by Rachel Hauck
“Annulment? How could I? No one knew. You said so yourself . . . This thing,” Stephen flicked the edge of the envelope, “was tucked away in some secret compartment. The marriage was never official.”
“Are you so daft? A marriage performed by an archbishop is automatically on file with the Church. That’s as good as the Court, if not more so.”
“But Archbishop Caldwell never filed it.” Were they to continue this circular argument? It was so clear to Stephen. He was not married. He returned from Afghanistan with a mission to play professional rugby and end his relationship with his wife.
“Are you so naive? You are a member of the royal family. If this certificate says you married Corina Del Rey”—Nathaniel pulled out and examined the certificate—“on three June, six years ago, then you are married, little brother.”
“Impossible.” Stephen paced around the island, thinking, his thoughts colliding with his palpitating emotions. “I’ve not even seen her since—”
“That doesn’t change this signed and sealed certificate. You are married before God and the Church. Unless you petitioned for disillusion. Did you?”
“No!” He cut the air with a wide sweep of his arm. “It was a secret. The archbishop promised to hold the certificate until I came for it.”
“Well, he proved to be trustworthy. Unfortunately, he didn’t pass the word along to Archbishop Burkhardt. Didn’t Caldwell tell you this certificate marries you whether you file with the Court or not?”
No. Maybe. Yes. Stephen scooped his fingers through his hair, leaving his locks to stand on end. Impetuous. It had been a spur-of-the-moment, impetuous decision. They were in love. He was about to deploy. They had four weeks to be man and wife before he left. They’d keep their secret for the six months he was away, then tell his family and hers, and finally, the world.
He was good at impetuous, on-his-feet thinking. It was when he hesitated that things went wrong. Like that day in Torkham. Like that day on the pitch during 7 Nations, when he hesitated on his sidestep around an England Lions defender.
“Did you love her?”
“I suppose . . . yes.”
Nathaniel exhaled and ran his hand over his hair. “You married an American heiress and told no one?” Fire flamed in his eyes. His nostrils flared. Stephen resented his tone.
“Yes, I married her. What of it?” He snatched the envelope back from his brother. He might be his brother and king, but he was not his father, his conscience, or his God. “As I recall, you liked her.”
“Where is she now?” Nathaniel glanced about the kitchen with exaggeration, hands on his belt. “I see no photographs. No mementos. No evidence she was ever in your life.”
“Because the relationship is over. As for where she is, I don’t know. The States, I assume. With her family. She went home after her brother died.” He wanted to resent his brother for bringing this to light. “Look, we’ll just tear it up and forget about it. No harm, no foul.”
“The archbishop, rightly so, made a copy. And we can’t just tear up a marriage certificate, Stephen. Corina is not your pet. She’s your wife.”
“Whom I’ve not seen in five years.” Stephen returned to his stool at the island, picking up a puff, then dropping it back on the plate.
“I didn’t realize marriages had statutes of limitations on physically seeing someone. Unless, of course, she’s passed on. Has she? Died?”
“Don’t be morbid. And it’s rude because you know what happened to her twin brother.” Stephen paced again, his adrenaline spiked, making it impossible to sit still. “And don’t talk down to me.”
“You’re right. I apologize. I’m just put out by this business. I’m not sure where to land. Stephen, what were you thinking? You willingly risked the Brighton throne? This marriage was entirely illegal six years ago. A royal in line to the throne was forbidden to marry a foreigner. What if something had happened to me?” The steam of anger curled Nathaniel’s words. “You are second in line.”
“Please, I was the one shipping off to war. You, the crown prince, were not allowed to go.”
“I could’ve slipped and fallen in the bathtub, hit my head.”
“You cannot be serious.” Stephen accented his mocking laugh with a sardonic edge.
“No, I guess not.” Nathaniel noticed his tea for the first time and took a sip. He made a face. “It’s cold.”
