A Thoroughly Modern Princess Page 19
“Forget about it. It’s a gift.” Granger shoved his remaining cash back into his pocket.
It was all he had left in the world—at least, for the time being.
And a quick count had told him that it totaled thirty-seven dollars.
Emmaline was sitting in front of the television, sipping ginger ale—which wasn’t helping to ease her nausea in the least—when Granger arrived home. Newman and Kramer greeted him with exultant yelps as always, then returned to their station by the floor at Emmaline’s feet.
“How was your day?” she asked, her eyes focused on the television screen. Debi Hanson’s exclusive interview with Remi was scheduled to begin in less than two minutes.
“I tried to call and tell you the news—the phone should have been turned on today, but all I got was a busy signal.”
“I was using it,” she said, watching the television.
“Who on earth were you—oh. Brynn, no doubt.”
She nodded.
“Well anyway,” he went on, “I found an investor.”
“You did?” Startled, she looked up at him. “Who is it?”
“Anderson Lowell.” He sat on a chair and bent over to take off one of his black dress shoes.
She tried to muster some enthusiasm. “Well, that’s terrific. Congratulations.”
“Thanks.” He took off the other shoe and added, almost as an afterthought, “I turned him down.”
“You turned him down? Why?”
“Because he’s my grandfather’s arch enemy, that’s why. He gloated the whole time I was meeting with him. I knew what he was thinking. That it would kill my grandfather to know that I was begging him for money. If I agreed to let him back me, it would be selling out on my grandfather. Lowell is dying to get his hands on Lockwood Enterprises’ secrets and he thought I’d be willing to tell him if he paid my price. I thought I might be, too. But it turns out I’m not.” He sounded surprised by that turn of events.
“You did the right thing,” Emmaline told him.
“I don’t know about that. I can’t support you and our baby on thirty-seven dollars—and that’s what I have.”
“You don’t have to support me or our baby,” she told him. “I just need some time to—”
“It’s my baby, too,” he cut in. “I want to support it. I want it to have the best of everything. The finest education, accommodations, travels, opportunities. After all, I always did,” he pointed out. “And so did you.”
And look where it’s gotten both of us, she wanted to say, but didn’t.
“Then . . . if you turned down Lowell, what are you going to do next, Granger? I thought you said he was a last resort.”
“He was. I’m going to go back to work at Lockwood Enterprises.”
Her mouth dropped open. “You are?”
He nodded glumly.
“But, Granger . . . you can’t do that for . . .”
She trailed off, shaking her head.
She had been on the verge of saying, For me. But she reminded herself that he wasn’t doing it for her. He was doing it for the baby.
Which meant a lot. In fact, it should mean everything to her. He cared about their child. He wanted to be a good father.
Gazing at his earnest expression, she felt a pang. If only things could be different. If only there could be a fairy-tale ending for them. If only they were in love, and getting married, and could be a real family—Emmaline, and Granger, and their baby.
But fairy tales didn’t exist. Not in Verdunia, and not in New York. Not even for princesses.
He might be willing to support their child and to go back to Lockwood Enterprises, but he wasn’t willing to give up his bachelor lifestyle for her.
Then again, she hadn’t witnessed much carousing on his part in the past few weeks—not with anyone but her, she amended, feeling herself blush at the thought of their steamy nights together.
Yet when Emmaline had pressed her, Brynn confirmed Granger’s status as a love-’em-and-leave-’em ladies’ man.
“He’ll never settle down,” Brynn had told her. “So don’t get your hopes up.”
“My hopes aren’t up!” Emmaline had protested vehemently. “I told you, my relationship with Granger is strictly platonic. I’m just curious about what kind of man he is.”
“He’s precisely the kind of man you think he is,” Brynn said slyly.
But that didn’t help. Because at this point, Emmaline wasn’t sure what kind of man she thought Granger was. Every time she thought she had him pegged, he seemed to surprise her. She was beginning to wonder how well anyone knew him—including Brynn, perhaps even including Granger himself.
“Will your grandfather take you back?” she asked him now.
“He will if I beg.”
She could see that it was the last thing he wanted to do. Again she opened her mouth to protest.
But from the corner of her eye, she glimpsed a familiar face filling the television screen.
The interview with Remi was beginning.
“Look, Emmaline, I’m prepared to do whatever—” Granger broke off, frowned, and followed her gaze. “Prince Remi is giving an interview?”
“Yes. Shh.” She aimed the remote at the television, raising the volume.
“I’d be willing to guess that the topic isn’t a guided tour of the palace of Buiron,” Granger muttered, folding his arms and narrowing his gaze at the television.
“Your Royal Highness,” Debi Hanson said, “let me begin by asking how you have been coping without any idea where your beloved bride is, if you’ll ever see her again, or even whether she’s alive at all?”
“Now there’s an upbeat question,” Granger said.
“Shh!”
