by Romancing the Crown Series (13-in-1 bundle) (v1. 0) (lit)
Lucas hesitated only briefly before he passed the child to her. "He's gained almost two pounds since you found him. The doctors say he's doing extremely well."
As the baby settled warmly in her arms, Kate felt a twinge deep inside. She knew what it was. It was her heart expanding. She was already healing. She looked at Sam.
The love in his gaze was more dazzling than the sunlight that danced around him. An image flashed into Kate's mind, of a little girl with sun-streaked hair and golden-brown eyes.
Someday, she thought. There would be many more magic nights ahead. With love and faith, anything was possible.
Kate was brought back to the present when the baby tugged at one of the brass buttons on her uniform jacket, then squirmed sideways to put it in his mouth.
"Isn't that just like a man," Anna said, laughing. "They always pick the worst time to decide to mess us up. Here, I'll take him. Now that he's seen his daddy hasn't disappeared, he should be fine."
Kate handed the baby to his aunt. It was clear the entire family doted on him. She hoped that would help to compensate for the tragedy that surrounded his birth.
Sam polished her button with the edge of his cuff and caught her gaze. I love you, he mouthed.
She straightened the knot of his tie and smiled.
"Good afternoon, Lieutenant Mulvaney, Lieutenant Coburn."
They turned as one to greet the king and queen of Montebello. The royal couple were resplendent in finery that fitted their position. They were gracious monarchs, putting their guests at ease despite the grandeur of their surroundings.
"I believe that congratulations are in order," King Marcus said.
Rather than making the wrong assumption about what the congratulations were for this time, Kate and Sam simply thanked him.
"And I'm happy to see you looking so well, Lieutenant Coburn," the king said. "According to my son, the injuries you received while apprehending the fugitive were rather serious."
"Yes, Your Highness. I'm still recovering." Sam shifted both hands to his cane and leaned heavily on it. "Actually, my doctor recommends bed rest."
"Well, then, we'd better get this ceremony under way. We wouldn't want to keep you on your feet any longer than necessary." King Marcus signaled to the liveried footmen at the entrance and motioned to his family to take their places.
Kate put her hand on Sam's elbow and glanced at him in concern. "I hadn't realized you were getting tired. Maybe we should sit down...." Her words trailed off when she saw the glint in his eye. He wasn't tired at all. He had a much different reason for going back to bed. "Sam..."
"Yes?"
"Behave."
A fanfare trumpeted through the chamber. King Marcus offered his arm to his wife. She placed her gloved hand delicately on the crook of his elbow and proceeded to the dais at his side. They ascended the steps to a pair of magnificently carved thrones, then turned to face the gathering.
Before King Marcus could speak, there was a sudden commotion at the doors. A pair of dark-suited men struggled briefly with the palace guards. Kate couldn't hear what they were saying, but evidently it was enough to convince the guards to let them pass. They hurried toward the dais. The king met them at the bottom step and dipped his head to listen as they spoke.
A hum of speculation spread through the crowd. Tension grew as the conversation at the dais continued. "What do you think is going on?" Kate asked Sam.
Sam spoke into her ear. "I don't know, but those two have cop written all over them."
She agreed. And by the way the color was draining from the king's face, whatever news they had brought was important.
The two dark-suited men exited as quickly as they had come. King Marcus stepped off the dais and motioned Sam and Kate forward. "I regret we'll have to postpone the ceremony," he said. "Something urgent has come up."
"Father?" Lucas strode to join them. "What's happening?"
"Yes, Marcus," Queen Gwendolyn said, holding her gown aside with one hand as she hurried down the steps. "Who were those men? What did they say?"
"Those were special detectives who have been working with the FBI in the United States," the king said. "They have been following up on the statements we obtained from Ursula Chambers and Gretchen Hanson."
"Those horrid women," the queen murmured. "Is there no end to their evil?"
