The Princess is Pregnant! by Laurie Paige Read Free Book Online Page B

everything, she concluded with a sigh. Not a princess or a queen.
    Especially not a queen.

Chapter Four
    M egan snipped the dead heads off the prize dahlias, aware of the gardener’s disapproving eyes on her the whole time. These were the royal family’s private gardens, but he considered all the palace grounds, both public and private, to be his personal domain. She ignored him.
    Jean-Paul had been in residence since Wednesday. Three days and all the females in the Penwyck capital city of Marlestone were atwitter over the handsome earl. The gossip and speculation about him set her teeth on edge.
    Her maid had updated Megan on his activities. He’d appeared briefly at a local night spot late last night after leaving her. He didn’t dance with anyonealthough one bold female had asked him; he’d good-naturedly bought her and all her friends an ale, then left soon after. This morning, he had rented a motorbike and raced along the beach, a popular Saturday endeavor. Several local young men had joined him, and a good time was had by all. Or so Megan heard.
    Huffing in exasperation, she wondered where he was at the present. She’d requested a meeting that morning to discuss the future and the queen’s invitation for an intimate dinner to inform her father of their plans. He’d left her stewing without an answer while he followed his own pursuits. Just as she’d done him the day he’d arrived.
    Snip. Snip.
    She slashed the drooping heads of two spent flowers, accidentally getting a third, healthy one. She quickly looked around to see if old Pierre, the gardener, was watching. He was.
    He glared at her from the rose arbor tucked next to the high stone wall surrounding the family gardens.
    Megan ducked her head and pretended not to see his scowls. Snip. Snip. She decapitated another dahlia, then realized she’d cut a second perfect bloom off in its prime.
    Pierre muttered direly in French.
    Disgusted with herself, she tossed her basket of cuttings into the compost bin and stored her gloves and shears in the potting shed. After wiping her faceand hands with a damp towel, she strolled the manicured paths until she came to a favorite spot by the back wall that overlooked the cove.
    Using a stone bench in a hidden niche behind a birch tree as a stepping stool, she perched on the wall and looked out at the sea.
    The restless march of the waves on the shore taunted her queasy stomach. She quickly looked away from the sea to the hills that undulated in deep swells to finally become the Aronleigh Mountains stretching up the western coast of the country.
    Two figures sauntered along the path leading over the moors. As she watched, they paused and studied a flower blooming among the heather.
    Jean-Paul and a woman.
    When he moved aside, Megan recognized the blond hair and slender figure of Amira Corbin, daughter to the queen’s favorite lady-in-waiting and chief confidante. He plucked the flower and tucked it behind the girl’s ear.
    Megan heard the laughter of the younger female as she spun away and dashed down the pathway, her manner carefree and easy. Amira stopped and pointed out another interesting tidbit to her handsome companion.
    Resentment burned briefly in Megan’s breast, then was gone. The emotion wasn’t allowed.
    As a royal, she and her siblings had never been permitted the kind of freedom that was taken for granted by others. A guard would have followedher had she left the palace compound or cove directly below. She’d learned long ago to quit fighting the restraints of her position.
    Turning back to the sea, she experienced an intense longing to fling herself into its ever-shifting embrace and follow it to foreign shores and exotic lands, never to return….
    She sighed and let her shoulders slump. She never gave in to her wilder impulses. Except for once.
    Laying a hand against her roiling tummy, she sighed again. The king would be furious when she and Jean-Paul confessed all. He was very strict on protocol and