by Tamara Gill
Not just a unique frog—but her father’s respect. “No, no, no,” she said. “This is all your fault he’s gone.”
“Who?”
“Who do you think?!” she shrieked. “My frog!”
He sighed. “Must we carry on like this in the rain? Let me repair your carriage and then we shall return to the castle. Serving wenches will prepare us a hot meal and, if you behave, I shall give you the pleasure of rubbing a thousand years’ aches from my shoulders.”
“How considerate...”
“Yes, I thought so. Though I would much prefer the service of a good horse.”
“To rub your shoulders?”
“No, to the dreadful inconvenience of your forever-crippled carriage.”
Tired of not only the rain, but the stranger’s exhausting circular logic, