by Cat Schield
As if to mock her optimism, a fresh ache began. She’d first started suffering with sharp cramps and strong periods when she was fifteen. Frightened by the amount of blood she lost each month, Olivia had gone to see a doctor. She’d been diagnosed with endometriosis and had begun taking oral contraceptives to reduce the pain and shorten her periods. Yoga, massage and acupuncture had also helped her cope with her symptoms, but none of these could correct the problem.
She’d needed surgery for that.
Olivia couldn’t explain why she’d been so reluctant to have the growths removed when the pain grew progressively worse in her early twenties. She couldn’t share her fears with her mother—who’d died giving birth to her—so she’d hidden the severity of the problem from everyone, including her father. Only Libby, her private secretary, knew how debilitating the pain could get. Libby had helped Olivia keep her doctor visits out of the press and made excuses when she had bad days. Olivia wasn’t sure what she’d have done these past eight years without Libby’s help.
It wasn’t until a year ago, when she’d confronted the connection between endometriosis and infertility, that she began to rethink her plans for coping with the disease. If she was marrying a wealthy businessman, a politician or even one of her own country’s nobles, she could discuss this issue with him and together they could decide what to do about her potential barrenness. But she was marrying the future king of Sherdana and would be expected to produce an heir.
So, she’d had the surgery and had been living pain free for almost twelve months.
With a sudden surge of impatience, Olivia set aside the heating pad and got to her feet. Brooding over her medical condition was the quickest way to doubt herself and that wasn’t the way she faced things. Despite the late hour, the luxurious king-size bed held no appeal. She needed some fresh air and exercise. Perhaps a walk in the garden.
Although she’d removed her ball gown upon returning to her room, she’d not yet dressed for bed. Slipping off her robe, Olivia pulled on a sleeveless jersey dress and found a pair of ballet flats that would allow her to move soundlessly through the sleeping palace.
The room she’d been given was in the opposite wing of the palace from the royal family’s apartments and used for housing dignitaries and visitors. Her father slept next door, his room as expansive and substantially furnished as hers. Olivia tiptoed past his door, aiming for the stairs at the far end of the hall that would deposit her close to the pink receiving room and the side gardens beyond. With her limited time in the palace, Olivia hadn’t had a great deal of time to explore, but she’d taken this route her second day to meet with the queen.
When she got to the end of the hallway, the high-pitched shriek of an unhappy child caught Olivia’s attention. The sound was muffled and it came from somewhere above her. She reached the stairs and paused to listen. She waited no more than a heartbeat before the cry came again, only this time there were two voices.
In an instant Olivia’s destination changed. Instead of going down to the ground level, she headed up to the third floor, following the increasingly frantic exclamations of the children and the no less agitated voice of an adult trying to quiet them.
At the top of the stairs, Olivia spied two shadows racing toward her down the darkened hallway. Curious as to what was going on, she’d taken several steps in their direction when a voice cut through the shadows.
“Karina. Bethany. Come back here this instant.” The shrill command provoked the children to faster flight.
Worried that at the speed they were going, they might pitch down the stairs, Olivia knelt and spread her arms wide. With their path blocked, the children stopped abruptly. With eyes wide, arms around each other for comfort, they stared at Olivia.
“Hello.” She offered them her gentlest smile. “Where are you two going so late?”
“You girls are nothing but trouble.”
The scolding woman hadn’t spied Olivia in the dimness or she wouldn’t have spoken so rudely. The two little girls shrank away from their pursuer, obviously afraid, and sidestepped in Olivia’s direction. Now that they were closer, Olivia could see them better. She blinked, wondering if she might be seeing double.
The two little girls, two frightened little girls, were mirror images of each other with long brown hair and large dark eyes in their pale faces. They were dressed in identical dresses and tears streaked their matching cheeks.
Olivia wanted to snatch them into her arms, but feared upsetting them still more. Although her childhood had lacked a loving mother, Olivia had developed a strong maternal instinct. Being warned by the doctor that unless she had surgery she might never have her own children had been a sharp knife in her heart.
“You’d better learn to behave and fast or the people who live here will kick you out and you’ll have nowhere else to go.”
Having heard enough, Olivia surged to her feet to confront the woman and was surprised when the girls raced to stand behind her. They gripped her dress with strength born of fear, and protectiveness surged through her.
“Stop speaking this instant,” Olivia commanded without raising her voice. “No one deserves to be threatened like that, especially not children.”
The nanny stopped dead in her tracks and sneered. “You don’t know what they’re like.”
“Whom do you work for?”
The woman looked wary. “I take care of these two.”
“Yes, yes.” Olivia put one hand on each of the toddlers’ heads. The hair was silky beneath her fingers and she longed to give the girls her full attention, but this woman must be dealt with first. “But who are their parents?”
“Their mother is dead.”
Olivia sucked in a short breath at the woman’s lack of compassion. “That’s awful.”
The woman didn’t respond.
“In heaven,” the child on her left said.