“I’ll freshen the pot—”
“Leave it be, Stephen.” Nathaniel perched on his stool. “Tell me, what happened? Why the secrecy? What was the plan when you returned—”
“I don’t know, Nathaniel. You with your twenty questions. All right, I was in love.” Stephen fell against the kitchen’s counter, crossing his booted foot over his healthy one, a dull ache gripping his ankle. “It was the night of the Military Ball. Corina and I had gone to the top of the Braithwaite Tower. No one was there—it was just the two of us. We were looking out over the Rue du Roi, surrounded by the lights of the city, and in that moment life was perfect. It was nine o’clock. The cathedral bells had just started to chime.”
The wind swept along the avenue, bringing with it the fragrance of the River Conour. Stephen anchored his hands on the upper railing of the Braithwaite, capturing Corina between his arms.
Her hair brushed against his cheek, and he felt as if he were drowning in the pleasure of her.
Turning her to him, he delicately traced his finger along the curve of her jaw, then raised her chin and touched his lips to hers. So soft, so sweet. It awakened a deeper, more powerful hunger. Stepping back, he knew what had been whispering in his heart for the last few months was real.
He loved her. He wanted to marry her. But he was shipping out in four weeks for a six-month tour in Torkham with his RAC flight.
Behind him, beside him, before him, the synchronized cathedral bells began to ring out.
One, two, three . . .
Then she said it first. The words his heart burst to share. “I love you, Stephen. You are my prince.” Her light laugh wound around his heart.
Four, five, six . . .
Then he knew what he wanted more than anything. He didn’t think or hesitate, because he knew what was right. Dropping to one knee, he gazed into her hazel eyes with the flecks of gold.
Seven, eight . . .
“Marry me, Corina Del Rey, because I love you so very much.”
Nine.
“What? Marry you?” Her voice resounded in the silence. The June air swept around them, scented with honeysuckle.
“Yes, tonight. We can catch the ferry to Hessenberg.”
“Hessenberg? But why? How? Brighton law forbids you marrying a foreigner.” Her voice quivered as she exposed the truth.
“But yet, here you are in my arms.”
“I love you and I don’t understand the law, but Stephen, I won’t be responsible for toppling any part of the House of Stratton.”
“Indeed not. I am capable of that all on my own. Darling, I’m going to war in thirty days’ time. If that is not a threat to the House of Stratton, I don’t know what is. Certainly not a prince marrying the woman who has captured his heart. So marry me. Please. The archbishop there is a good bloke. I’m sure he’ll marry us.” Or at least he believed so.
“You really want to marry me?”
“Is that a yes?”
“If you want to marry me, then—”
“Yes, you’ll marry me.” He gathered her into his arms, swinging her round, kissing her in the first of many intimate kisses.
“Stephen? Did you hear me?”
He leveled on his brother, bringing his thoughts about. “Say again?”
Nathaniel poured a cup of tea. “Why did it end?”
“Why are you doing this? Take a guess. You know her brother was one of the men killed that day.” Nathaniel, along with the defense minister, the RAC general counsel, and his dear departed father, were the only ones who knew the whole truth.
“Ah, you ended the marriage because of her
brother.” Nathaniel knew Stephen and Carlos had been friends. And he knew Stephen had been somewhat smitten with his mate’s twin sister, Corina.
“She went home to be with her parents when she got the news . . . about Carlos.” Stephen shook his head, a shallow, simple way of expressing what his words could not. “Those five days I was in the hospital, after the blast, I knew every time I looked at her I’d remember and—”
“Then what? You just rang up and said, ‘It’s over love’?”
“No . . . she returned to Brighton after Carlos’s funeral. I couldn’t tell her why I’d gone missing on her, why I didn’t return her calls or e-mails, why I missed her brother’s funeral. Since the RAC didn’t know she was my wife, naturally they didn’t contact her when I was wounded.”
“Nor did the family. Good grief, Stephen.” Nathaniel’s sigh more than scolded. It affirmed. You messed up.
