His Convenient Royal Bride Page 16

  She could not cry in front of her girls.

  * * *

  Ward had been away for three days. Maddie had not come with him on this trip, saying something was going on at the bakery that needed her.

  He couldn’t believe how much he missed her. He went into their suite, so eager to see her, to hold her, to talk to her, that it felt as if he was vibrating at his core.

  “Maddie?” he called.

  There was something about the emptiness, about the way that his voice echoed back to him that made the hair stand up on the back of his neck.

  Ridiculous. She would just be at the bakery, or visiting with his mother, or perhaps delivering scones to the besotted members of the palace guard. Perhaps, she’d been invited, at the last moment, to hand out certificates at the kindergarten graduation ceremonies or trophies at the Senior’s Centre Annual Lawn Bowling Tournament.

  Lancaster would know where she was.

  Then he saw the envelope, a white square sitting on the kitchen table. He felt his heart sink to the bottom of his toes. He picked it up with trembling hands and a shadow of premonition.

  He opened it and scanned the words.

  Need time. Please understand. Don’t try to find me.

  How was that possible? He thought back over the last few days he had spent with her. Delightful. With the underlying intensity of the freed dragon.

  He wanted to believe his father had done something. Or his mother. But he knew it wasn’t that. He knew it was him. Somehow he had disappointed. Hurt her. Been insensitive. She had seen what he came from—the coldness between people, the remoteness, the lack of connection—and she had decided, probably wisely, to extricate herself.

  And he wondered how could he have forgotten the dragon’s flames destroyed everything in their path?

  But how could she have done it? How was it no one had noticed she was missing? And was she safe? She was a public figure now. Her face was known around the world. What if someone harmed her?

  He called Lancaster. “Maddie is missing.”

  “Missing? I don’t understand.”

  He didn’t want to share his greatest failure with anyone, but her safety might be compromised. Contemplating that made Ward feel physically ill. If something happened to her, it was on him.

  Within minutes Lancaster was there with a report. “She left a note on a bag of scones for her security this morning. She said she was staying home and wouldn’t go for her walk. There’s no way she got off the island. There’s one flight and three sailings. None of them last night. We’ll watch the ones today. We’ll search the island. We’ll find her. I promise.”

  And Lancaster kept his promise.

  But it was three days later, and the big man had obviously not slept or eaten. Ward had barely slept or eaten, either. So far, the fact the Princess was missing was only known by those who needed to know.

  “She’s not on Havenhurst,” Lancaster said.

  “What? How?”

  “I don’t have the details, yet. I pried it out of Sophie.”

  “Where is Maddie?”

  “I don’t have her exact location. Sophie didn’t know that. But I know who does know.”

  “Kettle,” he said quietly. “Let’s go.”

  “The jet is already waiting. Sir, he’s not the kind of man you’re going to be able to get it out of.”

  Ward considered that. He knew it was true: no threat would work. Probably torture would not even work.

  But there was something that might.

  The truth.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  MADDIE WALKED THE long sandy shore of Cannon Beach, hugging herself against the nippy wind coming off the ocean. Somehow, the last few days seemed more of a dream than marrying Prince Edward had seemed.

  Kettle had found a crew of hardened old Navy SEALs like himself. They whisked her away from Havenhurst with an ease that was matched only by their secrecy. Then, Kettle had a friend with this little cottage in Cannon Beach. She was there for now, blending in with all the tourists, in a ball cap pulled over a face mostly hidden by large sunglasses. She had taken to wearing red lipstick, which made her nearly unrecognizable to herself.

  Maddie felt the oddest combination of grief and elation. She missed Ward with a physical ache. And yet the baby felt real already, filling her with a quiet sense of calm and determination. She was not bringing a baby into the world with a father who did not want it.

  A long time ago, she had realized you could not wait for a man to rescue you. Not even a prince. Here was the thing: you had to rescue yourself.

  And so even though she was in the worst predicament of her life—having left a man she loved with all her heart, practically hiding because of her unwanted fame, with no resources besides the love of those closest to her—she felt certain that she could do this.

  She could make a safe haven and a safe life for her baby. She felt differently than she had when she’d had her previous pregnancy scare. So differently. There was no panic at all, but rather a deep sense of all being well for her and for her child. And it wasn’t just that she was older. Even though her love with Ward had not been reciprocated, something about loving him had made her braver, not afraid to love and to love fiercely.

  This was a gift she would give to her baby.

  She saw a man coming toward her and started.

  No, it could not be him. It couldn’t be. And yet her heart raced as if it was, and as he drew closer, there was no doubt. For a panicky moment she wanted to run. He would see in her face her love for him, her need.

  But he had probably only come because he had figured it out. He had figured out she carried the royal baby.

  He couldn’t make her go back against her will.

