by Kate Johnson
Eliza looked at the bag as if it was full of snakes.
“I know a box of chocolates or some flowers are more traditional,” he said.
“But rather less useful.” She squared her shoulders. “All right.”
He’d bought two different brands. Altogether there were five little sticks to wee on. The instructions swam before her eyes. Eliza shut herself in his bathroom, cried a little then did what she had to.
Then she sat beside Xavier on the sofa in the sitting room, five little sticks laid out on the table. Every nerve she had was wound up tight.
“Can you check the instructions and make sure I did it right,” she said, and he didn’t seem to find that odd.
“You did. We just wait.” His hand touched hers, held it.
“I can’t look,” she said. “It’s like the thing with the cat in the box. If you don’t look it’s not dead yet.”
“Schrödinger? I heard he was going to go with pregnancy tests but thought a dead cat would go down better.”
Eliza attempted a smile and failed miserably.
His phone beeped. “Time’s up.”
Eliza took a deep breath and let her eyes focus on the tests. Two sets of double lines. Three little pluses.
A sob escaped her. Xavier’s arms went around her and she bawled helplessly into his shirt, ugly crying, unable to stop.
“Maybe they’re wrong,” he said hopelessly.
Eliza couldn’t answer for crying, so she just thumped his back.
You’ve really done it now, Eliza. Running away, getting kidnapped, scarring yourself indelibly, and now getting knocked up by a virtual stranger.
“We’ll figure something out,” he said as her sobs subsided.
“How? What are we going to figure out? My family’s going to kill me. I can’t be an unmarried mother, the press will destroy me, they’ll destroy all of us.”
“It can’t be that bad.”
“We’re supposed to be a shining example to the nation! We have rules about unmarried partners, we have rules about everything! Who we can marry and how, and what to call our children, and if it’s a boy he’s not even allowed to wear trousers until he’s eight!”
“What?” said Xavier blankly.
“We’re supposed to be above and apart from everyone else,” Eliza said, trying to explain. “I’m already the weakest link in the whole bloody Firm, what’s it going to look like now? Everyone already thinks I’m stupid, and now I’ll be the one who doesn’t even know how condoms work!”
“There were no condoms,” Xavier began gingerly.
“That doesn’t make it any better!”
He was silent for a long moment. His hand patted her shoulder awkwardly.
I just wanted to not be a princess for a day. Well, this certainly wasn’t something a princess would do.
“You’re not stupid,” Xavier said.
“I beg to differ,” Eliza sniffed.
“Hey. You’re the smartest person I know, Princess. You kept us alive on that island. You knew how to get water and what kind of coconuts to eat and how to build the trap for fish, and you made yourself that hat. You’re not stupid. You made a mistake. We made a mistake. People are allowed to do that.”
“We’re not.” How could she make him understand?
Eliza lifted her head. Her face was wet, her throat sore, and her cheeks were probably blotchy and red.
“Have you ever seen the Coronation?”
“Uh.” He looked baffled. “No. I think it happened before I was born.”
“Yes, but it’s still shown sometimes.” Eliza straightened away from him and mopped at her eyes. Dignity at all times. “There’s a moment in it where the Queen is seated on the throne, and they carry a canopy over her. Because it was all filmed for broadcast, you see, but that part was supposed to be private. That’s the bit where they anoint her, and make her truly the Queen, answerable only to God. She becomes divine. It’s a sacred moment, so sacred they can’t let just anyone run their grubby little eyeballs over it. Do you understand? She’s transformed. She transcends.”
Xavier said, “I am but a humble Catholic, but I think I get the gist.”
Oh Christ, he’s a Catholic. “She becomes holy and divine. She’s crowned with a holy relic. It’s only used at the exact moment of coronation. She can’t even wear it out of the Abbey.” Eliza realised she was getting off track. “My point is, she became a… a goddess. And I’m her granddaughter. And the granddaughters of goddesses don’t get knocked up by narcotics cops.”
