“What on earth can she be dreaming about that’s making her so happy?”

“You,” Stephen said. He was standing beside her, and Suzanne felt the warmth of his forearm against her wrist. She noticed the way his smile lit up his whole face. Like baby Alice’s smile. Slowly she was beginning to lose that instinctive mistrust she’d had on first meeting him. Maybe here, at last, was someone else who cared about her orphaned niece.

“She’s 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.

“Am I right thinking you would give almost anything to be able to bring her up as your own?” Stephen asked suddenly.

“Of course I would,” Suzanne answered. “I love her.”

“Then marry me.”

Dear Reader,

What are your New Year’s resolutions? I hope one is to relax and escape life’s everyday stresses with our fantasy-filled books! Each month, Silhouette Romance presents six soul-stirring stories about falling in love. So even if you haven’t gotten around to your other resolutions (hey, spring cleaning is still months away!), curling up with these dreamy stories should be one that’s a pure pleasure to keep.

Could you imagine seducing the boss? Well, that’s what the heroine of Julianna Morris’s Last Chance for Baby, the fourth in the madly popular miniseries HAVING THE BOSS’S BABY did. And that’s what starts the fun in Susan Meier’s The Boss’s Urgent Proposal—part of our AN OLDER MAN thematic series—when the boss…finally…shows up on his secretary’s doorstep.

Looking for a modern-day fairy tale? Then you’ll adore Lilian Darcy’s Finding Her Prince, the third in her CINDERELLA CONSPIRACY series about three sisters finding true love by the stroke of midnight! And delight in DeAnna Talcott’s I-need-a-miracle tale, The Nanny & Her Scrooge.

With over one hundred books in print, Marie Ferrarella is still whipping up fun, steamy romances, this time with three adorable bambinos on board in A Triple Threat to Bachelorhood. Meanwhile, a single mom’s secret baby could lead to Texas-size trouble in Linda Goodnight’s For Her Child…, a fireworks-filled cowboy romance!

So, a thought just occurred: Is it cheating if one of your New Year’s resolutions is pure fun? Hmm…I don’t think so. So kick back, relax and enjoy. You deserve it!

Happy reading!

Mary-Theresa Hussey

Senior Editor

Finding Her Prince

Lilian Darcy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Books by Lilian Darcy

Silhouette Romance

The Baby Bond #1390

Her Sister’s Child #1449

Raising Baby Jane #1478

*Cinderella After Midnight #1542

*Saving Cinderella #1555

*Finding Her Prince #1567

LILIAN DARCY

has written nearly fifty books for Silhouette Romance and Harlequin Mills & Boon Medical Romance (Prescription Romance). Her first book for Silhouette appeared on the Waldenbooks Series Romance Best-sellers list, and she’s hoping readers go on responding strongly to her work. Happily married, with four active children and a very patient cat, she enjoys keeping busy and could probably fill several more lifetimes with the things she likes to do—including cooking, gardening, quilting, drawing and traveling. She currently lives in Australia but travels to the United States as often as possible to visit family. She loves to hear from fans, who can e-mail her at darcy@dynamite.com.au.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Epilogue

Chapter One

“Darn it, Prince Charming was right!” Suzanne Brown muttered.

She scrunched a small piece of pink, hand-knitted wool in her hand and slashed a line through another of the male names in her appointment diary. This one was Robert. Over the past two days, there had also been Mike, Duane, Les, Colin and Dan. She hadn’t spent long enough with any of them to find out their last names.

Her stomach ached and knotted with disappointment. The squeak of Robert’s footsteps on the polished vinyl floor faded into the ambient sounds of the busy hospital café, and he left without a backward glance.

Again!

It was the tiny pink baby bootie, still scrunched in her hand, that nixed the deal every single time! And every time, it happened in exactly the same way.

First, Suzanne would rummage in her purse in search of a tissue. Then she would “accidentally” let the bootie fall out of her messy purse onto the coffee shop table. Every time, it looked so cute and fragile, and every time it earned a slightly alarmed stare from the man—Mike, Les, Colin and the others—across the table.

“Are you a single mom, or something?” a couple of them had said.

Picking the bootie up—nervous, at this point—Suzanne would use it as a way to explain the situation with baby Alice.

That her birth mother, Suzanne’s much older half sister, Dr. Jodie Rimsky, had died of a brain aneurysm in the sixth month of her pregnancy. That Alice had been safely delivered, more than three months premature, by emergency Caesarean, thanks only to the quick thinking of Jodie’s medical practice partner, Michael Feldman.

That Alice was still in hospital and Suzanne was hoping for custody, once the baby was discharged. Alice had been conceived through artificial insemination at a clinic and there was no father to claim her.

Finally, after ten minutes or so, with the pink bootie still cradled in her palm, Suzanne would sit back and watch another chance at Alice’s happiness dissolve before her eyes as another near-stranger made his excuses and left.

Up until now, she had never felt much of a personal affinity for the Cinderella fairy tale. In contrast, her sister Jill and stepsister Catrina had developed a magical connection to the girl in the glass slippers just lately. Suzanne couldn’t imagine she’d ever share their sense of connection with Cinderella herself. Her feet were pretty large, and she had no glittering balls looming on her social calendar, for a start.

But suddenly, yes, she knew exactly how Prince Charming had felt, and she totally agreed with the man’s thinking on the issue.

The shoe—or in this case, the little pink bootie—was the deal breaker. If the shoe didn’t fit, the date was off.

Suzanne’s personal ad had appeared in the latest issue of a well-known New York magazine. Carefully worded, it hadn’t alluded to her pressing need for marriage. Every man who responded to it, however, had made it very clear, very early on, that little pink booties didn’t fit. Not in his heart. Not in his plans. Not anywhere. Not when those pink booties belonged to a tiny, orphaned premature baby, who was still in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit.

Suzanne dropped the bootie back onto the coffee shop table in front of her and stared at it.

