Elly took a deep breath and stepped toward him, praying the right words would come to her. “Papers have recently come to light that indicate a young American woman named Margaret Jennings spent a year abroad, as a student in Paris. That was your maiden name. Right, Mrs. Eastwood?”
Dan answered for her. “Yes, and her junior year she attended the Sorbonne. You told me you did, Mom.”
Madge closed her eyes but acknowledged nothing.
Elly held her breath and asked, “Was it during that year that you met a young man named—”
“I met Carl Eastwood there, yes!” Madge snapped, pushing herself up from her armchair with startling energy. “We married, and nine months later Dan was born. But Carl died very young.” Tears filled her eyes and she wiped at them with the sleeve of her dress.
Dan frowned, looking more puzzled than ever. “I thought you and Dad hooked up in Baltimore.”
“No. No, it was in a little village outside of Paris.” Madge sniffled and looked away from her son. “Years later, I heard the church burned down. Probably destroyed all its records too.”
Elly opened her mouth to tell the woman she knew that was a lie, but at the last second thought better of it since her six-foot-plus son stood by ready to defend his mother’s honor.
“Go on,” Dan growled, his too-perceptive gaze locked onto Elly’s face. “What were you about to say?”
She swallowed over a sandpaper-dry spot in her throat. “There is no record of a marriage, that’s true.” She hesitated, but the look on Dan’s face told her she must finish what she’d begun, regardless of how he took the news. “There is no record…because there has never been a Carl Eastwood in your mother’s life. And there never was a marriage.”
“All right, you’re out of here!” Dan’s wide hand shot out. He seized Elly by the arm and marched her firmly toward the door.
She had only enough time to swipe her purse from the coffee table and grab her coat from the back of her chair before he ushered her out of the room.
“I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, and I don’t care. You’re leaving, lady.”
“But don’t you want to—”
Before she could get out the rest of her sentence, she found herself standing alone in the cold ocean mist on Madge’s lemon-bright porch. She could still feel the pressure of Dan’s strong fingers on her arm and his palm on her backside after the door slammed behind her. The nerve of the man. He’d thrown her out!
Then the implication of what had just happened hit her. A triumphant grin spread slowly across her lips.
She had found her missing prince!
Two
Elly bounced in anticipation on the edge of the hotel bed, her ear pressed to the telephone receiver. Someone had gone to find her father to take her call. She’d never seen the castle in person, but photographs of Der Kristallenpalast, the famous crystal palace, revealed an immense, turreted structure of pale, lustrous marble and hundreds of richly appointed rooms. Frank Anderson could easily be half a mile from the nearest phone.
His unmistakable smoker’s voice suddenly rasped across the line. “It’s about time. What do you have?”
“It’s a boy!” she cried.
“The old king had a son with the Jennings girl?”
Elly grinned, enjoying her moment of triumph. “That girl is now in her fifties, goes by Madge and is being really stubborn about admitting that she had a royal fling thirty-some years ago.”
“Understandable,” he grumbled. “She married now? Not wanting her husband to know about her past?”
“No,” Elly admitted with a sigh. “But she’s sticking to a story about an American husband who died young. I’m certain she made him up for her son’s benefit.”
“But you’re sure about this young man?”
She hesitated barely a heartbeat. “Yes. Dad, he even looks like Jacob. And the photos of Karl when he was young could be Daniel Eastwood today. They have the same dark hair and strong, angular features, although Eastwood’s eyes are dark brown, not blue.”
“That could easily come from the mother’s side. Good. I’ll tell Jacob.”
“Do we have enough to prove legally he’s the old king’s son, though?” she asked. She trusted her intuition and the facts she’d uncovered, but the law was another thing.
“Karl was studying at the Sorbonne the same time as Margaret Jennings, according to the school’s records. He kept her love letters to him and her farewell note. A handwriting expert can make quick work of comparing this woman’s handwriting with that of the person who wrote those letters. There are other documents as well.”
Elly was so excited she could barely speak. But she was also deeply moved by the drama revealed by the decades-old letters they’d found. Those must have been desperate times for a young prince, soon to become king, and his frightened mistress. Had Karl even known that the girl he’d fallen in love with but could never marry carried his child? Nothing they’d found to this date mentioned her pregnancy. How very sad, Elly thought, if the man had died never knowing he had another son.
But now, years later, wonderful things might come of this discovery for Dan and his mother. Not that they deserved it, Elly thought ruefully, tossing her out the way they’d done. But imagine discovering a brother you never knew existed! And a royal one at that!
“What now?” Elly asked her father breathlessly.
“Jacob’s advisors told me this morning that if you found the woman and she had a child by the king, they’d want both of them brought over on the first possible plane.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“Damage control. They believe that with the pair here in Elbia, the press will have a harder time getting to them. There are also some touchy legal issues to be ironed out, the sooner the better from the crown’s perspective.”
Elly’s mind whirled, and she felt short of breath. “Eastwood doesn’t even believe me. How will I get him on a plane to Europe? Dad, this isn’t our job. All we agreed to do was verify historical records. We’re not private investigators.”
“Elizabeth.” His chastising papa-bear growl ended in a soft cough. She hated that he smoked. But since her mother had died there had been no one, including herself, who could talk sense to the man about his health or anything else.
“Well, we’re not!” she insisted.
“We have no choice at this point. The king blames us for the leak. He’s absolutely convinced that no one in his court would peddle such volatile news to the press. Now we have to do what we can to save a bad situation. And—” He balked.
“There’s more bad news?” She didn’t want to think about one more complication.
“Consider the many implications of this discovery, Elly. There is enormous wealth at stake. Even an illegitimate child might demand a portion of his father’s fortune. And what about the mother? As far as we know, she has never been compensated for her pregnancy or given any financial help in raising the boy.”
Elly rolled her eyes to the motel room’s chalky ceiling. The packet of letters her father had only recently discovered hidden behind a panel in an ancient armoire had turned into a modern Pandora’s box. In addition to the love notes, signed “adoringly, Margaret,” other letters, returned from the United States as undeliverable, indicated that over the next ten years Karl had tried to locate his lost love, but failed. Perhaps it was just his beloved Margaret he searched