The Lost Prince Read online

  But it was outrageous that any woman would be flogged for something as simple as showing her face, when just days ago any woman in Baraq could’ve shown not only her face but her arms, hands, legs and feet in public if she liked!

  The kernel of disquiet that had formed in Katy’s gut over the ill treatment of the prisoners blossomed into full-blown anger. The regime of General Sharaf was not good for this country or its people.

  But it wasn’t as if there was anything she could do about it.

  Other than hide the identity of the king and help him survive for as long as possible.

  Oh, yeah. That.

  As heavy as the burden of her secret might lie on her shoulders, she suddenly welcomed it. She would help Nikolas Ramsey no matter how dangerous doing so might be.

  She leaned forward across the table. “How can I help?”

  The woman smiled. “Hanah judged you correctly. She thought you might be willing to help us.”

  “I don’t know what I can do, but I cannot sit by while women are punished for exercising their legal rights.”

  Fear glistened for a moment in the woman’s eyes. She rose from the table and peered out the kitchen window and then into the hallway leading from the kitchen to the rest of the house. She returned and sat, leaning so close that Katy smelled the recent tea on the woman’s breath. Apparently whatever she was about to say was exceedingly dangerous to utter aloud.

  “You can help us find the king.”

  Katy’s heart skipped a beat. “Find the—?”

  The woman clapped a hand across Katy’s mouth.

  She nodded her understanding that she mustn’t repeat the words aloud, and the woman lifted her hand away. Panic closed Katy’s throat. Nick had been clear—no one must know he lived, and she must trust no one. Had she somehow given away his identity to someone watching her?

  The woman at the table whispered urgently, “We have reason to believe he is not dead. He must be found.”

  “Why do you think he’s alive?”

  “Soldiers who were there when the throne room fell have said they saw a man who looked a great deal like him being carried out as a prisoner.”

  Crud. Did Nick know anyone had seen him? Were his hopes for staying hidden completely blown? “And what will you do if and when you find him?” Katy asked aloud.

  “We will do our best to save him. Perhaps there is a way to get him away from Sharaf’s men—if they have him—or to sneak him out of the city to safety, if he’s in hiding. He may not be the best king, but he is a Ramsey. And he would never beat women in the streets.”

  Katy couldn’t help herself. “How do you know he wouldn’t be a decent king? He only sat on the throne for a week. It’s awfully hard to judge someone in so short a time. Perhaps he wouldn’t be half-bad if he were given a chance.”

  The woman gave Katy a long, hard look. For her part, Katy did her best to look innocent, as if her comment had been just a casual observation. She had to watch what she said to this lady. The woman was very sharp.

  “You may be right, Miss McMann. You may be wrong. But I do know he cannot be a worse ruler than Sharaf and his cronies.”

  Katy couldn’t argue with that.

  “If you find him, you must tell us,” the woman insisted. “Then we can form a plan to protect him. Hopefully to get him out of the country.”

  Katy took a sip of her tea and studied her companion. An undertone of desperation vibrated in this woman’s words. She smelled of fear. It oozed from her like a film of sweat. Katy felt a need to distract this woman from the sudden terror overwhelming her. “Where are you from?”

  “Originally Connecticut. I picked up any British accent you hear at Oxford. That, and I have a home in London.”

  “What did you study?” Katy asked in surprise.

  “Philosophy.” The woman laughed lightly. “A fat lot of good that does me now.”

  No kidding. The woman was huddling in a dingy kitchen, heating water over a wood fire and whispering of conspiracy just so she could show her face in the street again. The desperation of the situation for all women in this country was personified in this educated, sophisticated woman living in Medieval squalor.

  Did she dare break her promise to Nick and tell someone he was alive? Her intuition said this woman was trustworthy. But common sense said not to mention anything of his existence even to this woman, as passionate as she might be. Protecting Nick was not the other woman’s fight to fight. At least not yet. Katy hoped the woman wouldn’t notice that she was dodging answering. No such luck.

  “Will you help us?” the woman demanded.

  “I will do what I can to help you and the women of Baraq.”

  And to help Nick, she promised herself silently.

  “Let us hope you can deliver the miracle we need to avert disaster.”

  Katy met the woman’s gaze head-on. “For now, I think you and your friends need to put all your energy into devising a way to smuggle the king out of Baraq. From what I’ve seen of the Army so far, you may need a miracle or two of your own to accomplish that.”

  The woman raised her cup of tea to Katy in a grim toast. “Here’s to miracles, then.”

  Nick measured time in the dungeon’s perpetual gloom by the arrival of his twice-daily meals. A plate of watery gruel was passed in to him, announcing the arrival of morning. He washed down the tasteless mess with a dipper of water from the bucket that, since InterAid’s arrival, had been reasonably clean.

  With luck, Katy would come see him today. He rehearsed his speech to her several times, delivering it silently to the four walls surrounding him. He tried several approaches, but damned if he knew the best way to convince an American woman to go along with his insane plan. Women of that nationality were famously independent and strong-willed. He was just going to have to brazen it out and rely on her attraction to him to get her to say yes.

