A Thoroughly Modern Princess

by Wendy Markham

  That was the thing he loved about Brynn. She knew him better than he knew himself.

  He accepted the money from her and asked, “Cream and sugar, darling?”

  “A splash of skim milk and half a packet of artificial sweetener. The kind in the blue packet, not the pink.”

  “Has anybody ever told you that you’re impossibly high maintenance?”

  “And you aren’t?” She raised a brow at him.

  Smiling at the realization that he’d missed her desperately, he walked up to the counter to get the coffee for Brynn and another for himself, along with a couple of mouthwatering frosted donuts. In the few hours he’d spent there since calling Brynn collect, he could only scrape together enough money for three cups of surprisingly tasty coffee.

  He’d never realized Dunkin’ Donuts had such good brew for such a reasonable price. He was used to the pricey chain cafés of Manhattan.

  Well, from here on in, it would be Dunkin’ Donuts all the way.

  After all, he had—for the second time in as many weeks—told his grandfather to keep his job, and his money.

  He wondered if Anderson Lowell’s offer was still open.

  He wondered what he would do if it wasn’t.

  But most of all, he wondered if he could possibly convince Emmaline to give him—to give them—a chance now that all he had to offer was himself.

  * * *

  Emmaline faced Remi, looking him in the eye. She owed him honesty. Much more than that, really, considering what she had put him through—but honesty was a start.

  “A friend helped me to escape Chimera that day,” she confessed.

  “Tabitha?”

  She hesitated.

  Yes, Tabitha had played a role. But she couldn’t implicate her loyal lady-in-waiting. Now that she was home to stay, she must do everything to secure Tabitha’s future in the royal household. Certain details about her wedding day escape would be better kept to herself.

  “An American friend,” she confessed. “His name . . . his name is . . .”

  “Granger Lockwood?”

  She gasped. “How did you—?”

  “It doesn’t matter how I knew, Emmaline. What matters is—”

  “You don’t understand,” Emmaline cut in hurriedly. “I didn’t run off to New York because I’m in love with Granger Lockwood.”

  That had come out all wrong.

  She tried again, her cheeks flaming. “That is to say, I wasn’t in love with Granger Lockwood when—I mean, I’m not in love with him now, and I—I never was in love with him, and I never could be.”

  “The lady doth protest too much,” Remi observed quietly, watching her thoughtfully.

  “No, Remi, truly, I don’t love him.” Guilt and shame filtered into her. She forced her gaze to remain steadily focused on Remi’s.

  “Why else would you have run off with another man on our wedding day, Emmaline?”

  “Because . . . I did it for you, Remi.”

  “Forgive me if I’m not entirely appreciative. It does seem to be an odd sort of wedding gift, Emmaline.”

  He smiled faintly.

  She did not.

  “Oh, Remi . . . you know we weren’t in love, and—”

  “You’ve mentioned that, yes. You weren’t—and aren’t—in love with him.”

  “No, I meant with you—nor you with me. We weren’t in love. I care about you deeply, and—”

  “As I care about you,” he said, his honesty so raw that she felt a rush of affection toward him.

  “I only wanted to spare you,” she murmured.

  “To spare me a loveless marriage?”

  “Not only that . . .”

  “Then . . . what?”

  She took a deep, shaky breath. “I’m pregnant, Remi.”

  Granger had just allowed himself to doze off in the backseat of the limousine when Brynn jabbed him fiercely in the ribs.

  “Ouch!”

  “Did you hear that?”

  “The sound of my bones cracking? Yes.” He glowered at her in the dim post-dawn light, made brighter by the gleam of passing headlights. They were headed back to Manhattan, and Emmaline, from the airport.

  “Shh! Listen!” Brynn cocked her head.

  Frowning, he listened.

  He heard nothing but rain falling on the roof of the car, and the radio droning from the front seat.

  Then he heard it.

  “. . . Princess Emmaline . . .”

  The radio announcer was talking about her.

