A Royal Elopement Read online

  A Royal Elopement

  The Young Royals Book 5

  Emma Lea

  Copyright © 2017 by Emma Lea

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover design by Michelle Birrell

  Book design and production by Michelle Birrell

  Cover photograph by tomertu

  Licensed by Adobe Stock

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Other books by Emma Lea

  About this Book

  Author’s Note

  Dedication

  Previously

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue

  Glossary

  The Young Royals

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Thanks

  Other books by Emma Lea

  Other books by Emma Lea

  This is Emma Lea’s complete book library at time of publication, but more books are coming out all the time. Find out every time Emma releases something by clicking here and signing up for her New Release Alerts.

  SWEET ROMANCES

  These are romantic tales without the bedroom scenes and the swearing, but that doesn’t mean they’re boring!

  The Young Royals

  A Royal Engagement

  A Royal Entanglement

  A Royal Entrapment

  A Royal Expectation

  A Royal Elopement

  Bookish Book Club Novellas

  Meeting Prince Charming

  Broken Arrow Trilogy

  Broken

  Cursed

  Eternal

  SWEET & SEXY ROMANCES

  In my Sweet & Sexy Romances I turn up the heat with a little bit of sexy. No swearing, or very minimal swearing, and brief, tasteful and not too graphic bedroom scenes.

  Love, Money & Shoes Series

  Walk of Shame

  Strictly Business

  Skin Deep

  In The Money

  All At Sea

  Love, Money & Shoes Novellas

  The Five Year Plan

  Summer Fling

  Standalone Novels

  Amnesia

  HOT & SEXY ROMANCES

  Hot & Spicy Romances turn the heat way up. They contain swearing and sexy scenes and the characters get hot under the collar.

  Recommended for 18+ readers

  TGIF Series

  Girl Friday

  Black Friday

  Good Friday

  Twelve Days

  Twelve Days of Christmas - Her Side of the Story

  Twelve Days of Christmas - His Side of the Story

  Quickies (Collins Bay Novellas)

  Last Call

  Standalone Novels

  Learning to Breathe

  TOO HOT TO HANDLE ROMANCES

  These are definitely 18+ reads and contain graphic sex scenes and high level swearing – not for the faint of heart

  The Young Billionaires

  The Billionaire Stepbrother

  The Billionaire Daddy

  The Billionaire Muse

  The Billionaire Replacement

  The Billionaire Trap - coming soon

  Music & Lyrics

  Rock Star

  Songbird

  Strings

  About this Book

  Lady Meredith Bingham thought that she had her life sorted. She was a member of the royal guard - an elite security team tasked with protecting the queen of Merveille. She was also close personal friends with the queen and part of her inner circle - the ladies in waiting. But then her mother had to go and ruin it all. Lady Caroline Bingham was sick of her daughter fooling around and playing soldier. She thought it was high time her daughter got serious about her future and found herself a suitable husband. With the duke pulling double duty as the country's prime minister, it was only right that his daughter start acting like a proper daughter of nobility. Much to Meredith's chagrin, the queen agrees that Meredith must step down from her post.

  Prince Christophe Kostopolous was a prince in exile. For the last ten years he had been living under the pseudonym of Jamie Kosta, and for the last seven years he has been part of the royal guard. Very few people knew his true identity, but that was all about to change. The people he had been hiding from all these years have found him and he may finally have his chance to reclaim his rightful place on the throne of his small island nation of Kalopsia. The only problem is, he has fallen for a certain duke's daughter and she has no idea who he really is.

  Author’s Note

  The Young Royals takes place in a country that doesn’t really exist. If it were to exist it would sit on the eastern edge of France bordered by Switzerland and Italy, quite close to Geneva. The country of Merveille (pronounced Mer-VAY) is a quiet, wealthy place ruled by a constitutional monarchy. It’s capital city is Calanais which is situated on the shores of a beautiful lake called Lac Merveilleux and is where the palace, named Château de Conte de Fées, sits.

  Dedication

  To the faithful readers who contacted me at the end of ‘A Royal Expectation’ demanding the next book…here ’tis.

  Previously

  Meredith

  “Jamie? What are you doing?”

  “Come on,” he said, tugging my hand as we escaped from the palace and snuck into a dark part of the gardens.