Olivia liked the girls’ nanny less and less. Had the woman no heart? Did the father know how badly his daughters were being cared for? “Perhaps I should speak to their father. What is his name?”
“A lawyer hired me a week ago to take care of them.” The woman stared at Olivia in hostile defensiveness.
“Well, you’re not doing a very good job.”
“They’re terribly spoiled and very difficult. And right now they need to be in bed.” Eyes on the children, the nanny shifted her weight forward and her arms left her sides as if she intended to snatch the little girls away from Olivia.
The little girl on her right shrank back. Her sister, emboldened by Olivia’s defense, fought back.
“Hate you.” She hung on Olivia’s skirt. “Wanna go home.”
Although she’d been too young to know the shock of losing her mother, Olivia remembered her lonely childhood and ached for the sadness yet to come for these girls. She wanted to wrap her arms around the toddlers and support them through this difficult time, but these were not her children and she shouldn’t get attached.
With a heavy sigh, Olivia knew it was time to extricate herself from the situation. She would summon a maid to get the girls settled and return to her room. In the morning she would find out to whom they belonged and fill him in on his employee.
“If I make this mean lady go away,” Olivia began, gazing down at the dark heads. “Would you go back to your room and go to sleep?”
“No.” Only one of the pair seemed to be verbal. The other merely gave her head a vehement shake. “Stay with you.”
Oh, dear. Obviously she’d defended the girls a little too well. But maybe it wouldn’t hurt for them to spend one night with her. There was plenty of room in her big bed and in the morning she could sort them out.
“Would you like to come to my room to sleep tonight?”
In unison, the two dark heads bobbed. Olivia smiled.
“You can’t do
this,” the nanny protested.
“I most certainly can. I suggest you return to your room and pack. I will send someone to escort you out shortly.” Olivia extended a hand to each girl and drew the children toward the stairs. Once they were settled in her room, she would send a maid up for their nightgowns and things.
It took time to descend to the second floor. The toddlers’ short legs made slow work of the steps, giving Olivia time to wonder who in the palace would raise a cry that they’d gone missing. She looked forward to having a conversation with their father in the near future about the sort of person he’d employed to take care of his children.
When Olivia entered her room, she was surprised to find it occupied by a maid. The girl looked up in surprise from the desk items she was straightening as the trio entered. Although the palace had provided Olivia with maids to tidy up and assist with whatever she needed, she hadn’t expected to find one in her room during the middle of the night. And from the expression on the woman’s face, she wasn’t expecting to be caught at it.
“Lady Darcy, I was just tidying some things up for you.”
“At two in the morning?”
“I saw your light on and thought you might be needing something.”
Not wanting to make a huge scene in front of the little girls, Olivia scanned the maid’s face, confident she’d be able to recognize her again from the hundred or so servants that maintained the palace. She had a small scar just below her left eye.
“Could you run down to the kitchen and get glasses of warm milk for these two?”
“Hate milk,” the talkative one said. “Ice cream.”
Recalling the nanny’s assessment that the girls were spoiled, Olivia hesitated a moment before giving a mental shrug. Again she reminded herself they weren’t her responsibility. She could indulge them to her heart’s content. “With chocolate sauce?”
“Yeah!”
Olivia nodded. “Please fetch two bowls of ice cream with chocolate sauce.”
“Of course, Lady Darcy.”
The maid scooted past her, eyeing the odd group before disappearing through the doorway.
Olivia half sat, half collapsed on the sofa near the fireplace and gestured to the girls. “Let’s get acquainted, shall we? My name is Olivia.”
They hesitated for a moment before coming toward her. Olivia kept her warmest smile fixed on her face and patted the seat beside her.
“Please sit down. The ice cream will take a little while. The palace is very big.”
The girls held hands and stared about the enormous room in wide-eyed silence. Now that she could see them better, Olivia noticed the Alessandro family resemblance. In fact, they looked like the pictures she’d seen of Gabriel’s sister, Ariana, at a similar age. Were they cousins? She frowned. Her extensive research on Sherdana had included all the royal family. She recalled no mention of young cousins.
“I’ve only been here a few days and I’ve gotten lost a dozen times already,” she continued, her voice a soothing monotone. “I was very scared when that happened. But I also discovered some wonderful places. There’s a library downstairs full of books. Do you like stories?”
They nodded at her, their movements identical as if choreographed.
“So do I. My favorite stories when I was a little girl were about princesses. Would you like to hear one?” She took their smiles as assent. “Once upon a time there were two princesses and their names were Karina and Bethany.”
“That’s us.”
* * *
Gabriel paced his office, impatient for Stewart to arrive with news that the twins had been settled into the palace. In his hand was the single photo he’d kept of Marissa after they’d broken up. He’d sealed it in an envelope and shoved it in the back of a drawer. Why he’d kept it was a question he was brooding over now.
