The Princess Is Pregnant!

by Laurie Paige

  “And?” her mother prompted.

  “And nothing. I mean, we haven’t agreed upon anything.”

  The queen’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Does he not wish to marry?”

  “He says we must. Because of our positions.” Megan stood, her hands clenched, and strode about the flagstones. “I will not accept that kind of marriage. Look at what happened to Prince Charles and Princess Diana.”

  “Aye,” murmured the queen. “A tragic waste.”

  “How did you and Father make it work?”

  Her mother again stared at the rose she held. “Sometimes luck plays a part, I suppose. Both parties have to want a good marriage. Your father and I did. I wouldn’t let him close me out. I went to him, quite shamelessly, I must admit, during those early years.” She smiled in womanly conspiracy.

  Megan smiled, too, even as she blushed.

  “Tell Jean-Paul what you want from him,” the queen advised. “And use the attraction between you to cement the bond that already exists. Insist that he help with the child. That is another bond.”

  Megan took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. Everything seemed much simpler now that she’d talked with her mother. “What of Father? Shall I tell him right away?” she asked.

  Marissa frowned thoughtfully. “The king is extremely busy at present. Perhaps you and Jean-Paul should work things out to your satisfaction, then speak to the king.”

  “Should Jean-Paul ask for my hand?” Megan rolled her eyes. “That sounds so outdated.”

  Her mother laughed and gave her a little hug. “I will give a private dinner in my apartments when you are ready. The two of you may tell the king then, in whatever manner you decide. As old-fashioned as it sounds, I think your father would be delighted if Jean-Paul formally asked for your hand. As soon as he gets over being furious.”

  Megan hugged the queen back. “Thank you. I knew you would know what to do. I will advise you as soon as Jean-Paul and I have talked.”

  Marissa watched her daughter walk quickly from the garden, heading for the shore path and the cove where Megan went to think and be alone just as she used the private rose garden for her own haven. For a moment she regretted the loss of her sweet little girl, the Quiet One, who’d watched the world with her solemn green eyes and kept her thoughts to herself.

  “Please,” she prayed for her child, “let her be happy. Let there be love.”

  She sat on the bench while the bees hummed over the flowers and wished for all the desires of the heart for the royal princess.

  And for her own heart?

  Staring at the rose Morgan had given her that morning, she had to admit she didn’t know. They had drifted apart, each intent on his or her duties, over the past few years, but that could change…perhaps already had.

  Her heart gave a hitch. The way he’d looked at her, stroked the rose over her skin, those had to mean something. Could they recapture their early years together? Could they find joy and passion again?

  For a moment she was filled with longing and a glimmer of the possibilities. The mood faded. No one could have everything, she concluded with a sigh. Not a princess or a queen.

  Especially not a queen.

  Chapter Four

  Megan snipped the dead heads off the prize dahlias, aware of the gardener’s disapproving eyes on her the whole time. These were the royal family’s private gardens, but he considered all the palace grounds, both public and private, to be his personal domain. She ignored him.

  Jean-Paul had been in residence since Wednesday. Three days and all the females in the Penwyck capital city of Marlestone were atwitter over the handsome earl. The gossip and speculation about him set her teeth on edge.

  Her maid had updated Megan on his activities. He’d appeared briefly at a local night spot late last night after leaving her. He didn’t dance with anyone although one bold female had asked him; he’d good-naturedly bought her and all her friends an ale, then left soon after. This morning, he had rented a motorbike and raced along the beach, a popular Saturday endeavor. Several local young men had joined him, and a good time was had by all. Or so Megan heard.

  Huffing in exasperation, she wondered where he was at the present. She’d requested a meeting that morning to discuss the future and the queen’s invitation for an intimate dinner to inform her father of their plans. He’d left her stewing without an answer while he followed his own pursuits. Just as she’d done him the day he’d arrived.

  Snip. Snip.

