by Kris Tualla
Also By Kris Tualla:
Medieval:
Loving the Norseman
Loving the Knight
In the Norseman’s House
Renaissance:
A Nordic Knight in Henry’s Court
A Nordic Knight of the Golden Fleece
A Nordic Knight and his Spanish Wife
18th Century:
A Discreet Gentleman of Discovery
A Discreet Gentleman of Matrimony
A Discreet Gentleman of Consequence
A Discreet Gentleman of Intrigue
A Discreet Gentleman of Mystery
and
Leaving Norway
Finding Sovereignty
Regency:
A Woman of Choice
A Prince of Norway
A Matter of Principle
Contemporary:
An Unexpected Viking
A Restored Viking
A Modern Viking
*****
For Aspiring Authors:
A Primer for Beginning Authors
Becoming an Authorpreneur
A Prince
of
Norway
Kris Tualla
A Prince of Norway is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America.
© 2010 by Kris Tualla
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, except for brief quotations used in critical articles or reviews.
ISBN-10: 1451503326
EAN-13: 9781451503326
For my precious husband, who supports me with endless love and care.
With love to Tanita, Seana, Jon-Paul, and Marisa. Thanks for being such wonderful people. To Ashley and Mason who bring me joy.
And to my Friday Coffee friends for sharing my journey.
Chapter One
April 1, 1820
Cheltenham
Missouri Territory
“You’re a what?” Sydney blurted.
Nicolas Hansen’s wife of four months gaped at him and her dark brows plunged dangerously. He stroked a forefinger across his upper lip, calluses rasping his stubble.
“A prince.”
Nicolas lowered himself onto the leather ottoman in the event his feisty spouse’s shocked response involved fists. His gaze flickered around his dark, mannish study, and landed back on her.
He cleared his throat. “It’s on my mother’s side. Her grandfather was King Christian the Sixth of Norway and Denmark.”
Sydney’s wide, gray-green eyes did not leave his, though her hand flailed to the side in search of a seat. Nicolas shoved his favorite leather chair toward her with his foot.
She submerged between the worn, over-stuffed arms as if she hoped their bulk could block out the bizarre reality he had just doused her with. “So those portraits in the stairwell…”
“…look royal for a reason,” Nicolas finished the sentence.
Her stunned expression didn’t shift. “Skitt.”
Surprised at her imitation of his scatological Norse, Nicolas laughed.
Sydney—decidedly not laughing—pressed palms against her violently flushed cheeks. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“To be truthful, I forgot. It’s not as though we live in Norway.” Nicolas scraped his fingers through his hair and shrugged. If he acted unconcerned, perhaps she would take his next words well.
“Nor am I in any danger of becoming king, I don’t believe.”
“You don’t believe?” she shouted. Her dilated pupils obliterated any trace of color in her eyes. “Nicolas! You’re an American!”
As if he were unaware.
He dragged his gaze away from hers and hefted the package of letters which—after an eighteen month, multi-continental sojourn—had arrived at his estate that day. The missives very strongly demanded his immediate appearance at the royal court in Christiania, Norway or he would suffer the penalties of his disobedience.
“Nicolas?” she squeaked. Her cheeks hollowed and lost their bloom. “What is this all about?”
He exhaled, resigned. There was no point in delaying the telling; it would only anger her and postpone his preparations for departure. He fixed his gaze on hers and arranged his features in a deliberately calm set.
“After Denmark’s unfortunate alliance with Napoleon, Norway fell to Sweden in 1814; an act completely disregarding the previous five centuries or so that Norway happily spent under Denmark’s sovereignty. So what remains of Norway’s royal family has decided to pull together their various members and test the viability of finally gaining the country for themselves.”
“And choose a king of their own, not a Danish one?” It was an accusation more than a question. In spite of his attempt to downplay the summons, Sydney looked desperate as a drowning cat. She leaned back and away from him. “Is there any wine?”
Nicolas pushed up from his perch and poured her a glass. Her hand trembled as she reached for the crystal goblet. He knelt beside her chair while she gulped the burgundy liquid in a very un-ladylike manner. He stroked his fingers through her straight, dark hair; that particular action usually soothed her mood.
“Don’t worry, min presang.” Ever since the day he confessed he loved her, Nicolas had called her my gift. He kissed her temple and inhaled the warm, rosy scent of her. “Other than my trip to Norway and back, nothing about our lives will change.”
Sydney wagged her head and fixed her intense gaze on his. Mossy pewter shards pierced his fantasy and it shattered with irrevocable finality.
“I love you, Nicolas. You are sensible of that. But you are so very, very wrong.”
***
Nicolas stirred and stretched in his sturdy cherrywood bed, glad as always that it was built for his substantial six-foot-four frame. He reached for Sydney in the dark, but she wasn’t beside him. Kirstie must be hungry. He resettled and waited for her to return.
