The Secret Princess

If he had come along, telling her he had evidence of her biological family and that they lived in Cleveland, she would have been thrilled. But this business of royalty tipped the story into the realm of fairy tale, making it something she couldn’t entirely believe.

Yet…what if it was true? What if the wind outside had brought something magic along with it, something other than snow and power failures?

A handsome stranger.

And her own past.

Dear Reader,

Baby birds are chirping, bees are buzzing and the tulips are beginning to bud. Spring is here, so why not revive the winter-weary romantic in you by reading four brand-new love stories from Silhouette Romance this month.

What’s an old soldier to do when a bunch of needy rug rats and a hapless beauty crash his retreat? Fall in love, of course! Follow the antics of this funny little troop in Major Daddy (#1710) by Cara Colter.

In Dylan’s Last Dare (#1711), the latest title in Patricia Thayer’s dynamite THE TEXAS BROTHERHOOD miniseries, a cranky cowboy locks horns with his feisty physical therapist and then learns she has a little secret she soon won’t be able to hide!

Jordan Bishop wants to dwell in a castle and live happily ever after, but somehow things aren’t going as she’s planned, in An Heiress on His Doorstep (#1712) by Teresa Southwick. This is the final title in Southwick’s delightful IF WISHES WERE…miniseries in which three friends have their dreams come true in unexpected ways.

When a bookworm meets her prince and discovers she’s a real-life princess, will she be able to make her own happy ending? Find out in The Secret Princess (#1713) by Elizabeth Harbison.

Celebrate the new season, feel the love and join in the fun by experiencing each of these lively new love stories from Silhouette Romance!

Mavis C. Allen

Associate Senior Editor

The Secret Princess

Elizabeth Harbison

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Johnny Tillotson: Romantic idol to millions and

my own Hilton hallway buddy. Here’s to you, Johnny.

Books by Elizabeth Harbison

Silhouette Romance

A Groom for Maggie #1239

Wife Without a Past #1258

Two Brothers and a Bride #1286

True Love Ranch #1323

*Emma and the Earl #1410

*Plain Jane Marries the Boss #1416

*Annie and the Prince #1423

*His Secret Heir #1528

A Pregnant Proposal #1553

Princess Takes a Holiday #1643

The Secret Princess #1713

Silhouette Special Edition

Drive Me Wild #1476

Midnight Cravings #1539

Silhouette Books

Lone Star Country Club

Mission Creek Mother-To-Be

ELIZABETH HARBISON

Has been an avid reader for as long as she can remember. After devouring the Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden series in grade school, she moved on to the suspense of Mary Stewart, Dorothy Eden and Daphne du Maurier, just to name a few. From there it was a natural progression to writing, although early efforts have been securely hidden away in the back of a closet.

After authoring three cookbooks, Elizabeth turned her hand to writing romances and hasn’t looked back. Her second book for Silhouette Romance, Wife Without a Past, was a 1998 finalist for the Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA® Award in the Best Traditional Romance category.

Elizabeth lives in Maryland with her husband, John, daughter Mary Paige, and son Jack, as well as two dogs, Bailey and Zuzu. She loves to hear from readers and you can write to her c/o Box 1636, Germantown, MD 20875.

LONG-LOST PRINCESS FOUND…IN DENTYTOWN!

Maryland—Residents of Dentytown were shocked yesterday to learn that Amy Scott, owner of a modest travel bookshop, might, in fact, be the missing Princess Amelia of Lufthania. Details are sketchy, but one witness reported that “a totally hot guy,” who said he worked for Crown Prince Wilhelm of Lufthania, showed up at Ms. Scott’s bookshop personally to give her the news and escort her to her native country. The witness also reported that Ms. Scott was “cautious” about his claims and agreed to have a DNA test. There is no official word yet, but royal watchers are keeping an eager eye on the news from the tiny Alpine country to learn if they’ve had a real princess in their midst for 25 years.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Epilogue

Prologue

Twenty-Five Years Ago

“We have to go now, tonight. As the legitimate heirs to the throne, you and Amelia are in terrible danger.”

