Some Enchanted Evening

SOME ENCHANTED EVENING

Christina Dodd

Copyright © 2004 by Christina Dodd.

ISBN: 0-0605-6124-6

In the
kingdom
of
Beaumontagne
, three royal daughters are born and raised in royal splendor. Then a revolution sends Sorcha, Clarice, and Amy to the safety of
England
to remain in exile until their kingdom is restored. By then, alas, no one knows where to find them
.... Princess-in-disguise Clarice creates and sells promises and cosmetics to support herself and her younger sister. In
Scotland
, the young con artist falls into the net of Robert MacKenzie, Earl of Hepburn. Scarred by betrayal, he sees in Clarice a chance to right an old wrong and blackmails her into doing his bidding. But while they fight evil and their attraction to each other, he finds that this counterfeit princess heals his heart . . .

To my daughters, Shannon and Arwen

Don't frown or your face will freeze that way.

Don't run with scissors.

It hurts to be beautiful.

Always wear clean underwear —

it doesn't matter if you're in an accident, always wear clean underwear!

Don't pick at that. If everyone else jumped off a cliff, would you have to jump off, too?

And I hope you both have a daughter someday who is just like you.

Make big goals, be happy, be healthy.

I don't want to hear any excuses.

Thank you for your love and support through all the years.

Love, Mommy

CONTENTS

Prologue

1
 
2
 
3
 
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31

Epilogue

Prologue

Once upon a time, high in the
Pyrenees
Mountains
, there were two tiny kingdoms, happy and prosperous. In one kingdom, Richarte, a son was born and declared the crown prince.

In the other kingdom, Beaumontagne, three daughters were born amid great rejoicing. Sorcha, Clarice, and Amy were raised in royal splendor by their loving father, the king, and their grandmother, a martinet who demanded they perform their royal duties at all times.

Then revolution swept
Europe
and swept the two kingdoms into turmoil and anarchy.

In secret, after three years of warfare, the three princesses of Beaumontagne were sent to the safety of
England
. Their father, the king, was deposed and died. After six years of warfare, their grandmother wrested control back from the revolutionaries. She sent her most trusted emissary for her granddaughters, but Godfrey was not loyal. He had been corrupted and accepted money to kill the heiresses. In the end, he couldn't bear to murder the girls, so he told them to flee, then reported to the old queen that they had disappeared. The old queen sent messengers far and wide, but alas, no one could find a trace of the Lost Princesses.

A cruel usurper, Count Egidio duBelle, threw the prince of Richarte into the deepest, darkest dungeon and there, for eight years, the prince languished. At long last he managed to escape and make his way to Beaumontagne. There he struck a deal with the old queen.

If he had found all three of the Lost Princesses, he could choose one as his bride. When the wedding had been performed, then, and only then, would he be allowed to take the armies of Beaumontagne to overthrow the cruel usurper and assume his own throne once more.

But while the prince searched for the princesses, Count duBelle sent men to hunt the prince, and the princesses themselves, remembering Godfrey's warning, feared to show themselves.

So like many good schemes, the plan to rescue the Lost Princesses went awry. . . .

Chapter One

Never call attention to yourself. A princess's reason for existence is to fulfill her duty as a representative of the royal family. Nothing more.

— The Dowager Queen of Beaumontagne

SCOTLAND
, 1808

The valley was his, the village was his, yet the woman rode into the town
square
of
Freya Crags
as if she owned it.

Robert MacKenzie, earl of Hepburn, frowned at the stranger who cantered over the stone bridge and into the bustling crowd. It was market day, and booths of brown canvas were set up along the perimeter of the town square. The place rang with the sound of a hundred voices calling out their wares, but the stranger dominated the crowd, towering above them on a fractious two-year-old colt. The chestnut stepped high, as if proud to carry her, and the quality of the horse alone would have turned heads.

The lady in the saddle attracted even more attention — first fleeting looks, then open stares.

Robert glanced around at the small circle of old men gathered in the sunshine in front of the alehouse. Their wrinkled mouths sagged open as they gawked, the table and checkerboard before them forgotten. Around them the sounds of shoppers and merchants haggling turned into a buzz of speculation as every eye turned to view the stranger.

Her riding costume swathed her from neck to toe with black wool, preserving the illusion of propriety yet outlining every curve of her trim figure. Her black hat was tall, with a broad brim, and black veiling floated behind. The red trim on her sleeves matched the red scarf at her neck, and those small bits of vivid color shocked and pleasured the eye. Her bosom was generous, her waist narrow, her black boots shiny, and her face . . .

Good God, her face.

Robert couldn't look away. If she'd been born in the Renaissance, painters would have flocked to her door, begging that she pose for them. They would have painted her as an angel, for her wavy, golden hair glowed with a light of its own, giving her a nimbus like a halo. Copper glints in the curls seemed to possess a power to warm the hands, and Robert's fingers itched to sink into the waves and discover the heat and the texture. Her softly rounded cheeks and large amber eyes under darkened brows made a man think of heaven, yet the stubborn set of her chin saved her face from a cloying sweetness. Her nose was slight, her chin too broad to be truly attractive, but her lips were wide, lush, and red. Too red. She rouged them, he was sure of it. She looked like an Englishwoman of good quality — except, of course, no woman of good quality ever rouged her lips, and certainly never traveled alone.