Sydney had been quiet during dinner, and afterward busied herself upstairs with his six-year-old son, Stefan, and their three-month-old daughter, Kirstie. For the first evening since their wedding, she didn’t sit with him in his study. He didn’t know why she avoided him—well, that was not entirely true. The revelation of his royal blood was an obvious shock to his new wife. But he sorely missed her company nonetheless.
Now he ached to feel her soothing warmth against him. The unsettling letters had his gut twisted, and his dozing dreams were filled with grasping images of Norway. But king? The idea was ludicrous. Impossible. Unwanted.
And yet it coiled seductively in his core.
After a pace, Nicolas rolled over to look for light coming from the nursery door. That portal was dark; but faint candlelight seeped under their bedroom door. Unable to fall asleep without her, he threw the covers back, pulled on his drawstring drawers, and went in search of his missing wife.
One step out of the bedroom and he saw her. Sydney sat on the polished staircase, staring at the display of gilt-framed portraits by the light of a single candle. The groan of wood under his bare feet announced him. She looked up at him as he descended the stairs.
He was surprised by her red-rimmed eyes and wet cheeks. “Sydney? What’s amiss?”
She sniffed and ra
n her hand under her nose. “You’re royalty.”
His sardonic grin showed how much stock he put in that. He waved a dismissive hand.
“I’m the same man I was this morning. I’m the same man you married. Please don’t trouble yourself over this.” He lowered himself to the stairstep above her and encased her with his legs. He began to massage her shoulders through the wide neckline of her cotton and lace nightgown.
Though he wasn’t certain Sydney would give him any purchase, she leaned into him. A faint purr of appreciation encouraged his ministrations, yet she continued to wipe her cheeks.
“Can you tell me why, exactly, these people insist that my new husband travel halfway around the world?” she ventured, her soft voice ringing clear in the night-shrouded manor.
Nicolas coughed sleep from his voice. “My grandmother’s brother Frederick became king in 1746. He had two wives, a mistress, and seventeen children.”
Sydney glanced at him, her brow crinkled and her mouth slanted sideways. Clearly she was not favorably impressed thus far. But she was listening.
“His eldest son Christian became king after him. He died in 1808 and his son, Frederick took over. Are you with me thus far?”
“Yes, I think so,” she murmured.
“This particular Frederick was defeated in Napoleon’s war, and in 1814 my cousin Christian the Eighth became king.”
Sydney snorted softly. “They weren’t much for changing names, were they?”
Nicolas chuckled, glad to see her mood lifting a bit. “No. At any rate, when Sweden made their move on Norway, Christian abdicated.”
“And that is how, in 1814, Sweden gained control of Norway?”
“Yes.”
“And now these seventeen descendents of Frederick want to take the throne back?”
“Yes.”
Sydney’s shoulders tensed, bunching under his hands. “What do they expect of you?” she asked at length.
“They wish to know if I’m with them or against them.” He pushed his thumbs into the tightening knots at the base of her neck. She groaned and her shoulders slanted downward. “And they want my land.”
“Mm. There,” she grunted and tilted her head. “How much land are we talking about?”
“Fifteen thousand acres.”
Sydney turned and stared up at Nicolas from her nest between his thighs. In the dim candlelight her eyes were wide, dark pools fringed in stiff black foliage. “Fifteen thousand acres! Nicolas! Your estate here is only five hundred—and Rickard leases two hundred of those!”
He nodded; when she compared his holdings that way, the one was considerably more impressive. He felt his face grow warm, glad she most likely couldn’t discern his blush in the dim light.
“Skitt,” she huffed.
Nicolas smiled. “You’ve adopted my favorite word.”
Sydney shrugged a little under his fingers. “It’s a good word. And it suits the situation.”
“It does that, I suppose.”
Sydney leaned against him again and he resumed his massage; he felt her relax a little. Her voice was soft, but her words were hard.
“What happens if you don’t go?”
Much as he hoped she wouldn’t, he expected she would ask him that. Since the letters arrived, he had asked himself the same thing several times. He pulled a deep breath; there was no way around answering her.
“I lose my land with no recompense. And I lose all of my hereditary claims,” he said.
“Are those important to you?”
Nicolas hesitated, wrestling with his response.
His first journey to Christiania had been thrust upon him, but he met it with as much panache as a nineteen-year-old from the wilds of Missouri could muster. Though the landscape and customs were unfamiliar, and the language demanded his undivided concentration, he couldn’t deny that something in the center of his being recognized Norway as home. Once summoned, that distant memory bubbled up from his belly and nested behind his heart.
Yet alone in his study earlier tonight, he tried to convince himself that he really didn’t need to go. He was quite well situated on his estate in Cheltenham. His financial status was such that he could still manage if he were to relinquish his holdings, cut his ties with Christiania and gave up his royal hereditary claims. He tried to convince himself none of that was important because he lived here. On his estate, in the Missouri Territory, in America.
