The Lost Princes: Darius, Cassius & Monte

by Raye Morgan

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve always had them. I assumed my mother, Sally Tanner, had collected them for me. I’ve never really paid any attention to them. I’m not sure why I’ve even kept them.”

  Kelly nodded, her eyes shining. “You understand what this means, don’t you?”

  He groaned and tipped his head back. “Probably.”

  “You are almost certainly…” she swallowed hard and forced herself to say it “…Prince Cassius.”

  “But what if I don’t want to be?” he asked.

  “Joe…”

  He put up a hand to stop her and give himself space to explain his current thinking. “What I’m going to say now may sound like blasphemy to you. I’m a simple guy. I was raised by simple people. I’ve lived a simple life.”

  She was shaking her head. “I don’t think what you’ve done with your life is simple at all.”

  “But it’s not an upper-class, royal life. Kelly, once you get to my age, I don’t think there’s any turning back. I am what I am and what I’ll always be.”

  She pressed her lips together, thinking. She understood his argument, but didn’t believe it was valid, and she was trying to figure out how to counter it successfully.

  “I think you have a skewed idea of what royalty is really like,” she said at last. “As people, they’re not necessarily all that special. These days a lot of them seem pretty much like everyone else.”

  Joe made a face. “You mean like that prince of that little country I saw on the news the other day—the one who photographers caught with about twenty naked ladies running around on his yacht with him?”

  Kelly laughed. “Those were not ladies.”

  “Probably not.” He rubbed his head and grimaced. “Now, I’m not going to claim that such a thing wouldn’t appeal to the male animal in me, but they said this prince had a wife and a baby at home. What normal man would think it was okay to do that?”

  She sighed. “Sure, there are some royalty who take advantage of their opportunities in a rotten way. But there are plenty that don’t.”

  “Name one.”

  She hesitated. “I don’t have to name one,” she said evasively. “And anyway, if there weren’t any, you could be the first.” Her smile was triumphant. “You haven’t grown up being overindulged. You’ve got your own brand of honesty and integrity. You won’t go bad.”

  His own smile was crooked but his eyes were still sad. “Your faith in me is touching,” he said.

  “Why not? You deserve it.” She picked up the little gold buttons. “I’ll bet these were on the jacket you wore the night you escaped.”

  He gave her a startled look. “What makes you so sure I escaped?”

  She put them down and sat back. “Okay, here’s what I see as what probably happened—based on a lot of research I’ve done on the subject and a lot of memoirs I’ve read. The castle was attacked. Your parents had already set up an elaborate set of instructions to certain servants, each of whom was assigned a different royal child, to smuggle you out if the worst happened.”

  “And you know this how?”

  She shrugged. “People who knew about it wrote explanations later. Anyway, the worst did happen. The Granvillis began to burn the castle. Your mother’s favorite lady-in-waiting was supposed to take care of you—she wrote about that in her book on the coup. But something went wrong and you ended up being whisked away by one of the kitchen maids instead, an English girl named Sally Tanner. Here’s what I think happened after that. Sally catches a ride to the mainland in a rowboat. The trip takes most of the night, and it becomes impossible to hide you from the others escaping as well. She doesn’t want them to know you are one of the royals, so she claims you as her own secret love child, and as no one else on the boat actually knows her, this is accepted.”

  His face was white. She stopped. “Joe, what is it?”

  “I remember that boat ride,” he said hoarsely. “The feeling of terror on that trip has stayed with me ever since.”

  Reaching out, she took his hand in hers. “Now Sally has you and doesn’t know what to do with you. She didn’t get the special instructions the others are following. She just grabbed a kid she saw needed help, and saved him. Now what?”

  Joe laced fingers with Kelly’s. “This is all sounding so right to me,” he told her. “I can’t believe you know this much.”

