Princess Ever After (Royal Wedding Series) (34 page)

“Possibly.”

“No, probably. Maybe we shouldn’t complicate and confuse things.”

“Complicate? Regina, I was a content, neat, solitary man until I met you. Then all of a sudden, I’m restless, unsatisfied, yearning for things I thought belonged to other chaps. What kind of man sits in his knickers at night watching the telly alone? That was me a week ago and now . . . for the first time in eight years I realize how much I want to be the twins’ dad. And I want . . . to fall . . .
in love.” He held her gaze for a moment, then laughed softly, staring at the floor. “Zero to sixty.”

“You want to fall in love? With me?” Regina’s tone harmonized with the beat of his heart.

“I might.”

She whipped around, started gathering up their dishes. “Jarvis is probably wondering if we’re going to spend the night in here.” She skirted around him, heading for the ballroom exit. “I’ll go tell him we’re done. Wait, I can just push the cart—”

“Regina.” Tanner touched her arm. “It’s okay if you don’t feel the same way.”

“How can I explore a love that may not be mine a week from now?” Her voice faltered, weak and watery.

“I’m telling you my heart is yours.” He peered into her eyes, sinking deeper and deeper into the truth. “Now. Next week, next year.”

“What if I move home? Then what?”

“Why can’t you just admit you’re our princess, Regina? Hessenberg is home. I need you here, with me.” Raw. Real. Rooted in emotion.

“Tanner, excuse me, but I’m not making a decision about my future because you think you love me. Think you need me.”

“Are you saying you don’t have feelings for me?”

“Look, I–I,”—she shifted her weight, leaning on the cart—“I’m struggling to find my way through the notion of being a princess, of leaving my home, my friends and family, to live in a foreign country. So, no, I don’t know how I feel about you. Exactly.” Regina kicked at the ballroom floor. “Hessenberg is strange to me, Tanner. There’s no Publix or Kohl’s. No Target or Panera Bread. Who knew a princess had to give up so much? And you’re asking me to make a decision about love? I just met you.”

“And I, you, but I’m fairly certain I’m falling for you.”

She reached up and brushed his hair away from his face. “I’m afraid we’re Niagara Falls meeting the Grand Canyon.”

He captured her hand in his. “Two forces of nature to be reck-oned with.” He kissed the back of her hand. “I think we can make it work.”

“Hey, zero to sixty, I may drive fast, but my heart putts along at a steady thirty miles per hour.” She withdrew her hand from his.

“All right.” Tanner gripped the cart handle and pushed toward the door. “At least you’re moving.”

Thirty miles an hour. Straight for his heart.

TWENTY-THREE

A
t last, a voice message from Daddy.

“Reg, sweet pea, we keep missing each other. Sounds like you’re doing good over there. We miss you but are so proud of you. What’s that, Sadie? Oh, she sends her love and a friend from the bank brought in a picture of you from a Hessenberg paper. It looked like you showed that photographer who’s boss.” Daddy yawned into the phone
.
“Give a buzz tomorrow or something. Love you.”

“What’s going on?” Louis trapped Tanner on the other side of his desk. “You’re humming.”

“Nothing’s going on.” Tanner reached behind his desk to the printer. The archbishop sent over the swearing-in oath and a ceremony script for review. “Slept well last night, ’tis all.”

Louis made a face. “You look happy, not rested. You do realize it’s Monday morning.”

“Are you saying I’m usually unhappy on Monday mornings?” Tanner eyed his aide.

“I think my phone is ringing.” Louis turned on his heel and
made for the door. “And there’s a gentleman to see you. He apologizes for coming unscheduled.”

“Who is it?” Tanner glanced at his watch. Dickenson was on his way with Regina.

“Sir Thomas Blakely.”

“Of Blakely Oil?” One of the few remaining family-owned oil companies in the North Sea region. “Did he say why he is here?” Sir Blakely was the senior member of the company’s board of directors. The president and CEO. Tanner couldn’t imagine what sort of errand Old Man Blakely would see to himself.

“No, but he seems to have something on his mind.”

“Send him in, please.” Tanner slipped on his suit jacket and squared away his tie. Sir Thomas Blakely. Had he come to give a donation? Set up an arts or education trust? The museum had recently petitioned patrons for donations.

Tanner greeted Sir Blakely as he entered, wearing a fine-tweed suit and leaning on a brass-handled cane. “My apologies for coming unannounced, but I was driving past the manor when I had a revelation. So I asked my driver to turn in.” His hazel eyes sparkled with a youthful vibrancy, and his voice sounded strong and clear. “I’ll have a seat, if you don’t mind. My assistant is sending over documents for you to see.”

“Please, make yourself at home. Do you care for a spot of tea?”

“Just had mine, thank you.” Blakely sat on the couch, favoring his right hip, then folded his hands on top of his cane. “You see, I’m preparing to retire in a year.” He pointed at Tanner. “I’ll be eighty-one next year, thank you kindly, and I’ve been at the helm of Blakely Oil since I was twenty-five when my father dropped dead from a sudden heart attack.”

“You’ve had quite a career, Sir Blakely.” Tanner took a seat across from the oil magnate. “I studied your international commerce work at the law college.”

“Did you now, my boy? Indeed, indeed.” For a moment, his
stare seemed to fix on something only seen in his mind’s eye, then he gazed at Tanner. “Well now, why I am here? You see, I ordered an audit on all financial records dating back to when my grandfather founded this company with little more than a dream. I want to make sure things are spit-spot before I hand the reins to my son and grandson.

