A Royal Marriage by Cara Colter

Author:Cara Colter
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781460369425
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

She was shaking, partly from the shock of being called “princess” for the first time, and partly because of the grave look on Damon’s face.

He led her from the house, back into the bright sunshine. Underneath a massive oak stood a wooden glider swing and he guided her toward it. It faced a phenomenal view—Roxbury castle far below them and to the east, surrounded by lush meadows and woodlands, and beyond that the restless sea. At any other time, it seemed to her, this landscape would call her and soothe her and hold her. Even now, despite her distress, she had an odd feeling of homecoming.

Damon brushed off the seat for her and she wondered if she would ever become accustomed to the natural way in which he treated her like a queen. He settled her on the swing before he sat down beside her.

Again she noted that Damon had not seemed himself since the wedding, and now he looked more troubled than ever.

She made herself focus, forced herself to ignore the scent of him that enveloped her, headier than the scents of the spring day, headier than wine.

“Tell me,” she implored him.

He was silent for a moment, and Rachel could tell he was organizing his thoughts, which only filled her with more dread. And then he took her hand in his own.

This, too, seemed right, as if when her strength was at its lowest ebb, he would lend her some of his. And that someday his would be a low ebb, and she would give him hers. She felt this was a vow between them, even though it remained unspoken.

“Roland Thorton told me that at the coronation celebration of King Phillip of Wynborough a note had surfaced. Kept top secret, it claimed that the grand duke’s illegitimate daughter had been kidnapped.”

Rachel recalled, vaguely, a media feeding frenzy around the coronation anniversary event just a short while ago. It had seemed so unrelated to her plain and ordinary life that she had largely ignored it. Station, she could ignore. Pain, she could not.

“My God, what a harrowing thing. I can imagine the terror I would feel if something like that happened to Carly,” Rachel said, and understood that seeming to have everything in the world was not all it appeared. Perhaps, sometimes, it just made a person a desirable target. “That poor, poor child, an innocent victim in all this.”

“She’s not exactly a child. The duke’s daughter is full grown.”

“It’s not common knowledge, is it, that the duke had a daughter? Something else I’ve missed by not being a great reader of the tabs.”

Why did his eyes look so sympathetic?

“No, it’s not common knowledge. Even the tabs never dug that out. But someone did, and they have used the knowledge in the most terrible way. Because of the bad blood between our two families, Roland took it upon himself to come to Roxbury to see if we were the perpetrators of this crime.”

“That’s absurd. You? He doesn’t know you

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