Accidental Heiress

by Nancy Robards Thompson

  Pacing and thinking.

  Though a lowlife tabloid reporter had chosen to twist facts, stretching them out of proportion, there really was no scandal.

  Matieu was not his and Margeaux’s son.

  Yes, there had been an out-of-wedlock teen age pregnancy sixteen years ago, but they hadn’t broken any laws. The pregnancy was a private matter that had no bearing on the government of St. Michel.

  Last night he had been shocked to learn about the child he and Margeaux had conceived. He’d been angry that she hadn’t trusted him enough to share the secret, to allow him to shoulder some of the pain with her, or that she hadn’t at least wanted to lean on him through the hard part.

  But he had chosen his team when he’d followed Colbert’s orders of letting Margeaux go without a fight.

  As the sun rose on a new day, one of the first things he decided was that he wouldn’t tell Margeaux he’d stayed away because of her father’s mandate.

  Sure, it might be looked upon as one more secret between them. As him doing something similar to what she had done. But after she’d made such positive strides toward feeling good about her relationship with her father, he decided he would take that secret to his grave—and unlike Colbert, he wouldn’t someday share it posthumously with his and Margeaux’s children.

  That was the second realization he’d come to: he wanted another chance to have a future, and children, with Margeaux. Even if it meant giving up his chance for a seat on the Crown Council.

  Margeaux Broussard was the love of his life, and there was no way he would lose her again. He put on his coat to walk next door to tell her so, but when he opened his door, an ivory linen envelope fell from the doorjamb and landed at his feet.

  When he picked it up, he recognized Margeaux’s handwriting. He tore it open and read:

  My Dearest Henri,

  For better or worse, you have always been the man I love. To prove the depth of my feelings, I need to give you room to distance yourself from me.

  Even after laying low for so many years, I still can’t seem to get away from Europe’s tabloid press. In Texas, I did manage to have the closest thing to a normal life that I’ve ever had.

  You have a brilliant career ahead of you. If you think about everything, my father’s career thrived when I left. If I’d come home, I would have destroyed him.

  So, I will return to Texas and leave you in peace.

  Yours always,

  Margeaux

  The St. Michel Airport was quiet when the taxi dropped off Margeaux at 6:00 a.m. Even though the ticketing booths didn’t open until eight, the place never closed. Sure, it would be mostly uninhabited at that hour, but she would be the first in line to get her ticket—not that there would be long lines, of course.

  Ticket lines mean nothing. Truthfully, Margeaux simply didn’t want to take the chance of Henri seeing her leave, of her looking into his disappointed eyes and saying goodbye again. Or even worse—if by some miracle he’d found it in his heart to forgive her for not trusting him with the news of the pregnancy and for ruining his career—she didn’t want to give him the opportunity to talk her out of leaving.

  Because it would only take one word to convince her: Stay.

  The airport’s main building was located on a slight hill that allowed a perfect view of the water running like a dark, lacy ribbon along the coast of St. Michel. Dawn wouldn’t break for at least an hour, and the lights of the early risers were beginning to click on, dotting the coast with a subtle golden shine. If she squinted her eyes at the glowing houses and the stars twinkling in the inky, indigo sky reflecting off the water, the tableau offered an impresson of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night Over the Rhone.”

  Normally, Margeaux would have whipped out her camera to capture such a picturesque scene, to preserve it, possibly even sell it for personal gain. But this moment seemed sacred, too precious to share. It was a memory she wanted to keep for herself, so that anytime she felt as if she were losing herself she could retreat into her mind’s eye and remember St.

  Michel exactly the way it looked right now—sleepy and peaceful, somehow unchanged and resistant to the ugliness of the tabloids and the misunderstandings of the past.

  She sighed and gazed up into the hills that overlooked the city, in the general direction of her father’s house. Henri was right next door—where he’d always been…where he was right now. Though after the recent turn of events, he probably wasn’t waiting for her anymore.

  Now that she’d failed him, he could finally move on.

  If only she could do the same. But that seemed unfathomable right now.

  Pressing a hand to her aching heart, she turned away from the picture-perfect landscape, committing it to memory before the harsh light of reality marred it even more, robbing her of this keepsake.

  She started at the man standing behind her, gasping and flinching at the unexpected surprise.

  He was dressed in a khaki uniform, with the St. Michel crest emblazoned on one breast pocket and the word Sécurité boldly spelled out on the other.

  “Excusez-moi, Mademoiselle,” he said. “May I please see your ticket?”

  Margeaux’s grip tightened on the handle of her suitcase. She mustered a smile she didn’t quite feel. “I don’t have a ticket yet,” she offered. “I was waiting for the counter to open.”

  The guard, a beefy fellow who looked to be in his late thirties, did not smile. He shook his head and regarded her sternly as if she were a small child caught in the act of doing something naughty.

  “In that case, I must see some identification.”

  They had no right!

  Margeaux stewed as she sat in the locked airport security room, held prisoner without reason. Or at least no one seemed to be able to give her a reason.

  Since when had waiting to buy a ticket become a crime? The guard had informed her that national security forbade “loitering in the airport common areas.”

  Huh? What about the legions of passengers who would be waiting for flights once the sun was higher in the sky?

  Then he’d escorted her to the small, stark office with a desk and three plastic-and-metal chairs. The place looked eerily like a detention room.

  “I assure you, I mean no harm,” she said. “I just arrived a little early. I can leave and come back, if that would make you feel better.”