“Am I being too up-front with this?” she thought. “Maybe I should suggest meeting in some café in the village, instead of here. Maybe I shouldn’t tell a man about Alice until we’ve been out a few times and had a chance to connect. But that’s deceptive. Anyway I don’t have time for it! I need a husband soon! Should I reword the ad?”

Desperately seeking husband and father.

Like, this week.

The thoughts in her head raced on like a roller coaster, fast and frightening on their well-worn track.

“Because if I’m not married, if there’s no husband in the picture, then Dr. Feldman is going to recommendto the family court that custody of Alice goes to Mom. And Dr. Feldman’s recommendation will count more than anything else, because of what Jodie said about his guardianship in the will she made at the beginning of her pregnancy.”

Jodie hadn’t even known about Suzanne’s existence at that point.

“And Mom can’t have Alice, because that baby needs love, and Mom doesn’t know how to love anyone but herself, no matter how well she can pretend. I have the love. I love that baby so much! It’s changed all my plans, changed my future completely. But where am I going to find a man, soon, who can care about her the way I do?”

Suzanne didn’t have any answers, and she didn’t have any more potential husbands to meet today. She crammed the deal-breaking, heartbreaking little pink bootie back in her purse, took a final gulp of her sixth or seventh coffee and headed for the elevator. For the moment, finding a man to fit the bootie—a prince of a man, with a hero’s heart—would have to wait. She wanted to get back to the neonatal unit to see her baby girl.

“Alice has a visitor already, Suzanne,” said Terri McAllister, the head nurse for this shift.

“Oh, Mom’s here?” Suzanne didn’t succeed at the upbeat tone she was trying for. Things were tense between her and Mom at the moment. There could easily be a custody battle between them, but she didn’t want people knowing this. Not even the nurses here, who had been so wonderful since Alice’s birth.

“Uh, no, it’s not your mother,” Terri said. “I don’t think she’s been in here for about ten days.” Her tone dropped sympathetically. “She told me it’s so difficult for her to get here, what with all her charity work in Philadelphia.”

Yeah, Mom’s very believable when she says things like that.

“So who—?” Suzanne said aloud.

“This is someone new.” Something in the way Terri spoke sent a prickle of warning up Suzanne’s spine. “His name is Stephen Serkin, and he had a letter of introduction from Dr. Feldman. He’s only been in the country a couple of days, I think.”

“What on earth…?”

Suzanne didn’t finish. Easing past Terri, she could see the whole unit. It was brightly lit and crowded with the complex equipment needed for the care of ill or premature newborns. Her eyes skimmed over other babies, other visitors, and went instinctively to the far end, where Alice’s Plexiglas crib was positioned.

The crib hadn’t always been that far along in the unit. For more than two months, Alice was in the room beside the nurses’ station that was reserved for the most fragile babies of all. Moving to the far end was a “graduation” that Suzanne valued much more than her own graduation from college, complete with cap and gown and a degree in library science.

Today, there was a man sitting in the hard beige plastic chair on the far side of Alice’s crib—the chair where Suzanne herself had spent so many hours. He was watching the sleeping baby intently, and hadn’t yet looked up at Suzanne’s approach. She was walking carefully, and maybe he hadn’t heard.

She took advantage of this, and paused to watch him. Still didn’t have any idea who he was, or why he was here. Stephen Serkin. The name didn’t ring a bell. Despite the letter of introduction, which Dr. Feldman had apparently written on the man’s behalf, Feldman hadn’t mentioned any Stephen Serkin to her. And she had never seen him before in her life.

She would have remembered a man like this.

He was wearing blue denim jeans and a white T-shirt, and there was a brown leather jacket hanging over the back of the chair. The temperature in the unit was kept high for the sake of the babies, so he didn’t need the jacket in here. The garment looked well-worn, and must hug his body snugly when he had it on. Those shoulders, beneath the T-shirt, were broad and strong, and so was his chest.

He seemed to be consumed by his thoughts, although his eyes were fixed on baby Alice. They were very blue eyes, the color of shadows on snow, and above them was a frown. A lot of people frowned when they saw Alice for the first time. She was still so tiny, and still wore an oxygen mask. This stranger seemed to be measuring her in his mind, and as Suzanne watched, he bent a little closer, as if he needed to study the baby more closely still.

The movement brought his hair into the light. It was a rich, glossy brown, just long enough to fall into a couple of loose waves across the top of his well-shaped head, and it gleamed with strands of gold.

He had a scar down one cheek, Suzanne noticed as she came closer. Nothing dramatic. Just a silvery white line. It gave him an exotic look. Her gaze traveled along the thin line to reach his mouth and she saw that his top lip was just a little fuller than the lower one.

My lord, who could he be? she wondered again.

A little sound of apprehension and dismay escaped from her throat as she came past the crib next to Alice’s. It caught his attention at last. He looked up. Their eyes met, and Suzanne saw a flash of interest and anticipation in those blue eyes. Neither of them smiled. For a stretched out moment, neither of them even spoke.

Suzanne felt his assessment of her like the hot glare of a surgical lamp. She flushed. What was he thinking? There was a calculation in his regard, as if they were two athletes about to go head to head in a race.

“You must be Suzanne,” he said at last. “Is that right? Josephine’s half sister?”

“I’m Jodie’s half sister, yes.”

She used her dead sister’s nickname deliberately, as if to underline their connection and the fact that it was stronger than any connection he could possibly claim. No one had called Jodie Rimsky “Josephine.” Even her listing under Physicians in the Manhattan telephone directory had read, “Jodie Rimsky, M.D.”

“But I have no idea about you,” she added. His English was fluent and attractive to the ear, but there was an accent, most noticeable when he had said Jodie’s name. Terri had said he’d only been in the country for a couple of days. Was he French?

“I’m her first cousin. Jodie’s first cousin.” He emphasized the nickname as if to admit that Suzanne had won that particular point. The cynical little tuck at the corner of his mouth suggested it would be her last victory. “Our fathers were brothers.”

