Royal Bastard

PROLOGUE Angela 1983 I stared at my reflection in the mirror, teasing my golden, feathered hair to get it to curl just right before I sprayed it with hairspray to cement it in place. I glanced at my eyes. The eyeliner was perfect for a change, as was the blush. I smiled a secret smile because I had a secret. A secret that would change my life forever, and it wasn’t just the man in my life. He was a part of it, of course, the man who I only knew as Eddie, but it was more what we had created that made happiness sparkle in my eyes. My hand went to my still-flat stomach. Our baby. Tears pricked my eyes for the hundredth time that day. I hadn’t been able to stop the tears of absolute joy from filling my eyes all day. Every time I thought about the baby, it happened. I knew Eddie would be happy too. We’d talked so many times about having a family and a future together I knew he would be pleased. I went to the record player on a stand beside my bed and turned off the latest Stevie Nicks album. One song in particular spoke to my heart, because I knew Eddie was a man I could always run to if I ever needed him. He was my world. I left the apartment—little more than a large room with a private bathroom—and walked briskly down the city street to the park where we were supposed to meet. I couldn’t turn off the million-watt smile on my face or make my heart stop skipping with happiness. My lover might be a mystery, tangled up in a million secrets, but I didn’t let that bother me. I’d wondered why I couldn’t know his last name, or if he was married, but he’d talked all of those worries away. He’d loved them away, I thought, as I felt my cheeks begin to burn. Every question had been answered with a kiss and an assurance that all was well and would be revealed soon. I was new to the area as I’d grown up in the country with an elderly great-aunt. My mother had been a p********e and died when I was three, drugs taking her away from me long before her death. My father could have been any of the men that paid tribute to her daily. I didn’t know what it was like to have a mother and father, or to know the security of that kind of home, but my aunt had done her best. She’d sent me to Yorik city to learn my trade as a nurse now that I was eighteen, and I was doing well with it. I’d have to take time off from school to have the baby, I decided, as I crossed the street to the park. My heart skipped a beat again as I saw Eddie there! The fringe on my lace shawl shimmered in the sunlight as I waved at him. He looked anxious over there as I waited for a line of cars to pass. He was pacing and wore a light jacket to fight off the chill of our northern city; a suede confection of black leather. He was always dressed so handsomely, and I decided his dark scowl wasn’t going to be enough to ruin my day. I ran to him after the cars passed, the thick heels of my leather boots clacking against the ground. He swung me into his arms despite his mood and held me tightly. My flower print dress swirled out around me as I hugged him back. The world became nothing but his love. I was finally going to have a family of my own, to replace the one I never had. I leaned my head onto his shoulder and absorbed him, and all of his love into my heart. Nothing could destroy the happy life we had ahead of us. * * * Eddie 1983 I held the woman of dreams in my arms, the softness of her form against me a comfort in a world blown into chaos. Angela, the angel of my dreams, had been my comfort in the darkest time of my life. My father had recently passed away and it had torn my world into two. She’d melded it back together for me and given me a purpose. He had been so healthy, so full of life, that I’d begun to believe he was immortal. I’d watched him take on his daily routine with awe and wondered at his stamina. I was tired out after a night of partying with my mates and a day of studying at university, but he could be up all night with advisers discussing policies, and then be up early the next day and ready for more of his duties. It had all caught up with him. A heart attack took him one night, a rare night when he was allowed to get to bed before midnight. He had been my guide, not just my father, and a true friend. Without his steadying hand and guidance, I’d felt alone, miserable, and bereft. Truly bereft. At nineteen, my world shifted, and I hit a period of rebellion. I took on the snarling persona of Billy Idol, down to the bleached white hair and black leather, and gave myself a new name. Instead of Edwin, I was Eddie, the rebel without a cause. Then I’d seen Angela at a bar—one of those my sort normally never went into because it was just far too wild for them—and taken the frightened-looking girl under my wing. She’d wandered in looking for a payphone, but the toughs inside, wild boys with even wilder hair, had started to tease her more romantic style. I’d intervened and those innocent, wounded brown eyes had drawn me in ever since. I’d promised her the world, marriage, and a family, all she’d ever wanted from me, thinking my father would never die. I would never be king of Eboracum, and I’d be allowed to marry the girl I wanted to, so I’d planned for the life of a prince. It had surprised me that she didn’t know who I was, but I didn’t look the proper young man in a suit with dark hair that the newspapers showed anymore, I looked like so many other defiant young boys my age. It hadn’t started as a game, keeping secrets. She was the only person who’d ever treated me as a normal person and I hadn’t wanted that to change. I’d fallen for her from the first, but I hadn’t wanted her to know who I was, not until I knew for sure I wanted her as my bride. So many wanted the title, the name, the power. I knew it was far too risky to reveal the truth to her. As far as she knew, I was just another student, poor as all the rest and struggling to make ends meet. That’s how I’d sold myself to her, and that’s how I’d wanted to keep it. Now though, now my father was gone, my coronation was quickly approaching the horizon, and I’d just been informed that my secret romance I thought I’d been carrying on wasn’t so secret. The ministers knew about it and they were not happy. I inhaled the scent of her hair as I held her close, her shampoo and hair spray mingling into a pleasant scent. This was our last moment together. I’d come to tell her it had to end. She looked so happy; her cheeks were flushed and her eyes had some new kind of light in it. A light that said she had a