The Expectant Princess

“No. But then our lives never really stay the same, even when we want them to.”

Her comment brought a grimace to his face. “I’m sure you heard about my marriage and divorce.”

She nodded while trying to hide her surprise that he’d brought up the subject. From what she recalled, Marcus had been a private man. She’d not expected him to want to share that sort of thing with anyone.

“It was in the papers,” she told him. “I couldn’t help but see all the articles. I’m sorry things didn’t work out for you.”

Pulling away from her, he gripped the top rail of the balustrade as he stared out at the distant city. “Being a member of your father’s staff made my private life fodder for the news media. I don’t think there was even one story that ever got it right.”

Her throat tightened with unexpected emotion. Marcus had always been a hero in her eyes. And heroes weren’t ever supposed to hurt. “Your wife—I mean, ex-wife—is very beautiful. You must have loved her madly.”

The corners of his mouth turned downward. Madly was probably the perfect way to describe his feelings toward Liza back then, Marcus thought. For a while he’d been insane over the woman. He’d not been able to see beyond his own besotted emotions that she was not suited to him or his way of life. Liza had never been able to understand that when duty to his country called, she had to take second stage.

“I’m over Liza, Dominique. But I do still deeply regret that our baby didn’t survive.”

Baby. The word jolted the deepest part of her and for long moments she was too choked to speak.

Finally, she managed, but her voice was hoarse and so low it was almost carried away with the sea breeze. “You’ll have a child someday, Marcus. When you find that special woman.”

His lips twisted to a mocking slant. “No. Two years ago Liza suffered a spontaneous miscarriage. The doctors couldn’t explain why it happened. Except that nature had decided to intervene. Somehow the lack of a concrete reason made it harder for both of us to accept the loss. The whole thing made me realize that having a wife and a child of my own was…too risky an endeavor. I’ve decided I’m not cut out to be a husband or father. Some men aren’t, you know.”

Oh yes, Dominique did know. But she’d learned the lesson too late. Now she had to face the reckoning of her folly alone.

Dominique was so lost in her problems, she wasn’t aware that Marcus had moved closer until his lips were brushing a soft kiss against her cheek.

“Welcome home, Dominique,” he murmured.

Too stunned to make any sort of reply, she watched him leave the balcony, then with quivering fingers, she touched the spot where his lips had warmed her skin.

Marcus believed he wasn’t meant to be a husband or father. If Dominique was wise, she would make herself believe it, too.

Four days later, in the family room of the Stanbury palace, Dominique announced that she intended to drive out to the scene of her father’s accident and have a look for herself.

“Dominique,” Queen Josephine calmly spoke up, “the police are doing all they can. Your interference would only hinder their progress.”

Dominique turned an astounded look on her perfectly groomed mother. Sometimes Josephine’s stiff upper lip infuriated her. Putting on a strong and reserved facade for the public was one thing, but in the privacy of family, Dominique didn’t believe any of them had to keep up a show of iron will.

Her parents had been married for thirty-three years and had produced three children together. Yet there had been times when Dominique wondered about their relationship. Their marriage had been an arrangement, made between two families seeking to merge their bloodlines and further enforce their power.

Now, as she looked at her mother sitting calmly in a winged-back chair, her smooth profile turned toward the flames in the fireplace, she could only guess at the woman’s guarded emotions. Was she mourning a lost love or simply accepting that the king was dead and it was her duty to continue without him?

“What progress are you talking about, Mother? It’s been a week and they still can’t tell us what happened with Father! They can’t even find his body!”

“That hardly means you can,” Nicholas spoke up from across the room.

Dominique rolled her eyes toward the high ceiling of the massive room. “I didn’t say I could, Nick. I’m only saying I want to go look for myself. I want to see where my father supposedly lost his life.”

“Not me,” Rebecca said from a nearby armchair. “It gives me the shivers just thinking about it.”

“I’m with Rebecca. The scene is not something for the fainthearted to see.”

This was from Jake Stanbury. Close to thirty years old with a tall, lean build and dark brown hair, he was the second son of Edward, who had arrived later that morning after the king’s accident. In fact, he claimed he’d driven up on the scene shortly after it had happened and was credited with notifying the police.

