A March Bride (A Year of Weddings Novella) Read online

  ZONDERVAN

  A March Bride

  Copyright © 2014 by Rachel Hauck

  This title is also available in a Zondervan audio edition. Visit www.zondervan.fm.

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  Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

  ePub Edition © February 2014: ISBN 9780310338680

  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

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  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Interior design: James A. Phinney

  To Susie May

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Discussion Questions

  An Excerpt from a February Bride

  About the Author

  Thank you to the HarperCollins Christian Fiction team for inviting me into the Year of Weddings novella collection. I had great fun writing Susanna and King Nathaniel’s wedding.

  I appreciate the efforts of my editor, Becky Philpott, whose taste in story mirrors my own.

  Thank you to Sandy Moffett for information on private jets. Any mistakes are mine.

  A shout-out to Susan May Warren and Beth Vogt for sounding out my crazy story ideas. You keep me grounded with your friendship.

  Much love to my husband who allows me all kinds of space to be who God’s called me to be. And who found a video game to play while I write on deadline. Way to take one for the team, babe!

  To all the readers who take the time to read my stories. I really, really appreciate you all! Thank you!

  KING NATHANIEL II AND AMERICAN

  SUSANNA TRUITT ENGAGED!

  KING NATHANIEL: “I’M MARRYING THE LOVE OF MY LIFE”

  BRIGHTON KINGDOM

  The Liberty Press

  2 JUNE

  King Nathaniel will achieve what few of his ancestors have been able to: the right to marry the love of his life, American Susanna Truitt.

  Less than a day after he convinced Parliament to amend the Marriage Act of 1792 forbidding marriage between foreigners and royals in line to the throne, he winged his way to St. Simons Island, Georgia, and proposed.

  Was it romantic?

  According to Truitt, “Very. He strung white lights from this old, old oak tree, got down on one knee, and even produced fake snow.” Truitt blushed as she glanced at King Nathaniel. “I told him I wouldn’t fall in love again until it snowed in Georgia.”

  “She never stipulated it must be real snow,” the king said, his arm around his bride-to-be as they sat in the Crown Room of the King’s Office, fielding questions from select reporters.

  The king never intended to fall in love eighteen months ago while on holiday in southern Georgia. But “God,” he said, “had other things in mind.”

  Truitt, a landscape architect, designed the king’s American cottage garden. While she presented garden ideas, romance bloomed.

  “I’d just ended a long relationship where I thought marriage was the end game,” Truitt said. “But instead of proposing, my boyfriend broke up with me. That very same day, a year-and-a-half ago, I met Nathaniel under this ancient tree, Lovers’ Oak.”

  The king proposed under the same tree. The newly engaged couple plan a March wedding.

  “Susanna needs time to adjust to Brighton as well as royal life.”

  “It’s very different from slinging barbecue in my mama and daddy’s Rib Shack,” Truitt said, going on to say that joining the royal family is daunting and that the notion of being “a royal” has not completely sunk in.

  From Stratton Palace, Dowager Queen Campbell declared she was “thrilled” for her son. “True love comes along so rarely these days.”

  Prince Stephen, the king’s younger brother, issued a statement from his rugby club. “Susanna is quite the sport. She’s good fun and a solid match for Nathaniel. I’m profoundly jealous. But happy for my brother.”

  Truitt will be the first foreigner to marry a Brighton ruler since Princess Paulette of Lorraine, the wife of Crown Prince Kenneth, nearly destroyed our military forces by urging her husband and father-in-law to aid her uncle, King Louis XVI, during the French Revolution.

  What’s the word on the street of this “American invasion”?

  “I don’t care who he marries,” uttered a customer at a Cathedral City Starbucks.

  Others exude more enthusiasm. One university student said, “My friends and I think it’s grand. She’s a lucky girl. We wish them joy.”

  Wedding plans are just beginning as Truitt transitions from America to Brighton Kingdom. Designers are frothing to be the Chosen One for the future queen’s wedding gown.

  But who knows what this American will choose for her dress or her wedding venue? Traditionally, all Stratton House royals have married at Watchman Abbey, where the king’s coronation was held this past January.

  “We don’t know what Susanna will do,” said Penny Pitworth, a royal reporter for B-TV. “She may not want to marry in Brighton at all.”

  Hold your collective gasps. The king and future queen of Brighton may not marry on our sapphire isle at all but on her home isle of St. Simons in Georgia.

  “Either way,” Pitworth said, “we’ve a royal wedding upcoming and all of Brighton should rejoice.”

  And so we shall.

  For the first time in her life, Susanna Truitt was uncomfortable in a garden. As a landscape architect, she viewed gardens as her sweet spot, her place of rest and peace, but standing among the esteemed guests of Lord and Lady Chadweth’s seventeenth-century ivy-covered stone and glass atrium, she felt the arrow of doubt spear her heart.

  Three weeks before her wedding, and anxiety rumbled in her soul.

  She cut a glance toward her fiancé, King Nathaniel II of Brighton Kingdom, as he laughed with his old university mates.