Shocked, Suzanne seized on one tiny fact that didn’t make sense. It was like pulling on a tail of yarn in the hope that the whole sweater would unravel. For some reason, she instinctively wanted this man’s story, whatever it was, to unravel now. Dr. Feldman had mentioned to her in passing that Jodie had some relatives in Europe, but he hadn’t made it sound all that important. Why was this man here, seated beside Alice’s crib? He’d come such a long way.

“If your fathers were brothers, then your name should be Rimsky,” she said. “But Terri said it was Serkin.”

“More properly…or historically…it’s Serkin-Rimsky,” he explained, his face still unsmiling. “Our fathers chose to simplify it in different ways. My passport still says Serkin, but I’ll be using the Serkin-Rimsky name in full from now on.”

It sounded like a threat.

“What do you want?” Suzanne asked, her voice harsh with apprehension.

Her gut was churning like a washing machine. It shouldn’t be like this! Most probably, he didn’t want anything. But she was so used to people wanting or not wanting Alice, she could only think of it in such terms now.

Mom and her new husband, Perry, wanted Alice. They wanted the wealth held in trust for her, through the terms of Jodie’s will. They didn’t want the health problems that were sometimes associated with premature birth. Their interest in the tiny child had only developed after the reading of Jodie’s will, and after Alice’s health had begun to improve.

Dr. Feldman, Alice’s temporary guardian, wanted the baby to go to a close blood relative who could make a stable, two-parent family for her. He didn’t want her to go to Suzanne. “Although I have a lot of sympathy for your position,” he’d said.

Unfortunately, however, Suzanne wasn’t married, she was only the baby’s half aunt, and she was just camped out in an echoing, unrenovated loft apartment, a short-term, four-month rental here in New York City. She hadn’t had time to settle in. She spent all her time at the hospital or at her financially necessary part-time library job.

Finally, all those men she’d met through the personal ad didn’t want to get saddled with a premature adopted newborn, at the very beginning of a new relationship. They didn’t want a lukewarm marriage of convenience in order to provide Suzanne with an instant husband. Oh, and she couldn’t blame them for that. It had been a crazy idea to advertise, but she was so desperate, so single-minded about it now.

Suzanne felt as if she were the only person in the world who thought about Alice in terms of love instead of wanting. She’d loved Alice, welcomed her into her heart and her life, from the moment she’d laid eyes on her in early July. Back then, Alice had weighed less than two pounds. No one could be sure she’d even survive. Back then, Suzanne had had no idea that the baby had inherited wealth, or that Dr. Feldman would prove so firm on the subject of stability and marriage.

“What do I want?” Stephen Serkin repeated.

“Yes.” She glared at him. “I mean, are you going to tell me you’ve come all the way from…?” She paused, and left him to fill in the blank.

“From Europe. From Aragovia,” he answered.

“From Europe,” she repeated. Hadn’t heard of Aragovia. “…to bring her a teddy bear, or something?”

“Not a teddy bear.”

For the first time, he smiled. His teeth were very white, but a little crooked at the top, on one side of his mouth, near the silver line of his scar. It made his smile just a bit uneven. And somehow softer, less intimidating, Suzanne decided with reluctance. Along with the glint of humor in those astonishing blue eyes, it invited others to share in his pleasure. She watched as he leaned down to the floor and pulled something from a shopping bag.

“I’ve brought her a doll,” he said.

“Oh.”

“Is that all right?” He held it out for her to inspect, as if her opinion mattered. She took it, not knowing what else to do. For a moment, their fingers touched.

“That’s fine,” she said. “Of course.”

Nothing made sense. This man hadn’t come to America just to give Alice a doll! Suzanne was bristling with mistrust, but she was touched by his gesture all the same.

It wasn’t some mass-produced synthetic collectible, wired into position inside a clear plastic box, that he could have picked up at an airport store. It was made of cloth and yarn, with a dainty, hand-painted face, and was dressed in what looked like the national folk costume from some place in Europe.

Aragovia?

It was tragic that she knew so little about her half sister. There was a ten-year age gap between them, and Suzanne hadn’t even known of Jodie’s existence until last spring. They’d only met twice. The second time, Jodie had just found out that her baby would be a girl, and had confided, “I want to name her Alice. That’s partly a blend of my parents’ names, Alex and Lisette, but it’s also after my favorite doll, as a child. She slept with me for years, until we lost her at a motel on vacation. I remember crying for so long! Memories like that come back strong when you’re pregnant, I’ve found.”

This was one of the few personal stories Suzanne had heard about her half sister’s past, and they would never have a chance to know each other better now.

“She’s allowed to have toys, I hope?” Stephen Serkin asked.

“Now, yes, if it’s clean and new,” Suzanne answered. “Her immune system is more developed than it was.”

Distracted, she turned to the crib, the soft, pretty doll still in her hand. The hand-embroidered cotton skirts of the doll’s dress tickled her wrist. She placed it where Alice would be able to see it. The baby had begun to focus on faces and black-and-white patterns now.

“She’s waking up….” she murmured. Alice was stirring.

“No, dreaming, I think,” came that complicated, musical accent. Rising to his feet, Stephen stood next to Suzanne and they both looked down at baby Alice. “Look at that! Smiling, too,” he added.

“Smiling? Oh dear lord, smiling?” Suzanne couldn’t believe it. “She’s never done that before.”

“But she is now, in her sleep. Look! Isn’t it a great sight?” He laughed, a throaty sound of pure, genuine appreciation.

“I—I can’t believe it. Isn’t it just gas, or something?”

“It’s not impossible, Suzanne,” Terri McAllister interjected, having overheard. She was checking another baby in a nearby crib. “It seems like preemies should be too little to smile, when they should still be inside a tummy in the warm and dark. But actually they smile almost as early as babies who get born when they’re supposed to.”

