A Thoroughly Modern Princess Read online

  Certainly those differences wouldn’t doom a marriage. In fact, their disparate artistic tastes had sparked some of their livelier conversations, and invariably led to laughter and good-natured teasing.

  But Remi couldn’t imagine that mutual affection ever transforming into any semblance of passion.

  And a marriage without passion was . . .

  Well, it might have been acceptable for previous generations, or for future monarchs in other parts of the world. But Remi and Emmaline were modern young royals, graced with the many privileges bestowed by their bloodlines. Why couldn’t true love be among their blessings?

  Why, indeed?

  Because you must do your duty, Remi reminded himself with a sigh, looking out the window at the small graveyard filled with centuries-old stone monuments. And so must Emmaline. You owe it to your parents, and to your countries, and to each other.

  If only . . .

  Remi sighed again, as an image of the beguiling Princess Josephine flitted into his mind.

  If only they had selected the youngest of the three sisters as his intended bride. He had no more in common with Princess Josephine than he did with her sister—far less in common, perhaps. But something told him there was more to Josephine than met the eye.

  Not that what met the eye wasn’t incredibly pleasing.

  Remi was promptly consumed by the thought of Josephine’s mop of untamed black curls that just begged a man’s fingers to—

  There was a knock at the door.

  It was time.

  “Come in.” Remi swallowed hard and turned expectantly toward the doorway.

  King Thierry stood there, resplendent in his purple robe. Behind him was his security detail—and none of the three bodyguards made eye contact with Remi. That was odd.

  “Father, what are you doing back here?” Remi asked, striding toward him. “Shouldn’t you be in your seat waiting for . . . ?”

  Seeing the inscrutable expression on his father’s face, Remi trailed off. Clearly, something was wrong. His heart began to pound.

  “Remi, I’m afraid I don’t know how to say this,” his father began. “It’s Emmaline.”

  “Oh no. She isn’t . . . ?” Dread surged through him. Had there been some kind of accident on the way to the abbey? A terrorist bomb, or an assassination, or—

  “She’s gone,” King Thierry said flatly.

  “Gone?” Remi echoed, thoughts racing. “Gone where?”

  “Nobody knows. The abbey is in an uproar. She seems to have vanished into thin air en route to the ceremony. Either she met with foul play somewhere between the palace and here, or—”

  “Or she decided she couldn’t go through with the wedding,” Remi said, somehow knowing instinctively that his intended bride was safe.

  He closed his eyes and exhaled, wishing Emmaline well, wherever she was—and silently thanking her for sparing them both. Now perhaps he could convince Papa that Josephine—

  His father said, “You’d better hope that isn’t the case.”

  Remi opened his eyes, startled. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that if your bride has left you at the altar, she’s disgraced you in front of the entire world.”

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Remi said slowly. His initial elation at having been spared a loveless marriage promptly gave way to sheer humiliation.

  Of course his father was right. There was nothing worse than being jilted with millions of people watching. Was there?

  “Perhaps Emmaline has been abducted,” Remi suggested optimistically.

  “For her sake—and for Verdunia’s sake—I sincerely hope she has,” King Thierry said darkly.

  “Maybe I should have at least told Remi,” Emmaline said, as guilt seeped in somewhere over the Atlantic.

  “You couldn’t have.” Granger looked up from his shrimp cocktail. “You couldn’t tell a soul.”

  “I told Tabitha,” she pointed out.

  “You had to. She was your accomplice. Although you could have come up with a better story for her, other than—”

  “I told you to stop bothering me with that,” Emmaline snapped. “Tabitha’s story was sufficient.”

  “But people don’t vanish into thin air. Nobody’s going to believe her when she—”

  “It doesn’t matter who believes her! I keep telling you—what matters is that I’ve managed to escape Verdunia. And, of course, that Papa and Mother know that I’m safe and that I didn’t meet with foul play. But I can’t help feeling sorry for poor dear Remi.”

  Granger scowled as he dredged a fat pink shrimp through a pool of cocktail sauce. “If he was so dear, maybe you should have married him after all.”

  “You were the one who told me I shouldn’t marry him,” she reminded him, rather enjoying his childish, jealous tone.

  He looked up in surprise, the piece of shrimp poised midway to his mouth. “Is that why you’re doing this?” he asked incredulously. “Because I told you that you should be marrying for love?”

  Oh dear. What was he thinking?

  “Don’t flatter yourself, Granger,” she said abruptly. “I have a mind of my own, and I made it up without any help from you.”

  Well, that wasn’t entirely true, she reminded herself, watching him polish off the plump, oversized shrimp and reach for another.

  If only Granger had never started harping on her about her arranged marriage, she would never have felt the need to prove anything to him—or to herself. She would never have stolen out to meet him that moonlit, rose-scented night, would never have allowed him to kiss her, would never have . . .

  Well, it was too late for if-onlies now.

  And anyway, if none of that had ever happened, she would be dancing at her wedding right about now—which was the last place on earth she wanted to be.

  And what about this? she thought. Is this where you want to be? Single, and pregnant, and on a private jet bound for New York City with a man you barely know?