Xavier took in a deep breath. Well, that had probably been offensive as hell. She couldn’t think straight.
“I’m sorry. I’m being hysterical.”
He frowned. “No, you’re right. I can’t hope to understand your family and traditions. I’m just an immigrant cop. But I’ll try, if you let me.”
He ducked his head to look at her, gently pulled her closer, and Eliza gave in to the comfort and laid her head back on his shoulder. “There’s quite a lot to take in,” she sniffed.
“I’m smarter than I look.”
She almost laughed at that. But it died when he spoke next.
Xavier cleared his throat. “Uh. I want to do the right thing here.”
Her head came up. “Xavier,” she said warningly.
“I won’t abandon you. I won’t let you do this alone. You can’t be an unmarried mother, so be a married one. Marry me.”
She gaped at him. His eyes were damp, but he wasn’t blotchy or snotty like she was. He was still beautiful, damn him.
“I mean it. Marry me, Princess Elizabeth Victoria.”
She used to fantasise about being proposed to by a ridiculously handsome man. He’d do it traditionally, on one knee with a beautiful ring, or maybe he’d do it elaborately, with a choir or a sky-writer. And sometimes she’d dreamed of him turning to her in bed one sunlit morning, and casually dropping the question.
She never expected that she’d reply, “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Xavier looked like she’d slapped him. “What?”
“Xavier, I can’t marry you. For starters, I hardly know you—”
“Then we get to know each other—”
“We have no time! There is no possible way we can get married before I start to show, and equally no way we can do it when I am showing, and also no way I can have a baby before we get married.”
“Why can’t we do it soon? A judge or whatever you have here. Vegas.”
She rolled her eyes. “Now you’re really being ridiculous. Las Vegas? Did you hear the part about the anointed goddess?”
He looked as though he was holding onto his temper. Eliza struggled from his hold and got inelegantly to her feet. Oh yeah, so like a goddess.
“So, what, you’re saying no because I’m… I’m too American?”
Too American? Eliza summoned all her courage and looked down at him.
“Number one, you have to ask the Queen’s permission to marry me. Even if she approves, she has to get the agreement of the Privy Council. Now that’s not very likely for a variety of reasons, chief among them that we barely know each other. Number two, also at the top of the list is that I, or any other member of my family or anyone at all descended from George II, am forbidden to marry a Roman Catholic. A marriage undertaken without such permission would be considered null and void, and furthermore, anyone participating in it would be guilty of a crime. Any children born to the union would also be considered to be illegitimate.”
She gave him a withering look. “The fact that you’re American would hardly be mentioned.”
Xavier stared at her.
“That’s absurd,” he said.
“Of course it’s absurd. We believe a bit of oil and a crown with stolen jewels in it makes a person semi divine. That doesn’t change the facts.” She folded her arms. “The Queen will never give permission for this.”
“She’s still your grandmother. And speaking of which, my Abuela might have some words to say
about me not marrying the mother of my child.”
Mother. Child. Oh God. On the table, the five little sticks seemed to glow up at her.
“Yes, well, unless your Abuela happens to be the Queen of Sheba then I’m afraid my Granny trumps her. She trumps everyone. Even the bloody Pope is scared of her.”
She flopped down into a chair and tried to think.
“Why Catholics?”
Eliza’s face began to throb. She reached up to massage her scarred temple. “How far back do you want to go? Start with Henry VIII and add in a sprinkle of Bloody Mary and go right on up to James II. We’ve had actual wars about this. Terrorist plots. Hundreds of people had their heads cut off. They were burnt at the stake. Ripped apart by horses. There is a lot of history to be going on with.”
“Just Catholics?”
“Yes. One day I’ll tell you about Guy Fawkes Night.” She looked over at him. He looked stunned. “I know. It’s stupid. We have laws against religious discrimination, but they only apply to the other 99 percent.”
“That’s stupid. Look, I’m sure if we explain—”
“Explain what? Think about it, Xavier. You’re a hero right now, but think what’s going to happen when you turn out to be the idiot who knocked up a princess he can’t marry.”
