Big Bad Royal: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance

by Tia Siren

  She woke up frustrated that Thursday, hearing Eliza calling from her room. The sun had barely risen, and Tom was already gone. She threw the covers from her legs and sat up, frustrated. This was not the life she had wanted. She had wanted fun, adventure, and new love. Not to be saddled with a baby and a never-present husband that she didn’t even know and didn’t consider all that handsome.

  The money she had tucked away beckoned her every morning. She sighed heavily, deciding once more to ignore its call and go tend to the child.

  She pulled on a robe and slipped her feet into her slippers. Eliza was awake much earlier than usual. No one would have made any coffee yet.

  Joyce went into Eliza’s room and picked her up and out of her crib. “Here you go, Ellie,” she said. “Good morning, good morning.” She kept her voice pleasant and forced a smile on her face. There was no way she would let this happy child feel her frustration. That wouldn’t be fair at all. Her unhappiness was her own, and she wasn’t going to make a baby feel it too. Besides, her crying would be endless. That was the last thing Joyce wanted at this point.

  She set Ellie down in a chair and took up a towel to brush her little hands and face with water from the basin. Then she brushed the little girl’s curls and helped her rub a small cloth over her tiny teeth. She had adopted her own morning routine for the child, and Ellie didn’t seem the least bit bothered by it. She opened her little mouth and displayed her teeth, separating them for Joyce to get the insides of them too. She bounced slightly in the chair while Joyce brushed her yellow curls. She sat perfectly still and closed her eyes while Joyce wiped her face with first a wet towel and then a dry one.

  When Joyce was finished, she was rewarded with a big grin and a hug around the neck. Every time Ellie hugged her, Joyce felt her heart melting a little more. She wished that Ellie was her own child and was slowly coming to realize that she might as well be.

  “Let’s go exploring today, Ellie, shall we?”

  Without having the slightest clue what “exploring” might mean, Eliza jumped up and down and clapped her hands. “Yes, yes, yes!”

  Joyce laughed. “All right, let’s go!” She held out her hand, but Ellie held up both arms. “Oh, you are going to get heavy pretty quickly, little one,” Joyce said. “But I’ll carry you for a bit, okay?”

  “Up! Please!”

  Joyce couldn’t resist her. “Okay, dear.” She leaned down and picked the little girl up in her arms. “I imagine your little legs get tired pretty quickly, don’t they? Although you don’t have nearly as much weight to carry as someone big like me.” She continued chatting, knowing that Ellie wasn’t processing much of what she was saying, if anything. She talked to her as if she was much older than she really was. Apparently, she was smarter than most. According to Anne, she had learned to walk early, and though she didn’t say many words, she was able to read the alphabet and numbers and could understand a few words that were written down on paper, such as “dog” and “cat.” At sixteen months, that was an incredible accomplishment.

  “Which way should we go, Ellie? This way or that way?” She pointed down the hallway once she’d reached the second floor. Ellie looked as though she were really thinking about it, which made Joyce want to burst out laughing. She smiled instead and waited, biting her bottom lip gently.

  “Dis way!” Ellie pointed to the left. Joyce was glad. She hadn’t been down that way before and was anxious to see what there was to see. There were three rooms on each side of the house. Most of the new construction was on the bottom floor. The house spread out back over the land, and its length couldn’t be seen from the front. You had to round the entire house to see that it had been added on to extensively.

  The first door she opened was to what looked like a spare bedroom. On the other side, a floor to ceiling window was covered by long blue draperies. The furniture consisted of a canopy bed with dusty curtains, a side table, a dresser and an area rug. All were covered with a thick layer of dust. She was glad to see that there were no cobwebs. The room was probably only attended to once a month, from the look of it.

  She closed the door and gave Ellie a look. “It’s too dusty in there!” She exclaimed. Ellie giggled.

  The second door led to a room that looked similar to the first but was slightly less dusty. The furnishings were the same, with the exception of the coloring, which was green as opposed to blue in the first room.

