by Rachel Hauck
The stale storeroom air clung to her damp cheeks. Stretching out her foot, Susanna shoved the door the rest of the way open, letting light in and the hot air out.
The explanation came a few emails down the list. From JacDel Homes.
Susanna, we decided to go in a different direction. We’re canceling our contract and stopping payment. We’ll send another check with the kill fee.
She cracked her head against the back of the wall. A different direction? It made no sense. JacDel came to her. Offered her the job with a set price, and she accepted.
“Hey, Jesus, your girl down here doesn’t understand what’s going on.”
Climbing off the floor, she headed back down the hall to Jessup’s office, once again stopped by Bonnie. “If I have the money to him by tonight, can I have my office back?” She’d have to break down and ask Mama and Daddy.
“I’m afraid not.” Bonnie could trademark her smirk. Best in all of St. Simons Island. “He’s already rented it to his nephew. Also a landscape architect.”
Perfect. Susanna started back down the hall. All this day needed was—
“Adam?”
He stood in the foyer, neat and pristine in his fatigues, cap in his hands.
“Hey, Suz.” He smiled shy and tentative. “Your mama said I’d find you here.”
“How are you?”
“Good, good. Can we talk?” He motioned toward the exit. “Maybe grab a coffee?”
“I’m in the middle of something.” She pointed toward the storage closet. “Got to get to work.” On the floor. Of a closet.
“Can I help?” Adam stepped forward, leaning for a look. His woodsy-spicy fragrance wafted up from his olive skin, coloring in her fading memories of him. Of them.
“I think I fell in love with you because you always smelled so good.” She laughed low.
Adam stepped back, made a face, then broke into a grin. “You should’ve been with me in the trenches of Afghanistan.”
She leaned against the wall, arms folded. “I heard you’re engaged.”
“Yeah, Sheree.” He studied the hardwood, nodding. “Do you hate me?”
“Hate you? No.” She started to her closet and he followed. “But you do have twelve years of my life.” Stopping at the storage closet, she pointed at him. “Treat them kind.”
“I never meant to hurt you, Suz. I should’ve called after you left the beach. But you always liked your space.”
“Help me carry this stuff out to my car, will you?” She swung wide the door.
“You moving out?”
“Something like that.” Susanna picked up the box of supplies and whatnot and peered at Adam, who reached for the chair. “You look happy.”
He bobbed his head. “I am.” A red blush stained his cheeks.
“It’s okay, bubba, you can be happy about the woman you’re going to marry.” Susanna kicked open the kitchen door. Know what? She was happy for him. Really.
They loaded her car with her office equipment, wrangling the desk chair into the backseat somehow. Then she leaned with him against the green driver’s side door and let the breeze tangle her hair and unwind her heart.
“You will always be special to me. Always,” he said.
“Adam, when you broke up with me, I knew you were right. I just didn’t want to admit it.” She peered into his eyes. “I know it was hard for you to tell me.”
“I felt sick for a month.”
“But free.”
“Yeah, free.” He kicked a clump of sandy soil. “Who told you I was getting married?”
“Gage and Gracie.”
“Ah, of course.” Adam laughed, his perfect skin pulling taut over his perfect features. “Can’t keep a secret with those two.”
“I met someone too.”
“Really?” Adam regarded her for a moment. “He’s a lucky son-of-a-gun.”
“But he lives in Europe and—” She inhaled, fortifying her heart. “It’s a long, complicated story.”
“You always wanted to work in Europe’s gardens. There’s nothing holding you here.” Adam nudged her with his words, with a sharp jab of his elbow to her ribs. “Why not go?”
“Yeah, true.” She sighed, tears rising and burning. She always believed she’d lift her wings and fly away.
“Mom and Dad are throwing a little party for Sheree and me tonight. I’d love it if you’d come by the house. Say hi. Meet Sheree.”
Susanna peered up at him. “Sounds lovely. I’d love to meet her.” Honest. She would.
“Good, good.” He took a step back, hesitated, then strode forward and kissed her on the cheek. “You look good.”
“So do you. S–see you, Adam.” Susanna headed back inside, rounded the kitchen corner toward the storeroom, and pulled the door closed behind her.
Sinking down to the floor, she drew her legs to her chest and let her sobs push her forehead to her knees. For the past, the present, the unknown future.
For Adam. For Nate. For losing her office. For letting go and admitting the truth—she loved Nathaniel. For the courage to discover a part of herself she never knew before.
A light tap on the door stirred her to look up. “Yeah?” She dabbed her face with the back of her hand. “Who is it?”
When no one answered, Susanna twisted the knob, cracking open the door. A cold Diet Coke, a glass of ice, and a chocolate bar sat on a small tray. With a laugh, she pulled in the comfort and closed the door.
“You’re all right, Bonnie,” she whispered, twisting the cap off the bottle and taking a swig. “You’re all right.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Two Months Later, March
Did you see this morning’s paper?” Jon tossed a copy of the LibP onto the desk, the colorful newsprint slicing through the nine o’clock sun beaming through the windows.
