Save The Date!: The Rebel and the Heiress / Not Just a Convenient Marriage / Crown Prince, Pregnant Bride

He glanced back at the letter and continued reading. ‘I may be better served taking this knowledge to the grave as it’s brought me no joy. I don’t expect it to bring you any either.’

Nell’s intake of breath reverberated in the silence.

‘I have no faith in you.’

Her hands slapped to the table.

‘But you might as well know you have a sibling.’

She practically leapt out of her chair. ‘Who?’ she demanded, and then forced herself back down into her seat. ‘Really?’ She frowned. ‘Older or younger?’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘I think I’m the one who’s supposed to be asking the questions.’

‘Oh, yes, of course.’ She sat back and folded her hands in her lap. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’m not going to tell you who it is. If it matters to you then you’ll have to prove it.’

Her jaw dropped. ‘But that’s... How...how can he be so hard and cold? He’s supposed to have looked after you and...’ She swallowed and sat back again. ‘Sorry.’ She smiled, a weak thing that did nothing to hide her turmoil. She made a zipping motion across her mouth.

Rick shrugged. ‘He ends by simply signing it John Cox.’

She shook herself, frowned. ‘I know the questions belong to you, but, Rick, I have no idea how to answer any of them. I haven’t a clue who your sibling could be. I had no idea John was your father. I’ve never seen him with either a woman or a child. I—’

He handed the letter to her. He watched her face as she read the remaining lines. It darkened, which gladdened his heart.

And then it went blank. Rick eased back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling, not knowing whether to be relieved or disappointed.

* * *

Nell ignored the first lines John addressed to her in the letter. Miss Nell, if you think Rick is in any way redeemable and you can find it in yourself to help him... She snorted. What kind of nonsense was that? What kind of father just turned his back on his child? She thought about her own father with all of his demands and bit back a sigh.

‘You’ll find a clue where the marigolds grow.’ She turned the letter over, but there was nothing written on the back.

‘Any idea what that might mean?’ Rick asked, slouching back in his chair as if they were discussing nothing more interesting than the weather.

She opened her mouth. She closed it again and scratched her head. ‘My best guess is that, as he was a gardener and this is where he gardened, it refers to a garden bed somewhere on the estate, a garden bed where he grew marigolds, but...’

‘But?’

Rick sounded bored. She glanced at him, tried to read his face, but couldn’t. She lifted one shoulder. ‘The thing is, I don’t recall John ever growing marigolds. Apparently my mother didn’t like them.’

She stabbed a finger into the Passion Fruit Delight cupcake, glowering at it. ‘Why couldn’t he have just told you who your sibling is?’ She stabbed it again. ‘Why couldn’t he have told you the truth from the start and been a proper father to you?’ Stab. Stab. ‘I’d never have guessed any of this in a million years and—’

She pulled herself up and collected herself. None of this was helping. She wiped her finger on a napkin. ‘Okay, so what else could marigold mean?’

Rick picked up the Strawberries and Cream cupcake and pushed nearly half of it into his mouth. She watched, mesmerised, at the way his lips closed around it, at the appreciation that lit his eyes and the way his mouth worked, the way his Adam’s apple bobbed...the way his tongue flicked out to seize a crumb from the corner of his mouth.

She wrenched her gaze back. ‘It could be a girl’s name.’ Her voice came out strangled.

‘Do you know a Marigold or two?’

The words came out lazy and barely interested. Didn’t he care? She tried to focus on the question he asked rather than the ones pounding through her. She frowned, thought hard and eventually shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. I don’t even think I know any Marys.’ She leapt up, seized her address book from the sideboard drawer and flicked through it...and then searched the list of contacts in her mobile phone. Nothing.

She stood. ‘Okay, maybe there’s marigold wallpaper somewhere in the house or...or moulding in the shape of a marigold...or an ornament or a painting or—’

‘Princess, you’ve lived here your whole life. Do you really need to go through this mausoleum room by room to know whether it has marigold wallpaper?’

No, of course not. She sat. She knew every room intimately. She could remember what it looked like ten years ago as if it were only yesterday. There hadn’t been any marigold paintings on any of the walls. There’d been no marigold wallpaper or bedspreads or curtains. No marigolds. Anywhere.

She glanced at Rick again. She could deal with his devil-may-care teasing and that tough-guy swagger. In fact, those things gave her a bit of a thrill. Considering she didn’t get too many thrills, she’d take them where she could. She could even deal with the cold, hard wall he retreated behind. She could relate to it, even if she did feel he was judging her behind it and finding her lacking. But this... This nothingness hidden behind mockery and indifference. She was having no part of it.

She folded her arms. ‘Don’t you care?’

‘Why should I?’ He licked his fingers clean.

‘Because...’

‘What did he ever do for me?’

‘Not about John!’ She could understand his indifference and resentment of the other man. On that head it was John’s stance that baffled her. She leaned across the table until its edges dug into her ribs. ‘Don’t you care that you have a brother or sister somewhere in the wide world?’

One shoulder lifted. He reached for the last unmangled cupcake. A dark lick of hair fell across his forehead. Nell pushed away from the table to stare, unseeing, out of the kitchen window, determined not to watch him demolish it with those delectable lips, determined not to watch him demolish it the way he seemed hell-bent on destroying this chance, this gift, he’d been given.

She pressed her hands to her chest. To have a sibling...

She stilled. She glanced back behind her for a second and then spun back. Rick hadn’t left. He hadn’t read John’s letter and then stormed out. He had shared the letter with her. Rick could feign indifference and couldn’t-care-less disregard all he wanted, but if he really didn’t care he’d have left by now.

Her cupcakes were good, but they weren’t that good.

She sat again. ‘I wish I had a brother or sister.’

‘And whose image would you most like them cast in?’ He leaned back, hands clasped behind his head. ‘Your mother’s or your father’s?’

She flinched. He blinked and for a moment she thought he might reach across the table to touch her. He didn’t. She forced herself to laugh. ‘I guess there is always that. A sibling may have provided further proof that I was the cuckoo in the nest.’

‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

The hell he hadn’t. ‘It’s okay.’ She made her voice wry. ‘You’ve had a shock, so it’s okay to say hurtful things to other people.’

He scrubbed a hand across his face. ‘I didn’t mean for it to be hurtful. I’m sorry. I just refuse to turn this into a “they-all-lived-happily-ever-after” fairy tale like you seem so set on doing.’

He didn’t want to get his hopes up. She couldn’t blame him for that.

He rose. ‘I believe I’ve long outstayed my welcome.’

Nell shot to her feet too. ‘But...but we haven’t figured out what marigolds mean yet or—’

‘I’m not sure I care, Princess.’