“We lost contact for about two weeks. First with me in the hospital, then with me . . . well, dealing with the whole mess. She didn’t know Carlos had been transferred to my crew. She flew back to Brighton to try to find out what had happened to me and to tell me about Carlos in case I hadn’t heard. I was at her flat when she arrived, getting my things. We lived there after we married . . . to keep the press away from us.”
“And you sent her away?”
“I told her the marriage was a mistake. It sounded reasonable since marrying a foreigner was illegal. I had the law on my side.”
“So you didn’t really love her when you married her?”
Stephen glanced at his brother. “I loved her very much.”
Their phone calls, e-mails were his lifeline. Her care packages of biscuits and cakes, little drawings and poems, set his heart ablaze as much as her kisses and love making. She wasn’t a grand baker—he and the lads had to wash her cookies down with big gulps of water—but Stephen loved that she tried.
So his time in Torkham had passed quickly. The unit had engaged in some intense fighting, and day after day, his love for her kept him going. But July to January seemed like an eternity to a thirsty man dwelling in the desert.
Then four weeks from the end of his tour, an enemy they never anticipated blew up the mess tent, killing the six men on Stephen’s crew. Including his wife’s brother.
Stephen survived, spending a week in a field hospital, before special forces transported him home on New Year’s Eve. All under cover.
“You must have crushed her, Stephen.”
“Crushed seems like such a hard word.” Lately, there were nights when he dreamt of her tears. All the more reason he needed to return to rugby. To exert his physical power over his emotional weakness.
“I’m sure it does.” Nathaniel sighed his disappointment. “However, it’s fitting. Did she ask what happened? Where you’d been? Why you lost communication? Did you tell her you knew about Carlos? That he was with you?”
“I couldn’t tell her why Carlos was with me, could I? It’s classified. So I just avoided all detail. PTSD makes a good excuse.” Even now, the truth was buried so deep it hurt if he even thought of it. “Well, I did tell her there was an explosion. Nothing more. All that nonsense is classified anyway. I said it made me realize I had a responsibility to the Crown and the House of Stratton. If word got out I’d married an American, there’d be chaos. I’d have to step out of line to the throne, and frankly, I couldn’t do that to Dad. Or you. God rest his soul.”
King Leopold V, Stephen’s father, had succumbed to leukemia two years ago. And Stephen never missed him more.
“Blimey, you’re a piece of work.”
“Nathaniel, I don’t need your judgment. Even now, I still believe I did what was best. Besides all of the legal ramifications, which didn’t change until you wanted to marry Susanna, I needed to forget everything about Afghanistan and move on. And that included Corina. How could I look at her and not remember?”
“I can’t believe she gave in without an argument.”
“She didn’t until I told her I’d have to renounce the throne. She embraced the end of things then.”
“But you never told her you were with Carlos when he died?”
“No.” The pain on her face when he told her he wanted out of the marriage nearly did him in. It was forever etched on his heart. He refused to add the image of her tears when he told her Carlos died needlessly. That he died because of him.
So Stephen blotted out the day he ended their marriage. Yet this conversation with Nathaniel dragged through the depths and crevasses of his mind, raising bits and pieces of that horrid day to the surface.
She’d been weeping so bitterly, reminding him of their love, how she needed him in the wake of Carlos’s death. Stephen had nearly relented and scooped her in his arms, telling her everything would be all right.
But then he heard the phantom explosion, the echoing screams. He saw the blood on his hands. And it was all he could do not to run from her presence.
Stephen closed the blinds on those memories, fingers pressed to his forehead.
“Tell me this—how did Archbishop Caldwell not challenge you?” Nathaniel said.
“He protested at first, but then his wife brewed him a spot of tea and he seemed rather cordial afterwards. I think he was persuaded we were in love and knew what we were doing.” Stephen caught Nathaniel by the arm. “I did love her. Truly. But Torkham changed everything.”
“You realize you need to fix this.” Nathaniel shoved the envelope toward him.
“There’s nothing to fix. She thinks it’s over. It is over. Toss it in the trash.”
