Hand-Me-Down Princess

by Carol Moncado

  Malachi frowned. “She didn’t come back out here?”

  With a half shrug and head shake, Lizbeth turned back to the oven to put another tray in. “Nope. I figured you two were discussing the big news of the day.”

  He sighed and turned to look for her. “We’ll be back in a few minutes.” He turned to look at her. “Make yourself at home. Seriously.”

  She gave him a half-smile. “Don’t worry. I will.”

  Time to find his wife. Where could she have gone? He’d locked the apartment with the keypad when he came in, so he checked the app on his phone. No one had left. She wasn’t in the living area or the kitchen or their bedroom, obviously. Time to look around systematically. She wasn’t in the bedroom next to theirs, and he’d checked both the closet and bathroom. Same with the bedroom after that and the one after that. And the one after that.

  There wasn’t anything to hide behind in any of them. Only one had been partially furnished when they’d returned from their honeymoon. That was just a chair she read in sometimes. They hadn’t even been in them since they returned, except when she cleaned up after working at her dad’s house. Where else could she be? Past the bedrooms was another sitting area, one that was furnished but never used followed by more bedrooms and a library on the other end, with another door to the rest of the palace. He’d set the app on his phone to let him know if any of the doors were opened. Deciding the library was his next best bet, he didn’t turn the lights on in the sitting area and skipped past the bedrooms.

  The library was large, but not that large, and he soon knew she wasn’t there either. Working his way back, he checked the other bedrooms to no avail and this time reached for the light switch in the sitting area. Before he actually flipped the switch, he heard something.

  A muffled sob?

  “Mia Belle?” he called softly, sure Lizbeth was too far away to hear. He used the light of his phone to search the room until he found her.

  Huddled in a window seat, a partially closed curtain obscured most of her from view. Malachi sat with his back to the other side, one leg bent at the knee on the bench.

  “I’m sorry.” Soft, gentle words were the only way to get through to her. He’d known that all along, and he’d blown it. He told her so. “I want to make it up to you, Mia Belle. You need to know how much I regret it. I can’t undo it, but I can make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m trying, Kai. You’ve never given me any reason to think an outburst like that would be a regular occurrence. You’ve never given me any reason not to take you at your word.”

  The words seem perfunctory, rather than something she truly believed, but Malachi would have to take what he could get. He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “In that case, Lizbeth is waiting for us and the cookies are getting cold.”

  Jessabelle nodded and stood, walking forward without waiting for him. He guessed she would stop in their bathroom to splash some water on her face. Not wanting to return to the kitchen alone, he waited a few minutes, his still-turbulent mind crying out to God for peace in his family.

  Chapter 26

  Jessabelle couldn’t help but be glad Lizbeth left not long after she and Malachi reentered the kitchen. The cookies were done, and they each ate one while making inane chit chat. She tried not to let her relief show when Lizbeth said she had an early morning and needed to get to home. Malachi would want to talk, but Jessabelle didn’t have to listen.

  No. She had to be honest with herself. She might not like it, but she would listen. Picking up a cookie sheet and spatula, she started to remove them. The container she’d set on the counter earlier stood waiting. Cookie sheet after cookie sheet worth of cookies went in. She should have sent some with Lizbeth. Finished emptying the pans, she opened the nearly new dishwasher and began putting them in.

  Until Malachi got in her way. He took the mixing bowl out of her hand and set it in the sink. “We need to talk, Mia Belle.”

  She glared up at him. “I need to clean up.”

  “We can do it together later. And if we don’t get to it, we have people working for us who will.”

  “I don’t like leaving the kitchen a mess.”

  “Then we’ll do it later. But we need to talk. Now.”

  She didn’t say anything else but followed him into their room and sat in the big chair while he sat on the love seat at a right angle to it.

  “I know I apologized earlier, but I need to do it again.”

  “No. You don’t.” Once was plenty. She didn’t need or want to rehash it.

  He leaned forward until his forearms rested on his knees. “I need you to know I won’t talk to you like that again. I was never mad at you. I didn’t care if you sat here and read all day. I really didn’t. I was stressed out over everything going on with my father and this woman in town. I never should have taken it out on you.”

  “I knew she was in town. I saw it online earlier. What does she want?”

  “No one knows. Rumor has it she wants to meet with my father, and he’s going to. It’s a very painful time, especially for my mother.”

  Jessabelle hadn’t even thought about what it must be like for the queen. Maybe she should take some cookies to her mother-in-law. “I can’t imagine.”

  “She won’t talk to anyone, not even my father as far as I know. He won’t talk to me or William either.”

  “Does your brother have any theories?”

  “The only thing either one of us came up with that made any sense is that she wants to blackmail him somehow. The most plausible story we came up with was that she’d had his child at some point and wants to do...something with that information.”

  That would be quite interesting news. Especially if the child was older than William. “Did your father have a child with her?”