Princess Lily of Lufthania looked at her husband and hoped her eyes didn’t show the fear she felt. “I know. I don’t want to leave my country but…” Tears burned her eyes. “We have no choice. Father has friends in Washington, D.C. We’ll be safe there until we find a new home.” As if any place but Lufthania would ever feel like home.

Georg put his hand over hers. “You will be happy again. I swear it.”

She gave a small smile. “As long as I’m with you.”

He nodded but looked unconvinced. “We’ll have a brand-new start. We can make up new names for ourselves, new histories. How many people get a chance like that?”

They both knew the answer: only those unlucky enough to have their home stormed by hostile forces who would as soon kill them as look at them.

“I suppose we’re lucky,” she said, trying to believe it. Commander Maxim’s soldiers had already killed her widowed father, and although Maxim had said he would spare Princess Lily and give her a country home that had been in the family for many years, she knew it would be little more than a house arrest at best, and a setup for murder at worst. No, Lily and her husband and daughter needed to escape before the commander’s coup was complete and the airlines were under his control. “I’m certain the people will not stand for this new regime. Before we know it, we will be free to return.”

His gaze was serious. “You do know we might never return.”

“Yes.” Her father had been very pointed in telling her that, right before he pressed a large diamond ring into her hand and made her promise to leave the country, to flee to safety and sell the ring in order to start a new life.

“But Papa,” she had said, “you can come with us.”

“No, my sweet.” He drew her to him in a strong embrace. “I cannot leave my country. I have lived for my duties to the people and I will die for them, if need be.” He saw her objection before she voiced it, and put a finger to her lips. “No, it is not the same for you. You must be safe. You must keep my granddaughter safe. One day you will return to the throne. In the meantime, you must be sure they cannot find you. They may view the rightful heir to the throne as a threat.” It was as if he’d known he was going to die. Perhaps he had.

Lily returned her attention to her husband. “I’m certain we will return. Right always wins in the end.”

He looked into her eyes and smiled. “So idealistic. Is it any wonder that I love you so much?”

Her eyes burned but she was out of tears. “I love you too, Georg. More than I can say.”

Their daughter, little Princess Amelia, stirred in her cot. In two and a half months, Amelia would turn three. By then, her entire world would be different. She would no longer sleep in the butter-yellow nursery with the soft cotton sheets that had been her mother’s and her grandmother’s before that; she would no longer run into her grandpa’s arms every morning before breakfast; she would no longer have a future planned and destined for her, with assurances of home, food, safety and security.

And she would no longer be a princess.

Chapter One

Amy Scott turned the sign on the door around so Sorry, We’re Closed faced the icy winter landscape outside. Not that many people in Dentytown cared if they were closed this time of year. In the winter months, Blue Yonder Travel Books did most of its business over the Internet rather than from customers in the tiny Maryland town.

“Think it’s going to keep snowing?” Amy’s employee, Mara Hyatt, walked over to the window next to Amy.

“I hope so.” Amy sighed and watched the small snowflakes trailing down from the sky. The snow always gave her a sense of peace.

The wind lifted and blew against the glass window hard enough to make Amy step back in surprise. This was no ordinary snow. Something strange was brewing out there. She could feel it. Almost as if the wind was bringing change of some sort.

“Did you package that order for the safari books?” Amy asked, trying to distract herself from the feeling of premonition.

“Right there.” Mara pointed to a pile of neatly packed and labeled boxes. “You want me to wait for the shipping company?”

Amy waved the notion away. “No, I’ve got some things to do, anyway. Go on. Enjoy the snow. Go sledding.”

“Okay.” Mara gathered her coat and scarf. “Call me if you need me.”

Amy smiled. “Will do.”

