Read Online Her Royal Baby by Marion Lennox - Free Book Online Page A

response to give. For a while there was total silence.
    â€˜Your fries are getting cold,’ he said at last, and Tammy caught herself.
    â€˜I…yes.’
    â€˜They’re good.’
    â€˜They are, aren’t they?’ she said, and managed a smile. He smiled back at her.
    There it was again. That smile. It was a knockout. It brought sunshine where there’d been only blackness. It seemed as if where there was this smile her world couldn’t be all that dreadful.
    Not if this man was in it.
    Now, that was a crazy thing to think, she thought savagely. This man and his family were the cause of all this…mess.
    Henry.
    Her eyes slid sideways to the cot and Marc followed her gaze.
    â€˜It’s not a total disaster,’ he said softly, and her eyes swung back to him in surprise. As well as everything else, did he have the capacity to read minds?
    â€˜Why do you want him to go home…?’ She corrected herself. ‘To go back to Broitenburg?’
    â€˜He must.’
    â€˜You surely don’t want a child?’
    â€˜No, but…’
    â€˜Charles called you the Prince Regent. So that makes you the ruler of the country. Right?’
    â€˜Yes, but…’
    â€˜But what?’
    He sighed, refilled his wine glass and settled back, like a man prepared to lay his cards on the table.
    â€˜The country is in a mess,’ he told her honestly. ‘Jean-Paul behaved like an absentee landlord for years, and so did his brother before him. The government’s corrupt. Everyone who’s anyone has made themselves positions of power. Charles, for example. Why does a country as small as Broitenburg need an Australian embassy? It doesn’t. Yet here’s Charles—being paid a sickening stipend, driving the car you saw us in, living in an embassy that would house a dozen families. Broitenburg is.. was —a prosperous little country, yet when Franz and then Jean-Paul came into power it was bled dry by corrupt officialdom. The whole thing needs a dose of salts.’
    â€˜And you’re just the man to give it to them,’ Tammy said thoughtfully, and Marc grinned.
    â€˜Actually, yes.’
    â€˜Why bother?’ she asked curiously. ‘Why do you care?’
    â€˜It’s a wonderful country,’ Marc said softly. ‘I was brought up there and I love it. My cousins didn’t give a toss about it, but Broitenburg under my grandfather’s rule was magic. It breaks me up, seeing what’s happening now.’
    â€˜So?’
    â€˜So what?’
    â€˜So why can’t you thunder in and kick some butt?’ Tammy demanded. ‘Instead of throwing obscene amounts of money at me so you can spend the next twenty years babysitting, why not just go home and rule?’
    â€˜There’s a problem.’
    â€˜Which is?’
    â€˜The succession is Henry’s, not mine. The constitution makes me a caretaker monarch. When he reaches twenty-five, the job is his.’
    Tammy thought that through. A twenty-five-year reign and then honourable retirement? It didn’t sound bad to her. ‘That gives you twenty-five years of playing king,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Isn’t that enough?’
    â€˜If that’s what I have—but I don’t. Not at the moment. My Regency only holds true if Henry’s in the country. If Henry isn’t living in Broitenburg then I have no power at all.’
    Tammy thought about that for a bit more. She was still confused, and, as well, she found she wasn’t sympathetic. She glanced over at the sleeping baby and the thought of Henry inheriting a crown seemed little short of ridiculous. Monarchies were all very well, she decided, but she was a modern girl. An Australian. Did a country really need a royal family?
    â€˜You mean, if Henry doesn’t return the country would revert to a democracy.’
    He shook his head, his eyes bleak. ‘If it did there’d be no problem,