  “Members of William’s staff, as well as mine, spent all day searching for any tidbit, but she never disappeared long enough to have a child. The longest stretch was about four months, and she’d been in a very well publicized car accident then. Unless she was pregnant when she disappeared for good, there’s no child.”

  “That’s good, I suppose.”

  “Why wouldn’t it be good?”

  “Because then it opens up a million other possibilities. At least that would be a known quantity.”

  He conceded her point.

  “Do you know when the meeting is supposed to be?”

  “I’d guess soon, to get it over with, but I don’t know.”

  She didn’t reply and Malachi waited a minute before going on. “What can I do to help regain your trust, Mia Belle?”

  Once again, she said nothing. She didn’t know what to say.

  * * *

  Malachi spent a restless night trying not to disturb his wife’s sleep. He’d cleared his schedule for the next couple days and would spend them with Jessabelle. She had an appearance scheduled at a local orphanage, one his family had supported for many years. They visited at different times throughout the year and brought presents on Christmas Day, a tradition going back nearly a century. He had made other arrangements for the two of them for later in the day, plans that were long overdue.

  She didn’t say much of anything to him during the car ride and visit with the children. Lizbeth was there, though she kept a polite distance. He noticed Robert Padovano join her and wondered what that was about. He’d already informed the driver of their plans for the afternoon. In minutes, they pulled up to a café not too far from the orphanage.

  “What are we doing here?” She finally spoke to him.

  “Having lunch.”

  “I didn’t see lunch on the schedule.” She still wouldn’t look at him though.

  “That’s because it wasn’t on the schedule.” He climbed out, buttoned his suit coat, and reached out a hand to help her. She gave him a look but didn’t fight it. In a matter of minutes, they were seated at his favorite table. Off to one side and fairly secluded, the booth didn’t give
anyone the chance to take good pictures of the person seated facing away from the rest of the diner. He gave Jessabelle that seat. No sense in giving the press anything to work with, even if it was a random, accidental shot of her looking weird because of something innocuous. People made weird faces all the time when they ate. If something didn’t taste quite the way they expected, or swallowed wrong, or any number of things, but with Jessabelle, they were sure to turn it into a scandal of some kind.

  “What’s good here?” she asked, looking over the menu the hostess had left. “I’ve never been.”

  “I’ve never had anything that wasn’t good.”

  Malachi ordered his favorite sandwich while she finally settled on soup in a bread bowl. He asked her questions about the orphanage and what she thought about different things that happened while they were there.

  “I heard you went to visit my mother.” Malachi broached the subject after their food arrived.

  Jessabelle looked at him. “I saw her last week.”

  “And took her some of the cookies.” He tried to hide the smile working its way to his face.

  She shrugged. “So?”

  “Mother told me how much she appreciated you thinking of her. I don’t think very many people thought about how difficult that time in her life must have been.” He ripped a bit of the lettuce hanging over the edge of the bread. “I have seen them talk about what a fool she was and how she must have really loved the title and the money in order to stay with him.”

  “Anyone looking at them today can see they love each other.” Jessabelle stirred her soup with the spoon. “Even I can see that.”

  His parents hadn’t exactly been the most welcoming to her. That she could look beyond their cold shoulders and see the same thing he did spoke volumes about the character of his wife. Before he could say anything else, he sensed someone walking toward them.

  “Excuse me?”

  They both looked up to see a young woman standing next to them.

  “I don’t mean to interrupt, but Princess Jessabelle, I just wanted to let you know how much your visit to the hospital meant to my mother.”

  Jessabelle glanced at him. He tried to give a reassuring smile.

  “It was my pleasure.” Jessabelle gave a small smile to the girl.

  “She didn’t live much longer, but she told me how kind you were to her.” A tear streaked down her cheek. “I can’t thank you enough for that.”

  His wife gave the girl a genuine smile. “It truly was my pleasure.”

  The girl sniffed. “Thank you for your time.” She gave a small curtsy. “I’m so very glad you’re Prince Malachi’s wife.” She turned and hurried off before either one of them could respond.

  Jessabelle watched her go. “Can we find out who she is? I’d like to send flowers.”

  Malachi’s heart swelled with pride. “Do you remember her mother?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve met a number of women with dire prognoses since we married.”

  “I’ll make sure we find out who she is and send them.”

  “I’d like to sign the card myself, not some auto-signature or something.”

  Malachi reached for her hand. “That would be lovely.” He wiped his mouth with his napkin. “We have another appointment in a few minutes, so we need to get going.”

  “We do?” she asked as they slid out of the booth.

  “Yes.” She pressed him but he wouldn’t give any more information until after they were seated in the car. “We’re going to your father’s house,” he told her. “I promised we would get the movers over there weeks ago, and it hasn’t happened for many reasons, but it will today.”

  He watched her, but she just stared out the window. Was she ready to finish? To say a final good-bye? Or would she prefer to wait? He asked her, but she simply said she would rather get it done.

  They arrived at the house a few minutes later, and they retreated to separate rooms for a moment to change into more casual clothes.

  Malachi had changed into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Jessabelle walked out of her old room in much the same.