The bell on the door trilled as Mara left, and Amy stood there for several moments, shivering. She couldn’t say if it was the cold or the strange apprehension about the storm that did it, but she was glad she had some work to help take her mind off of it. She was nearly finished balancing the books when a strong wind lifted and the lights flickered off.

Amy froze. The only sound was the gentle ting of the bells over the door, swaying in the whispers of wind that pushed through the cracks.

She let out a long breath. It was just a power failure. Dentytown still had the exposed old-fashioned electrical wires that could be downed by a falling tree branch. That was probably exactly what had happened. Feeling somewhat reassured, she opened the drawer in front of her and felt for a matchbook she knew was there. It was from a restaurant she’d visited in New York years ago. She’d just seen it in the drawer this afternoon.

She found the matches, struck one and lit the two aromatherapy candles she had on her desk. The room sprang back to life in the unsteady orange glow. She stood up and tried to stretch the tension out of her limbs.

No sooner did she take a single relieved breath than the bells over the door rang again, this time louder as the door was being opened.

Amy turned as a stranger came in.

He must have been over six feet tall, with midnight-black hair that gleamed eerily by the candlelight. His eyes looked dark, though she couldn’t be sure, and a hint of shadow on his jaw gave him a shadowed look, like a character in a book who could be either good or evil.

Amy swallowed. “I’m sorry, the store is closed.” She felt behind her for the letter opener on the desk.

“I’m not here to shop,” he said, his voice deep and deliberate. He had just a hint of some sort of accent. “I’m looking for someone—”

She thought fast. “Oh, you must be Allen’s hunting buddy. He’s in the back getting his guns together for your trip.” She moved around the desk, hoping the stranger didn’t notice her shaking hands and jelly legs. “I’ll just go get him.” She could go out the back door, she decided. The police station was only two blocks away. Someone would be on duty, and she could bring whoever it was back with her.

She was almost to the door when the man said, “I’m looking for Amy Scott.”

She stopped and turned around. “Why?”

“Are you Amy Scott?”

She glanced at the door, then back at the man, who had not moved since he’d come in. He wasn’t advancing on her. If she needed to, she could almost certainly outrun him, if only because she had several yards’ head start. “Who wants to know?”

He stepped closer. “But you are, of course. Your face…it’s unmistakable.”

She automatically lifted a hand to her cheek. “Have we met?”

“No, I don’t believe we have.” His mouth curved toward a smile but didn’t quite make it. In the flickering candlelight he looked the way she’d always imagined Sir Lancelot—a deeply handsome face, sensuous mouth, intelligent eyes, but a stature that implied such power that he was almost intimidating. Almost.

He moved toward her and gently lowered her hand from her face. “My God, you’re even more beautiful than I’d imagined.”

Her heart hammered in response to his touch, even as her brain told her to back off and be prepared to call the authorities in case this was some crazy guy off the street.

“You tried to imagine what I’d look like?” she heard herself ask.

“All my life.”

Though the door was closed, when the wind lifted again outside, Amy imagined she felt it finger through her hair and tingle down her back. “Why?” she asked, standing her ground by the back door. “Who are you?”

“Forgive me,” he said, smiling the kind of thousand-megawatt smile usually reserved for movie stars. “I’m not explaining myself very well. I am,” did he hesitate? “Franz Burgess. I am in the royal service of the Crown Prince of Lufthania.”

“Lufthania?” Last year she had spent a frustrating month trying to locate a travel book on Lufthania for the Bradleys, a local couple who were always looking for unusual and obscure travel destinations. She had been unsuccessful in finding a book, but she’d learned just enough about the small Alpine country to pique her curiosity.

“You have heard of Lufthania?” he asked, not necessarily surprised, but he watched her with keen interest.

“Just barely. Who did you say you were?”

“I am secretary to the Crown Prince. Looking for, well, you might say a long-lost relative.”

