A March Bride (A Year of Weddings 1 #4)(12)

“Is that the core of this issue? That you don’t feel worthy? Susanna, you’ve seen me at my worst. You’ve seen my life. How can you question your value to me? I love you, Georgia girl.”

“But don’t you wonder? How can we make it? Marriage is hard enough without mixing cultures and nationalities, not to mention social classes.”

“This? From an American? Your great melting pot nation was built on cultures and nationalities mixing. On tearing down the walls between social classes.” He sighed and pressed his hand to his forehead. “Susanna, I’m beginning to think you really don’t want to marry me. All these excuses—”

She set her water bottle down and crossed to the window. “I just feel homesick, like I’ll never be myself again. I feel lost in the swirl of you, of the royal family, of the wedding. It’s more about you and Brighton than you and me. Every other day I hear a story about how the people are afraid of my influence. How I’ll turn you into an American.” She raised the windowpane, ushering in a fresh, cold blast that shoved aside the stale, tepid air in the room. “I guess that’s what the writ is about, huh?”

“How long have you been feeling this way?”

She shrugged. “I’m not sure I knew until now.”

Her confession of doubt opened door after door of fear, uncertainty, and dread. What if she gave up everything, even her citizenship, and the marriage failed?

“For now, please, I need to go home. Go back to ground zero, get my bearings, and sort out what I’m feeling.”

“All right.” His heavy exhale revealed his hurt. “But you fly on Royal Air Force One.” Nathaniel reached for his jacket and headed for the door. “Just tell me you’re coming back, Susanna.” He paused at the door, his blue eyes wet and shining.

“I think so.” She twisted the antique diamond ring around her finger. “But I don’t know.”

Nathaniel regarded her for a moment and opened the door. “I’ll have Jonathan make the arrangements.”

Susanna knew Jonathan, Nathaniel’s aide and friend, would call within the hour to discuss details, searching for details that went beyond a proposed departure time and which Georgia airport she preferred. He’d want to know what was going on. All without asking outright.

“Nathaniel,” she said with almost no volume. “Thank you.”

“Thank you?” He shook his head. “I already regret agreeing to this.”

The sound of the door slamming as he took his leave echoed in Susanna’s heart the rest of the night.





On Monday afternoon Nathaniel muddled through his daily routine of scheduling and correspondence.

In truth, he thought of nothing but Susanna. His mood drifted toward an ever-widening, swirling black hole of fear. At any moment, he might collapse within himself, never to be seen again.

Like the time he leapt foolishly into the murky, cold waters of Roose Lake his frosh year at university. He sank beneath a quagmire of roots and weeds and barely found his way to the surface. His lungs nearly burst for want of air.

She’d been gone three days, and try as he might, he couldn’t clear himself of the blasted, dark foreboding creeping through every molecule of his body: She’s not coming back.

But she must. She simply must. However, the velvet pouch in his pocket warned him otherwise.

Rollins, the Parrsons House butler, had found Susanna’s engagement ring on her dressing table the morning of her departure for home.

When he brought it to Nathaniel, his heart nearly stopped. Was she actually planning to stay in America?

Settle, mate.

Susanna had also left behind her favorite shoes, the gold Louboutins she wore to his coronation ball. And pictures. All of her family photos remained in her suite parlor and her bedchamber.

Surely she would return to Brighton. He inhaled long and slow. And she’d reclaim her ring.

Yet he could not deny her arguments about royal life. It was not easy. Susanna was giving up everything to marry him. Was he worth it?

Since the day she arrived in Brighton as the king’s fiancée, the media immersed her into her own murky waters of scrutiny, nitpicking, and faultfinding.

Anything to sell papers or draw in viewers. All three Brighton news outlets sent crews snooping around St. Simons Island, searching for the underbelly of Susanna’s American life and family.

One talk show tabloid spent a week, a whole week, on her relationship and breakup with the American Marine hero Adam Peters. Only half of the story’s details were even partially true.

But despite the downsides of being associated with Nathaniel, Susanna was setting the world on fire. All on her own.

A billion viewers were estimated for their wedding. News outlets who’d all but forgotten about Brighton royalty battled the King’s Office royal red tape for permits to send broadcast crews for the wedding.

Once Susanna mentioned in an interview that she loved the Scripture, “The joy of the Lord is your strength,” every bookshop on the island promptly sold out of their Bibles. News presenters read Nehemiah 8:10 on air, and a children’s choir performed a song based on the verse.

Her very presence boosted Brighton’s economy. The fashion designers merely mentioned a frock they’d designed for her and online orders crashed their servers. Tourism was up last quarter by 5 percent.