The Lost Princes: Darius, Cassius and Monte

The palace had been burned and his parents killed. And most likely some of his siblings had died as well—though he didn’t know for sure. But he’d been rescued and hidden with a family in the Netherlands, the Dykstras. He’d been spared.

All that had happened twenty-five years ago, and no one had ever come to find him, neither friend nor foe. Someday he knew he would have to face his destiny. But maybe not today.

“Ayme Negri,” he said again, mulling over the name. He was still holding her hand, almost as though he was hoping to gain some comprehension of her motives just by sense of touch.

An Ambrian woman, raised in Texas. That was a new one to him.

“Say something in Ambrian,” he challenged quickly. At least he had a chance of understanding a little of the language if she didn’t get too complicated. He hadn’t spoken it since he was a child, but he still dreamed in his native tongue sometimes.

But it didn’t seem she would be willing to go along with that little test. Her eyes widened and a hint of quick anger flashed across her face.

“No,” she said firmly, her lovely chin rising. “I don’t have to prove anything to you.”

His head reared back. “Are you serious? You break into my apartment and now you’re going to take on airs?”

“I didn’t break in,” she said indignantly. “I walked in, just like everybody else you had here to your party. I…I sort of melted into a group that was arriving and no one seemed to think twice.”

She shrugged, remembering how she’d slipped into the elevator with a bunch of boisterous young city sophisticates. They seemed to accept her right to come in with them without a second thought. She’d smiled at a pretty young woman in a feathered boa and the woman had laughed.

“Look, she’s brought a baby,” she said to her escort, a handsome young man who had already had much too much to drink. “I wish I had a baby.” She turned and pouted. “Jeremy, why won’t you let me have a baby?”

“What the hell, babies for everyone,” he’d called out as the elevator doors opened, and he’d almost fallen over with the effort. “Come on. If we’re going to be handing out babies, I’m going to need another drink.”

Laughing, the group had swelled in through the door to this apartment and left her standing in the entryway. No one else had noticed her. She’d seen the host in the main room, dancing with a beautiful raven-haired woman and swaying like a man who’d either fallen in love or had too many rum drinks. She’d sighed and decided the better part of valor was to beat a hasty retreat. And that was when she’d slipped into the media room and found a drawer she could use as a bassinet for Cici.

“I don’t remember inviting you,” he noted dryly.

“I invited myself.” Her chin lifted even higher. “Just because you didn’t notice me at the time doesn’t make me a criminal.”

He was ready with a sharp retort, but he bit his tongue. This was getting him nowhere. He had to back off and start over again. If he was going to find out what was really going on, he needed to gain her trust. Making her defensive was counterproductive at best.

And he did want to know, not only because he was plain curious, but because of the Ambrian connection. There had to be a reason for it. Young Ambrian women weren’t likely to just appear on his doorstep out of the blue. In fact, it had never happened before.

“Sorry,” he said gruffly, turning away. Taking a deep breath and calming himself, he looked back and his gaze fell on the little child. There had been a period, while living in his huge adoptive family, when he’d spent a lot of time with babies. They didn’t scare him. Still, he could take or leave them. They were often just too much work.

But he knew very well what happened when one of this age was woken from a sound sleep, and the results were never very pretty.

“Listen, let’s go to the kitchen and get a cup of coffee. Then we can talk without waking up your baby.”

“Okay.” She stopped, looking back. “Shall I just leave her here?” she asked doubtfully.

Cici had been practically glued to her body ever since Sam had left her behind that rainy Texas day that seemed so long ago now. And yet it hadn’t even been a week yet. She smiled, suddenly enchanted with the way the child looked in the drawer.

“Look at the little angel. She’s sleeping like a lamb now.”

He frowned. “How old is that baby?” he asked suspiciously.

That was another question she wasn’t confident enough to answer. Sam hadn’t left behind any paperwork, not even a birth certificate.

“Her name’s Cici,” she said, stalling for time.

His glare wasn’t friendly. “Nice name. Now, how old is she?”

