headline was a grainy photo of Charles and a beautiful, thin and very regal-looking brunette.
“Lady Caterina Hayworth?” Lucie asked, her brow puckered. “Tell me you’re not engaged to Conniving Cat. I know you like your women brainless and beautiful, but she’s a social climber of the worst sort. You must know she wants your celebrity status as much as she wants you.”
“I hate that nickname,” he muttered, running his finger along the smooth screen as if he could blot out the maddening words.
“Conniving Cat?” Lucie waved a hand in the air. “Perhaps it isn’t kind, but you must admit—”
“Not that one,” he clarified. “Hell, Caterina loves the moniker. I think she was the one to start it. I mean ‘Bonnie Lord Charlie.’” He scrubbed a hand over his face, the transatlantic time change suddenly catching up with him tenfold. “Jensen is the one with the title.” Their mother, Josephine May Fortune Chesterfield, had married Sir Simon Chesterfield after ending her first, loveless marriage to Rhys Henry Hayes. “The press doesn’t feel the need to give Brodie or Oliver a fake title,” Charles said, referring to their two older half brothers from Josephine’s first marriage. “And calling me ‘bonnie’ is ridiculous. I’m a twenty-nine-year-old man, not a wee lad toddling around in rompers.”
“You are quite handsome.” Lucie’s smile turned sympathetic. “I’m sure it’s meant as a compliment.”
“It’s an implied dig that I don’t do anything, that I have nothing to offer but my face and my family’s good name. No use denying it.”
Her slim shoulders stiffened. “You do plenty, Charles. I think your ads single-handedly doubled the number of women vacationing in Britain over the past year.”
He fought back a grimace, even though he had no one but himself to blame. The ad campaign that featured him promising visitors to England “the royal treatment” had started as a joke during a meeting he’d attended with the British Tourism Council two years ago. He’d been expected to bring ideas to the table, but had spent the night before the meeting clubbing with friends and had shown up to the meeting a half hour late with a raging headache. He’d pitched the Royal Treatment campaign as a jest, but the council had loved it. Before he knew what was happening, Charles ended up the star of a series of print and television ads, wearing a tux in front of various British monuments, giving it his best James Bond–meets–Mr. Darcy impression.
He was happy to do his part for queen and country, but lately wished his contribution could be of a more meaningful sort. Lucie, like their mother, devoted herself to various charitable organizations. Their brother Jensen was a successful financier. Everyone in his family had something of substance to offer.
Except Charles.
That, too, was his fault. For years he’d cultivated his image as a good-time guy. He’d been the charmer in his family as a kid, perpetually entertaining his parents and siblings, always good for a laugh. After Sir Simon died, it had seemed the right thing to do to make his mother smile as often as he could. So that’s what people had come to expect from him—a good time. Only his father had ever seemed to want him to be something more.
“That is part of why I’m here. I have meetings set up with the Texas Tourism Board next week. We’d like to do some cross-promotions—Texans and high tea. That sort of thing.” He leaned forward. “Did you know almost three million Americans are projected to visit England this year?”
“And most of them want ‘the royal treatment’?” Lucie asked with a laugh.
Charles forced a smile. He had a reputation to uphold, after all. “I suppose. You’re right about me needing an escape. There’s work and family, but I also needed to get away from the press. Cat and I were nowhere near to being engaged. We weren’t even a proper couple.”
Lucie taped a finger on the cell phone screen. “Did she know that?”
“Chalk it up to selective hearing on her part,” Charles said. “Don’t get me wrong, she’s a lovely lady.” He sighed. “They’re all lovely ladies.”
“But what about the right woman, Charles?” Lucie took a sip of her wine and waved away the waiter who approached their table. “Now that Chase and I are together, you’re officially the last man standing in the family. Brodie, Oliver, Jensen and Amelia are happy in Horseback Hollow. Even Mum seems to have found love again.”
“Jensen mentioned a burgeoning romance with Orlando Mendoza.” Charles was happy for his mother, although it was difficult to imagine her with anyone but his father.
“She’s glowing,” Lucie said with a wistful sigh.
“Then the two of you have that in common, dear sister.” Charles twirled the stem of the wineglass between two fingers. “Marriage...remarriage...whatever you want to call it agrees with you. But I don’t believe there’s only one woman in the world for me.”
“Because you haven’t met her yet,” Lucie argued.
“I’ve met plenty of women.”
“And bedded most of them.”
Charles took a long drink of wine. “I’m absolutely not having this conversation with my sister.”
“If you’d only—”
At that moment, Charles’s cell phone rang. He drew the device out of his coat pocket as Lucie frowned.
“Send the call to voice mail,” she told him with her best sisterly glare. “I’m not finished lecturing you.”
He grinned, then glanced at the display. “Sorry, sis, it’s an Austin number. Might be important royal business.” But when he accepted the call and said hello, whoever was on the other end of the line was silent. “Anyone there?” he asked into the phone.
He was about to hang up when he heard a funny squeak that might have been “hello.”
A throat cleared. “Is this Charles?” a woman’s voice asked.
“Who wants to know?” he responded, then met Lucie’s curious gaze and shrugged his shoulders.
“Hang up,” his sister whispered.
Charles understood her reaction. The caller was likely a reporter trying to track him down, or one of the frequent fame hounds who’d come after his family through the years, especially since their connection to the prominent Fortunes was revealed. Charles, like all the Fortune Chesterfields, had learned to guard his privacy—one more reason the tabloid photo with Lady Caterina irked him.
But something about the way the woman on the other end of the phone spoke his name intrigued him. Her voice was soft, with a sweet Texas drawl and more than a hint of nerves. Charles might be a magnet for women, but the timid girls typically gave him a wide berth.
“This is Alice,” the woman told him.
“Alice,” he repeated, liking the way the two syllables sounded on his tongue. But he had no recognition of an Alice from his past.
“Alice Meyers,” she continued, a little breathlessly. “I’m sorry to call you out of the blue. I got your number from the tourism board office.”
Right. Suddenly an image—a beautiful blonde, with long legs and a shy but sexy smile—popped into his mind.
Alice cleared her throat again. “We met last year—”
“At the tourism conference here in Austin,” he continued. “I remember you.” Charles tried to hide his small smile from Lucie. What he remembered most about Alice was spending a blissful night with her in his hotel room after the conference ended. He’d even asked for her number, something he rarely did after a casual dalliance. But he’d liked Alice Meyers, and he’d thought she liked him. Too bad when he’d come out of the shower the next morning she’d disappeared from his hotel room and his life.
Now, more than a year later, she