She smiled, giving him a glimpse of straight white teeth — and that mouth he planned to explore.

Robert straightened away from the wall of the alehouse.

Where in blazes had that thought come from?

Hamish MacQueen was boisterous and amusing, his one arm gone in a long-ago accident in His Majesty's Royal Navy.

"Who do ye suppose she is?"

A good question, and Robert intended to get an answer.

"I dunna know, but I'd like t' part her beard," said Gilbert Wilson, his sly wit taking a wicked turn.

"I'd like t' give her a live sausage fer supper." Tomas MacTavish slapped his skinny knee and cackled.

Henry MacCulloch joined in the pastime. "I'd like t' play dog in the doublet wi' her."

All the old men cackled, remembering the days when they would have had a chance to woo a beautiful visitor. Now they were content to sit in the sun in front of the alehouse, comment on the doings of the town, and play checkers — or they had been, until
she
rode into town.

Robert's gaze narrowed on the female. He was smart enough, and in his travels had seen enough, to recognize trouble when he saw it. On the surface he appeared to be mildly interested in the doings in the square, but his every sense was alert for a trick. Indeed, he anticipated a trick. After all, the world was not so secure a place as anyone in this small village imagined. The world was full of liars and cheats, murderers, and worse. It was men like him, like Robert, who kept this place safe, and through his vigilance he would continue to do so.

"Ye damned auld fools." The alewife, Hughina Gray, stood with her apron wrapped around her hands and glanced between Robert and the stranger. "Canna ye see she's na guid?"

"I'd wager she's verra guid," said Tomas's brother Benneit, and the old men laughed until they wheezed.

"Ye shouldn't talk so in front o' the laird," Hughina reproved with a sideways peep at Robert. Hughina was Robert's age, attractive, and a widow, and she'd made it clear she had room in her bed for him.

He hadn't accepted the invitation. When the laird slept with the women of his lands, trouble was sure to follow, so when the urge was on him, he traveled over the hills into Trevor and visited with Lady Edmundson. She enjoyed his body and his driving sexuality without caring a crumb whether he loved her, and that made a very satisfactory arrangement for them both.

Lately he hadn't suffered from the urge.

His hand crinkled the much-read letter in his pocket. He'd been too busy making plans, desperate plans, vengeful plans, and now those schemes had been set to naught because one woman failed to fulfill her promise. Damn her. Damn her to hell.

But for the moment he was distracted as the exotic stranger circled the booths, giving everyone a chance to see her, and Robert watched his people watch her. Their expressions were suspicious or inquisitive, but she beamed them a friendly smile as if she had not a speck of intelligence. Her gaze found and considered the new seamstress.

The seamstress stared back with all the hostility of a plain woman before a beauty.

So for all her timid homeliness, Miss Rosabel had the sense the stranger did not. He glanced back at the still-guffawing old men. More sense than the men who'd lived here all their lives.

The stranger rode right to the middle of the square, where a statue honored Robert's ancestor, Uilleam Hepburn, who founded the town at the ford on the river. A raised platform surrounded the statue, and there she slid off her horse.

Of course. Already Robert knew she liked to be seen.

She tied her horse to the iron ring and lifted her saddlebags onto the platform that raised her above the multitude. The curious throng gathered. For one moment the female sobered, touched the silver cross around her neck, then took a breath and flung her arms wide. "Good people of Freya Crags, allow me to introduce myself. I am a princess in exile!"

Robert stiffened in outrage and disbelief.

Hughina gasped. "Oh, fer pity's sake!"

The female beside the statue lifted her chin and smiled blindingly. "I am Princess Clarice of the lost kingdom!"

Hamish tucked the end of his shirt over the stump of his arm. The old soldier had his weaknesses, and a pretty woman was the main one. "Eh, a princess! We've got guid taste."

"Aye, and I'll wager she tastes guid," Gilbert said.

All the old men cackled, wild with the joy of having such a colorful distraction in their sedate lives.

Robert glanced at them, distracted by their surging excitement from the pageant in the center of the square.

Then the larcenous wench of a princess made another outrageous claim. "I've come to bring youth, beauty, and joy to your lives!"

His head snapped back toward the royal minx. The words of his aide, Waldemar, came back to him so clearly, Waldemar might almost have been standing beside him, speaking into his ear.
Lor' love ye, Cap'n, there's ne'er a person what falls into yer life without a purpose. Ye just 'ave t' discover wat that is, and use 'em like the instruments they are, and always ye'll get yer way, see if ye don't
.

And with the lightning-quick planning he had developed in the army, Robert realized why this female had arrived in his town, and what purpose she would serve. Yes, he would use her like the instrument she was. She would do as he instructed because she had no choice, and yes, he would get his way.