Her Royal Husband

“You can’t just enter his suite,” she whispered.

“My daughter might be in there!”

“Surely not.” The girl looked terrified.

“What is the prince? Why are you so afraid? Is he some sort of old ogre?”

A blush crept charmingly up the girl’s cheeks. “Oh, no, ma’am. Not in the least. I mean nothing further from an ogre. He’s not old for one thing. And he’s the most handsome man who ever lived. And so wonderfully kind. He’s very, oh, just the best. But you can’t just enter his quarters.”

So much for Ralphie, Jordan thought, grimly amused by the girl’s obvious crush.

“I could never presume to knock on his door,” the girl whispered. “If he finds out I’ve lost a child in my charge, I’ll never live with the shame of it. He’s going to be king some day!”

“What nonsense,” Jordan said, and hammered on the door. Despite the nanny’s gasp of dismay, she pushed down the handle before there was an answer. Prince or not her child was lost and royal protocol came a long way down the list from that.

“Excuse me—” she stopped dead in her tracks, and felt the blood drain from her face.

Whitney was there after all, sitting happily at a huge table, manipulating chessmen that appeared to be made of crystal.

But the discovery of her daughter brought none of the expected relief. Instead, Jordan felt close to panic.

She tried to tell herself her mind was playing tricks on her.

Of course it was.

A man sat at a polished table with her daughter. Not the prince, obviously. He was dressed in faded jeans, and a denim shirt with a smudge of dirt on the elbow. He had the build of a prizefighter, all sinewy muscle, and the look of one, too, his face bruised, his lip split. This must be the famous Ralphie-the-gardener. Obviously those distortions to his facial features had momentarily made her think the impossible.

And yet she could not deny his resemblance to the man she had loved so many years ago, when once before she had said yes to adventure.

No, it wasn’t him.

Ben had been blond. This man’s hair was dark as fresh-turned loam. Besides, he was broader through the shoulders, and the chest than Ben had been. It wasn’t him. It couldn’t be.

She reminded herself that this happened to her from time to time—a glimpse at a stranger set her heart to beating wildly, filled her with the joyous thought, it’s him, before she had a chance to remind herself seeing him again would be nothing to be joyous about.

He glanced up. The way his hair, just a touch too long, fell over his brow, made her take a step back, and then his eyes met hers.

Deep, cool, the exact color of sapphires. The exact color of the little girl’s who sat across from him.

This was a dream. No, a nightmare, that she imagined her daughter sitting across the table from the man who bore such a frightening resemblance to the man who had fathered her.

But if she could have convinced herself it wasn’t him, the look on his face shattered that.

Stunned recognition washed over his features before he scrambled to his feet.

“Leave us,” he said to the flustered nanny, sending only the briefest glance her way.

“You do not have to leave us,” Jordan snapped. “I’m sure your duties do not include taking instructions from Ralphie-the-gardener.”

Trisha looked like she was going to faint. “No ma’am,” she whispered, standing like a deer caught in headlights, “but this is not Ralph.”

“Leave,” he said again, curtly.

The girl actually curtsied, and flushed to a shade of purple that reminded Jordan of the fresh beets lined up for the Blushing Beet Borscht they were preparing in the kitchen.

“Yes, Your Royal Highness,” Trisha squeaked, and backed out of the room, tripping over herself in her haste to get out of the door.

Your Royal Highness. Jordan let the shock of it wash over her. The man who had loved her was a prince. A living, breathing, gorgeous prince.

He was still the man who had left her, she reminded herself. That meant he was still a cad.

The silence was electric as she regarded him. She wanted him to flinch away from the fury in her look, but instead she could feel the familiar intensity of his gaze, could feel it threatening to melt in an instant what it had taken her five long hard years to build.

“Hi, Mommy,” Whitney said, looking up, breaking the silence.

She saw the shock cross his features.

“Mommy?” he said, almost accusingly, as if he had a right to know what had transpired in her life in the past years—as if he was shocked she had the audacity to have a life without him.

“Your Royal Highness?” she shot back, just as accusingly.

“Pwince Owen,” Whitney filled in helpfully.

“Oh my,” Jordan said, allowing a faint hint of sarcasm into her voice, “and I thought it was Prince Ben. Or was that Ben Prince?”

“It was Blond Boy, wasn’t it?” The faintest twinkle appearing in his eye.

How could he be trying to make this light? She hated that twinkle. It was part of his easy charm, his great big lying charming self. There had probably been dozens after her, who felt the very same weakness she had felt when he gazed at her with those amazing passionate seductive eyes.

The bruises, the marks of the beating on his face only added to his pull—the almost irresistible desire to touch him with tender fingertips. Traitor fingers!

“Of course, you feel passionate about him,” Jordan would tell those sobbing girls who came to her house late in the night, “that’s what got you into this mess in the first place. But there’s no need to be a weak ninny about it.”

Here she was, being given an opportunity to practice what she preached. She was not going to forgive the betrayal that had nearly torn her soul from her body five years ago, the betrayal that had turned her from an innocent and idealistic child to a cynical and wounded woman in the blink of an eye, just because he had the most mesmerizing eyes of any male on the planet.

“Well, Your Royal—” she hesitated, tempted to call him Your Royal Muck-muck, to show his title did not impress her in the least, did not make up for his great failings in character, but she thought he might think she was playfully referring to their shared past, so she bit her tongue and called him Highness. “I guess your identity explains a great deal, up to and including this dream contract of my aunt’s.”

“Jordan,” he said quietly, “my identity explains nothing, least of all the abysmal way I treated you. Obviously seeing you again has come as a shock to me. I don’t know your aunt, or anything about her contract.”

“Well, whatever,” she said, trying to shrug carelessly, knowing she could not allow that sincere tone to disarm her.

“Jordan, why are you in Penwyck?” he asked.

How dearly she would have loved to tell him she was here for a meeting of municipalities. That she was the best mayor in the world and she had come to receive a medal.

Childish to want to build herself up like that, just because he was a prince and she was a kitchen assistant. “I’m working with my aunt on the banquet preparations for next Saturday. Whitney, we have to leave.” This room, this castle, this island.

Whitney gave her an amazed look. “I not leaving. You leave.”