A Royal Marriage

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And they’d never see each other again.

Which was not a good ending for a fairy tale, but a far more realistic one for the way life really was, something she should be well-versed in by now.

Still, the thought of never seeing him again filled Rachel with an ache that felt oddly like sadness. Regardless of his station, he seemed like the rarest of finds.

A nice guy.

“I’d love some tea.” He turned and looked at her, and the light in his green-gold eyes confirmed that. A nice guy. Not at all above sharing tea with a distressed woman in her humble hovel, despite the fact he must be used to grander things, and grander company.

“I’ll take your coat then.” He shrugged out of it, and for a moment she just stared at him with the coat suspended in the air between them.

The coat had really hidden a great deal of his masculine potency. She wasn’t so sure about the nice guy definition anymore. Didn’t nice guys generally have freckles and eyeglasses and arms the size of toothpicks?

But Damon Montague exuded an almost electrical sensuality. He had on a white shirt, pristine, definitely silk, but at sometime during the evening he had abandoned both the tie and jacket that must have gone with it. Now it was unbuttoned at the throat, showing enticing whorls of dark hair, and rolled up at the cuff, revealing forearms that looked powerful and sinewy.

The passionate part of her that had raised its ugly head so swiftly and powerfully in her past made its presence known again. Just when she thought she had successfully laid it to rest, there it was, that sensation of a fist tightening in her tummy, that sensation of wanting that made her mouth go dry, and her hands curl into the rich fabric of his coat. She yanked it out of his grasp, and spun away from him. She could feel the heat in her cheeks. She took a great deal of time arranging the coat on its hanger. Even when that was done she stayed behind the open door of her coat closet for a moment, afraid to come back out, afraid everything she was feeling would show in her face.

“This painting is quite good. Where did you get it?”

“At the thrift store,” she said bluntly, shutting the closet door with a snap. There. A nice reminder of the chasms between their worlds.

“A good find,” he said and then turned and regarded her solemnly. “Tell me if I’m being too personal, but is it very difficult? Being a single mother?”

“At least it’s anonymous,” she said.

He looked startled and then he grinned. It erased years from his face, and made him look roguish and even more handsome than before.

The fist did that thing in her stomach again.

“You’re right. It’s not as much fun as one might think being recognized everywhere you go, having your family’s private affairs brought up for discussion by every Sergeant Crenshaw and Mrs. Brumble you meet.”

His smile reappeared, boyish and charming. “On the other hand, if being royal is my biggest problem, you should come over and give me a slap for complaining.”

“I don’t think my life’s as difficult as you imagine,” she said with dignity. “I’ve enjoyed some success as a technical writer. And I’ve written a children’s book that I have currently submitted. If that were published, it would mean a great deal of freedom for me.” She found herself blushing wildly. Why on earth had she told him about the book? She hadn’t told another soul in the whole world—except for Carly. She hurried on, “Of course, parts of bringing up a baby alone are hard. But parts of it are absolutely heavenly, and they far outweigh any challenges I face.”

He looked at the baby, busy once again dumping the basket she had just refilled. “I don’t have to ask about the heavenly part, do I?” he asked. “And the hard parts?”

“Really, I think they’re the same difficulties anyone has. Never enough time or money.” She realized everyone but him would have those kinds of problems. He was still looking at Carly, a look on his face she could not quite decipher.

“Do you have children?” she asked.

He looked at her shrewdly. “My wife, Sharon, was pregnant with our first child. A boy. They both died.”

“Oh, Damon!” His name came off her lips as though she had always spoken it, always known him so familiarly. “I’m so terribly sorry.” Still emotionally vulnerable from her visit at the police station, her eyes filled with tears again. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Quite frankly, it’s refreshing when someone genuinely doesn’t know. As I said, the world seems to know everything about me. Sometimes I catch a line in one of the trash papers that announces to the world something I didn’t even know about myself.”

“I don’t read them. I don’t have a television, either. I don’t know one single thing about you that you don’t know about yourself.”

He laughed at that. “Go make tea. And then I want to ask you some questions about your sister.”

She left the room and he took his cell phone out of his pocket and called Phillip to see what had become of him after he had dropped off Lady Beatrice Sheffield. He told Phillip where he was and asked him to come and get the key for Rachel’s car.

When he lowered the antenna and folded up the phone, he turned back into the room and nearly fell over the plump pink-clad baby.

“You shouldn’t sneak up on people,” he admonished her.

