How to Catch a Prince

by Rachel Hauck

  “He’s full of it. Keeps me hopping.” Agnes pulled a handkerchief from her handbag by the front door.

  “He’s Bird’s?”

  She nodded and blew her nose.

  “Did he know?”

  She pressed the wadded up handkerchief into her palm and shook her head. “I wanted to surprise him. I found out a month before he was due home, so I thought to make it a late Christmas present. One month to go. That was all. One lousy month.” The boy bounded into the room with his rugby ball. It was half the size of him yet. Agnes patted his head. “Mitchell O’Connell the Third. Bird’s boy.”

  Her eyes glistened and her lean shoulders seemed too delicate to bear her burden alone. “Bird and me was two of a kind. Joined at the hip like we was made to be together. My only family, and I never figured a life without him, then there I was, alone and pregnant. Not legally his wife yet. We did things backwards.”

  “He’s beautiful.” Corina knelt in front of Baby Bird. “Do you want to go outside? I can teach you some of the basics of the world’s best sport, American football.”

  “What?” Stephen balked, laughing. “Pay her no mind, Baby Bird.”

  But he was halfway out the back door, cheering.

  Corina gave Stephen a smug look and walked round him. “Coming, Baby Bird.”

  “She’s lovely.”

  “Yes, she is.” Stephen perched on the arm of the chair and took Agnes’s hand in his. “I promised Bird I’d look out for you.”

  “But I’m not his proper wife. You don’t owe me anything, though I sure would like something for Baby Bird.” Her cheeks flushed red as she glanced down at the chair, picking at a loose thread. “I know Bird would want more for his son than I can give him.” She wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “I’m not ashamed to ask if you’re offering.”

  “How are you getting on? You’ve a job?”

  “Bird’s parents mind Baby Bird for me while I work at the school. Teaching assistant. It doesn’t pay much but keeps this roof over our head and food on the table. Thank goodness, or I’ve no idea where we’d be. I just want the world to know Bird has a son, Your Highness.”

  “Please, call me Stephen.”

  “I don’t want to be a charity case. If the military would just recognize Bird’s paternity, I’ll have the orphan’s benefits.”

  “Let me see to it. And, as a favor to me, for my mate Bird O’Connell, I’d like to pay for his education.”

  She cracked with a hard sob, hand to her mouth, pressing her forehead to Stephen’s shoulder. “Everything Bird said about you is true. Absolutely true.”

  Stephen fumbled with an awkward pat on the woman’s shoulder, then settled his hand on her back and shared her sorrow.

  Through the kitchen window, he could see Baby Bird in the yard with a couple of boys, trying to toss the thick rugby ball like an American football, sloshing through the mud. Oh the way of little boys. He’d figure a way to make sure Agnes had a grand washing machine and dryer.

  “Agnes.” Corina had returned, silently moving into the conversation. “My twin brother, Carlos, died the same day.” Agnes raised her head, drying her cheeks with her hand. “He served in the Joint Coalition with your Bird. With Stephen. I still miss him. My parents . . . I don’t think they’ll ever be the same.”

  “Love, I’m so sorry.” Agnes flowed from Stephen’s shoulder to Corina’s, and for a long time, the women wept and embraced. Healed.

  The back door slammed, Baby Bird returning, his little footsteps thudding against the old hardwood. “Did you know my Da?” He tugged on Stephen’s hand.

  “I sure did. He was a good mate.” Stephen swung Bird’s son up into his arms, burying his face against his small, little-boy shoulders. Which at the moment seemed broader and more manly than Stephen’s own.

  “I can’t breathe. Let me go.” Baby Bird squirmed, kicking to be free. “I’m not your doll.”

  “Baby Bird,” Agnes said, releasing Corina and lightly flicking the boy’s head. “You’re speaking to the Prince of Brighton. Show respect.”

  “It’s okay,” Stephen said and slid the boy to the ground. “He’s Bird’s son all right.”

  Baby Bird puffed out his chest, anchoring his fists on his waist. “I’m going to be a pilot, like him. He was the best.”