  What in the world was she doing here? Surely Nathaniel had changed his mind about marrying her.

  Susanna breathed out, collected her fears, and shoved them aside as she tipped her face toward the bright rays of sun slicing through the glass pane ceiling. After a long Brighton winter, she was homesick for Georgia.

  “You know you did, mate . . . We were there, eyewitnesses . . .”

  Susanna tuned in to the conversation around her.

  “No, no, you’ve got it all wrong, Nigel.” Nathaniel’s protest launched a jovial debate among his friends, an aristocratic group of eight who seemed to look to Nigel as their leader.

  Susanna smiled, rocking from one high-heeled foot to the other, exhaling. She had no idea what th
ey were going on about, but lately Nathaniel seemed to have many things in his life that excluded her.

  Which led to her feeling a bit like an outsider, even among her garden “friends”—the potted palms, hydrangeas, lilies, and royal maples.

  “So, Susanna, how is every little thing?” This from Winnie, Nigel’s girlfriend.

  “Every little thing is just fine.” It was the bigger things that concerned her.

  He’s changed his mind. Of course. It would be on par for her love life. Adam had changed his mind. Why not Nathaniel?

  “I can’t imagine all you’re going through for this wedding.” Winnie chortled. “It’s the wedding of the century.”

  “So they say.” Susanna’s legs wobbled a bit as she pushed her smile wider.

  First lesson in being a royal? Smile. Be cordial. And stand a lot. Who knew royal life included so much standing? And handshaking. Lots and lots of handshaking.

  And pulling out the hand sanitizer was considered ill form.

  Susanna had rallied the King’s Office to let her wear sneakers or flip-flops for long receiving lines, but the protocol officers flatly refused.

  “Tell me, are you nervous?” Winnie pressed her hand on Susanna’s arm. A move, she’d learned, that was acceptable for family and close friends, but not others. “I’d be a nervous wreck. The Liberty Press is reporting a telly audience of over a billion.”

  Susanna’s smile faltered as a fresh wave of nerves washed ashore. “Well, then, we’re going to need a bigger cake.”

  Winnie stared at her, then tee-hee’d. “You’re quite droll, Susanna. I like that in a woman.”

  With that, Winnie returned to reminiscing with the men and Susanna was back to feeling alone and aching for home. For warmth. For unobstructed sunlight.

  Aching for her own folks with whom to reminisce. She’d not been to Georgia since her best friend Gracie’s wedding last October. She’d finally said yes to her boyfriend, Ethan.

  But even then, it wasn’t really like being home. Nathaniel couldn’t get away, so Susanna traveled with a security officer and stayed in a hotel.

  She returned to Brighton, a North Sea island gem, and enjoyed a lovely, mild October only to have November descend with gray days and an early snow.

  For four long months, Susanna hibernated in palaces and castles, enduring the Brighton winter while being schooled on Brighton law, customs, traditions, and how to be the wife of a king.

  So today as the sun crested the first pure blue, cloudless sky of March, she felt ready to burst with longing for south Georgia’s heat and balmy breezes.

  She missed the wind in the live oaks and the jaunty sway of Spanish moss, the fragrance of Daddy’s barbecue sauce simmering on the Rib Shack’s stove tops, the feel of a surfboard under her arm, and above all, the ability to move about town without a gaggle of photographers on her heels.

  She longed to hear Daddy’s “Hello, kitten” and Mama’s “Susanna Jean, need you to pull a shift at the Shack.” She missed hearing her baby sister, Avery’s, exuberance about . . . everything.

  “Susanna—” Nigel leaned toward her. “Surely Nathaniel told you the story of the skiing bear.” Nigel’s laugh bent him backward and he seemed more like a frivolous playboy than the CEO of his own shipping company.

  “A skiing bear?” She glanced at Nathaniel, who smiled, shaking his head and sipping from his champagne flute. He didn’t care much for champagne, but he held a glass out of respect for his host and hostess. “No, he didn’t.”

  “It’s an old story, love.” He peeked at her, then away, down the wide aisle of the warm, bright atrium, toward the open doors. A fresh breeze sauntered in and rustled a few maple branches, spraying the atrium with the saline fragrance of the bay. “I’d nearly forgotten all about it.”

  “Forgotten it?” Nigel’s tone contained no reserve. “Please, Nathaniel, it was the most extraordinary thing I’ve ever seen. I can’t remember when I laughed so hard, I’ll tell you that, old chap.”

  There, she caught a hint of Nathaniel’s laugh. Something he’d not done much of lately.

  Susanna regarded him for a moment, trying to figure what bothered him. What bothered her.

  As their wedding drew near, her man looked . . . sad.

  He’s changed his mind and he’s afraid to tell me!

  Her heart crashed and her lungs strained for a pure breath. It took every ounce of her will not to run out of the atrium.

  “Susanna, you should’ve seen him.” Nigel’s story reeled in the rest of the circle—Winnie, Blythe and Morton, Lord Michael Dean and his wife, Lady Ruthie, and her sister, Lady Becky. “The lot of us went skiing on a spring holiday from university. Michael, Mortie, you were there, remember?”

