by Rachel Hauck
“Tanner, darling, Evan adores Bella and Britta. But they aren’t his daughters, you see, and I can’t ask him to turn down his dream job because my girls need to go to Scarborough.”
“Why not? I gave up my dream of going to seminary because of you and the girls. And by the way, Britta and Bella don’t have to go to Scarborough.”
“Don’t blame me about seminary. You chose to resign all on your own. And yes, the girls do have to go to Scarborough.”
“I had to resign, Trude. How could I start my life as a minister of the gospel as a single dad?”
“Listen, bloke, you are just as much to blame for what happen—”
“I’m not blaming anyone.” Tanner collected his frayed emotions and lowered his voice. “I simply mean to remind you when two people have children out of wedlock, plans and dreams are altered.”
“Don’t you see? I’m trying to right a wrong here. Let you have the girls. Why are you resisting me?”
“Because it feels to me like you’re trying to make your life and your new relationship work while putting me and the girls on the line. Once again. This is more about your happiness than anyone else’s, Trude.”
She swore in a high, lilting tone. “It is about all of us. All of our happiness.”
“Tell me, do they even remember me? What are they going to think of you leaving them with a virtual stranger? And what of your parents? Why can’t they take the girls?”
“I’ve not asked them. They’re leaving for Barcelona in the new year for four months. Besides, they’ve raised a family and don’t care to do it again. The girls will be fine with you. You’re their dad. It’s time they got to know you and your family. Don’t you think? They can visit me on holidays and summers. I’ll come over once a quarter. They’ll hardly miss me.”
“Do they even know I exist?”
“I’ve started talking to them about you. Asking if they remember you.”
“And?”
“Tanner, not everything about this is perfect or ideal.”
“Do they, Trude?”
“Yes, in an absent-uncle kind of manner.” She gripped his arm. “Don’t you want to get to know them? Now’s your chance.”
“They’re ten.” He gestured toward the door. “I know nothing about being a dad to ten-year-old girls.”
“No worry, darling. They are perfect at being ten. They’ll be more than happy to educate you.” Her quick laugh wavered and fell short.
“I work sixty hours a week.” He pressed his fingers to his forehead, bringing his cold, stark life into view. “My refrigerator is empty save for week-old carry-out and sour milk.”
“I’m sure your mum would be more than willing to help. And mine, when she is here.”
This whole proposition set him on edge. Turned him upside down. The fact that he was even considering it . . .
“What is your plan if I say no?”
She shook another cigarette from the packet. “I don’t have one.”
“I’ll have to think about it. But, Trude, if they come to live with me, that’s it. No going back and forth. I’ll be their primary, deciding parent. If I say they enroll in Highlands, then they enroll in Highlands.”
“What? Because you get a few years with them? They’ve been slated for Scarborough since they were two years old.”
“Little did you know, I enlisted them for Highlands when they were two years old.”
“You cannot be serious. Tanner, I refuse to be held hostage to you simply because I’m asking you to care for your own daughters.”
“After what you did to me, I daresay I can make some demands. Not to mention you invite me here to ask me to relieve you of your parenting duties so you can run off to America all carefree with a new husband. You say Reese left over a year ago? Why am I just now hearing about it?”
“Semantics, Tanner. Always semantics with you. Do you think it was easy for me to invite you here for this?”
“Yes, because here I stand.” He leaned into her, gaining her full attention. “If I take the girls, I want full custody.”
“You can’t cut me out of their lives.”
“I’d never cut you out. But you’re asking me to be their dad and that’s exactly what I intend to be.” He had driven up to the highlands with trepidation, not a thought of getting a second chance with his daughters. Praying if he met them they’d not kick him in the knee and run screaming. “I’ll see to their education, their friends, their social diary. I’ll be delighted to comply with your schedule as well as your parents’. But if this is your request and the reason you invited me here today, then these are my conditions.”