  “Pilot?” Stephen peeked at Agnes. Bird was a mechanic.

  She shrugged, a thin pink hue sweeping across her cheeks. “It’s what he wanted his Da to be. So I said, why not?”

  “Indeed, why not?”

  Something bubbled over in the kitchen and Agnes hurried off, Baby Bird running after her. “I’ll be right round with a spot of tea and cakes.”

  When they were alone, Corina soothed her hand down Stephen’s back. “You all right?”

  He inhaled, steeling the rise of his own cordoned off memories and emotions. “I’m glad we came.” Raising his hand to her face, he stroked her jaw, not caring about the past, the future, only this moment with her. “I’m glad you’re here.” And he realized . . . Corina had always been his rock. “Even though I’m going to have to uncorrupt Baby Bird about this football business.” His heart palpitated with a yearning to pull her into him and kiss her. He slipped his hand around the back of her neck and stepped toward her. “Corina, I—”

  “I was standing at the stove when I realized . . .” Agnes had returned. “Oh, begging your pardon.”

  Stephen stepped back, embarrassed, agitated. Relieved. He had no business kissing Corina. He cut her a glance. She had no business allowing him. “Not at all, not at all.”

  “It’s just that I realize the Prince of Brighton is in me house.” She set the service on the center table and curtsyed again, this time, low and proper. “This is my granny’s tea set. She bought it in France on her honeymoon.”

  “It’s lovely,” Corina said, taking a seat as Agnes poured, avoiding Stephen’s gaze.

  The conversation moved to life after Afghanistan, how Agnes came by the cottage and her job, her supportive family, all peppered with Baby Bird’s observations about life and his mum.

  “She’s bossy.”

  “I wouldn’t be if you’d mind me now, would I? Hmm?” Agnes arched her brow at her son.

  Baby Bird grimaced at Stephen in such a way he laughed and, mercy a-mighty, he saw a piece of himself in the lad.

  Once the tea was served, Agnes raised her cup. “To Bird, the best man I’ve ever known. May he rest in peace.”

  Stephen raised his cup. “To Bird.”

  “To Bird and Carlos,” Corina said.

  “To Carlos.”

  “To Carlos.”

  “Who’s Carlos?” And Baby Bird set them all to laughing.

  The afternoon faded into evening in Agnes’s living room, sharing, laughing, remembering Bird, Carlos, the bond of family forged by trial.

  Stephen did a spell on the back lawn with Baby Bird. Teaching him the superiority of rugby, taking care with his ankle, while Corina accepted Agnes’s request for ideas on making over a small room in the back of the house.

  And that night, Stephen’s family grew by two.

  On the drive home, Corina relaxed against her seat, her eyes in a sleepy daze. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “You invited me to go with you for you, but in the end you gave a great gift to me. I didn’t feel so alone anymore. While my parents never want to talk about Carlos, Agnes talked so freely about missing Bird, about their son. I got to reminisce about Carlos.”

  “None of this would’ve happened without you.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because you could have signed the annulment in Florida, but instead you demanded something of me. And it challenged me.”

  “I think I stumbled upon that request by accident, driven by my own need for closure.”

  She fell silent and he let it be, sensing there was something more. In the glow of the dashboard lights, he found her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

>   “I love you, Stephen.” She wrapped her hand around his, not letting go. “I tell myself I shouldn’t, that our marriage is over, but I love you. Not just as a friend but as my husband”

  The confession engulfed him. Consumed him. How could she love him? If he had no response before, he was drowning now just trying to understand.

  But she didn’t seem in need of an answer. He peered sideways at her as the Audi moved down the straightaway, their hands still locked together, her eyes closing as she drifted sweetly off to sleep.

  Gigi

  In the world of journalism, no news was bad news. Gigi scanned her e-mail one last time before going home. Nothing. Even Madeline Stone came up empty. Though Gigi suspected the Brighton TV presenter didn’t try very hard. Of course, she’d keep the best bits for her own show with that gaudy Hyacinth.

  Gigi clicked out of e-mail, thinking, mulling. She should be able to just get the skinny from Corina, her very own employee. She needed a new strategy. The old one wasn’t working.

