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She was never going to fit comfortably into her sheltered royal life-style again. He’d have her thoroughly Americanized soon.
The thought was more satisfying than it should have been.
A few days later, in yet another restaurant, where they’d gone at Elizabeth’s request for a taste of authentic Mexican cuisine, she had the nerve to laugh at him when he suggested some of the spicier fare might not be good for the baby.
“The baby won’t suffer, but I might.” She smiled as she liberally splashed a hot sauce over her dish.
“Tell me about your childhood,” he said, taking the bottle and setting it beyond her reach. “Not the official bio— I know that. What were you and your sisters like as children?”
A soft smile touched her lips and he wondered if she knew what her smile did to his nervous system.
“As children…well, I suppose it depends on which of us you’re discussing,” she said. “Alexandra is the eldest and she was a very responsible little person who took her duties much too seriously. I think she felt she had to be especially good at doing ‘the royal thing’ since Mummy and Daddy had lost their only son.” The laughter in her eyes dimmed and he could see shadows of sadness. “My parents were very loving, but there was always an awareness, if you can call it that, that our family wasn’t complete. It’s rather silly sounding, but true. James, my brother, was kidnapped before any of us was even born, so it wasn’t as if we’d known him and missed him. It’s hard to explain.”
“He was a part of your family,” Rafe said quietly. “I remember the kidnapping. I was about five then, I think. The whole world mourned. I remember my mother sitting in front of the television crying.”
There was a moment of silence between them. Elizabeth looked as if she was about to say something more on the topic, but then her lips firmed into a line as if sh
e was pressing back the words.
To get her mind off the sober twist in the conversation, he said, “Tell me about your other two sisters.”
Elizabeth’s introspection vanished in the blink of an eye and she smiled that fond, intimate smile that reminded him that back in Wynborough she had a life waiting for her that didn’t include him. “Katherine is two years younger than I am. She’s the quiet one most of the time.” She grinned. “Unless you make her mad. She was the one who put the brakes on some of our crazier stunts.”
“So you were the wild one?”
“Not quite. Serena’s the baby. We all treated her like a little princess—literally—when she was small and we spoiled her terribly. If she wasn’t such a sweet person, she’d be a terrible brat. Serena could twist anyone around her finger. She came up with some of the most outrageous ideas.” She paused. “Or shall I say that Serena came up with the ideas that got us in the most hot water?”
“I can’t imagine it was too bad. All the press I ever saw portrayed you as well-behaved young ladies.”
“Oh, we were,” she assured him. “For the most part.”
“And the other part?”
Her eyes twinkled with mirth, and her lips parted in laughter. When she began to speak again, the little dimple in her chin deepened, and he had to resist a sudden, insane urge to reach over the table and lay his finger right in the center of that small depression.
“When I was about twelve, Serena had this great idea involving buckets of syrup and bags of feathers suspended over a doorway. Katherine tried to talk us out of it, but then she decided it might be fun and she quit whining. We did it in the stable where we could hide in the hayloft and watch. We figured we might get one of the stable lads, maybe the trainer if we were lucky.”
“And did you?”
She shook her head, miming sorrow. “Unfortunately for us, my father had gone riding that day.”
“You poured syrup over the king?” He was still steeped in his royal roots enough to be truly horrified. And he could only imagine his own father’s wrath over such a stunt.
“And feathers,” she added. “For what it’s worth, it works magnificently.”
“I just bet.” He could feel the laughter bubbling up, and he let it go. When she joined in, he howled even more, mentally envisioning the reigning monarch of Wynborough covered in sticky feathers. Finally, his amusement died away to an occasional chuckle. “Remind me never to get on your sister Serena’s bad side,” he said.
And just that quickly the atmosphere changed. Her face sobered instantly, and she picked up her taco again. “I doubt there will ever be any occasion for you to meet,” she said.
Her attitude got under his skin and before he could restrain himself, he leaned across the tiny table until he was right in her face. “As the father of your child, I’m going to be meeting all of your family eventually.”
“Why should you?” He could tell he’d shaken her, but still she didn’t back down. “It’s not as if we were getting married. We barely know each other.”
Her tone irritated him thoroughly, and her words annoyed him even more. “In case you haven’t figured it out yet, we’re going to get to know each other a whole lot better.”
Four
“Fine. You want us to get to know each other, now it’s your turn.” Elizabeth gestured at him with her taco. He could tell he’d unsettled her when he’d spoken in that tone of voice that told her he meant every word he said, but she clearly didn’t intend to let him think she was just going to listen. God forbid she should make it easy.
