Operation: Monarch. Valerie Parv
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“Except for one small detail.”
He picked up the plaster cast and angled it for her inspection. She soon saw what he was indicating, a tiny piece of webbing clearly visible between the small toes of the left foot. “Oh.”
“It’s a genetic trait common to de Marigny males,” Alison contributed.
Serena felt a frown start. “That settles it then. Garth can’t be the heir if he doesn’t have the trait.”
Without comment, Lorne picked up the changing room photo and handed it to her. An enlargement of a section of the first photo, it showed Garth’s feet in close-up. At first sight, she hadn’t understood its significance. Studying it more closely now, she saw that the two small toes of his left foot were webbed.
She felt the room spin then settle. “Is it possible?”
Lorne’s expression told her it was even before he said, “The birth certificate is genuine. I recognize my parents’ signatures.”
Alison reached for her husband’s hand. “The original has been missing from the de Marigny archive for years.”
“Even so, it seems unbelievable that Garth could be the heir to the throne. Apart from the resemblance to you, sir, there were no other indications that Garth was more than he seemed. His parents were just everyday people,” Serena insisted.
“They could have fostered him without knowing his history,” Alison pointed out. “Garth himself may be unaware of his background.”
Alice couldn’t have felt more unsettled after falling down the rabbit hole to Wonderland, Serena thought. “You’re taking this seriously, aren’t you?”
Lorne took a slow breath, held it, then let it out. “We have no choice. The certificate, coupled with the cast and the photo, means we must allow for the possibility that my older brother didn’t die at birth after all. And that Carramer has the wrong monarch.”
Chapter 1
She would never accept that Garth Remy was the true ruler of Carramer, she thought as she got ready for her assignment. Not by so much as a blink had Garth suggested he was anything other than the child of struggling commercial fishermen. They had lived aboard the boat for most of Garth’s childhood, only moving into a proper house after his grandparents died. It was hardly the life of a prince.
Garth may not know who he is, Alison had said. Everything in Serena wanted to reject the possibility, but she knew the princess was right. If Garth had been fostered by the Remys from birth, he would have no reason to suspect he was anything but their biological son.
Commanding her to tell no one what she was doing, Lorne had assigned her to meet Garth in the gymnasium shown in the photograph. She had identified the place from a portion of the name shown behind him on the wall. She was to renew their acquaintance and convince Garth to accompany her to the palace. Lorne would take it from there.
When she had reminded the prince that she was fully occupied with security preparations for the president’s visit in two weeks’ time, Lorne had said he would have her duties assigned to Jarvis Reid, her rival in the R.P.D.
Although there was nothing she could do about it, Serena hated the thought of Reid being at the president’s side while she worked on what she still suspected was a hoax. The high profile of the presidential tour meant when it came to choosing the new head of the Solano division, a job Serena had been working hard to earn, Jarvis would have an edge. Once again it seemed Garth was going to interfere in her life.
He had done it before when she was sixteen and he was nineteen, she recalled. She had been drawn to the darkly brooding young man who shone at all kinds of solo sports. If she closed her eyes she could still see his muscular legs eating up the running track or his arms carving through the water as he swam to victory.
She was seized by a sudden, unexpected memory of rising to her feet in the stands and cheering her lungs out the day he won the men’s medley by half a pool length. He hadn’t acknowledged her cheers, looking stonily ahead as he left the water and headed for the locker room. It was as if he had raced for himself alone, and winning was enough. She had told herself not to take it personally. He hadn’t asked her to cheer for him. But her fragile teenage ego had ached for a sign that he appreciated her support, and her heart had bled when none came.
Instead of getting the message, she had started seeing what she wanted to see. Every half smile or brusque word they exchanged had been read as encouragement that she was finally getting through to him. Soon he would ask her for a date and they would be a couple.
How naive could one person be? The date had never happened. The blossoming romance had been all in her head. Garth’s lone-wolf persona wasn’t a cover for shyness or anything else. It was who he was. Who he probably still was.
When she ran a background check on him, parts of his naval record couldn’t be accessed, suggesting he’d been involved in covert assignments. The discovery seemed appropriate for one who liked being closed off from others, she thought. Not long after making lieutenant, he had been involved in a deep-sea diving mishap resulting in a trainee under his care being injured. Instructor error, the record showed. Defective equipment, Garth had argued. He had lost, and left the service under a cloud.
He hadn’t had much luck in his life, she thought. With his navy career in ruins, he had dived on wrecks around the region, living off his salvage efforts. He had also worked part-time in his parents’ fishing business, the same one the other students had maligned, she remembered. Even the same boat, as far as she could tell. The aging engine had blown up only a month before, sending the boat to the bottom of Solano Harbor. Both Garth’s parents had drowned. A stab of concern welled up inside her. No matter how she felt about him, he didn’t deserve so much tragedy.
The record showed no sign of a wife and children. Had he been involved with anyone? She told herself she didn’t care. Another woman was welcome to him. But it didn’t stop her stomach muscles from clenching at the thought.
As Princess Alison had suspected, Serena’s crush on Garth had been deep enough to make her feel hot more than thirteen years afterward. She blushed to recall how her friends had caught her practicing signing her name as Serena Remy and had teased her unmercifully. They had bet her she wouldn’t have the courage to kiss him.
Knowing how much she wanted to kiss him, she had accepted the bet, waiting until she found him alone, then throwing herself into his arms and fastening her innocent lips on his. When his strong, youthful arms automatically closed around her, her heart had pounded as if it would leap right out of her chest.
Instead of admitting to overhearing her make the bet, he had kissed her back as if he had been waiting for her all his life. She had felt the stars in her eyes as he held her away from him, and she had been shocked to see how cold he looked. “Looks like you win,” he had drawled.
She vividly recalled the sensation of ice water sliding along her veins, his switch from passion to indifference making her light-headed. “What are you saying?”
“You can go back to your high-society friends and collect on your bet. If they want proof, I’ll vouch that you kissed me. How much was I worth?”
No money had been involved. Only her pride. “You know about the bet?”
He had leaned indolently against a wall. “I’m not stupid enough to think you’d do it for any other reason. A spoiled society princess doesn’t waste her time on the guy from the other side of the tracks unless there’s something in it for her.”
She had needed something to hold on to, but the only available anchor was him, and if she touched him again she was lost. She had lifted her head, letting a defiance she didn’t feel shimmer in her gaze. “I’d hate you to think I wanted to kiss you.”
“Oh, you wanted to. You want to do it again,” he said. “You might have kissed me for a bet but you enjoyed every minute of it.”
How had he known? “You have a high opinion of yourself,”