secret and I’d have to pull it out of her. “I have something to tell you,” she murmured as she pulled away, and I felt my heart clench. I could not allow her to change my mind. I had to break it off. “I have something to tell you as well, Angela. Come with me, let’s sit on the bench, shall we?” I hoped that the public place would restrain her tears and keep her calm. I know, rather heartless of me. I did not want to face her heart break, and I wanted to get this over with. Fast and easy, get the pain over with, and move on. I hadn’t counted on how much it would hurt to see her in pain, and just the thought of it made me cringe in guilt. I had to do it though. I’d been born to be a king, raised to be one, and now I had to do my duty. My upbringing had been privileged. I’d been given a gift by the accident of my birth, and now it was time to pay back those who supported my family with their loyalty. I had to give back to my country and to do that, I had to give up Angela. I guided her to the bench and pulled her close to me one last time. “I have to stop seeing you, Angela. I’m not who you think I am.” I’d rehearsed the lines a thousand times since the sun broke over the horizon this morning. Say the words, get it over with. The look of confusion on her face before tears filled her eyes nearly broke my will. “I am Prince Edwin of Eboracum, and soon to be the king. From what the ministers have learned, your mother was a p********e and your father unknown. You will not be allowed to be queen, and I owe a debt to this country. A debt that means I have to give you up. I wish you all the best in your journey through life.” She was speechless. I was a coward. I disentangled her hand from mine, stood up and made to walk away. Her response destroyed me. “I love you, Eddie.” No pleas for me to stay, no demands for proof of who I was, just a final, gut-wrenching stab of acceptance of her own fate. I couldn’t turn back and look at her, and my heart pounded in my chest as my brain said I had to turn around, I had make her pain stop. “I can’t be with you. I’m sorry.” I spoke without inflection and had to fight to control the bland expression on my face. The muscles wanted to contract, to grimace into a wince of pain and heartbreak, but I could not allow it. I was meant to be king. I walked away and left her in that park. I left her and my child and strode into my own future without her. I truly was a coward, no matter how brave it might seem to give up your own happiness to rule a kingdom. It would have been far braver to give all of that up for the happiness only Angela had ever given me. * * * Henry Present Day I looked up as the car slowed. Marcus shouldn’t be slowing down through this section of the city. The park caught my eye; a sprawling expanse of green grass and trees spread out into the rolling hills in the distance. People were jogging, sitting on benches, or were sprawled out on blankets looking up at the cloudless sky. This was the place where my father had nearly destroyed my mother. There, under that oak tree with so many hearts and initials carved into it, was the place where my father had walked away from my mother and left her before she could even tell him about my existence. I stared at it coldly with gray eyes the same as his, remembering the pain that always filled my mother’s voice when she mentioned the park or that tree. The memory was burned into her brain, and though she’d overcome my father’s desertion, she still felt the pain of it. She’d gone back to her small town to have me but moved back a few weeks after my birth. She’d written to my father to inform him he had a son and she’d received a cordial, if informal notice that a contract would soon arrive. She and I would be cared for, monetarily, if she never told a soul who my real father was. I would be allowed to know who my father was. He might even wish to see me occasionally, but we were never to reveal the truth. I’d never actually met my father over the years. I’d never spoken to him or had a letter from him, but I knew who he was, who I was. He’d given us up to be king, nothing else had mattered to Edwin. My mother had been unsuitable for him, I had been a stain on his past, and we were never publicly acknowledged. Now, my father wanted to change that. He’d gone on to marry a proper young noblewoman and created a son with her, but times had changed and apparently so had Edwin. He wanted to acknowledge me now. He wanted me to take his place as king. I didn't want anything to do with it. He’d provided for me and my mother, and I had used every bit of money for my education. I was now an attorney with my own firm. I’d worked hard and used the intelligence both my parents had given me to build a very successful business. My goal back then had been to provide for my mother and to make her proud. My father had never entered into the equation. I didn't care about being a prince or a king. I had my own life and my mother to care for. Even with my father's money she’d struggled as a single parent, and I lived every day to make her life better. She was still young enough to have her own life, but I still had a very special relationship with her and did my best to give her all the love my father didn’t. “Sorry, sir, there’s an accident ahead. It should be cleared momentarily.” The voice of my driver, Marcus, came from the front of the luxury sedan. “No worries, Marcus. My meeting isn't for another half hour. There's no need to rush.” I shot the cuffs of my white cotton shirt, straightened my tie, and brushed the memories into the past by smoothing a hand through my hair. I was meeting a young woman today, a trainee in a program I’d helped to design for those in need in the city. She was newly divorced and had been having a very hard time of it. She was in the city’s welfare system because she’d been hospitalized with depression and had been put into our program to help her get back to living a full life. I picked up the file beside me and looked at the cover. A stunningly beautiful blonde-haired and green-eyed woman stared back from a picture stapled to the cover. Her eyes had captivated me from the very first moment I saw her picture. Not because of how beautiful she was, but because of how much those eyes reminded me of my mother’s. There was a familiar hurt there, a pain that ran deep. There was also strength and defiance and I knew she’d be a good candidate. She wouldn’t let the world destroy her just as my mother hadn't. I was looking forward to meeting her.