Linda Needham (4 page)

P
rincess!

That voice! The earl’s. Wexford’s! She’d know it anywhere!

Deeply coursing and dark. As invasive in this back alley as it had been in the garden maze.

And now he was here?

With Palmerston?

She glanced toward the doorway to confirm her suspicions, but the large shape had vanished once again into the swirling darkness beyond.

“Just what sort of place have you brought me to, my lord Palmerston?”

The man cleared his throat. “We’re at the Huntsman.”

“Oh, and what, pray tell, is the Huntsman? A shooting club?” Because she knew exactly who she’d like to shoot at the moment.

“It’s a gentleman’s club, Your Highness. We’re just a few blocks from Saint James Square.”

“Good lord, Palmy! This
must
be important if you’ve brought me to the back alley of a gentleman’s club, in the middle of the night, without a thought to what the gossip sheets might say if I’m discovered here.”

“Since when have you worried about such things, Your Highness?”

“You’re the one who’s always chiding me about my independent streak.” She usually didn’t have time for proprieties and the like. One of the benefits of being a royal was that she could be as eccentric as she liked and few dared to challenge her.

Except for the occasional situation that got completely out of control. Like in the maze tonight.

“I can assure you, Princess Caroline, that the Huntsman is a most upstanding organization. Prince Albert belongs, and the queen herself has been here many times.”

“And I suppose Queen Victoria approves of that…that ogre who just greeted us?”

“Ogre, my dear? You can’t mean Lord Wexford?”

She meant far more than that as she glared up at Palmerston’s genuine incredulity. But she fought off her indelicate opinion of the man who had besieged her in the maze.

Not worth the energy to explain. She’d wasted enough time tonight.

“Never mind, Palmy. The man just seems…rude.” Overbearing. Overwhelming. “And it’s late. And what the devil does he have to do with Boratania?”

“You’ll want to hear him out, Your Highness.”

Palmerston had seemed unusually attentive tonight, had been so ever since he’d picked her up at Grandauer Hall. “I’m trusting you, my lord.”

Caro lifted the hem of her skirt and hurried up the
steps into the dimness of the small anteroom. Though the earl was nowhere to be seen, his familiar scent lingered there amidst the leather and limestone, the stark memory of laurel and moonlight leading her down a short hallway.

“This way, Princess.” That rumbling voice again, rolling toward her from a dimly lit doorway.

And then he was gone again, like a shadow, appearing again only as she reached the doorway herself.

He was standing inside, beside a table as she entered, bending to light a globe lamp, the flicker of the flame dancing with the deep shadows across his features.

“Welcome to the Huntsman, Princess Caroline,” he said without a glance at her. “I hope you’ll pardon the inconvenience of this late hour.”

“You seem to be bent upon inconveniencing me this evening. Have you kidnapped me again?”

“He kidnapped you, Your Highness? When?” Palmerston had come through the door behind her and now bustled himself between them. “Wexford, explain yourself. I didn’t know you two had met.”

But the earl didn’t seem inclined to explain a thing to the foreign minister. He only stood there at the table, staring down at Caro from beneath that shadowy dark brow, his face still more of a mystery to her than anything substantial.

And obviously challenging her to tattle on him like a spoiled child.

Not that she was about to give him the satisfaction of hearing her whine about their little encounter. They were both adults. She knew the risks of venturing out alone. Sometimes it was the only way to get anything done. Chaperones gossiped, men were too
slow and careful of her every move, and most of her friends were too timid to follow her into the breach.

Except, of course, Lucie and Sylvia, who always seemed ready for an adventure.

“The earl and I met briefly at tonight’s ball, Lord Palmerston. Merely in passing.”

“But you said he kidnapped you….”

Caro felt the tall man’s gaze gliding over her face, his challenge deepening. “A simple jest between the earl and me, my lord. Nothing more.”

Palmerston suddenly grinned broadly. “Very good news, then. Couldn’t ask for a more auspicious beginning.”

Beginning to what
? Caro wondered, a hollowness gathering in her chest. But Palmerston was already setting his hat on the edge of the table.

“Now, Wexford, what say we get started.”

