The Surgeon and the Princess

  “I’ve got you. Just anchor yourself to my waist and take slow, deep breaths.”

  Ed’s face was so close to hers she had nowhere to look but into his eyes, his mouth issuing instructions she was compelled to follow.

  Georgiana wrapped her arms around his neck, her leg around his middle, which she wouldn’t have done in any other circumstances save for the immediate threat of drowning.

  She was relying on him saving her, letting him feel her disability for himself. Yet he was calming her, taking her mind off everything that frightened her by maintaining eye contact and syncing his breathing to hers. Deep breaths in and out. Until the panic subsided and they were left entwined, her chest heaving against his, their breaths mingling, eyes locked. They’d moved on from a potential drowning incident to...well, she didn’t know what.

  Eventually Ed spoke, his voice hoarse as though he was the one who’d inhaled half of the pool. “Are you okay?”

  She wanted to say no, she wasn’t okay with any of this. Either proving him right that she couldn’t be left alone in here or about this overwhelming urge to kiss him.

  Dear Reader,

  It’s been a strange and difficult year for all of us, but I hope I can take your mind off everything for a little while.

  Ed and Georgiana live in a kingdom where the pandemic doesn’t exist. My hero and heroine are brave, strong and compassionate. Everything we need to be for the foreseeable future.

  So strap yourself in for another roller-coaster ride of romance and heartache with my surgeon and my princess. Enjoy!

  Karin xx

  The Surgeon and the Princess

  Karin Baine

  Karin Baine lives in Northern Ireland with her husband, two sons and her out-of-control notebook collection. Her mother’s and her grandmother’s vast collection of books inspired her love of reading and her dream of becoming a Harlequin author. Now she can tell people she has a proper job! You can follow Karin on Twitter, @karinbaine1, or visit her website for the latest news—karinbaine.com.

  Books by Karin Baine

  Harlequin Medical Romance

  Pups that Make Miracles

  Their One-Night Christmas Gift

  Single Dad Docs

  The Single Dad’s Proposal

  Paddington Children’s Hospital

  Falling for the Foster Mom

  Reforming the Playboy

  Their Mistletoe Baby

  From Fling to Wedding Ring

  Midwife Under the Mistletoe

  Their One-Night Twin Surprise

  Healed by Their Unexpected Family

  Reunion with His Surgeon Princess

  One Night with Her Italian Doc

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  With love for my lovely editor, Charlotte, who is worth her weight in gold! xx

  Praise for Karin Baine

  “Emotionally enchanting! The story was fast-paced, emotionally charged and oh so satisfying!”

  —Goodreads on Their One-Night Twin Surprise

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  EXCERPT FROM CAPTIVATED BY HER RUNAWAY DOC BY SUE MACKAY

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘ROBO-PRINCESS. PART MACHINE, part fairy-tale heroine.’

  Georgiana could almost hear her squad now, as they’d sat joking around her hospital bed after her amputation. It had been their way of trying to cheer her up. The army way, with dark humour disguising their concern and love for one of their own.

  She missed her team and the close relationships she’d forged. Since her op, she hadn’t had a chance to catch up with them again. More from a sense of shame than lack of opportunity. She didn’t want them to pity the person she’d become.

  Back then Georgiana had laughed along with the teasing, convinced it was only a matter of time before she’d be back with the others in some capacity as their medic. Now the nickname felt more like a cruel joke. She was neither warrior nor princess. Simply a one-legged failure at both.

  There was no way she could go back to the army now, when it was taking all her strength just to live her life unassisted. As for the princess bit—well, she’d never seriously considered that as a career. More of a curse bestowed upon her at birth, being next in line to the throne of Bardot, a small kingdom sandwiched between Liechtenstein and Switzerland that the rest of the world neither knew nor cared about.

  The sound of her much-missed squaddies in her head was replaced with the steady thud of her pounding the treadmill. A reminder she was almost back on her feet, even if only one of them was real. At least they were both moving in sync now, so she was no longer walking like an inebriated penguin. Balance was a tricky thing to achieve with only one leg. One and a half if she counted the remaining scarred stump.

  She watched herself in the full-length mirror of her home gym. The wounds on her face had faded but she still saw them there, ugly and gaping, like the ones all over her body. Reminders of what she’d gone through and lost.

  The explosion rang deafeningly in her ears once more. The safe walls around her were blown away, replaced with clouds of dust and debris, and she was back there. Clawing the dirt out of her mouth and eyes. Trying to stand and falling. Then she was screaming, ‘Medic down!’ while tying a tourniquet around what was left of her leg, injecting herself with morphine and waiting as her team leader called a Medevac to fly her to hospital.

  Georgiana increased her pace, closed her eyes and tried to outrun the past. It didn’t work. Nothing did. Even coming back to Bardot, separating herself from that army environment she’d been encompassed in during rehabilitation, hadn’t lessened the pain of what had happened and what it meant for her future. Especially knowing if she’d simply accepted her position here instead of trying to distance herself from the toxicity of the establishment, she’d have remained in one piece.