She cooed at him, batted thick eyelashes over eyes the exact shade of green as her mother’s. The little outfit she was wearing was fuzzy and made her look like a teddy bear.

“Quit trying to charm me,” he told her. “It won’t work. Some of the greatest in the world have given it their best shot.”

She gurgled at this, tilted her head at him, and said, “Uppie.”

“Yuppie? I think they call them something else now. And since I was born where most people want to be, I don’t qualify as upwardly mobile. A few notches down would suit me most days.”

“Uppie,” she said again, and something dangerous was happening to her mouth. It was turning down. And the brows over her eyes were furrowing downward, too.

“Puppy?” he said. He scanned the room, saw a plush purple dog sticking out of the toy box, and strode over to it, snagged it and brought it back to her. “Puppy,” he said, handing it to her.

She grabbed the dog by his long floppy ear and threw it across the room with astonishing force. “Uppie,” she shrieked.

He could hear the kettle whistling in the kitchen. Was that why Rachel wasn’t coming to his rescue? How could this huge voice be coming from such a small scrap of humanity?

“Uppie!”

Maybe it was a good thing Rachel couldn’t hear. She would think he was killing her daughter!

“Suppie?” he asked frantically. “You’re hungry, right? Your mother can fix that for you.” He began to edge his way toward the closed kitchen door. “I’ll just get her.”

A small fist tangled in his trouser leg.

He shook his leg a little, but the fist remained firm. As did the voice.

He bent over and tried to undo the little fingers, surprisingly powerful, one finger at a time.

Sweat was beginning to bead on his brow. He undid the fist, but it reattached itself to his shirt collar. Now he was caught in a most undignified position, anchored bent over, to a squalling baby.

Then, using his shirt collar, the baby pulled herself to standing. For a moment she looked gleeful, and then her arms began to windmill, and she staggered back a step. She pitched forward and wound surprisingly strong arms around his neck.

“Uppie.”

“I’m not your uppie. Or your auntie,” he told her. And then a light went on in his head. He got it, and it was so simple, he had to smile at himself for not getting it sooner. “Oh, up. Up.”

The squalling stopped, but the pause was expectant.

So he had to choose. Pick her up or run to her mother for help.

He picked her up, rather than admit there was nothing in twenty-nine years of preparing to take command of a small kingdom that had prepared him, even remotely, for a few minutes alone with twenty-five or so pounds of baby.

Somehow, when picturing his own impending fatherhood, he had only pictured magical moments. Reading baby a story while Sharon held him. Having the baby lie across his chest in front of a warm fire. Kissing him in his cradle. Teaching him to ride a pony. It had not even occurred to him how much later that step came.

Of course, with a large staff, neither he nor Sharon would have ever had to deal with shrieking.

Never mind that rather pungent odor he now noticed was coming from Miss Adorable Pink Fluff.

It occurred to him that he and Sharon, considered golden and blessed, might have missed something very, very important.

He picked the baby up, gingerly, expecting the grief inside him would shatter like glass. Expecting he would feel the bottomless sadness that he would never hold the lively weight of his own little child in his arms.

But that was not what he felt.

Instead, he took strange comfort from the solid weight of the baby, the warmth of her—even the smell of her seemed to be making his heart feel. Not broken. Whole.

She leaned her head into his shoulder, thrust her thumb in her mouth. She pulled it out, pronounced him a good boy, and her eyes fluttered closed. In seconds, she was sleeping.

Just like that. From shrieking instructions to sleeping in the blink of an eye.

He stood there like stone, not quite sure what to do, not sure what he had done to deserve such exquisite trust, and not quite sure about the great ball of tenderness that seemed to be unfurling in the center of his chest.

He glanced down at the shining gold of her curls, at the sweep of her lashes, at the roundness of her cheeks.

She was like her mother. He guessed her hair would eventually darken to that exact shade of auburn.

She nestled into him, sighed, and blew a few little bubbles out parted lips, and he found himself relaxing. When he was positive that neither he nor she was going to break, he dared look around again, and was again amazed by how compact this space was.

How did two people live in a space so tiny?

He marveled, too, at how Rachel had managed to make it look so lovely with nothing more than her own sense of style. Nothing in the room was expensive—there was no crystal, no beautiful carpets, no priceless paintings. And yet the room seemed more warm and inviting than any he had ever been in.

With the exception of the yellow nursery at home.

A thought came into his head, so preposterous that he dismissed it.

But the kettle had stopped wailing, and the child had stopped wailing and now he could hear Rachel humming in the other room, and the thought would not be chased away.

Marry her.

