The Secret Prince (2 page)

But the meeting with his contractor really was important. And even as his libido urged him to get her phone number, his brain was warning him to distance himself from her. She was pure trouble, although what variety he hadn't as yet figured out.

“I'll let you know if I can tell you anything more,” she promised coolly then stuck out her hand to shake as if determined to conclude their conversation with a professional gesture, even if it had begun under less than businesslike conditions.

“Next time, maybe you'll join me for a swim,” he suggested as he opened the door for her.

She laughed. “In November? Don't hold your breath.”

Too bad,
he thought as he stood alone in his living room a moment later, the knob still in his hand.
I'd love to be the one to warm you up after a winter dip.

 

Elly sat in her car gripping the steering wheel, trying to compose herself. Her father would be furious with her for not getting everything out of Daniel Eastwood they so desperately needed. But things had started out badly. She'd nearly keeled over when he came up out of the water—all gleaming muscles and smooth, bronzed skin. A classic vision of Neptune in his younger years, sans trident. That skimpy red Speedo hadn't left much to the imagination. Not much at all!

She felt a hot flush across her cheeks and brow and let out a yip of frustration. She wasn't usually flustered by men. In fact, she'd become pretty much immune to these feelings from choice. It was her defense against getting involved. Involvement meant intimacy, and intimacy meant…

A flash of dark memory rocked her without warning. Suddenly, she could hear and see everything as it had been that night. The high-pitched cry in the night…her father's frantic shouts into the telephone…the wretched look of helplessness on his face. And finally, her mother's unmoving body glimpsed through the half-open bedroom doorway seconds before sirens shattered the silence in the little house.

Just as quickly as the horrible vision had struck, it passed, leaving Elly trembling, her body moist with sweat, her heart pounding erratically in her chest. She covered her eyes with her palms and drew in deep, calming breaths. “It's over. It's over,” she whispered until the fear slowly subsided and the pressure in her chest lessened and her brain cleared so that she could think again. Where had she been? What had she been thinking when…

Yes,
she reminded herself,
Dan Eastwood.

She opened her eyes and focused on the long line of gray-green surf on the other side of the sand from where she was parked. She could do this.
She could do this!

Eastwood.
Even if he hadn't refused to answer any more questions, it would be torture to go back and attempt to grill him further. As long as those dark eyes rested on her, Elly knew her mind would wander to that scene on the beach and she'd be incapable of focusing on her job, and—Lord, help her—she might
even fall apart as she had just now, only right in front of him. And she couldn't bear that.

The real problem was, although she'd verified several basic points of their investigation she still didn't have enough information to prove he was the one they were looking for.

She looked at her watch. Within a few hours, she'd have to call her father in Elbia with an update. They both knew that if she failed to find the person they were looking for within twenty-four hours, all hell was going to break loose in the international press. The London tabloid that somehow had been leaked information from the palace would reveal a scandal that might threaten the Elbian crown. And Anderson Genealogical Research would earn a very big, very black mark for breaching their own right-to-privacy rule, even if it hadn't been their fault.

Now what was she going to do?

Worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, Elly slid her notebook computer off the passenger seat and into her lap. She flipped open the screen, booted up and summoned the correct file. From memory, she added the information Eastwood had just given her. She had found his name and address through an Internet search, but his mother's phone number and address hadn't come up, probably because she didn't have an e-mail address and her phone number was unlisted.

However, Eastwood had let slip that his mother lived somewhere in the area. “We've been here ever since…”
We,
not I. And he'd offered to take Elly to her, so the woman couldn't be far away.

Elly finished typing her notes then grabbed her purse and locked the car behind her. Neighbors were always
a great help in instances such as this, she thought with renewed hope. That was where she'd start.

 

Elly stood on the top step of the tidy yellow bungalow, straightened her suit jacket, put on a friendly smile, and knocked. It was only a moment before the door opened.

