A Prince of Norway

Chapter One

Cheltenham, Missouri Territory

April 1, 1820

 

   You’re a what?” Sydney blurted.

Nicolas Hansen’s wife of four months gaped at him and her dark brows plunged dangerously. He stroked a forefinger across his lip, calluses rasping his stubble.

“A prince.”

Nicolas lowered himself onto the leather ottoman in the event his feisty spouse’s shocked response involved fists. His gaze flickered around his dark, mannish study, and landed back on her.

He cleared his throat. “It’s on my mother’s side. Her grandfather was King Christian the sixth of Norway. And of Denmark.”

Sydney’s expansive gray-green eyes did not leave his, though her hand flailed to the side in search of a seat. Nicolas shoved his favorite leather chair toward her with his foot.

She submerged between the worn, over-stuffed arms as if she hoped their bulk could block out the bizarre reality he had just doused her with. “So those portraits in the stairwell…”

“…look royal for a reason,” Nicolas finished the sentence.

Her stunned expression had not altered. “Skitt.”

Surprised at her imitation of his scatological Norse, Nicolas laughed.

Sydney—decidedly not laughing—pressed palms against her violently flushed cheeks. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“To be truthful, I forgot. It’s not as though we live in Norway.” Nicolas scuttled his fingers through his hair and shrugged. If he acted unconcerned, perhaps she would take his next words well.

“Nor am I in any danger of becoming king, I don’t believe.”

“You don’t believe?” she shouted. Her dilated pupils obliterated any trace of color in her eyes. “Nicolas! You’re an American!”

As if he were unaware.

He dragged his gaze away from hers and hefted the package of letters which—after an eighteen month, multi-continental sojourn—had arrived at his estate that day. The missives very strongly demanded his immediate appearance at the royal court in Christiania, Norway or he would suffer the penalties of his disobedience.

“Nicolas?” she squeaked. Her cheeks hollowed and lost their bloom. “What is this all about?”

He exhaled, resigned. There was no point in delaying the telling; it would only anger her and postpone his preparations for departure. He fixed his gaze on hers and arranged his features in a deliberately calm set.

“Norway has been under the control of Sweden since 1814. After Denmark’s unfortunate alliance with Napoleon, Norway was taken away from her, disregarding centuries under her sovereignty. So the royal family has decided to pull together their various members and test the viability of finally gaining the country for themselves.”

“And choose a king of their own, not a Danish one?” It was an accusation more than a question. In spite of his attempt to downplay the summons, Sydney looked desperate as a drowning cat. She leaned back and away from him. “Is there any wine?”

Nicolas pushed up from his perch and poured her a glass. Her hand trembled as she reached for the crystal goblet. He knelt beside her chair while she gulped the burgundy liquid in a very un-ladylike manner. He stroked his fingers through her straight, dark hair; that particular action usually soothed her mood.

“Don’t worry, min presang.” Nicolas had called her my gift ever since the day he confessed he loved her. He kissed her temple and inhaled the warm, rosy scent of her. “Other than my trip to Norway and back, nothing about our lives will change.”

Sydney wagged her head and fixed her gray-green eyes on his. Mossy pewter shards pierced his fantasy and it shattered with irrevocable finality.

“I love you, Nicolas. You are sensible of that. But you are so very, very wrong.”

 

??

 

Nicolas stirred and stretched in his sturdy cherrywood bed, glad as always that it was built for his substantial six-foot-four frame. He reached for Sydney in the dark, but she wasn’t beside him. Kirstie must be hungry. He resettled and waited for her to return.

Sydney was quiet during dinner and afterward busied herself upstairs with six-year old Stefan and three-month old Kirstie. For the first evening since their wedding, she didn’t sit with him in his study. He didn’t know why she avoided him—well, that was not entirely true. The revelation of his royal blood was an obvious shock to his new wife.  But he sorely missed her company nonetheless.

Now he ached to feel her soothing warmth against him. The unsettling letters had his gut twisted, and his dozing dreams were filled with grasping images of Norway. But king? The idea was ludicrous. Impossible. Unwanted.

And yet it coiled seductively in his core.

After a pace, Nicolas rolled over to look for light coming from the nursery door. That portal was dark; but faint candlelight seeped under their bedroom door. Unable to fall asleep without her, he threw the covers back, pulled on his draw-string drawers, and went in search of his missing wife.

One step out of the bedroom and he saw her. Sydney sat on the polished staircase, staring at the display of gilt-framed portraits by the light of a single candle. The groan of wood under his bare feet announced him. She looked up at him as he descended the stairs.