  These were the thoughts she failed to block out day by day in her recovery. Neither the increased heavy pounding of her body on the treadmill nor her laboured breathing could drown them out.

  She grabbed the headphones hanging over the handrail and somehow managed to wrestle them on without missing a step. Those tiny, wireless buds were all the rage these days but her old-fashioned padded ones blocked out more of the world. So she was cocooned, safe, surrounded by the familiar music blasting in her ears. It helped her push through the pain barrier, both physically and mentally. If she was to get back any resemblance of her old life she had to keep going. No matter how much it hurt.

  Unfortunately, her damaged body couldn’t quite live up to the promises she’d made to herself. This was her new normal and she hated the powerlessness over her physical self. She wasn’t a quitter, she’d proved that to progress as far as she had in military life. There had been no exceptions made for her, no special favours called in, she hadn’t wanted that. She’d worked as hard as any other recruit. Sometimes harder, to prove that she wasn’t simply a pampered princess. Well, she had been until she’d made a stand against the life she’d been born into. Swapping it for something more fulfilling.

  Now that she’d been forced to leave that much-wanted military life she was lost again. With no true direction or sense of self when everything had been taken away
from her. The danger of being back in the palace was that she’d get dragged back into that superficial existence of personal appearances and mentions in the tabloids. It was that world that had killed her brother, Freddie, and she wanted to do something more substantial and meaningful with her life. She simply didn’t know what that was any more. Not while she was like this. Half the person she used to be.

  Georgiana slowed her speed for the cool-down phase of her workout and pulled off the headphones. As she stepped back down onto the gym floor, her good leg was trembling with the exertion of her punishing exercise. It knocked her a little off balance and she had to reach out for the nearby chair to steady herself, before collapsing into it, taking the weight off her unsteady prosthetic leg. She’d suffer for this later, knowing the pressure of the prosthesis rubbing on what was left of her lower limb would leave the skin raw. Not that she would feel sorry for herself when she was lucky to still be alive.

  ‘You really shouldn’t be so hard on your body.’ A critical masculine voice startled her and she reacted as she would with anyone who dared to trespass on her private training session.

  ‘Who are you and how did you get in here?’ She stood up so she wasn’t at such a disadvantage against the tall, broad figure walking towards her. Squaring up to this stranger wearing only her racer-back gym top and shorts exposing her prosthetic leg wasn’t as intimidating as she wanted since it didn’t halt his progress towards her.

  She was trying not to freak out but wished she hadn’t dismissed all the staff in the vicinity. Her fight back to recovery wasn’t a spectator sport for anyone, including security or whoever this was. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d had an intruder at the palace, thankfully there out of curiosity rather than for any malicious reason. That didn’t make a possible similar situation any less concerning.

  He didn’t look like a tourist who’d walked in off the street, dressed in an immaculate charcoal-grey suit, complete with silver silk tie and real leather shoes. She prayed he wasn’t a journalist either. That would almost be worse than someone simply wanting a selfie with a member of the royal family. Her army training had taught her how to defend herself but it was something she hadn’t put into practice since her traumatic injury and she didn’t want to test it now.

  ‘I’m Edward Lawrence. I was here for a consultation with your mother regarding her riding accident. Sorry for the intrusion. I just happened to see you in here as I was on my way out.’

  ‘And you wanted a closer look at the freak show?’ She didn’t bother introducing herself. He didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of social niceties if he couldn’t observe them himself.

  He frowned as though he didn’t quite understand her meaning and she waited, arms folded, until the penny dropped.

  ‘Goodness, no. I was taking an interest merely from a professional point of view. I’m a consultant spinal surgeon and physical rehabilitation is one of the specialities at our mobility clinic.’ He reached into his inside pocket and produced a business card for Move, a private clinic, presuming she’d accept it as proof of his credentials. His name did ring a bell.

  ‘I haven’t been home in quite a while but I remember a Dr Lawrence here as an older, more distinguished gentleman.’ One who would’ve knocked before walking in. He’d been a tall man but with a thinning silver pate and a bushy moustache. A contrast to the sun-kissed swoop of hair this guy was sporting, blond with a matching golden smile on his handsome, clean-shaven face.

  ‘That was my father, a GP. He’s retired now.’

  If she’d wondered how someone who would’ve looked more at home running barefoot across a beach with a surfboard under his arm had wangled a gig at the palace, now she knew. Nepotism. Regardless of whatever capacity her family had acquired his services, it was nothing to do with her.

  ‘Yes, well, neither you nor your father have any right to be in my personal space so I’d appreciate you leaving.’ She attempted to show him out with a wave of her hand, uncomfortable at being exposed to anyone like this.

