§ § § -- December 23, 2003
"Where's Mother?" asked Roald at the main house. "She was supposed to be having dinner here with us."
"She has a dinner date," said Leslie with a smile, taking her chair after Christian pulled it out for her. "She seems to have met one of our resident multimillionaires, and you'll never guess who it is, Father."
"Oh?" said Roarke, pausing to give her a curious look.
Leslie nodded. "Gregory Nordeman."
"Who's that?" Roald asked with a heavy frown.
"He owns the island's newspaper," Leslie said. "It's my understanding that he also owns other newspapers around the world, but I don't know exactly where. He's known to be reclusive and…well, let's say less than friendly."
"Then what in hell is Mother doing eating dinner with him?" Roald demanded, his eyes widening and his frown somehow deepening. "It makes no sense!"
Christian glanced at his nephew. "Your mother's entitled to eat with whomever she pleases. Apparently it pleased her to eat with this Gregory Nordeman."
"Don't worry about it, Roald," Leslie suggested with a smile. "As far as I'm aware, he isn't wanted for any crimes, including murder. I'm sure your mother'll be glad to tell you more when she comes back." She watched Christian maneuver Lisi's stroller into position against the porch railing, out of Mariki's usual path to the table; they had fed the baby before bringing her to the main house. "She'll be fine right there, my love."
Christian smiled at her and took his own chair. "I was just thinking of Mariki's cart," he said. "I hope there's room enough for both of them. Anyhow…so how have you been occupying your time, Roald?"
Roald shrugged and added some dressing to his bowl of salad. "Mr. Roarke allowed me to accompany him to the island's orphanage," he said.
"Orphanage?" Christian echoed, exchanging an astonished look with Leslie.
"There is one here," Roald said, with a trace of his usual impudence. Christian quirked his mouth to one side but withheld any other reaction, and after a moment the young prince continued with obviously false diffidence, "I've decided to try teaching basic karate to underprivileged children."
"That's a great idea!" Leslie exclaimed.
"That it is," Christian said, very surprised. "Are you planning to return home soon to begin, or what do you have planned?"
"I don't know how long we're going to be here," Roald said, "but I did notice that there are children here who have an interest in the martial arts too—girls as well as boys. I thought I would set up a class here, perhaps in an empty storefront in the village. Mr. Roarke suggested I could advertise in the island newspaper for teachers, especially since I'll have to go home sooner or later. When I'm back, I can start another branch of the project, probably in Sundborg or Dalslund. I'll get some help from Torvald Arenstam."
"The boatbuilder's son?" Christian asked, surprised again, pausing with a forkful of greens. "Do you think he'll be interested?"
"I'll talk him into it," said Roald with confidence. "We've known each other since primaskolan. We used to watch all those old martial-arts films together."
"In that case, more power to you," Leslie said and grinned. "That's terrific, Roald. I wish you lots of luck with it. In fact, I'll ask my friends if they think any of their kids might be interested in taking your classes."
"Don't bother," Roald flared up, to her surprise. "I'll spread the word on my own, and I don't need pity charity from you."
Roarke gazed at Roald without expression; Christian looked as if he were about to explode, and Leslie laid a hand on his arm, winking surreptitiously at him. He raised a curious eyebrow at her and sat back to watch; and she turned to the young prince. "I see," she said. "Just because they're my friends' kids, they don't deserve to know about your karate classes, no matter how interested they might be, is that it?" Roald stared at her, and she shrugged. "Fine, I'll give you their phone numbers, and you can call and tell them yourself that you're going to be teaching karate, since you seem so determined to do this all on your own." She took a bite of her supper.
Roarke and Christian glanced at each other, both suppressing smiles and each aware of the action in the other. Roald missed it all, since he was gaping at Leslie. After a full minute the prince cleared his throat. "Which of your friends' children do you think would be interested in martial arts, then?"
Leslie glanced up. "I'm sure my friend Camille's boys would be thrilled—David's thirteen and Craig's six—and my friend Myeko's son Alexander would probably enjoy it too; he's eleven. Myeko's daughter Noelle is almost ten, and so is my friend Maureen's daughter Brianna; they might be interested, and maybe my friend Tabitha's daughter Cristina; she's six, almost seven." She grinned suddenly and observed, "I seem to remember Maureen and Lauren telling me some years back that Katsumi surprised them by demonstrating some basic karate herself. Her Haruko might have an interest too; she's thirteen."
Roald had been staring at her, and now he said in amazement, "That's seven children! Either you have a lot of friends, or they have a lot of kids."