“I haven’t been coping well at all,” Prince Remi was saying as the camera shifted to a close-up of his face. “Every moment she has been gone has been a nightmare. Rather, nearly every moment.” He seemed to glance directly into the camera. “There have, of course, been times spent with dear friends who have no idea how much their support means.”
“Do you have any idea where Princess Emmaline might be—or who might be responsible for her disappearance?”
“I have no idea what may have befallen my beloved,” Prince Remi replied. “I can only hope for the best.”
“And fear the worst, I suspect,” Debi Hanson added.
“She’s a regular ghoul,” Granger declared.
“Shh!”
“Your Royal Highness, there is a possibility that Princess Emmaline might be watching this broadcast in some distant corner of the world,” Debi Hanson stated theatrically, in her most eloquent Barbara Walters imitation. “What would you say to her if you knew she was listening?”
The camera zoomed in closer still on the prince’s face.
“I would say . . .”
Emmaline watched in utter shock as Remi paused, appearing to be overcome by emotion. He bowed his head, as though attempting to compose himself. When he raised his face to the camera again, a tear glistened in his right eye.
“I would say, I miss you desperately, my beloved.”
His beloved? But . . .
He had never called her that.
“I adore you. You are as desirable, and as rare as . . . as a perfectly ripe raspberry . . .”
“A raspberry?” Granger snickered. “Did he just call you a raspberry?”
“. . . and I would do anything to taste, once again, what we shared—and to hold you in my arms again.”
To hold her in his arms again?
Baffled—yet undeniably moved—by his unabashed display of emotion, Emmaline thought back over their courtship. How often had she found herself in her fiancé’s arms?
Not nearly as often, she concluded, as she had found herself in Granger Lockwood’s these past few days.
Guilt surged through her.
“If you can hear me, darling, please know that there is nothing I wouldn’t give to have you here with me now—and forever.”
The scene shifted to a commercial. Emmaline stared unseeingly at the ubiquitous dancing juice carton, her mind racing.
“Well, that certainly puts an interesting spin on things,” Granger commented. “I had no inkling Prince Remi was so brokenhearted—or that he had such a fondness for fruit.”
“Nor did I.” Emmaline forced herself to look at him. “He seemed quite sincere, didn’t he?”
“He did,” Granger said with obvious reluctance. “Although I can’t say the same for Debi Hanson’s sob-o-rama. I’ll bet she sliced into a big, juicy onion off camera to summon that display.”
“Mmm hmm,” she said absently, stroking Kramer’s head as he rested it on the couch at her side.
“You know, this is the most idiotic commercial I’ve ever seen. If I see that idiot human carton doing the jitterbug one more time . . .”
Emmaline looked up at Granger.
He was glaring at the television, but she had the feeling his ire wasn’t directed at the dancing juice box.
If she stayed with him, he would go back to work for his grandfather—providing the old man would even take him back.
What if he wouldn’t?
Or what if he did, and Granger grew to resent her—and the baby? He would never forgive them for plunging him back into the world he had nearly escaped at last.
Meanwhile . . .
There was nothing Remi wouldn’t forgive. At least, that was what he’d said.
Could it possibly be true?
And did she dare put him to the test?
Emmaline glanced at Granger.
He was brooding.
She swallowed hard over the sudden lump in her throat.
The feelings were mutual!
Elated, Josephine turned off the television, silencing Debi Hanson’s narration of her sister’s childhood.
Remi loves me!
There was no doubt in her mind. All that talk about longing, and raspberries . . . she knew that he wasn’t referring to Emmaline.
Josephine strode across her bedroom, her first instinct to call Remi.
She stopped halfway to the telephone.
No.
For one thing, palace security probably had the phones tapped, in the event that Emmaline called. For another—
Wouldn’t it be better to go to Remi in person? To see his face when he admitted to her that he loved her?
Trembling, Josephine closed her eyes, recalling his yearning expression as he had looked directly into the camera. How easy it had been to imagine that he was looking directly at her.
Yet . . . what if she was mistaken?
What if Remi really did love Emmaline?
No.
No, he couldn’t possibly. And Emmaline didn’t love him. Emmaline had abandoned him. Humiliated him. Emmaline was in love with another man. If Remi knew the truth . . .
Josephine caught sight of herself in the mirror above her bureau. She gazed into her own eyes, searching for a sign—for her heart to send a go-ahead. Or perhaps for her conscience to put a halt to her impulse.
Her conscience was silent. Her heart was explicit.
Josephine was utterly consumed by her desire for Prince Remi. A desire so profound, so overwhelming, that it precluded all other emotion.
Perhaps the time had come to betray her sister’s confidence at last.
Seated in his sun-splashed private dining room, Prince Remi was halfway through his third slice of French toast with fresh raspberries and whipped cream when a butler discreetly interrupted his breakfast.
“I do apologize, but there’s a highly urgent telephone call for you, Your Royal Highness.”
“Is it Princess Josephine?” Remi asked, his stomach fluttering. He had yet to speak to the princess after his interview had aired. She was back in Chimera—which was probably the best thing for both of them. Still . . .