Amy raised an eyebrow. “Then you must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. There’s no royalty here.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” The lights flickered on and Amy said a silent thanks to the Chesapeake Electric Company. “Oh. That’s better.” She blew out her candles and felt more confident now that the power was on.

That is, until she looked at Franz Burgess and saw what the candlelight had barely revealed.

Her first crazy thought was that he was one of the most handsome men she had ever seen. It was that simple. His eyes, which had held so much expression even in the dark, were so vibrant a green that it seemed as if light came from inside of them. His hair was wavy and haphazard, a rich chocolate brown touched with auburn lights from the same sun that had tanned his skin.

He was a little bit younger than she’d initially thought, perhaps in his mid-thirties. Faint lines bracketed his mouth and fanned out from the corners of his eyes, but rather than aging him, they gave his face just the ruggedness it needed to keep from being too pretty.

“As I was saying,” he said, “I’m here in the prince’s service, looking for a lost relative.”

“A lost relative,” she repeated flatly. “Of royalty.” She stared at him for a moment before asking, “Are you an actor?” That would explain the slick good looks, the smooth delivery of an absurd story. Someone had hired him as a practical joke.

He looked puzzled. “I beg your pardon?”

“Did one of my friends send you here with this crazy story?” That had to be it. Someone remembered her search for books on Lufthania and thought it would be funny to resurrect the place.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I,” she said. “My birthday isn’t for two months.”

“On the contrary,” he said, his gaze even. “Your birthday was the day before yesterday.”

The silence that followed was brief but shuddering.

“What are you talking about?” Her nerves went tight. “My birthday is in almost two months. January twenty-ninth.”

He gave a short nod, as if he knew better but wouldn’t bother with such small details right now. “Let me explain why I’m here. Why I’ve been looking for you.”

“You have.”

He nodded. “For a very long time, actually.”

A tremor rumbled through her. “Okay, what do you want? Special orders can take several weeks, you know.”

“I’m not here to order anything. My business with you is personal.”

Gooseflesh rose on her arms and she ran her hands over them. “What personal business could you possibly have with me, Mr. Burgess?”

His gaze was steady. “What I’ve come to tell you might seem unbelievable to you, but it’s true, and I believe you’ll consider it very good news.”

Amy’s muscles tensed. “So what is it?”

He glanced at her desk. “Perhaps you should sit down.”

“That doesn’t sound like good news.”

He smiled. “Sometimes good news can make you weak in the knees as well.”

She bet this guy knew a lot about making women weak in the knees. “I’ll be fine,” she said, defying her own reaction to him more than his suggestion that she might go weak. “Spill it.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I’m sorry?”

Now it was her turn to smile. “Spill it. Your news. I’m ready.”

“All right.” He took a breath, then cocked his head slightly and looked at her for a moment before saying, “I’m here on behalf of your country.”

She hesitated. “Funny, you don’t look like Uncle Sam.”

“Not America. Lufthania.” He paused for a moment to let that sink in. He watched her closely as he added in a careful tone, “The country where you were born. The country of your blood family.”

Her face turned cold, then her shoulders, her arms and, in a rush, the rest of her. For a moment, she couldn’t speak. No one ever talked about her biological relatives. She knew nothing about them except that her parents had died in a car accident that she’d survived. Just under three years old, she was taken to Kendell County Hospital, where her adoptive mother, Pamela Scott, had worked as a nurse on the night shift.

The authorities had tried to identify her parents to no avail. No missing-persons reports ever surfaced, no alerts for missing children. It was as if they didn’t exist at all. The only reason they knew Amy’s name, or thought they did, was because one of the paramedics on the scene had heard the woman saying the name repeatedly before she died. They concluded that Amy must have been the child’s name.

Pamela Scott had taken to Amy immediately, working extra shifts to nurse her back to health. When no family could be traced, she and her husband, Lyle, a very successful attorney, had become Amy’s foster parents. After several years they were finally able to make the adoption final.

Amy found her voice. “If this is a joke, it isn’t funny.”