Leslie giggled. "A little of both," she said cheerfully. "I'll give them a call this evening when Christian and I take Lisi home with us."
"No, leave her here," Roald said, peering at his sleeping niece from across the table and surprising Christian and Leslie again. "I'll watch her till Mother comes back."
"All right," Christian agreed and smiled a little. "I wonder how Anna-Laura's getting on with this Nordeman fellow."
"It's my understanding," Roarke observed, "that he can be quite hermitlike and brusque. I believe his employees at the newspaper, even those in the boardroom, are rather intimidated by him."
"Anna-Laura's tough," Christian said, "and she's royalty atop that. She'll easily hold her own in his presence."
‡ ‡ ‡
Gregory and Anna-Laura resumed their seats at the table, and he glanced up at her, offering, "Wine?"
"Half a glass only, thank you," she said. She watched him pour, then directed her steady gaze on him till he looked up finally. He smiled ruefully.
"I see you won't give up or conveniently forget," he remarked, "and I did promise you. All right." Gregory filled his glass while he spoke. "I'm fifty-five years old, to begin with, and I've had days when I think I have nothing to show for it." He put the wine bottle back on the table and picked up the glass, staring into its contents and slowly swirling the liquid. "I was married when I was twenty-five years old, to the heiress of a local furniture dealer with five stores in the St. Cloud, Minnesota, area, where I was born and raised. Her name was Delilah, and she was probably the prettiest girl I'd ever seen. In five years' time we had three children…Dorienne, Jory and Robia. I had a nice high position at the newspaper my father owned, and I was negotiating to buy a rival paper when it started." He cleared his throat, looked away and said painfully, "Someone kidnapped Robia. She was a year old at the time, and no trace was ever found of her. To this day I don't know if she's alive or dead, and I can only hope she's out there somewhere, maybe even aware that she isn't whoever her kidnapper might have told her she is…" He glanced up and then looked away again at Anna-Laura's shocked gaze. "Even the ransom we offered didn't bring her back.
"It skewed Delilah's mind. She began to close herself off, started mourning Robia's absence, and started criticizing Jory and Dorienne for everything on earth. I couldn't do any right either. She insisted I drop my bid for the paper, but I was pretty hardheaded—thought if I got the thing, raised our income, we could offer a bigger ransom for Robia and she might come back home. We fought a lot about it. One night I finally yelled at her that I wanted a divorce…in front of the kids. She looked shocked, but it shut her up.
"In fact, it was the last time I ever saw the three of them. While I was at work the next day, she took the kids out, and…how it happened, I'll never know, but she drove off a bridge. All three of them drowned."
Anna-Laura breathed a silent curse in jordiska. His wife and two older children dead, his youngest child gone apparently forever…he'd lost as much as she had. He looked up and said with a trace of bitterness, "But believe it or not, it doesn't end there. I was thirty-two then. I met a woman named Priscilla and we were married, but before the end of the first month I realized she wanted me only for my money. I was making pretty good cash by that time and had a bit of a name for myself. I told her to get out, but she claimed she was pregnant. I didn't believe her till it started to show, and then I asked her if the kid was mine. She carried on like a banshee, weeping and wailing and insisting she'd been faithful, but I just didn't believe it. She didn't take care of herself and the pregnancy like she should've been doing, and she clearly didn't care what happened to the baby. When she gave birth, the baby was stillborn, and that was it for me. I threw her out and made sure she had only the things she'd come into the marriage with. She sued, but by then I could afford good lawyers, and I prevented her from getting anything.
"That's still not the last of it. Some huckster showed up with a little girl in tow and claimed it was Robia. I'd always wondered where she might be, and I'd never retracted the ransom for her. The kid was about the right age and had the right coloring—light like Delilah. Robia would have been about nine. Of course, by then there was some serious money at stake, and the claim was investigated. Took almost six months. You can't imagine how it devastated me when the child was proven not to be Robia and the woman making the claim got exposed as the money-grubbing fraud she was. She was tossed in prison and the child was put into foster care. I offered to take her, but the system didn't work that way. Since then two more claims have come and gone, and each one hurt worse than the last when they turned out to be bogus. So last year I retracted the ransom and just gave up." He looked at Anna-Laura with stark pain on his face. "If Robia's really still out there, she undoubtedly doesn't know or care who she really is, and I learned to face the fact that she never will. Too many years have gone by."
"How old would Robia be now?" asked Anna-Laura a little hesitantly.