Suzanne gripped the Plexiglas sides of the crib and leaned closer. The smile came again, quite unmistakable now.

“Oh, Alice! Oh, you are!” she cooed.

The smile was wider this time. It was an open-mouthed and completely toothless beam that scooped dimples into each cheek and softened the baby’s whole face, even in sleep. She stretched and arched her little neck. Her creamy eyelids still seemed almost transparent, their skin was so fine.

“What on earth can she be dreaming about that’s making her so delighted and happy?” Suzanne wondered aloud.

“You,” Stephen said. He was still standing beside her, and Suzanne felt the warmth of his forearm against her wrist. His hip bumped her side.

“Me?” she echoed.

She was trying desperately not to be so conscious of his accidental touch. Out of the corner of her eye she could see just how well made his arms were. They were strong and smooth, with lengths of honed muscle. He must keep himself fit.

“Yes, you.” He smiled at her for the second time. “Of course, you.”

This time, she noticed the way the smile crinkled the skin around his eyes and lit up his whole face. Like Alice’s smile. Again, there was a teasing quality to it that immediately made her smile back. Slowly she was beginning to lose that instinctive mistrust. Maybe here, at last, was someone else who didn’t just think about wants. Alice was his cousin’s child. Was it possible that he actually cared?

“She’s 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 would come to love. Her actual identity hardly mattered, let alone Stephen’s feelings for her.

“As a bachelor prince, Stephen, you are vulnerable to unsuitable women from your past with an eye on what you have to offer now.”

“Unsuitable women? Well, yes, there have been one or two of those….”

“No one now?”

“No.”

His last meaningful relationship had been with an American woman, part of the same family practice residency program as himself. Elin would have been “suitable.” Like Jodie, however, she hadn’t wanted him to return to Aragovia, and they’d parted in mutual anger. He’d heard she was now married to someone else.

Since then, his work as a doctor and the changing situation in his country had kept him too busy to think of relationships, suitable or otherwise.

And then there was baby Alice’s situation. He had talked with Feldman for a long time, yesterday.

“Jodie talked about you,” Michael Feldman had said, with a reserve that Stephen hadn’t missed. “She didn’t want anything to do with you at one stage, and certainly nothing to do with a place as obscure as Aragovia. Her father never believed there was any future for your family there.”

“No. That’s why he left, in the fifties. My father felt differently.”

“What’s the situation there now? The place is controlled by Russian mafia, isn’t it?”

“It was. Or by a couple of offshoots of it. But that’s changed now. There is high hope for the future of the country.”

“You should be thinking of your future, and just get out.”

Stephen hadn’t known how to answer that. He had earned a great deal of respect in his country over the past few years, through his medical work there. He had almost lost his life in defense of its heritage, and he had firm hope that his devotion to Aragovia would soon be rewarded. He wasn’t planning to “just get out.”

And yet Dr. Feldman was right about Jodie and her attitude. Stephen’s friendship with his cousin had soured, in the end, as a result of their sharply diverging views. Should he admit any of this to Suzanne? Should he tell her the full truth?

No, not yet. Definitely not yet.

His talk with Michael Feldman had continued in a more instructive vein. He’d learned about Suzanne and her claim on Alice. He’d learned about Suzanne’s mother, Rose, too. Feldman had told him that, as the child’s grandmother, her claim was stronger.

And he had begun to perceive a strategy, one which would please his advisers on all fronts.

It wasn’t the first Stephen had heard of Rose Chaloner Brown Wigan, nee Norton. His father’s brother, Alex Rimsky, had confided in him, some years ago, in a way that some men would only confide in a male relative.

“Jodie is my biological daughter, Stepan.” His accent was thick even after more than thirty years in the United States, and he used the Russian form of Stephen’s name. “She was the—how should I put it?—product of a brief and regrettable liaison just before I met Lisette. Jodie doesn’t know it. We told her from the beginning that she was adopted, and that is also true.”

“Complicated!”

“Not really. The adoption was conducted through official channels, when her natural mother gave her up at birth. You see, Lisette knew that she was unable to bear a child of her own. There was an operation for medical reasons years before. And Rose Norton did not want a child.”

“That sounds very cold.”

Alex had shrugged. “She was young and beautiful and selfish, and she had big plans for her life. Devil knows if she ever attained her dreams! They were so unrealistic. But then, who knew that I would have such success? Certainly, Rose did not believe it possible. She saw me as a poor, futureless immigrant, who had briefly captured her sensuality. I have no idea what became of her.”

And Alex Rimsky had died last year, without ever learning more about Rose, just a few months after the death of Lisette.

The deaths of her parents had affected Jodie deeply, Michael Feldman had told Stephen yesterday. During his final illness, Alex had told his daughter the truth about her origins. This had set her on a quest to find her birth mother. She had also become desperate to have a child of her own, although she was single, and had chosen artificial insemination through a reputable clinic.

A strong-willed, charismatic woman, Jodie had succeeded in both goals—becoming pregnant and finding Rose. This was when she’d learned she had two younger half sisters, through the first of Rose’s three marriages. The elder of those sisters was the woman who sat opposite Stephen now, thanking the waitress politely as their order arrived.

He liked her already. She wasn’t beautiful, but she had a presence about her—a quiet glow that was more attractive to his eye than shallow, model-perfect looks. Those green eyes were so warm and bright against her fair skin.

Her medium-dark hair waved so softly against her cheeks. It was a little untidy at this stage of the day, betraying the fact that she had a lot of other things on her mind. Her clothes were neat and pretty, though—tailored pale gray pants, a short-sleeved cream knit top and a delicate little necklace made of tiny beads and stones. The figure beneath the clothes was, on his closer inspection, more lushly curved than he had realized at first.

Her full, sensitive mouth seemed to draw his gaze, and she had a faint sprinkling of tiny golden freckles on her nose. The determined jaw told him that he shouldn’t underestimate her because of this youthful look. She wasn’t a woman he’d be able to manipulate at will. He was going to have to handle it carefully.