  If only he’d made a habit of seducing young, soft-hearted Americans! But alas, he’d stuck to fast, hard women who knew the rules in his world: have fun, have sex, but never, ever fall in love.

  In all his years of romancing women, he never could’ve imagined that one day the future of his family name would ride on his skills of seduction. But that day had come, and all of a sudden he felt completely unprepared to seduce the one woman he desperately needed to.

  His entire life had turned into one giant irony. Somewhere the Fates were having a hell of a laugh at his expense. He only prayed they took pity on him and granted him this one small thing. Please let Katy McMann say yes.

  He’d repeated that thought so many times through the night he’d lost count.

  A tapped-out message from the cell next door announced the arrival of the American woman in the cell block sometime in the early afternoon. He passed on the message to the next cell and then sat down heavily on his stone ledge, so relieved that she’d come he could hardly stand.

  It was time.

  In a few minutes, Katy McMann would either save his soul or damn him to eternal hell.

  He paced impatiently until the padlock finally rattled on his cell door. He leaped onto his ledge, assuming his usual submissive pose for the guard.

  As he watched her walk into his cell from under his lowered eyelids, Nick experienced a moment of extraordinary clarity. It was going to be okay. Regardless of whether or not she accepted his offer, he would not go entirely alone into whatever destiny awaited him. This warm, kind, bright young woman would stand beside him. Of that he had no doubt. She would walk the last few weeks of his life with him.

  It was a humbling gift. And it made him feel like an even bigger schmuck for what he was about to ask of her.

  They exchanged murmured greetings and she made a report of his health while the surly guard lingered in the cell, eavesdropping. Bastard. It was almost as if the jerk sensed that he and Katy wanted to talk about something today, and the guy was determined not to let it happen! Nick curbed his impatience. It didn’t do to make that particular guard mad.
He had heavy fists and loved to use them. Nick had a couple new bruises on his ribs to show for it, in fact.

  Katy detailed Prisoner 1806’s progress with painstaking precision on her clipboard until finally, after an eternity, the guard left.

  Nick sagged in relief.

  With a furtive glance at the locked door, Katy pulled her veil away from her face and rolled her eyes. “I didn’t think he was ever going to leave!”

  Nick smiled. She really was very attractive. She still carried the softness of youth about her face, but she was the kind of woman who would be beautiful at thirty or sixty or ninety. He hadn’t been kidding. She had great bones.

  “How are you?” she asked, moving close to him.

  “You already asked me that.”

  “Yes, but that was for the guard. How are you really doing?”

  He frowned, considering the question. “Scared, mostly.”

  “I don’t blame you. These Army guys are serious jerks. You won’t believe what I passed yesterday on the way home—”

  He cut her off gently. “I’m not afraid of them.”

  “Then who?” Her eyes went big and round.

  So damned innocent, she was. A spear of guilt pierced his gut. He closed his eyes on the pain for a moment. He had to do this. He had to.

  “You.”

  “Me?”

  He took a deep breath. “There’s something I need to ask you.”

  She gazed at him curiously.

  Duty, dammit! He owed this to his people. He stood and paced the cell restlessly, trying futilely to gather his thoughts. Uncharacteristically words completely failed him.

  “Please, you can tell me anything,” she murmured. “I’ll keep your secrets.”

  Aah, sweet Katy. The vise around his chest loosened. “I have a favor to ask of you. A huge one. It is dangerous and foolish and I have no right to ask it of you. No right at all. But I must.”

  “What is it?”

  His throat closed upon the words and he had to swallow before he could continue.

  “Do you want me to help you escape?” she whispered, her eyes wide.

  He smiled wryly. “If only it was something as insignificant as that.”

  “What in the world could be more significant than that?” She looked up at him in confusion.

  He took a deep breath. “I want you to have my baby.”

  Chapter 5

  Katy jerked sharply as if she’d been struck. She stared in utter amazement at the man standing before her. A myriad of images flashed through her head. Nick naked and inside her. Her abdomen swollen and heavy. A tiny, dark head suckling at her breast. Ohmigosh.

  “Your what!” she exclaimed.

  “You heard me correctly,” he answered quietly.

  “A baby?” The reason for such a request simply refused to compute in her brain. “Whatever for? Have you completely lost your mind?” she demanded.

  She jumped up and paced the cell, too agitated to stand still. Good grief! She’d taken this job to help ease human suffering, not to be propositioned. By a deposed king. In jail!

  She was startled when gentle hands grasped her shoulders, halting her circuits around the tiny space.

  “Stop for a minute. Listen to me. Please.”

  She searched the depths of his eyes in the poor light. He didn’t look crazy.

  “It is only a matter of time until I’m recognized. When the rebels find out who I am, they’ll kill me.” His voice vibrated with urgency. “I’m the only remaining Ramsey. My father was an only child and I’m an only child. I have no direct living relatives. When I die, the Ramsey dynasty dies with me.”

  His gaze was compelling. Sincere.

  Oh. My. God. He isn’t kidding.

  Her fingers went numb and her knees suddenly weren’t all that steady.

  He continued. “The people of Baraq have followed a Ramsey for a thousand years. We’ve been through conquerors, plague, famine and war together, and always the Baraqis and Ramseys have stood by one another.”