"As a matter of fact, in this instance, there is." King Marcus turned to Lucas. "Gretchen Hanson claimed that her brother murdered Jessica Chambers, so the FBI in Colorado have been questioning Gerald Hanson. For two days now he has denied his guilt, but an hour ago, he finally confessed."
"So he admits he murdered her," Lucas said hollowly. "It's over."
"No, son. Gerald Hanson confessed to something else entirely. He's a simple man. Some might call him mentally challenged. His older sister ordered him to kill Jessica the night Luke was born, but he couldn't do it. Jessica had been kind to him, and in his way, he believed he was in love with her. He didn't kill her."
Kate pressed closer to Sam's good side, needing to feel his warmth. The room had gone completely silent.
"Because Gerald Hanson was afraid to disobey his sister, he told everyone that Jessica was dead." King Marcus's voice grew hoarse. He cleared his throat. "But instead of killing her, he hid her in a cellar underneath one of the outbuildings on her ranch. He has the mind of a child. He thought he could make her love him and they'd run away together to live happily ever after, just like in his storybooks." The king grasped his son's shoulders as if to help brace him for a blow. "Lucas, the FBI just arrived at the building where Jessica was being kept."
Lucas didn't say anything. He didn't ask anything. He stood completely motionless and looked at his father as if he could will him to say what he wanted to hear.
The king smiled. "Jessica's alive, son."
Lucas trembled. He took a step back. "Alive? She's alive?'
"Yes, and she's fine."
"Jess is alive." Lucas pressed the heels of his hands to his temples and spun around. "Oh, God! Jess is alive!"
"The jet could be ready to go within the hour, Lucas," the king said, clapping him on the back. "I thought that under the circumstances you'd want to—"
Kate hadn't known an aristocrat could sprint like that. Lucas was a man transformed. His smile not only reached his eyes, it transfused every line of his body. As the rest of the royal family broke out in excited conversation, she turned to Sam. "Isn't that wonderful?"
He nodded. His eyes were suspiciously moist. "Yeah. Seeing that sure beats getting a medal, doesn't it?"
"You're right. Who needs a medal?" She put her hand over his heart. "I already have everything I could possibly want."
"I love you, Kate."
"And I love you, Sam." She smiled and turned away, then crooked her finger at him to follow. "But I think we're still going to need some more practice."
* * * THE END * * *
The Prince's Wedding
JUSTINE DAVIS
ROMANCING THE CROWN
Long live the prince! All of Montebello holds its breath for the news of their beloved prince's wedding. Join the kingdom for the final stormy and sensual confrontation as the lovers reunite and passion reigns supreme!
Prince Lucas Sebastiani: In losing his memory, he found his heart - but can love survive where duty is sovereign?
Jessica Chambers: She survived hell only to discover that the man she loved has become a handsome, royal stranger. It will take more than luxury and riches to turn this feisty rancher into Cinderella.
Baby Luke: His existence is a miracle, but can this precious prince bring his prideful parents together?
Dear Reader,
I, along with many others, have been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be an American, of how much I love my country and what it represents. Many of those thoughts turned up again in this story, when a woman who is American to the bone has to confront the possibility of a life elsewhere.
Having often thought I
would have been quite happy to have been born and raised on a ranch (but then realising that requires much earlier mornings than I'm happy with), I was pleased to be able to write about a woman who lived and loved that life. And a man who had also lived and loved it, but had been forced to give it up. What would make it worth giving up? Nothing less than a kingdom of his own.
I hope you enjoy the story of Lucas and Jessie, and the difficult, emotional decisions they must make to find happiness for themselves and their son.
All the best
Justine Davis
Chapter 1
At least it didn't show.
If nothing else, Lucas Sebastiani was certain of that. All those years of training, virtually from the cradle, on how to put on a public face were paying off now in a way he'd never expected. No one would be able to guess at his agitated state of mind.
But never before had it been such an effort to maintain that practiced facade—a fact he was very aware of and not particularly happy about.
