A Prince At Last!

Juliet nodded. “Correct.”

“What a mess.”

“You’re the heir,” she repeated. “The oldest male. The future king of St. Michel. I’m going to have to practice curtsying.”

“You do and I won’t speak to you,” he warned her.

“But it’s protocol to curtsy to the king.”

“What do I know about being a king?”

“Well, for one thing, you’re very good at giving orders,” she pointed out with a grin.

“Sure. Orders are easy. Reporting what I just found to the prime minister and dowager queen, that is not going to be easy.”

“Why not?”

“Who’d believe that I’m the future king?” Luc scoffed. “I’m not a diplomatic man. I don’t know anything about governing.”

“You can learn. I’m certain the prime minister and the dowager queen will be delighted with this news.”

“I brought proof with me,” he said abruptly. “Not so much to convince them as to convince myself. It seems my mother left a key to a safety deposit box in Albert’s care, to use if I ever came asking about my birth father. Since I didn’t know Albert wasn’t my father, it was doubtful I’d ever think to ask him anything. Inside the box was a registered copy of my birth certificate. I thought it had to be another fake, but I checked the paper trail, this time using my mother’s name and it checks out. Before that I was looking for Katie Graham, her name on the marriage certificate to Prince Philippe. I’d already traced Katie back to Texas and found she married Ellsworth Johnson.”

“I thought you said his name was Robert Johnson?”

“Americans have this irritating habit of not using their proper Christian given names, especially Texans. Robert was his middle name. It was all there in the safe deposit box. Marriage certificates, my birth certificate and a letter from my mother.”

“Really? What did she say?”

“I haven’t read it yet.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t know if I can forgive her,” Luc said bluntly. “And I don’t think there’s anything she could have written in that letter that would justify her lying to me, or letting me live a lie.”

“Maybe she was trying to protect you. She was so young when you were born. Barely eighteen. Pregnant and alone. She tried to provide you with a stable home and father when she married Albert.”

“She married one man knowing she was pregnant with another man’s child.” A muscle flexed in his clenched jaw. “How honorable is that?”

“You won’t know until you read her letter,” she replied.

“I don’t need to read it to know what she did was dishonorable.”

“I realize you feel that way now, but you have to read her letter, Luc.”

“If you’re so interested, then you read it,” he growled, yanking it out of his pocket and tossing it onto her book-strewn desk. “I’m not interested. I don’t care what it says. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to prepare for my meeting with the prime minister and dowager queen and I need some fresh air to clear my head.”

With that curt announcement, Luc left as abruptly as he’d arrived.

Chapter Two

Juliet stared down at the envelope on her desk as if it were a snake that might lunge out and bite her. Her fingers trembled as she traced the elegant handwriting—Luc.

What had his mother been thinking when she’d written his name? Had she hoped that he’d never find out he was heir to the throne of St. Michel? Would she even have known? From what Luc had told her of the investigation, Katie had been told that her marriage to Philippe was illegal.

Which meant Katie would have believed her son to be illegitimate. And she’d have done everything she could to hide that fact from him.

Juliet knew how much legitimacy mattered. The royal princesses had had to weather that storm of controversy themselves when Lise’s rotten first husband Wilhelm had sold the story to a tabloid. Once the word was out that King Philippe had had a secret first wife, whom he’d never divorced, the paparazzi had swarmed the de Bergeron Palace like a bunch of locusts, feeding off the scandal.

The princesses had all left the palace now—Marie-Claire had married Sebastian, Ariane had gone to Rhineland and married Prince Etienne, Lise had finally found true happiness with her former brother-in-law, the honorable Charles Rodin. Juliet’s own half sister Jacqueline was visiting cousins in Switzerland and protected from most of the scandal while their brother Georges had headed off to the Andes in Peru for a few weeks of summer skiing.

At least things had worked out well in the end for the three older princesses, who had all found the men of their dreams.

Juliet thought she’d found the man of her dreams as well—Luc. Her chances of having him see her in a romantic way had always been slim at best, but now they were impossible.

Juliet turned and caught her reflection in the small mirror propped on top of the bookcase along the opposite wall. She’d placed it there to reflect the view of the garden rather than out of any vanity on her part.

She had nothing to be vain about. Her green eyes were all right, she supposed, but her long dark hair had never behaved properly, and was at this moment falling out of the topknot she’d secured it in with a pencil to hold it in place. Her eyebrows were bushy, or so her roommate in boarding school had once told her, and her mouth was too large to be elegant. She even had freckles, something no princess would ever have.

Of course, she wasn’t a princess. She was the ugly stepsister. The smart one, the bookworm, more interested in the past than in her future.

On those occasions lately when she had dreamt about her future, she’d placed Luc at her side. Her gaze traveled from her reflection to the letter on her desk.

The fact that Luc was the missing heir changed everything.

She certainly didn’t have what it took to make a king happy. She didn’t even have what it took to keep a rich St. Michel businessman’s son like Armand Killey happy. Three years ago, Armand had swept her off her feet, telling her he loved her quiet beauty. And she’d bought every word, had, in fact, hungered for someone to love her after her mother had died.

But Armand hadn’t really loved her at all. He’d simply been using her in order to get close to the king. Juliet had heard him and his father discussing the plan. She’d been devastated and humiliated, as well as angry with herself for being so stupid as to fall for Armand’s slick ways in the first place.

“Did you read the letter yet?” Luc asked, disrupting her thoughts and once again catching her unprepared. He must have gotten the fresh air he’d said he needed by taking a brief walk in the garden, out of her line of vision.

“No.” She paused to remove the pencil from her hair and let the dark strands tumble where they may. She’d learned long ago there was no fighting her hair, it always won. If it didn’t want to stay up, it wouldn’t. Turning to face Luc, she said, “I did not read it. And I’m not going to until you do.”

“Then you’ll be waiting a very long time,” he retorted, “since I have no intention of ever reading it.”

“Luc.” She reached out to cover his hand with hers. “You’re upset right now. Don’t make any decisions just yet.”

“Don’t make any decisions?” His voice was harsh, making him sound like a man pushed to his limits as he pulled his hand away. “I have to. I have to tell the prime minister and the dowager queen what I’ve discovered. I have an appointment with them both in less than half an hour.”

Juliet tried not to be hurt by his physical withdrawal from her, reminding herself that he had a lot to deal with. A good friend wouldn’t get all sensitive, wouldn’t show her pain. She’d be supportive and reassuring. “As I said before, I’m sure they will be pleased with the news.”

“And as I said before, I know nothing about being a king.”

“There is a silver lining in all this you know. At least you won’t have to worry about getting along with the new king.”

“Trust you to find a silver lining.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “You make me sound like a naive Pollyanna who still believes in happy endings.”