Princess Charming (3 page)

Suddenly, the girl shoved at his chest and stumbled away, leaving his arms empty and a strange, unsettled feeling in his midsection.

“I do not cry.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, her appearance at odds with her defiant words. “It is merely some dust in my eyes.”

He didn’t argue further; he couldn’t really, because his mind wouldn’t form the proper sentences. Instead, he produced a handkerchief from his pocket and extended it to her. She frowned and then took it, careful not to let their fingers touch. Without a thought for feminine delicacy, she blew her nose with a resounding honk. She flushed when she realized what she’d done, looked about in embarrassed indecision, and finally shoved the handkerchief into the pocket of her worn dress.

Nick refused to be enchanted. If he wanted the truth about what she was up to, it was time to collect himself and take advantage of her flustered state.

“Do you really expect me to believe that you’ve no idea why those men were following you?” He stepped forward, and she instinctively stepped back. He didn’t think he truly scared her, but if she was intimidated, he was not beyond pressing his advantage. “I’m afraid, princess, you give yourself away rather easily. You didn’t appear surprised to see those thugs. No more dissembling. What intrigue are you involved in? Thievery? Smuggling?”

“Neither,” she protested. He continued to advance, and she fell back, step by step.

“Princess—”

“Please don’t call me that.” Her fingers twisted her skirt into knots.

“Why? Is it not every young girl’s dream to be a princess?” She continued to retreat until her back met the stone wall. He had her cornered.

“Dreams of being a princess?” She laughed derisively. “Not for those of us belowstairs.”

“Belowstairs,” he murmured, and his eyes searched hers. Her speech was far too refined for a lower servant. “I would have thought you a chambermaid at least.” With a quick movement, he caught her hands from her skirts and examined them. Her palms were red and chapped, the knuckles scraped raw.

“You’re rather a puzzle, aren’t you?” He dropped her hands, leaned closer, and planted his own hands against the wall on either side of her head. Her breath was coming in tiny gasps, and she seemed as intensely aware of him as he was of her. Nick knew he should stop. He should let her go before he became any more involved than he already was. How many minutes had it been since he’d sworn off heroism? Ten? Twenty? But who would have expected temptation to be as entirely delectable and confounding as this mysterious girl?

“I’m no cipher,” she protested, but Nick wasn’t paying attention to her words. He was leaning closer, drawn by the irresistible lure of a damsel in distress.

“The devil you’re not,” he murmured as his lips moved toward her ear. He felt her breath on his cheek, and that soft caress weakened his knees far more than the blow to his head. “And unless I miss my guess, you’re involved in some sort of hum all the way up to your delicate little neck.” His lips paused a mere inch from the neck in question.

“Wellington!”

“What?”

In a flash of movement, the girl ducked beneath his arm and dashed across the gravel path. Nick cursed and turned his head to watch her, his hands clinging to the wall for support—and for the strength not to follow her. He watched as she found the pug beneath the small white blooms of the Solomon’s seal, its little body motionless. She laid one tender hand on the dog’s side, but the pug showed no signs of distress. Instead, he snorted in his sleep and twitched his hind leg.

“With any luck, he’s frolicking in a heavenly meadow, but I suspect you couldn’t kill him with an ax.”

She raised her chin in defiance. “Wellington is well, thank you very much for your concern.” She stroked the pug’s round belly. “At least he tried to protect me.”

“That mongrel? Protect you?” Nick snorted. “And what do you call what I did?”

The girl’s spine stiffened, straight as a poker. “Your actions were foolish. And unnecessary. Even the rawest recruit knows never to throw down a weapon. Honestly, I’d have been better off—”

“Cease!”

The girl jumped as if she’d been slapped. Anger and frustration tightened his stomach like a vise. Nick was glad he’d not moved from the wall. His fingers curled in the ivy. He had to untangle himself from the girl, and he had to do it now, before it was too late. She was not his responsibility. She was not his mother. Or his sister.

“You don’t have to stand like that. I’m not your prisoner anymore.” She glared with the defiance of the young and naïve.

“Princess, I’m holding on to this wall so that my hands don’t decide to wrap themselves around your neck, which they are itching like the devil to do.”

“Oh.” She paled, which salvaged his pride a bit.

“Go.” He barked the word like a commanding officer. He needed her to leave. She was too vulnerable, too beautiful, too tempting. Saving this girl would never change the past.

“But—” She hesitated, and he realized with a shock that felt like a blow to his solar plexus, that she did not want to leave him either. Anger mingled with attraction in her eyes, and Nick swallowed an oath. Whatever sparked between them, the girl felt it as well.

Nick clung harder to the ivy. “Go! Or I’ll not be responsible for the consequences.”

The girl stood unmoving for a long moment. Nick felt his knees sag, and he swayed toward her. His fingers flexed and then renewed their grip.
Hang on, old boy. Hang on.

Finally, with a small sigh, she took a step backward. “Yes, of course. You’re right. I should go.” She paused and bit her lip, which only drew Nick’s attention to its fullness and delightful rosy hue. “Good-bye.”

His eyes met hers, and their gazes locked. A connection, almost a bond, arched between them, and the feeling shook Nick to the core. The girl turned and fled. Nick watched her go, not sure whether the tightness in his throat was evidence of relief or regret.

LORD CRISPIN Wellstone watched the entire scene from behind the shelter of the drawing room draperies and cursed his friend for a lucky dog. Nick never had difficulty finding female companions, and this one looked a fit match for the arrogant prince. As the girl ducked through the gate that separated his grandmother’s garden from that of Nottingham House, the sun caught her golden hair. Crispin started, and the curtain almost slipped from his fingers. He had been mistaken. The chit was not a maidservant at all, but the seldom-seen Lady Lucinda Charming, daughter of the late Duke of Nottingham and stepdaughter to the aging schemer next door who styled herself the duchess.

