by Cara Colter
Maddie took a jacket from the coat closet. Thankfully, spring nights in the mountains could be chilly and the coat covered most of the outfit she now realized was way too skimpy.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE ATMOSPHERE AT the concert was electric. Though the outdoor amphitheater had bleachers built into the hills that surrounded the stage area, everyone was standing. The band came out, and from the first note it was obvious the acoustics were going to be unbelievable. The crowd went wild. There was no warm-up time. In seconds, everyone was dancing and singing along.
Maddie felt something in her let loose, some inhibition she had carried her whole life—except for one regrettable moment when she had paid dearly for it—let go. This time, she told herself, she was safe. This time, there would be no price to pay for just being herself.
Within minutes, she had the jacket off. The music was so loud it felt as if it was inside of her. She had the best time. She danced with Ward. She danced with strangers—aware she was still dancing for Ward. Then she danced with Ward again. She had never felt quite so confident, so on fire with life.
Only Lancaster seemed immune to the music and the energy, tense and grim. At the intermission they—or, more accurately, Lancaster—pushed their way through the crowds, and they found the refreshment booth.
As they waited in line, a whisper began to go through the crowd.
“A prince? Where? That’s ridiculous.”
Maddie glanced around. She didn’t see anything or anybody who looked like a prince. She noticed that Ward, who had taken off his dark glasses, took them out of his jacket pocket and slid them back on.
“It’s him, I tell you. I saw a pic of him on Entertainment World. He was at Sea O’Brian’s villa in California.”
“Yes, you’re right. I remember...”
Maddie was craning her neck like everyone else to see what was going on. But then she noticed Lancaster and a shiver went up and down her spine. He looked grim. Every muscle in his body was tensed, as if for battle. His hand was resting ever so lightly on his hip. Her eyes widened as she saw there was a bulge there. Was Lancaster carrying a weapon? But why?
And why had Ward put those glasses back on? It was dark out.
“Move,” he breathed tersely in her ear. Lancaster went into action with such swiftness that it was stunning. He blocked Ward’s body, and hers, with his own. He plowed through the crowd, like a ship cutting a wake that she and Ward walked in. The crowd parted without protest in front of his formidable form. Ward’s hand found hers, but there was nothing romantic about it. There was urgency in his touch.
“What is going on?”
“Follow Lancaster,” he ordered her sternly. “No questions. Not right now.”
“It is him,” somebody screamed, holding up a picture on their phone for all to see. “It’s Prince Edward of Havenhurst.”
Suddenly, it seemed everyone had a phone out. And all of them were aimed at Ward. People were gaping at him. Women looked starstruck. People were starting to shout his name. Maddie wanted to laugh. It was an error, obviously, a bad case of mistaken identity. Maybe the desire to laugh was a form of hysteria—it felt as if her world was tilting crazily.
Except she could tell from the sudden closed look on Ward’s face it was not a mistake. She could tell from the way Lancaster had gone into battle mode.
Lancaster, the close protection specialist, was parting the crowds with a look. He had not yet had to use physical force; his warrior countenance was enough.
Prince?
She felt something catch in her throat, as they pushed through the crowds. Why the pretense? Why hadn’t he told her?
She slipped her hand out of his.
“I can explain,” he said.
Hadn’t she heard that before? Hadn’t that been Derek’s exact phrase when she’d found him with her best friend when she’d decided to surprise him by coming to New York for the weekend?
The answers were coming from the rising swell in the crowd around her.
“A real prince?”
“I’m Googling it—yes, a real prince!”
“Havenhurst. It’s in the North Atlantic.”
“Edward Alexander the Fourth.”
Everyone who was not taking pictures on their phones seemed to be looking up facts about Havenhurst and its Prince.
Pieces seemed to fall into place with stunning clarity for Maddie: she had known these men weren’t who they said they were. Kettle had actually told her Lancaster was a bodyguard! So there had been plenty of moments when she could have come to her senses and what had she done?
She had pooh-poohed her own instincts. She had chosen to believe in fairy tales—ironic since it appeared Ward was a prince!
No wonder, at the pools, Lancaster had remained aloof to the playful atmosphere. Sophie would be happy to know it had nothing to do with her! He’d been at work. He had not relaxed until Ward was out of the pools. Even then, he had undressed away from them. Probably because he was concealing that very weapon his hand was resting close to now! When Ward decided to follow his lead and dive, Lancaster dived with him. Not showing off at all. Doing his job. Taking the lead that dark night out of the pools, because it was his job, if a bear materialized, to put his body between it and his Prince.
Now Lancaster had a look of fierce determination on his face, searching for a way to get Ward out of the crush of a crowd that now knew he was no ordinary man.
Lancaster shoved Ward toward a temporary security fence that had been erected around the concert area. He had seen a door concealed in it that Maddie had not seen. It opened under a shove from his shoulder, and he stood, his back braced against it as Maddie and Ward passed through. Lancaster stood for a moment, eyeing the crowd—daring them—and then he turned and went out the door and closed it behind himself. He found a piece of rock and wedged it under the jamb.