Her love for baby Alice was obvious. It was shaded into the glow of her eyes, sketched into the shape of her mouth. It captivated him and confirmed that he was on the right track in what he planned to do. First and foremost, beyond any question of politics and destiny, a baby like Alice needed love.

“Suzanne Brown is itching to adopt Jodie’s baby,” Dr. Feldman had said. “And it’s clear that she cares. But she’s being unrealistic. She’s not the child’s closest blood relative, and her circumstances are precarious at this stage. She’s not married, not involved with anyone, and I believe very strongly in two-parent families.”

“Yes, I can understand that.”

“I was never in favor of what Jodie was doing, setting out to have a baby on her own. Perhaps I should have told her my views on that more clearly. At that stage, though, I thought it wasn’t my concern. It is now!”

He had finished with a helpless shake of his head.

Stephen had said little in response. He wasn’t yet prepared to reveal his agenda to anyone. Feldman didn’t seem to believe in the future that Stephen hoped for.

Maybe no one here believed that it would really happen.

Stephen did, and he would have leaped to resume his title and the throne, as his people wanted. The only problem was, he wasn’t the rightful heir…

He picked up a French fry and slid it into his mouth, barely tasting the salt or the crisp heat. Food seemed irrelevant at the moment. He flicked the little pink bootie in his left hand from one finger to the other and let it finally come to rest on his thumb. The thing was so tiny that it fitted there perfectly.

There was no point in hesitating any longer. Suzanne was halfway through her burger and she was watching him with her huge green eyes, waiting to hear what he had to say.

“I have a proposition for you, Suzanne,” he said slowly. “We both have Alice’s best interests at heart. Am I right in thinking you would give almost anything to be able to bring her up as your own?”

“Of course I would,” she answered. “I love her. It’s the only thing I want, right now.”

“Then I think we should get married.”

Chapter Two

“I don’t understand why you’d be willing to do this,” Suzanne said, several confused minutes later. She took a gulp of her soda in an attempt to refresh her dry mouth.

Stephen’s offer had seriously spooked her. It clearly wasn’t something he’d come up with on the spur of the moment. He’d been thinking about it. For how long, she didn’t know. Since his meeting with Dr. Feldman?

She had been hunting down a husband for nearly two months. She’d called up two former boyfriends, but it hadn’t taken long to cross those names off her list. They had been clumsy, lackluster relationships in the first place, and the passage of several years hadn’t helped.

She’d made some discreet inquiries through friends. Any men out there with a reason of their own for wanting to sprint down the aisle at short notice? No takers. She’d placed that ill-fated personal ad.

Now, this stranger, Jodie’s first cousin, had offered her just what she wanted and she was holding back, wary and skeptical.

“Does that matter?” he asked. “Do my reasons matter?”

“Of course they matter!” She crashed her soda glass onto the table, splashing her hand with cold, fizzy liquid. “Obviously it would help my case if we got married, and you’ve realized that, but what do you stand to gain from it?”

“The same thing that you do, Suzanne.” He was watching her, his eyes steady and open. “The knowledge that it will give Alice the best chance of a happy future.”

“My mother and her husband, Perry, are planning to give her exactly that. It’s not as if she’s going to get sent to an orphanage, or something. She’ll have a mom and a dad and it’ll be fine.”

“If that’s the case, why are you fighting it?” he asked.

She couldn’t answer. Just sat there with her mouth half-open, feeling as if someone had doused her in a bucket of hot water. He had cut to the heart of the issue in nine words. If she could sincerely believe that Mom and Perry would love Alice and would put her first in their lives, then she wouldn’t be scrambling so desperately for ways to strengthen her claim, and Stephen Serkin-Rimsky knew it.

So maybe he did care. He’d talked to Michael Feldman, and he wasn’t stupid. He understood the situation, and he cared.

“Where would we live?” she asked.

He blinked. “Well…wherever is best for Alice.”

“Okay…I’ll have more questions.”

She meant it as a threat, but he only laughed. “I don’t promise I’ll have the answers to all of them.”

“I—I need to think about this,” she told him. The blood was still beating in her head. To occupy her nervous hands, she began soaking up the little puddles of spilled soda with the corner of a napkin.

“I didn’t demand an instant decision, did I?” One corner of that firm mouth lifted again.

“No, but if it’s going to happen, it has to happen soon,” she retorted, lightning fast.

Then she saw the flare of satisfaction in his blue eyes, like the flare of a match striking. He could almost touch the intensity of her need, she realized. It wasn’t a position of strength, on her part.

“Yes, it does,” he agreed. “But we can take a few days to think about what’s involved, about what it means. The implications of a divorce, if that became necessary sometime in the future. The question of how far we are prepared to go, how much of ourselves we are prepared to give, in order to make it real.”

He didn’t mention the word sex, but perhaps he didn’t need to. They both knew it was what he meant. She wondered if the prospect should shock her, and immediately discovered that it didn’t. Yes, she could—theoretically, abstractly, distantly—imagine sleeping with him. Despite the distance and the abstraction, it was unsettling. She didn’t often respond physically to a man within an hour of their first meeting.

“I really need to think about this,” she repeated.

“Do you think that I don’t?” he said. His smile was crooked, inviting hers in return. “Do you think that I’ve answered all these questions for myself? I haven’t! I’ll give you the phone number of my hotel. Call me whenever you want to. I’ll take your number, too. We might both have things to talk about.”

Suzanne nodded slowly. “That makes sense.”

She felt like adding, “I’m going to see Dr. Feldman, too. Check you out a little further.”

As long as she could manage to do that without giving away too much herself. She didn’t want Michael to guess that she was contemplating a strategic marriage to Jodie’s cousin. She’d prefer to present it to him as a done deal after the event, a practical yet optimistic arrangement that was already working well.

