Nina Bruhns - Capturing the Crown Bundle

Unlike her, she thought ruefully. Her role in the upcoming coronation was merely decorative. Her only job was either to stand or to sit beside Russell and look proud, which she knew she could handle without being required to resort to any acting on her part, because she was proud, very proud. Proud of the man she had taken to her heart. Proud of the man that she knew he was. Russell was everything that Reginald had never been and, had he lived, she was fairly certain he would never have become. Honest, kind, loyal, Russell was the kind of man who was concerned about leaving the world a better place than when he had first entered it.

But the dark look on his face probably had nothing to do with the coronation.

Or did it? she suddenly wondered.

Talk to me, she all but screamed mentally. Out loud, she felt she had to prod him along. “Is this about Reginald?”

“In a way, yes.” And then, in the light of the repercussions that would follow Reginald’s thoughtless act, Russell amended his statement. “In a very large way, actually.”

She didn’t like the sound of that. Had she been alone, she might have sat down, braced herself before hearing more. But she had always prided herself on meeting adversity head-on, on “hanging tough” before a world that was quick to judge. And Russell, she reminded herself, had never seen her in action. She couldn’t give in to weaker elements and show him that she was unnerved. He had to think of her as strong.

“Is he alive?” she finally asked in a hushed, disbelieving voice.

Had there been some mistake made earlier? Had the body that Russell found in Reginald’s bed only resembled Reginald marginally? Was that what he was so obviously wrestling with telling her now?

Oh God, please don’t let it be that. Don’t let me have to marry Reginald, after all.

She’d hang tough, she promised herself. A marriage was a marriage and there was no way she was ever going to leave her marriage bed, no matter what Russell was about to tell her.

Stunned by the question, Russell looked at her incredulously. “You mean did he suddenly rise up from the dead? Reginald was many things in his lifetime, but a vampire was never one of them.” Although, more than once, he’d heard the late prince referred to as a bloodsucking ghoul.

She cleared her throat, feeling a little foolish for being so skittish. “No, I just thought that maybe a mistake had been made in identifying the body.”

“I was the one who found the body,” he reminded her. “It was Reginald. No mistakes were made.”

Outside, a cloud passed over the sun, suddenly making the room seem dark. She fervently hoped it wasn’t an omen. Amelia drew her courage to her and demanded, “Then what is it that you’re talking about? What has this to do with Reginald?”

He looked at her for a long moment, wondering what her reaction might be. Despite her words, did becoming a queen outweigh everything else for her? There was only one way to find out. “There might be an heir.”

Confusion narrowed her eyes. “An heir?”

He felt a twinge of guilt for having kept this from her, but it hadn’t been for long.

“The computer expert that was sent from the Lazlo Group discovered some personal correspondence on Reginald’s laptop from a woman claiming that she was pregnant with his baby.” Russell couched his words carefully. “It could be a hoax—”

“Or, it could be true,” Amelia countered pragmatically.

Very honestly, she was surprised that this was the first paternity claim to be made, and that there was only one. Reginald had gone around scattering his seed with abandon since he’d been in his teens. That this was the first so-called bastard that had surfaced was rather incredible.

Amelia paused for a moment, looking at Russell. He spoke to her as if she were his equal in this, instead of some hanger-on to be kept in the dark. She liked that.

She hadn’t been wrong about him, she thought. Her heart had picked the right man to love.

“And if it is true,” Russell continued, “if she does give birth and the child turns out to be a boy—” He paused, studying her face as he waited for the significance of what he was saying to set in.

It didn’t take much to know where Russell was going with this, Amelia thought. “You’re thinking he could be next in line, rather than you.”

“Yes.”

When she was a young girl, everything about her life seemed to be cast in stone. Things were fixed according to her father’s word or to the traditions that seemed to rule so much of her life. Now, with this news, it felt as if everything was in flux and what she thought was stone was merely plaster of Paris, easily cracked. Easily shattered.

The crown was not yet on Russell’s head and, if certain things came to pass, it might never be. She looked at Russell, trying to gauge what he was thinking. The man could play poker with the best of them, she decided. Had her kingdom’s only income still been garnered from the casinos, he would have made a perfect symbol of the successful gambler.

“How does that make you feel?” she finally asked.

He answered her honestly. “Relieved—except…” Unable to finish, he looked at her.

“Except?” she prompted.

He was not one to wear his heart on his sleeve, but when it came to her, he found that he couldn’t quite help himself. “Except for the fact that if this does come to light, your father might call for an annulment of our marriage.”

“An annulment?” For the first time since Russell had entered the suite, she found herself laughing. Laughing so hard that her next few words were shaky as she uttered them. “Annulments are granted if the marriage isn’t consummated. I think it’s a little too late to call off the marriage using that as the excuse on record,” she quipped. “We’ve ‘consummated’ this marriage a great many times as I recall.” She put her hand on his shoulder to steady herself. “I’m afraid an annulment is out of the question, Russell.”

He took her hand, about to brush it off. He found himself holding it instead. Wondering if he’d been a fool, thinking that he would be allowed to face eternity with her at his side.

“This isn’t a laughing matter, Amelia. You know what I mean.”

Amelia took a breath, doing her best to steady herself. But her cheeks refused to pull themselves into a serious expression no matter how much she told herself they should.

“Yes, I know what you mean and I beg to differ, Carrington. The day we cease to laugh is the day we begin to die. This most certainly is a laughing matter because, in case you hadn’t noticed, I got the last laugh, so to speak.” When he looked at her quizzically, she explained. “I didn’t have to marry that horrible hedonist.”

And then she stopped abruptly. Russell was looking at her as if he was trying to assess something. As if he was seeing her for the first time. Because she was so incredibly attuned to him, she suddenly realized what he had to be thinking. It hit her squarely in the pit of her stomach.

She might have been affronted, Amelia thought, if the thought wasn’t so completely absurd, so foreign from anything she might have entertained.

Because she always tried to put the best possible face on everything, even an insult, she decided to take Russell’s unwarranted suspicion, however fleeting, as a compliment to her ability to take care of herself.

“No, Russell, I didn’t have Reginald killed, if that’s what you’re thinking. I would have had to take a number and I have never liked having to stand in line. My father once said that if I had to stand in line to get into heaven, I’d probably decide to go to hell instead.” She cocked her head, studying his face. This wasn’t all. “What else is bothering you?”