“Yes?” A short, middle-aged woman with blond hair stepped into the opening and gave her a curious smile.

“Margaret Eastwood?” Elly asked.

“Yes, hon.” Her accent was pure Bal'morese.

“I was just speaking with your son and—”

The woman's face lit up. “You're a friend of Dan's?”

“Well, not exactly a friend. You see, I was looking for you, but I found Dan's name first and—”

“Come in and tell me why he sent you over.” Margaret beamed at her. “This is one of the nicest things about the Haven. A gated community, they call it. You can feel safe chatting with folks, not like in the old neighborhood where we had to be so very careful who we let into the house.”

“Well, yes, of course,” Elly agreed, feeling just a little guilty, for she was about to become a most unwelcome intruder in this woman's life.

As Elly stepped into the cozy colonial-furnished living room, she focused on a collection of antique glass bottles arranged on shelves in a bay window, then on a display of photographs on top of an upright piano. There were several of a little boy at different ages, babyhood through toddler, then at various school ages. Elly sniffed the air, distracted by a delicious aroma. “Something smells wonderful.”

“Gingerbread,” Margaret said. “I always make old-fashioned New England gingerbread in the fall. It reminds me of home, and Danny loves it.”

“Then you're not from around here?”

“Oh my goodness, no. But Maryland is my home now. I've been here all of my adult life. Sit down, I'll bring you a cup of coffee and a warm slice.”

Elly turned around to protest but Margaret was gone.

“You said you've lived here all of your adult life?” she shouted toward the kitchen door.

“In Maryland, not Ocean City. We lived in Baltimore while Dan was young. But he turned into such a beach bum after a few summers of lifeguarding down here. After he was discharged from the service, he wanted me to move down here with him while he attended the community college. Later, he and his friend bought this land and built these cute little cottages.” She was beaming proudly as she walked back into the room, holding a tray laden with coffee mugs and plates of fresh gingerbread topped with mountains of whipped cream. “Danny also runs a summer camp for city boys and girls.”

“I didn't know that,” Elly admitted.

“Oh yes. He feels very strongly about giving inner-city children a few weeks off the streets, to let them see a different world from their troubled neighborhoods.”

Elly accepted a steaming mug of coffee and a dessert plate with a second twinge of guilt. She didn't want to deceive this woman who was being so hospitable to her. “Mrs. Eastwood, I have to confess that Dan didn't actually send me over to talk with you.”

“Oh?” She looked disappointed.

“I've been hired by a European family to fill in a
missing branch on their family tree. The von Austerands. Do you recognize the name?”

Elly watched as the woman's face grayed and her fingers pinched nervously at the napkin in her lap. “No.”

“They're like the Windsors of England. They are the royal family of a small country that borders on Austria. Elbia.”

“I think you'd better leave,” Madge said tightly.

But Elly was determined. She continued choosing her words carefully. “We have reason to believe that a young American woman had a brief romantic liaison with the young king of that country thirty-three years ago, before he married. There is a chance that she was carrying his child when they parted, but if so, she disappeared before the baby was born. Would you know anything about this, Mrs. Eastwood?”

Dan's mother firmly set her plate on the coffee table and turned her face toward the rainbow of glass in the window. “My husband was an American. His name was Carl Eastwood, and he died before Dan was a year old,” she pronounced tightly.

Carl Eastwood.
There it was again, the name Dan had used. Carl with a C according to the documents she'd already dug up. Could it be a coincidence that the young king's name had been Karl? His Royal Highness Karl von Austerand had died just a few years ago, and now his son Jacob wore his crown. Jacob had always been thought to be the king's sole heir, until evidence of a secret love affair turned up in a routine cataloguing of the family's papers only days ago. Days which now felt to Elly like weeks and months of frantic searching.

“I wouldn't know about affairs or kings or illegitimate royal babies,” Madge said sharply.

Elly's heart beat faster despite the woman's denial. Something in her pale eyes told Elly this was a woman unaccustomed to lying, who was desperately trying to do just that.