  He paced an agitated lap of his own around the cell. “This Army coalition is going to fall apart in a few months. I’ve met the generals involved. I saw them in action last week. They’ll revolt against Sharaf’s heavy hand. And before long, they’ll start bickering among themselves and wrestling for personal power. In the process, they’ll tear whatever government they’ve built apart.”

  Katy frowned. Don Ford had made a similar comment about the Army’s commanders under his breath at breakfast.

  Nick continued, “When that happens, the people of Baraq are going to need something—someone—to rally around. That person has always been a Ramsey. If there were an heir, a child for them to pin their hopes on, they’d have a reason to pick themselves up and go forward, to throw off the yoke of a man like Sharaf. I owe it to my people to leave them a promise for the future.”

  Katy simply stared. He wasn’t asking her for his own life. Far from it. He’d made not one complaint about his imminent death in the impassioned speech he’d just given her. He was asking her this favor on behalf of his people. An entire nation of them. To give them a chance at something other than women being flogged in a square, at continuing a long and proud legacy of peace and prosperity. To give them a gift of hope.

  The playboy had come a very long way in a very short time, apparently. His request was completely selfless. An act of generosity toward his people. It was the act of a king.

  It was also completely out of the question.

  She looked up to find his gaze burning at her like the sun’s rays, so intense it was hard to look at.

  “Nick, what you’re asking is impossible.”

  “Why?” he demanded.

  “Well, you’re a king—”

  “I’m a man,” he interrupted.

  “—and I’m a…a commoner.” The word felt strange in her mouth.

  “And you’re a woman,” he countered.

  “I’m from the United States and you’re from a totally different culture halfway around the world,” she protested.

  “It worked for Prince Rainier and Grace Kelly,” he argued.

  “They were both Christian, and she was a movie star. Used to glamour and glitz. I’m a plain old social worker.”

  “I’m about to be executed, and we’re locked in a prison cell at the moment. Don’t you think social status is rather meaningless in the circumstances?” he reasoned. “Besides, you are neither plain nor old.”

  “We don’t even know if it—” her mind stumbled at the thought of making love with this man “—would work.”

  “That is true. I ask only for a chance to leave an heir. I would die in peace knowing I had tried.”

  “The whole idea is preposterous, Nick.”

  “Undoubtedly,” he answered calmly.

  “It’s insane!”

  “Agreed.” He smiled warmly at her.

  “I hardly know you.”

  “You are right. This is happening very fast. Too fast for civilized people like you and me. But I have no time, and you are the only woman I am likely to see before I die. It is my extreme good fortune that you are bright, kind and compassionate, not to mention single and attractive.”

  “I…I’m flattered….” she stumbled, at a loss for words. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say yes. Think about it overnight if you have to. But I beg you, don’t turn me down. Consider it the last request of a dying man. The last request of a dying nation.”

  She blinked, taken aback. When he put it like that, it was hard to imagine refusing him.

  He stepped near and touched a strand of loose hair that had crept out of her ponytail. “Your hair is exactly the color I imagined it would be the first time I saw you,” he murmured. “Gold, like a beach kissed by the setting sun.”

  Gently he tucked the strand of hair behind her ear, caressing the ticklish shell of her ear with a light touch. When he stood so close like this, she could hardly breathe.

  “I ask only
one thing of you, Katy. Do not think on your answer for too long. My time is very short. A few days maybe. A few weeks if I’m lucky.”

  She nodded and drew breath to speak, when abruptly the padlock outside the door rattled. The guard had returned.

  She took a quick step back and replaced her facial veil. Her last sight of Nick as the cell door swung closed was him standing tall and straight in the center of the room. He inclined his head toward her, a regal movement of homage.

  A baby. A baby! Nick’s baby. She loved kids. But what of this child? What destiny awaited Nick’s heir? Did she have what it took to nurture and educate such a child? To raise a prince or princess to lead a nation out of chaos? She’d be a single parent. Her folks would be mortified, but they’d help her anyway. They were already bugging her about when she was going to settle down and give them grandchildren. Although this was undoubtedly not what they had in mind.

  Good Lord. She was actually considering the idea.

  He was right that the people of Baraq needed a Ramsey heir. Women’s rights were being trampled left and right under Sharaf. She had no doubt that if the Baraqis had an alternative to the repressive Army regime, they’d leap at it.

  The cries of those women in the square haunted her, along with the feverish fear of the woman sitting in that kitchen, begging for Katy’s help. She couldn’t turn her back on the women of this nation.

  But she barely knew Nick! And to have his baby?

  Although, what she knew of him wasn’t all bad. He was facing his imminent death with an equanimity she couldn’t have mustered in the same circumstances. He was more concerned about his people’s future than his own. And it didn’t hurt that he was gorgeous and charming, either.

  It was preposterous even to consider his proposition. But considering it she was.

  Katy fumbled through the rest of her day, nodding absently and pretending to listen to the complaints and woes of the other prisoners.

  Larry Grayson gave her a funny look when she skipped supper and went straight up to her room that night. But thankfully he didn’t try to stop her and ferret out what was on her mind.