Linda Needham (23 page)

“She must have been a very brave woman, Caro.” The steadfast energy of Drew’s voice soothed her as he stood there beside her, his hand at the small of her back. He’d become her shelter, her gracious guide.

“Dear little Madeleine,” she said, snuffling back her fanciful tears for this incongruous letter, “she probably never knew how much the sad young woman must have cared.”

Drew was now looking down at the documents laid out on the desk, touching each in its turn, not looking at her, though his jaw was working beneath his bronze skin. Doubtless thinking that she was a simpleton for blubbering on about such a trivial thing as an old, discarded note.

Trivial? But then what was it doing hidden in the old coffer with the other documents?

“My family tree, the deed to my kingdom, an unknown state secret that involves me deeply…These three are about me, Drew.” Her heart took a stark dive as she picked up the green stationery with its yellowing edges and its faded ink. “Drew?”

He turned his head and looked down at her, his jaw clenched, his eyes on fire. “Yes, Caro?”

“If those three documents are related directly and indisputably to me…why is this woeful little note
among them?” Feeling suddenly lost, she went to stand beside Drew, her knees loose and watery as she once again looked down at the odd collection of papers.

Drew just stood there, unmoving and silent, his fingers tented against the shiny mahogany desktop, his chest rising and falling steadily.

She swallowed hard and looked down at the forlorn words, whispering them aloud.

“‘Her name is Madeleine. A good girl, never cries. Would surely keep her if I could. Bless you.’”

Breathless and catching back a sob, Caro looked up and into Drew’s eyes, finally understanding his uncommon silence, his waiting for something.

“You already know what this is all about, don’t you?”

His sigh was unsteady and long as he fixed his feverish gaze on her. “Just leave it be, Caro.”

Her heart was thrumming madly inside her chest. “I can’t.”

Dear Lord! All the documents were about her.

The pedigree with the incorrect date.

The royal writ.

The bloody state secret.

Little Madeleine.

“Please, Caro, don’t take this any farther.” Drew reached out and threaded his strong fingers through her hair, cupped the back of her head, holding her gaze firmly, speaking slowly, as though her very life, and his, depended upon it. “Stop here, my love. Stop now.”

“Oh, God, Drew, it’s too late now. I know. I can’t stop now!” The powerful, unalterable truth had
slammed into her chest like a bolt of lightning, tearing another sob out of her.

“Please, Caro, don’t!”

“But I’m
her
, Drew. I’m that little girl who never cries. I’m Madeleine!”

“C
aro, please, don’t do this. Let’s put these away for good.”

“No.” She looked down at the little note, and felt her tears falling all over it, onto her cold fingers. “Dear God, this poor woman is my mother.”

“No one need know any—”

“And if that’s true, who am I, Drew?” She sobbed uncontrollably, trying to swab the tears from her eyes so that she could see, so she could think, but they kept coming back, full force.

“Christ, Caro, don’t!” He cradled her face in his warm hands, forcing her to look into his dark eyes, wiping her wet cheeks with his thumbs.

“Am I Madeleine?”

“You’re the Princess Caroline,” he said fiercely, his eyes dark and glistening, “the future empress of Boratania.”

“But I’m not anything of the sort, am I?” She
pulled away from him and shook her head. “I never have been.”

He looked at her for a very long time, deeply into her eyes. “You weren’t ever meant to know, Caro.”

“But you did know. And you didn’t tell me.” She couldn’t seem to light anywhere, needed to walk and touch things, feel the cool of the marble on the fireplace.

“I took an oath not to, Caro. As the queen said”—he smiled wryly from across the room—“you, my dear, are one of the greatest state secrets of all time.”

“Because I’m a complete lie? I’m not a princess of the blood, and you knew it. I’m the child of a woman so wretchedly poor she couldn’t keep me.”

“And so fond that she put you in the care of a foundling home.” She could feel his gaze on her as she paced, following her every move, as though keeping her in check from a safe distance.

“So the real Princess Caroline died along with Queen Genevieve the day she was born, and I’m the replacement?”

He was silent for a moment and then sighed. “There was no Princess Caroline.”

“What do you mean?” Caro stopped short, breathless and trembling as she watched Drew pick up the letter from the Earl Marshal, his fine mouth firm and angry at something.

“The king and queen of Boratania were barren.”

“You mean that my mother wasn’t…I mean, that the queen wasn’t with child when she arrived in England?” How could that be?

“She wasn’t.”

“She didn’t lose the baby on her journey?” Caro clutched at the furniture as she made her way toward
him on legs that didn’t seem able to hold her. “It wasn’t stillborn?”

Drew caught her hands and held her up, looking deeply into her eyes. “Queen Genevieve was already dead and resting in her coffin when her body was sent across the Channel to her cousin King George.”

“No, Drew! She couldn’t possibly have been dead.” Caro had memorized all of the stories a long time ago.
Her
story, her parents’ story. The life that she had lived inside her heart. “Queen Genevieve was delivered of a daughter in Windsor Castle.”

