The Lost Princes: Darius, Cassius and Monte. Raye Morgan

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      The funny thing was he wasn’t so sure all that much had changed with her. From the little bit she’d told him of her life, he had a pretty good idea of how hard she worked and how little she played. Someone ought to show her how to have a little fun.

      Someone. Not him, of course, but someone.

      They stopped at a small general store and he went in, leaving her in the car entertaining the baby. Minutes later he came out with a car seat in tow.

      “This ought to do it,” he said, and in no time at all they were back on the road, Cici officially ensconced in the proper equipment.

      “She seems to like it fine,” Ayme noted. “She’s already falling back to sleep.”

      He handed her a couple of sandwiches he’d picked up in the store and she looked at them suspiciously.

      “This isn’t going to be one of those strange British things, is it?” she asked. “Vegemite or Marmite or whatever?”

      He grinned. “Those are Australian and British, respectively. I’m Dutch. We eat kippers!”

      “What’s a kippers?”

      “Kippers are canned herring, usually smoked.”

      “Fish?” She pulled back the paper. “Oh, no! What is that smell?”

      “It’s a great smell,” he retorted. “A nice, sea-faring nation smell. Lots of protein. Eat up. You’ll love it.”

      She was ravenously hungry, so she did eat up, but she complained the whole time. He ate his own kipper sandwich with relish.

      “Good stuff,” he remarked as he finished up. For some reason the fact that she was complaining so much about the food had put him in a marvelous mood. “That’ll hold us until we get in later tonight.”

      She rolled her eyes, but more as a way to tease him than for real. Now that she’d had something to eat, she was sleepy again, but that made her feel guilty.

      “Would you like me to drive?” she said. “You must be dead on your feet. You need some sleep.”

      He shook his head. “Do you have a license?” he noted.

      “No,” she said sadly. “Only for Texas.”

      “That won’t work.”

      She sighed. “Sorry.”

      But in another few minutes, she was asleep again.

      Just looking at her made him smile. He bit it off and tried to scowl instead. He wasn’t going to let her get to him. He wasn’t that easy. Was he?

      When he couldn’t resist glancing at her again he realized that maybe he was. But what the hell, it didn’t mean a thing. It was just that she was so open and natural and so completely different from the women he was used to. For years now, he’d been hanging out with a pretty sophisticated crowd. And that was on purpose. He’d found out early that you could find out a lot if you hung with the right people and learned to listen. He had a very large hole in his life. He needed some very specialized information to fill it in.

      Twenty-five years before, he’d been woken in the middle of a terrifying night, bundled up and raced out of the burning castle he’d lived in all six years of his young life. He knew now that his parents were being murdered at about the same time. It was likely that many of his brothers and sisters were killed as well. But one old man whose face still haunted his dreams had come to his room and saved his life that night.

      Taken by people who were strangers to him from his island nation and smuggled into the Netherlands, he arrived the next day, a shaken and somewhat traumatized refugee, at the noisy, cheerful home of the Dykstra family. He was told this would be his new home, his new family, and that he must never speak of Ambria, never let anyone know anything about his past. The people who brought him there then melted away into the scenery and were never seen again—at least not by him. And there he was, suddenly a Dykstra, suddenly Dutch. And not allowed to ask any questions, ever.

      The Dykstras were good to him. His new parents were actually quite affectionate, but there were so many children in the family, it was easy to get lost in the shuffle. Still, everyone had to pitch in and he did learn to take care of the younger ones. He also learned how to listen and quietly glean information. From the very beginning his purpose in life was to find out what had happened to his family and to find a way to connect with any of them who might still be alive. As he got older, he began to meet the right people and gain the trust of the powerful in many areas, and little by little, he began to piece things together.

      At first the socializing had just been a natural inclination. But over time he began to realize that these people did move in circles close to the wealthy and the influential, elements that might prove helpful in his quest to find out what had happened to his family—and his country. Over the years various things half-heard or half-understood sent him on wild-goose chases across the continent, but finally, six months ago, he’d hit pay dirt.

      He’d been playing a friendly set of tennis with Nico, the son of a French diplomat, when the young man had stopped his serve, and, ball in hand, had stared at him for a long moment.

      “You know,” he said, shaking his head, “I met someone at a dinner in Paris last week who could be your twin. It was a fancy banquet for the new foreign minister. He looked just like you.”

      “Who? The foreign minister?”

      “No, idiot.” Nico laughed. “This fellow I met. I can’t remember his name, but I think he was with the British delegation. You don’t have a brother in government?”

      By now, David’s heart was pounding in his chest as though he’d just run a four-minute mile. He knew this might be the break he’d been searching for. But he had to remain cool and pretend this was nothing but light banter. He took a swing into empty air with his racquet and tried to appear nonchalant.

      “Not that I know of. All my brothers are happily ensconced in the business world, and spend most of their time in Amsterdam.” He grinned across the net. “And none of them look much like me.”

      He was referring to his foster brothers, but the fact that he wasn’t a real Dykstra was not common knowledge and he was happy to keep it that way.

      “The ugly duckling of the family, are you?” teased Nico.

      “That’s me.”

      Nico served and it was all David could do to pay enough attention to return it in a long drive to the corner. Nico’s response went into the net and that gave David a chance for another couple of questions, but Nico really didn’t seem to know any more than what he’d said.

      Still, it was a start, and the information breathed new life into his hopes and dreams of finding his family. He got to work researching, trying to find a list of the names of everyone who had attended that banquet. Once he had that, he began searching for pictures on the Internet. Finally, he thought he just might have his man.

      Mark Stephols was his name. There were a couple of other possibilities, but the more he stared at the pictures of Mark, the more certain he became. Now, how to approach him and find out for sure?

      He СКАЧАТЬ