Dominique didn’t actually know either of her American cousins or her Uncle Edward. Nor was she yet sure what to make of their unannounced arrival in Old Stan-bury. Especially on the very day of her father’s accident. But Josephine had immediately welcomed them home and set them up in apartments on the palace grounds. With their mother setting that sort of cordial tone, Dominique had kept her doubts to herself and since then treated the three men as family. Nicholas and Isabel also appeared to be getting along with their American relatives.

“I’m not exactly fainthearted,” Dominique said to Jake. “I can take a jolt.”

Several feet away, Marcus rose from a high-back divan and joined Dominique in the middle of the room. Earlier he’d stopped by the family living quarters to discuss a foreign-trade agreement with Nicholas, but had wound up staying longer once the subject of the accident had been brought up.

For the past few minutes he’d been discreetly watching Dominique move restlessly around the room. Her outward appearance was elegant in a dove-gray skirt and a pale pink sleeveless sweater. A single strand of pearls rested against her neck and a pearl ring circled with diamonds adorned her right hand. But though she looked quite beautiful, he could sense a tightly controlled tenseness about her which worried him. Of all the Stanburys, she seemed to be taking the loss of King Michael the hardest, and that bothered him more than he cared to admit.

“Dominique, if you want to go out to the scene that badly, I’ll take you myself. I have a few questions of my own about this investigation. Seeing the scene might help answer them,” he offered.

Grateful for his support, she looked at him with relief. “I wouldn’t want to put you out, Marcus. But if you’d really like to go, I’m certainly game.”

He smiled at her, then glanced at his wristwatch. “Just let me go home and change my clothes. I’ll pick you up in the courtyard in fifteen minutes.”

Ten minutes later Dominique was ready and standing in wait on the stone driveway at the back of the castle. When Marcus pulled up beside her in a classic little MGB, she didn’t wait for him to get out and open her door. She slid into the car and greeted him with a wide, grateful smile.

“You don’t know what a reprieve you’ve given me.” She spoke while buckling her seat belt. “I think I would have exploded if I hadn’t gotten out of there soon.”

Marcus put the sleek convertible into gear and headed them back across the drawbridge and on to the road to Old Stanbury.

“Nicholas tells me you haven’t been out of the palace since your father’s accident,” he commented.

Her sigh was weary. “No. And the place is beginning to get to me.” Grimacing, she glanced over at him. “I mean, not that I don’t like my home. But, I suppose the university has been my home for so long now that, well, I’m just not use to the confinement here at the palace. Or being constantly observed by my family. Even Pru smothers me.”

“The accident has put a strain on everyone, Dominique. I believe your mother is coping by trying to put the whole thing out of her mind.”

Her frown deepened as she considered his words. “She’s just so damn unfeeling at times I want to scream.”

He smiled indulgently. “Your mother was bred to be strong. No matter what was thrown her way.”

“Maybe so. But I happen to think the people of Edenbourg expect to see a queen weeping with tears of loss for her husband.”

He turned his head slightly and looked at her with an arched eyebrow. “Because that’s what you want to see from her?”

Dominique thought about his question for a moment. “I only know if I’d been married to a man for thirty-three years and borne him three children, I’d be stricken with grief.”

Yes, he could see where Dominique would be different from her mother, Marcus thought. Josephine was a rigidly controlled woman, whereas Dominique had appeared to grow into a passionate person. And something told him that if she did ever give her heart to a man, it would be totally, not just halfway.

“Perhaps Josephine just hides her emotions well. Some of us do.”

A glance at him suddenly reminded her of how close together the confines of the British car had put them. His shoulder was only a hand’s span from hers, and even though the vinyl top was up and the day overcast, she was near enough to see the pores in his skin and the faint afternoon shadow of his dark beard. He’d changed into khakis and a pale yellow oxford shirt. The cuffs were rolled back against forearms lightly fuzzed with fine black hair. The collar and first button of the shirt were not fastened and to her own dismay she found herself trying to peep between the loosened folds of fabric.

“Does that mean when you were going through your divorce you kept your feelings hidden? Even from your family?” she asked him.

The road had become steep and narrow. Marcus downshifted the car and kept his gaze firmly on the oncoming traffic.