Читать книгу A Prince At Last! - Cathie Linz - Страница 12

“I’m having a bad heir day,” Luc Dumont announced with a growl as he walked into Juliet Beaudreau’s office.

“What happened?” Juliet hastily shifted a pile of papers to clear a chair for her unexpected visitor.

But Luc ignored the empty seat and paced instead, not easy to do in the tiny room that served as Juliet’s office in the lowest level of the tower in St. Michel’s de Bergeron Palace. Luc’s very presence made the room seem even smaller. He was the kind of man who made an impression.

He’d certainly made an impression the first time Juliet had met him three years ago. Ever since then she always lit up inside whenever she saw him. Tall and lean, with thick brown hair and rakishly carved features, he had the most vivid blue eyes she’d ever seen. Instead of his usual work attire of a perfectly fitted black suit and light-blue shirt with a burgundy tie, he was wearing a black shirt and pants, which made her think he’d literally just returned to the palace from his most recent trip.

He was a man of many facets, deeply serious at times, wryly humorous at others. There had always been something slightly smoldering about him, deep beneath his cultured exterior.

At the moment he simply looked gorgeous…and upset.

“What happened?” Luc repeated. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Certainly I would. Did you finally find the lost heir?” She knew that as head of the country’s Security Force, Luc had been assigned the mission of tracking down the missing heir to the throne of St. Michel.

“It looks as if I have.” Luc kept pacing.

“You don’t appear to be very pleased with the outcome,” Juliet noted, coming around the solid oak table she used as a desk to perch on the front corner. While doing so, she briefly wished she was wearing something a little more attractive than a black top and skirt before refocusing her attention on Luc’s news. “Who is it? We already know it’s not Sebastian LeMarc. His claim proved to be false.”

“That was his mother’s doing, not his. Mothers can be a deceiving lot sometimes.” Luc’s voice held such bitterness.

Concerned, Juliet placed her hand on his arm, temporarily stopping his restless pacing. “Talk to me, Luc. Tell me what’s going on. You know you can trust me.”

It stung slightly that he didn’t acknowledge her trustworthiness, but he did begin talking. “I just returned from visiting my father.”

Which might explain his unsettled mood. Maybe it had to do with his family and not with the missing heir. “Did the visit go badly?”

“Depends on who you ask,” Luc replied cryptically.

“What happened?”

“I have to fill you in on a bit of background first. My mother died when I was six,” he said curtly, “and my father remarried after that.”

“And your new stepmother was awful,” Juliet continued. “And you were sent away to school in England, first to Eton and then to Cambridge.”

Luc frowned. “How did you know that?”

Uh-oh. Juliet tried to backpedal. “Didn’t you tell me?”

He shook his head. “No. I don’t talk about my family life with anyone.”

“All right,” she reluctantly admitted. “I checked out your resumé, okay? Before he died, King Philippe granted me unlimited access to the royal archives and records.”

“To do your thesis on the history of St. Michel, not to go nosing around in my personnel files. And I’m sure they didn’t list anything about my stepmother being awful.”

“I discerned that much for myself. Are you angry with me?” She gave him her most winning smile.

He wearily shook his head. “No. I’ll let you off easy this time. Anyway, since I was sent off to school in England, my father and I haven’t spent much time together. Maybe if we had, the lies would have come out sooner.”

“What lies?”

“The lies about everything. About the man I thought was my father, the woman who was my mother, about the man I am today.” His voice was rough with emotion.

Juliet had never seen Luc so upset. She didn’t know if it was due to his English schooling or his work with Interpol before coming to St. Michel, but Luc was always a man in control, a man with hidden depths, a man who maintained his cool and kept his distance.

Juliet suspected it was because of his upbringing, that he had felt like an outsider in his own family once he was packed off to school. She knew the feeling well. As the late king’s stepdaughter, she’d never really felt like part of the royal family. Her stepsisters, once the royal princesses, had never deliberately made her feel like an outcast. But she was different. She was the dark-haired, shy, bookish one amid all the pretty and popular blondes.

She’d always felt as if she didn’t really belong. The one person who had befriended her was Luc. He might be thirty-two to her twenty-two, but she was older than her years. And she felt a special kind of bond with Luc, a bond she’d never dared explore for fear of ruining what they already had.

She knew Luc saw her only as a friend and that was fine, she’d take whatever she got. And she’d be the best darn friend Luc had ever had.

