Hand-Me-Down Princess

by Carol Moncado

  “Your eye color.”

  He looked at her and blinked. “Pardon?”

  “I’m surprised no one ever made a big deal of it in the tabloids. Your parents both have blue eyes, but yours are brown. It is possible for two blue-eyed parents to have a brown-eyed child, but it’s not common.”

  “I never even thought about it.”

  “Neither did anyone else apparently.”

  “Did they discuss a game plan?”

  Jessabelle sighed and shrugged. “There isn’t one. We go on as before. For all anyone needs to know, the king is your father. He always has been. He always will be.”

  “What about you?”

  “What about me?” she returned. “It doesn’t matter to anyone but you, me, and maybe your father who my biological family is.”

  “Do you want to meet her?”

  The question caught her off guard, and she blinked rapidly. “Pardon?”

  “Your biological mother. Do you want to meet her?”

  “I hadn’t even thought about it.” Did she want to? Or did she want to let that part of her past remain in the past.

  “As I thought about it today, I realized there is a bit more than a passing resemblance between the two of you. Not enough to be definitive, like William and my father, but enough.” He called the king “my father”-surely that was a good sign, right?

  Malachi didn’t look at her. “What did he say to you?”

  Jessabelle wasn’t sure how much she wanted to tell him. Not that any of it was a secret, per se, but because she wasn’t sure what his reaction would be. Finally, she said, “That he truly had no idea I existed. That if he had, he would have done more to make sure my parents had what they needed, that I would have had more help caring for my father the last few years.”

  “He wouldn’t have insisted on raising you at the palace with the rest of us?” Bitterness had seeped into her husband’s voice.

  “No,” she answered slowly. “He didn’t indicate anything like that. I believe there is likely a far less chance we would have married unless he’d changed his mind about knowing if you are his biological child. He would have made certain I had everything I ever needed or wanted for life, though.”

  He didn’t reply, and Jessabelle decided she needed to be completely honest with him.

  “There was one thing he said that I’m still mulling over in my mind.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He told me that, if I’m ever comfortable with it, he would be honored to have me call him ‘father’ like you and William do, or ‘papa’ like Yvette does. Even as he said it, I could tell he didn’t think that day would ever come, and he said as much later.”

  “Will it? Will you call him papa someday?”

  She shook her head. “I doubt it. I suppose it’s possible, but not likely. Or not any more likely than it would have been if he was just my father-in-law. Lots of people call their in-laws Mom and Dad.”

  “I can’t imagine you would ever have done that.”

  “Not the way things begun, but they had already started to get a little better.”

  “Not much,” he snorted.

  She ignored the comment. “He also told me, again, that you are a better man than he ever was when he was your age. That you are still the better man.”

  “Some consolation,” he muttered.

  “Let’s say for a moment, that you were just like your father,” she challenged. “He still insisted we get married, but you were the kind of husband he was in the beginning. How do you see our marriage turning out?”

  He seemed to turn it over in his mind for a minute before he finally answered.

  * * *

  “It would have eaten away at you. You wouldn’t have ever left me, I don’t think, but it would not have been a good place for you to be.”

  “Would we ever have children?” The gentleness in her voice showed him again why he didn’t deserve her.

  “I don’t know.” A dozen different scenarios ran through his head in an instant, and he immediately dismissed all of them. “Eventually, perhaps.”

  “Or is it more likely you would have taken advantage of the six month escape clause? If we weren’t sleeping together, I couldn’t be pregnant, and if you wanted to, you could annul the marriage for not producing an heir immediately.”

  Malachi looked at her, realization dawning on him.

  “What?” She looked adorably confused.

  “It’s not just me that could force an annulment,” he told her jumping up. “My father could, too. Or William, if he was already king.”

  “And you think he’s planning to?” Her eyes filled with tears for what had to be the twentieth time in one day.

  “Not necessarily and I’m not saying he didn’t consider it at first, but that must be what Mr. Bence was after. If my father forced an annulment, they could arrange a marriage between Lizbeth and me.” It all made sense.

  The wheels were turning in his wife’s pretty head. He could practically see them. “I don’t think Lizbeth had anything to do with it.”

  “Not voluntarily, but I could see her father coercing her into cooperation. He can be very persuasive.” Malachi could look back on at least a dozen different times in his experiences with the man and see Lizbeth being manipulated. Mr. Bence had even tried a few times with Malachi-with no success, to Malachi’s knowledge.

  “What would his end game be? Just to have a prince for a son-in-law?” She chewed on her bottom lip, like she often did when she was thinking.

  He couldn’t help snorting. “The joke would have been on him then, wouldn’t it?”

  Jessabelle gave him a reproachful look. “You are your father’s son.”

  “I know.” He thought he did. He was trying to, anyway. “But the point remains, any children I have will only carry the Van Rensselaer blood because you will be their mother.”

  She shifted so her leg curled underneath her. “So? Why would it matter if the children actually had Van Rensselaer blood? No one would ever know any differently.”

