Finding Her Prince. Lilian Darcy
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dreaming about your voice,” he continued. “Your fragrance. The songs you sing to her.”
They were both watching the baby again, intent on every tiny movement in her face, every eyelid flicker and every wobble of her little fists.
“How did you know I sing to her?” Suzanne asked.
“Of course you sing! I’ve heard so many mothers singing to their babies in hospital at home in Aragovia. I’m a family doctor, myself.”
Suzanne felt a sudden twist in her gut, and a shock of recognition. “Jodie was a pediatrician.” She blinked back tears.
“I know. I did my family practice residency here in the United States, when she had just completed her specialist training. We were quite good friends for a while.”
“I got the impression most people liked her.” She was still struggling, didn’t really know what she was saying. Why had his tone changed, on that last sentence? She had so many unanswered questions about the man, this one seemed too trivial to think about.
“It distresses you to talk about your sister,” he said. He’d noticed her face and her swimming eyes. “We won’t do it now.”
“You mean…?”
“At some point soon, we need to. For now, let’s watch Alice’s smile.”
He turned back to the baby and began a lullaby in a language she didn’t recognize, singing so softly that she could hardly hear it. The tune was poignantly beautiful, and there was a tiny catch in his voice on certain notes. Suzanne could almost feel the way the melody tugged at her heart. Did Stephen Serkin know what a gorgeous voice he had?
Of course he did. A confident man didn’t reach his thirties without knowing exactly which of his attributes and talents most appealed to women. She had the sudden instinct that there was something too deliberate about this, something that didn’t ring true.
She reacted against the emotion that had momentarily blinded her. Stepping away from him, she said in a cold tone, “You still haven’t told me why you’re here.”
“It’s not such a mystery, is it?” he answered. “I had a business matter to attend to in New York, and I wanted to see my cousin’s child.”
“Then you already knew about Jodie’s death?”
“Yes.”
“Dr. Feldman contacted you? He went through all the names in Jodie’s address book.”
“I expect that’s how he reached me. I didn’t actually ask.”
“Then you’ve—?”
“I saw him yesterday, and he arranged for me to be able to visit here.”
“How long will you be in New York?”
“That depends. I’ll stay as long as I need to. It might be weeks. Longer.” He paused for a moment. “You seem suspicious about all this. About me. Why is that?”
Suzanne controlled a sigh and her mind raced as she sorted through what she felt safe in telling him, and what she didn’t want to reveal. She didn’t dare to look at him.
“Alice’s future is…so uncertain at the moment,” she said, still staring down at the tiny baby.
She was dressed only in a diaper as small and thin as an envelope, a white undershirt patterned with pastel rocking horses and little pink booties. She still had a feed tube in her nose, an oxygen mask on her face and monitors all over.
“It’s no secret that I’d like to get custody and bring her up as my own,” she added.
“Yes, so I understand.”
“I’ve been here every single day since she was born, and I love her so much. But that doesn’t mean I’ll be able to keep her permanently.”
“I know.” His voice had softened. “There’s your mother’s claim, too.”
“You know?”
“I talked with Michael Feldman for a while. I wanted to find out as much as I could. Look, we can’t have this discussion here. It’s too important, and there’s so much we have to work out.”
“Work out?” She was really alarmed, now. “What do we have to work out?”
Her head whirled around toward him too fast, and she swayed unsteadily for a moment. The neonatal unit went dark, then her vision cleared again.
“Are you all right?” His fingers brushed a strand of hair away from her mouth, and he was frowning.
“I’m fine.” She shook her hair back, not wanting his hand anywhere near her face. “I felt a little light-headed for a moment, that’s all.”
“How have you been sleeping lately?”
“Not very well,” she admitted. “I’m here every day, and I have to try to slot it in around work. I’ve got a lot to think about. And then I’ve had—” she counted remorsefully “—seven cups of coffee today.” With all those men who weren’t interested in fitting little pink booties into their lives. “I don’t usually do that.”
“You’re under a lot of strain,” he said. “There are things you haven’t told me, yet.”
“You think so?”
“And things I haven’t told you. As I said before, we need to work it all out, and it looks to me as if you need to eat, instead of drinking seven cups of coffee.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“There’s a coffee shop just off the lobby.”
“Believe me, I know it!”
She must have eaten a hundred meals there over the past couple of months. Didn’t suggest going elsewhere, because there didn’t seem much point. She didn’t want to turn this “talk” of his into a big production.
So this was why, five minutes later, there she was at her favorite table near the window—the one where she’d met Robert and Les and Colin and Dan—waiting for her burger, fries and soda to arrive and rummaging frantically in her messy purse for her packet of tissues. The woman sitting behind her had cat hair on her jacket, and Suzanne was allergic, and—
“Ah-ah-choo!” She got the tissue to her nose just in time, grabbed at another one and saw that familiar little pink bootie drop out onto the table. Not surprising. It had been deliberately positioned right on top of the clutter that filled her purse.
Sneezing for the third time, she thought, I’m sick of the sight of that bootie, now. It hasn’t helped.
Stephen picked the bootie up and fiddled with it absently, the way he might have fiddled with a pencil on a desk.
This isn’t where I want to be, he thought. This isn’t how I’d be handling the situation if there was more time, or if this woman wasn’t involved. I don’t enjoy playing a double game. But I can’t see any choice. My country must come first. My father taught me that, and my great-grandmother….
He was tired, he knew. His emotions had been buffeted by all the changes that had come in his life over the past few months, and the ones that were still ahead. Most of those changes were good. The Aragovian people had voted for a new constitution, with the heir to the Serkin-Rimsky family’s ancestral throne as the nation’s head of state. He had enormous hopes for his life and his country, now—hopes that would have seemed almost impossible to realize sixteen years ago, when he’d reached legal adulthood at eighteen.
But he wasn’t safe yet. Nothing was set in stone yet. Not in his country and not, it now appeared, in tiny Alice’s life. He was under pressure from his political advisers at home. Pressure to ensure that the line of succession was rock solid, by whatever means necessary. Pressure to marry as soon as possible. A suitable bride. Someone the Aragovian people