His Convenient Royal Bride. Cara Colter

but then spoke. “But you would have to marry genuinely, eventually. Marriage is expected.”

      Yes, it was expected that Edward would marry, and that out of that marriage would come that all-important heir to the royal legacy.

      Not expected: that he would ever know the kind of love he had seen shining in Aida’s face when she had confessed to him that she had met another.

      Not expected: a longing for this thing his position would probably keep him from ever knowing.

      Not expected: that a man the world would see as having absolutely everything—wealth and power beyond the dreams of most mortals—would feel this odd emptiness. A sense of missing something that had increased every day they had explored America, been normal, been free of Havenhurst.

      “Perhaps I won’t marry at all.”

      “That sounds a lonely life.”

      “Will you marry again, Lancaster?” Ward asked softly, remembering the man Lancaster used to be, a man who had radiated a kind of faith in the goodness of life.

      “I don’t think so,” Lancaster said, looking off into the distance. “A man’s heart can only take so much.”

      Lancaster’s wife and young baby had been killed in a cottage fire. Lancaster had been away at a training program off-island when it had happened. The whole island had mourned the loss of his family, and five years later, Lancaster still carried an aura of deep mourning about him.

      Mourning, mingled with a kind of steadfast, put-one-foot-in-front-of-the-other strength.

      “No, I won’t marry again,” he said. “Not while there are streams that need fishing. But you...you’ll be expected to find a wife.”

      There was the weight of all those expectations again.

      “My position makes it more difficult to find a partner, not less.”

      Lancaster snorted. “Once you are seen as available, women will be throwing themselves at you, Your Highness.”

      “Not at me,” Ward said, and could hear the weariness in his own voice. “At the fantasy of being a princess. At the role they think I play. At their impossible romantic ideas. The reality is so different. The obligations that go with the title would place an unfair burden on someone not brought up in it.”

      “There is the little issue of an heir,” Lancaster reminded him. “You will be King.”

      “My sister is married, and they have dear, sweet Anne. Perhaps one day she will reign.”

      “She’s a girl!”

      “The times are changing, Lancaster.”

      Lancaster looked dubious about that, at least in the context of Havenhurst. “You’ve given this some thought.”

      “I have, indeed.”

      “How do you find someone to play the role of a pretend princess? It’s not as if you can put an ad in the personal section of the newspaper. Prince in search of bride.”

      “I’ve asked Sea O’Brian.”

      They had just spent several days with Sea at her villa in California. Ward had met the actress at a party, a long time ago, on a yacht in the Mediterranean. He had not developed a taste for such things, but he and the famous actress had kept in touch.

      Lancaster was silent.

      “You don’t approve?”

      “It’s not my place to approve or disapprove of your choices, sir.”

      “My thought was that she was an actress already. She could play it like a role. And the publicity would certainly benefit her career. I’d like whoever takes this on to benefit in some way. I think the deception of a nation—not to mention my father and mother—is a great deal to ask of an individual.”

      Again, Lancaster was silent, but his brows had lowered and he was looking straight ahead with such fierce concentration that it could only mean disapproval. They had known each other so long and spent so much time together there was an unbreakable bond between them, almost as if they were brothers.

      “I’m interested in your thoughts.”

      Lancaster took a deep breath. “As you say, sir, she’s an actress. There always seems to be lots of drama unfolding around her. I overheard her talking to her press secretary about alerting a tabloid to your presence at her villa and had to head her off.”

      Ward had not been aware of any of this, an indication of how well Lancaster did his job, and how seriously he took it.

      “I don’t imagine Sea O’Brian is easy to head off,” he said mildly.

      “Correct,” Lancaster said.

      “How did you manage it?”

      “I took her cell phone hostage,” Lancaster admitted reluctantly. “Her life, as she told me. She’d been snapping pictures of you when you weren’t aware. Anyway, all this leads me to believe that trying to extricate yourself from the situation could get very complicated.”

      “True,” Ward conceded.

      “The people won’t like her,” Lancaster said, his voice low. “They’ll see her as glib and superficial. She’s not of the earth.”

      This was a highest form of praise in Havenhurst: he or she is of the earth.

      There was a grave silence between the two men, and when Lancaster spoke, his tone was faintly lighter.

      “Perhaps you could consider that lass from the café this morning. Think of the scones!” Lancaster crowed. Now that they were alone, he pronounced it skoons in the language of their island kingdom.

      Both men laughed.

      “I think there is far less danger of damage hiring an actress to play the role of my wife than to involve an ordinary girl living her ordinary life,” Ward said firmly.

      He had found a way to save Aida, without hurting anyone else, or his island kingdom. He was satisfied with his choice. The truth was a woman like Maddie, from the little time he had spent with her, deserved things he could not give.

      Love, for one.

      That was a topic he knew nothing about. Nothing. Love would be for him, as it had been for his parents, the great unknown. His parents had done precisely what he would do—they had sacrificed any chance of personal happiness for what they saw as the good of Havenhurst.

      And he would do the same. Love was not part of his duty, nor his destiny, and he had known those truths forever. He had made a decision to save Aida from this same lonely fate, and that was good enough.

      Even though Ward had decided the scone enchantress was not marriage material—she might already be married for all he knew—he had a feeling that if he wanted to glimpse normal, to feel it and be it for these few days of freedom remaining to him, she could show him that. It would be even better if she had a husband or a boyfriend. They could give him a glimpse of that tantalizing thing called normal together.

      “Why don’t we go see if Maddie and Sophie are willing to show us the pool?” Ward suggested after a moment.

      “I still don’t think it’s a good idea.”

      “Maddie might even have—what do they call it here? A significant other! Who could come with us.”

      Lancaster cast him a long look and finally, reluctantly, nodded.

      * * *

      “We’re just getting ready to close,” Maddie said when the bell rang over the door. She was exhausted. The day had been frantically busy, visitors already thronging the town for tomorrow’s concert. She would not be attending the concert. She preferred a warm bath and a good book.

      She glanced up and froze.

      It