Drew was shaking his head as he lifted her chin with his fingertip. “They made you up, Caro.”

“What do you mean they ‘made me up?’” Tears welled in her eyes again, a shiver of unease tumbled down her back. Images of greasepaint and straw, thistledown and rainy alleyways.

“They needed a princess in a hurry,” he said in a dark whisper, “and you were in the right place at the right moment.”

They?
“Who?”

“These men.” Drew turned back to the table and held the royal writ in front of her, pointing to the line of signatures and seals. “Our own King George IV, Ludwig of Bavaria, Dom Miguel of Portugal, Francis of Naples, Tsar Nicholas…the list goes on.”

“Why would these…these powerful men, who couldn’t even agree on the shape of the full moon, make up a princess out of whole cloth and keep such a thing a secret for more than two decades?” She pressed her palm against the writ, wanting desperately to understand. “More’s the point, Drew, why? What could they possibly gain out of such a bizarre conspiracy?”

“They needed a marker, Caro. A political wild card for them to play sometime in the future.”

“A princess on ice.” She couldn’t stop trembling, felt her heart emptying.

“An empress to exploit, madam, if they ever needed one. The fall of Boratania had pitted the royal houses of Europe against one another. You were created as a compromise, and because of that, your true identity must remain a secret between them all.”

A pitiful creature stitched together from a ragbag. Caro’s knees gave out and she dropped into the desk chair.

“So, to be brutally honest, Drew, I am now, and always have been nothing but a fictional character, created for a royal pantomime. With no true identity, no family, no country, no past. No future.”

Drew had never known a more real woman in his life. Her spirit sang inside his body, made his heart race and his pulse jangle. He’d spent every moment of their unorthodox acquaintance admiring her courage, her compassion. His loins in full rut, wanting her under him, sniffing after her, falling head-over-heels in love with a woman who could only remain a figment of his imagination.

But she wasn’t fictional.

“My dear Caro, whatever their royal intentions, you have eclipsed them on every count. Shown them over.”

“What a fool I’ve been.” She stood in her teary courage and started her deliberate pacing again, making him ache to follow her, to take away the pain. “For over twenty years I’ve believed that I am a highborn princess. When in truth I am nothing at all.”

He didn’t like the sound of that. “You are still a
princess. In three days from now you’ll be empress and on your way to your kingdom.”

But she was shaking her head at him, her eyes fierce and red-rimmed. “You knew all along, didn’t you, Drew? From the beginning of your investigation.”

“Palmerston briefed me—”

“Palmerston! Damn the man! He’s been lying to me all these years. Treating me like royalty when I was no better than the scullery girl in his town house. Who else?”

It wouldn’t serve to tell her about Ross and Jared. Or remind her that Peverel certainly knew, and her favorite cousin Albert. “A select few, on a need-to-know basis. You are, after all, a state secret.”

“Am I now?”

His heart stopped. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not Princess Caroline Marguerite Marie Isabella of Boratania, Empress-elect. Boratania will be much better off without me.”

Hell and damnation! He was going to need another pair of kid gloves. “Without you, Princess?”

“Stop calling me ‘Princess,’ Drew. I’m Madeleine.” Her cheeks were flushed as crimson as he’d ever seen them. She dropped into a high back chair and crossed her arms. The picture of a pouting princess.

“Oh, stop it, Caro.” He stood above her, trying to catch her eye but failing. “Nothing has changed. Nothing
can
change. Boratania has no other princess but you.”

“That’s not my problem, Drew.” She drummed her fingers on the arm of the chair, crossed an ankle over her knee as though trying to wall him off. “I’m not descended from the ancient, honorable house of Grostov. I’m not any degree of cousin to the royal
houses of Europe, and God only knows who my parents were.”

“But you are the Princess Caroline, no matter whose blood flows in your veins.” He knelt down in front of her, and captured her hand and her watery gaze in one move. “By royal decree, you have inherited Boratania and all its histories.”

“That would make me the biggest liar of them all. And I can’t do that!” She hiccoughed and a huge sob exploded from her, followed immediately by another flood of tears and a lot of snuffling.

Drew pulled out his handkerchief and started dabbing at her face.

“If you don’t think there are any royal liars out there warming their regal backsides on the thrones of Europe, then you’re fooling yourself, Caro.”

“Call me a fool, Drew”—she grabbed the kerchief and loudly blew her nose, wiping vigorously—“but I don’t measure my ethics by the actions of others.”

“But you were raised a princess, Caro, learned the burdens and blessings of being a monarch. Above all things, you understand your duty to your country.”

“But I’m English. Not Boratanian.”

“And Queen Victoria is German, not English. However questionable your lineage, you are, Caro, because you bear the title, the leader of your country, responsible for the welfare of thousands of people. For Wilhelm and Marguerite and Mrs. Brendel. All of them.”

“But that would mean living out a wicked lie for the rest of my life.” She dropped her head against the back of the chair and looked up at the ceiling, her cheeks glistening with her tears. “Swearing an oath
before God and my subjects and the queen and all the other liars, and denying the truth in the same breath. I can’t.”