  She slashed the drooping heads of two spent flowers, accidentally getting a third, healthy one. She quickly looked around to see if old Pierre, the gardener, was watching. He was.

  He glared at her from the rose arbor tucked next to the high stone wall surrounding the family gardens.

  Megan ducked her head and pretended not to see his scowls. Snip. Snip. She decapitated another dahlia, then realized she’d cut a second perfect bloom off in its prime.

  Pierre muttered direly in French.

  Disgusted with herself, she tossed her basket of cuttings into the compost bin and stored her gloves and shears in the potting shed. After wiping her face and hands with a damp towel, she strolled the manicured paths until she came to a favorite spot by the back wall that overlooked the cove.

  Using a stone bench in a hidden niche behind a birch tree as a stepping stool, she perched on the wall and looked out at the sea.

  The restless march of the waves on the shore taunted her queasy stomach. She quickly looked away from the sea to the hills that undulated in deep swells to finally become the Aronleigh Mountains stretching up the western coast of the country.

  Two figures sauntered along the path leading over the moors. As she watched, they paused and studied a flower blooming among the heather.

  Jean-Paul and a woman.

  When he moved aside, Megan recognized the blond hair and slender figure of Amira Corbin, daughter to the queen’s favorite lady-in-waiting and chief confidante. He plucked the flower and tucked it behind the girl’s ear.

  Megan heard the laughter of the younger female as she spun away and dashed down the pathway, her manner carefree and easy. Amira stopped and pointed out another interesting tidbit to her handsome companion.

  Resentment burned briefly in Megan’s breast, then was gone. The emotion wasn’t allowed.

  As a royal, she and her siblings had never been permitted the kind of freedom that was taken for granted by others. A guard would have followed her had she left the palace compound or cove directly below. She’d learned long ago to quit fighting the restraints of her position.

  Turning back to the sea, she experienced an intense longing to fling herself into its ever-shifting embrace and follow it to foreign shores and exotic lands, never to return….

  She sighed and let her shoulders slump. She never gave in to her wilder impulses. Except for once.

  Laying a hand against her roiling tummy, she sighed again. The king would be furious when she and Jean-Paul confessed all. He was very strict on protocol and the duty of the royals to set a good example.

  Dear heaven, how could she have been so foolish that one night? What had she been thinking?

  Now she would be forced into the very thing she’d always dreaded: an arranged marriage with no real feeling in it. Jean-Paul seemed to have accepted their fate, but she hadn’t. There must be another way—

  Laughter interrupted the berating of herself. Amira and the earl entered the family gardens. Megan heard them discussing the merits of the various blooms.

  “Behold the dandelion,” Jean-Paul said, stopping several feet away from Megan’s niche. “It asks for nothing but a tiny wedge of soil tucked into a crevice of the wall. Its needs are modest—no water but nature’s own tears, no fertilizer but that of the good earth, and no tending by any hand but that of the sun.”

  “Ah, but once this bloom has crept inside, it blows its seeds thither and yon,” Amira responded gaily, “and soon takes over the garden, allowing no space for more del
icate blossoms.” She pulled the plant out by the roots and tossed it over the wall.

  Megan saw the plant spin over the cliff and fall to the sea. She, too, felt like an intruder in Eden.

  But no, she wasn’t the weed in this paradise. Jean-Paul was a guest in her country and her home. He chose to ignore her and play the gallant with another.

  Lifting a loose pebble from the wall, she clenched it in her fist and fought an urge to fling it at the couple. However, it wasn’t large enough to do damage and so would only be a sop to her pride, she decided grumpily.

  “I must go,” Amira said regretfully. “Duty calls.”

  “Then you must answer.”

  Then you must answer, Megan mouthed, lifting her chin contemptuously at the honeyed tones. What a practiced rake he was!

  When he bowed over the girl’s hand, Megan couldn’t restrain a soft snort, which was safely hidden in the sound of the sea and the wind. Amira twirled away with an attractive toss of her long blond tresses.

