Tanya Crosby - The Impostor Prince

An image of Merrick accosted him.

Could it be…?

He shook his head, unable to wrap his brain around the shocking possibility.

And yet, who was this man who felt compelled to protect his mother from some cold-hearted opportunist?

And what was it he couldn’t justify releasing into her possession?

Glen Abbey Manor?

It would explain much, though how would this man have gained possession of the estate to begin with, when it had belonged to the MacEwens for nearly five centuries?

The rest of the letter was reduced to rants, as though written in some altered state of mind—perhaps the man had been inebriated.

Only one more passage stood out amidst the rest. It was scribbled on the back of the letter, almost as an afterthought: The sound of a kiss is not so loud as a cannon, but its echo lasts much longer. I suffer a ringing in my ears that will not cease to torment me.

It was signed, simply, J.J. had evidently never dispatched the letter.

Had Merrick intended, after all these years, to deliver it to his mother?

Why now?

The answer seemed obvious enough, though Ian wasn’t prepared to accept it. That he could have had a brother all these years and not known—perhaps even a father. That his mother could have lied to him. That she would have abandoned one of her infants…

It was enough to sour his mood all over again—if the bone-seeping mist hadn’t already managed to do so.

Refolding the letter, he slipped it back into his coat pocket, then withdrew the gold-and-silver calling card-case from the waistcoat pocket, removing a single card to inspect it for nearly the hundredth time. The initials J.M.W. were engraved upon the case itself. The calling card read: J. Merrick Welbourne III, HRH, the Crown Prince of Meridian.

J. after his father, most certainly, as the card intimated a third generation of descent. So J. the son was carrying a letter written by J. the father, and the intended recipient was Ian’s mother. Furthermore, J. the son held the title of HRH, the Crown Prince of Meridian, which would make J. the father…king of Meridian?

Ian settled back into the seat to contemplate the overwhelming evidence. As outlandish as it all seemed, there was one thing that just couldn’t be denied—the remarkable resemblance between Ian and Merrick.

Ian’s entire life seemed suddenly a web of lies.

What was true was that his mother had kept secrets from him, and that those secrets had affected the lives of every person in Glen Abbey.

Ian was wholly disheartened by the knowledge.

They were nearing their destination—Ian could feel the driver’s relief in the renewed vigor of his driving. He had kept to himself the entire journey, answering questions only when forced to, but he was beginning to feel the driver suspected something. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell the man to slow down, but as the thought crossed his mind, a woman’s scream curdled his blood.

At once, the coach lurched, careening to one side as the driver struggled to stop. Ian bounced into the window and then into the facing seat as the carriage came to an abrupt halt. He was out of the rig as quickly as he could regain his bearings. The sight that greeted him on the street made his heart falter.

His worst fear was confirmed. They’d hit a woman; she lay sprawled facedown in the middle of the road. For a frightful moment, she didn’t stir.

Ian sprinted to her side, kneeling to inspect her.

Her long ebony hair fell haphazardly from pins to cover most of her pallid cheek. Her wooden box had tumbled from her grasp and had settled in two pieces not more than a foot from her head, spilling silverware into the street like a river of fine silver.

He didn’t see blood—that much was heartening—but she’d yet to move. Then she groaned, and he blew a sigh of relief.

The driver hurried to his side. “We did not hit her!” he swore.

Ian cast the man a censuring glare. Of course they’d hit her, blast it all! Wasn’t her limp body proof enough?

The chatter of voices rose as curious onlookers surrounded them.

It took Claire a befuddled instant to realize she lay kissing the gravel on Drury Lane.

She moaned, more out of embarrassment than in pain, and struggled to her knees to find she had an uninvited audience.

How utterly humiliating!

One man in particular was kneeling at her side, gawking down at her. A prick of annoyance sidled through her at the sight of him. She realized he meant to help, but his regard only filled her cheeks with heat.

He was unnervingly handsome, with his sun-kissed blond hair and magnificent cheekbones. Claire tried not to notice the color of his eyes.

This moment was certainly not the time to admire pale blue eyes, even if they were the most remarkable blue she’d ever encountered.

“Thank God you’re not injured!” the man exclaimed.

His voice sent an unexpected quiver through her.

It was the chill of the rain, she assured herself.

The fall must have addled her brain. God help her, she’d never entertained such disturbing thoughts in all her life.

She wished he would look away, so intense was his scrutiny.

Shaken as much by the man’s attention as by the fall, she inspected her scuffed hands. Then, remembering the footpad who’d been shadowing her, she hurriedly scanned the gathering throng.

She didn’t at once spy the footpad, but neither did she care to wait around for him reappear. She began to gather up her grandmother’s silver, agitated by her sudden lack of good sense.

The driver of the carriage rambled on, absolving himself of any fault for her injuries. “She ran in front of the carriage,” he explained to his master. “We did not hit her, denka—she fell!”

Claire cast the driver a reproachful glance.

How dare he settle the blame solely upon her! She hadn’t been watching where she was going, that much was certainly true, but he might have driven more thoughtfully, considering that this was London and the streets were riddled with women and children—even if some of those children were nearly as dangerous as the adults.

She shook a spoon at him. “You, sir, were traveling much too fast for these conditions!” she accused him. She reached out to seize the bottom half of her box and turned it over, slamming it down upon the street as she cast the driver a baleful glare.

His eyes slanted sadly.

Claire ignored the prick of guilt she felt.

Her box was a wreck, her silver scattered to the four corners, and he had the audacity to look crestfallen by her censure. She wasn’t about to ease his conscience so quickly.

“Any child might have run in front of your carriage, and how might you have felt then?” she added.

“Hardly any worse than he already does,” his employer said, coming to the driver’s defense.

Claire hurriedly gathered up the remaining silverware, grateful for the distraction of her anger to refocus her thoughts. She tossed the pieces into the broken box, annoyed that both men were still staring, neither of them helping.

Neither was anyone else, for that matter. The crowd was thickening around them, heads cocked like parakeets as they gawked down at her while she gathered her belongings from the street.

“How rude!” she exclaimed.

How morbid, to stop and simply stare. She wanted to tell them all to move on and to mind their own sordid affairs, but she knew it would be a waste of her breath.

She directed her anger at the driver, because his gaze was not nearly so unsettling as his employer’s. “At any rate, it seems to me, sirrah, that if you felt the least bit badly about running me down, you might be a little more inclined to help me pick up my belongings!”

Both men seemed to realize she was the only one cleaning up the gleaming mess they’d made of the street.