They lapsed into silence. Eliza wondered how possible it would be to speak to a doctor about a termination. Then she wondered if she wanted to terminate it. It seemed so hard to comprehend. All of it did.
“So what do we do?” Xavier asked, just as he’d asked her what to do all that time ago on the island. At least he wasn’t treating her like an idiot.
“I don’t know. I can’t think.”
He came over to her then, took her hand and knelt before her. “Eliza. Elizabeth. I don’t know what we’re going to do either, but we’re going to do it together, you hear me? Maybe we don’t get married. But I’m in this with you, okay?”
She covered his hand with her own, suddenly exhausted. “Okay,” she said softly.
His eyes met hers, sincere and kind. “I’ve been with you since we jumped off that boat. You and me. We’re smart. We’re brave. We survived an actual literal desert island.”
She smiled reluctantly at that. He smiled back. Christ, he was a handsome bastard.
“We’ll figure this out. I promise.” He smoothed her hair back from her face, exposing her scar again, and then he leaned in and kissed it. “Now you should get some rest. We’ll talk in the morning.”
He pulled her to her feet, and she wrapped her arms around him. He was strong and warm, and when he held her it felt right. It felt good. Maybe they could make it work.
He walked her to the door. “I’d ask you to stay but I think it’d compound the problem.”
“What, like you could get me more pregnant?”
His eyes were dark and lovely. He probably could.
“Goodnight, sweet Princess,” he said, and she went back out into the cold of her mother’s house.
Chapter Nine
RoyalGossip.com: Hero cop seen with secret family?
Miami hero cop and super-hottie Xavier Rivera, the man who rescued Princess Elizabeth of England from pirates, was spotted last night at the Miami County Fair with a woman who was definitely not the princess… and her kids!
Here he is giving the kids cotton candy, and here’s a shot of him at the shooting range, where his mad skills won a cute toy for a small boy… who may be his son? Onlookers clearly heard the children call her ‘Mommy’ but weren't sure if Xavier was their father. Has he been hiding a secret family all this time?
He’d sent Eliza away last night as kindly and calmly as he could, but Xavier woke up in a sweat, panic in every pore.
Oh Christ. His life was over.
Again.
Don’t you ever learn, Xavier? If Marisol were here she’d laugh herself sick.
He’d thought it was bad enough when he woke up in hospital with the kind of wound that would see him tied to a desk for the next several years. Worse was to come when he discovered the downsides of fame: he would never have an undercover career again. Even a career as an inactive cop would be a joke.
He’d come to England partly knowing that part of his life was over, and it was time to start a new one.
But now? What the hell was he supposed to do? She wouldn’t marry him, and he was damned if he was going to leave her high and dry. Sure, it wasn’t as if she’d be destitute or alone, but she seemed pretty certain her family would never accept him.
The hero cop who’d saved her? He could come stay in the country house, enjoy some noblesse oblige, before disappearing out of their lives. But as a husband? A member of the family?
Eliza had actually recoiled.
The Princess Royal had been cordial to him this evening. Polite, friendly even, but not warm. She suspected something was up. Drina probably did too, because Drina had trouble written all over her. She’d invited him to watch TV with her, he suspected, as a way of gauging Eliza’s reaction as much as a way of getting to know him. He’d stayed until the first ad break, then made his excuses.
He lay staring at the ornate ceiling. The plasterwork was picked out in gold. On the mantelpiece were cherubs with little bits of fruit.
“That kid would totally choke on those grapes,” he said to the inanimate figures.
So what were his options? Go home and forget all about this? He wasn’t that much of a bastard, and besides, he probably had legal obligations to fulfil. The Royal Family would presumably want to be sure the baby was his before they ordered him to pay whatever sum of money was deemed appropriate to raising a Royal child, even one born on the wrong side of the blanket. That meant paternity tests, and then every cent he earned for the rest of his life. Assuming he ever found another job.