  “It’s partly speculation, but speculation built on facts,” she said. “Anyway, she doesn’t know what to do. Should she try to contact someone? But that might be certain death for you. She knows, by now, what happened to your parents. She can’t see any alternative. She might as well take you with her and hope something happens that makes it possible to find out what to do with you. She takes you to London to stay with her family, who aren’t really sure who you are or what to make of you. They suspect you really are Sally’s, a secret child she hadn’t told them about. She tells them your name is Joe. Before Sally can contact anyone to find out what to do with you, she dies in an accident.”

  He nodded. “And that’s why they tell me she’s my mother.” His half smile was sad. “And that’s why I can’t remember loving her the way a son should. When she died, I was probably still waiting for my real mom to show up and take me home.”

  “There you go.”

  He sat brooding for a few minutes. Kelly was still holding his hand, and she smiled at him.

  “Joe, I’m sure this is all hard to hear, but you needed to know. Not only so you can decide if you want to take your rightful place in Ambrian society, but also so you can protect yourself. You need to be careful of people like Sonja. Or anyone who might come from the current regime.”

  He frowned, still trying to assimilate it all. “Tell me again what is so bad about the current regime?”

  “They killed your parents.”

  His eyebrows rose. “There is that.” He thought of those beautiful people in the photographs. To think of his parents as a king and queen still seemed utterly ridiculous. But that couple had looked right to him. He liked them. He had to admit there was a crack in his heart when he thought of what might have been—if only the coup hadn’t happened.

  Joe looked at Kelly, enjoying the way her blonde curls were rioting around her pretty face. She was so gracious and decent and caring. And basically happy. How was he going to make sure that Mei turned out that way?

  “Kelly, you said something earlier about some bad things that had happened in your life. I feel like I’m hogging all the emotion around here. Let’s hear your story.”

  “Oh gosh, it was nothing like what happened to you. I’m embarrassed to even bring it up. It’s nothing at all. It’s just everyday life disappointments. You know how that is…”

  “Come on.” He tugged on her hand. “I told you about myself. Your turn. Don’t hold out on me.”

  “Joe…”

  “You told me about your family, and that there was a time when you were all very close.”

  “Yes.” She went still. “That’s true. Actually, I had a wonderful childhood. I tend to forget that sometimes.”

  “You see, that’s what I want for Mei. Somehow I want to create that warm, safe, nurturing ideal, like the Norman Rockwell pictures, for her. Everything’s got to be perfect.”

  Unspoken were the words like I never had and she heard them loud and clear. She often felt the same way.

  “So come on. What about your family?”

  “What about it? I’ve had one. It’s pretty much gone now.”

  Funny, but this was an area where they had some things in common. No real family around. Not anymore.

  “But your brothers and those nieces and nephews.”

  She nodded. “I see them at Thanksgiving and Christmas. The rest of the year they forget I exist.”

  Joe looked surprised and somewhat shocked. “Kelly, I didn’t realize…”

  “Oh, I don’t mean to sound bitter. Really. But they’re young professionals with young families, and they have v
ery full lives, lives I don’t fit into very easily.”

  He looked puzzled. “What happened to your parents?”

  “My mother died when I was eighteen. When she was alive, I definitely had a family. She was the glue that kept us all together. And she was my biggest booster, my best friend. So her death was a major blow to me. It really threw me for a loop for months.” And it still gave her a horrible, hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach whenever she thought of it.

  “And your father?”

  “My father.” She took a deep breath and thought about him. A tall, handsome man with distinguished gray hair at his temples, he’d been a prime target for hungry females of a certain age as soon as her mother had died. They’d swarmed around him like bees, and he didn’t last long. Kelly remembered with chagrin how she’d vowed to dedicate her life to taking care of the man, only to turn around and find him carrying on with a woman in tight T-shirts and short shorts, the sort of floozy her mother wouldn’t have given the time of day to.

  “My sixty-five-year-old father married a woman in her late thirties who wanted to pretend I didn’t exist,” she said, not even trying to hide the bitterness she felt this time. “They live in Florida. I never see them.”

  “Wow. I’m sorry.”