“I understand how difficult this must be for you,” Elly said softly, setting aside her own coffee and fragrant gingerbread to reach across the space between the two chairs and pat the other woman's arm. “But if you can just give me a little more information, please.”

Madge's chest rose and fell with labored breaths. She stiffened and leaned back into her chair, her hands gripping the arms. Her features contorted into sharp folds, as if she was trying to work out a difficult puzzle. “Go,” she whispered hoarsely. “Get out of my house.”

Elly sighed inwardly. She respected the woman's right to privacy, but if she didn't get to the truth soon, both Madge and her son would find themselves in a terrible fix. This was no time for cat-and-mouse games. A simple statement from the woman would save days they didn't have for a full public records' investigation. She'd already picked up and lost two reporters on her way from Connecticut to Baltimore. They might show up at any moment—then it would be out of her hands, if her theory about Dan Eastwood was right. She decided to try a different angle.

“Mrs. Eastwood, I'm not trying to upset you. But in cases where relationships have broken up, the children often
want
to know about their lost family members. Don't you think Dan would like to learn who his real father is?” She was bluffing, just a little, for she wasn't
one-hundred-percent certain of all the facts. But if it worked she would know for sure.

Madge's mouth flew wide on a horrified gasp. “My son doesn't need to know—”

Her words stilled in the air as the front door clicked shut and footsteps approached the sitting room from the hall. Both women turned to face the doorway.

Dan Eastwood looked around the corner, his dark eyes glittering dangerously. Even at a distance, Elly could see the thin blue vein throbbing at his temple and the tense cut of his mouth. “I don't need to know
what,
Mother?”

Elly's heart felt as if it were being squeezed by a cold, hard hand. She crossed her fingertips over her chest and swallowed. The warning rumble of Dan's voice sent icy prickles down her spine.

She glanced quickly at Madge, whose expression had altered with amazing speed from a stubborn glare to a helpless pucker. “Oh, dear. I guess I shouldn't have let this young woman in. She told me she was your
girlfriend,
Danny.”

Elly gasped in outrage and shot to her feet. The woman wasn't as guileless as she appeared. “I never said that! Mrs. Eastwood, you know that I never implied my visit was—” She let out a frustrated wail. Between his mother and a stranger, who was the man likely to believe? “Never mind. I came alone because I felt your mom might feel less self-conscious speaking to me without your being here.”

Dan quirked one skeptical, dark brow at her.

“Honest. I didn't mean any harm.”

“I told you I would
bring you
around if necessary!” Dan snapped, then turned to his distraught-looking
mother. “I don't know how she found you. I'm sorry. Now, ladies, what is it I
don't
need to know?”

Madge firmly pressed her lips together.

“Then
you
tell me,” he stated, swiveling back to Elly.

“At the moment, there may or may not be anything to tell.” She was doing her best to be discreet. But Dan was making things harder by the minute, and Madge seemed incapable of saying anything to either stop the truth from coming out or to set facts straight. Elly stood to face him. “It's important that I find out if your mother was ever in Europe…specifically, in Paris.”

Dan looked from the woman he'd fantasized about less than an hour earlier, to his mother. He read a level of anxiety in Madge's eyes he had never seen before. “What's going on here, Mom?”

“She's upsetting me,” Madge whimpered. “Make her leave.”

Dan ground out words between clenched teeth, fighting to hang on to his temper. “She's going to leave as soon as she explains what the hell she's fishing for!”

As infuriating as Elly was, his body still reacted with disturbing warmth to her presence. It was impossible to keep his eyes off her pretty, animated face…or her hands, which kept moving from twin perches on her hips to tug nervously at her blouse's neckline or tuck themselves away when she folded her arms over her chest. Which was another issue entirely…her enticingly lovely, perfectly proportioned chest. She'd evidently left off her jacket for this visit, which offered a much nicer view. Someone help him!