It seemed suddenly very dark and very silent. But it lasted only seconds. Another door in the fence, several yards down, opened and people began to spill out.
The Google-fueled chatter started again.
“He’s engaged.”
Maddie felt something in her freeze.
“To a real princess.”
“It’s like a fairy tale.”
But for Maddie, it was not like a fairy tale, at all, but like the return of a familiar nightmare.
Lancaster put his arm around Ward’s shoulder and they bolted toward the parking lot. Ward reached for her hand, but she evaded his grasp. The crowd surged by her in hot pursuit of his celebrity.
Now she turned quickly and pushed her way against the crowds.
She heard her name called, once, desperately.
“Maddie!” It was Ward. No, Edward.
She turned and walked backward. She did something she had never done, in her entire life.
She presented Edward Alexander the Fourth, Prince of Havenhurst, engaged to a real live princess, with her middle finger.
With some satisfaction, she registered the distress on his face and the shock on Lancaster’s. Apparently, it wasn’t protocol to present the Prince with your middle finger!
She walked home, taking a well-known trail through the forest, feeling sick to her stomach, remembering everything. He had teased her about her name that first day at work. She had thought he was flirting with her. But no, he was accustomed to people being uncomfortable with his status. He was used to putting people who were intimidated by him at ease. From teasing her about a Celt being in the kitchen, to complimenting her scones and tea, it was all part of that graciousness of being born to an elevated position in life.
No wonder he was so good at listening intently. No wonder he was so sure of himself.
They weren’t from Scotland. That’s why he’d hesitated when she asked if there were Boy Scouts in Scotland.
As she walked home, M
addie was aware of a change in herself.
She didn’t feel victimized. She didn’t feel sad. She didn’t feel as if she was going to break down and cry.
No, she felt as angry as she had ever felt in her entire life.
* * *
Ward watched helplessly as the waves and waves of people separated him from Maddie. He could see the fury in the set of her shoulders and the stiffness of her spine.
He had to get to her.
“Let her go,” Lancaster said roughly when he saw Ward’s intent. “The mob was so focused on you they didn’t figure out she was with you. It won’t do her any good if they do.”
He was right, plus Maddie was moving swiftly, putting more and more people between him and her with every determined footstep that she took. It was obvious there would be no getting to her now.
They got to the car and Lancaster shoved him in unceremoniously, got in the driver’s seat, and they left the crowd behind them.
“That was one of the worst moments of my life,” Lancaster said, after a moment.
No lecture, of course, though Lancaster had been adamant the whole trip in general, and the concert in particular, had the potential to become security nightmares.
Ward thought of Maddie’s stricken look when she first realized the depth of his lie to her. He looked out the window. He had betrayed her trust, something he was sure, given Sophie’s revelations that day in the café, that she did not give easily.
“And mine,” he said softly, “and mine.”
“Do you want me to find her?”
“Of course.”
“Let’s just find a different car, first. This one is highly recognizable.” But for all Lancaster’s amazing skill, this time it was not enough. Though they patrolled every street of Mountain Bend, and drove by her house several times, they did not see Maddie Nelson.
Ward’s phone buzzed in his pocket. Unreasonably, he hoped it was Maddie, though he knew he had not given her the number.
But it wasn’t Maddie. It was Sea O’Brian.
Telling him, breathless with excitement, that she had to cancel her engagement to him. She’d been offered the lead role in an upcoming television series. Which could give her flagging career a better shot in the arm? Playing princess on some remote island, or taking the role?
She had taken the role.
Ward slipped his phone back into his pocket.
Lancaster cast him a glance. “Sir? Everything all right?”
Wearily, Ward explained what had just happened. The silence stretched between them as they drove every street in Mountain Bend looking for Maddie.
Finally, one last drive past her house, the lights were on, and Ward saw a shadow move on one of the closed drapes of the front window. He felt both relief that she had made it home safely, and trepidation that he had to talk to her. He had to set things straight. Though, so far, his efforts to make things right with women were not unfolding all that well.
“I’m going in,” he said.
“Sir, we know she’s safe. She seemed, er, a little angry when we left her. Maybe a cooling-off period is in order?”
A little angry might be the understatement of the century. Ward was certain he had never seen a woman angrier than Maddie had just been, walking, backward, away from him, making a gesture that represented all of her barely restrained fury.
He didn’t want a cooling-off period. He wanted to tackle this right now. He was astonished by the fact he felt faintly thrilled when he considered confronting that fury.
He opened the door of the car and stepped out.
CHAPTER NINE
“GO AWAY,” MADDIE called in the direction of her front door.
Ward’s arrival was nothing like the ones in fairy tales. He hadn’t ridden up on a white charger; there were no trumpets blowing. If he pounded her door much harder, it was going to break loose from the frame!