“Whatever lies might involve your father or your mother, I can tell you one thing about the man you are today,” Juliet fiercely said. “You’re an honorable man.”

“You don’t know what it’s like, finding out your entire life is based on a lie.”

“And I’m not likely to know what it’s like if you don’t tell me exactly what happened.” Now her voice was tinged with a bit of exasperation.

“I’m not making much sense am I?” he noted wryly.

“No, but that’s okay. Why don’t you start at the beginning and go from there?”

“Ah, the beginning. Well, that would be with Prince Philippe’s marriage to Katie, the one the young prince was told was invalid because Katie was underage at seventeen.”

“Yes, but we know now that that wasn’t true,” Juliet reminded him. “The marriage was legal and valid. That’s why you’ve been searching for their child all these months.”

“Yes, well, the search is over.”

“And you’re having a bad heir day. That’s what you said when you came in. And I’m assuming that you were referring to the missing heir, not to a haircut gone wrong.”

Luc had wonderfully thick brown hair. At the moment it had an unusually rumpled look about it, due to his shoving impatient fingers through it. “You assume correctly. I was referring to the missing heir.”

“And you still haven’t told me who he is.”

“I know. It’s just I’m finding this entire thing a little hard to accept.”

“What entire thing?”

“Well, finding out that my father isn’t really my father at all for one thing.”

Her exasperation instantly melted away. “Oh, Luc.”

He tried to shrug it off, but she could tell he was more disturbed than he was letting on.

“My life is turning into one of those American soap operas,” he growled in disgust.

“Did your father tell you this news while you were visiting him?”

“No. I went to see him to get to the bottom of this mess.”

She was confused. “What mess?”

“I had reason to believe that Albert Dumont might not be my real father. He confirmed it. My mother was married before. And not just once, but twice.”

“Did Albert know who your father is?”

“He didn’t know at the time, no. All he knew was that my mother was unhappy with Robert Johnson, her previous husband, and that she divorced him. Apparently the lout cheated on her. Albert did business with the corporation Robert Johnson worked for, and he met my mother at some official function. Albert was also divorced and once my mother was free, the two of them married and settled down in France. I was all of two or three at the time. I know my mother’s father died shortly thereafter, leaving her with no relatives in America.”

“So Albert thought that you were this Robert Johnson’s child?”

“Well, apparently not. Apparently Albert knew that my mother was pregnant with another man’s child when she married Robert. She asked Albert to let me believe Albert was my father, even going so far as to arrange for a fake French birth certificate for Luc Dumont, listing Albert as my father and Katherine as my mother.”

Juliet could see why he felt betrayed. The man he thought was his father turned out not to be his father after all. So many lies.

His voice was harsh. “Luc Dumont doesn’t really exist.”

“Of course you do. I’m looking at you, pacing my office like a caged lion.”

“Why did you have to set up shop down here anyway?” He dropped onto the empty chair and fixed her with an aggravated glare. “We could have found you a bigger office in the north wing.”

“I love it here.” She waved a hand at her small but cozy surroundings. The grey stone walls dated back to the 16th century, their irregular surface still showing the marks where they’d been chiseled by hand. Aside from the oak table she’d retrieved from the royal storage room, she had a pair of mismatched Chippendale chairs, a mahogany bookcase and a lady’s Victorian chintz armchair all squeezed into the tiny space. A tattered Oriental rug covered the stone floor. “You can see the gardens right outside my window.”

She paused a second to enjoy the climbing pink roses that grew along the tower walls, framing her view of brilliant-colored flowering shrubs beyond, including luscious rhododendron and some late-blooming azaleas, graced by a trio of white butterflies dancing in the air. In the distance were the beds of sweet-smelling peonies and vibrant poppies and irises in colors ranging from deep purple to palest white.

She never tired of looking outside and drinking in the natural beauty. It fed her soul. Not that she’d ever tell anyone that. They already thought she was a little strange, a bookish oddity.

“The tower is one of the oldest parts of the palace,” she continued. “Since I’m researching the history of St. Michel for my postgraduate work, this is the perfect place for me.”

“Close enough to the boiler room that you can hear the pipes clang in the winter.”

“True, but it’s spring now. And you’re trying to sidetrack me.” She returned her gaze to him. “It won’t work, you know. I have a one-track mind. It’s why I’m so good with research. Once I get an idea into my head, I carry it through. So let’s get back to you and your family. You said earlier that it all started with Prince Philippe’s wedding to Katie. How so? Did Katie know your mother?”