“Finish your burger,” Stephen said. “Will it help Alice if you get sick?”

“No, I guess it won’t,” she agreed, and picked up the half-cooled burger. Duty, not pleasure.

He watched, wearing a small, satisfied smile, and when she had finished eating, he flicked the little bootie back to her, across the table. “Don’t forget this,” he said.

“It fits your thumb better than it fits her foot, now,” she answered him. “She’s grown so much since she was born.”

“May I keep it, then?”

“For your thumb? Gloves would be a little more useful.”

He laughed. “No, not for my thumb. I’ll send it to my mother, at home, so she can see how frighteningly tiny Alice must have been when she was born. She will probably cry at the sight of it.” His face had fallen into serious lines once more. “She would have come here with me, to see the baby, only she’s been ill. She had some major surgery a couple of weeks ago.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“The discovery of this baby has done wonders for her recovery. I know she’ll want all the news of Alice that I can give her.”

And that was the moment when I knew, Suzanne thought to herself several days later. When he said that, I knew that he really did care about Alice, and I knew, for better or for worse, no matter what we decided about sex and divorce, that I’d marry him….

Rose Norton Chaloner Brown Wigan had never stayed at a five-star New York hotel before, but she was trying very hard to act as if she stayed in such establishments all the time.

It was quite sweet, in a way. At the strangest times, Suzanne detected an odd form of innocence in her selfish, beautiful and eternally blond mother. Rose and Perry had arrived from Philadelphia two days ago, “Now that our commitments have allowed us to get back here again, for a longer stay, we’re itching to see that darling baby!”

Their commitments had allowed them to do this for about two hours yesterday morning, just before lunch at Tavern on the Green.

They planned to stay over the weekend, and Mom had begged Suzanne over the phone, with that same exultant innocence, “You must come and see our suite, honey! It’s spectacular!”

Dropping in to visit Rose, as promised, Suzanne was greeted with the eager offer of anything she liked from the minibar of the sixth floor park view room. Just absolutely anything at all. A cocktail? Champagne? Chocolates?

“No, I’m fine, thanks.” Tense, too. She had something to discuss, and knew that the mood would change, at that point, like fall weather coming down from Canada on the tail end of a steamy summer.

“Are you sure, darling?” Rose said. “If there’s something you want that isn’t here, I can order it in special.”

“I’m really not hungry or thirsty.” She added gently, “You know they charge a bundle for all these little drinks and candies, Mom.” She didn’t want her mother to get carried away. Maybe Mom thought that you got these things for free. She and Perry could end up with an appalling bar bill, on top of what had to be a mammoth tab for this suite.

But Rose didn’t seem to care. “We’re putting it all on credit cards,” she said. “It’s not a problem, Suzie, really it isn’t, because we’ll pay them off no trouble, as soon as all the legal stuff with Alice’s inheritance goes through.”

Rose couldn’t quite keep the glee out of her face, but tried a little harder when her sideways glance caught Suzanne’s frown.

“I mean, as Alice’s new parents,” she continued in an earnest tone, as if giving a public speech, “we can’t be expected to live like—like hillbillies, can we?”

“No, Mom. I can’t see you as a hillbilly, I admit.”

“She’s an heiress, and we need to start moving amongst the right people—society people, you know, people who stay in hotels like this all the time—so she can make the right contacts. Perry and I have talked about this very seriously, and we both agree it’s the right thing.”

“I’m glad you’ve got your priorities worked out, Mom,” Suzanne said. Only someone who knew her very well would have picked the subtle flavor of sarcasm in her mild tone. Rose wasn’t that someone.

“Well, yes,” she answered. “Perry and I both know how important it is.”

She glanced toward her husband, who was stretched out on the couch, sleeping the way an alligator sleeps in a nice, warm Florida swamp—deceptively.

Suzanne wished she could count on his nap being genuine. She had that weather-changing announcement for Mom, and wanted to be able to make it without his input.

She took a deep breath, instead, before she spoke. “I have some news, Mom, which I hope you’ll be pleased about.”

“News? What news?” Having picked up something significant in her daughter’s tone, Rose attempted to narrow her eyes.

This was difficult. The face-lift surgery she’d had several months ago had pulled her skin so tight she wore a perpetual look of attractive, wide-eyed surprise. But the intent to narrow them was definitely there, Suzanne decided.

She bit the bullet.

“I’m getting married on Friday, and I want both of you to come to the wedding.” As Rose had done a moment earlier, Suzanne glanced at Perry, but he hadn’t stirred.

“Getting married on—! But that’s the day after tomorrow!” Rose paced the room like a soap opera actress. Her mouth was set in a line of concentration, and she was obviously thinking hard. She spun around on the high navy heels that matched her imitation silk suit, and as Suzanne had expected, the drop in temperature had arrived.

“I know why you’re doing this,” Rose accused suddenly.

“You haven’t asked me who he is.” Suzanne plowed on, as if she hadn’t heard.

Getting her head down, getting stubborn and pretending a sudden hearing loss was the only way she could deal successfully with her mother.

“It’s because of that baby. And Feldman’s views on stability and two-parent families,” Rose said, ignoring Suzanne just as thoroughly. “I thought you’d given up on this stupid rift you’re so determined to make between us, Suzie!”

“I’m not making a rift.” I’m not going to let her get to me.

“I’ve told you, it doesn’t need to be like this. Do you think I’d stop you from seeing the child?”

“His name is Stephen Serkin.”

“It won’t work, darling.” She sat down beside her daughter and put a soft, cajoling hand on her knee. Her eyes were swimming with sudden tears. “Look, you know I love you.” Her voice cracked. “You’re my daughter. This isn’t a battle, and it hurts me that you’re starting to treat it like one. Alice should come to me. I’m her closest blood relative. Accept it.”

“He’s thirty-four years old, and a doctor,” Suzanne stated. “Specializing in family practice. And he’s Jodie’s first cousin.”