"We'll be landing in Colorado in approximately one hour, Your Highness."
Lucas nodded without looking at the attendant in the Montebellan uniform. Not because he was fascinated by the view out the small jet's window, but because he didn't want to see the speculation he was sure would be in the woman's eyes. She would never say anything—anyone who worked for the Sebastianis was too well-trained for that—but Lucas suspected they were all wondering how he was feeling as they headed toward the scene of his own personal disaster, the place where his last flight had ended so abruptly and painfully.
How did they think he felt? That crash had done more than rattle his brain, temporarily wiping out his memory. It had changed his life—and he himself—forever.
"May I get you anything, Your Highness?"
"No, thank you, Mareta. Why don't you relax for the rest of the flight."
The woman nodded, then turned and walked toward the front of the plane. Restlessly, Lucas stood up. Normally when he felt like this he would head for the cockpit and take over the controls for a while. Flying his beloved new Redstone Hawk V was usually just the thing to settle his nerves. Something about flying the responsive craft made all his problems fade in significance, although it set Roark, the Sebastianis' chief pilot, on edge not to be at the controls himself.
If he'd been flying the Hawk that night, Lucas knew he likely would have beaten that storm. He even had the passing thought that flying it here and now, nearing the place where he'd come to grief all those months ago, would be a good thing, sort of like getting back on a horse after you'd been thrown.
But instead of heading for the cockpit, he found himself moving the other way, toward the stateroom at the back of the plane's cabin. Once he'd been pleased with the richly appointed fixtures and lush furnishings of the powerful little jet. Now he barely noticed any of the many amenities. The sleek plane was merely the quickest and easiest way to carry out this all-important mission.
Once, he thought wryly, you were the walking personification of a stereotype, the guy the term "playboy prince " was coined for. And now?
He wasn't sure who he was now.
He stepped through the door of the stateroom, and immediately some of his tension eased. That carefree, sometimes heedless man had died in that plane crash in the mountains ahead of them. The man who stood here now had been reborn, given a fresh start, and he was determined to make the most of it.
The reason for his determination lay sleeping peacefully in a small portable crib. As Lucas approached, the older woman who sat vigilantly beside his baby son's bed rose to her feet and inclined her head respectfully.
"Your Highness."
"How is he?"
"He is sleeping quietly, Your Highness."
"Thank you, Eliya. I'll watch him for a while."
The nurse nodded, reached into the small crib to adjust the blanket, gave the baby a last gentle pat, then gathered up the length of silk she'd been embroidering and quietly exited the stateroom.
Lucas sat in the chair she'd vacated and stared down at the tiny being, this miracle who was part of him, and part of history. The next prince of the kingdom of Montebello, heir to the more-than-a-century-old island throne that had been held by his family since its inception in 1880.
Luke Marcus Augustus Sebastiani. Such a big name for such a little boy.
Of course, when he'd come to them he'd been only Luke. But once his identity had been confirmed beyond doubt, he'd been renamed after his father, grandfather and illustrious ancestor in an official royal ceremony designating him as Lucas's—and Montebello's—heir.
Now, at three months old, he was blissfully ignorant of the fact that he was aboard a royal Montebellanjet, winging his way toward a reunion with the mother he'd never known. The mother he'd been stolen away from on the very day he'd come into the world.
Lucas shrugged his shoulders rather fiercely, as if the sudden action could somehow shed the memories of the confused emotions he'd felt when he'd first gotten word of Jessica's death. And his state of confusion had only gotten worse when he'd pressed for details and his cousin Drew had reluctantly told him that she'd died giving birth to a stillborn child. It was only later that he'd learned she'd been kidnapped by Gerald Hanson, who posed as the caretaker of the ranch, and who'd been in league with Jessie's sister in the plot to murder her and steal the baby.