Nathaniel looked up from his dailies. The headline speculated, “Lady Genevieve Hawthorn, a Duchess of the People,” over a crisp, beautiful image of Ginny in a tailored blue suit, wooing schoolchildren in Hessenberg’s capital city, Strauberg.
“I’ve got to give her credit. She’s working this like a champ.”
“She’s on with Madeline & Hyacinth Live! today at four.”
“If I were so inclined to marry her, doesn’t she realize how difficult all this campaigning makes it?” Nathaniel pushed away from his desk.
“Then it’s a good thing you’re not planning to marry her.”
“You were pushing for it a few months back.”
“Before she showed her dark underbelly.”
Nathaniel regarded his aide. “We’ve known of her dark, controlling, manipulative side since university. Don’t act surprised.”
“But she never used her evil against us, Nathaniel.”
“By the way, we found out how the LibP got a picture of you and Susanna.” Jon took a seat and shoved a brown dossier toward Nathaniel. “You were tagged on Facebook.”
“I have a Facebook?” Nathaniel asked, surprised.
“You have a fan page. We follow it just to see what people are posting. You’re quite popular. The owner is a Brighton woman. Married with kids. It’s all innocent enough. But a woman at the Butler benefit found the page and posted the picture of you and Susanna. She and her family were at the Rib Shack the night you two sat on the deck.”
“Where can I see this page?” Nathaniel sat at his computer and launched a browser.
“Nathaniel, I have news.” He glanced around to see Jon leaning forward, tapping the dossier. “There’s a Hessenberg heir.”
“There’s a—” Nathaniel snapped up the dossier. “Really, chap? There’s an heir? Who?” He flipped through the pages, weighing the revelation.
A few months ago he had hope after reading the initial interview Jonathan and Tanner did with Yardley Prather, but finding an heir proved to be tedious and tangled with international red tape.
Yardley’s older brother had been in attendance at the entail signing. Prince Francis was more given to parties
than military strategy, but the crafty grand duke knew enough about entails to require his own heir, whoever he or she may be, to inherit back the land at the expiration of the entail.
“Jon, there’s nothing new here,” Nathaniel said, scanning the old information, searching for the new.
“Keep reading.”
Prince Francis fled to Sweden where he died in 1944 at the age of seventy-six.
Yardley Prather believed he died of a broken heart.
What remained of the House of Augustine-Saxon crumbled under the weight of two world wars. Artifacts and records had been destroyed by World War II German surface-to-surface missiles.
“So where is this heir?” Nathaniel skimmed the report pages.
Jonathan took the dossier, leafed to the last page, and set it in front of him. “Here.” He handed the dossier back to Nathaniel. “Lady Alice Stephanie Regina.”
“Moved to New York after the war. British flyer she married … killed in ‘45.” Nathaniel shook his head. “This family certainly knew tragedy.”
“Alice had enough of war and skipped the pond to America.”
For the first time in two months, Nathaniel allowed his heart to hope. Really hope. “How sure are we about all of this?”
“I’ve had the staff rooting around in files locked in rooms we’d forgotten about, calling over to London, checking marriage certificates and birth notices, death notices in London and New York. The American law firm we hired found record of an Alice Edmunds arriving in New York, August 13, 1946, but that’s where the trail ends.”
“Good job.” Nathaniel’s smile ballooned over his white clouds of hope. “I knew it, chap. I knew it. We’re going to find an heir.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. We may not find anyone of the grand duke’s line. Alice may have died or never remarried.”
“Don’t say it. We’re going to find her great-granddaughter.” He popped his hands together, grinning. “Let’s have Lady Genevieve to tea when we tell her.”
“We? You. I don’t want to be in that firestorm.”
“Firestorm? It’ll be a bright, happy day, Jon. Come on. Don’t tell me you’re afraid of Ginny.”
“Terrified. Now that I know her true colors.”
Nathaniel regarded his aide and friend. “What do you think of Susanna now?”
The man gathered up the dossier. “That I wish she’d been born in Brighton.”
Nathaniel returned to his apartment and inhaled the glorious smells of Jacque’s cooking.
“Malcolm, are those dumplings I smell?”
“Your Majesty’s favorite.” Nate’s butler bobbed out of the kitchen. “They’re calling for a fresh snow tonight, sir. I thought warm dumplings would cheer you. Jacque agreed.”
“You’re too good to me.” Nathaniel turned when he heard the knock on the door. He reached for the handle, motioning to Malcolm to attend to his duties.
Ginny stood on the other side. “Hello, Nathaniel.” She crossed the threshold with one long, stiletto-heeled stride.
Malcolm ducked back into the kitchen.
“Ginny. What brings you ‘round?” Nathaniel loosened his tie. Dad honored the king’s office by wearing one every day, but Nathaniel had arrived to work his first day as king with an open collar. Then he sat behind the desk where the kings before him—his forefathers—sat. He rang Jonathan straightaway to bring him a tie.
“It’s been two months. I think I’ve proven I’m the people’s choice.” Ginny walked from the foyer to the living room and draped herself in a chair in a way that allowed her sheer blouse to hint at her womanly features.
“I didn’t realize there was a contest.”