“About six weeks,” she said, trying to sound sure of herself and pretty much failing at it. “Maybe two months.”

He stared at her. Skepticism was too mild a term for what his gaze was revealing about his thoughts on her answer.

She smiled brightly. “Hard to remember. Time flies.”

“Right.”

She followed him out into the living room. He snagged a shirt from the hall closet as they passed it, shrugged into it but left it open. She made an abrupt turn so he wouldn’t find her staring at him, and as she did so, she caught sight of the view from the huge floor-to-ceiling picture window.

She gasped, walking toward it. It was four in the morning but the landscape was still alive with lights. Cars carried people home, a plane cruised past, lights blinking. Looking down, she was suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of detached wonder. There were so many people below, all with their own lives, going on with things as though everything was normal. But it wasn’t normal. The world had tipped on its axis a few days ago. Nothing would ever be the same again. Didn’t they know?

For just a moment, she was consumed with a longing to be one of those clueless people, riding through the night in a shiny car, going toward a future that didn’t include as much heartbreak and tragedy as she knew was waiting for her once this adventure in Britain was over.

“Wow. You can see just about all of London from here, can’t you?” She was practically pressing her nose to the glass.

“Not quite,” he said, glancing out at the lights of the city. He liked this place better than most. It was close to the building where his offices were—centrally located and perfect for running the British branch of his foster father’s multinational shipping business. “But it is a pretty spectacular view.”

“I’ll say.” She was standing tall, both hands raised, fingertips pressed to the glass to hold her balance as she leaned forward, taking it all in. She looked almost poised to fly away over the city herself.

He started to suggest that she might want to keep her hands off the window, but as he watched her, he checked himself. With her long limbs and unusual way of holding her posture, she had an unselfconscious gawkiness, like a young girl, that was actually quite winsome. But she really wasn’t all that young, and in that short skirt, her legs looked like they went on forever. So he kept quiet and enjoyed his own temporary view, until she tired of it and levered back away from the glass.

“Cities like this are kind of scary,” she said, her tone almost whimsical. “You really get the feeling it’s every man for himself.”

He shrugged. “You’re just not used to the place. It’s unexplored territory to you.” His wide mouth quirked. “As the song says, faces are ugly and people seem wicked.”

She nodded as though pleased that he saw the connection. “That’s the way I felt coming here tonight. A stranger in a very weird part of town.”

He almost smiled but hadn’t meant to. Didn’t really want to. He needed to maintain an edgy sort of wariness with this woman. He still didn’t know why she was here, and her reasons could be costly to him for all he knew.

Still, he found himself almost smiling. He bit it off quickly.

“This part of town is hardly weird,” he said shortly. The real estate was high class and high-toned, and he was paying through the nose for that fact. “Maybe you miss the longhorns and Cadillacs.”

She gave him a haughty look. She’d caught the illconcealed concealed snobbery in his tone. “I’ve been out of Texas before, you know,” she said. “I spent a semester in Japan in my senior year.”

“World traveler, are you?” he said wryly. But he rather regretted having been a little mean, and he turned away. He needed to be careful. The conversation had all the hallmarks of becoming too personal. He had to break it off. Time to get serious.

He led her on into his ultramodern, wide-open kitchen with its stainless-steel counters and green onyx walls. He got down two mugs, then put pods into the coffee machine, one at a time. In minutes it was ready and he handed her a steaming mug of coffee, then gazed at her levelly.

“Okay, let’s have it.”

She jumped in surprise. “What?” she asked, wide-eyed.

He searched her dark eyes. What he found there gave him a moment of unease. On the surface she seemed very open and almost naive, a carefree young woman ready to take on the world and go for whatever was out there. But her eyes held a more somber truth. There was tragedy in those eyes, fear, uncertainty. Whatever it was that she was hiding, he hoped it had nothing to do with him.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” he asked again. “Why are you carrying around a very young baby in a strange city in the middle of the night? And most important, how did you even get in here?”

She stared at him for a moment, then tried to smile as she took a shallow sip of the hot coffee. “Wow. That’s a lot to throw at a girl who’s only half-awake,” she noted evasively.

