Chapter 10 #2
Jeanette perched on the chair’s edge. “Do you realize the similarity in your stories? You’re heir to an old, established clothing line.
Michael’s heir to an old, established international printing company.
You have royal roots. And as a Cross man, he’s as close to royalty as one can come without being an official aristocrat.
You never knew your mother. His mother walked out on the family. ”
Scottie regarded Jeanette, trying to discern the purpose of her confession. “Where are you going with this?”
“O’Shay is your future, Lady Royal. It’s all well and good to play princess for a season or a holiday visit.
Your mother is our queen. You’ve every right to your place.
But you and I both know your future’s back home in Tennessee.
Maybe, in the course of things, you can help Michael see the world through your eyes.
He’s done his Cross duty and served the Crown.
Now it’s time to step into his future. One that will provide a good living, carry on his Pratt legacy, and lead the next generation.
I’ve nothing against the Cross family, nor the Crown, I just want my boy with me. ”
“You want me to persuade him to join Pratt Printing?”
“You sound dubious, Lady Royal, but he’s my heir, just as you are your father’s.
While the whole family’s involved, the helm always passes to the eldest grandchild.
Michael’s Cross and military training make him the perfect leader.
I just need him to see it.” She motioned to the field.
“Here he comes. It was nice to meet you, Lady Royal.”
She kissed Michael’s cheek and patted his shoulder. “I’ll ring you for teatime.”
“What’d she want?” Michael asked, helping Scottie to her feet.
“To tell me you’re heir to Pratt Printing the same way I’m heir to O’Shay. You never said.”
“Because I’m not the heir. It’s just a tradition to pass the baton to the oldest. Evan can take it just as well as I can. Or one of my cousins.”
“She also noted how alike our stories are between Pratt and O’Shay. Your Cross blood and my House of Blue genes.”
Scottie paused, hearing her phone buzz from her clutch resting on the table. She reached for it—
“Scottie, I’m sorry. Mum had no right—”
“It’s okay.” But she wasn’t listening as she stared at her phone.
“Scottie?”
She looked up. “My dad.” Her voice broke as she showed Michael the photo of him with Remi. “He’s engaged.”
* * *
Michael
By Sunday afternoon, he found himself in Brindleby and at his father’s kitchen table for the first time in months.
“I don’t know why I don’t come home more often,” he said, stirring cream into the cuppa Dad set before him.
“I’ve a tin of day-old biscuits from the corner bakery.” Dad retrieved a white can from the cupboard. “They might crumble if you dip them, but they’re sweet enough.”
Michael took a round, golden biscuit and tapped it in his tea. Like always, Dad’s kitchen was warm and bright, sunlight pouring through the mullioned windows. A fire crackled in the stone hearth. The slate floor smelled faintly of pine soap from an early morning mopping.
Beyond the wide doorway lay the living lounge, the same room where he and Evan had done homework, played games, watched telly, and decorated the Christmas tree.
Down the narrow passage was his father’s den with its dark walls, thick carpet, leather chairs, bookshelves bowing under their weight, and the old desk passed down from father to son for generations.
It was cluttered with folders, notes, and tea mugs not yet washed.
Dad had done his best to make it a welcoming place. He’d carted them to practices and rehearsals, taught them to drive and manage a bank account. He sewed on buttons and placed a cool cloth on their feverish heads.
When Michael turned fifteen, Dad set him with a stack of Cross books to read and pictures to study. At eighteen, he attended his first Cross family conference where he was immersed in their family mission, in history, faith, and the Crown.
“You don’t come home because you’re busy,” Dad said, ever practical. “You’re also a grown man. I don’t expect you every weekend.” He dipped a biscuit, frowning when only half came out. “What brings you today? Aren’t you on duty?”
“Lady Royal is with the queen.”
“How is our queen faring?”
“Well enough. They don’t tell us much of anything, but I see her frailty when she walks with Scottie,” Michael said. “What do you hear in your circles?”
“They’re keeping her health close to the chest.” Dad tossed back the last of his biscuit. “I saw photos from the Pratt anniversary party. Your grandparents looked well. As did your mother.”
“It was a lovely evening.”
“And your charge? Did she enjoy herself? Is she as beautiful in person?”
“She did and yes, she’s very much so…she looks, even acts, like her mother.”
“Yet you’re here, the day after the party, with a long face.”
Michael laughed softly. “Can’t I come home because I missed you?”
Antone Cross—semi-retired diplomat, lifelong servant of the Crown, and esteemed bachelor—still lived in Brindleby, the village where Michael grew up.
Tucked on the western edge of the Midlands, north toward Dalholm, it was a place untouched by time.
Stone cottages shaded by Douglas firs and oaks, a stream where Michael and Evan learned to fish threading through the green.
The eighteenth-century Cross House, a Georgian manor of pale stone and seventeen fireplaces, had been a gift from Queen Clemency to Michael’s seventh great-grandfather. The grounds and gardens were still maintained by a grant from the Crown.
“You can come anytime, Mick,” Dad said. “But I sense something more to your visit today.”
“I don’t know.” Michael leaned back, one hand around his cup. “I felt something last night. Something I’ve not felt since…” He met his father’s eyes. “Purnell.”
“Which is difficult, because you’ve not let her go. Not all the way. Never mind Lady Royal is Her Majesty’s daughter. She’s not here forever. She’ll return to Tennessee. And you’re her protection officer. Lines are being blurred.”
Saturday night at Presswick Manor felt like another man’s life. As the anniversary party closed, with most of the guests gone, the band had played a final tune, “Auld Lang Syne.” It gripped him, and without even thinking, he’d brought Scottie to him for a slow, close dance.
She’d rested her head on his shoulder, saying nothing of his sweat-dampened shirt, but imprinted her form into his, a sensation that had just begun to fade.
If he’d gone this far off the rails in two weeks, what would happen in the next month? He must employ every ounce of reserve to protect her, as duty warranted. Crushes and feelings had no place.
“You have always been able to read right through me, Dad.”
“You’re my son, of course.”
A meow sounded beyond the kitchen door. Dad rose to open it, and Artemis, the world’s largest and most stunning Maine coon, and quite aware of it, sashayed inside as if he were king of Lauchtenland.
“Your breakfast is in the bowl, Your Royal Highness,” Dad said, scratching behind the cat’s ears before sitting down again.
“What do you want me to tell you, son? Resign? How much longer will Lady Royal be with Her Majesty?”
“Until the Rose Ball. And I don’t want to resign.” Michael reached for another biscuit. “I just don’t want to feel what I felt last night.” He sighed. “I needed to tell someone. Artemis was outside, so I suppose it had to be you.”
Dad’s low rumble was one of Michael’s favorite sounds. “What else is on your mind? Did I see a photo of Lady Royal speaking with MP Fickle?”
“You did. He engaged her first, but she didn’t back away. Then she asked me why no one in the Family seemed to understand the anti-monarchists.”
“Which, at their heart, is MP Fickle.”
“Right. So, Dad, do you know?”
“Never had anti-monarchists in Lauchtenland, not loud ones, until Fickle. My advice? Do your job. Protect Lady Royal. Leave off politics. No need for her to stir waters for which she has no oar.”
“Her dad sent a message last night with a picture of his new fiancée,” Michael said. “She seemed upset by it, sorry to miss the moment in his life. My guess is Lady Royal won’t make it to the Rose Ball.”
“Then your heart will be safe.”
“Yep. My heart will be safe.”
But as he looked around the familiar kitchen, the same one where he’d once heard his mother’s laughter, Michael knew it was already too late.