“Nathaniel, you’re not thinking.” She spoke like a CEO rather than an intended lover. “We can be a powerhouse, spearheading a strong, enduring monarchy.”
“I think I can do that without you.”
“Think?”
“Know.”
“Know? Do you hear yourself? You have no confidence. You need me to assure you, remind you of who you are.”
“You want to see confidence?”
“Yes, in all of blazes, yes.” She walked over to him and leaned in, her sweet perfume belying her true identity. “Show me some courage. Marry me.”
“There’s no courage in marrying a woman I don’t love and who doesn’t love me. Sounds rather cowardly.”
“Nathaniel.” She stepped into him, powering up her wiles. Her long, sleek hair flowed like rich oil over her shoulders. Nathaniel stepped out of her reach. “Here’s how this plays out. You marry me, style me as Queen Genevieve of Brighton and grand duchess of Hessenberg. Right before the entail ends, we’ll divorce.”
“Divorce?”
“Yes, darling, the nasty, ugly D-word.”
“I’m not marrying you with the intention of divorcing you. I’m head of the church, the defender of the faith, Ginny. Not to mention it’s a stupid idea.”
“Listen to me. This is a win-win-win-win. Just before the entail ends, we’ll have a horrible row. In public. I might even be willing to succumb to an affair and let you toss me out on my ear.” She flailed her arms about with dramatic flair. “You demand a divorce. The press will agree.” She lowered her voice. “I know I can get the LibP to agree. The other papers will follow. And off I go. You strip me of my HRH Queen Genevieve title, but I’ll retain the one of grand duchess because when the entail ends, I’ll be the legitimate royal heir, inheriting the land of my ancestors. It’ll be all nice and legal. I’ll ask the governor, Seamus Fitzsimmons, to be prime minister and form a government.” Ah, so she did woo Seamus. Prime minister, eh?
“How long have you been planning this one?”
“What is wrong with you, Nathaniel?” Desperation exploded in her voice. “The plan is perfect. Everyone gets what they want. An independent Hessenberg and Brighton free from her economy.”
“And you get to be a royal.”
“Yes, I get to be a royal. So sue me.”
“You know we can’t divorce unless the archbishop and the Parliament approve.”
“They won’t force you to stay with an adulteress.”
“You have this all worked out, don’t you?” He moved from anger to pity. “You factor everyone into your schemes and think we’ll all play along. But I can’t lie to myself or to the people. I most certainly cannot stand before God and make a vow I don’t intend to keep.”
The desperation in her eyes rose to a roaring fire. “A grand duchess. Me. Her Royal Highness, Queen Genevieve, grand duchess of Hessenberg. By some fluke of history, war, and the destroyed records of my dear departed distant cousin, Prince Francis, I am in line to be a woman standing on the stage of the world’s leaders. A grand duchess when there is rarely such a thing anymore.”
“Are you that fixated on titles? Ginny, you can change the world where you stand. One person at a time. With your family, your company, your charities. You don’t need to be grand duchess. It’s not a power grab. You won’t be ruler, empress, queen, potentate, commander of all. You’ll be a servant to millions of people. It’s daunting, I tell you.”
“They’ll love me.” Something otherworldly flared in her eyes, and it chilled Nathaniel to the bone. His spirit churned.
“Ginny, if the Lord called you to the throne in Brighton, he’ll put you there. But it’s not going to be through me.” Nathaniel walked to the door and held it open for his departing guest. “Have a good day.”
She reared back, stiff, hostile, eyes narrowed with anger. “I warned you.”
“And I am warning you.” Calm. Steady. Confident. He locked his eyes on her and she broke.
“You’re a fool, Nathaniel.” She snatched up her bag and stormed out the door, upbraiding him with one final glance.
“A fool, you say? Then why would you want to marry me? A fool.”
She released a small, frustrated scream and barged down the hall. Nathaniel eased the door closed, then collapsed in his favorite chair. That exchange fel
t kind of good. Empowering. It was way better to confront a Jezebel than to kowtow to one.
He slipped his phone from his pocket and dialed Henry. The confrontation with Ginny sparked his courage. If he was going to become the king he wanted to be, then it must begin with becoming the man he wanted to be.
TWENTY-SIX
St. Simons Island
The chiffon rays of the March sun stretched down from an azure sky, dropping gold on the Spanish moss dangling from the knotted oak shading Granddaddy’s old garage, a detached building with a sliding door and oil stains from his old Plymouth.
The afternoon light and all its warmth barely reached the edge of the concrete floor. In the shadow, Susanna worked at her computer to the hum of a creaking ceiling fan.
Daddy had strung an internet cable from her grandparents’ house, out the back porch, through the grass like a skinny blue snake, across the end of the driveway, through the seeped-in oil stains on the garage concrete, and into the back of her iMac.
“Craig Hobbs, please,” Susanna said into the phone, propping her elbows on the desk, studying the pegboard walls.
She’d played in here as a kid, climbing behind the big steering wheel of Granddaddy’s car, pretending to drive down Ocean Boulevard with the wind in her hair, making motor sounds in her throat. She’d felt safe in the old garage, away from the fighting and screaming at home. Behind the big wheel, she was free, commanding her own destiny.
