Heather Graham (48 page)

They didn’t pause for the night when they reached the English shore, but rode hard for the tower where the queen was residing. When they burst into Adrien’s apartments, they found Queen Philippa there alone, rocking the baby.

She pressed a finger to her lips and lifted a hand, halting the two of them at the door when they would have walked forward.

“The news of another great victory through your sense of strategy has arrived before you, Laird MacLachlan. We’re grateful, of course, to know that you serve us.”

“I’d not have managed it without my wife,” Adrien said.

The queen looked up and arched a brow, then looked down at Robin. He wasn’t actually sleeping, but his eyes were very heavy. She was talking to the baby as she rocked him.

“So your father thinks that light thatch on your head is his!” the queen exclaimed, smiling down at the boy, who cooed in response. “He’s apparently not seen that little mark on your bum, then, eh? Of course, then again, neither of your parents has probably had much occasion to stare upon the king’s bum, and therefore wouldn’t know that such a mark is hereditary. Now mind you, it’s not that your mother bears much resemblance to the Plantagenets in the least—thank God for the small mercies that have upon occasion saved my pride!”

Adrien looked worriedly at Danielle, damning himself a thousand times over for not having told her the truth, but the last thing he would have imagined was the queen talking so matter-of-factly about the situation when they returned for their son! Danielle had adored her mother, and the legend of the English knight, Robert, she had believed to be her father.

Danielle was staring at the queen, her eyes wide, her face pale.

Philippa looked at Danielle and winked, rose quickly with the baby in her arms, and walked over to the two of them. She handed Danielle the baby. “The two of you must learn to be more careful with such precious belongings!” she admonished. She kissed Danielle’s cheek. “Poor dear, you looked so shocked! I’d have thought the world had figured out the truth of your birth long ago. The king is a good husband to me—he does love me, I know. He has had his weaknesses. I didn’t know your mother, and when you came into our household, she was already dead, and therefore, hard for me to hate. You grew up in my household and are like a daughter to me. Now Adrien, help your wife. Her jaw has fallen—tap it back into place, then take the babe. Don’t let her drop him.”

Adrien took Robin. The queen brushed his cheek and sailed on out of the room.

Danielle stared at Adrien. She was shaking, and she walked away from him. He quickly placed Robin in his cradle and followed her, placing his hands on her shoulders.

“You knew!” she charged him.

“Only since Prince Edward told me on the way across the English Channel. He does love you. He was coming to tear the castle apart for you, whether I survived or not. Danielle!” He spun her around so he could see her eyes and speak directly to her. “Danielle, I know how hurt you are! I know how you have fought Edward all these years, hated him for forcing you to England, giving you to me … all these things. You loved the memory of a man you thought to be your father, you were loyal to the king you thought to be your own. Please, you mustn’t be so dismayed that Edward is your father. He is a great king, a wise man, a brave man—and he is capable of mercy—”

“I don’t hate Edward!” she managed to say.

“Then what is it?” he demanded.

She started laughing, and he was worried. He held her against himself, trying to soothe her. “Danielle, Danielle—”

“Oh, Adrien! I’m all right, honestly, I’m all right! It’s just that … my mother, the wretched vow I took to be loyal to the king! Adrien, she must have meant Edward all along. I think she was trying to tell me when she died that I must give my loyalty to Edward, the king, my father! Adrien, I’m just so, so sorry! All these years, all the things I believed, the things I did … the warfare I caused between us! And Edward is my
father!
Adrien, all the plotting and planning I did for King Jean! So much heartache between us in the past …”

“You have been worth it all,” he told her softly. “And there are many ways to look at the picture. Edward should be content to rule England, but lands in France have been the domain of the English kings for centuries. And after these many years, the royalty are so mixed with one another, it’s hard to say who had hereditary right to what!”

“You don’t believe that!” she said, smiling and shaking her head. “You will fight for Edward always.”

“I will fight for you always,” he told her.

And she smiled, her eyes brilliant with tears. “We can call a truce now, I believe.”