It was, of course, a ridiculous notion. A spell being cast on him by the little minx who was now drooling down the front of his silk shirt.

And yet, was it so ridiculous?

His parents were putting unbelievable pressure on him to find a new partner.

He liked this woman as much as any they had shoved his way. In a very short time she had earned his respect. She seemed to him to be courageous, capable and kind.

And it was a chance for him to do someone a good turn. Who would be more deserving than Rachel to be given a brand-new life? One where she could have all the time and money she needed, where she could pamper this little girl to her heart’s delight?

It would be a marriage in name only.

His heart was not into anything else. But his parents wouldn’t know that. Or his countrymen. They would just see what they wanted to see. If he provided the beautiful bride, they would provide the fairy tale.

Rachel came back into the room with tea things on a lovely, rustic tray. She looked at him holding the sleeping baby, and shook her head wryly.

“She couldn’t do that for poor Mrs. Brumble, could she?”

She set down the tea things, and took the baby from him. Her nose wrinkled. “Don’t you know how to make a great first impression?” she scolded the sleeping baby. Sending a wry look his way, she disappeared through another door.

His arms felt strangely empty when Carly was gone, his chest suddenly cold where her warmth had puddled against him. Rachel came back a few minutes later, the baby still sleeping, the wonderful aroma of baby powder coming into the room with them. She set her daughter gently in a playpen on one side of the room, tucked a little blanket around her.

He wondered if that was the baby’s bed, and thought of the empty crib at home, a beautiful piece of furniture not being used.

“Sit down,” she said. He sat on the sofa. She eyed the spot beside him for a moment and then, to his regret, took the chair at right angles from it. She poured tea in lovely, if mismatched, teacups. Probably from the thrift store, too.

He glanced at the sleeping baby, and was shocked to find that having just met her, he wanted things for her. No, more accurately, did not want certain things for her. Did not want her to grow up wearing hand-me-downs and thrift store clothes, did not want her sleeping in a playpen instead of a crib.

And there were certain things he did not want for Rachel, either. Crenshaw’s offer of a job bothered him. Despite what she had said about writing, she would obviously need to get reestablished here. He did not want her to be getting up early in the morning, kissing her baby goodbye to go spend a day doing God knew what. Being at someone like Crenshaw’s beck and call.

It blasted through his mind again. Marry Rachel.

Though, of course, there were all kinds of other things he could do if he wanted to help Rachel and Carly. He could have the crib packed up and sent to them, anonymously, along with a nice check.

Yes, that was what he would do. Very sensible.

He reminded himself sternly, when he found his eyes fastened on the fullness of Rachel’s bottom lip, why he had come here.

He wondered how he could ask her delicately if she and her sister were full sisters. If they were, naturally the missing girl could not be the Grand Duke of Thortonburg’s illegitimate daughter.

How to probe?

“Tell me about your sister,” he suggested. “What makes you think she’s missing?”

Rachel sighed, and tucked her feet under her. The floor was cold. He tried not to think of the baby playing on a cold floor. He tried not to think of Rachel opening her heating bill with dread.

“We aren’t as close as we once were,” she admitted. “Victoria didn’t like Bryan, Carly’s father, and it drove a wedge between us. Maybe even more so, when she was proved right. Still, we have always exchanged letters and calls, though maybe not as regularly as we once did. I guess I understand why the police are skeptical. It really is only a feeling I have. A feeling that something is wrong and my sister is in trouble. We’ve always been like that—very in tune with each other.”

He listened carefully as she talked about her sister. Nothing she said indicated they were anything other than full sisters. Was it possible she might not know the truth? Because he heard unspoken threads that struck him as odd. Subtle hints in her conversation told him her father favored Rachel over Victoria, and her mother Victoria over Rachel. Why?

He asked, on a hunch, to see a picture of Victoria, and Rachel went and plucked one off the top of a bookshelf. She looked at it with a tender smile, wiped a fleck of dust off it with her sleeve before she passed it to him.

He struggled to keep his face impassive. Victoria was fire compared to Rachel’s earth. She was beautiful, with cascading dark hair, and vibrant blue eyes that danced and sparkled. Her smile held a certain devilment.

Because he had just had close contact with Roland Thorton, he saw immediately the similarity. It wasn’t just her coloring, either. It was the way her lips slanted upward, the way she cocked her eyebrow, the way she tilted her head. It was in the straight line of her nose and the angle of her cheekbones. Her resemblance to this island’s most famous family was so striking, he wondered that people had not stopped in the streets to stare at her.