  A man who was now, she noted, eyeing her untouched shrimp cocktail as though he wanted to devour it. Which was precisely the manner in which he had looked at her that fateful evening.

  “Aren’t you going to eat that?” he asked politely.

  “No, thank you.” Actually, the smell of shellfish was making her queasy, and the ginger ale the galley attendant had brought her wasn’t helping.

  “Do you mind if I . . . ?” He was already reaching for her plate.

  She sighed. “Not at all.” She did mind, though she wasn’t sure why.

  Perhaps because, thanks to him, she was tormented by this so-called morning sickness round the clock.

  “I haven’t eaten all day,” he said unapologetically, digging in. “How about you? Aren’t you hungry?”

  “Not for shrimp.”

  “Well, Ambrose will be bringing the steaks out in a few minutes.”

  “Steaks?” The thought of red meat nearly made her gag. She tried to force the image away, but it persisted. A hunk of char-broiled meat, marbled with fat and oozing blood . . .

  “Uh-oh,” Granger said, “Don’t tell me you’re a vegetarian.”

  “Actually . . .” Emmaline swallowed hard, her stomach churning. Maybe she should just tell him the truth right here and now and get it over with.

  “Because I’m sure Ambrose can whip up some kind of pasta for you if you’d prefer it.”

  “Pasta?” Her stomach reverberated—this time out of hunger rather than nausea. She realized she hadn’t eaten since the breakfast she had thrown up just before donning her wedding gown.

  “The galley’s fully equipped,” Granger said, and added, “You can have anything you want.”

  If only that were true. Emmaline smiled wistfully at his words.

  Then she caught herself, and realized that everything had changed. Now anything was possible. She was free at last to follow her heart.

  The only trouble was . . .

  “What do you want?” Granger was asking.


  What did she want?

  A quick soul-searching yielded only “Pasta. I want pasta.”

  That was the best she could do for now. But it was a start.

  All other decisions would have to wait until she had some food in her stomach. After all, she was eating for two. And, judging by the way Granger had polished off both shrimp cocktails in a few minutes flat, she had her work cut out for her.

  Imagine that.

  Awestruck, she went completely still.

  Until this moment, she had been so caught up in the escape plot—and the exhausting charade as she went ahead with the flurry of wedding details back home—that she hadn’t stopped to contemplate the human life growing within her.

  Now the wonder of it all hit her full force.

  She was going to have a baby.

  Granger Lockwood’s baby.

  For the rest of their lives, they would be bound together by the child they had created.

  What would the baby look like?

  Would it be a little boy with Granger’s clear blue eyes?

  Or would it be a little girl who looked like Emmaline herself—a daughter, she vowed fiercely, who would never be confined by the boundaries of public palace life that had so severely restricted her mother’s childhood.

  This child would be free to live life to the fullest.

  And so will I, Emmaline vowed.

  “What are you thinking?”

  Startled by Granger’s voice, she found him watching her intently.

  “That I can’t quite believe this is happening,” she said truthfully.

  “You’re not having second thoughts?”

  Was she?

  Emmaline looked into Granger Lockwood’s eyes. Something stirred deep within her.

  Not the baby . . . it was too early, she reminded herself, for that. But someday soon, she knew she would feel their child squirming and kicking in her womb. And in the spring, she would cradle a newborn in her arms.

  Yet that was all that was certain about the future. For the first time in her life, she had no idea what tomorrow could bring.

  Emmaline realized, as she stared at the man who had inadvertently started all this with an enticing invitation to chat in the garden on a warm June day, that what she was feeling was a gush of happy anticipation.

  This was uncharted territory . . . and she wouldn’t trade it for the old life—or the new one she had been about to launch with Remi.

  An image of his face flashed before her, but she pushed it away. She didn’t want to worry about the man she had jilted. He might be hurt now, but she had done what was best for both of them. Someday he would know the truth, and he would understand.

  She simply couldn’t marry Remi carrying another man’s baby. She would never be able to hide the truth. He would know. The whole world would know. And her blatant betrayal was something no man in Remi’s position would ever be able to—or expected to—forgive.

  “No,” she told Granger. “No second thoughts.”

  “Good.”

  “How about you?” she asked him. “Do you have second thoughts about your role in any of this?”

  “Nope. I’m always up for an adventure . . . and I’m assuming we’re about to embark on one.”

  Emmaline looked him squarely in the eye and smiled. “You have absolutely no idea.”

  Four

  As the limousine pulled up in front of Lockwood Tower’s spot-lit rosy marble facade, Granger spotted Carlos, the longtime Saturday evening doorman, at his post. This wouldn’t be the first time Granger would whisk a high-profile female companion into the building after dark on a weekend, and Carlos could always be counted on for his discretion.

  Still, Granger wasn’t taking any chances. Before landing in New York, Emmaline had donned the blond wig he had brought along for her, and she was wearing a pair of oversized sunglasses despite the fact that the sun had set almost an hour ago.

  “Good evening, Mr. Lockwood,” Carlos said gallantly, as Jimmy, the chauffeur, opened the limo’s back door.

