The Royal Rake (Royal Romances Book 3)

by Molly Jameson

  The Royal Rake

  Royal Romances, Book Three

  By Molly Jameson

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  Chapter One

  Leopold Alexander Charles, the third prince of England, fourth in line for the British throne, descended a ladder slick with sea spray. It swayed in the blowing rain, swinging drunkenly from the helicopter as he gripped the rungs with gloved hands, a bright orange life belt thrown over one shoulder.

  “Oi, Leo, why d’you insist on risking the royal neck when I could climb down and fetch the poor sod?” his co-pilot Denny called down after him.

  “Relax, Den, all they’d say to you if I felt to my death was, that lad never had any sense at all…tis a fine thing he wasn’t the first born son,” Leopold managed to call back lightly. Carney, the winchman on their Maritime SAR mission, cheerfully made an obscene gesture and suggested that Leo get on with the rescue.

  Then Leopold gritted his teeth and set his mind to the task at hand, rescuing a pair of unfortunate blokes who’d gone boating in a storm with too much Guinness and too few life preservers for their own good. Leo nimbly climbed down, hooked one muscular arm around a rung of the ladder. He reached his other hand out to bring up one of the ill-fated fishermen—at least he assumed they’d pretended to be fishing, though there were no rods in sight, only empty beer cans and some now-waterlogged copies of lads mags with busty birds on the covers. The man reached for his hand, overshot and nearly lurched overboard. Leopold muttered a curse and climbed into the boat, holding the ladder steady with one hand. He hauled the man to his feet and gestured to the ladder.

  “Nah, man, I can’t do it. I’m scared of heights!” he babbled.

  “I reckon just now you ought to be more scared of drowning. Now get your arse up this ladder now!” Leopold bellowed over the driving wind and rain.

  “Hey, are you--?”

  “I am the lieutenant who’s saving your sorry bollocks now get up to the chopper,” he said grimly, putting on his best officer face.

  The man scrambled up the ladder, going a few rungs, stopping to swing and look down, to whimper and probably to piss himself until Leopold shouted a combination of encouragement and imprecations. When Denny had the bloke on the copter, he nodded to Leo, who mustered the second drunkard to the ladder. The man promptly leaned sideways onto Leopold and emptied the contents of his stomach. Leo grimaced and took out a handkerchief to wipe the man’s face.

  “I don’t reckon Jamie has to put up with this shit, d’you, Denny?”

  “That’s the benefit of being the Prince of Wales, I reckon,” Denny shouted back. “Now get him up here.”

  “Come on, mate,” he said, helping the man up the ladder.

  When the fishermen were secure on board, Leo looked out the door as he raised the ladder from the Maritime Search and Rescue helicopter he and Denny manned.

  “Nothing but cold and rain and fog every day,” he shook his head.

  “It’s fucking England, mate. What do you expect?”

  “Mizzle and mist and disapproval, of course. Not being disloyal to my nation, but only think of it? Maldives—there’s a spot with a proper climate,” he sighed.

  “If ye don’t like getting wet, how come you signed on for Maritime service?”

  “It was choosing the devil I know. I was always ace at swimming, and it beat the other branches of his majesty’s military forces. This way I get to fly, I get to save people—“

  “You get to be the hero prince who fishes grateful sods out of the drink, and they buy him a pint later?”

  “That as well, mate,” Leo grinned, “I’m for my old mate’s stag night, so you won’t be setting eyes on me for a few days.”

  “Try and keep honest, Leo,” Denny said, “And send a pic to my mobile. I got to live vicarious nowadays. M’wife would have my eyes if I went to a stag night.”

  “Ah, yet another benefit of remaining a bachelor, no one threatening to gouge out my eyes…” Leo laughed.