  She closed the door and looked at Ellie once again. “It’s too dusty in there, too!” She made a face and the baby laughed.

  “Well, let’s try the third one then, shall we?”

  When she opened the door to the third room, she was surprised and frightened to see that someone was in there, standing at the large window on the opposite side. When her eyes adjusted to the light coming through the glass, she saw that it was Tom. He turned and looked at her. His hands were clasped behind his back, and he stood there rigidly, with a terribly sad look on his face.

  “Hello, Tom!” Joyce stepped into the room, closing the door behind her. This room was not dusty. It was immaculate. The furniture was polished, and the bed looked as though it may have been slept in the night before. It wasn’t Tom’s room. It was filled with flowers, pretty pictures on the walls, a red velvet drapery that was pulled back from the window and held in place with a gold tassel and a soft, silk pink curtain around the canopy bed. “You…you scared me. Are you…all right?”

  Tom looked back out the window, resuming the stance he’d had before she came in.

  “Do you see that long patch of grass down there?” He asked, pointing.

  Joyce set Eliza down and came to stand next to him. She looked through the window to where he was pointing. “I do.”

  “Lizzie and I used to picnic in that very spot. She made the best sandwiches I’ve ever eaten. They were always delicious and made just the way I like them. She never forgot anything. She always knew what I liked.”

  Joyce pressed her lips together. His voice was so sad. His eyes gazed mournfully down to the patch of grass before sliding out over the rest of the land that could be seen. “We went for many walks down there in the garden and around the land here.”

  “How long had you been married to her?”

  “I had her for six very short years,” he replied.

  Joyce suppressed a sigh. The woman had died almost two years previous. Tom’s heart was stuck in the past. “Tom, why did you call me here?”

  Tom lowered his head, and she could see he was ashamed. Her heart ached for him. She put one hand on his shoulder, glancing back to see that Eliza had pulled herself up on the bed and was rolling around on it, pulling the blanket along with her. Tom noticed as well and smiled softly. His love for his daughter was plainly written on his face. For Joyce, that was all she needed.

  “I’m not angry, Tom. Please tell me why you brought me here.”

  “I…I need to make some changes. I need to…let go.”

  “I’m glad you feel that way, Tom.” Joyce kept her voice very soft and was glad when he looked down directly into her eyes. “I think you’re right. You’ve been in mourning long enough. You must try to think about your daughter. If, for any reason, you should because she is a part of Lizzie. You even gave her a name that would honor her mother. The Bible itself says that we may mourn for a while, but that rejoicing comes in the morning. If you look at your little girl, how can you not rejoice in the fact that she is here? God gave you a piece of Lizzie to hold on to and love forever. He called His daughter home, would you really want to deny Lizzie of that wonderful blessing? Would you want her back here where there is pain, unhappiness and tears? I know you don’t.”

  Tom shook his head but said nothing. He was listening to her, so she continued.

  “I know you loved her with all your heart, and she probably felt the same way about you. If she did, she wouldn’t want you to feel this way forever. She would want you to let go and live your life and be happy. Especially so that you can take good care of E
llie.”

  “I like that you call her ‘Ellie.' It’s fitting for this little light.”

  “Yes, I agree. And you don’t want to really be reminded each time you call your daughter, at least not until you’ve become strong enough to accept the loss of someone you loved so much. You need to show Ellie that through the death of her mother, you have found a fresh respect for life. You can’t drag in the mud forever. She needs to see you happy. She needs to see you.”

  “You are such a good woman, Joyce. I am so glad you came here. God must have sent you to me.”

  “Tom, I know it’s going to take you some time still to pull out of your grief. But you can do it. And I will help you.”

  “You are a beautiful woman.”

  Joyce blushed. “Thank you.”

  “I don’t just mean on the outside, I mean on the inside, too.”

  “I must admit I was thinking about leaving and going back to Virginia at first. I was very much contemplating it.”