His grunt held no sympathy. “You threw a six-week-old baby at me,” he reminded her. “So let’s have it.”

She took a deep breath, as though this really was an effort. “Okay. I think I already explained how I got in here. I hitched a ride with a party group and no one minded.”

He groaned, thinking of some choice words he would have with the doorman later that day.

“As I told you, my name is Ayme Negri Sommers. I’m from Dallas, Texas. And…” She swallowed hard, then looked him in the eye. “And I’m looking for Cici’s father.”

That hit him like a fist in the stomach. He swallowed hard and searched her gaze again. He knew very well that he was now treading into a minefield and he had to watch his step very carefully.

“Oh, really?” he said, straining to maintain a light, casual tone. “So where did you lose him?”

She took it as a serious question. “That’s just the trouble. I’m not really sure.”

He stared at her. Was she joking? Nothing she said was making any sense.

“But I heard from a very reliable source,” she went on, setting down her mug and putting her hands on her hips as she turned to look questioningly at him, “that you would be able to help me out.”

Ah-ha. A very dangerous mine had appeared right in front of him with this one. Careful!

“Me?” he asked, trying not to let his voice rise with anxiety. “Why me?”

She started to say something, then stopped and looked down, uncomfortable and showing it. “See, this is why this is so hard. I don’t really know. My source said that you would know where to find him.” She looked back up into his face, waiting.

“So you think it’s someone I know?” he asked, still at sea. “Obviously, it’s not me.”

She hesitated much too long over that one and he let out an exclamation, appalled. “You can’t be serious. I think I would have noticed a little thing like that, and I know damn well I’ve never seen you before.” He shook his head in disbelief.

She sighed. “I’m not accusing you of anything.”

“Good. So why are you here?”

She took a deep breath. “Okay, the person who advised me to look you up is a man associated with the firm I work for.”

“In Texas? And he thinks he knows who I know?” He shook his head, turning away and beginning to pace the floor in frustration. “This is absurd. How did he even know my name?”

“He told me you socialize in the same circles as Cici’s dad. He said, ‘Don’t worry. He’ll know how to find him.’”

“Oh, he did, did he?” For some reason this entire conversation was stoking a rage that was smoldering inside him. He stopped and confronted her. “So this person who’s supposed to be Cici’s father—this person I’m supposed to know where to find—what’s his name?”

She half twisted away. This had all seemed so easy when she’d planned it out as she made her way to the airport in Dallas. She would dash off to London, find Cici’s father, hand over the baby and head back home. She hadn’t realized she would have to try to explain it all to someone in between. When you got right down to it, the bones of the story weren’t making a lot of sense. And she realized now that one element would sound really goofy to this man. She was hoping to keep that one under wraps for as long as possible.

She turned back with a heart-wrenching sigh and said dramatically, “Well…you see, that’s the problem. I’m not sure what his actual name is.”

He stared at her. The absurdity of the situation was becoming clear. She was looking for a man who had fathered her baby. She didn’t know where he was. She didn’t know his name. But she’d come here for help. And he was supposed to ride to the rescue? Why, exactly?

It was true that he had a reputation for knowing everyone who counted within a certain social strata. He’d made it his business to know them, for his own purposes. But he had to have something to go on. He couldn’t just throw out possibilities.

“What are you going to do when you find him? Are you planning to marry the guy?”

“What?” She looked shocked, as though this very mundane idea was too exotic to contemplate. “No. Of course not.”

“I see,” he said, though he didn’t.

She bit her lip and groaned silently. She was so tired. She couldn’t think straight. She just wanted to go back to sleep. Maybe things would look clearer in the morning.

“How am I supposed to find someone if I don’t know his name?”

She turned and gave him an exasperated look. “If this were easy, I could have done it on my own.”

“I see. I’m your last resort, am I?”

She thought for a second, then nodded. “Pretty much.” She gazed at him earnestly, feeling weepy. “Do you think you can help me?”

He gazed at her, at her pretty face with those darkly smudged, sleepy eyes, at the mop of blond hair that settled wildly around her head as though it had been styled by gypsies, at her slightly trembling lower lip.