Nathaniel reached inside his pocket, producing a folded piece of paper. “I told you. We can’t do that. Archbishop Burkhardt sent this note along with the certificate. Shall I read it?”
“Be my guest.” Sarcasm. He was at the end of his patience.
“He writes, ‘I’m unsure of the meaning of this certificate. Prince Stephen does not presently have a wife to my knowledge, but I pray that whatever has become of their relationship, the prince will handle it with honor before God and men. While I suspect he married her in secret, he cannot put her away in the same fashion. A proper annulment must be filed with the Church.’ ”
“I didn’t put her away in secret. She knows. I told her to her face.”
“You’re going to have to file an annulment. Let’s pray she’s not moved on and remarried already. There hasn’t been much in the media about her lately, nor her family, which, I suppose, if Corina Del Rey married, it would be quite the society affair.”
“W–what?” Stephen scoffed. She’d not have married again. Would she? A whip of jealousy stung his heart.
“She’s a beautiful, intelligent woman. Surely you’ve considered that another man might want her. That she’d want to move on, have a family.” Nathaniel glanced at his watch. “Sorry to cut this off, but I’ve a meeting. Ring Jonathan in the morning. He’ll help you locate her. Then you can fly Royal Air One to meet with her.”
“Pardon? Nathaniel, I’m not going to ‘meet with her.’ We can courier the proper papers to her.”
“Stephen, she’s your wife, deserving of your respect and honor. Especially since she’s been lied to for the past five or so years, thinking she’s a freed woman when she is not. Not to mention, she married the royal Prince of Brighton. I’d say she is deserving of a princess honor.” Nathaniel made his way through the kitchen doors. “If you argue any more about it, I’ll haul out the big guns.”
Mum! “You wouldn’t.”
“Don’t test me.”
He felt twelve again. Under his father’s disapproving scrutiny when he brought his mates into the throne room and set up a bowling lane. “I meant to handle it, Nathaniel.” Stephen walked with his brother to the front door. “But I ended up playing in the summer internationals. Then I realized I didn’t have the marriage certificate, so I just let it go.”
“Did you forget your way to the good archbishop’s office?” Nathaniel opened the door and the scent
of an evening rain swept into the apartment. “Make this right, Stephen.”
Blimey. He’d not truly encountered brother-king Nathaniel before. But he was right. Stephen had to see her. Tell Corina face-to-face. With a giant, weight-bearing exhale, he sank into the nearest chair and stared out the window.
Rain splashed down, bouncing off the warm summer sidewalk, and in the distance he heard the first choreographed chimes of the city’s six o’clock bells.
One . . .
Two . . .
Three . . .
THREE
It was late. She was tired and ready to go home, but since Mark Johnson had arrived Monday afternoon, walking the bull pen with political candidate gravitas, shaking hands, pledging hope and change, Corina’s workload doubled.
She’d been assigned to bring him up to speed on the writers and the way of the bull pen. She spent her days introducing him to the Melbourne, Florida, staff as well as the writers scattered across the country and around the world via the wonder of the Internet.
In the evenings, after everyone left, she stayed to answer e-mails from stringers, edit articles, check on the bloggers, and make sure deadlines were being met.
She tried to show Mark their online assignment board so he could take some of the load, but he remained in campaign mode, schmoozing with Gigi and the staff, distracted, taking calls from his old job as well as his wife, his Realtor, and some dude designing a custom surfboard.
Yeah, Gigi, Mark’s just perfect for this job.
With a sigh, Corina slumped in her chair and stared at the Indian Harbor Beach lights reflecting in the river.
Tonight Gigi was throwing a “Welcome Mark” party for the entire staff at River Rock. On a Thursday too. Half the staff would call in tomorrow, claiming to be “working from home.” She should go, be a part of the team, but she couldn’t motivate herself to move away from her desk.
Adjusting her lamp, Corina pushed back a bit of the bull pen’s darkness and stared at her computer screen. Nine o’clock. Really, she should head home. Pull on her comfy clothes and watch a Mary Tyler Moore DVD.