Oh, how he wanted to take away all her troubles. To tell Palmerston and the queen and all the others to go to hell. His heart ached to see her in such soul-wrenching pain.

And yet he had to go on fighting for her.

Against her.

“You can, Caro, and you must. Imagine the wrath of your royal cousins should you deliberately subject them to a scandal of this magnitude. If you expose your own identity as a fraud, then you put the legitimacy of every other monarch in jeopardy. Because, like it or not, my dear princess, you are still a closely kept state secret.”

She sniffled twice more as she glared at him, her eyes intense and plotting, a dry sob giving a last rattle to her chest and shoulders. “That’s it, then!” She thunked her palms against the arms of the chair and started to rise. “I’m going to go talk to the queen.”

Drew caught her slender shoulders and held her in place. “Then you’ll be talking to a wall. You saw her letter to Lord Peverel.”

Her brow dipped in a weary frown. “Yes.”

He brushed his palm across her teary cheek, such a soft place, vulnerable and warm. “She won’t let you go, Caro.”

She chewed on her lip, sniffled again. “I know. I’m a princess. I know how these royals think.”

“So you’ll stay?”

Another dry sob shook her deeply before she heaved a great sigh. “I haven’t much choice, have I?”

“None at all, Caro. And God knows I’m not on their side in this matter.”

“Then you think I’m right, Drew? Will you stand up for me then?” Her eyes brightened and she took his hand inside both of hers. “Convince them that my coronation would be wrong for everyone.”

“I can’t, Caro. It’s got nothing to do with that.” He sifted his fingers through her hair, felt its silkiness curling around his heart. “Believe me, I don’t want you to be empress of anywhere.”

“You don’t?” He’d never seen her eyes so wide and wet, so deeply blue.

He took her face between his hands and kissed her salty cheek. “I want you to stay here”—kissed her sweet mouth—“and be my wife.”

She was sighing, her eyes unfocused, her voice dreamy. “Mmmm, what’s that, Drew? Your wife?”

“My love, if I thought it was the right and proper thing to do, I would take you into my arms right now, right here, and I would ask you to marry me.”

“You would?” Such a hopeful, heart-shredding sound.

“Christ, Caro, you’re the finest woman I’ve ever met.”

“I am?” She looked stunned, her mouth pouty and moist from the chaste kiss he’d just put there.

“Kind and intelligent, and I love your smile. I love you. I want children with you.”

“Oh, Drew!” She was weeping softly again, sharing his kiss, seeping into his soul.

“I want to climb into bed beside you every night of my life, feel your heart beating with mine, share your dreams and your hopes—”

“Oh, damn you, Drew!” She shoved at his chest,
launching herself backward into her chair. “How dare you say that to me?”

“Well, then.” A good slap on the face would have been less shocking. He’d obviously been wrong about her feelings for him, hadn’t expected her to reject him so emphatically.

“Damn you, damn you,
damn
you!” She stamped her foot with the final curse, threw herself out of the chair and crossed the room, putting the settee safely between them.

“My deepest apologies, Princess Caroline,” he said, staggering to his feet, his heart shattered. “I’ve obviously overstepped my—”

“Dammit, Drew, first you convince me to accept my fate as empress, to spend the rest of my days as a lying, cheating usurper of kingdoms and then you…you stab me right in the heart.”

“That wasn’t my intention, sweet.” He didn’t know what to do here. The intricacies of love were more than a bit beyond his experience.

“Please, Drew!” She put up her hand like a wall, then sighed, her shoulders sagged. “Please, don’t make it hurt any more than it already does. I’ve spent the last three weeks wondering how I could possibly live without you. Without your advice and your smile, your enchanting bluster, your delicious voice, the marvelous scent of you—”

“Good God, Caro!” His heart had begun to bang around inside his chest, lost and wild with the need to hold her, wanting a life with her as he wanted his next breath!

“And I’ve just dashed any hope of any future with you! So…” Her tears began streaming down her cheeks again, her voice silky soft, lilting. “So the very
last thing I need to hear is a quite impossible proposal of marriage from the man I’ve come to love more than my life.”

Drew wanted to cross the carpet and sweep her into his arms, to lose himself in her sweetness. Instead, he stood rooted there by his honor, by what he knew was right, by the bleakness of a future with her. “I’m sorry, Caro.”

She sniffled and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “I am, too.”

“You’re all right?”

She raised her sorrowful gaze to him, pools of blue fire and a fiercely defiant determination. “I have to be, don’t I? After all, I have a kingdom to rule.”

And I, my dear, have an assassin to ferret out.

“No, Caro, you can’t go to the Crystal Palace with me today,” Drew said for the third time to the most breathtakingly stubborn woman he had ever met. “Nothing has changed. There’s still an assassin out there, doubtless more desperate than ever because you’re still alive.”

“What about the opening ceremonies tomorrow?” she tugged once more in obvious irritation on the rope that tied the canvas to the tailgate of the wagon. “After all, Drew, I’m the princess of Boratania! I’ll be missed if I’m not there, won’t I?”