  He came closer and she was taken aback. Ward looked glorious, and yet there were dark circles under his eyes, and a thinness to his face he had not had before. Finally, he drew in front of her and thrust his hands deep in his pockets. He scanned her face and then looked away to where puffins screeched off Haystack Rock.

  His face looked so tormented. She wanted to touch it. But she followed his lead and put her hands in the pockets of the hooded jacket she was wearing.

  “Ward,” she said.

  “Maddie.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “Kettle told me.”

  “Kettle would never tell you.”

  “Not if I tortured him, I’m sure. Or threatened him. The truth was a different matter.”

  “The truth?” she whispered.

  “Maddie, why? Why did you leave?”

  “I told you in the note. I needed some time to think.”

  “Just so suddenly?” he asked. “I thought we were doing so well. Given the circumstances.”

  “The circumstances,” she said. “A fake marriage, that we were both treating as if it was real.”

  “Maddie, I’m so sorry.”

  “Sorry?”

  “I know it’s me. I know we’ve had great fun, but I don’t blame you for coming to your senses. I know you saw what I came from, and I know the deep love you came from, and you realized it was unworkable. That I can never be the man you want. And deserve. I’m sorry I put you through all of this. Of course, you are free to leave. I’ll ask for an annulment right away. But I hope you will accept security—personal and financial—for as long as it takes for it all to fade away.”

  An annulment, she thought, dully. And, of course, his ever-present sense of honor. He would look after her, even though it had not worked out.

  But then she looked at the torment on his face and let his words sink in.

  He didn’t think he was good enough? He didn’t think he could give her what she deserved? That’s why he was going to set her free?

  He didn’t know about the baby. He didn’t have a clue.

 
“Are you here because you are trying to do what is best for me?” she breathed.

  The question seemed to take him by surprise.

  “Of course.”

  “Look, this seems strange to me. Are you, the Prince, telling me, a common girl, you are somehow unworthy of me?”

  “I think you figured that out. You need a man who knows how to love you in the way you deserve to be loved. I think you realized that’s not me.”

  “You think you don’t know how to love?” Maddie asked, incredulous.

  “How could I know that?” he growled, his pain raw in his voice.

  “Ward, you don’t think putting Aida’s needs ahead of your own was a form of love?”

  He tilted his head at her. “A form, I suppose.”

  “And what about the relationship between you and Lancaster? You don’t think that’s a form of love? He’s like your brother!”

  “Well, maybe—”

  “And what about the way you treat your niece, Anne? You’re playful with her, and yet it is so obvious you would lay down your life to protect her if need be.”

  “Of course, I would.”

  “That’s love. How do you feel right now, this instant, standing here, telling me you’ll let me go?”

  * * *

  “Broken,” he said, his voice low and strained. “It feels as if letting you go is tearing the heart out of me.”

  “Ward,” she asked softly, “don’t you think that’s love? Putting what you think are another person’s needs ahead of your own? How did you find me?”

  “Kettle.”

  “Do you think Kettle would have sent you here, if he didn’t see the truth in you?”

  He ducked his head. “Why make this harder? It’s obvious I have feelings for you. I’ve decided I’m not the best person for you.”

  She reached up and touched his face, cupped the side of it, his chin in her palm.

  “Say it,” she said.

  “Oh, Maddie, always telling me what to do. The only person who orders the Prince around. But must you hear this? Must you have my heart at your feet?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “All right.” He refused to look at her. “I love you. I love everything about you. I would give up my whole kingdom for one more day of chasing you through the hot springs. For one more hand of poker. For one more kiss. For one more opportunity to hold you.

  “I’ve never felt this way before. I did not know it was possible to feel this way.

  “And for that, I thank you. That I have been allowed the great privilege of knowing love, however briefly. It has made me a better man.”

  Her eyes filmed with tears and they fell.

  He lifted his hand and traced the path of one down her cheek. “See? Now, I’ve made you cry. I’m inept at this business. I’m sorry. I’ll go. I don’t know why I came. I just had to see you one more time, to look at your face...”

  “Ward, be quiet. Look at me.”

  And then he did look at her face. He looked at it long and hard, like a man who had had a drink from a cool pool of water, and knew he would never drink from it again.

  But as he looked at her, something in his own expression changed. He saw it. He saw her love for him shining out of her.

  “You don’t have a clue, do you?” she asked him softly.

  “I’m afraid—”

  “Ward, I didn’t leave because I don’t love you. I left because I did.”

  “I’m not following. At all.”

  “You really don’t know?”

  He shook his head, baffled, and yet hope had risen in his eyes.

  “I’m pregnant, Ward. I’m going to have our baby.”

  “What?”

  He fell on his knees before her. He gently opened her jacket and ran his hands over the smoothness of her belly. He kissed it.

