A March Bride (A Year of Weddings 1 #4)(14)

“Go get her. Tell her in no uncertain terms. If you ask me, you’re not giving her enough credit.”

“Really? Then why did she leave?”

He shrugged. “Perhaps she was a bit overwhelmed. What bride isn’t? Let alone one becoming a part of our family. But you leaving her be is just confirming all of her fears. I say again, go after her.”

“I’m not sure one human heart can love another as much as we are asking of her.”

“Blimey, Nathaniel, you’re a blasted cynic. Mum wasn’t born and raised a royal, but she adjusted to royal life quite well.”

“She was the daughter of a lord who groomed her to marry a king. And you know full well she struggled with the press in the beginning. But in her day there was no paparazzi. No blogs. No Twitter. No twenty-four-hour news cycle. There was a barrier between the press and the royal family.”

“Nice to see you have your list of excuses memorized. So tell me, are you planning on being a bachelor the rest of your life? Or perhaps taking up Lady Genevieve’s offer to marry, produce an heir, then get a divorce?”

“Don’t be crass.”

“Nathaniel.” Stephen stood, towering over his brother. “Do you love her?”

“It hurts to breathe when I think of life without her.” Nathaniel rose to his feet, gently pushing his brother back a step. “But I have to be realistic. Maybe I should let her go.”

“You are a coward.” Stephen headed for the door. “If you lose her, it won’t be because of this citizenship writ or all of the things she has to give up to be your wife. It won’t be because you’re some magnanimous chap who freed the bird who wanted to fly. It will be because you’re afraid.” He eased open the door. “And that will mark your reign for the rest of your life.”





Two days.” Mama passed Susanna in the kitchen, her hair wet from her shower, curling in ringlets about her head. She flashed two fingers. “Then I’m kicking you out.”

“Kicking me out? Fine, I’ll live with Aurora in her tent.”

Aurora, a former hotshot DC lobbyist, was a multimillionaire who lived on dimes and nickels in a tent in the woods. A kind of spiritual savant, she doled out her millions as she saw the need, along with divine messages from God.

Real ones. Bone-chilling ones.

She’d been a voice from heaven in Susanna’s life when she first met Nathaniel, then only Crown Prince, visiting the island.

“For the life of me, girl . . .” Mama opened the cupboard for a coffee mug, then poured from the big pot Daddy had set to brewing before he headed off to get fresh fish for the day. No fancy machines for them. They still used the old-fashioned percolating kind.

“Besides, I came home to see Granny and Gracie.”

“Well, you’ve seen them. They’re fine. Why don’t you just go back to Brighton and marry that boy?”

“Really, Mama? You think it’s just that simple. That I’ve not thought this through a hundred bazillion ways?” The smooth, uneventful flight over on Royal One had given her entirely too much time to think.

Why did the citizenship request bother her so dang much? And more than that, why did she slip off her engagement ring and leave it behind?

Had her head already decided and her heart was catching up?

Susanna shoved her cereal bowl forward. There was still over half a bowl left, but she’d not really been hungry since she’d left Brighton. Her attempt at having breakfast was merely a reach for some kind of normalcy.

“I just can’t help but wonder if maybe I didn’t rush into this because I was stinging from losing Adam. Maybe I got swept up in the magic of it all.”

“Poppycock. You didn’t even know Nate was a prince for two weeks. Y’all were friends. Then he left. Shot out of here when his father died and you didn’t see him for five months.”

“What’d you do, keep a diary on my love life?”

Mama tapped her temple. “I got more in here than cobwebs and spiders. And never in my life have I seen you ‘swept up in the magic’ of anything. Not even Disney World.” She laughed. “You met Cinderella and like to drove me crazy asking, ‘But what’s the girl’s real name, Mama?’ ”

“Well, she didn’t look like Cinderella to me.”

“That’s what I’m saying, Suz; you’re a realist.”

“Which is why I’m here now. I’m being a realist. Come on, Mama, in all your life, did you ever see me as a royal princess?”

“No, but when I saw you with Nate, I pretty much knew he was the one. You love him and it’s written all over your face every time you hear his name. And the same goes for him. You should see him when you walk into a room. The rest of us are no more than buzzing flies on the wall. He adores you.”

“Love. Adoration. Fine. But they don’t make an enduring marriage.”

“Know what your problem is, Susanna?” Mama rapped her knuckles on the island counter. “You’re scared.”

“Two minutes ago I was a realist.” She snapped a couple of grapes from the fruit bowl in the center of the island.

“A scared realist.” Mama snatched hold of Susanna’s left hand. “What’s this? Susanna Jean, where is your engagement ring?”