me he’d joined the navy as a diver. Since his parents were in the commercial fishing business, that would seem logical. But I’m afraid I don’t know any more. I have no idea why his photo was in the package.”
Prince Lorne massaged his chin with one hand as he seemed to weigh how much to tell her. After a long interval he said, “Whoever put this together intended to reveal Garth to the world as the rightful heir to the throne of Carramer.”
Princess Alison’s hand went to her mouth although she made no sound. Naturally she would already be aware of the possibility.
Serena had no such forewarning, and shock ricocheted through her. “Surely that’s impossible, Your Highness?”
The prince looked less perturbed by her outburst than by the possibility he’d just voiced. “I wish it were. Unfortunately, my family history makes it all too possible.”
“Since she’s already involved, perhaps Serena should know the story,” Alison suggested.
A faint glimmer of agreement crossed Lorne’s features as he looked at Serena. “The family has always known that my parents had a child before they were married. He was named Louis but was stillborn, or so we believed. I think the certificate, the footprints and the photos are meant to suggest otherwise.”
Serena could hardly deal with the thought that Garth’s resemblance to Lorne might be because Garth was really Lorne’s older brother. Far less that Garth could be the true ruler of Carramer. How was Lorne managing to face the possibility, when he had so much at stake? An entire kingdom, in fact. No wonder his usual composure had been shattered in a way she had never expected to see.
“The footprints could belong to any baby,” she said, knowing wishful thinking when she expressed it.
The monarch knew it, too, she saw in his wintry smile. “Except for one small detail.”
He picked up the plaster cast and angled it for her inspection. She soon saw what he was indicating, a tiny piece of webbing clearly visible between the small toes of the left foot. “Oh.”
“It’s a genetic trait common to de Marigny males,” Alison contributed.
Serena felt a frown start. “That settles it then. Garth can’t be the heir if he doesn’t have the trait.”
Without comment, Lorne picked up the changing room photo and handed it to her. An enlargement of a section of the first photo, it showed Garth’s feet in close-up. At first sight, she hadn’t understood its significance. Studying it more closely now, she saw that the two small toes of his left foot were webbed.
She felt the room spin then settle. “Is it possible?”
Lorne’s expression told her it was even before he said, “The birth certificate is genuine. I recognize my parents’ signatures.”
Alison reached for her husband’s hand. “The original has been missing from the de Marigny archive for years.”
“Even so, it seems unbelievable that Garth could be the heir to the throne. Apart from the resemblance to you, sir, there were no other indications that Garth was more than he seemed. His parents were just everyday people,” Serena insisted.
“They could have fostered him without knowing his history,” Alison pointed out. “Garth himself may be unaware of his background.”
Alice couldn’t have felt more unsettled after falling down the rabbit hole to Wonderland, Serena thought. “You’re taking this seriously, aren’t you?”
Lorne took a slow breath, held it, then let it out. “We have no choice. The certificate, coupled with the cast and the photo, means we must allow for the possibility that my older brother didn’t die at birth after all. And that Carramer has the wrong monarch.”
Chapter 1
She would never accept that Garth Remy was the true ruler of Carramer, she thought as she got ready for her assignment. Not by so much as a blink had Garth suggested he was anything other than the child of struggling commercial fishermen. They had lived aboard the boat for most of Garth’s childhood, only moving into a proper house after his grandparents died. It was hardly the life of a prince.
Garth may not know who he is, Alison had said. Everything in Serena wanted to reject the possibility, but she knew the princess was right. If Garth had been fostered by the Remys from birth, he would have no reason to suspect he was anything but their biological son.
Commanding her to tell no one what she was doing, Lorne had assigned her to meet Garth in the gymnasium shown in the photograph. She had identified the place from a portion of the name shown behind him on the wall. She was to renew their acquaintance and convince Garth to accompany her to the palace. Lorne would take it from there.
When she had reminded the prince that she was fully occupied with security preparations for the president’s visit in two weeks’ time, Lorne had said he would have her duties assigned to Jarvis Reid, her rival in the R.P.D.
Although there was nothing she could do about it, Serena hated the thought of Reid being at the president’s side while she worked on what she still suspected was a hoax. The high profile of the presidential tour meant when it came to choosing the new head of the Solano division, a job Serena had been working hard to earn, Jarvis would have an edge. Once again it seemed Garth was going to interfere in her life.
He had done it before when she was sixteen and he was nineteen, she recalled. She had been drawn to the darkly brooding young man who shone at all kinds of solo sports. If she closed her eyes she could still see his muscular legs eating up the running track or his arms carving through the water as he swam to victory.
She was seized by a sudden, unexpected memory of rising to her feet in the stands and cheering her lungs out the day he won the men’s medley by half a pool length. He hadn’t acknowledged her cheers, looking stonily ahead as he left the water and headed for the locker room. It was as if he had raced for himself alone, and winning was enough. She had told herself not to take it personally. He hadn’t asked her to cheer for him. But her fragile teenage ego had ached for a sign that he appreciated her support, and her heart had bled when none came.
Instead of getting the message, she had started seeing what she wanted to see. Every half smile or brusque word they exchanged had been read as encouragement that she was finally getting through to him. Soon he would ask her for a date and they would be a couple.
How naive could one person be? The date had never happened. The blossoming romance had been all in her head. Garth’s lone-wolf persona wasn’t a cover for shyness or anything else. It was who he was. Who he probably still was.
When she ran a background check on him, parts of his naval record couldn’t be accessed, suggesting he’d been involved in covert assignments. The discovery seemed appropriate for one who liked being closed off from others, she thought. Not long after making lieutenant, he had been involved in a deep-sea diving mishap resulting in a trainee under his care being injured. Instructor error, the record showed. Defective equipment, Garth had argued. He had lost, and left the service under a cloud.
He hadn’t had much luck in his life, she thought. With his navy career in ruins, he had dived on wrecks around the region, living off his salvage efforts. He had also worked part-time in his parents’ fishing business, the same one the other students had maligned, she remembered. Even the same boat, as far as she could tell. The aging