  “The first group of movers is here,” he told her. “They’re going to pack up anything you haven’t already and you want to keep. They’ll move it out of the house soon. That way when the other group gets here later, you don’t have to worry about something getting mixed in.”

  “I want to be here for that, too.” She ran a hand over a well-polished wooden table. “Just in case.”

  “You packed everything yourself, right? So there shouldn’t be anything in them that you want to keep.”

  “I know, but I still want to be here while it’s loaded and moved. Just in case.”

  He wouldn’t deny his wife the chance to do whatever she wanted with regard to the house. “Then we stay until they’re completely done.” Malachi rested his hands on her shoulders. “Are you sure you don’t want to keep the house? Use it as a place to get away from my family when we want to? Or anything else you want.”

  She hesitated then nodded. “I’m sure.”

  But she wasn’t, and he knew it.

  So what to do about it?

  * * *

  One by one, the boxes that signified her parents’ lives were loaded into a moving truck. These things would be taken to the palace and stored somewhere.

  “Where to next, ma’am?” The guy who seemed to be in charge smiled at her. “Is there anything else for this truck?”

  “Just a few things up in the attic.” This was it. Though the house wouldn’t be nearly empty, somehow moving those few things of her mother’s seemed to be so final. “Give me a few minutes?”

  He nodded, and she went upstairs. She stood in front of the wardrobe and just stared.

  “Are you okay?” Malachi’s quiet words didn’t startle her.

  “Yeah. It just seems so final.”

  “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

  “No. But I need to be”

  “You don’t have to be.”

  “But if I don’t do it now, I don’t know that I ever will.”

  His hands came to rest on her shoulders, and he pulled her back into his chest. “What if we took the things already loaded and these here to the palace and left the rest for another time?”

  A tear streaked down her cheek. “Is that really okay? I know I said I wanted it all out.”

  “Of course it is.”

  She didn’t look at him, but nodded. “Then I’d like that, I think. I’m not ready.”

  He kissed the side of her head. “Then we won’t do it.”

  “But you’ve already hired movers.”

  “Then I’ll unhire them.” She sensed hesitation behind his next words. “We will have security here, of course, but what would you think about allowing a security team member and his wife to live in the spare bedroom downstairs for the time being?”

  She thought about that for a moment, then said, “I’m not quite sure how I feel about that.”

  “The only reason I ask is that one of our most promising up and coming security team members had his house burn down the other day. They are planning to rebuild, but don’t know where they’re going to live in the meantime. There’s room in the staff quarters at the palace, but this just occurred to me.”

  The staff quarters in the palace weren’t anything to sneeze at, but Jessabelle wouldn’t have wanted to live there with anyone but herself. She’d feel too claustrophobic. And so she nodded. It would make her feel like she was contributing something to the security of her father’s house.

  “Then let’s get them to move these things, and I’ll get it set up.”

  Jessabelle nodded and stood to the side as the men moved the box and trunk. They came back a minute later and moved the wardrobe away from the wall so they could wrap it securely. No reason for it to be damaged on the trip.

  They turned it for better access and Jessabelle saw the back for the first time. “Stop!” What was that? She walked over and found a manila enve
lope, stuffed full, taped to the back.

  “What is it?” Malachi stood next to her.

  Gently working the aged tape off the back of the wardrobe, she focused only on her task. When it popped loose, she turned it over.

  Jessabelle’s Adoption

  She looked up at Malachi, tears blurring her vision. “I guess it’s time to find out more about where I came from.”

  Chapter 27

  The packet lay on the seat between Malachi and his wife, but the weight of it threatened to stifle the very air they breathed.

  “Do you suppose it says who my birth parents are?” Jessabelle posed the question as they drove through Erres toward the palace.

  “It might.” He didn’t want her to get her hopes up. Either the information wouldn’t be there, or she might not like what she found out. Either one was a real possibility.

  “Will you read it for me when we get home?” Her hands twisted in her lap, her knuckles white.

  “Of course.” He reached over and gently pried her hands apart, linking his fingers with one. “I know it’s easy for me to say, but try to relax. Stressing about it won’t do you any good.”

  “I know, but I can’t help it.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “It is what it is, whether I know about it or not.”

  “True,” Malachi conceded. “But once you know, there’s no going back.”

  She nodded and continued staring out the window. The gates opened in front of them, and they wound their way up the hill to the side of the palace. Once in the courtyard, Jessabelle didn’t wait for anyone to open her door after the car came to a stop. Instead, she opened it herself and started for the door to the stairs to their apartment.

  Malachi grabbed the envelope and followed her. He caught up before she entered her code into the keypad by the apartment door. Of course, she punched in the privacy code.

  “I’m going to make cookie dough,” she told him. “Will you look and see what’s in there?”

  “Of course.” He watched her go into the kitchen before going into his office. Once there, he opened the envelope and slid the papers onto his desk. Twenty minutes later, he’d gleaned almost all he could from them. For as much paper as there was, most of it didn’t say anything of consequence.