“My word, Tanner.” She pressed her hand over her middle. “Fifteen minutes ago you weren’t in their lives at all and countering my request to take them, saying you knew nothing about ten-year-old girls. Now you’re wanting full control.”
“Let’s just say I’m a zero-to-sixty sort of chap.” He walked around the back of the sofa and headed for the door. “Think on it, Trude. I’m off to join the party, say hello to Dad and Mum, and venture a happy birthday to my girls.”
TWENTY-ONE
Late Sunday afternoon, Reggie sat in the parlor by the window with two thick law books, one printed in 1890, the other in 1910. Jarvis had hooked her up.
Takingup the first book, she flipped through the ancient pages, scanning a bunch of legalese about crime and punishment, legal cases and precedent, but nothing about Seamus’s threat to charge her as an enemy of the state.
Taking up the second volume entitled Vox Vocis Canonicus, she scanned it looking for the word on lords, earls, and enemies of the state.
If any member of the royal family, house of lords, or nobility are found conspiring to dissolve, overthrow, put down, or destroy the government of Hessenberg, Grand Duchy, they shall be stripped of title and authority, all lands and accounts, and banned from the nation as an enemy of the state.
Reggie closed the book and placed it on a table. Seemed to her Seamus had a case against ole Prince Francis but not her.
But how did she have a right to Hessenberg’s throne? Shoving aside the law books, Reggie pulled the entail from the attaché case.
. . . in due course, at the end of the entail, should an heir be found, he or she shall inherit the throne of the House of Augustine-Saxon, the legal rights, titles, authority, and land therein . . . granted by the King or Queen of Brighton.
Well, that’s where King Nathaniel II came in.
Reggie ran her finger over a very bold signature of Brighton’s first King Nathaniel I. She could almost feel his confidence in the flair of his pen. Underneath his signature was the Grand Duke’s. Prince Francis’s signature was a weak and wobbly script, the ink skipping, leaving gaps where pen left paper.
Oh, what he must have been feeling.
Shuffling through some other official-looking papers, Reggie felt nudged to reread the entail. Was there a clue in there about her future? Was the entail enough to grant her the throne her great-grandmother’s uncle abandoned? If so, how could she help, truly help, the Hessen people?
Reggie scanned the entail opening, the words becoming familiar. Lord, if you want me to do this, help me search out this matter. Find the hidden treasures. She read each line of the simple entail slowly, carefully.
The ordinary words communicated an astounding message. She was the heir. As she reread the last paragraph, the word inheritance lifted from the page and pinged around her heart.
Reggie leaned closer to the lamplight.
. . . shall use the inheritance of bonds to restore and rebuild the House of Augustine-Saxon.
Bonds? What bonds? Savings? War? Bearer? She worked with some bearer bonds at Backlund & Backlund. They could be lucrative if the purchase was right. Or was the mention of inheritance bonds more altruistic? Bonds of love. Bonds of friendship. Of loyalty? Of time?
Reggie returned to the documents sent from King Nathaniel II, looking for a mention of bonds but found none.
Standing, stretching, rubbing the blur from her eyes, she returned the documents to the attaché case, then leaned against the windowsill.
The scene beyond the glass was beautiful. A stand of Princess Alice trees flaming in the last gold of the day. For early October, the lawn remained green and full.
“Lord, how about a sign. Huh?” She laughed softly, her breath powdering the pane, and thought of Gram. She was a sign. A living, talking, breathing sign. But she’d said nothing. Only to cloak the truth in a mysterious, prophetic fairy tale, and to play princess with construction paper crowns and fire-poker scepters.
She smoothed the dash of perspiration from her forehead, feeling homesick, missing Daddy and Sadie, who were most likely at lunch with a large after-church crowd.
Reaching for her phone, she texted Daddy.
Miss u. Call when u can. XO
But he was worse at texting than phone calls and voice messages.