  He leaned forward in his seat, straining to hear.

  “Can you please turn it up?” he barked at the driver, who obliged.

  But it was too late.

  The announcer’s voice gave way to a commercial jingle.

  “What was that about?” he asked, turning to Brynn.

  Brynn yawned. “The usual, no doubt. She’s been the main global news topic from the moment she was engaged. With any luck some epic natural disaster will come along and knock her out of the headlines. A catastrophic earthquake in some third world country would probably do it.”

  “How noble of you,” Granger said dryly. “Wishing death and destruction on the masses.”

  He shook his head and leaned back to doze again, utterly exhausted.

  Too soon—yet not soon enough—they reached Eldridge Street.

  “I’d come up with you, but I’m incapable of negotiating stacks of stairs at this ungodly hour,” Brynn said as the driver opened the door for Granger. “Please give Emmie my regards.”

  “I will. And thank you for everything.” Granger kissed her on the cheek and stepped out into the urine-scented street, grateful that he would be unaccompanied for his reunion with the princess.

  He desperately needed to be alone with Emmaline now.

  He had no idea what he wanted to say to her—only that he needed to make her understand that everything was going to be all right. That he would be there for her, and for the baby. He trusted that the words would flow when he saw her.

  His pulse quickened, and it wasn’t just from the exertion of taking the creaky steps two at a time. How he longed to take Emmaline into his arms, to kiss her, to—

  Good God.

  He stood abruptly still, one foot on the fifth floor landing, his hand clutching the splintered wooden rail.

  Was he in love with Emmaline?

  When he envisioned the two of them together—and the two of them becoming three—was he envisioning a real family?

  Was he planning to propose to her?

  Marriage.

  Marriage was commitment.

  Permanent commitment.

  As in forever.

  He had never thought of himself as a forever kind of guy.

  But if he didn’t plan to stay with Emmaline—and the baby—forever, then what, exactly, was he planning? To merely stick around for a while? To be there for the birth, perhaps even for the baby’s first tooth and first steps . . . but not for the first day of kindergarten, or the sweet sixteen party, or high school graduation?

  Was he capable of starting this adventure and not finishing it?

  Then again, was he capable of seeing it through?

  He had no idea. He wanted to be the kind of man who could get down on one knee and sincerely pledge his heart to one woman. All at once, he wanted that more desperately than he had ever wanted anything before.

  But the concept of marriage—of marriage and love—was so earth-shatteringly new that it was all he could do not to give in to his flimsy knees and sink to the dusty landing.

  Instead he mustered every ounce of strength, lifted his stubbly chin, and forced himself to walk toward the apartment door.

  I’ll know when I see her, he told himself. I’ll know what to do. I’ll know what to say. Everything will fall into place when I see her.

  As he pulled his keys from his pocket, he heard scampering paws on the other side of the door. Newman and Kramer launched into a high-pitched frenzy. Their barking was infused wi
th a desperate quality that sent a chill through him . . .

  And he knew.

  He knew, even before he unlocked the door.

  She was gone.

  But . . . gone where?

  Anger—and fear—surged within Granger as he strode into the empty apartment. He took in the soiled floor, the spilled bag of dry dog food his pets had ripped into. Clearly, Newman and Kramer hadn’t been walked, or fed, in . . .

  In how long?

  When did she leave?

  Judging by the mess, she must have been gone since yesterday morning, not long after he snuck out the door. Guilt seeped in to complicate his inner turmoil. It wasn’t as if he had told Emmaline where he was going. She must have assumed, when she awakened to find him gone, that he was out buying a newspaper or a bagel. It wouldn’t have crossed her mind that he might be traveling on a bus to Rhode Island.

  His anger subsided. No, Emmaline would never have deliberately left the dogs alone for any length of time. She must have assumed Granger would be back to take care of them. But . . .

  Newman nudged his leg and yapped.