  Skiing on spring break? A luxury in Susanna’s world. She’d spent every spring and summer break from the University of Georgia at her parents’ barbecue place, waiting tables and running the back of the house just to earn enough of her living expenses for the following semester.

  And if she ran out of money before the semester’s end, she cut Friday classes, drove home, and worked nonstop all weekend.

  “. . . on our last day we determined to take in as much skiing as possible.” Nigel geared up from storyteller to entertainer. “We’d spent all day on the slopes, you see. Our boy Nathaniel here was the most determined to ski the day away, like a man facing a life sentence or some such.”

  “He was set upon graduation to enter the Royal Fusiliers as an infantryman like all the crown princes before him,” Michael said.

  Susanna knew about his military days. Nathaniel was quite proud of serving his country. He’d even briefly served during the war with the Royal Fusiliers Intelligence Corps.

  “So this holiday was his last as a free man.”

  “I was born a crown prince,” Nathaniel said to his glass more than to his friends. “I’ve never been a free man.”

  Susanna leaned to see his expression. What happened to the man of confidence and security who’d come to embrace his divine destiny?

  He’d been at great peace over his calling as a king. So why the snarky comment?

  When his gaze met hers, she smiled, searching for the teasing glint he reserved just for her beneath his blue eyes.

  He nodded to her and she waited for that tug to appear on the side of his lips when he wanted to kiss her in public but couldn’t.

  However, his eyes did not twinkle, nor did his lips twist.

  She could live with his dull eyes and sober expression, but she could not live without his look of love. The one that sparked a warm twinge of lover’s passion. The one that made her tremble with longing when he kissed her.

  For well over a month now, she’d missed his tender glances and wooing warm words. Yes, he’d been busy, traveling, distracted and distant with his kingly duties. But when they were alone, he remained distant. Lost in a world she could not enter.

  Their typically lively and deep conversations were now of mundane things like a late winter snow or the unusual prediction of sun and refreshing temperatures in early March.

  Nathaniel no longer spoke about their dreams, hopes, and plans.

  “So there he is, love. Susanna, are you getting this?” Nigel nudged her again, catching an eye from Nathaniel. “Pardon, I see your fiancé didn’t take kindly to me calling you love or my elbow in your ribs. Anyway—”

  “If you’re going to tell the story, Nigel, tell it,” Nathaniel said, gruff and irritated.

  “Mate, you can’t deny me the luxury of milking this fabulous story.”

  “Go on,” Susanna said, reaching out to set her champagne flute on a tray carried by a black-tie server. “I’d like to hear this.”

  “So there we are, having a grand time. Nathaniel is flying down this slope, I mean flying.” Nigel crouched down into a skiing position. “It’s a fantastic hill and a fantastic run. There he is at jet speed when a bear—a big, blasted black bear—ambles out of the woods right onto the run.”

&nb
sp; “Hungry. Just out of hibernation.” Nathaniel came a bit more alive. Nigel’s storytelling had a way of turning off the silence and chasing away the blues. Even in Nathaniel. “He looked square at me like I’m his lunch, heaven sent.”

  “The lot of us are right behind him, pulling up, skiing off to the side,” Michael said.

  “In the meantime”—Morton’s laugh was low and cool, the sound of a stuffy blueblood—“we’re watching our friend and crown prince ski to his death.”

  “You should’ve seen it from my vantage point,” Nathaniel said. “I’ve nowhere to go but into the trees, square into the beast, or off the side of the mountain.”

  “And people tell me surfing is dangerous,” Susanna said, laughing, finally feeling a bit more at ease, realizing it wasn’t the garden making her uncomfortable but Nathaniel’s surly silence toward her.

  He regrets his proposal. What else could it be? Enough. She’d confront him the moment they were alone.

  Theirs had not been the easiest of engagements. Not only were they blending lives and hearts, getting to know one another as a couple, but they were blending cultures and expectations, all before the eyes of the world.

  Most of the adjusting fell on her shoulders because she wasn’t merely marrying a man, but a king. She wasn’t getting to know just a new family but one with deep roots in ancient European history.

  She wasn’t just learning the ins and outs of her new country, but a whole different way of life.

  And the press . . . nothing can prepare one for the press. Behind Duchess Kate in the United Kingdom, Susanna was now the most photographed woman in the world. She found it exhausting.

  “We’re yelling for him to stop, but he keeps plowing down the hill,” Nigel said.

  “I couldn’t stop, ole chap.”

  “Then we start debating,” Nigel went on. “ ‘Who’s going to tell the king? And shall we say his son died bravely, doing what he loved?’ ”

  “Fine lot, that, having me dead before seeing my great plan of escape.” Nathaniel broke out of his somberness with a heartfelt laugh.

  “What’s all the hilarity? I wasn’t invited?” The raven-haired beauty, Lady Genevieve Hawthorne, boldly inserted herself into the group as a spark of jealousy ignited a prickly heat in Susanna.