  At her office window, she gazed at the stretch of river between the Eau Gallie and Melbourne causeways. Maybe, at fifty-six, she’d lost her mojo. For the first time in her life, she considered the impossible. Quitting. The very idea made her shudder.

  A foreign feeling, a strange word never before allowed in her vocabulary.

  She was Gigi-freaking-Beaumont. The woman who started this company from scratch when the worldwide web consisted of nothing more than AOL, tech geeks, and cyber perverts.

  She was ambitious, competitive, with instinct and ingenuity, and a callous soul. Whatever it took to get ahead, she did it. And she harbored no regrets.

  She’d married her third husband just to gain access to his wealth, mastering a stellar prenup giving her half of his assets at their divorce.

  But today a weariness settled in her bones. Her conscience woke from a long sleep and knocked on her heart’s battered door. Leave her be . . .

  Bested by a tenderhearted, broken beauty from Georgia.

  Gigi returned to her work, opening her presentation for the four thirty online meeting with the division directors. Maybe they would have some ideas how to revamp the Beaumont Post brand. Find a new life in their fading, albeit fearless leader.

  About to head through the bull pen to see if anyone happened upon a salacious tip—after all, she’d imported the best scouts, sources, and news diggers in the world to her seaside domain—when a new e-mail from a strange address dropped into her inbox.

  801laurellane@bmail.com

  The sounds from the bull pen faded. Gigi’s warm blood chilled and her hand, resting on her mouse, trembled.

  801 Laurel Lane? Her flat on the north side of Cathedral City when she worked for Brighton Broadcast Company.

  Robert? Dear, sweet Robert. With an exhale, she opened the e-mail. Tuesday at eight. What could he possibly want?

  Thirty-five years ago he’d wanted to marry her but had nothing to offer but his heart and devotion.

  She was just starting out, wildly ambitious, full of herself and her dreams. She refused to tie herself down to a man with no means, no name. A servant in the palace.

  When she left him for the last time, she made her intentions clear. “I’m bound for greatness, and I need a partner who can go with me, help me get there.”

  Gigi Beaumont, what a fool you’ve been.

  Her eyes were wet with tears as she read his message. It contained nothing more than three simple words.

  They are married.

  Gigi squinted at the line again, the bold, beautiful line.

  They are married.

  Oh. My. Oh very, very my. What glorious news. She all but danced a jig about the office. Robert, you dear, sweet man.

  This, this was her scoop. The one that would put her back on top of the pseudo-news-tabloid world.

  “Oh, thank you, Lord, thank you, thank you. You didn’t forget your little ole Gigi, did you? Not like those long nights when my daddy was out drinking. Thank youuuuu!”

  Back in her chair, Gigi hit Reply and studied the screen.

  A story like this needed some corroboration, but the salaciousness of it alone was a moneymaker, enough to run it on hearsay. Robert could be her “palace source.”

  If it turned out to be untrue, she’d print a subtle retraction, buried in the back of the Post.

  But she’d face the wrath of Corina, such as it was for that sweet, demure girl with little fire in her bones. The toll of Carlos’s death continued to demand payment.

  But wait a minute, if she was married to Prince Stephen, what was she doing in Melbourne? How long had they been married? Why hadn’t the world heard of this?

  A secret royal wedding? Oh, this was too good to be true. Trembling, Gigi clicked Reply and typed her own simple message.

  HOW DO YOU KNOW? DEETS.

  Once the message was off into cyber space, Gigi paraded through the bull pen, suggesting an evening barbecue at her Tortoise Island home, perhaps drop the jet skis and paddleboats into the river. After all, it was the weekend.

  The staff responded with an enthusiasm that pushed back the sluggishness of a Friday afternoon. They were all in.

  Gigi called home, instructing her staff to prepare for the party. Then she sashayed to the tea cart. She still had it, baby, she still had it.

  TWENTY-SIX

  At 8:54 in the evening, a soft light hovered over Cathedral City. The stratus of twilight scooped low and blended with the amber glow of city lamps.

