The Prince's Wedding Page 8

  ... there is no other option.

  Lucas's words echoed ominously in her mind. She felt panic welling up inside her, and quickly stepped out of the room, stopping only to let Eliya know to keep an eye on the baby as he slept.

  She ran downstairs to the kitchen, intending to retrieve her boots and heavy sheepskin jacket from the rack in the mudroom and take a head-clearing ride on Brat.

  Mrs. Winstead was standing at the large center island, kneading a large lump of bread dough with intense concentration. She looked up when Jessie came in and gave her a smile.

  "The little one's napping?"

  Jessie nodded. "Eliya's with him."

  "She seems like a nice enough sort. And she has a way with the baby."

  "Yes."

  "She's been taking care of him since they got him?"

  "Yes," Jessie said again. "But she told me Lucas has been quite involved." Her mouth twisted up at one corner. "It was part of her campaign to convince me the Sebastianis are unique among royals, I think. They don't believe in handing their children over to others to raise, as most royal families do. Queen Gwendolyn has strong feelings about that."

  Mrs. Winstead frowned. "But he's not all theirs."

  And there it was, Jessie thought. She sank down into her mother's old rocker. The thought of being separated from her child again was unimaginable, but....

  ... there is no other option.

  "They'll never give him up," she said, almost to herself.

  "But you're his mother. You have rights."

  Jessie laughed, and it was a melancholy, almost bitter sound. She'd been trying not to think about this, but now the words burst from her.

  "Do you have any idea what kind of custody battle it would be, me against the entire royal family of Montebello? With their resources? Not much of one, and I know who would lose."

  Mrs. Winstead paled, and Jessie knew the kindly woman was quite aware of what losing her baby all over again, even to the luxury of a royal life, would do to her.

  She might as well have died at Gerald's hands.

  He'd blown it.

  Lucas had never proposed to a woman before; that had been the problem, he decided. The arrangement for him to marry the daughter of a minor British royal had been made by his parents, and it hadn't survived the revelation of Luke's existence. Not surprisingly, the lady hadn't wanted this child to precede any she might have in the line of succession.

  At least he hadn't had to deal with that, he thought. He'd never proposed to anyone before, but therefore he'd never broken off an engagement, either. He imagined it wouldn't be pleasant, no matter what the circumstances. But his father had dealt with it, somehow managing to soothe ruffled feathers in the process. It was one of those times when he'd despaired of ever having his father's diplomatic talent.

  He could have used some of it when he'd presented the facts to Jessie, too. But now that he'd done it so badly, the problem was how to undo the damage.

  For one of the few times in his life—his life as Lucas, anyway—he wasn't sure what to do. His instinct said to give her time to calm down, but his heart wanted to rush all fences, for fear she would slip away. He'd tried so hard to be fair, tried to let her know what it would really be like. Hadn't he lived with the ups and downs all his life, minus those precious months when he'd been simply a man called Joe? Taking on the kind of life he lived was no simple proposition. He knew that.

  But now he wasn't sure if it was his presentation that had sent her running, or simply the fact that she truly hated the idea of his kind of life.

  "Problem, Your High—Mr. Sebastiani?"

  Only when Lloyd's quiet query stopped him did Lucas realize he'd been pacing the living room floor. He turned to look at the man who had been in his father's employ for years, just as Lloyd's own father had been. "Yes," he said bluntly. "Americans."

  He thought he saw the man's mouth quirk slightly. "They are a unique breed, sir."

  "Arrogant."

  "Sometimes," Lloyd agreed.

  "Stubborn."

  "Often."

  "Ethnocentric."

  "That, as well."

  This time Lucas's mouth quirked. "Independent," he said.

  "Incredibly."

  "Generous."

  "To a fault."

  "Able to laugh at themselves."

  "Delightfully so."

  "Admirable."

  "In countless ways."

  Lucas's tone softened as he said, "Brave."

  "Oh, yes." Lloyd smiled. "Most definitely brave."

