The Prince's Royal Dilemma

by Brenda Harlen

  “I’m happy with my life,” he told her.

  “You should be on the throne.”

  “Rowan is the prince regent.”

  “For now,” she agreed. “But his position is far from secure.”

  “What are you saying, Mother?”

  “I’m just reminding you that any member of the royal family can challenge the authority of a ruler believed to be unsuitable.”

  “I’d imagine when parliament made that provision, it was with the expectation that there would be valid grounds for such a challenge,” he pointed out.

  “Obviously,” she agreed, ignoring his sarcasm. “And your cousin has lived and worked in London for the past ten years. He doesn’t know what the people of Tesoro del Mar want or need. How can he be the appropriate choice to rule them?”

  “He’s done an admirable job since Julian’s death.”

  When she spoke again, her voice had softened a little, just enough to suggest that she understood he was grieving for the loss of a man who had been not just his cousin but one of his best friends. “I appreciate that this is a difficult situation—”

  “Do you?” he interrupted to ask. “Do you understand that the whole country is mourning for Julian and Catherine and for the children who have suddenly lost both of their parents? Or is this just a chance to make a play for the crown that you always craved for yourself?”

  “Only a fool would deny that this is an incredible opportunity for our family.”

  “Then I guess I’m a fool,” he said easily. “Because I don’t want any part of whatever you’re planning.”

  “I expect your brother will feel differently.”

  As much as Michael loved his brother—and he did, even though they rarely saw eye to eye on anything—he couldn’t imagine Cameron running a charity event never mind a country. On the other hand, that might be exactly why Elena was eager to see her youngest son in the highest office, so that she could pull the strings and advance her own agenda.

  “Obviously that’s something you’ll have to discuss with Cameron,” he said. “But I want you to know that I won’t support any attempt to take the throne away from Julian’s children through Rowan.”

  She picked up her purse. “I had hoped you would have more of a sense of family loyalty.”

  “They’re our family, too, Mother.”

  But she was already out the door.

  Rowan hadn’t slept well since taking the throne. If it wasn’t his duties that weighed on his mind, it was the inappropriate fantasies about the royal nanny that plagued his sleep or, more recently, nightmares about nameless, faceless brides. His brothers both found his marriage dilemma amusing but Rowan did not, and Henri’s reassurance that there would be no shortage of women wanting to be his wife was hardly reassuring. He knew that their eagerness to wed the prince regent had more to do with his title and status than him as a person.

  It shouldn’t matter why a woman wanted to be his wife. After all, he wasn’t looking for a love match but only to make the best of a bad situation. A situation that went from bad to worse when he entered his office early the next morning and found it already occupied.

  He recognized the older woman as Helene Renaud, a member of the palace housekeeping staff, but he was certain he’d never seen the younger woman with her.

  “Good morning, Your Highness.” Helene curtsied as she greeted him in French.

  He returned her greeting, albeit a little warily.

  “This is my daughter, Jocelyn,” the maid told him.

  Rowan’s gaze drifted to the girl by her side, for he saw now that she was a girl and probably not much older than his eldest nephew, though he was still at a loss as to what either of them was doing in his office.

  “She’s a pretty girl, isn’t she?” Helene continued. “And she will make a beautiful bride.”

  A beautiful bride?

  Suddenly the reason for the maid’s presence—and that of her daughter—was all too clear.

  “She’s a very beautiful girl,” he agreed. “But she’s a child.”

  “She will be fifteen on her birthday in three weeks,” Helene told him. “The paper said your bride must be fifteen.”

  “The paper?”

  She handed him a copy of the morning paper.

  It was only years of training that allowed Rowan to note the headline without any outward hint of surprise, and though his irritation increased with each word of the article he scanned, he gave no indication of such.

  “Right there,” the girl’s mother said again, pointing a finger at the exact part of the article where the criteria for a royal bride were enumerated.

  “It says the bride must be at least fifteen years of age,” Rowan acknowledged. “I’m looking for someone a little bit older.”

  “It says fifteen,” she repeated.

  “Because this is an ancient piece of legislation,” he pointed out to her. “People got married at a lot younger age then because they died younger.”

  “It also says that your bride must be of moral character. Not many girls past the age of fifteen are virgins anymore,” she told him. “I have another daughter, Brigitte. She is seventeen, but I cannot vouch for her innocence. I know my Jocelyn is untouched.”

  Rowan cast a quick glance at the young girl, who had remained silent throughout the discussion. Now her cheeks were stained with red and her eyes filled with tears, and he knew she wasn’t just humiliated but terrified at the thought of being offered as a child bride.

  Turning away from the mother, he stepped closer to the girl. “You will undoubtedly make a beautiful bride someday,” he assured her. “But hopefully it won’t be for many more years yet and it definitely shouldn’t be to an old man like me.”

  She cast a quick, worried glance at her mother, who was scowling at their exchange.

  “You are not so old,” the girl protested weakly.

