Page 39 of The Prodigal Prince

“Do you remember Isaiah of Eyjania?”

A look of controlled anger crossed Esme’s face. “Very well. You were at university when he took quite a few of us hostage. That’s when I started to believe there might be more to Gabe than what the tabloids said. He stood between me and the business end of more than one rifle during that time.”

Mac nodded. “That’s him. I heard a little bit about what happened. I’d been rushed to a secure location, but hadn’t ever been told why. The next time I came home, I heard more about it.” He stared back down at his hands. “That was when I found out Mum was sick.”

“I came home to see Mum several times over the next few weeks,” he started.

“I remember.” Her brow furrowed. “You spent quite a bit of time with her on the weekends when you returned home. She told me some of what you spoke about, but not everything. She told me you might tell me more someday, when the time was right.”

And that time had come.

“That’s now.” He blew out a breath. “You’re several years older than I am. I knew what our parents were like, how much they detested spending time together. For the most part, Mum avoided him because she knew what he was really like. He avoided her because of what he was really like. The girlfriends, mistresses, whoever, whatever.”

“That’s right,” Esme confirmed.

“But they were still expected to have an heir.” He nodded toward his sister. “And a spare.” Mac leaned back in his chair but still couldn’t look at her. “Me.”

His sister took advantage of his inability to go on. “Once I was old enough to understand those sorts of things, I decided our age difference was due to their differences. I thought it must have taken that long for her to stand to be that close to him, and prayed she’d get pregnant quickly.”

“I always believed the same thing.” He had to go for it. “Until not long after Mum took sick, then she told me truth.”

Maybe Esme already knew.

Maybe he wouldn’t actually have to say it.

But she didn’t volunteer any information.

“We don’t have the same father.”

Mac finally glanced up to see Esme looking at him, a carefully neutral expression on her face.

It still didn’t seem like his pronouncement took her by surprise.

“She did tell me who my father is,” he went on.

Maybe she’d take the reins for him.

But she still said nothing.

A hand slipped into the crook of his elbow.

Mac glanced to the side to see Fiona extending her hand to support him.

“What Mum told me on that last visit is what sent me running before her service, and why I stayed in the shadows for so long to protect Fiona and Gray.” He sucked in a deep breath.

Could he really do this? Really tell Esme, the queen, that his father was a notorious criminal mastermind and playboy. That his biological father was the one who held her and the others hostage several years earlier.

Why hadn’t Mum left it in her paperwork for Esme to find later?

But she hadn’t so it all fell to Mac now.

“My biological father came to visit Sargasso several times a year. During one of those trips, while he stayed here in the palace, I was conceived.”

Esme was extremely smart, but if she’d started putting the connections together, she gave no indication of it.

“I’m not the child of Queen Carlotta. Isaiah Quatremaine decided he wanted a member of Mum’s staff. To the best of my knowledge, he never knew he’d impregnated her.”

Another glance at Esme told him nothing.

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