"Twenty-six," said Gregory. "Probably married by now, maybe even got a kid or two. That is, if she's still alive."
Anna-Laura considered his tale. It crossed her mind to think that perhaps Roarke could help—but then she thought again. If he'd wanted Roarke's help, he'd already have asked for it, and she dared not suggest it for fear he'd lash out at her. After a bit she asked gently, "Does it give you any comfort to believe she's still alive?"
"Not much. It only reminds me what I've missed—her entire life, pretty much. I just don't think about it. In any case, it hurt too much to think not only about Robia, but about Delilah and Dorienne and Jory too. Dorienne would've been thirty-one now and Jory would be thirty, if they'd survived." He shook his head a little. "I've always missed those kids, all three of them. Dorienne was the most feminine little girl I ever knew…and Jory, my son, he was bright as hell…learned to read before he started kindergarten. I named him for a jordisk ancestor of mine, the great-grandfather who came over in the first place." He sat there visibly fighting back his emotions, and Anna-Laura waited, unsure exactly what to say. In a moment or two Gregory muttered, "I couldn't stand the memories, so I burned every picture in the house. Every one of them, even Robia's. I'd been through so much pain between Jory's and Dorienne's deaths and Robia's kidnapping and the attempts to fool me for money by claiming she'd been found, it was just easier to pretend they'd never existed."
"Words are so inadequate," Anna-Laura said softly. "I'd say I'm sorry, but it hardly seems to cover it. But I appreciate the great effort you went to, the meaning of the gesture of your telling me about your children."
Gregory cleared his throat and drank some wine, then peered at her. "I'd say it's your turn now," he remarked. "I know you've lost family too."
"Well, obviously, my parents are both dead," she said. "Mother died some eighteen years ago of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and Father passed on ten years later, primarily of Alzheimer's disease, though there were signs of other physical problems. However, my first terrible loss was my husband, Esbjörn Lagnebring. We were married when I was twenty-four and he twenty-seven. Cecilia was born the next year, and Roald two years later.
"Esbjörn had an incredible political career in front of him. I actually first met him at one of our royal Christmas balls, when his father—a prominent local official in his hometown—came to present his family to ours. In 1982 Esbjörn won a resounding victory as the head of our parliament; he was quite popular, really, nearly as much so as my brother Christian." She smiled wistfully. "Christian and Esbjörn had much different interests, so I can't say they really became friends, but they got on well and were always able to talk about the sorts of things men usually talk about. In any case, there was a faction that immediately claimed that Esbjörn had had an unfair advantage in the election because he had married into the royal family. In October, after just a few weeks of serving as head of parliament, he was gunned down in the capital city. There were quite a few witnesses and the assassin was caught almost instantly, but Esbjörn had been mortally wounded. They told me he died within five minutes of being shot."
Gregory cursed aloud, then cleared his throat. "Excuse me…but that was barbaric."
"More than you know. This sort of thing isn't supposed to happen in Scandinavian countries, but of course you'll remember that a little more than three years later, Olof Palme was killed in Stockholm, and there was as much attention called to that as to Esbjörn's death. In any case, I couldn't bear to go anywhere for several months after that, and I had to be pulled out of seclusion. I tried to make certain my children knew something about their father. Ceci was four when he died, and she might have had some hazy memories of him, but Roald was only two and couldn't be expected to remember anything."
"I see," said Gregory with a nod.
"And now Ceci's gone too—she and her husband were killed instantly in a head-on collision only eight days ago." Anna-Laura closed her eyes against the burn of tears. "They left behind a seven-month-old daughter—Elisabeth, or Lisi as we call her. She's the baby you saw me with earlier today. I feel in some ways as though she's all I have left, because my son Roald is pulling farther and farther from me. He's always had a rebellious streak in him, but after he finished school he fell in with some rich young fools with too much time and money on their hands and not enough sense to find constructive ways to use either. I don't know what to do with him any longer. He has no interest in his niece and I don't think he's properly mourned his sister."
Gregory sat back in his chair and nodded. "You always had family to turn to in your grief, though, didn't you?" he said gently. "I never really did. I suppose I could have turned to friends, but I didn't have any of those to speak of."