Reggie slipped her phone into her pocket and offered one last prayer. “Lord, I don’t ask for signs very often, but if you can see your way clear this time . . .” She pressed her hand over her heart. “Consider my weak, blind, dark heart. I need your light. Show me your light.”
The parlor door opened on the fading whisper of her prayer.
“Miss.” Serena’s dark hair and porcelain face peeked around the door. “Chef sent me to see what you might want for dinner.”
“Whatever he’s making is fine.”
“He said he’d make an American hamburger with chips if you want.”
“Yum. Sounds good.” The idea of eating alone made her all the more homesick.
“Do you need anything else, miss?”
Yes, some sort of sign, a confirmation. “No, I’m good. I think I’ll . . .” Do what? Go to her suite? A flickering thought about Tanner crossed her mind. She kind of missed him. What was he doing this fine Sunday evening?
“Miss, have you seen the grand ballroom?” Serena gave a shy smile. “It’s my favorite room in the whole palace. They shined it up quite nice. Waiting for you to come.”
“Grand ballroom? I didn’t know there was a grand ballroom.” In truth, she knew next to nothing about the palace except her suite, the parlor, the dining room, and the kitchen.
She found it difficult to explore what her heart had not yet possessed.
“Want to see?” Serena motioned for Reggie to follow, opening the door wide.
“Let’s go.” Reggie scooted into the hall and waited for Serena to lead the way.
But the sweet lady’s maid wouldn’t step in front of Reggie. “Up that-a-way.” She pointed down the hall. “Then across the formal library and down the western corridor.”
“You lead, I’ll follow.”
“No, miss, I cannot walk in front of you. Mr. Jarvis would have my job if I did.”
“Ah, I see. Decorum.” Reggie linked her arm through Serena’s. “Come on, we’ll walk together. Does that work?”
Serena hesitated, her eyes on Reggie’s, then the bend of their arms. “I don’t think Mr. Jarvis would care for us to walk like schoolgirls either.”
“Just this once.” Serena couldn’t be much younger than Reggie. Five years maybe. In another place, they might have been friends. “Our secret.”
“All right, but just this once.” She smiled shyly and started down the hall, through the formal library with the twenty-foot, glass-and-iron windows, rich purple walls, and shelves upon shelves of gilded, leather-bound books, onto the red-carpeted western corridors.
Reggie nearly tripped Serena when she pulled up short, trying to take in the beauty of the hall with ornate gold molding, carved and crafted moldings around the windows, and a row of crystal lights marching down the high, arched ceiling.
“I feel like I’m in a dream.”
“Oh miss, this is just the slumber. The dream is to come.”
Around the corner, Serena stopped at a set of enormous double doors nearly the width of the entire wall. “Aren’t they grand?”
“Very.” They were encased with carved molding and coated with a bronze so polished Reggie could plainly see her reflection.
“They say Prince Francis proposed to the love of his life in this ballroom on his coronation day.” Serena twisted open the right door for Reggie to slip inside, then closed the door behind her. “But she turned him down flat. Didn’t want to be married to a Grand Duke. Said she’d never have a day to call her own for the rest of her life.”
Serena opened a panel on the wall and like magic, the center chandelier burst to life. Prisms of colorful light dripped from crystal teardrops to the glossy hardwood floor.
“Oh, Serena.” The light seemed to twirl and float, rising and falling, gathering under the arching ceiling. “This is incredible.”
“Told you, miss. My favorite room in the palace.”
The walls were a rich red and supported by a marble colonnade alternating with floor-to-ceiling windows in every other panel. Mini-chandeliers swung from their own mini-domes directly above each window.
On the far wall, a balcony hovered high above the floor, hosting a giant gold pipe organ. A mezzanine with curved stairs on either side was on her left.
The orchestra pit sat in the front of the room under a fresco painting of a Victorian couple dancing, their gazes locked with love.
“When was the last ball, Serena?”