  Lucas sighed. "So how can I change the mind of one particular brave, stubborn American?"

  Lloyd frowned. "Change her mind, sir?"

  Lucas noticed Lloyd had no doubt who he was speaking of, which didn't surprise him. He almost wished he hadn't started this, but he figured Lloyd had a better view of things, since he wasn't in the middle of the forest, as it were.

  "She doesn't like the idea of.. .a royal life," Lucas said. He wasn't about to admit to the man that in his effort to be fair he'd made a royal hash out of asking her to marry him.

  "Perhaps she simply does not wish to leave her country," Lloyd said. "Americans are notoriously loyal, after all."

  "She wouldn't have to leave, not really. She could return for extended visits anytime, and there's such a thing as dual citizenship."

  "Is it...." The man paused, coughed delicately, and didn't go on until Lucas made a prodding gesture with his hand. "Is it the idea of a monarchy, perhaps? Americans do tend to believe in the rule of the common man."

  " 'Of the people, by the people, for the people' and all that? I know. But she's never met my father, or she would know that's exactly how he rules."

  "Then does she have some objection to Montebello in particular?" Lloyd asked in a tone that made clear he didn't see how that was possible.

  "She's never been there, so how could she?"

  "Hmm. And you've discussed all this with her, and she still won't see reason?"

  Lucas felt himself flush slightly. "Well.. .No."

  "I see."

  And so, suddenly, did Lucas. He'd blundered this from the very beginning.

  "May I dare to suggest you do so, sir? And slowly, if I might add. Miss Chambers does not seem the type of woman to be rushed."

  "No, you're right. She'll just dig in her heels even more."

  "Precisely."

  Encouraged at last, Lucas started toward the door, eager now to go find Jessie. He had his hand on the knob, then stopped and looked back over his shoulder.

  "Thank you, Lloyd."

  "My pleasure, sir."

  Ironic, Lucas thought. After all his flings, all his casual affairs, the first time he seriously, genuinely cared about a woman, he couldn't do a thing right. Or perhaps because he seriously, genuinely cared.

  As he stepped outside, he wondered if his father had chosen the perceptive, wise Lloyd to accompany him for more than just security reasons. Perhaps, Lucas thought wryly, his equally wise father realized his idiot son was going to need other kinds of help to avoid making a botch of everything.

  She'd given up on sleep, and after checking to be sure Luke was sleeping peacefully and that Eliya was within earshot, Jessie went out to the barn. Brat seemed surprised, but more than willing to allow her to run the soft finish brush over her already gleaming hide. Jessie guessed if she dragged out the hoof pick or started thinning the mare's thick tail, her mood would change rapidly. So she settled for the rhythmic brushing that was a balm to both of them.

  When Lucas showed up after barely five minutes had passed, she knew he'd been watching her. She'd seen little of him since that horrible business proposition, and she would have preferred to keep it that way a bit longer. But now that he was here, she decided a quick departure would betray how frightened she was, which in turn would show him just how much power he had over her.

  As if he doesn't already know, she told herself sourly. As Lucas or Joe, he had never been stupid.

&nbs
p; "I've been thinking," she said quickly, before he could speak.

  "Oh?" He sounded wary, cautious, and somehow that pleased her.

  "Maybe we could work out some sort of joint custody. Luke could come to Montebello for summers. Of course, not until he's older, but eventually."

  Lucas looked at her steadily, and she knew before he answered what he would say. "I'm sorry, Jessie. That won't work. This is a process that takes a lifetime. Luke must be groomed for his future from the very beginning."

  "You mean, the indoctrination starts before he's even old enough to talk?"

  Her tone was acid, but she couldn't help it. That his was so gentle only made it worse.

  "I know this is very different to you, but—"

  "Different? No, we see it all the time here." She was intimidated by this Lucas, this man with a much-loved face but a very different soul. But this was her son she was fighting for, she had to be strong. "Parents who decide they want the next prodigy of tennis, or golf, or whatever, and force their child onto a path they never would have chosen for themselves. Do you know how many lives, how many families have been ruined by that kind of thinking?"

