The Accidental Heir Read Online Free PDF

She didn’t know his instinct was to protect. His anger drained out of him all at once. He would never forget what had happened between them that night in the polar tent. Nor could he forget their light-hearted exchanges by email over these past few months—exchanges that had kept him going through the difficult trek. They’d kept him sane. Desperate to share his newfound feelings with Astrid, he suddenly realised she had been gone for quite some time. Where was she? He glanced at his watch. Was she okay?

CHAPTER EIGHT
    H E WAITED AS patiently as he could in his agitated state until it was clear that she would not be returning.
    No one got in his way when he went searching for Astrid. His emotions were at fever pitch and he could tell that the staff he passed could read the warning on his face. So many thoughts were going through his mind—Astrid infuriated him but she also excited him as no other woman ever had.
    When he tersely asked directions from a footman, he could tell by the concerned and suspicious tone of the man’s voice that Astrid was already winning the loyalty and love of her people. Despite the feelings coursing through him he was genuinely pleased for her. Astrid’s caring nature could only inspire and benefit all her people. With their support she could fight off all the impostors with fake claims on the throne without an angry word needing to be said.
    He finally reached the door to which he’d been directed and rapped on it. ‘Astrid? Let me in.’
    A hollow silence answered him. He swung round to see a maid passing with a pile of bedding in her arms. ‘Have you seen Princess Astrid?’
    ‘She’s in the nursery—’ The girl broke off and blushed scarlet as if she wished she hadn’t spoken.
    ‘It’s all right. I know. You’re not betraying a confidence,’ he reassured her. ‘Which way is the nursery?’
    The maid gave him directions and he strode purposefully through the chill of a dreary corridor. The rooms that resonated with the public’s historic perception of the monarchy and gave them confidence in their royal family had been simply but effectively restored, while Astrid seemed to have given no thought to her own comfort. Some of the bulbs in the overhead chandeliers were burnt out, and the old-fashioned radiators gave off no heat at all. He approached a door that he guessed must be the nursery—it had a rocking-horse handle.
    ‘For goodness’ sake, Astrid,’ he thundered, opening the door. ‘The least you owe your unborn child is to ensure that its mother doesn’t freeze to death—’
    The words jammed on his lips. Astrid was crying. And not in the showy, shoulder-shaking way he’d seen some women do, but silently. She was at the far side of the room, kneeling beside a cot she had dressed in palest peach in readiness for the arrival of their baby.
    ‘It isn’t an it ,’ she flashed back at him. ‘We’re having a little girl.’
    This was news to him. The most wonderful news. His thoughts stalled. All the anger inside him turned to wonder. He was going to be the father of a little girl? His mind rushed forward to their baby’s first Christmas—a celebration that would be totally meaningless without all of them together as a family. ‘Do you mind if I come in?’ he asked gently.
    ‘Be my guest,’ she said with a sniffle.
    And now he saw the gift he’d brought Astrid from her people open on the floor in front of her. ‘May I see?’
    She shrugged, refusing to look at him.
    He came to stand behind her, but he wasn’t looking at the drawing. Astrid filled his eyes. Her bowed form, the soft vulnerability of the back of her neck, her slender arms and shoulders, her silken hair falling across her face—all of it touched him. She looked like a broken doll. She had no one and he didn’t know why he hadn’t seen that before. Astrid had courageously taken on a job that would have daunted most people with little or no help from anyone. That hadn’t stopped her from