Crisp fall weather gave way to Arctic winter.

“What?” Rose hissed. “So this is a total conspiracy! You think that a half aunt and a first cousin once removed add up to more than a grandmother?”

“It’s not a question of adding up.”

Again, Rose ignored her. “You’re wrong! How did you track him down, anyway?”

“I didn’t track him down. He came from Europe to visit Alice.”

“Oh, from Europe? To visit a baby? An ugly little thing who doesn’t even know she’s alive? Trust me, there’s more to it than that!”

“She’s smiled at me three days in a row.”

“Honey, that’s gas,” Rose snapped, apparently reaching the end of her rope.

Suzanne remained as calm as she could—on the surface, at least.

“He and Jodie knew each other quite well at one time,” she said, returning to what was relevant. “He studied medicine, here in New York. Jodie would have been pleased about our decision.”

The conviction in her voice was genuine.

She and Stephen had talked on the phone several times since their first meeting nine days ago, and had talked for long stretches beside Alice’s crib as well. They had gone to city hall to get their marriage license yesterday, and to a jewelry store to pick up two simple gold wedding bands. The errands hadn’t taken long. Less than two hours. And the impending marriage still didn’t seem quite real. But during all of this they’d started to get to know each other a little.

Stephen had retained the instinctive courtesy she’d seen in him last week, and the same humor and care. As for those two big questions, sex and divorce, “We’ll know, when either becomes appropriate, I think!” he’d said, with the upside-down smile she was starting to know.

Suzanne’s liking and trust had grown, building on her vivid image of him mailing a tiny pink bootie home to his convalescent mother in Aragovia. That was a gesture that couldn’t have been faked, surely!

“Did your mom get the bootie yet?” she had asked him yesterday.

“Yes, she called me last night. She was relieved to hear it was way too small for Alice now, and she’s started knitting bigger booties. Hats and sweaters and mittens, too, I expect. All pink. She loves pink. Be prepared to receive large, soft parcels with foreign stamps.”

Suzanne had laughed. She was becoming more and more certain that she’d been wrong about her initial moments of doubt and mistrust.

And Dr. Feldman had confirmed that Stephen was genuine.

“I had a diplomat friend check it out for me,” he had told Suzanne. “Anyone could blow in claiming to be Jodie’s Aragovian cousin, after all. But he’s exactly who he says he is, although I admit, I’m not yet convinced about the latest developments in his home country.”

“Developments?”

“I tend to discount the whole Aragovian thing. Jodie always did. She mentioned her cousin to me several times. I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up making a permanent home here.”

“Oh, really?” She’d tried not to let her face light up. That would certainly help. She wasn’t sure what Dr. Feldman had meant by “the whole Aragovian thing,” but it didn’t matter, surely, if there was a good chance that Stephen was planning to remain here.

“Why wouldn’t he?” Dr. Feldman had said. “He’s qualified to practice medicine here, and he has the good example of his uncle to follow. Jodie’s father made a fortune in the U.S. after starting out as an immigrant without two pennies to rub together.”

Stephen had asked, this morning, if he could meet her somewhere on Friday afternoon, shortly before the ceremony. He had something for her, he’d said. She wondered what it could be. Hadn’t wanted to ask, and he hadn’t given any clues. He’d just said it.

“Something for you. For the wedding. And we might need to talk a little.”

They hadn’t been able to think of a place to meet, and had finally settled on simply arriving at the church an hour before the ceremony. It wasn’t one of Manhattan’s fashionable Fifth Avenue churches, but a little place in an out-of-the-way corner of Chelsea, where an old friend of Suzanne’s late and much loved stepfather still presided. John Davenport had happily agreed to perform the ceremony, as long as they could squeeze it in at three o’clock.

So Suzanne was meeting Stephen there at two, less than forty-eight hours away. She already felt a warm lick of anticipation curling inside her. Anticipation, and desperation.

“Jodie would have been pleased about your decision?” Rose was repeating in a derisory tone. “What do you know about Jodie? She was my daughter.”

“You gave her up for adoption at birth.”

“Because I was young, and alone, and penniless! It was more than thirty-seven years ago. Girls didn’t keep their illegitimate babies then. Not unless they were fools.”

“When she made contact with you this year, you didn’t want to know her.”

“What was the point? What good would it have done? To drag up that whole affair?” Suddenly, she gave a cynical laugh, and her focus seemed to fix on something in her mind’s eye. “Well, at least, in hindsight, if I’d known that Alex Rimsky had done so well for himself, I might have been able to get something out of it. Heaven knows, I deserve some security, don’t I? After all I’ve had to deal with in my life!” She blinked back tears. “But never mind that. We’re talking about your marriage.” Rose gave the word a sour, mocking intonation.

“No, Mom, I’ve said all I have to say.”

There was no point in prolonging this. Rose was very good at hijacking a conversation and pulling it, without warning, in exactly the direction that suited her. Suzanne didn’t have that sort of cunning. All she had was love, faith and need.

She stood up, not wanting to linger until Perry woke up. “The ceremony is at three o’clock. At John Davenport’s church. You remember, Dad’s friend? And you remember where it is?”

“Of course! But, lord, is old John still alive, after all these years?”

“He’s only in his late sixties. And, as I said, you and Perry are most welcome to come. There won’t be any written invitations, obviously. And there won’t be anyone else there.”

“Not your sisters? Not that ghastly old cousin of Catrina’s with the strange name?”

“It’s Pixie. Short for Priscilla.” Resisting the urge to defend her stepsister Cat’s eccentric but loving cousin, Suzanne added, “No, I haven’t asked them.”

Suzanne had seen Cat just last week, when Cat had come up from Philadelphia for the day to see Alice. She could have asked her to the wedding. Should have. Cat and Pixie would be hurt. Jill would have been hurt, too, only she was away in Montana, supposedly organizing a divorce.