  Megan hadn’t realized Lady Gwendolyn’s daughter was such a flirt. Perhaps she should warn the girl’s mother to have a chat with her daughter about the perils of becoming involved with handsome strangers.

  Not that Jean-Paul was a true stranger. In fact, her family had known his forever. The old kings of Penwyck, Drogheda and Majorco once tried to conquer each other just as those of England, Ireland and Scotland did.

  But those were ancient days. This was now. And she was no nearer to solving the question of her babe’s future than she’d been since penning that note to him.

  In a fury she flung the stone from her hand, then stifled a gasp as it hit Jean-Paul squarely in the back. Holding her breath, she hoped he wouldn’t notice or would attribute the assault to an insect blowing in the wind.

  Slowly, leisurely, he turned toward the wall and her secret lair. A devilish grin appeared on his face.

  “You have no reason for jealousy, Your Highness,” he called out softly so that old Pierre, fussing around the dahlias half the garden’s length away, wouldn’t hear. “I was on my way to see you.” He lifted a birch branch and entered her leafy grotto.

  At once she erased any emotion from her face. Squaring her shoulders, she informed him, “I would hardly be jealous of a girl. Amira is only twenty.”

  He looked back to where the younger woman disappeared into the wide door at the rear of the palace, then swung around to face her, a mysterious smile on his face.

  His eyes were bluer than the sky as they caught the morning sunlight in their depths. His hair was a rich brown like semisweet chocolate. A few silver threads intruded here and there in the slightly wavy tresses. Again he was dressed in black—boots, jeans and shirt.

  A rebel, she mused. That was his reputation. Bold among the ladies, too. He could also be incredibly gentle.

  “A pence for them,” he said, reaching out to touch her lightly at the temple.

  “You’d be shortchanged.”

  Laughing, he nodded in acknowledgment of her quip, then said, “You sent for me?”

  He stepped on the bench, then sat close to her on the wall. His scent wafted around her, as fresh as the morning.

  “I spoke to my mother,” she began, and stopped.

  “Queen Marissa,” he said in an encouraging manner. “She’s as beautiful as her daughter.”

  “My mother is beautiful. I am not.”

  “You don’t see yourself as others do.”

  Megan frowned. It seemed vain to argue her looks with him. “She has offered to entertain the king with a private dinner when…when we are ready to tell him our news.”

  “Of our marriage?” Jean-Paul asked easily.

  “Of the child.”

  “Hmm, knowing my own dear pater, I suggest we approach marriage first and the reasons later.”

  “What are the reasons?” She dared challenge him with her gaze when he cast her a direct stare.

  Finally he shrugged. “The child, assuming there is one. Have you seen a doctor?”

  She shook her head.

  “We should do that. Is there one you trust?”

  “Of course. The royal doctor is discreet.” She folded her hands in her lap to conceal their trembling. “What other reason is there for the marriage?”

  “The scandal that would be created should the story break before we’re prepared to face it.” He laid a hand on her arm and stroked back and forth. “My father would be in a fury if that should happen. I imagine yours would be, too, would he not?”

  She nodded unhappily.

  “There’s the passion,” he continued. His lips curved ever so slightly into a smile that mocked them both. “I want to make love to you each time I see you. I think you feel the same.”

  His fingers closed around her wrist where her pulse hammered away, making denial useless. She pulled away from his tempting touch.

  “We could give free rein to that,” he said.

  She thought of other royal marriages, so romantic in the press, so dismal in reality. “While it lasted,” she murmured sadly. “Then we would be tied to each other for all time. I don’t approve of divorce.”

  The smile fled his face and was replaced with cool anger. “You should have thought of that before you leaped aboard my ship.”

  The words stung, but she held on to her pride and nodded her head crisply.

  “The marriage would be good from the standpoint of both countries.”

  “Perhaps,” she agreed, “but I’ve not made up my mind to it. I could go away—”

  Her shoulders were seized roughly. “You will not destroy the child. I will not permit it.”