  He was looking at her as though he wasn’t sure who she was. From the beginning, she’d fit his image of the perfect daughter in the perfect family full of people who loved each other and made sure things went right. Lots of presents at birthdays. A huge turkey at Thanksgiving. All the things he’d never had. And now to find out she was as lonely as he was…What a revelation. Joe had a hard time dealing with it.

  Where, after all, was happiness in the world? Maybe you just had to make your own.

  “So you see, we’re alike,” she said with a wistful smile. “We both had great families, and then we blew it.”

  “We didn’t blow it,” he countered. “Somebody blew it for us.”

  “Regardless, it was blown.”

  “So that’s the goal,” he said, holding her hand in his and moving in closer. “Don’t blow it for the next generation.”

  She smiled at him. He was going to kiss her soon and she was ready for it. In fact, she could hardly wait. “You got it.”

  “We need to concentrate on finding good people to marry,” he said, his brow furrowed as he thought about this. At the same time, he was cupping her cheek with his hand and studying her lips. Anticipation—what a sweet thing it was.

  She nodded, feeling breathless. “Of course, that won’t be any problem for you,” she noted drily.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked as he widened his hand and raked his fingers into the hair behind her head, taking her into his temporary possession.

  She made a sound of derision. “You are the type of beautiful man that women swoon over all the time,” she said, swooning a little bit herself.

  He frowned. “So?” He pulled her closer.

  She pushed his hand away. “I refuse to swoon,” she claimed, but her words were a little slurred. His attentions were already having their effect.

  A smile began to form in his eyes. “So you’re an anti-swooner, huh?”

  “You could say that. I’m anti feeding your oversize ego any more than absolutely necessary.”

  He dropped a soft kiss on her lips, then drew back so that he could look at her. “At least you admit my ego deserves a bit of nutrition.”

  “Hah!” She rolled her eyes. “Not really. I think it needs a strict diet.” She smiled, checking out his reaction. “And maybe a few hard truths to help it get over itself.”

  “Hard truths, huh?” He began to pull her into his arms. “And you’re just the person to give them to me. Right?”

  She pretended to be challenging him at every turn. “Why not?”

  He gave her that helpless look he put on when he was teasing. “Can I help it if women love me?”

  “Yes.” Kelly tried to pull out of his embrace and failed miserably. “Yes, you can. You cannot be quite so accessible. You walk around so free and easy with that lascivious grin…”

  He stopped and looked thoroughly insulted. “What lascivious grin?”

  “The one you’ve got on.” She tapped his lips with her forefinger. “Right there on your face.”

  “You mean this one?” He leaned over her, finding the way to her mouth and kissing her with passion and conviction. “See?” he murmured against her cheek. “Women can’t help but kiss me.”

  Kelly didn’t answer. She was too busy doing exactly that.

  The morning dawned brilliantly. The sun was shining in glorious celebration and the ocean gleamed like a trove of diamonds. They ate breakfast on the deck, watching the day begin. Joe had made a trayful of scrambled eggs and a pile of English muffins and honey, and Kelly fed Mei from a small jar of baby oatmeal, then gave her some of the eggs as well. They talked and laughed as the seagulls swooped around, hoping for a handout. Kelly couldn’t remember a more wonderful breakfast at any time in her life. This was the best.

  A little later, after changing Mei and cleaning up from breakfast, she carried the baby out to find Joe sitting on the deck, looking a bit forlorn.

  He’d decided to ignore all this royalty talk for now. He needed time to let it sink in. Today, he was all about Mei and doing what he could to change her mind about him.

  “Hi,” Kelly said. “What are you doing?” “Sitting here feeling sorry for myself.” Reality was a bummer. He thought back to the dreams he used to have about what it was going to be like once Mei arrived. Father and daughter. He was already running little clips in his head of himself teaching her how to throw a ball. When he explained that to Kelly, she laughed at him.