But he failed. Miserably.
“Nicolas?” Sydney looked at him over her shoulder.
Facing her trusting gaze, he wasn’t capable of hiding anything from her. “Yes,” he admitted. “They are.”
Sydney drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “All right, then. You’ll do what you must.”
“Jeg elsker deg, min presang.” I love you, my gift.
“Jeg elsker deg også,” she replied.
Nicolas slid his hands off her shoulders and inside the front of her soft cotton nightgown. He smiled as he cupped her breasts, pliant and warm. He leaned over and nuzzled her ear, inhaling the scent of her hair. His desire for her solidified and tightened in his groin. He needed her in so many ways.
“Now, my wife, will you please come back to my bed?” he whispered.
April 2, 1820
Nicolas rummaged through the recesses of the stable storeroom and dragged out his dusty travel trunk. He brushed it off, wiped it down, and opened it up.
A cloud of memories wafted out on the musty odor of neglect. The first time he packed this trunk he had been excited. And—if he were honest—scared. Norway was distant and unreal, existing only in his grandparent’s memories and his mother’s descriptions.
Now he would pack again, but this time with diminished enthusiasm. He wished he could simply give up the land and the hereditary ties, and remain here with Sydney and his children. But the arrival of the letters made it clear that those things were more a part of him than he ever realized.
And then, of course, there was the possibility of becoming king of Norway.
Nicolas had no idea what to do with that startling twist. Though of direct royal lineage, he was born and raised as an American. Kings—or princes—of any country met suspicion in this young land, less than fifty years from claiming her independence from an oppressive British lunatic. It never crossed his mind that he might be tapped for a throne.
He had to confess, though, he was quite intrigued by the prospect.
Who wouldn’t be?
Nicolas set the open trunk on the lawn to freshen in the sun. He tested the lock; with a good oiling it should do. Then he headed to his study to draft the letter informing his cousins that he did intend to come to Christiania and should arrive in late June.
At dinner, Sydney’s manner was cool and succinct. She waited for him at the formal dining room table, linen napkin resting across her lap and hands folded in front of her empty china dinner plate. Before their maid Maribeth carried in the first platter of food, she asked, “How will you get to Norway?”
Her query caught him off his guard; he hadn’t yet thought his journey through. “I sailed from Baltimore the last time. That seems reasonable to do again, I suppose,” he said.
Her calm tone betrayed no emotion. “And how will you get to Baltimore?”
Nicolas accepted the roasted lamb from a wordless Maribeth with an appreciative sniff and an absent-minded smile. A sudden idea brightened his answer. “I believe I’ll try one of those new steam paddleboats down the Mississippi, and then up the Ohio into Pennsylvania. That should ease the journey.”
“And then?”
He looked at the ceiling and tried to imagine a map on its recently re-plastered surface. “I believe going by river it’s about seven hundred miles to western Pennsylvania. I understand that might be accomplished in as little as two weeks.”
“How long will it take from there?” Sydney pressed.
Nicolas squinted to see his mind’s map more clearly. “It’s about two hundred and fifty miles across
Pennsylvania to Philadelphia. Land travel is about forty miles a day in good weather.”
He turned his attention back to the meal, forked a slab of the savory meat onto his plate, and handed the platter to Sydney. She handed him the bowl of green beans in exchange. Her expression was still flat, she gave nothing away. Unable to discern her mood, he spoke to fill her silence.
“And if I’m going to Philadelphia, I should take the opportunity to check on my mother’s estate.”
“That’s three weeks of travel,” she said, ignoring his last statement. She meticulously buttered a roll. “How far is Philadelphia from Baltimore?”
“Only eighty miles, give or take,” he said and tossed her an unconcerned shrug for good measure. He was under some sort of inquisition and hoped to deflect her intensity until he could figure out why. She didn’t appear angry and that fact was oddly worrisome.
The pair ate in unexplained quiet for a course. Nicolas generously refilled their wine. Sydney was clearly pondering hard on something; her countenance was somber, pensive. Her darkening eyes moved over the room’s inanimate inhabitants, but Nicolas doubted she saw any of them. He was afraid to guess what she was considering. Certainly she wouldn’t leave him because of this.
Would she?
The possibility stumbled his heartbeat.
Finally her soft voice slid through the clatter of silver on china. “How long does it take to sail to Norway?”
Nicolas swallowed his food and cleared his throat. “Four weeks to sail from Baltimore to London, and another week to sail to Christiania.”
“Five weeks, then. And coming back is the same?”
“No, it’s a bit longer—ten days, maybe two weeks more since we sail against the current.”
“So the sailing there and back would take twelve weeks. Three months,” Sydney calculated.
“Yes, I suppose it would.”