The thought that Jessie had been pregnant when he'd left her had been a hammer blow. First had come wonder, that they had created new life out of their love. Then had come more confusion—why hadn't she told him? Judging by the timing, she had to have known.
Of course, he had to admit with much reluctance, he hadn't exactly stayed around long enough to give her time to work up to it.
When his memory had suddenly returned, he'd left her for her own good, he'd thought, knowing what chaos would descend on her beloved ranch if he stayed and was discovered there. He'd spent many a long night since torturing himself with guilt, especially after the report of her death—if he'd stayed, would she still be alive?
And the knowledge that his child, a baby whose existence he hadn't even been aware of, had also died had made the hollow ache inside him almost unbearable. He'd told himself he couldn't possibly feel so bad over a baby he hadn't even known about, who hadn't even lived to draw a breath.
But he had. And there it was.
He'd thrown himself into a passion of work, until even his father had suggested he slow down. He'd ridden on his favorite horse over the island of Montebello from one end to the other, until rumors about the mental state of their returned prince began to circulate among the people.
And then the miracle had happened. Out of the morass of evil hatched by Jessica's sister had come a tiny, precious bit of goodness. Gerald had lied, and his son was alive.
There had been the formality of paternity testing, but Lucas hadn't needed any DNA report to prove what he'd known the moment he'd looked at the child. His mother had gasped aloud when she'd first seen the boy, and then tears had come to her lovely blue eyes as she'd looked upon the very image of her own firstborn child.
Lucas stared at his sleeping son. He saw a chin and cheekbones familiar from photographs of his own babyhood, the dark hair, knew that when the baby's eyes were open they were the same dark blue as his own. But the beautiful, trusting smile that made Lucas's chest tighten painfully, was a gift from his mother.
From Jessica.
Jessie.
A shiver rippled through him. She'd been his touchstone, his center in a world spun out of control, the only anchor in the storm that had swamped his life. She'd quite literally saved his life and his sanity. She'd given him peace, a reason to go on, and hot, sweet love in the darkness.
And he'd walked out on her, in the middle of a Colorado winter night.
"I didn't know about you," he whispered to his sleeping son. "I didn't know."
And what would you have done if you had?
He didn't answer the self-directed question
. He didn't have an answer. Because the man who had walked out that night was not the man who sat here with this child now. Just as the man who had fallen in love with Jessie wasn't that man. The man who had fallen in love had been Joe, a simple ranch hand who led a simple life, knowing nothing of his own past yet finding beauty and a sort of peace in the present, in the arms of the loving woman who had captivated him with her courage, her strength, her gentle caring, her beauty.
The woman he'd been mourning since word had come that she'd been murdered in the plot to cash in on the existence of the child sleeping here so peacefully. The woman who had haunted his days and filled his nights.
The woman he'd thought dead and buried until just a few days ago.
His pilot's instincts told him when the plane's slow descent began. In his mind he could picture the rough terrain at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, that backbone of America. They must have passed over Denver while he'd been lost in thought. With the big city behind them, he could picture the little town of Shady Rock, nestled in the shadow of the towering peaks.
And somewhere, tucked away in a beautiful but isolated corner, was Jessie's ranch, those beloved acres of land she ran herself ragged to maintain. The ranch he'd come to love himself, along with the quiet, peaceful life he'd found there. Even when he'd been haunted by what he couldn't remember, he'd loved it.
It was nice, he thought vaguely, not to have to worry about the details. The limo was waiting for them, with a driver who knew exactly where they were going. The aide, Lloyd Gallini—who was also the bodyguard his father refused to let him travel without—was busy scanning the area, although there was no one in sight who seemed at all interested in them.
He couldn't blame his father, not after what had happened to him. Being captured, even intentionally, by terrorists hadn't been much fun. That his efforts had been instrumental in the FBI's bringing down the Brothers of Darkness cell in the U.S., a danger not only to America but to the safety of his family and perhaps even his entire country, was the only thing good to come out of it.