Falling for the Man She Married (Dynasties of the Sargasso Sea #1)

Chapter 1

In just a few weeks, Catherine would take the reins of her own country.

And take responsibility for an entire people on her shoulders.

When she was younger, she looked forward to that day, but now that it had nearly arrived, fear crept in. Fear she wouldn't live up to the expectations everyone had of her. Fear she would let them down.

Fear she would let her mother down.

It had been nearly a decade-and-a-half since her mother, Queen Caroline of Eastern Novigradia, had left the crown, throne, and responsibilities to Catherine when she passed suddenly.

Since then, her father had officially acted on her behalf.

He let her remain a child for a while then started slowly introducing her to different aspects of the job and what it entailed.

He would still help her, give advice when she needed him to, keep a seat on the Council, back her up, but not take back over - even if she asked him to.

The only way she could get out of these responsibilities would be to abdicate and give them to Patrick.

That wouldn't work either. He wasn't suited for this job.

Neither was Nessa, in line after him. She preferred her artwork and what detractors called "fanciful pursuits.

" Nataniel was an adventurer. And Issy, the baby of the full siblings, at eighteen was walking in the footsteps of Mumeleine.

Their father had remarried very quickly in order to secure his spot as her regent.

In short order, they all came to love Madeleine, the Royal Historian who had helped him do so through her research and the marriage.

For a while, they all called Maddie by her name, then Mummy Maddie after the half-siblings started to come along.

Somewhere along the line, they smushed Mum and Madeleine together and came up with Mumeleine, though out loud, they often simply called her Mum in private.

Her life was so complicated.

Mumeleine would have adopted all of them in a heartbeat years earlier if not for the implications that came with being part of the royal family.

Catherine walked through the hallways, smiling at and greeting the staff members she passed.

She knew some of their names and worked to learn as many as she could.

Her mum had imprinted that on her at a very young age.

Using someone's name showed you saw them as a person and not simply a servant.

Her mum had never thought in those terms. Yes, they worked for the palace, but they were staff members not servants.

As staff members, they had a variety of jobs - maid, decorator, chef, kitchen assistant - but none of those made any of them less of a person.

Unfortunately, while the number of staff members in the palace fluctuated, it always stayed in the several hundred range. She did what she could, but had a hard time with those she didn't see often.

It was a good thing she could navigate her way through most of the palace in her sleep, because when she was preoccupied she often had little memory of actually walking from one place to the other.

She rounded a corner and...

Ran straight into something solid.

Something that shouldn't be there.

Something that moved.

And spoke.

"Are you all right, ma'am?" The male voice wasn't familiar.

Catherine nodded and stepped back. "I'm fine.

.." Her statement cut off before she actually finished the last syllable.

In front of her stood a man, a few years older than her if she had to guess, with startling blue eyes.

She suspected their color would change with his clothes, the amount of light outside, and quite possibly his mood.

"I'm sorry for not watching where I was going." He also took a small step back, putting more space between them.

She stifled a sigh. She hated it when someone took the blame for something she did, just because she inherited a title.

He gave a faux grimace. "I'm afraid I'm a bit lost."

Or maybe not. "Where are you going?" And why didn't he have an escort? She'd have to look into that - or have someone look into it for her.

"The Royal Archives. I have a meeting with..." He checked the paper in his hand. "...Madeline Woodward Wellington.”

"Of course." Catherine smiled at him, butterflies taking up residence inside. "But you're going the wrong way."

He spun on his heels to face the other direction. "Right." After looking around, he turned back. "I know I don't need to go upstairs." He gave her a side eye. "Do I?"

Catherine laughed, an actual real laugh, not the one she usually used that sounded fit for a queen. Very few people heard her real laugh. "No. You don't." She took a step forward. "I can walk you there."

They started down the corridor.

"I don't know who's in charge around here, but they really need one of those apps that say you are here then tell you where you need to go. Like go past three suits of armor, two corridors, a priceless vase, and a painting from the 1790s, then hang a left."

The snort that came out when she laughed had never happened before. Catherine clasped a hand over her face. "That would be good for people who don't know their way around, but most people have an escort."

He gave a half-shrug. "You don't have one either."

Could he really not know who she was? That happened so rarely. "I've been walking these halls most of my life." She stopped just short of saying she lived there.

"Do you have a family member that works here?" He sounded completely innocent and not like he was working an angle.

"Several, actually. Many of my family members, going back generations, have worked in the palace." A very true, if slightly misleading, statement.

They reached the double doors, covered in ornate carvings with openings for windows set in them.

Catherine turned and with a flourish of a hand indicated the doors.

"You have arrived." She tipped her head downward.

"Madeleine will be alerted when the doors open, but her office is easy to find.

Everything in there is recorded," she warned.

"There's not even a restroom in the archives.

Literally everything is watched from multiple angles. "

It was his turn to bow slightly. "I assure you, the queen has nothing to fear from me. I will guard her historical treasures as though they were my own."

Catherine didn't let the smile on her face grow as wide as she wanted. Controlling her emotions and the outward presentations of them was exhausting. "I'm sure she'd appreciate that."

"Thanks, and thank you for making sure I didn't get even more lost and end up with security taking a sword from one of those suits of armor and threatening me with it." He reached for the door. "Have a good day, ma'am."

It was all Catherine could do not to swoon against a nearby column.

Mumeleine always talked about how characters met in books.

Meet cute.