Why hadn’t she asked them? She didn’t want to think about the possible reasons right now, just knew she’d felt a deep-seated reluctance to get them involved.

She expected an attack from Mom, but Rose just did that strange eye narrowing thing with her face again and said, “Hmm.”

“Biding her time. That’s what she’s doing,” Suzanne thought. “Waiting until she’s worked out a strategy, and talked it over with Perry.”

He had just rolled over on the couch.

I shouldn’t have invited her. I wanted to give her fair warning that I wasn’t going to simply accept Dr. Feldman’s verdict and let Alice go. But maybe that’s going to backfire. There’s been no chance to really think this through. What if everything I’m planning turns out to be a huge mistake?

Chapter Three

“Suzanne?”

She whirled around. “Stephen! You startled me!”

Waiting in the entrance of the chilly church, idly reading the memorial plaques on the walls, she hadn’t heard him coming up the steps, and the acoustics in the dark, old building made his accented voice sound strange. The place was a little musty, smelling of aged leather, which added to the unique atmosphere.

He saw the way she had her hand fisted over her heart.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “And I’m late.”

“It’s fine. It’s not a problem,” she answered, her voice not quite steady. “I was early. I came straight from the hospital.”

He stepped forward and touched her arm. “How is she today? You have a little glow, as if—”

“Yes.” She smiled, happy to have someone to tell. “I had a meeting with Dr. Feldman and the hospital social worker and one of the nurses. The social worker has recommended that Alice comes to me when she’s first discharged, because I’m the one who is most familiar with her care.”

“That’s great, Suzanne!”

“I know. And Dr. Feldman’s supporting it. She’ll still have the oxygen mask and the breathing alarm, and I know about those. It’s only temporary, until the custody hearing, but it’s a step in the right direction.”

Her teeth began to chatter with cold and nerves. “Mom won’t be happy, but she and Perry just haven’t been around enough to know how to deal with the oxygen.”

“Relax!”

She shook her head. “Can’t. I’ve just been standing here, thinking about it all, and…”

She couldn’t put it into words.

If she had been tense last week when they first met, she was doubly so today, their wedding day. She was marrying a stranger, and didn’t know if he’d be coming to her apartment tonight.

Didn’t know if Stephen Serkin-Rimsky had secrets, or sins. Of course! Everyone did! What were his?

“I’m sorry that you’ve gotten cold,” he apologized again. “There was a delay at the bank.” The explanation for his lateness didn’t answer any questions, just created more.

“The bank?” Suzanne echoed.

He didn’t answer. They both looked as if they’d been shopping, dressed in jeans and casual shirts, with their wedding clothes in large carrier bags. Where were the bridesmaids? The gleaming cars? The milling guests? All the usual trappings of the romantic church wedding she’d once dreamed of were missing. This was the strangest occasion, but you couldn’t expect smooth-as-silk glamour and romance under such circumstances, Suzanne decided.

Lord, she wasn’t going to waste precious time regretting a few details! If this arrangement increased her chance of becoming Alice’s mother, that was all that mattered. She still had no idea whether Rose and Perry would even show up today, and what it would do to her chances with Alice if they did.

Could she convince them that this wedding made a difference? Could she convince Dr. Feldman?

“Are you going to dress?” Stephen asked.

“Well, I wasn’t planning to get married in jeans.” She heard the defensive note in her voice, and wondered why he made her feel like this. She was like a cat on hot bricks. Would have been even without the decision on Alice’s temporary care.

“I meant, are you going to dress now?” he corrected himself politely, and she felt bad about how she’d overreacted to his innocent question. This couldn’t be easy for him, either. They were both doing it for Alice.

“I didn’t know if—” she began to explain, then changed tack. “You wanted to meet me here early. I thought you might have wanted to talk, or something. In fact you said you did, and I…thought I’d feel more comfortable talking in jeans.”

“Put on your dress,” he said softly. “I didn’t want to talk yet. We’ll have time for that in a while, and, yes, we’ll need to. When you’re dressed, I want to give you what I have brought.”

Suzanne nodded. Why was she so breathless? She hadn’t been running. It had to be nerves.

“There’s a room Mr. Davenport showed me, beyond the side door at the back of the church, where there’s a mirror,” she answered him.

“I’ll wait here,” he said.

“I’ll try not to take too long.”

But of course she did. What woman didn’t, on her wedding day?

She had bought the dress yesterday, after work. Her legs had ached from standing behind the library’s front desk, and walking its stacks, reshelving books. It was a college library, not the sunny community library she would have preferred, and most of the books were thick and heavy. Standing in the mirrored fitting room at the bridal store, she hadn’t felt as if she was about to get married.

In the end, she’d only tried on three dresses, and she’d chosen one based as much on its price as on its style. Having witnessed Rose openly drooling over Alice’s inheritance on Wednesday, Suzanne was doubly determined not to spent a cent that she’d later “pay off with no trouble” using her baby’s fortune.

Now, as she stood in front of a spotty mirror in the little room at the back of the church, the dress whispered in heavy folds of pale satin around her calves and hugged her upper body closely. She began to like it, and not just because of its price. It fit her, suited her and left plenty of room for a piece of jewelry above the elegant curve of neckline.

She had some jewelry. A necklace. Her stepfather had given it to Rose, and Rose had passed it on to Suzanne after David Brown’s death, saying, “It’s dated. And it was cheap. I never liked it.”

Suzanne herself had always thought that it was very pretty, a delicate design of garnets and silver. As a child, she’d often begged Rose to let her wear it, but Rose had never permitted her to do so.

Now, when she put it on, she found it didn’t go with the dress. The silver looked dark and tarnished against the lustrous new satin, and the color of the stones was wrong.

It didn’t matter, she decided. The sense of David Brown’s love, contained in the worn piece of jewelry, was more important. But when she adjusted it on her neck, it caught in her mass of hair, and when she tried to pull it free, one of the frail links broke and the whole thing fell, useless, into her hand.

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