  It was thrilling, this secret liaison between us, and we had been lucky so far that we hadn’t been caught. As the daughter of the prime minister and a duke, my dalliance with a security guard would probably not go down well. Jamie was more than just a security guard though, we both were. As part of the queen’s personal security team, we were highly trained bodyguards who were prepared to step in front of a bullet to save the life of our sovereign. This was a fact that my mother hated with a passion.

  It took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the darkness after the bright lights of the palace, but the soft lapping of the water gave me some indication of where we were. There was a small dock in the shadow of the castle where the stone walls sunk into the lake. I felt the wooden boards under my feet as we walked out onto the short pier, the sky a dome of midnight blue velvet above us. I took a deep breath of the cool, fresh air and smiled as Jamie trailed a hand over my cheek and down my neck.

  He kissed me then and I sighed into him. We saw each other every day, almost every hour of every day, but it was so very rare for us to be completely alone. It had started out as some harmless flirting and then one day when we had been sparring together he kissed me. I was ashamed to admit that it was my first kiss. As the queen’s companion and bodyguard, I hadn’t had all that much time to date and men found me intimidating a
nyway. Maybe it was the fact that I knew forty-seven different ways to kill a man without using a weapon that scared them off. Or maybe it was the fact that I could bench press more than them. Not everyone appreciated the muscles that I had spent time cultivating, but fortunately Jamie did.

  He lifted his head and looked down at me with a crooked smile on his face. The man was gorgeous. He had the real boy-next-door look going on and with his sense of humour and love of life, it was hard not to be attracted to him. It was a pity that it would never work out in the long run. I had mostly escaped the trappings of being a duke’s daughter by first becoming Alyssa’s companion when we were children, and then convincing my father to let me train at the academy to be one of her bodyguards. At the time it had seemed like a logical thing to do, to have one of Alyssa’s friends also double as a guard, and thankfully my father had seen the sense in it despite my mother’s protests. I was grateful for his foresight because I loved my job and I didn’t want it to be taken away from me, although inevitably it would be.

  I would eventually have to take a husband and I would be expected to marry well. My parents had not been so draconian as to try and find a husband for me but I knew that Jamie would not fit the bill. He was not nobility and therefore unsuitable for a duke’s daughter. I thought the whole thing was a bunch of poppycock, but I didn’t exactly have a say in the matter. Besides, Jamie and I were just having fun - neither of us had made a commitment to one another. With our jobs being the most important thing in our lives, I doubted either of us was prepared to give it up for the sake of a relationship. That would be what would have to happen. One of us would have to step down from the security detail and I knew neither one of us wanted to do that.

  “Are you looking forward to our little field trip next week?’ Jamie asked as he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close.

  “A month on a yacht visiting the tropical islands? Nah, it’s not really my scene.”

  His laugh rumbled through his chest and made me tingle. “Yeah, me either,” he said.

  The queen and prince were starting their tour in a week’s time. We would be away from the palace for a month and would be traveling by yacht, visiting the islands dotted around the Mediterranean. We would travel to Monaco first for a royal visit with the Prince of Monaco. We would then board the yacht, or fleet of yachts as the case may be, and travel to a small island owned by Merveille. We would spend a few nights there and then begin the tour of the islands off the coast of Spain and the Balearic Sea.

  “I am looking forward to having some down time on Le Beau.”

  “I never understood why they named an island ‘beautiful man’,” Jamie said.

  I chuckled. “It’s because of the natives on the island. Apparently they’re beautiful.”

  “It’s still a stupid name.” He was silent for a moment. “Are you going to hit the casinos?”

  “I thought I might,” I replied. “Are you?”

  “Maybe… maybe we could go together.”

  “I’d like that,” I whispered.

  The island of Le Beau was kind of like the Las Vegas of Merveille. It was a popular destination for bachelor parties and girls’ weekends. I had never been and I was really looking forward to seeing what all the fuss was about.

  A giggle floated down to us from the garden terraces above and we both stiffened and lifted our heads to listen.

  “We should get out of here before we’re seen,” I whispered.

  Jamie pulled me hard up against his chest and kissed me fiercely, fogging my brain and making me breathless. And then he was gone, melting into the darkness and leaving me alone on the pier, stunned by the force of emotions that had swept over me with his kiss. I couldn’t be falling for him, I just couldn’t.