  Corina stepped out of the lift and onto the deck of the Braithwaite Tower, and into the breeze, the cloudless evening, the muted music of city life, and her memories.

  And she was glad she came. Glad she’d texted Stephen to meet her here. The idea came to her as they drove home from Dunwudy Glenn. Meet on top of the Braithwaite.

  She’d debated the idea all morning, considering it a bit melodramatic. But by teatime, she’d texted him, asking him to meet her here at 8:54.

  When the nine o’clock chimes rang out, she’d hand him his freedom. She would end their marriage the way it began.

  The Braithwaite was a glorious, above-the-city park with a small garden in the center, potted trees clustered between picnic tables and park benches.

  The historic tower was the coveted location for surprises, for victory celebrations, for announcements, birthdays, and weddings. For blind dates and marriage proposals. For good-byes.

  Cutting through the garden, Corina made her way to the forward wall and propped her arms on the railing where the view squared off with the Rue du Roi. In the distance, she could see the northern edge of Stratton Palace.

  Forty stories down, the streets moved with traffic. Pedestrians snaked along the sidewalk, moving in and out of the shops, the park, on and off the busses.

  From her vantage point, everything looked so small. Manageable. Sometimes all one needed was a change of perspective.

  The wind driving up the side of the building played tug-of-war with her hair. Corina dug in her messenger bag for a hair tie.

  How different tonight was from six years ago when she stood here with Stephen, wearing the Diamatia, her hair piled and curled on top of her head, sprayed and pinned into place. Not even the Braithwaite breeze could topple it.

  Her heart overflowed with human confidence in those days, so self-assured by her abilities, youth, beauty, and wealth. On top of it all, she’d captured the heart of a prince.

  Life was hers to command. Until it commanded her and drove her to her knees.

  Now as she waited to meet Stephen on top of the historic tower, she had nothing to hope in but Jesus himself. The purest example of loving well.

  All day she anticipated his response to her “I love you,” but he let the confession go without a word. Perhaps it was for the best. She’d been obedient to God’s whisper, “Love well.” The rest was up to him.

  She turned at the sound of the lift bell. The doors opened and Stephen stepped out, making her heart flutter, still, as he
made his way toward her with his uneven, booted gait.

  “Hey, you,” she said, meeting him at the garden’s edge. “Thank you for coming.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” His eyes drifted over her. “You spent the afternoon in the home of a stranger for me yesterday.” Despite his casual demeanor, he was guarded. His cloaked gaze gave her no access to his heart.

  “Want to sit?” She motioned to the perimeter tables.

  Stephen walked her to a table in the front corner. Not far from where he proposed. Did he remember? “The old Braithwaite. Eyes on the city.” He propped his arms on the guard rail, leaning into the breeze. “You can see every corner of the city from up here.”

  “Stephen.” Corina dropped her messenger bag to the table, reaching inside for the annulment. “I leave in the morning, so let me do what I came here to do.”

  He returned to her, sitting on the tabletop, feet on the bench seat. “All right.”

  “First, thank you for telling me about Carlos. I have made up my mind to tell my father. I’m sorry, but I feel I must. But I promise I won’t tell anyone else. You have my word.”

  He nodded, the wind jerking his dark locks from side to side.

  “Second . . .” She’d rehearsed this moment over and over, but going through with it proved harder than she imagined. “Here.” She handed him the white legal envelope that contained their end. “All signed. You came through on my demand, so I’m following up on yours.”

  He hesitated, then reached for the envelope. “T–thank you.”

  She sighed, brushing a thin strand of hair from her eyes. “I didn’t want to sign it. I hated the language of the annulment. It says our marriage never existed. And you checked the ‘Mistake’ box.” She looked at him, but his gaze was averted. “I don’t think any of it was fake or a mistake.”

  “I had little choice. The ‘death of my wife’s brother’ wasn’t an option. Otherwise, I’d have to file for a divorce, but I don’t think either of us wanted that, Corina.”

  She leaned against the edge of the table next to him, willing the full force of her confession on him. “I don’t like that you decided my heart for me. What I would or would not think, feel, or want. You had no right.”