  “It’s natural you would feel that way. I lied to you. Well, I didn’t admit to the truth, did I? I just…I just couldn’t take a chance that the only response I got to my ad would not come because of my sadness and my little baby girl.”

  Joyce licked her lips and moved closer to him. She put one hand up on his chest, and he put his hand over hers. “I will not leave you, Tom, if I can help it. You can’t stay in mourning forever. You must pursue happiness. You can’t expect it to just come to you.”

  He nodded. “In this case, I think it did. You have come. You will help me feel better. I am blessed to have you. So is Ellie.”

  “God has blessed us both, Tom. He gave us both what we didn’t know we needed.”

  *****

  THE END

  A Heart in the West – A Clean Western Romance

  Chapter 1

  It was the late summer of 1871 when Cora Sutton left from the big city and boarded the Lil’ Miss, a prize addition to the East Missouri Rail operations. She boasted less than a week’s journey from Boston to the Western territory, and just two and a half weeks to California, notwithstanding unexpected delays in the form of weather and shady characters with sights on her cargo.

  It can’t very well be all that bad, Cora Sutton had thought as she boarded the train, her carpet bag nearly falling at the seams. Perhaps she should have stowed away books in a travel chest, and not in her bag. But what else was she to do with the time? Cora laughed as she bumbled down the aisle to her coach, chiding at her wandering imagination.

  Train bandits don’t really exist, not in real life, she said to herself. And the Western territory surely isn’t all that wild…

  The thought would prove a cruel stroke of irony in the days to follow.

  For the time being, all she had to set her sights on was taming her imagination from getting away from her. Cora admitted to herself that she was actually quite excited. A serendipitous ad in the paper. A snap decision. And the promise of a new life out West. It all sounded rather romantic for a simple hosiery girl at Freeman’s Department Store--well, former hosiery girl. One day, she was living a dull, hapless life on the bustling streets of New York City, and the next she was set for life. Or she would be, as there were some small details yet to attend to.

  It started about two months before the Lil’ Miss even slugged her way into Grand Central Station. Cora worked as the assistant stocker at one of the finest department stores in Manhattan. The marble ceilings rose as high as three levels, with bright crystal chandeliers glittering in the light. The sound of women, of the most well-to-do-sort, clicked their shoes and brushed their puffed dresses through the ground floor, eyeing the delights the store had to offer. For Cora, the closest she could ever come to such a life was spent in the back closets of the store, stocking the hosiery and other ladies’ garments. It was quite the accomplishment even getting that far. Before hosiery girl, she had a stay as a seamstress, but not for long as she had little to no skill in such delicate matters. Then there was a brief stint working in a factory making women’s hat boxes, which proved to be a tedious task that required too much focus for a constant daydreamer. Nanny, flower girl, a shoemaker’s store clerk...and the list went on.

  Life, she had long ago decided, was unutterably dull.

  So it came to her surprise when she was informed she would no longer be needed at Freeman’s department store. There were always prettier, talented, more qualified girls to work the store and spruce up the general atmosphere. A new direction for a new age, she was told. And that new age did not include the likes of her.

  That was what brought her to take the first step. To be exact, it was that and the upping of the next month’s rent.

  “But Mrs. MacDonough, I’ll get a new job soon, ma’am. If you just give me a little more time, I can pay you what I owe.”

  Cora’s mind drifted to an earlier conversation she had with her landlord, Mrs. MacDonough, a stout and rather stern Irish woman who rented out her building to all sorts, mostly immigrants and newcomers into the city.

  “Aye, Co-ra, I can’t be bothered’ with ye all the time,” she bustled across the hallway carrying a basket of her linens, and Cora traced after her.

  “Ye never bring yer rent on time,” the woman continued in her thick accent. “And on top o’ that, I hear ye been sacked from Freeman’s this mornin’.”

  “You already know about that?” Cora followed behind.

  Mrs. MacDonough stopped and sighed as she waved her finger toward Cora’s face.