  "This is different. This is what Luke was born for."

  "That," Jessie snapped, "is the biggest load of hooey I've ever heard."

  "What about Brat?" he asked, gesturing toward the horse made restless by the agitated voices. "I think you'd be the first to say she was born to be a cow horse."

  "Yes, she was," Jessie fired back. "But I never assumed she was. We let her grow up like all the horses do, and found out naturally that she had the talent. And if she hadn't, nobody would have forced her to do it!"

  He had the grace to at least look as if he'd lost that point, so she pressed on.

  "Besides, Luke is a child, not a quarter horse. What if he has a knack for numbers, or science, or even medicine? What if he could be the doctor or researcher who cures cancer, but he never gets the chance because he's locked away in some moldy palace somewhere?"

  "My parent's home is not moldy."

  That he seized on that idiocy to respond to only irritated her further. "Then it's their thinking that's moldy. Luke should be able to choose his own future. Every child should have that right."

  "I can't do that to my family. Not after what they've been through."

  Jessie's tenuous hold on her temper snapped. "What about what we've been through?"

  The look that came across Lucas's face then made her anger drain away as quickly as it had risen. For the first time she realized she wasn't the only one under pressure. Lucas was also under tremendous strain. And right now he looked incredibly, devastatingly weary, and when he spoke, his voice echoed the look. "Sometimes I think I'd be happier if I'd never gotten my memory back."

  Chapter 8

  It was a long, sleepless night for Jessie. Lucas had recovered quickly from that moment of what she was sure he would call weakness, and had gone on to give her yet another sales pitch on how life could be, the possibility of dual citizenship, how she would love Montebello, how she would see his father ruled wisely and well, and how she could also visit here anytime she wanted.

  As if that would be enough, occasional short visits to the place where her heart, where her very soul, lived, she thought wearily.

  She spent the morning with baby Luke and trying to avoid Lucas however she could. She feigned sleep when he knocked on her bedroom door; she peeked into the kitchen to be sure it was clear before she went in; and she dodged into her father's study when Lucas came in through the front door as she was heading out the same way.

  Finally she escaped him long enough to gather some things and get to the barn. Quickly she saddled Brat and sent the buckskin off at a gallop. As if sensing her urgency, the mare put her head down and ate up the distance with her long, smooth strides.

  Again Jessie headed for her favorite thinking spot. She knew it was going to take her a very long time to work through her tangled emotions, so she had prepared for a long day and possibly evening, with food, water, her heavy jacket and a thick roll of blankets tied behind her saddle. Once she was out of sight of the house she let Brat pick the pace, and since the mare's blood was up, she ate up the distance with a ground-covering lope most of the way.

  When Jessie arrived at her bluff-top lookout, she set up camp with more concentration than was really necessary and settled down on the thick blankets. She waited for the peace she always felt here to flood her, but she soon realized that even this special place couldn't help her with this decision. That there was no help to be had with this decision.

  It was impossible. She couldn't, wouldn't, give Luke up. She'd thought she'd lost him once; she could never go through that again. Nor could she surrender him to a world where his life was laid out like a route on a map he had no choice but to follow. But how could she fight an entire royal family? And one of the wealthiest royal families in the world? How could she, with her only resource this land she loved—free of debt only because of her father's financial cleverness—ever fight such a powerful family?

  Because she had little doubt the entire Sebastiani family would rise up against her with the cadre of lawyers they no doubt had.

  And all she had was a mother's love.

  She would like to think the court would find that more valuable than wealth, but it had been proven too often that in America, you could buy your version of justice. Slick lawyers could manipulate the system until fairness was just a memory.

  And what if his lawyers found a way to have the case moved to Montebello? It didn't seem possible, but again, vast wealth could literally move mountains. And in Montebello, she had even less faith in her chances.