  Jimmy was also a longtime Lockwood family employee, hired by Grandfather half a century ago. At this late stage, Granger had serious doubts about the old man’s eyesight—which wasn’t very reassuring when you were a passenger and the old man was tooling along the FDR Drive at eighty miles an hour, but came in handy when you were sharing the backseat with a princess who very much needed to remain incognito.

  “Good evening, Carlos.” Granger stepped out onto the street and looked around.

  This block of Fifth Avenue was, as he had anticipated, all but deserted at this hour on a steamy Saturday evening in August. Most of the residents who could afford to live in this neighborhood could also afford beach houses or country estates. Virtually no one remained in this part of Manhattan but a couple of stray tourists.

  The Lockwoods were no different from their neighbors. Grandfather was spending a few days at his estate in South Hampton, and Granger—before he had quit the family business and before Emmaline had beckoned—had intended to head to Seaside Serenade, the family’s Newport mansion, for a typical weekend of sailing and tennis.

  But here he was, and there she was, Princess Emmaline, stepping out of the car and gazing up at Lockwood Tower, her expression masked behind the oversized sunglasses.

  Granger saw Carlos glance discreetly at her as he accepted her bag from Jimmy.

  Inner alarm bells clanged.

  Emmaline was virtually unrecognizable in the wig and glasses, and her clothing—those slim black pants, the figure-hugging sleeveless black top, and black flats suitable for sprinting—now seemed less cat burglaresque than urban casual chic.

  Still, Carlos wasn’t nearsighted, or farsighted. Nor was he the kind of man who would neglect to give a beautiful woman a thorough once-over. Since Saturday nights were slow, he seemed to spend a lot of time reading the tabloids at his post—and Emmaline’s face was invariably plastered all over them.

  Granger took Emmaline’s arm and swept her toward the building so quickly that Carlos barely beat them there to open the door for them.

  “Have a nice evening, Mr. Lockwood. You, too, ma’am,” Carlos called after them as he handed her bag over to Granger.

  “Thank you,” Emmaline returned in a flawless American accent—flawless, that was, for someone who’d been raised in the outer boroughs. Or Jersey.

  Impressed nonetheless, Granger waited until they had crossed the air-conditioned lobby, passed the stoic night security guard, and were on board the express elevator. He removed his bulging Tiffany key ring from his pocket and jabbed a key into the slot above the PH button.

  The moment the doors had slid silently closed behind them, he turned to her and said, “What happened to your accent?”

  “What accent?” she asked in her usual accent—a regal, lilting inflection reminiscent of her native tongue, which Granger happened to speak fluently, though they had always conversed in English until now. And she had wisely remained silent through Customs—where she showed the fake passport he’d obtained for her—and during the drive from the airport, as Granger and Jimmy exchanged the usual brief comments about the weather and the evening traffic.

  “That accent,” he said, pressing the button marked PH and raising an eyebrow at her. “But when you spoke to Carlos back there, it was gone. You sounded like—”

  “Like a New Yorker?” she asked hopefully in that nasal-sounding American accent again, as the elevator began to rise.

  He grinned, echoing, “A Noo Yawkah? How’d you learn to tawk like that?”

  “We get your television programs in Verdunia,” she informed him, obviously quite pleased with herself. “Of course, they’re mostly reruns of older shows, but I’ve been watching them and studying the characters’ speech patterns.”

  “Oh yeah? Which programs? The Nanny? The Sopranos?”

  “Both of those. Some others, too. How did you know?”

  “Lucky guess,” he told her. How was he going to break it to her t
hat she wasn’t going to blend into his world speaking like a cross between Fran Drescher and a hit man? “Listen, Your Highness—”

  “You shouldn’t call me that.”

  “I won’t, in public. But nobody’s—”

  “Don’t call me that in private, either,” she interrupted again. “Just call me Emmaline. Please.”

  For a moment there was silence, except for the jaunty, piped-in Muzak version of Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville.”

  Granger cleared his throat, suddenly aware that she was standing close enough for him to smell her floral French perfume.

  And to kiss her. If he wanted to.

  Not that he didn’t want to. But that wouldn’t be a good idea . . . even if they were alone. After all, she wasn’t there because she wanted to be with him. She was there because she wanted to get away from the man she was supposed to marry. The man she no longer wanted to marry because—

  Well, who knew why she had changed her mind about Remi and the royal wedding? He doubted it had anything to do with what had happened between the two of them that June night. He was no fool, and she had made it clear that they could have nothing more than a few stolen moments in each other’s arms. And he didn’t want anything more than that, then or now . . . did he? Did she?

  He looked at her, wishing he could see her eyes behind those damn glasses.

  “Emmaline,” he began.

  A smile curved her lips.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Your accent,” she said. “Saying my name. It sounds nice, Granger.”

  “I don’t have an accent,” he protested lamely, his breath catching in his throat at the unaccustomed sound of his name on her lips.

  “Oh, but you do.”

  He leaned a bit closer to her. “Can you please take off those glasses, Emmaline?”

  “I thought you said before that your housekeeper might be—”

  “In the apartment, yes. But she isn’t here in the elevator with us,” he pointed out, a bit hoarsely.

  “No,” she agreed, reaching for the glasses, “we’re quite alone.”