  Malachi began to pace. “I’m not sure. But, in looking back, I can see how he very definitely wanted Lizbeth to end up as my wife. When I thought about it, I figured he wanted to say his daughter was the princess, maybe use it to move further into my father’s inner circle.” How easily he continued to call the king his father. “I can’t imagine there was anything else, could you?”

  “Wasn’t Queen Christiana’s uncle planning to take over after he killed her entire family? At least, when he planned to in that car accident?”

  She had a good point. “I’m pretty sure her father never trusted Uncle Henry. That’s why the marriage contract with Yvette was made the way it was. He never would have gained the throne even if all four of them had died. Yvette would have been queen with my father as regent until she came of age.”

  “What? How do you know all of that?”

  “My father brought William and me into the loop last year when the Ravenzarians were investigating Henry, trying to sort out what he was plotting. The marriage contract was part of the deal.”

  “But Prince Nicklaus was killed in the accident,” she protested.

  “It wouldn’t have mattered. As his fiancée, and an heir to a commonwealth throne in her own right, or at least in the line of succession, she would have been queen and my father her regent. That’s the way the laws work in all three of our countries as part of our friendship pact. Unless duplicity on the part of the other country’s monarch or family can be proven, that’s the way it works.”

  Jessabelle seemed to struggle to keep up. He did, too, and he’d grown up knowing these things.

  He went on. “Even if the marriage contract weren’t in force, the country would have likely been absorbed into both Mevendia and Montevaro. The northern islands with us and the southern ones with Montevaro. Her father came from a long line of only children. There was a great celebration when her brother was born for that reason and not just because he became the C
rown Prince. I’m not entirely certain they know who the next in line is if something were to happen to Christiana.”

  Nicklaus wasn’t dead, though. Or they couldn’t prove he was. Very few people knew his body and that of his nanny had never been found. Yvette didn’t. In fact, before long she would begin to plan the wedding. He prayed, for so many reasons, that Nicklaus had survived and would appear before the wedding. Malachi wasn’t certain his father or Christiana should make them go through with it, but to plan the whole wedding and not have a groom? That would make life exceptionally difficult for his sister.

  “What does any of that have to do with Lizbeth, though?” His wife’s words brought him back to the present.

  “Nothing. Unless her father was planning to use something, some way, to gain more power.”

  “Is there any ancient law or anything he could use to force your father’s hand?” She shivered, and he realized how cool it had gotten in their stone home.

  Thinking it over, he walked to the kitchen. “Probably. There’s a billion old laws that are still technically in effect. No one’s used them forever and most people don’t even know they exist, much less how to look for them.” He pulled a mug off its hook under the cabinet and found the cocoa.

  “Maybe that’s something to think about then?”

  He set the water to brew in the coffee pot as he got the cup ready. Did they have any mini-marshmallows? That’s how she liked it. “I guess, but what or why would that be his end goal? Force my father off the throne as the other grandfather of the second child’s kids? That seems awfully far fetched.”

  “It does,” she conceded.

  While the water brewed for the hot chocolate, Malachi went to the fireplace and lit the kindling waiting there. The staff always seemed to anticipate their every need. In moments it would catch, and warmth would permeate the room.

  “I just don’t see what the end game would be,” he finally told Jessabelle as he stirred her hot cocoa and put five, no more no less, mini marshmallows on top.

  “Thank you.” She smiled up at him as she took the mug. “It’s perfect,” she told him after a sip. “I know I didn’t want to marry you, but I’m so very glad I did.”

  Chapter 37

  “Thank you for agreeing to come with me.”

  Jessabelle gave King Antonio a small smile. “Of course.”

  “I hope you came because you wanted to and not because you felt you had to.”

  She turned that over in her mind. Would she have wanted to say no? “I don’t know,” she finally answered honestly. “I’m not sure I wanted to turn you down, but...” She felt the need to be completely honest. “I don’t know that I felt I could say no if I had.”

  They walked their horses a bit further before he replied. “Do you see me as an ogre, Jessabelle?”

  There’s a loaded question. “No,” she finally answered. “But you are the king.”

  “So you don’t feel you can say no because of that?”

  “You don’t say no when the king asks you to do something.” Wasn’t that the way everyone was raised? When the royal family asks you to jump, you don’t bother to ask how high, you just jump as high as you can.

  “We are also family, even before yesterday.”

  “You were my father-in-law who never really wanted me to marry his son in the first place,” she pointed out.

  He didn’t answer immediately, but finally turned his horse to look over the incredible vista below. “You are not wrong. I would not have chosen you for Malachi, for many reasons, but I had promised your father all those years ago.” He turned to look at her, his blue eyes as earnest as she’d ever seen them. “I was wrong.”

  Jessabelle found herself taken aback. “Pardon?” Had she really heard what she thought she heard?

  “I was wrong. You are the perfect person for Malachi, and I began to realize that before the revelations of yesterday.” He shook his head. “I am going to have to have a long conversation with my grandmother about her secret keeping.”