  The guard sized her up for what seemed hours, and before she could pull the do you know who my father is…err…who my father was card, the realization that her father was gone rendered her speechless. The awareness was akin to being punched in the gut, but before she had a chance to recover, the guard was backing out of the room, saying, “So sorry, Ma demoiselle. You must remain here until further notice.”

  “You can’t hold me prisoner,” she said, finally finding her voice.

  “It’s a matter of national security. Wait here. Someone will be with you momentarily.”

  When momentarily had stretched into more than a half hour, she tried the door, only to find it locked.

  How could she be a threat to national security? What the heck was going on?

  She rattled the handle and pulled hard. To no avail. She was locked in.

  Had they forgotten her? Had that horrible Rory Malone made up something else that might make national security believe she was truly a threat?

  Ugh… She sank down into a chair. This was all the more proof that Henri was better off without her. In St. Michel—actually, in all of Europe—she couldn’t escape scandal. Henri deserved better than that. He needed better than that.

  At least in Texas, with the support of Pepper, A.J. and Caroline, Margeaux had managed to piece together a normal, if uneventful, life.

  Texas was where she needed to be now.

  But before she could leave the tabloids and all the hurtful scandal behind, she had to get out of this office.

  She pounded on the door for a good ten minutes, knocking and yelling, “You can’t keep me here without telling me why you’
re holding me.”

  Finally, the door flew open, and Henri was standing on the other side.

  Margeaux gasped, both grateful to be freed and unnerved at seeing the man she loved so desperately—but couldn’t have.

  Then, she was even more confused when he pulled her into his arms and smothered her mouth in a kiss.

  She was stunned at first, but in a heartbeat instinct kicked in and she was kissing him back.

  “I am so glad I got here before you left,” he murmured between kisses.

  Her heart leaped at his words. He wasn’t mad at her anymore—

  But wait—his lips were still on hers and he dusted her bottom lip with a feather-soft kiss.

  She pulled away.

  “Did you have security detain me?” she demanded.

  He shrugged, a mischievous glint in his brown eyes.

  “You had them lock me up in here, Henri? Told them I was a security threat?” She started to turn away, but he pulled her into him with one strong arm around her waist.

  “Shhhh…” he pressed his fingers to her lips. “I’m sorry for that. Of course you’re not a security risk. Luc told them to use whatever means they needed to hold you so you wouldn’t leave. Margeaux, I couldn’t let you slip away again. Not after missing you for half our lives. We have enough lost time to make up for. We can’t afford to lose any more.”

  Before she could sort the right from the wrong, the anger from the relief, the desperate tug of war over getting away from this man whom she loved so much and wanting to be with him…

  Henri dropped down on one knee and was holding both of her hands in his.

  “Margeaux, I want you with me always. Please say you’ll be my wife.”

  Her heart nearly burst with love. Every fiber of her wanted to say yes, but she couldn’t. She loved him too much to do that to him.

  “Oh, Henri, there is nothing in the world I want more than to say yes and spend the rest of my life with you. But we both know what that will cost you. You will never be able to have your dream if we’re together. Even more important, you’ll never be able to have a moment’s peace in your life.”

  He got to both feet, still holding her hands in his, the most earnest look on his handsome face. The emotion in his eyes threatened to break her heart.

  “Your father guarded your family’s private life viciously. I promise you with every fiber in my being that I will do the same for our family.

  No harm will come to you. I promise you.”

  She shook her head and tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her go. In fact, it surprised her when he pulled her closer and gazed into her eyes.

  “You think this is what you want now, but, Henri, I’m a magnet for scandal and you don’t deserve that kind of life.”

  The way he smiled at her nearly broke her heart. She wanted nothing more than to be with him, to find herself in the dream-come-true of being his wife. For then she would truly be home.

  But she loved him enough to let him go.

  Then, as if reading her mind—he’d always been so good at that because they were that connected—he said, “All you have to do is look me in the eye and say that you don’t want me—that you don’t want us—and I will let you get on that plane. But, Margeaux, you and I both know the true scandal would be losing each other again. So what’s it going to be?”

  “Ooh—”

  He dropped down to his knees again. “Please say you’ll be my wife.”

  He wanted her.

  Even after all that they’d been through, he accepted her for who she was, for better and worse. He still wanted her. The slow-dawning realization warmed her from the inside out, thawing the doubt, quelling the urge to run. It would take trust and faith in each other, but—

  “Yes. Yes! I love you. I have always loved you and I always will. There is nothing that would make me happier than being your wife.”

  Epilogue

  Simple blood tests proved to the council that Matieu was not Henri and Margeaux’s natural son. However, after Henri won his seat on the Crown Council, he and Margeaux were married and adopted Matieu and brought him to live with them in St. Michel.

  Margeaux sold the photographs she took at St. Mary’s Orphanage to an internationally renowned magazine and donated the proceeds to the orphanage.

  This inspired her to set up her own philanthropic organization, which she called the Fille Sauvage Charitable Trust.

  Two of Margeaux’s first Fille Sauvage projects were trusts in the names of Colbert and Bernadette Broussard to honor her parents’ memories and to fund the organizations that had shaped them in their formative years.

  Margeaux Broussard’s philanthropy earned her an international reputation, generating many positive stories in newspapers and magazines.

  In exchange for releasing the Daily Mail from a libel suit, the tabloid agreed to no longer report on Margeaux, and Rory Malone was fired from the paper.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-7484-0

  ACCIDENTAL HEIRESS

  Copyright © 2010 by Nancy Robards Thompson

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  *The Baby Chase