  “But too old for you.” He smiled and reached for her hands, gently prying apart the fingers that were laced so tightly together. He lifted first one, then the other, to his lips, then released them. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Miss Jocelyn, but I think you must be going now so you aren’t late for school.”

  “Yes, Your Highness.” She dropped into a quick and awkward curtsy.

  “You are making a mistake,” the girl’s mother said.

  “The mistake may be in not terminating your employment here,” the prince said mildly. “And one I will rectify if you’re not out of my office in the next three seconds.”

  The maid hurried after her daughter, and Rowan sank into the chair behind his desk.

  “I’m surprised, Your Highness.”

  He glanced up, startled to see Lara hovering in the doorway through which the young girl and her mother had just left, and unnerved by the tug of longing her presence triggered inside him. But his voice was light when he asked, “Surprised that I threatened to fire her or that I didn’t actually do so?”

  “By how easily you handled the whole situation, and impressed by the compassion you showed her daughter,” she said. “Helene may be disappointed that her daughter won’t be the next princess of Tesoro del Mar, but the girl will always remember the prince who treated her kindly.”

  “I’m not in the habit of yelling at young girls,” he told her.

  “Good to know.” She smiled, and the tug came again, a little more insistently this time. “It’s true then? That you have to marry?”

  He nodded. “According to Tesorian law, a ruling prince who is not wed before his thirty-fifth birthday must take a bride within six months of that date or forfeit his crown.”

  “Isn’t the idea of a forced marriage a little…outdated?”

  “More than a little,” he acknowledged. “But Tesoro del Mar is a country built on history and tradition. And it is my honor and my duty to rule until Christian is of an age to take his place on the throne.”

  “Then Madame Renaud is probably only the first of many who will be pushing eligible daught
ers in your direction.” Lara glanced pointedly at the newspaper headline. “Especially when they see that ‘Recipe for a Royal Bride.’”

  Rowan shoved the paper aside. “Who comes up with those headlines? And what kind of woman would offer her teenage daughter as a virgin sacrifice?”

  “A woman who wants a front seat at the royal wedding?”

  He just shook his head. “What about what her daughter wants?”

  “Some mothers are more concerned about their own needs than those of their children.”

  Though her tone was deliberately light, he sensed the underlying tension that hinted of some personal experience. And though his own life was in chaos right now, he found himself wanting to know more about hers, wanting to uncover all of her secrets. Maybe then he would be able to get her out of his system and concentrate his attention on finding a bride.

  “Was yours like that?” he asked.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Your mother,” he prompted. “Was she like Madame Renaud?”

  Her smile was thin. “My mother would never have thought I was worthy of a prince.”

  There was definitely tension now, and a hint of both anger and sadness in those deep green eyes. But before he could question her further, she forged ahead.

  “Speaking of princes,” she said. “I wanted to thank you for making such an effort with Christian. I saw him this morning when he came back from riding with you, and I know he’s really enjoying the time you spend with him.”

  “I enjoy it, too,” he admitted.

  “I’m glad,” she said. “But you should know that now Princess Alexandria is demanding equal time.”

  “Meaning?”

  “She wants you to join us for movie night.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight. I told her that you probably already had plans, but she insisted that I ask you, anyway.”

  “Unfortunately, I do have plans.”

  That hint of a smile appeared again. “With the lovely young Jocelyn?”

  “Please. It’s a fund-raising dinner for the new wing of the children’s hospital, and my date is a twenty-eight-year-old American heiress.”

  “Then I hope you have a good time.”

  He made a face. “I’ll be eating rubber chicken and wishing I was watching—”

  “Beauty and the Beast.” Amusement danced in her eyes. “The rubber chicken doesn’t seem so unappealing now, does it?”

  “It’s a toss-up,” he admitted. “Though I seem to recall Beauty and the Beast is a fairly short movie while these fund-raising events go on for hours.”

  “I’ll pass your regrets on to Lexi,” she told him.

  “And I’ll try to see her myself before I go, but the way my day is shaping up, there’s no guarantee I’ll have the time.”

  “I won’t take up any more of it.”

  As he watched her walk out of his office, he found himself genuinely regretting having to turn down her invitation. Movie night actually sounded like fun, and he couldn’t remember having any of that in a very long time.

  On the other hand, a cozy evening in front of the television with Lara might be more of a temptation than he could resist, and he couldn’t afford that kind of distraction right now. He had to find a bride.

  Lara was balancing on that precipice between sleep and consciousness when she realized she wasn’t alone. Lifting heavy eyelids, she saw Rowan reach for the remote. With the press of a button the television screen went black, leaving the room in darkness except for the soft glow of a single lamp on the end table.

  “I didn’t mean to disturb you,” he said when he turned and saw that she’d awakened.

  It occurred to her that she should untangle her legs from the blanket and rise to curtsy, but he gestured for her to remain where she was.

  “I didn’t intend to fall asleep.”

  He smiled. “How was movie night?”