  The stag night was the latest in a string of them Leo had attended over the last two years as his mates from school, one by one, lined up for the altar. He was entirely comfortable celebrating another man’s trip down the aisle. Leo just wasn’t in any hurry to follow suit. For all Denny’s whinging, he knew the man loved his wife, and the Lord knew that Leo’s parents were devoted to each other in a reserved and dutiful way. So he was happy enough to raise a pint or four to another man’s fate. It was a long weekend off from search and rescue, so someone else could fish idiots out of the drink while Leo took a bit of time on the cricket pitch and the pub instead.

  He used a car service to reach the country house in Somerset where Roland’s stag weekend was being held. Five of his old mates, as well as Roland's brothers-in-law, were congregated in the library of the house, a fine mahogany paneled room now given over more to a collection of beautiful crystal decanters and their contents than to idle reading. To a man, they drank single malt and bemoaned the nagging of their wives. Roland bore the good-natured ribbing of his mates and insisted loyally that his intended was different, sweet and fun-loving, not at all likely to complain at him day and night. The others laughed knowingly and poured another round. They sloshed their glasses together in a salute to the would-be groom. The ring of the crystal highballs as they toasted Roland made Leo’s head ache.

  Roland had rowed crew with Leo at school and was the second to last of the lads to marry. Leo was the only singleton in the lot. Their wild days lay far behind them and, daredevil that he remained, Leo couldn’t quite get comfortable with them. He drank with them, played a bit of cricket, drank some more. By Sunday night, he’d had his fill of men telling the same dull story—frustration at work and home, a wife who was tired all the time. Their hopelessness made Leo feel restive as if he had to flee to be spared that fate. He left the party a day early, deciding to play the role of good son and get his mother a nice birthday gift from Bath.

  ***

  Evie Lowell decided that four email reminders weren’t too many. If you signed up for her teashop newsletter, then you should just expect to be email bombed about upcoming events. Especially when the event in question was going to revolutionize the cozy tearoom image and render her beloved shop a trendy hotspot for a younger demographic. Evie had been wrestling for months with lower receipts and mounting bills thanks to the new artisanal coffee shop in Bath with its bespoke bean menu. What exactly was that anyway? Did some hipster go out back and cultivate the damn beans to order upon request? Because a bespoke suit was made to measure so…whatever bespoke beans were, they meant near-disaster for her profits.

  Evie had been running Thimble Tea Room for two years, relocating from Georgia when her Great Aunt Bridget passed away and left the shop to her as a bequest. She loved the town, its history, and character and the friends she’d made. She loved nothing as much as the tea shop itself, though. It was part takeaway bakery and tea counter, part quaint tearoom, perfect for a rainy day cuppa and a scone. Her scones were the stuff of legend. And yet, the millennial obsession with coffee, the aging population of tea drinkers, the seeming addiction to convenience wherein people stayed home and ordered K-cup tea pods to be delivered to their doors so they could sit on their arses binge watching Netflix and accepting mediocre tea for the sake of not having to put on proper trousers and go out! Evie felt like the shift of p
opular interest away from tea drinking was a sign of the apocalypse or at least a signal that civilization was starting to deteriorate at an alarming speed.

  So Evie had created the perfect event to lure the Netflix and Tinder crowd away from their phone screens for an afternoon. She smoothed the last of the shiny fliers she’d churned out of her cheap printer with glossy photo paper. Tea for Two: Speed Dating with Scones! She’d come up with the name herself. She’d wanted to use the word Tinder, but she was afraid of a lawsuit. Assuming the people who owned Tinder cared what a piddly tea shop out in Bath even did, but given her recent unlucky streak, their lawyer would probably be taking the waters right there in town, see the flier and start stripping her of her savings and credit rating over a cup of goddamned bespoke coffee and biscotti.

  If her plan worked, if enough young people came into the shop looking for love that afternoon, she could hook them with her Orange Pekoe and her killer pastries. Even if they didn’t find a lover, they’d discover what they’d been missing—the singular comfort that only comes with a steaming cup of tea with cream, a fresh crumbly scone with jam. So they’d come back, week after week, and she’d have a new customer base. If some couple did, in fact, start dating as a result of the event, she’d make much of it and give them a gift card and take their photo and put it on the flier for the next event. She hoped to make this a monthly tradition, where tourists and locals could come to meet and mingle over Earl Grey. Visions of a crowded tearoom, happy customers chatting at the small round tables with their vintage embroidered linens and adorably mismatched china distracted her for a moment. Then she returned to her day-of-event task list.

