Once Upon a Prince

ELEVEN



Susanna packed up her laptop with the intent of showing Nate her initial garden plans, tucked his Brighton coin in her pocket, and picked up the printout from Friday’s edition of Brighton’s newspaper.

Prince Nathaniel’s American girlfriend!

The grainy image barely reflected people, let alone Nate and Susanna. Without the headline, those dark forms sitting on top of a picnic table could be anyone.

But Susanna recognized the back of the Rib Shack. Someone had been watching them.

The story under the photo was full of political fire she didn’t quite understand, and the whole thing fortified her resolve to confront Nate. The prince who’d brought his lie to her family’s doorstep.

Backing out of the driveway, she rehearsed her confrontation speech—so, you’re a prince?—while she paused at Rue’s birdhouse mailbox. She’d not bothered to check it in a couple of days, and sure enough, it was full of coupons and pizza fliers. And a perfumed letter from Aunt Rue.

Susanna idled on the edge of the driveway as she tore open the pink flap, releasing the fragrance of roses along with the note.

Dearest Susanna,

You know I love you dearly and you are the best tenant ever, but I am going to need my little ole St. Simons cottage by October. Did Gracie tell you?

Rue went on to explain when she would arrive and why she needed the cottage for the fall—she just had to get out of Atlanta for a while—and signed the note, Love and smooches, Auntie Rue.

Susanna tossed the letter on the passenger seat. She knew when she rented the cottage this could happen, though Gracie had assured her it never would. “Aunt Rue cannot tear herself away from the Atlanta fashion scene.”

But it was happening, and the timing felt more than a little coincidental. It felt nearly divine.

First Adam’s confession. Then Daddy’s heart attack, which somehow inspired her to quit her job. An impulsive but freeing move. Now she was losing her home. What’s up, Jesus?

Susanna shifted into gear and glanced in the rearview mirror to see her home fading away in the gauzy morning light.

At twenty-nine, her life was getting a redesign. Just like Nate’s old garden.

Speaking of—she’d researched him when she came home Wednesday night.

On Brighton’s royal website, she’d found his official biography. He was the thirtieth crown prince of Brighton, straight in the line of King Stephen I, who wrested Brighton from Britain’s King Henry VIII in 1545 and freed the small island nation from serfdom.

No wonder she felt like she peered into history when she looked into his eyes.

Nate had run his own communications company until he resigned last year. Speculation claimed his ill father was preparing him to be king.

But other than a few staid stories and photos of him at a state dinner or royal function or cheering on his brother, Stephen, who played rugby for the national team, Nathaniel kept a low media profile.

Susanna did find one raunchy story about him from ten years ago. Every European tabloid covered his disastrous public marriage proposal to someone named Lady Adel Gardner, a beautiful brunette.

Susanna read scads of corny headlines like “Adel, Adel, Ring the Prince’s Bell.”

Then time seemed to stop until he resigned and joined the “enterprise,” as the newspaper Liberty Press called the royal family.

About the time he resigned from his company, a Hessenberg tabloid, the Informant, ran stories and photos of Nate escorting a raven-haired beauty with pearly skin and vivid blue eyes about Cathedral City, Lady Genevieve Hawthorne.

In one of the pictures with Genevieve, Nathaniel wore his naval uniform, adorned with ribbons and medals, his arm wrapped loosely around her waist. They were surrounded by photographers. The headline read:

When a Prince Falls in Love, Brighton’s Future Appears Bright

The whole atmosphere in the picture felt mythical. A fairy tale. Prince Nathaniel and Lady Genevieve existed in a cosmic bubble where only the beautiful and talented were invited. Ordinary people were remanded to the earth, feet planted on the plain old ground. And she, Susanna Jean Truitt, was about as ordinary as they come.

But oh, he looked amazing in his uniform. Was that it? Was she a sucker for a man in uniform?

Maybe, but she’d never be a sucker for all those photographic eyes on her. How did Nate endure being watched? Critics dissecting his every move. Commenting with scrutiny and judgment.

Then she found a headline all but announcing Nathaniel’s engagement.

Prince Nathaniel’s Marriage to Lady Genevieve Hawthorn Solves It All Bookmakers Give 3-to-1 for End-of-Year Proposal

She had clicked off the internet at that point. He was practically engaged?

Mama didn’t schedule him to work Thursday night, but Susanna was kind of missing him when she got home so she brought up the royal website again. Her first glimpse of him in royal finery made her heart clutch.

Then she spotted a link to an early edition of Friday’s Liberty Press and nearly fell out of her chair when the image of her with Nate splashed on her screen.

