aside, was the safest possible place for my charge to be, so while I took note of our surroundings and anyone coming into the carriage, I could relax somewhat. My laptop was in my suitcase, but I could keep up with the news on my phone. I’d done that in London, and so once the meal was done, I closed my eyes to rest. Not to sleep. Never to sleep while with the client. That had been drilled into me by Titan House before they filled the Donadieu vacancy in-house.

I also closed my eyes because being this close to Etiènne ran the risk of me sitting there and staring at him like a lovelorn twit. I spent all my waking hours, six (and sometimes seven) days a week, sixty-two weeks out of the last year and a quarter, and I had yet to be tired of looking at him. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, lean of build and sharp of brain, he was a pint-sized male model—the Donadieu clan being built more like whippets than Great Danes. The planes of his cheekbones and the lines of his long, capable fingers were more familiar and sweet to me than my mother’s. Beside him, I was a slab of beef, and almost as smart.

Unfortunately for the Donadieus, as for many wealthy families, the ever-present risk of kidnap meant exchanging privacy for safety. Doubly so for Etiènne, since his conservation work and outspoken remarks about climate change and illegal fishing made him the target of those for whom climate change denial and overfishing were extremely profitable. The death threats were not confined to screeds in the post or online. Two years ago he nearly died in a knife attack the French police were quite sure had been motivated by his political views, though whether the attack had been politically or commercially motivated, hadn’t been determined. The moment he was released from hospital, Prince Jean-Claude and