  “All right, boy. I know you’re hungry.” Granger absently reached into a cupboard for a couple of cans of dog food. Kramer trotted over swiftly.

  “Where the heck did she go, fellas?” Granger asked as he dumped the food into their bowls. “Did she leave a note?”

  He began searching the apartment, but came up empty-handed. His frustration was rapidly turning to fear. What if something had happened to Emmaline? What if somebody had broken in and—

  The ringing telephone interrupted his dire imagination.

  He leaped for it, knowing without a doubt that it was Emmaline.

  “Granger?”

  His heart sank. So much for his psychic abilities. “Brynn?”

  “I’m in . . . car . . . on . . . cell phone.”

  “This is a bad connection, Brynn,” he said as the line crackled.

  “. . . just heard the . . . news . . . radio . . . Emmaline . . .” Her voice crackled.

  “Emmaline?” His heart sank. “What news? What did you hear?”

  The phone went dead.

  “Dammit!”

  Brynn was trying to tell him something about Emmaline. Something she’d heard on the car radio.

  Granger hurriedly turned on the television set and, with shaking fingers, flipped past a baseball game and a cooking show to the cable news channel.

  Bingo.

  A reporter stood before a familiar backdrop, above the caption Live from Chimera.

  Granger’s heart attempted to pulverize his rib cage.

  What had happened?

  Oh Lord, had something happened to Emmaline now, just when you finally figured out that you—

  Shut up! he ordered himself. Calm down and pay attention to the news.

  “—say the princess returned to the palace sometime during the last twenty-four hours,” the reporter was saying, “escorted by a security team furnished by her fiancé. Prince Remi is believed to be here at the palace, and we have an unconfirmed report that the prince and princess are eager to reschedule their wedding as soon as—”

  Granger turned off the television.

  So.

  That was it.

  Emmaline might not have abandoned his dogs, but she had most certainly—and willingly—abandoned Granger himself.

  The phone rang again.

  If he hadn’t still been holding the cordless receiver, he might not have bothered to answer it. He felt limp, weary, exhausted . . .

  But the phone was ringing, and he was holding it, and he answered it. He knew that it was Brynn again, and that she wouldn’t leave him alone until he spoke to her.

  “Hello?”

  “Granger?”

  “Emmaline?”

  “Granger, I just wanted to say that I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry?” He was incredulous. “You abandoned the dogs.”

  You abandoned me, dammit.

  “I didn’t mean to leave so suddenly. But you weren’t there, and I . . . I had to go.”

  “Why? Because he sent his security guards for you? How did they even find you?”

  There was a moment of silence.

  And he knew the answer before she told him.

  “They found me because I called Remi and told him where I was. I thought it was the right thing to do, Granger.”

  He nodded, misery twisting in his throat, strangling any words he might possibly have uttered.

  “And now that I’m back here,” she went on, “I’m just not sure of anything.”

  Hope soared within him.

  She wasn’t sure?

  That meant there was a chance. A chance for him. A chance for them.

  “Emmaline, we need to talk,” he said.

  “We will. Someday, when . . .”

  He frowned at the sound of somebody knocking on the apartment door.

  “Not someday,” he told Emmaline, ignoring the knock. “Now.”

  “Not over the phone,” she protested. “We have to talk in person. But not—”

  The knocking grew more urgent.

  The dogs barked anxiously.

  “Emmaline—”

  “Granger, I have to hang up. I’ll call you again.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going to happen, or what I—”

  “Granger?” Brynn’s voice called from the hallway, above the yapping dogs. “Granger, open up!”

  “Emmaline—”

  “Granger, I have to go,” she said softly. She sounded as though she was crying.

  “Don’t go, Emmaline!”

  “I . . . I’m sorry.”

  Click. Dial tone.

  And she was gone.

  He cursed softly. She was gone . . .

  But she had called.

  That meant something.

  Right now, that meant everything.

  “Granger, open this door, dammit!”

  “All right, all right, I’m coming.”

