Betrothed to the Prince

“Wow.”

“Yes. You don’t see that kind of gratitude much these days, do you?” He gave her a crooked grin. “I don’t really remember her, but I’ve always heard a lot about her. She affected the lives of all she came in contact with. She was the first one to start a nursing charity for the poor. She founded the original Nabotavian orphanage. The whole country loved her. She was considered a sort of royal saint.”

“Princess Elna.” Tianna nodded. She remembered now. She’d read a biography of the woman when she was about twelve or thirteen. “Yes, of course. I’ve heard of her. She was a wonderful woman.”

“Yes. Anyway, she became quite a legend, and eventually a myth grew up around her experience. It was thought that the royal family might take in other babies. The rose garden was open to the public in those days and women began leaving their babies there, with notes, begging for the royal family to adopt the baby. For some reason, a few years ago, the story was revived and they started trying to do that here, too. They usually don’t get any farther than the guard gate, though.”

“I see.” She nodded thoughtfully, then glanced at the crib where the little girl slept.

Garth followed her gaze. “Now where was it you found her?” he asked, watching for her reaction.

Tianna looked at him. “Just outside, along the driveway.”

“Not in the rose garden?”

“No, it was among the primroses.”

She blinked and their eyes met. His eyebrow cocked.

“Too bad,” he said softly. “I’m afraid we’re not in the adopting mood here at the castle.”

Tianna’s gaze was still holding his. “What if it’s not just some stranger who left her?” she asked softly. “What if it’s someone you know?”

He frowned, sitting back in his chair. The wary look returned to his handsome face. “What are you driving at?”

She rose, stepping to the chest of drawers and returning with a small note card. Even from where he was sitting, he could smell the rose scent it had been dabbed with.

“Here,” she said. “You’d better read this. It fell out of the baby’s clothing.”

He looked at it for a moment, a feeling of unease growing in his chest. This had all the earmarks of something that was going to be extremely unpleasant. Reluctantly, he reached for the card.

“My dearest Garth,” the note began. He groaned softly, then went on reading.

“Why have you done this to me? You never come by and you don’t write anymore. I’m at my wits’ end. I don’t know what to do. I can’t handle this by myself. It’s just too hard. I feel I’ve lost your love and your support. But this baby is as much yours as she is mine. I’m leaving her for you to raise. I just can’t do it on my own. But I still love you and always will. Your Sunshine Girl.”

“Nice try, Sunshine Girl,” he said sardonically, flipping the letter down on the small table between them. He took a deep breath, then looked up into Tianna’s intense green gaze. “I assume you read this.”

“I…” She flushed, realizing she had intruded herself where she hadn’t been invited. “I’m sorry, but I thought…”

“Of course you read it,” he said, sweeping away her apologies. “That hardly matters.” He fixed her with a serious look. “What does matter is that you realize it’s a hoax.”

“A hoax?”

“Of course.” He looked at the paper as though he could start a flame if he stared hard enough. “I have no idea who this person is. And I’m not the father of her baby.”

Tianna stared at him. So this was the angle he was going to take. For some reason, she’d thought he might respond with remorse at least, and hopefully promises of support. But as she looked into his clear blue eyes, she could see that he had no intention of doing any such thing.

For the first time since she’d read the note, her confidence wavered. Maybe he was right. Maybe the baby wasn’t his. On one level, she would like to believe it. But how could that be? The note came across as so sincere. And women usually knew who the fathers of their babies were. It was hard for her to believe that any woman would set her baby out to be found like that without being darn sure….

“I assumed at least you would know who she is,” she said, pinning him with a penetrating look.

“No. I do not know who this is.”

She leaned forward, frowning. The baby seemed to be about four months old to her. “Well, if you think back…. Where were you a little over a year ago? That’s when it would have happened.”

“I was in Nabotavia,” he said coolly. “Fighting with the underground.”

“Oh.” She sat back. That certainly put a different light on the subject. Still… “But maybe she was in Nabotavia, too.”

A muscle twitched at his temple and his mouth seemed to harden. “And maybe she’s just a local girl who heard about the Rose Baby Legend and decided to take her chances.”

She held his gaze with her own intense stare. “Maybe.”

They stayed that way for a long moment as the air crackled between them. Suddenly Tianna was short of breath and afraid she knew exactly why. She licked her lips, trying to mask her breathlessness, and saw his gaze darken as he followed the path of her tongue. That only made things worse. She had to focus hard to remember what they were here talking about.

“At any rate, there’s no need for you to worry about it,” he said at last, shrugging carelessly. “I’m sure the mother will be found eventually.”

She drew in a sharp breath, back on subject and exasperated with him. “That’s all you have to say about this?”

He looked very continental and above it all. “What would you like me to say?”

She shrugged, growing more and more annoyed with him. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe that you’re sorry the poor little thing has been abandoned. That you’ll make some effort to find out where she belongs.” She threw out her arms. “How about giving some indication that just possibly you might give a damn?”

But what if I don’t?

He didn’t say it, but he was tempted to, more because he knew it would drive her crazy than anything else. Of course he cared on a basic human level. But that was pretty abstract. In the grand scheme of things, he had to admit that the women who left their babies hoping the royals would raise them didn’t interest him much. It had been happening for as long as he could remember. The only thing that made this instance different was that this new mother had composed a bogus note to add to the mix—and that Tianna was involved.

He had to admit, she interested him more than any woman had in a long time. Women usually swooned around him, flirted, gushed, gave every indication that they would love to be taken home and ravished. But Tianna was different. She reacted enough to let him know she wasn’t immune to the attraction that had sprung up between them from the first. But she was working very hard to resist it. And that, of course, was a challenge he might not be able to ignore.

Still, he knew she wasn’t going to be happy until he took some steps toward solving the problem of the baby—an annoyance he could easily take care of.

“If it will make you feel better, I’ll put a real expert on the case right away.” He pulled out his cell phone and quickly punched in a number. “Janus? I have an assignment for you. Please meet me in the study in…oh, say five minutes.”

“My valet,” he told her as he folded his phone and put it away in his pocket. “He’s the most trustworthy man I know. He’ll handle it.”

She sat very still and drew in a slow, deep breath. Where should she go from here? It would have been nice to see more enthusiasm from him, more interest in getting to the bottom of this mystery. It disappointed her to have him brush it off, as if it hardly mattered, as if, like any rich and powerful person, he didn’t have to deal with the problems of the little people. This was exactly what she hated about the monarchy—and one of the main reasons she was determined to slough it off like a poorly fitting skin.

He rose from his chair and she rose to face him. “Would you like to hold the baby before you go?” she asked hopefully.

His eyes shone with a quizzical sheen. “No thanks,” he said dismissively. He hesitated, then added, “Dinner is at six in the game room.”

“Oh, I can’t leave the baby.”

He looked pained. “Of course you can. I’ll send up Bridget, the downstairs maid, to sit with the baby. She often watches Marcos’s children.”

“No, I really don’t think…”

“Tianna.”