"Well, yes…my brothers and their wives, of course," Anna-Laura said slowly. "That is, until my brother Arnulf died a year and a half ago. In his case it was a heart attack, probably brought on by a particular and extremely rare spice he used. It's a long story and I won't go into it here. After his death my niece Gabriella was crowned queen, and Arnulf's wife, Kristina, went into such heavy mourning that she never recovered. She's in a care facility, quite disturbed mentally, and her two younger daughters see her fairly regularly, though they say she recognizes no one and seems to be living in the days when my father was on the throne and she and Arnulf were being constantly spotted on the party circuit. I think she's dying, myself—very, very slowly, of course, but I do."
"A damn shame," Gregory said with real sympathy. "So you've lost quite a few people too: your husband, your parents, your brother, your daughter and son-in-law. Maybe…" He paused long enough for Anna-Laura to focus questioningly on him, and then gave her a crooked little grin. "This'll be the corniest-sounding thing you probably ever heard, but maybe you and I were meant to meet. Maybe you were supposed to trespass around my koi pond, and maybe I was supposed to notice you doing it and come out and yell at you."
They both laughed, a little shakily. "Maybe so," Anna-Laura said. "I expect time will tell us if this is destined to be the beginning of a close friendship."
"Or perhaps something more," Gregory offered quietly, and they looked at each other with hesitant, but heartfelt, smiles, before he suggested, "Well, how about dessert?"
§ § § -- December 26, 2003
"Don't argue with me," Christian warned Leslie genially. "I want to find out if there's something responsible for all that sleeping you're doing, or if it's actually natural—at least, natural for you." He grinned at the face she made. "So yes, I'm going back there with you when Dr. Hannaford calls you in for your examination."
"All right, all right, fine," Leslie said and threw her hands into the air. "I suppose if she protests, that stubborn prince I married will make an appearance and throw his royal weight around."
"You know me very well, don't you?" said Christian cheerfully, and she chuckled in resignation, settling into the front seat. He slid into the driver's side, patted her arm and got them on the road to the island's hospital. "You know," he remarked as he gained the Ring Road, "I'm still amazed at the friendship Anna-Laura's developed with Gregory Nordeman. It makes me wonder if there's not some more subtle undercurrent there."
"Could be," Leslie said. "If you ask me, it's the best thing for both of them. It sounded to me as if they had shared quite a bit, that first dinner they had together."
"Do you know anything about him?" Christian asked curiously. "That is, other than his name and the fact that he owns a lot of newspapers?"
"Not really," Leslie said. "The only thing I can recall is a big news story that came out just about the time I came here to live with Father. I don't remember the particulars, but I think it had to do with the kidnapping of one of his children. Since he was alone when he came here and bought his mansion, though, I can only assume that he went through a divorce or something."
"That far back?" Christian mused. "And you said 'children', plural. That suggests that his other children are grown. I'll readily confess to a good deal of curiosity, but I think it's too soon for us to ask questions. Anna-Laura's still grieving over Ceci and Axel, and she and Nordeman have known each other only a few days." He glanced at her with a mischievous twinkle in his hazel eyes. "I think we need to place priority on that baby you're carrying around with you and why the little stinker is constantly putting you to sleep." Leslie burst out laughing and agreed with him.
At the hospital, Dr. Lambert came out and greeted Christian and Leslie. "Dr. Hannaford should be right with you," she said, referring to Leslie's obstetrician-gynecologist, who had recently joined the medical staff. "So how's the baby coming along?"
"It keeps knocking me out," Leslie said with a grin. "Christian likes to make fun of me for falling asleep all the time."
Dr. Lambert laughed. "That's pretty normal, actually. And hey, Leslie, you're starting to actually look pregnant. This is going to be really exciting, once we get through the next six months or so. Oh…hi, Pamela." Dr. Hannaford had come out, and Christian and Leslie both greeted her.
"Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Enstad," the obstetrician replied and smiled, then asked Leslie, "So, how are you feeling?"
"No more nausea," Leslie said, "but I seem to sleep all the time. I thought that wasn't supposed to happen till later in the pregnancy."
Dr. Hannaford told her, "Not necessarily; it's normal enough to feel sleepiness this early on. You shouldn't let it worry you."
"Even if it seems excessive?" broke in Christian. "She fell asleep standing up on our way out of the royal Christmas ball earlier this month, and I began to wonder then."
Dr. Hannaford considered that, then said, "Well, why don't you both come on back, then. Actually, what you thought was falling asleep might have been a fainting spell; that happens occasionally, though less often than the movies would have us think. Let's take a look at you, Mrs. Enstad, and we'll find out how you're progressing."