She had been home over an hour. She was in her pajamas, sipping tea and looking at a book, though she found herself unable to comprehend the words. For once in her life, the book was not providing the escape she had always looked to books for. Even in the most difficult circumstances a book could carry her away. But not tonight.
She was in her nicest pajamas having tea out of her good china. The book had been chosen to make her look sophisticated in her reading material. All of that probably meant she had both expected his arrival and intended to let him in. Sooner or later.
“Maddie, please talk to me.”
“Is that a royal decree?” Still, she could feel the weakness, as it had been from the first time he had pleaded with her to go to the hot pools with him.
Please say yes. Please come with me. There was something about the way Ward said please that disarmed her, that had disarmed her from the beginning, that had made her say yes to taking him to the hot pools and yes to the concert, when she should have been saying no.
She should have been protecting herself against this very thing that was now unfolding. Unwanted drama in her life. Uncalled-for complications. Betrayals and lies.
The weakness could be lack of food, Maddie told herself. She’d been too excited before the concert to eat, and now, even though she was hungry, food did not appeal.
The pounding came on the door again. She would not have him thinking she was hiding. That she was cowering behind her door, afraid of him, or crying her heart out.
And so she got up deliberately, set down her teacup and her book. She must have got up too quickly because she felt woozy. She took a breath, steadied herself and went to the door. She threw it open, and then folded her arms across her chest and planted her legs firmly, determined not to let him see she actually felt both emotionally and physically weak at the moment.
His arm, raised to bash her door again, fell to his side. It was really unfair that he looked so charming. Since he was a prince. And since this wasn’t any kind of a fairy tale with a happily-ever-after in the script.
Okay, so he looked very tired. And slightly disheveled in a very unprincely way. In a way that made her want to run her fingers through his mussed hair and smooth it back into place, as if he, somehow, was the one in need of sympathy here!
Buck up, Maddie told herself. Ward had deliberately withheld information about himself. He had pretended to be someone he was not. He had been toying with her when he was engaged to someone else.
“Unconscionable,” Maddie greeted him without preamble.
“I agree,” he said.
Maddie did not want him to be agreeable! She didn’t want to look at him; she didn’t want to fall into the pools of his eyes one more time. So she looked past him. Over his shoulder, she saw the “normal” guy persona had been abandoned. The Lambo was gone, replaced with something black, shiny, solid.
Probably bulletproof.
“What do you want?” she demanded, hardening her heart to the look on his face, the intensity of the way he looked at her, the almost-electrical ripple it caused to surge inside of her.
“To explain.”
“What’s to explain? You lied to me. You did it deliberately and you did it often. You didn’t tell me who you really were, and you were flirting with me while you were engaged to someone else! Scout’s honor?”
“You have a right to be angry.”
“Thank you, Your Royal Princeship. Are you giving me permission to feel mad? Mad as in Maddie? Should I curtsy now?” She glared at him. “Are you smiling?”
“I’m trying not to. It’s just that—”
“Just that what?”
“No one has ever spoken to me that way. Not in my whole life.”
“Being given the finger must have been a novelty for you, then, too.”
“Indeed it was.”
“If you start laughing, I’ll kill you.” Did she actually feel something softening toward him? No, she simply w
asn’t feeling well. Buck up, she reminded herself.
“Lancaster won’t allow it. My killing.”
“Yes, I’ve figured out Mr. Lancaster’s role in things.”
“Major, actually.”
“Well, Major Lancaster is a long way away, Prince Whatever-your-real-name-is.” She squinted through the darkness at where Lancaster waited, arms folded across his chest, rear rested against the door of the car, looking up and down the street. Watching. “He’s looking the wrong direction for the danger. It’s right in front of you.”
“Indeed it is,” he said, and even though his tone was solemn, his lips twitched.
“Oh!” she said, and stepped back from the door. “Come in. Let’s get it over with.”
He stepped over the threshold. Pure power rode into her tiny cottage with him. She wondered how humble it looked through his eyes. She decided she didn’t care.
She gestured at the sofa. “Sit. Spit it out. I’m not offering tea.”
He took the sofa. She stood across from him, arms still folded. But he had an air of command about him, and she knew he wouldn’t say what he had to say until she sat down. With a sigh of long-suffering she flounced onto the chair across from him, picked up her now-cold tea and took a long sip, just to reinforce she was not offering him one.
“First, let me tell you why I didn’t reveal my identity,” he said, quietly.
She actually wanted to hear about the real Princess first, but she bit her tongue. Why appear like a jealous shrew? He had never promised her anything. The fact that he was here possibly meant he had a shred of integrity, though, really? She did not feel inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.
All the playfulness was gone from him. “Havenhurst is my life. It’s a very tiny island kingdom in the North Atlantic, with a Celtic culture. We have a population of about a million people. My duty is to those people. That duty comes before everything.
“Our main industries, in the past, have been logging and mining. Those are, as you know, limited resources. They both were managed poorly and petered out, leaving the island economically depressed and in a desperate situation.”