  Last week, Evie had wrestled with her vast roll of packing tape and managed to affix a flier in the oriental grocery and one in the dress shop. She’d favored the day manager at Waitrose with a packet of fresh scones to let her post a sign in the window there. She had found a spot in posh Milsom Place—a coffee shop of all things—with a public notice board where she posted another flier. The soft cheese place always let her hang a sign about events, but she inevitably spent twenty quid on irresistible cheeses while she was there. This time, she had hastily posted a flier and fled from the free samples before she could wind up blissed out on creamy dairy with a smart carrier bag and a lighter pocketbook.

  She gathered up her last few fliers, pulled on her Hunters and put on her mac. It was always, always raining, she sighed to herself. Today she stepped outside to post fliers at the bus stop and to see if the private car company would take a couple of copies to offer to newly arriving tourists. She finished up hanging out fliers and rushed back to her shop, chilled through from the hideous morning rain that always managed to trickle its way down into her socks.

  Dry socks and hot tea went a long way to restoring Evie’s mood. In private she drank tea the way her mother did, with a swirl of honey and a cinnamon stick, not with the thick local cream favored in Bath. Just breathing in the warm spicy scent soothed her. This feeling, of curling up in a worn chintz-covered armchair with thick socks and a steaming mug of tea, a good book open on the arm of the chair with her cat asleep beside it—that well-being and groundedness were everything that she wanted to share with people coming into Thimble Tea Shop. If she could just get them inside the shop, she could evangelize them to tea and the lifestyle attached to it. Hopefully, hopefully, the tea-dating blitz would bring them in the door.

  Evie hand washed her favorite aqua blue earthenware mug and set it on the rack to dry. She hurried back down to the shop and chopped fresh currants and zested a few oranges for the next batch of scones. She cut up chunks of dark chocolate and toasted walnuts in a skillet with a sprinkling of cinnamon for thick, buttery cookies. She wanted everything about the event to be irresistible. Just the smell of the ingredients was amazing. When her treats were in the oven, she rushed upstairs and dressed. It had been a challenge deciding on what to wear since she ordinarily worked the shop counter in jeans and a cozy sweater. She wanted to appeal to young professionals with this concept, but she couldn’t imagine herself striding around the Thimble in a power suit and a pair of stilettos. In the end, Cecilia from the vintage shop along the street had convinced her to buy a long cranberry colored skirt. She could wear it with a black turtleneck sweater and a wide belt she already owned. She’d even put on dangling earrings, which was far beyond her usual routine. Still, in soft ballet flats with the swish of her skirt around her legs, she felt that something special was sure to lie ahead.

  Evie lit candles at each table, straightened the table linens she’d starched and pressed. She’d even indulged in a bouquet of lilies of the valley, their delicate white blooms dotting the dense greenery like snowflakes in their glass jar by the old brass till at the counter. Everything was polished and ready, and she stepped back and smiled with satisfaction. It was as perfect as she could make it, so she waited for the flood of tea-parched lonely-hearts.

  No one came for the first quarter of an hour. She checked the time on her phone, even double-checked the fliers to see if she’d made a mistake about the day and time. She stood at the ready, hands folded expectantly and eyes on the door, trying to look welcoming, hospitable—young and professional and not at all desperate. At last, the strap of chimes jingled as the door opened to admit a pair of older ladies. One unfolded a flier from her handbag and held it out.

  “Is this today?”

  “Yes, it is. You’re the first to arrive! Let me show you to a table and get you some tea.”

  “How does this work with the dating? Where are the men?” the second lady demanded.