  “Good. Lexi and Damon went to bed after Beauty and the Beast, then Christian and I watched the last Pirates flick, and after I made sure he’d turned out his lights and gone to sleep, I came in to clear away our drinks and snacks and got distracted by an old film that was showing on television.” She was rambling, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. She was disoriented from sleep and unnerved by his presence and had a tendency to talk too much when she was nervous.

  “What was the movie?” He reached into the bowl on the table to grab a handful of leftover popcorn.

  “An Affair to Remember.”

  “That is an old one.”

  “A classic,” she countered automatically.

  “Did you have movie nights when you were a kid?”

  “No. Julian and Catherine started it with the children, I’ve just continued it.”

  He grabbed another handful of popcorn.

  “Was the rubber chicken that bad?”

  “Not as bad as I feared.”

  “And the American heiress?”

  Rowan rolled his eyes. “Let’s just say I sincerely regret missing movie night.”

  She laughed. “I’m sorry.”

  He shrugged. “On a more positive note, the hospital will get its new wing.”

  “That’s good news, then.”

  “Why is it you don’t like to talk about your childhood?”

  “There’s not much to talk about.”

  “Then why do you redirect the conversation whenever I try to ask any questions about your past?”

  And she’d thought she was being subtle. “I just can’t imagine why you’d be interested.”

  “The why aside, it seems that I am.”

  “Okay. What do you want to know?”

  “Your mother died when you were fifteen and your father when you were too young to remember him—”

  “I never said my father died.” She was always clear about that, and not bothered by the fact that most people drew the same conclusion Rowan apparently had. She’d been honest with Julian and Catherine about her parentage, of course, and she owed Rowan the same courtesy. She didn’t want him to stop looking at her the way he was looking at her right now—as if he was really interested, as if she was someone who truly mattered, but she couldn’t perpetuate his mistaken belief. “I said I never knew him.”

  He considered this, his gaze unwavering, as he munched on his popcorn. “Your parents weren’t married.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And your mother never did marry?”

  She shook her head. “She couldn’t find any man who was willing to take on the burden of someone else’s bastard child.”

  “Is that what she told you?”

  “That’s how it was. There were men—a lot of men—who were interested in my mother, but the interest quickly waned when they realized she came with child-size baggage.” She picked up her now-flat soda and sipped.

  “I’m starting to understand why you don’t like to talk about it.”

  She shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”

  “Not so long,” he said. “Though I have to wonder how a child so obviously unappreciated by her mother could grow into a woman so warm and caring and generous.”

  She felt her skin grow warm beneath his gaze and was suddenly aware that it was late, and he wasn’t turning away from her despite the revelations she’d made. She swallowed another mouthful of her lukewarm drink.

  “After my mother died, I was put in foster care. After a few months Stephanie and David Mitchell showed up at the door. Stephanie was my mother’s second cousin, David was her husband, and for some reason they wanted me to live with them. Social services was more than happy to unload me, and within a few days, I was on a plane to Ireland.

  “Actually,” she continued, “it’s because of David that I met your brother and sister-in-law. As it turned out, his sister’s husband was Catherine’s uncle.”

  “I never realized there was a familial connection,” Rowan said.

  “A distant and tenuous one.”

  “So how did you
end up in Tesoro del Mar?”

  “Catherine asked me to come.”

  “It couldn’t have been that simple.”

  “It wasn’t an easy decision to make,” she agreed.

  “Stephanie was more of a mother to me than mine had ever been, and David was like the father I never had, but I was almost twenty-one years old, ready to start living my own life, and it seemed like a good opportunity.”

  “No regrets?”

  She shook her head, unwilling to admit to him that she did have one—falling for a man who could never be hers.

  As Rowan trudged up the wide staircase toward his apartment on the fourth floor six days later, he couldn’t help but resent the seemingly endless social engagements that stretched ahead of him over the next few weeks. As if his usual 101 daily responsibilities weren’t enough, he was somehow supposed to find the time to choose a bride and plan a wedding. The rare free evenings that he’d enjoyed prior to learning of parliament’s mandate had become a thing of the past, and though tonight had only been his fourth date, he was already tired of the process.

  After the fund-raising dinner with the American heiress last week, there had been a performance of the national ballet with a photographer who claimed a distant connection to Italian royalty, then a charity ball with a widowed countess who had clearly married the first time for wealth and status and was prepared to do so again. Then tonight’s fund-raising dinner with the admittedly lovely but uninspiring Stacy Phillips.

  All of the women had been attractive, and certainly they all satisfied the criteria enumerated for a royal bride, but not one of them intrigued him enough to want to spend a second night in her company, never mind the rest of his life.

  He wanted someone he could feel comfortable enough with to put his feet up and watch a movie, or share quiet conversation and a slice of leftover cake in the kitchen long after everyone else had gone to sleep. Someone he could talk to about the things that really mattered and the things that didn’t. Someone who would share her own opinions, even if that opinion was that he was acting like an arrogant pompous ass.