He had a small fantasy. In it, he told her flat out, “Hell, no. I’m not helping you. You give me nothing and ask for miracles. I’ve got better things to do with my time than to run all over London looking for someone I’m never going to find. This is insane.”

As the fantasy began to fade, he saw himself reaching into his pocket and handing her money to go to a hotel. What a happy little dream it was.

But looking at her, he knew it wasn’t going to happen. Right now, her eyes were filling with tears, as though she could read his mind and knew he wanted to get rid of her and her problems.

“Okay,” he told her gruffly, clenching his fists to keep from following his instinct to reach out to comfort her. And then he added a touch of cynicism to his tone, just for good measure. “If all this is a little too overwhelming for you in your current state of hysteria…”

“I am not hysterical!” she cried indignantly.

He raised an eyebrow. “That’s a matter of judgment and not even very relevant. Why don’t we do this in a logical, methodical fashion? Then maybe we can get somewhere.”

She moaned. “Like back to bed?” she suggested hopefully.

“Not yet.” He was pacing again. “You need to fill in some of the blanks. Let’s start with this. What exactly is your tie to Ambria? Give me the full story.”

He’d given up wondering if she was here to harm him. The complete innocence she displayed wasn’t very likely to be a put-on. And anyway, what sort of an incompetent murder master would send a young woman with a baby to do the dirty deed? It just didn’t make sense.

“My parents were Ambrian,” she began. “I was actually born there but that was just before the rebellion. My birth parents died in the fighting. I don’t remember them at all. I was taken out with a lot of other refugee children and rushed to the States. I was adopted right away. I was only about eighteen months old, so as far as I’m concerned, my adoptive parents are my parents.” She shrugged. “End of story.”

“Are you kidding? We’ve barely begun.” He stopped and looked down at her, arms folded over his chest. “Who told you about your Ambrian background?”

“Oh, the Sommerses had Ambrian roots, too. Second generation American, though. So they told me things, and there were some books around the house.” She shook her head. “But it wasn’t like I was immersed in the culture or anything like that.”

“But you do know about the rebellion? You know about the Granvilli family and how they led an illegal coup that killed a lot of people and left them in charge of an ancient monarchy that should have been left alone?”

She blinked. “Uh…I guess.”

“But you don’t know much about it?”

She shook her head.

He gazed at her, speculation glowing in his silver-blue eyes. “So you don’t have family still in Ambria?”

“Family?” She stared at him blankly. “Not that I know of.”

“I guess they were all killed by the rebels?”

She blinked and shook her head. “I don’t know if the rebels killed them.”

He raised a cynical eyebrow. “Who do you think killed them?”

She ran her tongue nervously over her lower lip. “Well, to tell you the truth, I really don’t know what side they were on.”

That stunned him. The idea that someone decent might support the rebels who had killed his parents and taken over his country didn’t really work for him. He dismissed it out of hand. But if she were around long enough, and he had a chance, he would find out who her parents were and what role they played. It seemed like something she ought to know.

“Now that we’ve established who you are, let’s get to the real topic. Why are you really here?”

She sighed. “I told you.”

But he was already shaking his head. “You told me a lot of nonsense. Do you really expect me to believe you had a baby and don’t know the father? It doesn’t add up, Ayme. How about giving me the real story?”

She felt like a bird caught in a trap. She hated lying. That was probably why she did it so badly. She had to tell him something. Something convincing. Had to be. She was beginning to see that she would really be in trouble if he refused to help her.

But before she could conjure up something good, a wail came from across the apartment. Ayme looked toward where the sound was coming from, uncertainty on her face. Why didn’t this baby seem to want to sleep for more than an hour at a time, day or night?

“I just fed her an hour ago,” she said, shaking her head and thinking of her dwindling stash of formula bottles. “Do you think she really wants to eat again?”

“Of course,” he told her. “They want to eat all the time. Surely you’ve noticed.”

She bit her lip and looked at him. “But the book says four hours…”

He groaned. She was still using a book?