  A moment later, he was face-to-face with Brynn.

  “My cell phone battery died,” she said, brushing past him and into the apartment, “so I rushed back over here to tell you that Emmaline—”

  “Is back in Verdunia. I know.” He took a deep breath. “Brynn, I need another favor. A huge favor . . .”

  Josephine hesitated in the corridor outside her sister’s suite.

  She didn’t want to do this.

  She didn’t want to do this.

  She so didn’t want to do this.

  She was afraid Emmaline would know, just by glancing at her, what she had done.

  But that was nonsense. Emmaline couldn’t possibly read her mind—and Remi had sworn never to tell a soul.

  Dear, sweet Remi.

  She had lingered in the bath for nearly an hour just now—as much to postpone the reunion with her sister as to rid herself of every physical remnant of her morning encounter with Remi in the guest room. But she could swear she could still smell his cologne in her hair, on her skin. She could still taste his mouth inside her own, could feel his hands on her bare flesh . . .

  No. Stop thinking about it. It should never have happened.

  What if Remi had only made love to her out of spite? What if he had simply been so angry at what she had told him about Emmaline being in New York City with Granger Lockwood that he had used Josephine to get revenge?

  No. She couldn’t believe that. And Remi hadn’t seemed angry at all when she had told him Emmaline’s secret. On the contrary, he had seemed almost . . . relieved.

  But if that was the case . . . why had he left the palace immediately after speaking with Emmaline that morning? When he left Josephine lying sated in his tangled sheets, he promised her that he was going to break his engagement with Emmaline.

  But something had happened when he spoke to her sister. He hadn’t even stuck around long enough to bid Josephine farewell. Granted, she was soaking in the t
ub when he left. Still . . .

  Stop procrastinating. You must face Emmaline.

  Josephine shook away her muddled thoughts and rapped gently on the door.

  It opened almost instantly.

  “Hello, Tabitha. Is Emmaline—”

  “She’s resting in bed,” the lady-in-waiting said in a hushed tone. “She doesn’t wish to—”

  “Who’s there, Tabitha?” Emmaline’s voice called from the next room.

  “It’s Her Royal Highness Princess Josephine.”

  “Josephine? Where on earth have you been?”

  Josephine brushed past Tabitha and entered her sister’s bedroom, but stopped short just inside the doorway.

  Oh my.

  Emmaline looked pale and exhausted, propped against a pile of pillows in her bed. Her eyes were swollen, as though she had been crying.

  “I’m sorry, Emmaline. I’d have greeted you sooner, but I was . . .” I was having a merry romp between the guest room sheets with your fiancé.

  “It’s all right,” Emmaline said. “Tabitha, would you mind leaving me alone with my sister?”

  The lady-in-waiting quickly obliged.

  “Are you all right, Emmaline?” Josephine asked cautiously, approaching the bed.

  Her sister sighed and shook her head.

  “What is it? Is it . . . is it because of Granger?” Please let it be because of Granger. Please don’t let it be because you know I’ve betrayed your trust.

  “Yes . . . in a way.”

  “Did you tell Remi about him?”

  “I did . . . But he already seemed to know.”

  Josephine’s breath caught in her throat. “Emmaline, I—”

  “Of course you didn’t tell him.”

  Caught on the brink of her confession, Josephine clamped her mouth shut.

  “I’m not surprised he found out somehow, Josephine,” her sister went on. “You and I both know what it’s like to live in a fishbowl. Every move we make is public knowledge, and always will be.” Her eyes filled with tears. “How I wish there were a way out.”

  “Maybe there is. What about Granger? If you’re in love with him, can’t you marry him and go off to live in America?”

  “If only it were that simple.”

  “It is, Emmaline! You and Remi don’t love each other. You and Granger do—”

  “Why on earth would you say that?”

  “No reason,” Josephine said hastily. Oops. “It was just that neither of you seemed very happy about marrying each other, so I simply assumed—”