Page 2 of Royal Bastard

“I am Prince Edwin of Eboracum, and soon to be the king. From what the ministers have learned, your mother was a prostitute and your father unknown. You will not be allowed to be queen, and I owe a debt to this country. A debt that means I have to give you up. I wish you all the best in your journey through life.”

She was speechless. I was a coward. I disentangled her hand from mine, stood up and made to walk away. Her response destroyed me.

“I love you, Eddie.”

No pleas for me to stay, no demands for proof of who I was, just a final, gut-wrenching stab of acceptance of her own fate.

I couldn’t turn back and look at her, and my heart pounded in my chest as my brain said I had to turn around, I had make her pain stop. “I can’t be with you. I’m sorry.”

I spoke without inflection and had to fight to control the bland expression on my face. The muscles wanted to contract, to grimace into a wince of pain and heartbreak, but I could not allow it. I was meant to be king.

I walked away and left her in that park. I left her and my child and strode into my own future without her. I truly was a coward, no matter how brave it might seem to give up your own happiness to rule a kingdom. It would have been far braver to give all of that up for the happiness only Angela had ever given me.

* * *

Henry

Present Day

I lookedup as the car slowed. Marcus shouldn’t be slowing down through this section of the city. The park caught my eye; a sprawling expanse of green grass and trees spread out into the rolling hills in the distance. People were jogging, sitting on benches, or were sprawled out on blankets looking up at the cloudless sky.

This was the place where my father had nearly destroyed my mother. There, under that oak tree with so many hearts and initials carved into it, was the place where my father had walked away from my mother and left her before she could even tell him about my existence.

I stared at it coldly with gray eyes the same as his, remembering the pain that always filled my mother’s voice when she mentioned the park or that tree. The memory was burned into her brain, and though she’d overcome my father’s desertion, she still felt the pain of it.

She’d gone back to her small town to have me but moved back a few weeks after my birth. She’d written to my father to inform him he had a son and she’d received a cordial, if informal notice that a contract would soon arrive. She and I would be cared for, monetarily, if she never told a soul who my real father was.

I would be allowed to know who my father was. He might even wish to see me occasionally, but we were never to reveal the truth. I’d never actually met my father over the years. I’d never spoken to him or had a letter from him, but I knew who he was, who I was.

He’d given us up to be king, nothing else had mattered to Edwin. My mother had been unsuitable for him, I had been a stain on his past, and we were never publicly acknowledged. Now, my father wanted to change that. He’d gone on to marry a proper young noblewoman and created a son with her, but times had changed and apparently so had Edwin. He wanted to acknowledge me now. He wanted me to take his place as king.

I didn't want anything to do with it. He’d provided for me and my mother, and I had used every bit of money for my education. I was now an attorney with my own firm. I’d worked hard and used the intelligence both my parents had given me to build a very successful business. My goal back then had been to provide for my mother and to make her proud. My father had never entered into the equation.

I didn't care about being a prince or a king. I had my own life and my mother to care for. Even with my father's money she’d struggled as a single parent, and I lived every day to make her life better. She was still young enough to have her own life, but I still had a very special relationship with her and did my best to give her all the love my father didn’t.

“Sorry, sir, there’s an accident ahead. It should be cleared momentarily.” The voice of my driver, Marcus, came from the front of the luxury sedan.

“No worries, Marcus. My meeting isn't for another half hour. There's no need to rush.” I shot the cuffs of my white cotton shirt, straightened my tie, and brushed the memories into the past by smoothing a hand through my hair.

I was meeting a young woman today, a trainee in a program I’d helped to design for those in need in the city. She was newly divorced and had been having a very hard time of it. She was in the city’s welfare system because she’d been hospitalized with depression and had been put into our program to help her get back to living a full life.

I picked up the file beside me and looked at the cover. A stunningly beautiful blonde-haired and green-eyed woman stared back from a picture stapled to the cover. Her eyes had captivated me from the very first moment I saw her picture. Not because of how beautiful she was, but because of how much those eyes reminded me of my mother’s. There was a familiar hurt there, a pain that ran deep. There was also strength and defiance and I knew she’d be a good candidate. She wouldn’t let the world destroy her just as my mother hadn't. I was looking forward to meeting her.