  Since returning home she’d purposely avoided contact with the outside world so her current state would remain unknown or at least a mystery to those with an insatiable appetite for royal scandal. Unveiling her broken body was something she wanted to do at her own pace, if at all. By barging in here uninvited he’d stolen some of that power from her and now she just wanted him gone.

  Yet again he showed a blatant disregard for common courtesy by failing, not only to leave, but to apologise. ‘By overexerting yourself you’re putting your body under more strain. You could be causing more damage. Surely you have some sort of exercise plan drawn up with a physiotherapist?’

  His whole lack of manners and apparent knowledge of her circumstances disoriented her. If he knew who she was or had been taken by surprise by her injury he gave no indication of it. His focus remained on how she was potentially abusing her body. Perhaps he was who he purported to be after all. An expert.

  ‘To put your mind at ease, I completed my rehabilitation at a professional residential facility. I’m quite capable of continuing my recovery at home. On my own.’

  ‘Georgiana—I hope I can call you that—’ Mystery solved. He knew exactly who he was dealing with and presumably had some idea of how she’d come to be in this position.

  He didn’t wait for a reply. ‘Recovery is an ongoing process best served by remaining in contact with medical professionals. It’s a guess but I suspect you haven’t attended any follow-up appointments since leaving the centre?’

  The truth burned her skin. ‘Look, you obviously know who I am, so you’ll understand why I’m not keen on continuing my recovery in public. I’ve got everything I need here. I’m fine.’

  He gave her gym equipment a cursory glance. ‘No offence but this looks like it’s been commissioned by an interior designer, not by anyone who knows what they’re doing.’

  She should’ve been offended by the comment. He had absolutely no right to be in her private gym, much less mock it. However, she could see his point. It was the most expensive gym furniture on the market but she had wondered if it had been chosen primarily for decorative reasons. Rehabilitation wasn’t meant to be pretty, but the area that had been commandeered for her recovery had been set up before her return. She’d had no input and there had been no consultation with regard to her individual needs. Most likely because her mother didn’t trust her judgement over an outsider’s on the matter. As a result, she’d been greeted with a room befitting a princess with a gym habit rather than a wounded soldier.

  The full-length mirrors she needed to watch her gait were gilded with golden frames. The walls were brilliant white, the floors bleached oak. Perfect for a glossy magazine photo shoot. While she enjoyed the anonymity provided by being in the farthest corner of the palace, it was stark with no natural light coming in. A window wouldn’t have gone amiss.

  There was a crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling, dappling the plump, upholstered armchairs with teardrops of artificial light, but none of the aesthetics were of particular benefit to her. Although, the upside of the space here was that everyone knew to leave her alone. Except for the nosy doc who’d know for the next time he happened by.

  ‘I’m grateful my parents made the adjustments for me.’ That was diplomatic. She was thankful and she knew they wouldn’t hesitate to provide her with anything she might need. It was the atmosphere around the place, silent accusations and the air thick with recriminations, that was more difficult to live with. A matter that was no one’s business outside the family.

  ‘It’s fine for a normal home gym but you need specialised equipment. We have everything you’d need at our medical facility, including hydrotherapy pools.’ He was tempting her. With the pool idea, not his good looks and charm.

  She’d used water a lot to strengthen her core during her rehabilitation and missed that feeling of weightlessness. Sometimes she even ma
naged to forget the physical part of her that was missing when she was swimming, but it wasn’t as though she could tuck a towel under her arm and head to the local swimming baths any time she wanted.

  * * *

  ‘It’s a very kind offer but, as I’ve told you, I want to keep my appearance and recovery private for now.’ Ed could see she was wavering. He hadn’t expected it would be an easy task to convince her to accept help, but he’d promised her mother he’d at least try. If there was the slightest opening in her defence, he was willing to take advantage of it for her own good.

  ‘We could arrange completely private sessions. You have my personal guarantee on that. If you decide you want to avail yourself of any of our other services, our physios or counsellors, that will be on a strictly confidential basis too. A lot of our clients are in the public eye, so we’re used to being discreet. It’s one of the reasons your mother came to me for her consultation.’ Along with his father putting his name forward when she contacted him for his valued opinion on her condition.

  Apparently, she’d had an ulterior motive in having a home visit. The queen had been insistent she didn’t want Georgiana to know she was interfering but it was clear she was worried about her daughter. It wasn’t any of his business what was going on but there was a blatant lack of communication between mother and daughter. A parent should be able to demonstrate concern for a child without fear of losing them. It was the close bond he had with his own parents that had saved their family. Even if it sometimes felt as if he’d sacrificed his freedom to keep everyone together.

  Meeting Georgiana himself, he could understand her mother’s reticence to be seen as interfering. She was a force to be reckoned with. Defensive and self-assured, and someone who could totally do this on her own if she had to. It simply made sense to use the services available to aid a faster recovery process. If only her body language didn’t scream, ‘Stay away from me if you value your life!’