He moved closer to her and put his hands on her shoulders, looking into her eyes. “I assure you, it isn’t a joke. Now, why don’t you sit down and let me tell you what brought me to you?” He guided her to her chair and she sat like an obedient child. “I only ask that you hear me out with an open mind.”

She glanced behind him. “Perhaps it would be wise of me to listen with an open door as well.”

He smiled. “You’re quite safe, I assure you.”

She gestured toward him. “Okay, I’m listening.”

He took a breath. “You are the heir to the throne of Lufthania.”

A moment passed. “Doesn’t Lufthania already have someone on the throne?”

He gave a short nod. “A crown prince who wants to return the throne to the rightful heir after his parents stole it nearly three decades ago.”

“Sort of like returning a lost wallet, huh?”

“This is no joke.”

She could see he meant it. “Okay. So where are the parents who stole the throne? Aren’t they going to be miffed that he’s giving it back?”

His face remained impassive. “They’re both dead. The princess died ten years ago of cancer. Her husband, who was much older than she, passed away two years ago of natural causes.”

“Oh.” Amy felt she shouldn’t have been flip. “Sorry, I—well, why don’t you tell me how this led you to me?”

“As I’ve indicated, twenty-five years ago, there was a political revolution, a coup d’état, in Lufthania. A very distant cousin thought the throne was legitimately his, since it had been taken away from his family several hundred years back owing to the fact that the only heir was not blood, but a foundling.”

“Adopted?”

He nodded. “Exactly. Although that is not a term they used in the sixteenth century.”

Amy frowned. “So this descendant of an adopted heir decided to take back what he thought would have been his right, had his ancestor been accepted three hundred years earlier?”

“Yes.”

“It sounds like Shakespeare.”

He smiled. “Shakespeare could have given it a much tidier ending.”

“What was the ending?”

“Prince Josef was removed from the throne and killed by overenthusiastic soldiers for the opposition.”

“What about his wife?”

He shook his head. “She had died years before in a riding accident. But his daughter, Princess Lily, escaped the country with her husband and their young daughter. Very few people knew where they’d gone, and not one person knew all of their movements, because it could have compromised their safety. But I have traced their path to the United States.”

She was skeptical. “How? It seems to me they wouldn’t have wanted to be traceable.”

“They didn’t. But it’s been so long now and the political climate of Lufthania has changed so much—it is now a democracy—that people are finally willing to talk about what they know.”

“People who knew them are still alive?”

He nodded, and she noticed a haunted look in his eye. “Lily and her family stayed with friends in Washington, D.C., for a while, before shedding their identities entirely and leaving the city. Sort of like your witness protection program, you understand?”

Amy nodded.

“They stayed in the city for some months before picking their destination and leaving. Their friends never expected to hear from them again, so when they didn’t, they were not alarmed.”

“They never heard about an accident involving people who couldn’t be identified but who fit the descriptions?” She very nearly said our descriptions but caught herself.

“No. When the accident occurred, it didn’t make national headlines because it was assumed all identifying papers had merely been lost in the explosion of the car. The authorities checked national databases for missing people for more than a year afterward, but nothing ever came of it.” His voice softened. “But, then, you already know that part of the story.”

Amy swallowed a very large lump in her throat, but it didn’t go away. She felt her lower lip tremble, and pressed her lips together to stop it. She didn’t want to cry. She’d spent a long time not crying about those missing first years and the parents she’d lost. Somehow it had felt disloyal to Pamela and Lyle Scott to even think about her biological parents, and the fact that Pamela and Lyle never mentioned them either seemed to corroborate that.

So for more than two decades Amy had dismissed those thoughts from her mind over and over again until, finally, she rarely had them anymore.

And now this man—this stranger—came in and churned all those emotions up again.

Seeing her distress, Franz pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. “I’m so sorry to touch on such a tender subject, but you need to know that you belong in Lufthania.”