"I remember fainting only once before," Leslie remarked as she and Christian followed Dr. Hannaford down to an examination room. "But that came out of exhaustion. You can ask Dr. Lambert about that—she'll remember it well. But I just never figured I was prone to fainting. Pregnancy really changes a lot of things, doesn't it?"
"Sure does," Dr. Hannaford said cheerfully, "but most of those changes are normal. You were both right to bring up the sleepiness question—if anything seems way out of line to either of you, you should let me know. Now let's check the usual stuff, and then we'll see what's going on."
Christian stood by and watched avidly while Dr. Hannaford ran Leslie through the usual checkup; then she grinned at them and said, "This should be enjoyable. You're about twelve weeks into the pregnancy, Mrs. Enstad, and since you're over thirty-five, we're watching you a little more carefully. You'll remember the blood test we did on the last appointment for your first-trimester screening. Now we're going to do an ultrasound for the same reason. The primary aim here is to see whether there's any risk of Down syndrome, and this is completely painless. Just lie back on the table here and lift your top so we can see your tummy, and I'll get the gel." She left the room for a moment, and Leslie lay back on the examination table, glancing at Christian.
"You seem fascinated, my love," she teased.
"It is fascinating," Christian said, sounding a bit excited. "And this time we're going to see the baby, aren't we?" He moved to stand by her side, clasping her hand once she had bared her abdomen, and grinned at her. "If it's possible to find out whether it's a boy or a girl this soon, do you want to know now, or wait till you give birth?"
Leslie grinned back and said, "Maybe I'm kind of old-fashioned, but I'd rather not know till I deliver. I just think it's more fun that way. When the addition to the house is finished, we can always paint in neutral colors—though frankly, I don't think it's fair that blue is traditionally restricted to boys. My room at the main house is blue, after all."
"True," said Christian. "We can paint and decorate in any color you like, my Rose, so don't worry about that. But I agree—I'd rather wait and have the fun of telling everyone at the time the baby is born, and finding out ourselves at the same time."
Dr. Hannaford came back in time to hear his last sentence. "Aha. That answers a question I'd have asked in a few minutes anyway. Some folks can't wait, some folks like the suspense. Myself, I couldn't stand it, and I had to know then and there." She chuckled with them, pulling the lid from a container. "This might be cold at first, but it'll warm up quickly." She slathered gel across Leslie's stomach; it was indeed cold, and Leslie flinched at first contact, making all three of them laugh. A few minutes later, Dr. Hannaford was slowly moving the transducer across her stomach, and they were all avidly watching the image on the monitor. At first it was hard to tell even where the fetus was, and both Christian and Leslie squinted in perplexity. But then Dr. Hannaford said, "There's the little devil." And they did indeed see a ghostly, humanesque figure on the screen, with a large head and clearly discernible arms and legs. Christian and Leslie stared in transfixed fascination.
Dr. Hannaford moved the transducer further…and made a surprised sound right alongside Christian's and Leslie's soft gasps when a second little human form was revealed, facing the first one. "Sjutton sanktar!" Christian whispered, using a jordisk expression Leslie had never heard before. She barely noticed, so stunned was she.
"My God, we're having twins!" she breathed. While Christian gaped in astonishment at the image, she turned to Dr. Hannaford. "How can you tell if they're identical or fraternal? My younger sisters were identical twins, so it's kind of important to me."
"I'm sure it is," said Dr. Hannaford with another grin. "Let's get a look here. If they share a placenta, they'll definitely be identical. Separate placentas can mean either one, so if there are two placentas, we won't really know till they're born. Let's see." Leslie turned back to the screen, and when Christian's hand tightened on hers, she squeezed it in reassurance. He still looked blindsided; Leslie was beginning to feel the first glimmerings of wonder in addition to her own shock.
"I can't believe this," Christian murmured. "I don't recall any twins in the family for at least the past two centuries. I could ask Anna-Laura, but…" His voice trailed off and he just stared, wide-eyed.
"Looks like yours are identical," said Dr. Hannaford. "Well, congratulations, both of you." She grinned at them. "All the time you were hoping to get pregnant, and here you've got a bonus. Maybe you should start thinking about what to name them."
About forty-five minutes later they went into the main house together, hands clasped tightly. Leslie had driven, since Christian was still quite overwhelmed. They found Anna-Laura in the study talking with Roarke; both looked up when they entered. Anna-Laura stared at her brother. "Christian, are you all right?"
"He will be," Leslie said. "Father, Anna-Laura, you won't believe this. We just came from my exam. Dr. Hannaford did an ultrasound, and we're going to have twins!"