After a long, unproductive strategy session with Christian regarding Marissa’s daughters, he’d sent his brother home. Although he had rooms for his use in the palace, Christian liked his privacy and only rarely stayed in them. Sometimes Gabriel suspected that if either of his brothers had a choice they would give up their titles and any claim to Sherdana’s throne. As it was they spent almost no time in Sherdana. Nic had gone to university in the US where he’d met his business partner and only returned when he absolutely had to, while Christian spent most of the year out of the country pursuing his business interests.
As close as the triplets had been growing up, the distance between them these days bothered Gabriel. While he’d known, as eldest son, that he’d be in charge of running the country someday, he’d never expected that his brothers wouldn’t be around to help.
Stewart appeared as Gabriel was returning Marissa’s photo to the envelope. Glancing at the clock he saw it was almost three in the morning. He’d sent his private secretary to check on Marissa’s daughters half an hour earlier.
“Well?” he demanded, pushing to his feet.
“They arrived at the palace a couple hours ago and I arranged to have them escorted to the nursery in the north wing.” It had seemed prudent to squirrel them away at the opposite end of the palace, far from where the royal family was housed.
“Have you seen them?” He wanted to know if the girls bore any resemblance to him, and could scarcely restrain himself from asking the question outright. Christian had cautioned that a DNA test would have to be performed before Gabriel let himself get emotionally involved. It was good advice, but easier agreed to than acted upon.
“Not yet.”
Gabriel’s temper flared. “What have you been doing?”
The private secretary wasn’t fazed by his employer’s impatience. “I went to the nursery, but they appear to be missing.”
“Missing?” He couldn’t imagine how that had happened. “Didn’t the lawyer say they had a nanny? Did you ask her where they are?”
“She’s gone. Apparently she was escorted from the palace by one of the guards an hour ago.”
“Escorted...? On whose authority?”
“Lady Darcy’s private secretary.”
Unable to fathom how she’d gotten involved, Gabriel stabbed his fingers through his hair. This business with Marissa’s daughters was fast spiraling out of control. “Have you spoken with her?”
“It’s three in the morning, sir.”
And if two little girls weren’t missing, he might be inclined to leave his questions until morning. “Tell her I want to speak to her.”
“Right away.”
His private secretary wasn’t gone more than five minutes. “Apparently she’s in Lady Darcy’s room, sir.” Stewart paused. “With the girls.”
Dismay shouldered aside irritation as Gabriel headed for the wing that housed his future bride. An encounter between Olivia and Marissa’s daughters was a problem he hadn’t anticipated. No doubt she would have questions about them. She was proving more troublesome than he’d expected based on their limited interaction before he’d proposed. Christian had warned him there was more to Olivia than a pretty face and polished manners, but she’d done an excellent job keeping her agenda hidden. The question was why.
Gabriel knocked on the door of Olivia’s suite, agitation adding sharpness to the blows. His summons was answered more quickly than he expected by a pretty woman in her early thirties, wearing a classic blue dress and a frown. Her eyes widened as she spied him standing in the hall.
“I’m here looking for two little girls who’ve gone missing from the nursery,” Gabriel said, his tone courteous despite the urge to push past her. “I understand they are here. May I come in?”
“Of course, Your Highness.” She stepped back and gestured him in. “Lady Darcy, Prince Gabriel is here to see you.”
“If you’ll excuse us,” Gabriel said, gesturing her out before entering the dimly lit suite and closing th
e door behind him.
His gaze swept the room in search of his fiancée. He spied her by the fireplace. She looked serene in a simple cotton dress, her hair in the same updo she’d worn to the gala. So she hadn’t yet gone to bed. This thought made his attention shift to the large bed where he spied a lump beneath the covers.
“Sorry for the late visit,” he told her. “But two children have gone missing.”
“Bethany and Karina.”
She knew their names. What else had she found out?
“What are they doing here?” he asked the question more sharply than he’d intended and saw her eyes narrow.
“They each had a bowl of ice cream and fell asleep.” Her sweet smile had a bit of an edge. “They were terrified of that horrible woman who’d been hired to look after them and refused to sleep in their own beds. So I brought them here.”
“And plied them with ice cream?”
“Their mother just died a few days ago. Strangers tore them from the only home they’d ever known and brought them to this big, scary place. Do you have any idea how traumatic all that was for them?”
“The nursery is not scary.”
“It was for them. And so was that awful woman who was taking care of them.”
“Is that why you had her escorted out of the palace tonight?”
Olivia’s eyes flashed. “I suppose you’re going to tell me it wasn’t my place to fire her, but she reminded me of the villain in every children’s story I’ve ever read.”
Her outrage was charming and Gabriel found his annoyance melting away. “How did you come to meet them?”
“I couldn’t sleep so I thought I’d go for a walk. When I got to the stairs I could hear their cries and the nanny’s scolding. They were running down the hall away from that woman and the things she said to them.” Olivia’s lips tightened. “I would like to speak to their father about her. First thing tomorrow morning if at all possible.”
“The situation with them is a little complicated,” Gabriel told her, his gaze once again drawn to the lump in the center of the mattress.