Barbara McCauley - Royally Pregnant

So were her insides, she thought.

His thumb traced the line of her jaw. “Shall we?” he murmured.

Her heart skipped a beat, than began to race. Wasn’t this why she’d come here? To be close to Dylan, to gain his confidence by whatever means necessary?

Shall we?

His voice, his touch, seduced her. Made her want when she had no right to want. Made her tremble with need when she needed desperately to keep her composure.

“Here?”

He lifted his head, stared at her with a mixture of amusement and desire. “Well, normally we begin the palace tours in the reception hall and ballroom, but if you’d like to start here…”

www.millsandboon.co.uk

who has written more than twenty novels for Silhouette Books, lives in Southern California with her own handsome hero husband, Frank, who makes it easy to believe in and write about the magic of romance. Barbara’s stories have won and been nominated for numerous awards, including the prestigious RITA ®Award from the Romance Writers of America, Best Desire of the Year from Romantic Times and Best Short Contemporary from the National Reader’s Choice Awards.

To Debbi Rawlins—

Thanks, Deb—this one’s for you!

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

“It has to look like an accident.”

Emily Bridgewater did not turn around at the man’s words. With her back straight and head high, she stood at the edge of the bluff and stared out at the choppy, deep-blue waters, watched the thick, black clouds rise up from the east like a demon’s ascent from hell. The scent of wild devil’s mint choked the late-afternoon air. Dozens of fishing boats, commercial and pleasure alike, headed for the marina—only a fool would challenge the potential wrath of Mother Nature at sea when the skies turned dark as coal.

Emily shivered, not from the icy breeze that whipped at the hem of her long denim skirt, but from despair. What good could possibly come from deceit? she’d asked herself a hundred times in the past three days. Every time her answer had been the same: none.

And every time she’d seen no other way.

“Did you hear me, Emily?” the man snarled. “You must make certain he believes it was an accident.”

Emily turned and faced the man. Sutton was the only name she knew him by, though she doubted it was his real name. She’d guessed him to be at least twenty years older than herself, probably in his early forties. He was tall and lean, wore a tight black T-shirt, black pants, black soldier’s boots. He’d shaved his head, and his face was as rough and jagged as the bluffs of Penwyck Island, his expression flat and empty. On his left bicep, he wore a tattoo of a small black dagger.

Who he took his orders from, Emily didn’t know, but she was certain that Sutton wasn’t in charge. He made no decisions and offered no negotiations. He simply did what he was told, without question.

They expected the same of her.

“I’ll do what I can.”

He smiled at her defiance, closed the distance between them with three long strides. She nearly flinched when he reached out a hand toward her, then roughly grabbed her chin. With his other hand he touched a loose strand of her thick, dark hair and twirled it around his finger. Emily bit the inside of her mouth, refused to back away.

“You’ll do better than that.” His gray eyes skimmed her face, then lingered on the top button of her short-sleeved white blouse. “You know what will happen if you don’t get us what we want, don’t you, sweet Emily? You know what we’ll do?”

Emily’s heart slammed against her ribs, pounded in her head with the same intensity as the crash of waves on the beach below. “Yes.”

He pulled a small photograph from his T-shirt pocket and held it in front of her face. “One more look, so you’ll make no mistakes.”

Though she’d already seen the picture of the man this morning, Emily glanced at the snapshot again. Short dark-brown hair, deep-blue eyes, a touch of regal mixed with rugged. The photograph was posed, and he did not smile for the camera. His eyes, those striking eyes, held a great deal of intelligence and just a touch of annoyance.

Dear Lord, how will I ever do this?

Setting her teeth, Emily jerked away from Sutton’s touch. “I won’t make a mistake.”

The cell phone strapped to Sutton’s belt rang. He turned to answer the call, listened for a moment, then slipped the phone back into its holder. “It’s time.”

She glanced at the paved road beside the stand of trees where they stood, knew that the car would be coming around the steep mountain bend in a few minutes. Her pulse raced.

I can’t do this. She felt the panic rise. I can’t. When she hesitated, Sutton grabbed her by the arm and dragged her toward the rented bike resting against a nearby tree.

“What if something goes wrong?” she gasped, ignoring the painful grip of the man’s large hand.

“You’d better make sure nothing goes wrong,” he said tightly. “Now get on the bike.”

“But if I’m not hurt, if—”

He swung his fist so quickly, she hadn’t time to avoid the blow. His knuckles slammed against her cheekbone, made her head snap back. White-hot stars shot across her vision, and she thought for one horrible moment that she might lose what little food she’d eaten that day. She would have fallen to her knees if he hadn’t still been holding her up.

“No more ifs, Emily. Get on the bike!”

She brushed away the tears of pain from her eyes, then, with her ears still ringing from Sutton’s fist, Emily climbed on the bike he held out for her. She gripped the handlebars, placed her feet on the pedals.

She heard the faint whine of a car’s engine, the crunch of tires on pebbles.

Breath held, she waited.

“She’s going to be a wicked one, Your Highness. A ‘triple ale, double female’ night, as my da used ta say.” From the back seat of the limousine, Dylan Penwyck glanced up and briefly met Liam McNeil’s gaze in the rearview mirror. Liam, born in Ireland but raised on Penwyck Island from the time he was eight, had been driving for Dylan’s family more than twenty years. In his early forties, with a leprechaun’s smile and a lumberjack’s build, Liam was full of Irish wit and aphorisms, not to mention a healthy dose of blarney.

Dylan lifted one dark brow. “Not in front of your mother, I’m sure.”

Liam laughed, a dry, cracking laugh that came from too many years of cigarettes and rotgut whiskey. “Only if he was looking for a frying pan ta blast open the back of his skull.”

Dylan tried to imagine his own mother flattening the back of his father’s head with a frying pan, but the image of Queen Marissa wielding a frying pan while she chased King Morgan around the royal pantry simply wouldn’t come.

His parents’ marriage, though an arranged one, had been happy enough. He’d never once heard his mother raise her voice to his father—or to anyone else, for that matter. One look from the queen inspired a person to move mountains. Though no one would ever dare say the words out loud, Dylan more than suspected who held the true power not only in the marriage, but in the palace household, as well.

But now Dylan’s father was ill. King Morgan had finally wakened from the coma he’d slipped into five months ago, but there would be many months, if not years, of rehabilitation and therapy. Since Dylan’s Uncle Broderick had assumed control of the palace, there’d been overwhelming chaos. And even though Broderick had been “relieved” of his duties on the throne, there was much to do to restore order to the palace.