"Are you indeed!" Roarke exclaimed, sounding genuinely amazed. "Wonderful!"
"It's incredible!" Anna-Laura added, rising from her chair and beaming. "The last twins in the family were born in the mid-sixteenth century, so this is all the more astounding." She hugged Leslie and then Christian, who blinked and stared at her. "For fate's sake, Christian, what's the matter? It's almost too bad Arnulf couldn't have known about this. I can still remember him prancing around when Gabriella was born because he was the first prince to father two daughters in nearly two hundred years. Somehow, Christian, you and Leslie have managed to outdo him. That should make you quite happy."
"Maybe I'll be happy when it's sunk in a little," Christian said. "Becoming a father was low enough a priority to me that I treated the whole concept as an abstract. When it became reality, I spent two weeks dealing with the avalanche of emotions, of every stripe, that came out of the initial diagnosis. I'd finally grown used to looking forward to a baby, and now I find I'll be the father of two. And we're told they're identical, too."
"That's even more fun," Anna-Laura said eagerly, while Roarke chuckled. "In their infancy, you can have the joy of dressing them alike. When I was a little girl I remember hoping I'd have identical twins when I grew up." She hugged Leslie again. "Tell me, how long do you expect it to be before the addition to your house is complete?"
Christian looked at her askance and said, "I may have to ask that the timetable be sped up slightly, but we were given a completion date of late February or early March. At that point Leslie and I are planning to decorate the nursery…or rather, nurseries, perhaps… but we were going to leave the guest suite till some later date. Why?"
Anna-Laura glanced between him and Roarke. "It was my hope to stay for at least two or three months," she explained. "I'll be keeping Lisi with me, although Roald plans to return to Lilla Jordsö in mid-January, or as soon as he's found a good martial-arts instructor to take over those classes he's begun teaching, whichever is later. If you're willing to spend some effort on the guest suite, I could remain here longer with Lisi—perhaps long enough to be able to help you after the babies are born. You'll need extra assistance, especially in the first several weeks."
Leslie looked at Christian, who smiled. "I have no real objections," he said and shot his sister a sly glance, "especially since it seems Anna-Laura may have other ulterior motives, such as giving her potential romance a chance to develop." Anna-Laura scowled at him, and he laughed. "But of course, your opinion counts too, my darling."
"I think it would be great," she said softly. "My mother can't be here, after all, and my friends are a little at a remove anyway, with their own kids. Plus, Lauren and Maureen are both pregnant too, so they've got their own babies to worry about. But this would be a godsend, and I think you're really brave and generous to offer when you have Lisi to take care of too. I'd love it, Anna-Laura, thank you so much."
"We'll get Anna-Kristina to help as well. She and Mateo are still waiting to hear about the baby they're trying to adopt, so if it stretches out that long, she may welcome the chance for some hands-on learning," Christian said. "That truly is very generous, Anna-Laura, and we both appreciate it. This way, Mr. Roarke, you need only be the grandfather."
Roarke laughed. "You're likely to have more offers of help than you think you will. In any case, I expect this is going to be quite the revelation, both here and in Lilla Jordsö."
"So it will," Anna-Laura agreed. "I hope my extended stay won't inconvenience you, Mr. Roarke."
"Not at all, Your Highness. The bungalow is yours for as long as you need it. Leslie, have you received any restrictions yet on the time you're allowed to work?"
"No," Leslie told him, "Dr. Hannaford said if I can stay awake, I should work as long as I feel up to it. Just the usual precautions, that's all. Wow, I think when I tell the girls, they're going to kill me. They'll say I'm trying to outdo all the rest of them by having twins."
"I think they're more likely to feel sorry for you," Christian kidded her, "although I daresay now you'll probably scare Lauren into demanding to know if she too is carrying twins. Brian would go into orbit. For that matter," he added with a little sigh, "I think I myself am in orbit. You'd better give me some time before I make this announcement on the royal website."
"We have loads of time for that," Leslie promised him, squeezing his hand and then gazing down at her abdomen, flattening one hand over it as the others watched. "I just wish Mom could know about this."
"As I wish Mother could," Christian agreed softly, putting one hand over hers.
"They do," said Roarke gently, and when they all turned to look at him, he merely smiled and relaxed in his chair.
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My apologies that this story took so long to complete, but now that it (and Christian's biography) are done, things will move along a little faster, I promise that! Thanks to everyone for your patience.
Next: Christian gets a chance to visit Lilla Jordsô's past again. But he's in for a very rude surprise…