  “She’s a girl. She might not be into sports.” “What are you, some kind of chauvinist?” “No.” Kelly looked lovingly into Mei’s small cute face. “What about it, little girl? Want to play ball? Or take ballet lessons?”

  Joe shook his head, enjoying how the two of them interacted. Mei was such a darling child. If only she liked him.

  “Whatever she wants to do, we’ll do,” he said firmly. “She’s in the driver’s seat on that one. It’s just that…” He sighed. It didn’t pay to get your hopes up.

  “I’ve got an idea,” he said, smiling at Mei, who studiously looked away without reciprocating. “I want to take her on a boat ride before the nanny gets here this afternoon.”

  “You think she’s ready for that?” Kelly asked anxiously.

  “Sure. There are some boats that go out from the pier. Just small, one hour trips. I think she’ll like it.”

  Actually, it sounded like fun. “Let’s go,” Kelly said.

  A few preparations had to be made. Joe went out shopping to find a little sweat suit for Mei, as her supplies from the Philippines had included nothing for cool weather.

  “It will get cold out there on the bay, and this way we’ll know she’s warm as toast,” Joe explained.

  Kelly had to admit he was thinking ahead better than she was.

  As they stood in line at the dock, Kelly noticed their reflection in the glass at the ticket office. They looked like a beautiful family. It warmed her heart, until she stopped herself.

  Now, why had she thought that? What a crazy idea. They could never be a family. Joe was a true image of the prince she was convinced he was, and Mei looked like a little princess. But Kelly looked like an ordinary person. A nice, fairly pretty, ordinary person. There wasn’t a hint of royalty in her demeanor.

  The boat ride started out well. The captain was full of odd stories and funny anecdotes, and he kept up a running dialogue that had them in stitches half the time. He showed them where huge sea lions had taken over a small boat dock, yelling like crazy when anyone came near. Then he drove on to an area where sea otters infested a kelp bed, some lying on their backs and opening oysters against rocks held on their bellies. There was a seabird rookery and an island made of an old buoy and a lot of barnacles that housed a family o
f pelicans. And then they headed toward open sea to find dolphins and possibly a whale or two.

  They caught sight of a dolphin scampering through the water, but were out of luck with the whales, despite the fact that Kelly kept urging Mei to “look for whales, sweetie. Keep looking!”

  Mei looked very hard, but there was no sign of a whale. She seemed disappointed, so it was time for Joe to pull out his surprise.

  He’d gone into the shop at the dock and picked up a present for her, and now he took it from his jacket pocket and held it out. It was a stuffed killer whale, just the right size for a toddler.

  “Here you are, honey,” he said to his beloved daughter. “I bought you a present. Here’s your whale.”

  Mei looked at him and looked at the whale, then held out her hand to take it. He gave it to her, and without a second of hesitation, she threw it overboard, right into the water. It tumbled in the wake for a second or two, then sank like a stone.

  They sat for a moment, staring after it, stunned. Kelly couldn’t believe Mei had actually done that. This was too much, a step too far. It couldn’t be allowed. To overlook such shenanigans would be no good for Mei, and criminal toward Joe. Kelly glanced at the child, who looked pleased as punch.

  “Mei,” she said tersely, “No! Your daddy gave you that whale as a gift. You don’t treat people that way. You don’t throw away presents that people give you out of love.”

  Joe felt as though someone had just hit him in the head with a brick. It was no use. None of this was going to work. His little girl hated him. In a way, it almost felt as though a small part of Angie had just rejected him for good. How did he come back from that one? What more could he do about it? He really didn’t have a clue.

  All this garbage about being a prince didn’t mean a thing to him. All he really wanted was for his little girl to accept him. Was that never going to happen?

  “Mei, you hurt your daddy’s feelings,” Kelly was saying, keeping her voice calm but firm. “Tell your daddy that you’re sorry.”

  Kelly knew very well that Mei couldn’t even say the word sorry, but she wanted to get the emotional injury through to her at least. The concept was in that little brain, somewhere. She just wanted Mei to know that people had taken notice.