  Evie smiled at her and explained, “When everyone has arrived, I’ll set the egg timer for eight minutes, everyone has a chat and a cuppa and then at the sound of the chime, the men swap tables, so everyone gets a chance to rotate and meet everyone else!”

  “Fun!” the first woman said, “Everything looks so lovely, dear. Ever since my Frank passed away, I’ve wondered if I might meet someone else. I suppose you’re hoping to find your special someone today, too!”

  Evie shook her head, feeling color flood her pale cheeks, “Not at all. In fact, I told my friend Lily yesterday; I think this shop, I think Thimble is my special someone. It’s my soul mate,” she said fondly.

  “It’s a store,” the second woman objected.

  “Oh, Maeve, let her alone. If the girl wants to tell herself a job is as good as a man, let her alone,” the first woman admonished her as Evie settled them at a table by the window.

  “Charlotte, don’t be ridiculous. If she can’t reel in a man with scones that smell this good, there’s something wrong upstairs.”

  Evie cleared her throat, “I assure you I’m neither desperate nor—mental, as you seem to think. I thought it would be fun to bring singles in for a dating tea party. That’s all. I’m not man hunting.”

  “You should be. You’re thirty by the look of you,” Maeve spoke up.

  “I appreciate your concern, and I’ll keep it in mind,” she said a little too brightly, “what can I bring you, ladies?”

  As they placed their order, a few more people—all women—trailed in for the Tea for Two and she found them places to sit and despaired at the absolute dearth of men to go around. There were none. Zero. No men had shown up to meet lovely, clever, tea-drinking singletons. She was silently dumping imprecations on the heads of all local bachelors who were clearly uninterested in quality female company in a gracious environment conducive to conversation. Then Evie rolled her eyes at herself because that didn’t sound like an event that would appeal to men in general and she might consider hiring a scantily-clad model to pose for the next flier if she wanted to attract men.

  Tiered trays were studded with crustless sandwiches, scones and biscuits studded. Evie carried jolly brown Betty teapots in their colorful knitted cozies to the trivets on each table. Each table of women. While the ladies exclaimed over the beautiful tablescape, the appealing dainties—it was pretty obvious they had hoped
for men, not biscuits. Biscuits they could have from a tin by the fire at home without coming out in the rain.

  At long last two men came in, both probably in their seventies and neither with much hair. One of them, the taller of the two, had no umbrella and proceeded to remove his mac and shake all the water off of it into a puddle on the wooden floor. Evie suppressed a scowl as she mopped it up and seated the men, taking their order and reminding herself to be grateful that anyone possessed of a Y-chromosome had bothered to attend. She sort of doubted that the dozen or so women had been waiting for bald septuagenarians with abated breath, but maybe they were charming, well-read older men. She drew a long breath and passed a basket for each person to submit a business card or a slip of paper with name and details for a drawing to win a Thimble gift card (and so she could send them info for future events). Then she reached in, drew out a name and announced that Maeve would get the first choice on the first speed date. Maeve threw back the rest of her tea like it was whiskey and stood. She bent over the two men, scrutinizing them through her reading glasses.

  “Hmph. This one has his own teeth but he dripped water all over the floor and didn’t offer to clean it up. I’ll take that one,” she said, indicating the man with less hair and a rather large set of alarmingly white dentures.

  Evie privately thought that, although Maeve could use some social skills, she had damn good judgment. She drew another name and wondered what in hell she would do when the men ran out in about ten seconds. She drew the name Elsie, a youngish woman with a smart briefcase and a gorgeous haircut. Elsie glanced at the remaining man and promptly sat down opposite Maeve’s friend, Charlotte. Charlotte grinned and patted her hand, and they fell to chatting as Elsie poured cream into the cup of tea she’d brought from her table. Evie smiled to herself, thinking that people could certainly make new friends at such a gathering whether there were romantic connections built or not. She also felt a half-minute reprieve because there was still one man left. The next woman she drew chose him and just like that, Evie was fresh out of bachelors at the inaugural Tea for Two.