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13. PURRFECTLY ROYAL

Prologue

Tessa Torrance was giving instructions to the two kids manning the face painting stand. It was still early, and not many people had shown up yet for the annual Royal Newtmore Summer Show, but tickets had sold like crazy, and the day promised to be sunny and fun-filled.

The lithe, raven-haired wife of Prince Dante let her proud gaze drift along the different stalls. She was in charge of the children’s activities, and they were plenty: an urban farm, a big bouncy castle, animal balloons, a puppet show, a unicorn dance party and lots and lots more.

Tessa felt proud of her team of kids who’d worked tirelessly to set everything up. The festivities took over the Newtmore Estate and were always a big draw with the public. A jazz band was warming up nearby, and Master Chocolatier Tait Herder, well-known for his TV show Chocoholics Unite, was setting up shop in the shade of a birch tree.

The proceeds this year were going to the charity foundation Tessa and Dante had recently set up, and the event was very close to their hearts. She was ecstatic, therefore, when ticket sales had exceeded their expectations.

She searched around for her hubby. There were still days when she could hardly believe her luck and had to pinch herself when she woke up. She’d been a struggling actress in a middling TV show that wasn’t all that popular and now here she was: an actual duchess with a global platform, which allowed her to do so much good, with her soulmate as her life partner.

Her phone jangled and she took it out of the back pocket of her black Capri pants.“Yeah, Karlotta, how is she?”

They’d left Silvy in the able care of their nanny Karlotta, a German au-pair who loved their sweet baby girl almost as much as she and Dante did.

“Oh, she is perfectly fine, but I think she misses you, Ma’am,” said the girl with typical breathy exasperation.

“What do you mean? Is she crying?”

“Not crying. Giving me strange looks. As if I’m a dragon and she wants to slay me!”

Tessa laughed. Silvy was prone to bouts of moodiness, and sometimes looked exactly like the au-pair described.

“Don’t worry about that. That’s just her way of saying she’s not happy about something. I’ll bet she’s hungry. Have you fed her?”

“I was just about to, Ma’am,” said the nanny. “But maybe first you should talk to her? She usually settles down when she hears your voice.”

“Put her on,” said Tessa with an indulgent smile. “Hey, baby,” she said when she heard Silvy’s snuffling sounds. “Mommy will be home soon.”

The snuffling intensified in volume, then the baby sneezed, as if to say:‘Why did you leave me alone with this horrible German woman?’

“I’ll try to pop in soon,” she said. She always felt guilty about leaving Silvy in the care of Karlotta, but this event was so very important to her and Dante.

“That’s fine, Ma’am,” said Karlotta. “I will feed her now, shall I?”

“Yes, please do. Oh, and Karlotta?”

“Yes, Ma’am?”

“Could you please, please, please just call me Tessa?”

“Of course, Ma’am,” said the girl, then promptly disconnected.

“Oh, blimey,” said Tessa with a smile, then put her phone away.

She looked up when Dante came running up to her, waving his arms.

Oh, how sweet. Two years into their marriage and they were still crazy in love. She waved back. She noticed his face had taken on an even darker tinge of scarlet than usual. A redhead, Dante was prone to ruddiness, something which she thought was awfully cute. She’d never dated a red-haired man before, and now she felt it was one of Dante’s most appealing features.

When he shouted something, and gesticulated wildly, her smile fell.

Then, suddenly, she realized he was pointing to something above her.

She looked up, just in time to see something hurtling down towards her.

In a split second, she threw herself to the side, and moments later the projectile, for that was what it was, crashed to the ground. It was a giant ball of stone, three feet wide, and would have crushed her if she hadn’t jumped.

Dante was upon her, and cried,“Are you all right, Tessa? Tessa!”

“I—I’m fine,” she said, dazed and confused. “Wha—what happened?”

“The stone—it came loose. I saw it happening just as I looked up.”

They both stared at the massive object, then at the top of the wall of Newtmore House where it had fallen from.

“Dante,” she said, a tremor in her voice. “You—you just saved my life.”

Chapter 1

It had been a rough night so far, cat choir a disastrous experience. Shanille, our conductor, had the gall to tell me, and in front of the whole group, too, if you please, that I sang so much out of tune that either I took private lessons to improve my singing, or she was going to kick me out of cat choir altogether.

Apparently—and this is only hearsay so take it with a grain of kibble—two members had complained. They were cats standing in my immediate vicinity, claiming that I sang so loud and so pitchy they had trouble singing in tune themselves, and as a consequence the performance of all the tenors suffered.