  Jamie

  I had been ignoring the message on my phone for the past half an hour, but I couldn’t ignore it anymore. I wanted to see Meredith one last time, just in case the meeting I was about to go into had the expected outcome. I had always known that it would happen one day, I just hadn’t thought it would be so soon. Not that ten years in exile was exactly soon. Maybe it was more the fact that now that I had initiated a relationship with Meredith, I wasn’t ready for it to be over.

  I took a deep breath and tapped on the door. At the spoken command from inside, I entered.

  “Benjamin,” I said, acknowledging my immediate superior. “Von Bartham.”

  Both men nodded to me. “Prince Christophe.” Von Bartham returned and I sighed audibly.

  “Has it happened then?” I asked.

  Benjamin sat forward in his chair and leaned his elbows on his desk. “No,” he said. “Your father is still imprisoned, but there has been chatter.”

  “They know where I am,” I said feeling the familiar frustration. I had been avoiding the traitorous insurgents for ten years. They had taken my father hostage and had murdered my mother and sisters. I had been lucky enough to escape and I had been biding my time in the hope of finally being able to reclaim the throne of my country.

  “Yes,” Benjamin said.

  “I told Freddie not to include me in his wedding party,” I said with a growl of frustration.

  I had been so careful and Freddie was one of the very few people who knew who I really was. We had become close friends, not that anyone would know about it. I assumed Alex would know the truth now. Freddie had warned me he wouldn’t be keeping any secrets from her. I had only asked that he waited until they were married. The last thing I wanted was for the entire palace to know my secret. Now it seemed it wouldn’t matter. The cat, as they say, was out of the bag.

  “So what do you want me to do?” I asked, resigned to fleeing in the middle of the night before anyone could drag me back to stand trial in what would be a farce of the judicial system.

  The rebels who had attacked the palace on the small island that was my home were more corrupt than they accused my family of being. I hated to think what had become of the island paradise that I had once called home. My heart bled for the people I had left behind, but my hands were tied. I couldn’t reclaim what was mine until we found a weakness in their forces and so far none had become evident. Many had branded me a coward for running away, and perhaps they were right. My father had urged me to run and I had only been a mere boy of fifteen at the time. He had promised me that by running, I would live to fight another day. Alyssa’s father, King Edward, had been friends with my father and had offered me sanctuary. I had been secreted out of my country and sequestered in the castle of Merveille until the immediate danger had passed. When Von Bartham suggested I join the royal guard, I jumped at the chance. Spending time in America while Alyssa attended Harvard had further distanced me from the troubles at home. No one knew what had happened to me and many speculated that I was dead, a fact that the rebels touted to be the truth and to be at their hands.

  “I want you to stick with the plan,” Benjamin said. “Go on tour with Alyssa. Get lost on Le Beau for a while. Keep your head down. Von Bartham will monitor the situation from here and we will do what we can to remove any photos of you in the wedding party that might surface.”

  “And the rest of the guard? Are they to finally find out the truth about who I am?”

  Benjamin studied me with his shrewd eyes before shaking his head with a sigh. “No. Not yet. This might all blow over and then we would have compromised your identity for nothing. We won’t say anything for now.”

  “Does Alyssa know?” I hadn’t thought to ask before. She hadn’t treated me any differently, so I had just assumed the truth hadn’t been revealed to her yet.

  “Yes. So does Will. Alyssa was told in her security briefing after she took the crown. Will was told in his after he married her.”

  “And they are okay with me continuing on with the tour? Won’t having me there increase the security risks?”

  Von Bartham and Benjamin shared a look. “We don’t think so. We will keep your duties out of the spotlight. You won’t be visible at any of their
public appearances and…”

  “And what?”

  Benjamin sighed. “We want you and Meredith to pose as decoys for Alyssa and Will.”

  I scoffed. “Meredith has bright red hair and looks nothing like the queen.”

  “A wig, some dark glasses. They are of a similar height and build. It was always part of the plan, and it is something that she has been trained for.”

  “And me? A wig and dark glasses?”

  Benjamin nodded. “And some decent clothes.” He smiled trying to lighten the situation. I wasn’t known for my stylish dressing, something that had become a bit of a joke around the palace.

  “Okay,” I said, drawing in all the frustration and residual anger that seemed to be my constant companion.

  I didn’t think this would end well, but maybe I would finally be able to do something to help my people. Maybe this whole ordeal was finally going to come to a head.