  Sometimes I think I'd be happier if I'd never gotten my memory back, Lucas had said.

  She couldn't argue with that. She'd be happier, too. She and Joe would have had at least a fighting chance. She and Lucas seemed to be floundering in a morass there was no escape from, and the more they struggled, the deeper and deeper they sank.

  How had something so beautiful become something so painful? How had things gotten so confused, so ugly?

  She sat for hours, watching the light shift and change across this land she loved, this land that was in her blood. She barely moved until the afternoon shadows drove her to pull on her heavy coat and to light a fire.

  When night fell, she was still there, huddled before the fire, thinking. She finally admitted she couldn't see any way out of this, short of taking the baby and running away. Even as the thought formed, she admitted that it would be defeating the purpose, and hardly true to what she wanted for her son. She wanted him to know the life she'd known, clean and simple and honest, before he had to go out and face life in a world that too often wasn't that way.

  But how could she fight the Sebastianis? And how on earth had it become so muddled that she had to fight the father of her son, the man she'd fallen in love with when she—and he—hadn't known who he was?

  She thought of all the long, lonely nights after he'd gone, when she'd ached for him, when she'd cried out at the loss of his touch. She thought of the nightmare time in that cellar, feeling terrified and alone as the only piece of Joe she had left was stolen from her.

  She thought of the shock that had filled her when Ursula had tossed that newspaper down in front of her and ordered her to look at the photograph of the face that was so familiar and yet so strange. And she thought of the nights since they'd come back here, nights spent in an agony of need as he slept just across the hall, yet she couldn't—wouldn't—go to him. He'd made it clear he still wanted her, and God knew she still wanted him, but things between them were too confused, too complicated, and she didn't know if, let alone how, they could ever be straightened out.

  The sound of someone calling her name yanked her out of her painful reverie. She glanced at her watch, had to tilt it until she could see the tiny glowing hands pointing nearly to midnight. After a couple of minutes the call came again, and this time there was no mistakin
g the source of the booming voice.

  Lucas.

  She didn't want to see him. Not yet. She was far from any kind of decision, and facing him would only make her feel more coerced. Right now she was angry at life, fate, the world, and whatever else had conspired to put her in this impossible position.

  But she knew sooner or later he would see her fire, it would be impossible to miss that beacon in the night, so she tried to brace herself. At last she could see him riding toward her, on the big bay gelding he'd always ridden before. As Joe.

  And for an instant she was back in that sweet, breathless time before the ugliness had closed in. The time when she'd reveled in falling in love, truly in love, for the first time in her life. The time when she'd been able to dismiss her lover's lack of memory, lack of a past, as a mere annoyance, of no importance when compared to his love.

  Too bad she couldn't dismiss the return of that memory as easily.

  But she couldn't. He was who he was, who he had always been. He rode through the night with the same easy grace that had always made her stomach knot, but now, instead of looking eagerly forward to his presence, instead of anticipating the wildfire that would leap in her at his touch, all she could think was that he had likely learned to ride by playing polo. Didn't all princes learn that way?

  He called her name again, and then again, and finally some undertone in his voice penetrated her mood. He sounded.. .worried, she thought. In fact, there was an edge in his voice that sounded almost like panic, were such a thing possible in the self-contained, polished Prince Lucas.

  For all her confusion about him, it wasn't in her to let anyone worry needlessly. She'd been through too much of that herself. Reluctantly she rose to her feet. In the moment before she could call out in answer, she saw the big bay spring into a lope. Lucas must have spotted her fire.

  For a moment she admired his skill in the saddle. No matter how or where he'd learned, he was a magnificent rider. And then the bay came to a skidding, dirt-throwing stop she hadn't known he was capable of. Lucas leapt off the animal and hit the ground running in a single flying motion. He covered the few feet between them in two long strides, but before he even stopped moving he had grabbed her shoulders and was yelling at her. It took her a moment to make sense out of his tirade.