“Indeed,” Wexford said with a slow nod as he turned away to the very masculine fireplace with its elegantly carved heraldic crest.

“And since you’ve both been introduced…”

“Not formally, Palmy.” Who was this mysterious man who held such sway over Britain’s influential foreign minister?

“Oh, well, then, Princess Caroline, if you please.” Palmerston smiled. “I’d very much like to present to you Lord Andrew Chase, Earl of Wexford.”

“Very pleased to meet you, Princess.” The man nodded haphazardly in her direction as he shrugged his broad shoulders out of his greatcoat.

“You needn’t bother, Palmy. I already know who Lord Wexford is. But what I can’t imagine is why he would have any interest at all in the kingdom of Boratania.”

“I have no interest in your kingdom at all, Princess.” Wexford turned back to her, tall and overwhelming. “My interest is solely in
you
.”

Me?
Caro swallowed, wondering if she’d whispered the little question, or had she only thought it?

Difficult to think at all with the earl staring down at her, completely derailing her train of thought.

“Why would you be interested in me, Wexford?”

“Because, Princess,” he said, his dark gaze lingering on her mouth, “someone wants to kill you.”

Caro blinked up at the man, annoyed by the sudden ringing deep in her ears. “Would you please repeat that, my lord, I don’t believe I heard you correctly because”—she let out a silly little laugh—“I thought you said that someone wants to kill me.”

That dark gaze then deepened. “Someone does, Princess.”

“What are you trying to say?” Her heart added its clattering racket to the ringing in her ears. “Palmy, what is going on here?”

“I’m afraid it’s true, my dear princess,” Palmerston said, looking at her with pleading worry in his eyes, “he’s telling you the truth. Your life has been threatened.”

The words still made no sense, but now she found herself blinking between Palmerston and Wexford, her heart racing. “By whom? Surely this must be a joke.”

Wexford dropped a scowl on her. “Believe me, Princess, death threats and assassins are nothing to jest about.”

“Do listen to him, my dear. He’s only trying to keep you alive.”

“An assassin? But the idea is preposterous! If my life was in danger, surely I’d be the first to know.”

Wexford laughed low in his chest and narrowed his gaze at her. “On the contrary, Princess, I can assure you that you would be the very last to know.”

An icy chill settled across her shoulders, the certainty that she was looking into the dark eyes of a man who would know about such things.

“This is utterly ridiculous!” Caro gave a very unprincessly snort and fixed her gaze on the wide-eyed Palmerston. “If you brought me here, my lord, to convince me of this foolishness, then you’ve wasted all of our time.”

She took a step toward the door, but her momentum was cut short by what must have been an iron band caught around her upper arm.

“Stop right there, Princess.”

Wexford! Manhandling her again, as though she were a common washerwoman. “Let go of me this instant. Lord Palmerston, do something!”

But instead of leaping to her defense with his usual protective flustering, Palmerston was shaking his head at the earl. “You were right after all, Wexford. I thought for certain that the princess would believe you. And me.”

Wexford brought her closer to his chest, her back pressed against all that heat. “Mark me, Palmerston, she’ll believe when I’m finished with her.”

“You are finished with me now, sir!” Caro stomped down on his boot with her slipper, but only managed to bruise her instep. “And mark me, both of you, I plan to have a word with the queen about your hijinks.”

“Best that you leave now, Palmerston,” Wexford said from far above her head, and far too near. “I’ll take care of the rest.”

“The rest?” Insulted at being talked about as though she wasn’t in the room, Caro shot a glance up at the man, but could only see the underside of his chiseled chin. “I’m not the leavings from your dinner, sir!”

Palmerston nodded as he clapped his hat onto his head. “Do be careful, Drew. That’s a very expensive dress the princess is wearing.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Don’t you dare leave me with this monster, Lord Palmerston!”

But the traitorous minister only shook his head at her and then left with the decisive closing of the door.

“Palmerston!” Caro was still staring at the door when she found herself being carried deeper into the dimly lit room and then dropped into a huge, overstuffed chair in front of the marble fireplace.

“Settle yourself, Princess.”