Susanna downshifted, circling the Frederica Road roundabout on this Friday morning, her windows powered down, bales of hot gusts tumbling through her car.

Who took the picture of them the other night?

And how did it get into a Brighton paper?

Whipping into Nate’s place, she parked in the same spot she had the other day, under an oak canopy, and fired out of the car, bothered, ready to confront.

“Susanna, fair lass, good to see you.” Nate watched her from the front porch, leaning against a white column, relaxed in his board shorts and bare feet.

“Y–you too.” The sight of him— The sound of him— His casual but oh-so-larger-than-life confidence dissolved her steely resolve.

“Come, sit in my garden.” He waved her to the veranda. “Or what will be my garden.”

“I brought some plans for you. Well, a few rough ones.” Her voice sounded cardboard and fake. Just be yourself. What’s changed really?

Everything.

Gathering her things, she formed a strategy. Work first, royal truth second. He waited for her with a cute, quirky smile on his face that made her feel all gummy inside.

She stumbled up the steps.

“Careful there.” He offered his hand.

“I got it.” But she tripped up the last step and nearly stumbled to her knees. She grabbed for his hand.

“Steady now. You all right?”

Clinging to him, she righted herself with a deep inhale. “I’m fine, except you seem to constantly rescue me.” Then she … bobbed. Down then up. A weak, broken curtsy.

“Susanna.” Nate held on, keeping her steady. “Are you all right? What were you doing?”

“Tricky thing …” She patted her knee. “Old volleyball injury.” He was a prince. A flipping prince.

“Trick knee? Really? Because for a moment, I don’t know, it looked like you were trying to curtsy.”

“Curtsy, why would I curtsy?” Susanna, hello, open door. Walk through it.

“I’ve seen enough bad curtsies to know.”

Okay, now he was messing with her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“How did you find out?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“How did you find out?”

“I started this. Why didn’t you tell me?”

He sighed, dug his hands into his pockets, and looked out over the lawn. “Because people change. By the way, you’re American. You’re not required to curtsy.”

“Required? People are required to curtsy?”

“Yes.” He squinted at her, the wind running under the veranda eaves and tugging at his thick, dark hair emptied Susanna of her breath. “It’s etiquette. Honor. Respect.”

“Honor?” Her sense of awe waned, and Susanna found her good-ol’-girl courage. “Did you honor me by lying, telling me your name was Nate Kenneth when you’re actually Prince Nathaniel Henry Kenneth Mark Stratton of the House of Stratton?” She stood toe-to-toe, eye-to-eye with him on the veranda.

“Hey, I don’t make the rules; I just live by them.” His calm, flirty demeanor hardened. “I use Nate Kenneth when on personal travel.”

“Okay, fine, it’s your code name. But why didn’t you tell me?”

“When would I have told you?”

“When we met. When I said, ‘My name is Susanna Truitt,’ and you should’ve said—”

“Hello, my name is Prince Nathaniel? You can’t be serious.”

“I am serious. It’s who you are, isn’t it?”

“I am also Nate Kenneth.” He motioned with a grimace to where she’d just curtsied. “I didn’t tell you because I liked being a regular bloke around you. We got on well. If I say, ‘Oh hey, Suz, I’m a prince,’ it turns all weird between us.” Nate, rather Nathaniel, brushed around her toward the front door, his stride determined and angry.

“It’s weird between us because you didn’t tell me.”

At the door, she inched past Jon, who all but blocked her back with his scowl. “His Majesty went to the garden.”

“Thank you.” Obviously, Jon had the prince’s back. Susanna found him on the veranda, angled forward in a porch chair, arms propped on his legs. “Nate?”

He stood at the sound of her voice. “I’m sorry, Susanna.”

“Yeah, me too.” She slipped her laptop to the table and sat in the chair next to Nate. “I had this whole scenario worked out in my head, which sounded nothing like what came out of my mouth.”

“I sounded like an arrogant prig.” He shook his head, regret in his tone, in his expression. “Susanna, I didn’t lie to you. I am Nate Kenneth. I have been since university. Believe me, Prince Nathaniel is not a name you want on your school records.” He held up his hands like reading a check list. “David, Misha, Prince Nathaniel …” His droll expression made Susanna laugh.

“Yeah, I guess that does throw things off a bit.”