“Aye, that we can. But you’ll have to know, now more than ever, I’m grateful for Aville. Grateful that the walls fell, and grateful, with all my heart, that you exist!”

The baby began to cry, and Danielle laughed and said, “I can even say I’m completely grateful! Without your military mind working so diligently at Aville, Robin would not exist!”

She left him for their son, taking Robin into the bed; Adrien lay with her, the baby between them, until Robin had glutted and fallen into a deep, deep sleep. As Adrien moved him, he said, “I think it might be Plantagenet hair.”

“Plantagenet eyes, I’m afraid,” she apologized.

“I think there’s a hint of vivid French green in them,” Adrien said, carefully moving his sleeping child into the cradle.

Then he lay down again with his wife and held her in his arms, and she said, “Oh, Adrien! I still think of all the time when I did love you and wanted to be loyal and felt that I owed my fealty to King Jean. I didn’t want to betray Edward, but I felt that I had to be true to my heritage. Can you imagine! When all the while …” she sighed softly. “I couldn’t take a chance that the king’s men would kill Jean.”

“King Edward would never have condoned such a coldblooded murder. Surely you know that. And your King Jean is a good man as well, noble, wise, and proud in captivity. I admire him very much.”

“And still …” she said, turning into his arms, her beautiful eyes on his intently, “I hurt you so often in the past!”

“And I hurt you in the past. But I love you. With all my heart. It is nice, of course, to know now that you have made a vow to protect Edward the king. You should be much better behaved.”

“Better behaved!”

Her eyes flashed fire and he laughed, amazed to feel himself shaking, so gratified to have her, be with her, and know that she loved him as he loved her.

“Perhaps not. You’ll always fight passionately for what you believe!”

“And that is wrong?” she whispered intently.

“No, that is something I love about you. And I do love you, Danielle. I fell in love with you for so many things, not the least of which was your loyalty to what you believed in, and your honesty to me about that loyalty. The love I feel has grown out of time, out of knowing you, out of seeing all that is so right in your heart and soul.”

“Oh, Adrien! There was so much I admired and respected about you even when I was trying to hate you! I was jealous without knowing it so many times, I wanted you, but I didn’t know how to have you.”

“Oh, my love. You have me for life.”

She smiled at that, and then her smile became a little wicked, surely an invitation. He lowered his head to kiss her, and when their lips touched, the fires within them flamed to life …

“No more talk about kings!” he insisted. “Queens, knights, or countries!”

“The past was theirs …” she began.

“And the future is ours,” he promise.

“The king has had his pleasure—now we shall have ours.”

She nodded, and still her smile was so temptingly wicked. She wrapped her arms around him.

And the future began that night.

Heather Graham (b. 1953) is one of the country’s most prominent authors of romance, suspense, and historical fiction. She has been writing bestselling books for nearly three decades, publishing more than 150 novels and selling more than seventy-five million copies worldwide.

Born in Florida to an Irish mother and a Scottish father, Graham attended college at the University of South Florida, where she majored in theater arts. She spent a few years making a living onstage as a back-up vocalist and dinner theater actor, but after the birth of her third child decided to seek work that would allow her to spend more time with her family.

After early efforts writing romance and horror stories, Graham sold her first novel,
When Next We Love
(1982). She went on to write nearly two dozen contemporary romance novels.

In 1989 Graham published
Sweet Savage Eden
, which initiated the Cameron family saga, an epic six-book series that sets romantic drama amid turbulent periods of American history, such as the Civil War. She revisited the nineteenth century in
Runaway
(1994), a story of passion, deception, and murder in Florida, which spawned five sequels of its own.

In the past decade, Graham has written romantic suspense novels such as
Tall, Dark, and Deadly
(1999),
Long, Lean, and Lethal
(2000), and
Dying to Have Her
(2001), as well as supernatural fiction. In 2003’s
Haunted
she created the Harrison Investigation service, a paranormal detective organization that she spun off into four Krewe of Hunters novels in 2011.

Graham lives in Florida, where she writes, scuba dives, and spends time with her husband and five children.