  “I thought—” She was crying hard now. “I thought when you found out, you would feel an obligation to make our marriage real. I couldn’t have that. I couldn’t be married to you without love. Without knowing the child would be loved.”

  He rose to his feet and gathered her hard against him.

  “How could you not know I loved you?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, staring up at him from within the circle of his arms. “I don’t know why the words seemed so important, when it is so clear to me right now that you were telling me in so many different ways all the time. I think being pregnant frightened me.”

  He looked stricken that anything he had done—or not done—had frightened her.

  “I didn’t know how to say those words,” Ward admitted. “But I know how, now, and I will never stop saying them. I will never stop loving you. Or our baby. I will love you both until the end of time and beyond. This is my vow to you.”

  She felt it. She felt the truth, not just of his words, but the truth of his heart, to the bottom of her soul. She felt the truth of it, of the power of love.

  And at last she was home.

  EPILOGUE

  PRINCE EDWARD ALEXANDER THE FOURTH stood with a baby in his arms and his heart in his throat.

  He looked way up, to the rock outcropping above the top pool of Honeymoon Hot Springs.

  Maddie stood there, poised, arms straight out in front of her, on the tips of her toes.

  He wanted to shout at her not to, but she was still the only person in his world who did not listen to him.

  She gathered herself, and Ward saw what all the people of Havenhurst saw in their beloved Princess: she was of the earth.

  But when she launched and soared upward, he saw what he alone was allowed to see.

  She was not just of the earth. She was also of the sky.

  She was a bird who had found its wings. She spread her arms wide, embracing the air and the sky, and Ward saw her strength and her grace and her confidence in herself. He saw her bravery and her tenacity. And he saw that she did not need him.

  Which made the fact that she chose him all the more remarkable.

  Maddie had come into herself even more since the baby was born. One of those women who blossomed under love.

  His love. His imperfect, stumbling along, learning new and magnificent things every day kind of love.

  As he watched, she jackknifed and did a perfect, almost-splashless entry into the water of the pool. A few seconds later she surfaced, laughing, shaking droplets of water from her hair.

  This was the first time they had been back in Mountain Bend since the mineral water bottling plant had opened here, after Havenhurst had shared its technology and marketing with the mountain village. Already the town was prospering from the work generated by that pant. Already the sales of that healing mineral water were through the roof.

  But it didn’t hurt that a sign hung at the entrance of the town saying it was the birthplace of Madeline, Princess of Havenhurst. People were intrigued. They came to see, out of curiosity, and stayed because there was something here that had been lost.

  The town represented the purity, the innocence, the wholesomeness of times past. And because it still had those rare things, and had them in abundance, Mountain Bend was thriving—little cottages lovingly restored, shops busy, people happy.

  “Great dive,” he said.

  Maddie lifted herself out of the water. She was wearing a two-piece, but the thrill he felt was even deeper than the first time he had seen her here, and it had nothing to do with her choice of bathing attire.

  “Your turn,” she said, holding out her arms for the chubby, gurgling baby. He had been named Ryan. Prince Ryan Lancaster the First. It was not a historical royal name, but honored both Maddie’s father and the man who had been so much more than a protector, more like a brother to Ward. It was rare, however, for Maddie to call Ryan either of his given names. To the delight of the people of Havenhurst, who loved her
so much, she mostly called the baby Prince Chunky Monkey.

  Ward left her and scrambled up the rocks until he stood high above his wife and his baby. He threw open his arms to the sky, but somehow he did not jump.

  No, he stood there, in gratitude and in wonder.

  A long time ago, that night that had changed everything, that night when he had asked Maddie to be his wife, Ward had not really ever considered the nature of miracles.

  But now he did.

  He had been a prince, one of the richest, most successful, most admired men in the world. And yet he had been impoverished.

  It was love that made him who he was.

  It was love that had crowned him King.

  He bounced on his toes. Once. Twice. He was aware, not of the wealth of being a prince—he had found out you could be intensely poor, while the whole world admired your outward signs of riches—but of the wealth of being alive.

  He tingled with recognition of the utter abundance of this moment, birdsong, the scent of the forest beyond him and the scent of the ponds beneath him. Of Maddie, watching, that wiggly baby held firmly in her arms, her upturned face alight.

  It was love that made you alive.

  On three, Prince Edward Alexander launched off the rock, then tucked into himself and somersaulted through the air, opened into a twist, and then cleanly cut into the calmness of the waiting water.

  He surfaced, laughing joyously, aware he was still showing off for his Princess. And he hoped that would never end.

  * * *

  If you enjoyed this story, check out these other great reads from Cara Colter

  Snowbound with the Single Dad

  Swept into the Tycoon’s World

  The Wedding Planner’s Big Day

  Housekeeper Under the Mistletoe

  All available now!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Carrying Her Millionaire’s Baby by Sophie Pembroke.

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