“Being Nate Kenneth put me on equal footing with all the other students. Now that I’m in the family enterprise, Nate Kenneth is fading under Prince Nathaniel’s auspicious light. It’s rare I keep company with anyone, man or woman, who isn’t aware of who I am or who I am to be. With you, I was just a man on holiday with a few chaps. Forgive me if I didn’t want to ruin my chances to spend time with a beautiful, charming woman.”

Beautiful? Charming? Was she mad at him? In light of his compliment, hiding his identity didn’t seem so bad. “I was more helpless than beautiful or charming.” Susanna retrieved the Brighton coin from her pocket. “This was in Mickey’s tip jar.”

“Ah, I see.” Nate took the coin from her. “I just grabbed the change off my bureau. Didn’t realize this was in the mix.”

“I was about to put it in the jukebox when I noticed something different.”

“This was the coin for my twenty-first birthday.” He set the silver piece on the table. “I regret you feel I dishonored you in any way, Susanna. That was never my intent.”

“I just would’ve liked to have known before I called you bubba or made you clean toilets.”

He laughed. “But that’s what I loved. Just a mate doing a job. Please tell me you didn’t out me to your mum.”

“I didn’t.”

“Good.” Nate smiled. “I’d like another shift at the Shack. And I find your mum charming.”

“Charming? Yeah, well, she’s a piece of work.”

“But an interesting piece of work.”

“She’d consider that a high compliment.” Susanna angled around for her laptop bag, pulling out the Liberty Press story. “I found this too.”

Nate reached for the printout. “Yeah, Jon showed this to me during breakfast. I’m so sorry, Susanna.”

“I don’t understand. Who took this picture?”

“Good question.”

“Did Jon? Or Liam?”

Nathaniel recoiled. “I certainly hope not. Their jobs depend on trust and discretion. We wonder if it might not have been someone from the Butler benefit. The LibP invites readers to send in photographs and such.”

“Am I safe? My family?”

“Yes, love, yes. You are perfectly safe. This is about me. But be assured the King’s Office and security detail are investigating.” He fluttered the printout onto the table, his demeanor hardening a bit. “I’m sorry for the invasion into your life, love.”

“No, no, it’s fine.” She waved off his apology, liking the sound of love on his tongue. “I couldn’t read the whole story without a subscription. What’s this deal with the Grand Duchy Hessenberg?”

“The 1914 Entailment is coming to an end.”

“The one where Hessenberg was given, or whatever, to Brighton for a hundred years?” Susanna had to do a mental dig into her high school history archives. “The Grand Duke spent all of Hessenberg’s money, or something like that, and he wasn’t ready for the coming war. So he aligned with Brighton for protection.”

“Ah, the American knows her history. Brilliant.” Nate sat forward, the shadows of his expression fleeing in a light of authority. “The agreement ends soon and is causing great political strain.”

“Because …” Susanna propped her chin in her hand and leaned into the summer sun, listening, seeing pieces of the prince in the man as he spoke.

“My great-great-grandfather and Prince Francis were cousins.”

“As were all European royalty.”

“At that time, yes.” Nate settled back, relaxed. At home. “He felt for Francis when he came to him for help. But he feared compromising Brighton’s sovereignty if he left Francis on the throne as the Grand Duke. So he demanded the surrender of all land and resources and the rights to the throne.”

“If I recall, the German Kaiser and the Russian Tsar—”

“Wilhelm II and Nicolas II—”

“—were ticked at Francis for making the deal.”

“Extremely. So much so his life was threatened. He fled to Sweden while the rest of the royal family hid in Brighton and England.”

“He never married, right?”

“He did not, so his brother’s eldest daughter was the heir apparent.”

“And the end of the entail needs her or one of her descendants to step up.”

Nathaniel laughed softly. “By George, I think she’s got it. ‘Tis true, love, yes. But the House of Augustine-Saxon has not been heard from in sixty years.”

“How do you lose an entire royal family?”

“Two world wars for starters. Prince Francis’s brothers, nieces, and nephews fled during the first war. During the second, they seemed to disappear entirely. My father believes they might have changed their names to get a fresh start.”

“What happens to Hessenberg if there is no heir?”

“They will cease to be an independent nation and become a permanent part of Brighton.”

Susanna let the notion sink in, developing a mental picture to match his words. “Wow, that’s pretty serious.”

“Many in Brighton Kingdom and Hessenberg agree.”

“And you?”

“I agree with them. Brighton and Hessenberg are like two sisters adrift at sea. When one struggles, she reaches out to the other, thus dragging her down. They struggle, fight for their lives, and one, usually Brighton, manages to keep her head above water and save her sister. Then, a few years pass and down goes one again, usually Hessenberg, and Brighton reaches down to pull her out of her troubles. But not without nearly drowning herself.” He exhaled and gazed toward the white-tipped waves barely visible above the low stone wall. “The theory is that if Hessenberg becomes sovereign again, both economies will rebound. They’ll be looked at as independent trade and revenue resources.”