Had Catherine just experienced a meet cute?

And would it even matter if she didn’t know his name?

Jacob Whitfield went through the doors to the archive then turned and looked back toward the woman he'd just met. He felt like he should know her, but couldn't quite place where he would know her from.

And he hadn't thought to ask her name.

Her laugh continued to ring in his ears. He suspected the snort wasn't something she did often, not with the way she clasped her hand to her face.

He smiled and shook his head, turning back to walk through the room, head swiveling from side to side, taking in the ancient paintings and other artifacts. The woman had told her he'd have no problem finding the office, but before he could look, someone else entered the long hall.

"Mr. Whitfield?" An elegant woman in her late-40s walked toward him, a smile on her face. "I'm so glad you didn't get lost." She held out a hand as she neared. "I'm Madeleine Woodward Wellington, Royal Historian."

He took note of how she said her name, with a long i sound, and shook her hand. "Please, call me Jake. And I did get a bit lost but a young lady took pity on me and showed me how to get here." Something else occurred to him. "She did seem a bit surprised I didn't already have someone with me."

"You probably should have." They turned toward the direction she'd come from. "But they know you've been thoroughly checked out and have been here before, many times."

He chuckled. "Not since I was about ten. Before we moved to Northern Santiero. My father says hello, by the way." Jake's father had been the Royal Historian until they moved for family reasons. He'd since worked for the Northern Santiero royal family, but not in quite the same capacity.

"How is he?" She walked into an office.

"He's good. So is Mum." Jake looked around and tried to remember how it had been.

The desk, though cluttered, wasn't quite the disaster it had been when his father used it.

The pictures on the walls had been replaced with prints of landscapes from throughout Eastern Novigradia - mountains, beaches, seascapes, and, most prominently behind her seat, an old drawing of the palace.

He'd been to a few of the places, but not all of them.

It surprised him there were no personal photographs around, but perhaps that had something to do with both the part-time nature of her position these days, as well as the royal nature of her family and not wanting them on display.

"Please, take a seat." She motioned to one of the chairs on the opposite side of the desk. "I presume there's a reason you wanted to see me besides looking around your old haunts."

Jake moved the strap of his satchel over his head and set it in the next chair.

Thankful he'd already organized it, he pulled out a small stack of papers and handed it to her.

"I'm looking for an internship or part time employment in Eastern Novigradia.

I don't need much income, though a little bit would be good.

I have a place to stay with my grandparents, but I do need to provide a few things for myself.

I don't know if you have anything available, but if not or if I'm not a good candidate, I'd appreciate it if you'd point me in the right direction, Mrs. Woodward Wellington. "

She made a sound of acknowledgment as she skimmed through the pages. "Please call me Madeleine. Your resume is quite impressive for one so young. Much better than mine was at your age."

"Having a father in the same field helped a lot.

Most teenagers don't get to go on digs or help catalog finds from ancient ruins.

" He leaned back in his seat, trying to appear comfortable but not arrogant.

His resume wasn't just quite impressive for his age, it was quite impressive for anyone under the age of about fifty with a lifetime of experience in the field.

"That's true. One of my daughters is interested in history and everything we do here, but for many reasons, she wasn’t able to do those things as a young teenager.

Perhaps now that she's older." There was a wistful note in her voice.

"I wish I was able to do those sorts of things more often as well.

" She set his resume to the side. "We do have an opening.

It hasn't been publicized yet, because we're hoping to find a candidate without opening it up to just anyone.

We'd prefer someone we already know has the qualifications and understands the discretion inherently involved in working in the palace. "

Hope started to sprout inside. "What other information do you need from me in order to be considered for the position?"

"I think your resume and references will speak for themselves." She gave him a smile and stood. "That's enough business for now. Would you like to join us for dinner this evening?"

Jake stood with her. "That would be lovely." He had told his grandparents not to expect him since he didn't know how long this meeting would take.

Before they went to the family quarters - upstairs somewhere if he remembered correctly - Madeleine took him on a tour of the archives. Though she hadn't said as much, he suspected this was part of his interview process.

She took him behind-the-scenes, as it were, and showed him the storage areas for things being worked on or locked up if they were considered more valuable. They even took a small spiral staircase down to the underground storage.

"It's fireproof and waterproof," she told him.

"So is the gallery upstairs once the door is covered.

Don't ask me how they did it while preserving most of it, but they did.

It happened long before my time. I think there was water damage at a university facility, and it made them a little paranoid. Actually, your father might know."

He looked around in awe of the bits of pottery and statues and other ancient artifacts. "I'll have to ask him about it."

She showed him where the portraits were stored and gave a brief rundown on how they were organized.

"I don't think I saw any of the current queen upstairs," he told her. "At least not anything recent. The only one I know I saw was with both of her parents and all four siblings so it's limited to a short period a decade-and-a-half ago."

"We don't have one in there at the moment. There's a spot for one, though her first portrait painted as queen for her eleventh birthday is there now. A new one has been commissioned and should be ready in the next couple of months. It will replace that one." She led the way back up the staircase.

After making certain the lights were off and everything was locked up, they left the gallery and made their way to the family's quarters.

Before they even walked in, he could hear laughter and conversation.

Madeleine entered first and announced their presence. "I'm home, and I brought company."

Most of them were running around or playing, but one of the older children helped one of the younger ones with schoolwork.

She turned and her eyes went wide as he realized who she was.

They spoke at the same time.

"You."