“You don’t understand. Katie was my mother.”

Juliet was stunned. “But…but…” she sputtered. “That would make you…”

“The missing heir.” Luc nodded. “Bingo. Now you see why I said I was having a bad heir day. Here I’ve been chasing all over Europe and America and it turns out I’m the missing heir. How ironic is that?”

She didn’t know about ironic, but it was certainly freaking her out. She could only imagine how Luc must feel.

When he’d said that his father wasn’t really his father, she’d never made the connection between his royal search and his family life. Luc had always been like her—an outsider to the inner circle of royalty, someone with regular rather than royal blood.

But not anymore. Now even that link between them was being broken.

“You’re the missing heir,” she repeated slowly. “Your father was…”

“King Philippe, who, when he was still a prince, married my mother Katherine, whom he called Katie. I should have made the connection.” He was on his feet and pacing again. “I’m a trained investigator, for heaven’s sake. But it never even occurred to me. She died when I was so young, I don’t remember much about her. The only thing I have is a book on St. Michel she used to read to me. I kept it for sentimental value.”

“Who else knows about this?”

“Sometimes it feels like everyone knew but me.”

“What are you going to do?”

“How should I know? I’m still trying to absorb it all.”

“Queen Celeste will not be pleased.” Celeste was King Philippe’s fourth and most recent wife, now widow. When King Philippe had died of a heart attack, the country had grieved, but those in power had panicked.

For one thing, according to ancient St. Michel law, the throne couldn’t be passed to a female. And when the dowager queen had made her startling declaration that the king had married secretly at the age of eighteen and that a child had resulted…well, the palace had been turned upside down.

“Celeste is still maintaining that the child she’s carrying is a boy,” Juliet said.

“And I suppose she’s still refusing to have an ultrasound to determine the baby’s sex, right?” Luc asked.

Juliet nodded. “Correct.”

“What a mess.”

“You’re the heir,” she repeated. “The oldest male. The future king of St. Michel. I’m going to have to practice curtsying.”

“You do and I won’t speak to you,” he warned her.

“But it’s protocol to curtsy to the king.”

“What do I know about being a king?”

“Well, for one thing, you’re very good at giving orders,” she pointed out with a grin.

“Sure. Orders are easy. Reporting what I just found to the prime minister and dowager queen, that is not going to be easy.”

“Why not?”

“Who’d believe that I’m the future king?” Luc scoffed. “I’m not a diplomatic man. I don’t know anything about governing.”

“You can learn. I’m certain the prime minister and the dowager queen will be delighted with this news.”

“I brought proof with me,” he said abruptly. “Not so much to convince them as to convince myself. It seems my mother left a key to a safety deposit box in Albert’s care, to use if I ever came asking about my birth father. Since I didn’t know Albert wasn’t my father, it was doubtful I’d ever think to ask him anything. Inside the box was a registered copy of my birth certificate. I thought it had to be another fake, but I checked the paper trail, this time using my mother’s name and it checks out. Before that I was looking for Katie Graham, her name on the marriage certificate to Prince Philippe. I’d already traced Katie back to Texas and found she married Ellsworth Johnson.”

“I thought you said his name was Robert Johnson?”

“Americans have this irritating habit of not using their proper Christian given names, especially Texans. Robert was his middle name. It was all there in the safe deposit box. Marriage certificates, my birth certificate and a letter from my mother.”

“Really? What did she say?”

“I haven’t read it yet.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t know if I can forgive her,” Luc said bluntly. “And I don’t think there’s anything she could have written in that letter that would justify her lying to me, or letting me live a lie.”

“Maybe she was trying to protect you. She was so young when you were born. Barely eighteen. Pregnant and alone. She tried to provide you with a stable home and father when she married Albert.”

“She married one man knowing she was pregnant with another man’s child.” A muscle flexed in his clenched jaw. “How honorable is that?”

“You won’t know until you read her letter,” she replied.

“I don’t need to read it to know what she did was dishonorable.”

“I realize you feel that way now, but you have to read her letter, Luc.”

“If you’re so interested, then you read it,” he growled, yanking it out of his pocket and tossing it onto her book-strewn desk. “I’m not interested. I don’t care what it says. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to prepare for my meeting with the prime minister and dowager queen and I need some fresh air to clear my head.”

With that curt announcement, Luc left as abruptly as he’d arrived.