Maybe he should insist on a paternity test anyway, before he got sucked into all this. Or maybe he ought to trust Eliza a bit more. He had no reason to think she was lying, and if she wanted to trick some poor guy into marrying her she could probably have found a better candidate than him. An unemployed, second-generation immigrant with a high school education and no future prospects. What a catch.
“You’re a suspicious bastard, Rivera,” he told himself, but then again, that was kind of his job. No, he wouldn’t be insisting Eliza prove the baby was his. He was a much better judge of character than he had been when he met Marisol.
Oh shit, Marisol. If the Royals had a stick up their ass about Catholics, how were they going to feel about divorcees? There would be no way he could keep that quiet.
Even if he stayed, if he insisted on marriage, there would be investigations into his past. And what had been an unpleasant chapter in his private life would inevitably end up all over the tabloids. He’d be considered too scandalous and risky to marry precious Princess Elizabeth.
Xavier sighed and turned on his side. He didn’t suppose a more modern route of remaining unmarried co-parents would be open to them. Not after that furious rant. He’d suggest it, but he knew she’d shoot him down.
So he couldn’t marry her, he couldn’t not marry her, and he couldn’t leave.
That kinda left him nowhere.
In the morning he sat and composed an email to his lawyer, then dressed for whatever the day ahead held. His phone had a text sent overnight by Perez asking where the hell he was. “Your mom says you’re in England??”
“Couple of legal things to sort out. You know how it is,” Xavier replied, because his friend had been a cop even longer than Xavier and knew the paperwork could be endless, especially when anything international came up.
“Cool. Say Hi to the Queen,” the reply came back, with a crown emoji. Xavier tried to laugh at that, and failed.
The Princess Royal and her eldest daughter were nowhere to be seen by the time—fairly early, he thought—he was directed to the large, airy kitchen where breakfast was being served. The house was full of people looking smart and busy, and there were a bunch of dogs barking somewhere.<
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“Drina’s taking the hounds out,” Eliza told him. Her eyes looked a bit pink this morning as she poured orange juice. “Do you ride?”
“Hounds?”
“No, horses, silly. We don’t hunt,” she added quickly. “Mummy’s a patron of the RSPCA and Drina and I persuaded Daddy to vote against it. But we still keep the dogs. What would you like for breakfast?”
She stood and went over to a complicated-looking range cooker. The kitchen could easily have catered a large party, but looked barely used. He amused himself by wondering if there was another one used by staff, probably in a basement somewhere.
“Uh, coffee,” he said. He didn’t suppose there were any donuts.
“Yes, but to eat? Eggs, bacon, sausages? There’s some kedgeree I can warm through for you, and I’m fairly sure we have some kippers somewhere. Or just toast? Beans? Tomatoes, mushrooms,” she was looking in a refrigerator now, “oh yes, there are the kippers. Hash browns? They might be in the freezer room.”
“Freezer room?” said Xavier faintly.
“Yes. Or cereal. Some Variety packs, or muesli. I could ask if there are any pastries? We did have some muffins the other day. American ones, I mean, although there are probably some English… what’s so funny?”
Xavier hadn’t even realised he was laughing. “Is this what you Brits mean by the Full Monty?”
Eliza looked nonplussed. “I suppose it is. Breakfast like a king, lunch like a lord, and dine like a pauper, that’s what Daddy used to say, although I don’t suppose many paupers have footmen and Victorian silverware. What do you eat for breakfast at home?”
Well. Usually he ate breakfast on the go, a coffee and whatever stuff he picked up along with it. The closest he’d ever come to anything she described was an Egg McMuffin. He’d never even considered sausages or mushrooms as breakfast food, and he genuinely had no idea what a kipper was.
Perez would find this all hilarious.
“Uh, just coffee,” he said, and Eliza gave him a suspicious look but set about making some in a French press.
“When we stayed in DC there were pancakes on the menu,” she said, fiddling with the grounds. “With syrup and bacon. Drina had some and pretended she liked it.”