  “Now lookee, Miss, I can’t be competin’ like I do with all the other landlords around. There’re plenty of others who need a place, jus’ as much as you. And they deserve it every bit, too. And they’re also in dire straits for an opportunity”

  “But…”

  “No buts, Cora. I’m broken hearted as much as you, but that’s jus’ life, it is.”

  It was a miserable few months following. Cora moved into a dingy hostel in Brooklyn, making her way with measly compensation at a butcher’s shop. The boss didn’t much like the idea of hiring a young woman for such a job, but Cora insisted she could just as easily pick it up. It didn’t mean that the work was pleasant.

  One day, she made her way out from a long shift, after having cleaned the back room, her clothes smelling like raw meat, her boots wet after hosing off the blood. She was headed down a street she headed down every day. Took the same turns, watched the same faces walk past. Everything was quite the same. That is, until a certain leaflet from a newspaper caught her eye. It seemed positively serendipitous. A stray page, a gust of wind, and soon she was staring at an ad that seemed to be shouting directly at her.

  Wanted: Young woman of intelligence, refined, and possessing means. Gentleman landowner seeking a match of high pedigree. Must be willing to relocate at short notice.

  At first Cora laughed. The idea of being a mail-order bride certainly seemed like an odd one, like from a story in a magazine or a tale that old grandparents tell. But Cora was sure of one thing: she had no family, no ties, and no where to go but up.

  Besides, she reasoned, it really is quite the romantic story.

  Cora nestled herself onto the seat, sliding herself against the window as the locomotive wheezed, her wheels beginning to make the heaving creak out of the station. The ticket master came and punched her ticket, and her insides leapt with excitement as the view outside begin to whir past, the loud whistle sounding, the steady churn of the wheels matching to the rhythm in her own heart.

  This is it, she reminded herself. This is my new start.

  From here on out, Cora imagined life going by without a hitch. Well, perhaps there was one small fly in that ointment. There were, after all, a few...liberties...Cora had taken to grab the opportunity before it escaped.

  The end justifies the means, she told herself.

  Besides, in her eyes, Cora Sutton deserved just as much a happy ending as Mistress Cora LeBlanc, the wealthy and debonair young aristocrat aboard the Lil’ Miss, on her w
ay to meet the man she’ll marry.

  Chapter 2

  “Expecting a shipment this afternoon, Mr. Dansby?”

  The mustached outpost manager tipped his hat toward the tall and dark Joshua Dansby. Mr. Dansby tipped his hat toward the man, his other hand tucked neatly into his suited pocket.

  “Nothing big, Mr. Stanfield. Waiting for a person, actually. Not a shipment.”

  Mr. Stanfield raised an eyebrow, but kept his words to himself. No sense in poking into the affairs of a man as private as Joshua Dansby, or at least as private a man could be in his position. Mr. Stanfield looked at the stopwatch in his hand, and dropped it into his front vest pocket, and made his way into the station house.

  Joshua Dansby leaned toward the rail, the balls of his feet bouncing on the wooden boardwalk of the outpost. It was a rather overcast day, but generally clear sights as far as one could make out. He kept looking impatiently toward the sky, as if somehow he could discern from the clouds or the breeze the distance of the oncoming train, or hear faintly the loud whistle of the Lil’ Miss making her way into the outpost. No such luck.

  Mr. Dansby stopped his movements and straightened his suit coat. Moving so much would make him seem nervous, and in fact it served to actually make him nervous, if not for just a moment.

  There’s nothing to be nervous about, he reminded himself.

  It was unconventional for the both of them. He never really anticipated being one of those type of men who would place an ad out East to find a wife. But there were extraneous circumstances out of his control, and if he was going to take matters back into his own hands…

  He cleared his throat and walked toward the station house. He removed his hat, the coolness from being under the awning shadowing his dark brown hair.

  “Mr. Stanfield, correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the Lil’ Miss supposed to have come in over an hour ago?”

  Mr. Stanfield stood upright and checked at his pocket watch, then at a chart along the wooden panel wall of the station house.