He was surprised by her red-rimmed eyes and wet cheeks. “Sydney? What’s amiss?”

She sniffed and ran her hand under her nose. “You’re royalty.”

His sardonic grin showed how much stock he put in that. He waved a dismissive hand.

“I’m the same man I was this morning. I’m the same man you married. Please don’t trouble yourself over this.” He lowered himself to the stairstep above her and encased her with his legs. He began to massage her shoulders through the wide neckline of her cotton and lace nightgown.

Though he wasn’t certain Sydney would give him any purchase, she leaned into him. A faint purr of appreciation encouraged his ministrations, yet she continued to wipe her cheeks.

“Can you tell me why, exactly, these people insist that my new husband travel halfway around the world?” she ventured, her soft voice ringing clear in the night-shrouded manor.

Nicolas coughed sleep from his voice. “My grandmother’s brother Frederick became king in 1746. He had two wives, a mistress, and seventeen children.”

Sydney glanced at him, her brow crinkled and her mouth slanted sideways. Clearly she was not favorably impressed thus far. But she was listening.

“His eldest son Christian became king after him. He died in 1808 and his son, Frederick took over. Are you with me thus far?”

“Yes,” she murmured.

“This particular Frederick was defeated in Napoleon’s war, and in 1814 my cousin Christian the Eighth became king.”

Sydney snorted softly. “They weren’t much for changing names, were they?”

Nicolas chuckled, glad to see her mood lifting a bit. “No. At any rate, when Sweden made their move on Norway, Christian abdicated.”

“And so, in 1814, Sweden gained control of Norway?”

“Yes.”

“And now these seventeen descendents of Frederick want to take the throne back?”

“Yes.”

Sydney’s shoulders tensed, bunching under his hands. “What do they expect of you?” she asked at length.

“They wish to know if I’m with them or against them.” He pushed his thumbs into the tightening knots at the base of her neck. She groaned and her shoulders slanted downward. “And they want my land.”

“Mm, right there,” she grunted and tilted her head. “How much land are we talking about?”

“Fifteen thousand acres.”

Sydney turned and stared up at Nicolas from her nest between his thighs. In the dim candlelight her eyes were wide, dark pools fringed in startled black foliage. “Fifteen thousand acres! Nicolas! Your estate here is only five hundred—and Rickard leases two hundred of those!”

He nodded; when she compared his holdings that way, the one was considerably more impressive. He felt his face grow warm, glad she most likely couldn’t discern his blush in the dim light.

“Skitt,” she huffed.

Nicolas smiled. “You’ve adopted my favorite word.”

Sydney shrugged a little under his fingers. “It’s a good word. And it suits the situation.”

“It does that, I suppose.”

Sydney leaned against him again and he resumed his massage; he felt her relax a little. Her voice was soft, but her words were hard.

“What happens if you don’t go?”

Much as he hoped she wouldn’t, he expected she would ask him that. Since the letters arrived, he had asked himself the same thing several times. He pulled a deep breath; there was no way around answering her.

“I lose my land with no recompense. And I lose all of my hereditary claims,” he said.

“Are those important to you?”

Nicolas hesitated, wrestling with his response.

His first journey to Christiania had been thrust upon him, but he met it with as much panache as a nineteen-year-old from the wilds of Missouri could muster. Though the landscape and customs were unfamiliar, and the language demanded his undivided concentration, he couldn’t deny that something in the center of his being recognized Norway as home. Once summoned, that distant memory bubbled up from his belly and nested behind his heart.

Yet alone in his study tonight, he tried to convince himself that he really didn’t need to go. He was quite well situated on his estate in Cheltenham. His financial status was such that he could still manage if he were to relinquish his holdings, cut his ties with Christiania and gave up his royal hereditary claims. He tried to convince himself that none of that was important because he lived here. On his estate, in the Missouri Territory, in America.

But he failed. Miserably.

“Nicolas?” Sydney looked at him over her shoulder. Facing her trusting gaze, he wasn’t capable of hiding anything from her.

“Yes,” he admitted. “They are.”

Sydney drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “All right, then. You’ll do what you must.”

“Jeg elsker deg, min presang.” I love you, my gift.

“Jeg elsker deg også,” she replied.

Nicolas slid his hands off her shoulders and inside the front of her soft cotton nightgown. He smiled as he cupped her breasts, pliant and warm. She did feed Kirstie. He leaned over and nuzzled her ear, inhaling the scent of her hair. His desire for her congealed and tightened in his groin. He needed her in so many ways.

“Now,  my wife, will you please come back to my bed?” he whispered.