“Babies don’t wear watches,” he noted, feeling some sympathy for this new mother, but a lot of impatience, as well.

“True.” She gave him a wry look as she turned to go. “But you’d think they could look at a clock now and then.”

He grinned. He couldn’t help it. If he really let himself go, he would start liking her and he knew it. And so he followed her into the room and watched as she stroked the little round head rather inefficiently. The baby was definitely crying, and the stroking was doing no good at all. From what he could tell, Ayme didn’t seem to have a clue as to what to do to quiet her.

“Why don’t you try changing her?” he suggested. “She’s probably wet.”

“You think so?” That seemed to be a new idea to her. “Okay, I’ll try it.”

She had a huge baby bag crammed full of things, but she didn’t seem to know what she was looking for. He watched her rummage around in it for a few minutes, then stepped forward and pulled out a blanket which he spread out on the couch.

“I can do this,” she said a bit defensively.

“I’m sure you can,” he said. “I’m just trying to help.”

She winced, feeling genuine regret for her tone. “I know. I’m sorry.”

She pulled out a paper diaper and laid it on the blanket, then pulled Cici up out of the drawer.

“There you go little girl,” she cooed to her. “We’re going to get you nice and clean.”

David stood back and watched, arms folded across his chest, mouth twisted cynically. She didn’t seem very confident to him. Cici wasn’t crying hard, only whimpering at this point, but he had the impression that she was looking up at the woman working over her with something close to apprehension.

“Don’t you have someplace else you could be?” she muttered to him as she worked, and he could see that she was nervous to be doing this in front of him. Like someone who didn’t really know what she was doing.

One thing he knew for sure—this woman didn’t know the first thing about taking care of a baby. How crazy was that? And then it came to him. She wasn’t the mother of the baby. Couldn’t be. In six weeks time anyone would have learned more than she seemed to know.

“Alright Ayme Negri Sommers,” he said firmly at last, “come clean. Whose baby is this?”

She looked up, a deer in the headlights.

“Mine.”

“Liar.”

She stared at him for a moment, degrees of uncertainty flashing across her pretty face. Finally, she threw her hands into the air. “Okay, you got me.” She shrugged, looking defeated. “She’s not really mine.” She sighed. “What was your first clue?”

He grunted, stepping forward to take over. “The fact that you don’t know beans about taking care of a baby,” he said, taking the diaper from her and beginning to do an expert job of it in her place. “The fact that you’re still reading a book to figure out which end is up.”

She heaved a heart-felt sigh. “I guess that was inevitable. It’s really such a relief. I hated living a lie.” She looked at him with more gratitude than resentment. “How come you know so much about babies, anyway?”

“I grew up in a big family. We all had to pitch in.”

She sighed. “We didn’t have any babies around while I was growing up. It was just me and Sam.”

The baby was clean and in dry diapers. David put her up against his shoulder and she cuddled in, obviously comfortable as could be and happy to be with someone who knew what he was doing. He managed a reluctant smile. It was just like riding a bicycle. Once you knew how to hold a baby, you didn’t forget.

He turned back to Ayme. “Who’s this Sam you keep talking about?”

She swallowed, realizing the answer to that question was going to be tied to very different emotions from now on.

“My…my sister, Samantha. She was Cici’s real mother.”

And that was when the horror hit her for the first time since she’d left home. Her legs turned to rubber. Closing her eyes, she sank to the couch, fighting to hold back the blackness that threatened to overtake her whenever she let herself think, even for a moment, about Samantha. It was the same for her parents. The accident had taken them, too. Her whole family.

It was all too much to bear. If she let herself really think about what had happened and about the emptiness that was waiting for her return to Dallas, the bubble she was living in would pop in an instant. She couldn’t think about it and she couldn’t tell him about it. Not yet. Maybe not ever. The pain was just too raw to manage.

Steeling herself, she forced out a quick explanation.

“Sam died in a car accident a few days ago.” Her voice was shaking but she was going to get through this. “I…I was taking care of Cici when it happened. It was all so sudden. It…”