“So they really need their independence.”

“And they’d have it if there were no heir clause in the entail.”

“No way around it?”

“Around it? No, love, but there is a way through it. Though it just might come with a very high cost.” He’d ceased talking to her and spoke to himself, to the wind and waves, to God. “Know what?” He brought his focus to her with a spreading smile. “I don’t want to talk politics. I’d much rather see your drawings for the garden. Did you bring a contract?” Nate stepped toward the screen door. “Jon, bring ’round the checks, please.”

He dragged his chair next to Susanna’s as she booted up her MacBook. “Am I forgiven?”

“For not telling me … yes, of course.” When she peered at him, he was staring at her and for a moment, she understood the burden he carried.

“Nate”—she pressed her hand on his arm—“whatever the cost, do it. Or help the people do it, whatever it is. Perhaps you were born for such a time as this. God knew you’d be born thirty-two years ago. He knew you’d be the crown prince right when this entail thing ended. That whatever solution was needed, you’d be the man.” She gave his shoulder a playful punch.

“Then he also knew I’d meet you.” His posture remained stiff and forward, his focus glued to the computer.

“Meet me?” His confession sent a fiery flutter through her heart. “W–what do you mean?”

“I mean …” He hesitated, motioning to her computer. “Let’s see your grand design.”

Susanna launched her design software and opened “A King’s Garden Project,” aware of Nate, aware of what he’d just confessed, aware she might never understand his implication, God also knew I’d meet you. “Here we go … now, remember, it’s rough.”

“I’m sure it’s excellent.” He glanced at her, a softer light in his eyes now, looking both rugged and boyish with his thick bangs arching over his forehead, flitting in the occasional breeze.

“I called it ‘A King’s Garden’ before I knew.” Susanna shoved the computer toward him, giving him a better angle on the design.

“‘Tis a perfect name.” He cleared his throat as he contemplated her drawing, a thin sheen in his eyes. After a minute, he said, “It’s lovely, Susanna.” He tapped his chest. “I can feel it.”

Quiet fell between them. Susanna studied him, wrestling with the notion that the man who changed her tire, drove her to the hospital, cleaned toilets to Mama’s pure satisfaction was a European royal prince.

A mental shiver ended her imaginings. Out of context, it seemed impossible. She preferred the man sitting next to her on a Georgia veranda, with his bare toes curled in a spotlight of sun, to a prince.

“Do you know Prince William?” A random thought became a random question.

Nate peeked over at her with a sly grin. “He’s a good mate, yes.”

“Wow …”

“Wow? I get a blessing out and Prince William gets a wow?” His laugh returned him to the Nate she’d come to know in the last week.

A week? When did six days turn into forever?

“You got a wow from Mama for your bathroom-cleaning superpowers,” she offered with an arched brow and a laugh.

“That’s right.” He pointed at her. “I’d like to see Will do such a bang-up job, winning over the glorious Miss Glo.” He used Mama’s staff nickname as if he’d grown up with her. “Hey, are you working tonight?” He shoved back from the table.

“No, I actually have the night off. If you liked the garden, I planned to work on finishing the design, start making calls, and get a crew lined up.”

“It’s Friday, Suz.” Nate spread his arms like powerful, muscled wings. “Work is for the week. As your new client, I say we oil up the old bikes Liam discovered in the garage and go riding. Show me your beautiful island.”

“A bike ride? Really?” She’d been intending to do that for such a long time.

“As your ace number-one client—”

“My only client.”

“I demand you take me on a biking tour. What do you think? Put our woes and concerns behind us.”

“I don’t know,” she said, looking at her laptop. “I’d planned on working. If you want this garden done soon …”

“I want it done when it’s done.” He made a funny jig toward the garage. “A biking we will go, huh? Please?”

“No, really, I can’t.” She shook her head. Resist. Or fall.

“Susanna.” Nate bent over, his hands propped on the arms of her chair, hemming her in. “Do me the honor of spending the day with me.”

The man personified every imagining she’d had of Prince Charming. A most sincere Prince Charming. The no, knocking around her thoughts, found no open doors. Her heart utterly refused to answer. “I know the perfect place to have lunch.”

“Grand.” Nate jumped up, taking her with him and catching her up in his arms. He whirled her around with a merry laugh.