“In doing so, the accountant came across our usual odd stockholder who seems to have vanished from the face of the earth. But Grandfather also offered his investors bearer bonds. Most of those have been cashed out, but we’ve one bond account held in escrow for more than a hundred years. Though curious, we never did much more than speculate about the account owner. But the auditor noticed not one thin shilling had ever been drawn by the bond holder.”

“More than a hundred years? Fascinating.” Filler conversation, waiting for him to go on. Did Blakely come to sign over the account to Tanner’s office? Otherwise, the Minister of Finance resided on the third floor.

“We talked of putting out a search for the bond holder, but then I remembered that Grandfather kept a register of those early investors. I’ve kept it in my safe at home.”

Louis knocked on the door. “These came for you, Sir Blakely.”

“Thank you, young chap.” He pointed to Tanner with his cane. “Give them to this lad.” Louis arched his brow and passed over the single folder. “You see,” Sir Blakely went on, “Grandfather and Prince Francis were chums. Both were fascinated with the newfangled automobile. When Grandfather went to find his fortune in oil instead of gold, Prince Francis offered his assistance. I remember my grandfather telling me as much when I was a boy at his knee. He was always saddened over the prince’s final lot.”

Tanner opened the file to find a piece of paper listing the bond numbers. And three photocopies of handwritten letters.
Two from the senior Blakely, Artimus, to Prince Francis, and one from Prince Francis to Blakely—dictated to Otto Pritchard.

They all contained brief exchanges about life and seeing one another in the spring season, but nothing to indicate a financial partnership.

Tanner studied the bond numbers. Simple, thousand-pound bonds.

“Do you believe these bonds were purchased by Prince Francis?” he said.

“I’d hoped to tell you for certain, but when I checked Grandfather’s registry, he’d only marked the bearer bond numbers with initials, not names. You’ll see the copy there, in the back.” Blakely tapped the back of the papers with his cane.

Handy tool, a cane.

“Any that would match the prince’s?”

“Not one that we could make out.” He stomped his cane. “But these are the only bonds we believe have never been collected upon. The timing is curious, what with the prince fleeing in the dead of night to never return. Either he left the bonds behind or passed them on to his niece, Princess Alice. Or even Princess Esmé.”

Possible, possible. At this stage, Tanner would believe just about anything. A pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Why jolly well not?

“How much is in escrow?” Tanner worked a few numbers in his head. If Prince Francis invested several thousand, maybe tens of thousands, that was a tidy sum for any man, even a royal man, pre-1914. And the bonds would be worth millions today given the success of Blakely Oil.

“A hundred million dollars.”

“A hundred million dollars?” Tanner launched to his feet. “You’re joking.”

“I am not,” Sir Blakely said. “My barrister recommends we possess the account as it’s been a hundred years with no activity.
He claims it’s a dead account and we should petition the courts to make it legally ours.”

“A hundred million seems pretty alive to me.”

The old Sir of European Oil chuckled. “I quite agree. But my thinking is if the bonds do belong to Prince Francis’s heir, and if we’ve found the princess . . .”

“We have, sir.”

“Then I’d like to honor my grandfather’s friendship with the prince and let the money go to his heir. Let the princess reap the reward. Her uncle’s trust in my grandfather was the first seed of our success.”

“Except we don’t know the whereabouts of the bonds.”

“Might the princess have them? Among her things in America? Perhaps her grandmother, Princess Alice, left them to her without her realizing it. Children often sneer at old things like bonds and papers left to them by their elders.”

“But you’re quite sure these bonds belonged to the prince.” With a sigh, Tanner sat back. “Sir Blakely, we’ve lost so many of Prince Francis’s records. He kept few diaries, wrote few letters.”

“No, I’m not sure, but Grandfather once told me the prince invested in his hunt for oil. So I do believe those bond numbers did belong to him.”

“But, sir, in the last one hundred years, cleaning and construction crews have gone over every inch of the palace and this manor. Rebuilding. Remodeling. Repairing. No bonds were ever found. For all we know, the prince took the bonds with him. They could’ve been destroyed or lost.”

“Ask the princess. Perhaps she knows.” With a groan, Blakely stood.

“I will.” Could those be the bonds she mentioned to him the other day? But she didn’t actually have possession of the bonds. Just read about them in the entail. Besides, Tanner doubted a former accountant would disregard old bearer bonds if she found
them. Maybe her father had yet another box of secrets in the attic. Or maybe they were in some safe deposit box in an unknown bank in some unknown country. Tanner made a mental note to make sure Louis inquired about bonds when collecting data on the prince’s trust.

“In the meantime, our princess is a millionaire a hundred times over if she can find those bonds.” Blakely inched his way between the couch and end table, aiming for the door. He peered back at Tanner.

“Well, what’s she like?”

“Sh–she’s beautiful. Smart. Funny. Kind.”

“The one for the job?”

“Very much so.”

“Good.” He jabbed the air with his cane. “Once it’s all sorted out and that blowhard Seamus Fitzsimmons is put in his place, I’ll have Her Royal Highness to our cottage for tea.”

Tanner smiled. The Blakely
cottage
rivaled the palace in size and opulence. “I’ll tell her, sir. I’m sure she’d like that very much.”