“No, it isn’t Princess Josephine.”
Remi sighed, his fork poised in front of his lips, his gaze on the sports pages of the morning newspaper—not something he typically read, but the only section that didn’t make mention of last night’s televised interview.
The Debi Hanson piece had aired live around the globe at eight o’clock New York time—which meant the wee hours in Buiron—Remi hadn’t slept a wink.
He growled at the nervously hovering butler, “I believe I asked you to hold all of my calls.”
“I beg your forgiveness, Your Highness, but as I said, this particular call is most urgent and requires your immediate attention.”
Remi sighed, wiped his lips with his ivory damask napkin, and pushed back his chair. “Very well, then. Who is it?”
He froze when he heard the butler’s reply.
“It’s Princess Emmaline.”
Ten
“Good morning, Mr. Lockwood!”
Standing beneath the canopied entrance to Lockwood Tower, a uniformed Carlos was his usual cheerful, professional self, but his expression revealed his shock at seeing Granger there.
Frankly, Granger was just as startled to see Carlos at this hour. He usually didn’t begin his Saturday shift before late afternoon.
“Good morning, Carlos,” he said. “Or should I say good evening? Either the subway took a good eight hours longer than it seemed to get me uptown, or your usual Saturday schedule has been changed.”
He knew that Carlos preferred to work Saturday evenings so that he could spend the days with his three young children—something Grandfather could never be expected to understand.
“Everything has changed since you left, Mr. Lockwood,” Carlos said a bit wistfully.
“For the better?”
Carlos looked around, as though expecting to see Grandfather looming over his shoulder. “Actually, it’s the opposite,” he confided. “And might I add that your grandfather has been in a foul mood ever since you left. I’m hoping the weekend in Newport will revive his spirits a bit.”
“Newport?” Granger’s heart sank. “Grandfather is in Newport?”
“He hasn’t been feeling well and he thought the sea air might do him good. He flew up last night.”
“When will he be back?”
“First thing Monday morning.”
Granger considered his options.
He could wait until Grandfather’s return to speak to him.
He could call the Newport house and do it over the phone.
Or he could catch the next train to Rhode Island.
Make that a bus, he thought, mentally counting the money in his pocket. He probably couldn’t afford the train. In fact, he wondered if he’d be able to afford the bus. He had never taken one before.
Of course, he could call Brynn and borrow money—or better yet, borrow her chauffeured limousine for the weekend. He was certain she’d be more than willing to help him accomplish this particular mission. Granger knew she thought he’d lost his mind and that she was more than willing to help him recover it.
But he wasn’t in the mood to explain himself to Brynn and hear her say, I told you so.
Not that she had told him so.
But she would have, if he had mentioned to her that he was thinking of giving up his job and his home and his wealth to . . .
To what?
What had he expected?
To be free?
Yes, that was what he had expected. But that was before Emmaline and her womb descended on him, forcing him to do the noble thing.
A bus ride to Rhode Island being the noble thing, at this point.
With a heavy sigh, Granger headed across town toward the Port Authority Bus Terminal, too broke to spring for another subway fare.
But not for long.
Surely the thirty-seven dollars would buy him a one-w
ay bus ticket—and that was all he’d need, of course. He could hire a limo or charter a plane to get home.
What if the old man tells you to get lost?
He scowled, trying to quell the annoying little inner voice, but it grew insistent.
What if you get all the way up there and Grandfather says he has no intention of ever welcoming you back?
What would Emmaline say if that happened?
He had left her asleep in the queen-sized bed, with Newman and Kramer snoring at her feet, when he stole out of the apartment that morning. Neither the princess nor his pets had stirred when he left.
He had slept on the pull-out couch, of course—like a rock, for a change. He was simply worn out from pounding the pavement these past few days—and from the soul-searching it had taken him to come to the realization that he needed the Lockwood fortune after all.
He and Emmaline could move right back into the penthouse. They could fix up one of the guest bedrooms as a nursery—and have it professionally decorated by someone with more pizzazz than Ann Smith.
He felt a twinge of excitement at the thought of it. They could buy a crib, and a high chair, and one of those tables you used to change babies—what was it called?
Oh yes. A changing table.
They could buy a changing table. And toys. And books. And lots of tiny clothes, in pink and blue and every other color he could think of. And a rocking chair so that when he got home from the office at night he could rock the baby to—
Wait a minute.
He was assuming that the baby—and Emmaline—would be living with him. Permanently.
That wasn’t going to happen.
But he realized that he wanted it to. Desperately.
He wanted it more than he had ever wanted anything in his life.
Maybe . . .
If Grandfather welcomed him back . . .
Maybe he could convince Emmaline to stay with him.
After all . . . where else did she have to go?
Emmaline was staring out the window when the motorcade pulled up at the curb.
She gaped in dismay at the row of gleaming black sedans, flanked by a police escort.
Oh no.
“How could he?” she muttered to Newman and Kramer, who were beside her, front paws resting on the windowsill as they, too, looked out into the street.