Lucy Charming. Hmm. Crispin rubbed his chin and looked toward Nicholas St. Germain, Crown Prince of Santadorra, who was softly pounding his head against the garden wall.

Or might it be
 . . .
Princess Charming? He smiled at the delicious irony. Just as Nick always played the hero, Crispin could never resist acting as matchmaker. He dropped the curtain and rubbed his hands together in gleeful anticipation. Any addlepated fool could see that Nick and Lucy Charming were a match made in heaven—or at least in his grandmother’s garden. Now they only needed to realize it.

And perhaps a bit of help from Crispin.

“Mr. Selkirk?” She lifted her candle higher and peered into the dim corners of the little-used storage room. “Tom?”

A soft rustle came from behind a row of casks, and then two figures emerged into the light: an older man and a boy on the verge of manhood, both of whom shared a strong chin and a decided family resemblance.

“Lady Lucy.” The younger of the pair doffed his cap and ran his hand through an unruly shock of hair. “Is it trouble?”

Her stomach twisted. “Sidmouth’s men followed me as far as Lady Belmont’s. There was an altercation.” She forced herself to ignore the disturbing images of the gardener who had come to her defense. “They are indisposed, for the moment, but there isn’t much time.”

“You are well, Lady Lucy?” Tom twisted the cap in his hands.

“Yes. Please, do not worry. Help arrived from an unexpected quarter.” Unexpected and unwanted. Definitely unwanted.

Mr. Selkirk frowned. The older man had been her father’s gamekeeper until her stepmother had turned the family off the Charming estate. Now the family eked out a meager existence in the hills above Nottingham. The wizened servant reached out, and Lucy took his hand gratefully. Soft understanding shone from hazel eyes that had seen too much of the world’s cruelty. “We must leave, then, Lady Lucy. We have put you in danger long enough, asking you to carry our messages and papers.”

Mr. Selkirk’s words were sensible, Lucy knew, but the thought of losing her connection to the reformers made her ache. Her father had believed that England must change if revolution were to be avoided, and that only by giving all men the vote would the country he loved remain the country that he loved. Now, his cause was all that remained of him. Yet the late duke would have been the first to say that her involvement must be sacrificed for the greater good. Lucy reached into her pocket and pulled out a tightly folded piece of parchment.

“Sidmouth’s men will not be thwarted easily, so I will not attempt the Blue Barrel tonight. Here is the list of contacts in the midlands.” Lucy wanted to scream at the injustice, for at long last she had earned the confidence of the reform leaders and had been invited to attend a meeting of the inner circle. “Plans are to be made tonight for the suffrage rally at Spitalfields, and for Nottingham as well. The names of key reformers in each of these shires will be needed.”

Mr. Selkirk squeezed her hand. “You have more than done your duty, my lady. ‘Tis only this list that keeps us safe from Sidmouth’s infiltrators. Your father would be proud of you.”

Mr. Selkirk’s words pierced her heart. Unbidden, images of the library at Charming Hall rose in her mind, the Axminster carpet spattered in blood and her father lying twisted behind the massive teakwood desk. Swamped by the memories, she couldn’t respond, could only press down the dangerous thoughts that lurked at the edges of her consciousness. Rumors had flown after the duke’s death, rumors of suicide and scandal, but her stepmother had quickly squelched them. His Grace had only been cleaning his pistols. Tragic, really, for he was a man in his prime. Lucy’s knees shook so much she pressed them together, afraid that Mr. Selkirk and Tom would see her trembling. She had seen the gun in her father’s hand. She had seen the blood, and she had hotly denied the rumors whenever they reached her ears. If only she could make a convincing denial of them to herself.

“Tom and I will find another bolt-hole,” Mr. Selkirk said, attempting to reassure her. “I only hope they have not discovered your identity. Perhaps we should remain, for your father, God rest his soul, would never forgive me if anything happened to you.”

Lucy forced herself to breathe, to appear normal. “My father, sir, would applaud my activities.” She squeezed Mr. Selkirk’s hand. “As he would your protection of me these last years.”

Lucy envied Mr. Selkirk his ability to adapt to the harsh realities of life. Her father had always told her she was destined to tilt at windmills, that no less could be expected of the daughter of Lord Charming. The remembrance brought a tightness to her chest. If that was her fate, she could have used a generous measure of Mr. Selkirk’s patience, for the dream of suffrage seemed a distant reality indeed.

Lucy smiled to reassure her friends. “I may need to skulk in the kitchen for a fortnight or so, but I shall be safe enough.” She rarely lied, but she did so now without a single pang of conscience. She would not rely upon the Selkirks to see to her well-being, any more than she would depend upon her dark-eyed gardener.

Mr. Selkirk’s eyes searched her face, and Lucy held up well under the scrutiny. Tom disappeared into the dark corner of the room and returned with a small haversack.

“Don’t fash yourself, Lady Lucy,” Tom consoled her. “We’ll find quarters elsewhere.”

Lucy tried to swallow past the lump in her throat. Her life was a lonely one at best, caught between her role as Lady Lucy and her passion for reform. She ached to see the Selkirks go. “I imagine any hiding place you find will be an improvement over these accommodations,” she said, gesturing to the cold stone around them. She wanted to hug them both, but though they were in many ways like family to her, the invisible barriers of class and birth kept a certain distance between them.