  “No, no,” she said. “I wouldn’t. I simply meant there are places I could go, a sojourn out of the country to study abroad until the child is born. That’s what I meant.”

  “Then what?”

  “Removed from the throne, the scandal would soon die. I wouldn’t deny the child’s heritage, but if we maintained a low profile, so to speak, people would cease to comment.”

  He eased his grip, but didn’t release her. “Marriage would solve all our problems.”

  “Would it?”

  Jean-Paul studied his reluctant bride’s downcast face. Marriage to him certainly ranked far down on her list of priorities, that much was clear. So much for his reputation as a world-class lover.

  But he had pleased her. And she had more than pleased him. It had been a night to remember, filled with her sighs and little moans of delight and a passion that had flared as brightly as an exploding star.

  “What do you want that I cannot supply?”

  “I’d thought to marry for love.” She ducked her head as if embarrassed by her sentiment, then raised her chin to stare at him defiantly.

  The simplicity of her statement, coupled with the hopelessness of her tone, enraged him for reasons he couldn’t name. Bah, she lived in a storybook, and he had no patience for pretense.

  “So you do play games, after all,” he muttered. “You want sweet words and whispered lies—”

  “No!” She half turned her back on him and stared out at the sea. “I told you—I want nothing from you. I got myself into this. I will handle it.”

  Flames erupted deep inside. “You didn’t do it alone. I played my part…too well, it seems. I will not deny the child to your parents or mine.”

  “Perhaps it isn’t yours.”

  Her challenges and denials threatened his control. He fought the fury. “It’s mine. You were a virgin in my arms, and I have the proof aboard the ship.”

  She stared at him aghast, a furious blush highlighting her face.

  He laughed softly as memories surfaced, routing anger with tenderness and delight. “You were inexperienced, Princess. I was not.”

  “You don’t know what has happened since that night, or with whom.”

  Her lie was absurd, her defiance maddening. “Show me your greater knowledge,” he dared, and pulled her to his chest.

  He took her startled mouth and smo
thered the tiny cry as he sought her sweetness. Her lips were like honey and he fed as eagerly as a bee among the honeysuckle vines.

  The stiffness of her slight frame was a challenge in itself. He lifted her to his thighs.

  His erection was already hard against his belly, and she moved against it instinctively, sending hot licks of fire throughout his body. He groaned and snuggled his face into her hair, fighting the need to make love to her right there, no matter the consequences.

  “Your body answers mine,” he murmured, planting kisses along her temple while his hands roamed of their own accord along her back and thighs.

  “It’s only lust.”

  “That, my prim princess, is quite enough. For now,” he added. “Marriage and children would bring their own bonds.”

  “I will not marry for your convenience, nor for the sake of protocol.”

  He lifted her chin so he could study her mulish expression. “Thus far I’ve found very little to be convenient in my dealings with you, Megan of Penwyck. I have answered when you called, leaving exploration that was important to me for others to discover. I’ve danced to your tune since arriving in your fair land. I hold my baser instincts in abeyance out of consideration for your tender feelings, although your body demands my attention—”

  “That is not true!”

  He flicked the pointed tip of her enticing breast. “What is this? A chill? The day is pleasant, not cold.”

  She gasped and crossed her arms, denying him the treasure that belonged to him.

  “Stop being childish and accept the fate that has been preordained for us,” he ordered, giving her a severe frown to keep from kissing her again.

  Before he realized what she was doing, she leaped out of his arms and was gone, ducking beneath the tree branches and running along the garden path to disappear inside.

  He had to remain in place. His condition would be all too evident to anyone he happened to meet. With his current luck, that would be the king or the queen, or both.

  Forcing his thoughts to things cold in nature—glaciers, ice fields and Arctic blizzards—he cooled his blood, then followed the path to the palace family quarters where he was to dine. Perhaps he should speak to Queen Marissa.