Read Online The Princess and the Duke by Allison Leigh - Free Book Online

what else. He’ll come home when he’s ready.”
    “And you already miss Megan.” Meredith sat beside her mother.
    Marissa smiled faintly. “She’s my daughter. Of course I miss her. I’ll miss you, too, when you marry and go off to live your life.”
    An image of Pierceson Prescott flashed in Meredith’s mind, and she ducked her head over the teacup. All she succeeded in doing was scorching her tongue on the piping hot liquid. The colonel’s image was firmly stuck in her mind. “I think you needn’t worry about that happening any time soon,” she murmured. “It’s not as if I have suitors lining up with marriage proposals.” Propositions, perhaps, like the unexpected one George Valdosta had had the inebriated audacity to voice the previous night.
    “Only because you hold them off, darling.”
    “Mother—”
    “All right.” Marissa lifted a graceful hand. “I shan’t complain too much. After all, Megan and Jean-Paul are giving me a start on the grandchildren I’ve been longing for. Granny Marissa. It has a nice sound, don’t you think?”
    Meredith snorted softly. If ever there was a woman who did not fit the granny image, it was the Queen of Penwyck. Marissa was only fifty-three years old and looked a solid ten younger than that, to boot.
    “I wasn’t aware you were so anxious to havegrandchildren.” Especially given the Queen and King’s stunned reaction to Megan’s unexpected pregnancy, Meredith thought.
    “Of course I want grandchildren. More than that, though, I’d like to see my children happily married.” Marissa gently patted Meredith’s hand where it rested on the linen-covered table. “Actually, Gwen tells me that, though Anastasia shared a dance with Colonel Prescott, it was you he was looking rather cozy with on the terrace last evening.”
    Meredith flushed. She should have known her mother’s dearest friend would tell her about that. “We were sharing a dance.”
    “Of course, dear.”
    Her cheeks felt even hotter. “That’s all it was.”
    “Yes.” Marissa, utterly unperturbed by her daughter’s consternation, tilted the teapot over her cup, topping off the perfect brew. “A simple dance. Nothing more. I understand completely.” She dribbled a small amount of milk in her cup, gave one swirl with a silver spoon and set the spoon smoothly on the saucer.
    Her mother’s tea routine never changed, Meredith thought, vaguely soothed by the normalcy of it.
    Her soothed senses were jogged when her mother said blandly, “Colonel Prescott cuts quite a figure in his uniform, doesn’t he.”
    “Mother!”
    Marissa smiled, her eyes glinting with a mischief reserved only for her children. “Well? I do have eyes, darling.”
    “Yes, you do. Eyes of the most beautiful robin’s egg blue,” a voice said from the door.
    Both women turned, looking with surprise at theKing who was standing there with a faint smile on his handsome face.
    “Morgan.” Marissa rose to fetch a cup and saucer from the sideboard. “I thought you’d already gone this morning.”
    The King sauntered into the room, his hazel eyes lingering on Marissa as she handed him his tea. “I thought I’d have breakfast with my wife.” He brushed his thumb down Marissa’s smooth cheek in a decidedly lingering way.
    Meredith stared hard into her cup. It was better than staring hard at her father. There was no doubt in her mind that her father and mother loved each other despite the fact that their marriage had been an arranged one. Yet visible displays of affection, even within the privacy of the family and the confines of their residence, were few and far between.
    The caress seemed to fluster Marissa, as well, Meredith noted. She might be twenty-eight years old, but she absolutely was not accustomed to seeing her father flirt with her mother. She just wasn’t. It was, well, embarrassing. Which made her feel all of ten years old again when she’d first learned the facts of life. “I’ve got to run,” she