“Don’t know. But I don’t believe there’s been one since the last Grand Duke. Maybe more than a hundred years. Oh me, look at the time . . . and Chef is waiting. I must run. Do you want to stay? I’ll come for you when dinner is served.”
“Yes, I want to stay. No hurry on dinner.”
When Reggie was alone, she stood under the grand center chandelier in the shower of the crystal light.
Well, she asked the Lord for a light. And this was a light.
She walked up the stairs to the mezzanine, running her hand along the smooth, gilded banister, pausing in the middle to peer out at the room, trying to hear the music, trying to see the dancers in all their splendor.
The fanciest dance she’d ever attended was her senior prom, where she danced with friends to the tunes of DJ Yo Sway.
Against the back wall of the mezzanine was a dais with two large chairs, like thrones, made of carved polished wood and plush, rich-red upholstery. Reggie made her way up the dais’s low, wide steps, pausing by the chair on the left.
Was this a throne? She’d seen pictures in books, and these chairs matched the images in her mind. For a split, pulsing second, she had the urge to sit in the seat on her left, but instead of taking a step forward, she backed down the steps. What if sitting meant “I’m the princess. For real. And I’m here to stay”?
Breathing out, shifting the emotional weight of the room from her heart to her head, Reggie descended the other side of the mezzanine stairs.
What the room must have looked like filled with dancers twirling and swaying to the music. Women in elegant gowns. Men dressed in dark tuxedos. The orchestra sending stringed sounds to the top of the domed ceiling, each note lingering in the air, then at last raining down on their hearts.
In all her days, Reggie never, ever imagined she’d experience the splendor of a grand and regal ballroom, but as she stepped off the bottom stair, she waltzed her way to the middle of the floor, arms raised, eyes closed, chin lifted, her body swaying to the melody in her soul.
“May I have this dance?”
She jerked around with a small yelp, her startled heart churning, quelling the sound of violins in her imagination. “Tanner—”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” He made his way in from the door, wearing jeans and a pullover sweater, his long blond hair loose about his face, looking as if he’d walked out of an L. L. Bean catalog.
“What are you doing here?” His gaze ignited a flicker of yearning in her soul, a longing to be in his arms, to lean against his chest and hear his heartbeat.
“Looking for you.” His tone fanned he
r flickering flame.
“And you found me.” Reggie locked her hands behind her back, watching him move toward her. Dang if her heart wasn’t rumbling like a big block engine.
“I ran into Serena. She said I’d find you here.”
“Remind me to have a talk with her about—”
Without a word, Tanner had swept her into his embrace and began a gentle, perfect waltz about the room, humming to the exact melody in her own head.
“Wh–what are you doing?”
“Dancing.” When he smiled, she felt weak. “I do believe it’s the same in America.” He tightened his hand at her waist. Reggie tripped a little when he turned her to the right, but he held on to her. “Back, right, front, left, turn. Stay on your toes. Keep your arm taut and raised, your hand pressed into mine . . . good . . . good. No, Regina, don’t look down. Look at me.”
Look at him? Sir Blue Eyes? She was sure if she did, she’d have no command of her limbs whatsoever. Already she was trembling with an annoying surge of adrenaline.
Say something. Get your mind off of his hand at your waist.
“Wh–what brings you,”—she coughed, clearing her throat—“h–here on a Sunday evening?”
“The king.” Oh. Disappointment smacked down a bit of her giddiness. He’s only here on business. “He wants to know if you’re available tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? Ooh, I don’t know. What for?” Lighten up, Reg! “I’m kind of busy. I have this palace to run.” Her heartbeat slowed. The trembling eased. “Staff to manage, and oh, you should see the dust on all the chandelier crystals. Tsk, tsk.” She pressed the back of her hand to her forehead with a heavy, accenting sigh. “Then there’s the gang down at the Fence & Anchor.”
He laughed. “Regina, don’t look now, love, but I think you’re starting to like it here.”