“And you keep your hands off me!” Caro pushed herself to her feet and followed him.

But Wexford had strode to the door and turned a key in the lock, the only possible exit she could see within the walls of books and barred windows and hanging maps.

The man turned back to her, larger than ever, his glower fixed on her, making her eyes water and her heart pound in her chest. Then he nodded to the chair behind her. “Sit yourself.”

“And make it simple for you and Palmerston to abduct me without a fight. Don’t count on it.”

“If I had abducted you, you’d know it by now.”

“Then what’s the term for keeping a princess against her will?”

“Insurance, Your Highness. Drastic situations call
for drastic measures.” He had lit another lamp near the table and now stood fully in the light.

Dear God, what a handsome man he was. And what a very stupid thought, but it had struck her like a blow.

All those shadowed angles that had planed his jaw and his cheeks, now brought into perfect focus.

Though his eyes were still as dark as ever, unreadable, dangerous.

“Kidnapping a princess of the blood is about as drastic a measure as I can imagine.”

“Then I suggest you begin by imagining yourself shot dead, Princess, an assassin’s bullet lodged inside your pretty little head. Makes a terrible mess, I assure you.”

Caro took a breath, fighting against the very raw image. “If you’re looking to impress me with high drama and histrionics, sir, you’ve abducted the wrong princess.”

Drew knew for a fact that the woman was the right princess. Right in every possible way.

Royal and outraged and pampered, an all too familiar combination. He’d confronted a hundred such tempers, had developed a stratagem of diversion for all occasions.

Yet the brilliance of her eyes was utterly unfamiliar to him. As unfamiliar as the dangerous intelligence that challenged him as she stood glaring at him, while the toe of her slipper tapped steadily, defiantly, beneath the edge of her beaded hemline.

Perhaps he would have to step more softly than usual, swallow a forkful of humble pie.

“After our earlier encounter this evening, Princess,
I can perfectly understand how you might doubt my motives.”

“I don’t doubt them in the least, Wexford.”

“Of course.” He chewed on another forkful. “But if you’ll just take a moment to listen to a few of the facts—”

“Facts, indeed?” She laughed and unhooked her cloak at the neck, swept it off her shoulders and onto the back of a chair, just as a pugelist prepares to face off with an opponent. “More likely this is Palmerston’s overprotective imagination. He sees plots and rebellions shifting around every shadow. You know the story of the boy who cried wolf one too many times….”

“I assure you, madam, Palmerston is not the source of this intelligence.”

“I know I’m going to regret asking this, Wexford,” she said, folding her arms across her small but perfect bosom, giving the entire, alabaster display a stunning lift in his direction, “but exactly who is your source, if not dear, demented Palmy?”

“My source, Princess, is
me
.”

“You?” Her brow went lofty and wry, her mouth curved into a devilishly disbelieving smile as she walked toward him. “Wherever in the world would the Earl of Wexford come by information about an assassin? At a fancy-dress ball?”

Of all the bloody stubborn ingratitude!

“Or in your box at the opera? In a hedge maze? I’m sure you spend a lot of time skulking in dark places.”

“Actually, Princess, I first became aware of the threat at a coronation fete.”

“Whose coronation would that be?” She stuck her
fist against her hip as though he couldn’t possibly know a coronation from a cribbage game.

“Prince Wilhelm Georg of Heimburg.”

She laughed and sat down on the padded arm of the chair, casual and confident, utterly defiant. “Will’s coronation was two weeks ago. I couldn’t have been a target because I didn’t attend.”

“I know.”

She frowned at him. “How do you know that?”

“There’s not much I don’t know about you, Princess. Suffice it to say that word of an impending assassination came to me from an unexpected source. And if it hadn’t, you’d doubtless have been dead three times over by now.”

She stilled and studied him for a long moment, as though he finally had her full attention. “So how did you come to catch an assassin at a coronation fete? And why didn’t I read about it in the
Times
?”

“It didn’t happen quite that way, Princess. Assassins rarely present themselves for capture so easily. And even if he had, the public would never have learned of it.”

“But you did catch him. He’s safely locked up in a prison cell.”