  “I suppose it’s good she knew the secrets, though,” Jessabelle stared at the green meadow on the hill opposite them. “Even if the outcome didn’t change, it would have been a very long few weeks waiting for confirmation.”

  “I am having the tests run again, you know. Just to be certain.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me.” It made sense and would make her feel more comfortable, too. “What did you hope would come out of this horseback ride, Your Majesty?”

  She could see the wounded look in his eyes. “Have we not progressed past the title at least? Antonio? Tony even?”

  “You are not a Tony,” she replied tearing her eyes away from the profound sadness on his face. “And I’m not comfortable calling you Antonio, much less Father or Papa.” A smirk crossed her face. “Ask Malachi sometime how long it took me to call him something other than Prince Malachi.”

  “You were thrown into it as much as he was, weren’t you? Your father had not told you your whole life that you would marry one of my sons?”

  Jessabelle shook her head. “If he mentioned it, I don’t remember, not until about a year ago. Even then, I didn’t think it would happen. In all honesty, I hoped it would wait until after his death. Then I could postpone because of my grief and go hide somewhere else in the world.”

  “I am glad it did not come to that.” After another moment of silence, he turned his horse back toward the trail.

  Jessabelle followed him, the hush of the forest encapsulating them as they rode on. Half an hour later, they reached another overlook and he turned to her, concern on his face. “Are you going to be all right riding all the way back?”

  “I’ll be fine.” Though it was the longest ride she’d taken in a very long time.

  “I just remembered that you and Malachi rode in together the morning after your wedding, and I wondered.”

  “That was because my horse stumbled, and we wanted to make sure not to injure her further.”

  He simply nodded. “Regardless, I think it is time for us to turn around. I do have a video conference later this afternoon.” The ride wasn’t uncomfortable, at least not any more uncomfortable than she ever was riding a giant horse. The silence stretched between them, but she felt at peace, more than she had in a very long time.

  “I cannot change my will,” the king said suddenly.

  “Pardon?”

  “I do not have a will like most people do. Who inherits most of my wealth is proscribed by law. William will inherit the properties, the bulk of the fortune that comes with the title of ‘King of Mevendia.’ Malachi will receive the second largest portion. If Yvette married Prince Nicklaus of Ravenzario, who was the heir to their throne, she would have received nothing because her husband would provide for her. Now?” He shrugged. “I am not certain what she will inherit.” His brows pulled together. “I need to find out and make sure she will be taken care of.”

  “She only has about a year before the wedding?” Jessabelle asked.

  “The week after her eighteenth birthday.”

  “Her fiancée is dead, and she still has to go through with the planning and be stood up for the world to see, even though everyone knows it’s coming?”

  The king stopped his horse as they reached the clearing nearest the mountain home. “It is not my choice. We wrote the marriage contract the way we did for reasons I cannot go into now, but those reasons are still in force. The contract is still in force until a week after the wedding date.”

  “But why?” Jessabelle persisted. “Why do that to your only daughter?”

  He stared her in the eye. “She is not my only daughter.” Before she could protest, he went on. “There were many forces at play, many that have still not fully played out, and until they do, the wedding is still on. Yvette will have to help plan and attend the wedding. She will not have to walk down the aisle if there is no groom.”

  “If?” Jessabelle asked. “How could there possibly be a groom? He died in that car ac
cident.”

  He didn’t answer but clicked until his horse started to walk toward the garden gate once more.

  All right then. No answer. At least this time she didn’t feel like it was something personal. It wasn’t the father-daughter relationship he wanted, but it was a start.

  * * *

  Malachi stared into his bowl of cereal. Sure most people probably thought of cereal as a boring, bland when-there’s-nothing-else-and-no-time fall back, but for the child of the Mevendian king and queen, cereal was a rare treat. With cooks and chefs and nannies and everything else that came with being part of the royal family, breakfast rarely consisted of toasted oats in a bowl with milk.

  Because he hadn’t come down for breakfast when everyone else did, there was nothing left. The cook offered to make him anything he wanted, but Malachi just shook his head and found a box of something the staff must eat from time to time.

  “There you are, dear.”

  He looked up to see his great-grandmother walk into the room.

  “I have been looking for you, child.”

  In his twenties, married, and she still called him child sometimes. He wanted to be annoyed with her for it, but he couldn’t. He was too annoyed with her for keeping secrets.

  And so he barely glanced her way, even as she settled into the seat next to him.

  “So you are not speaking to me?” The amusement in her voice was hard to ignore.

  “You knew the truth for most of my life and thought it was best to keep all of us in the dark?” His bitterness seeped out.

  “What good would have come from telling you? Your father decided many years ago it did not matter to him what your biology said about your relationship to him.”

  “And what exactly would he have been able to do if it had mattered? Tell the rest of the country I died and send me off to live with some distant relative? I could wind up in an orphanage in the Maldives after they went on a trip and tell everyone I’d been kidnapped without a trace?”

  “You have a point,” she conceded. “You were nearly three before he even knew it was a possibility. I do not know what the alternatives would have been or what he might have considered if he decided he could not handle being the father of a child not biologically his after so long.”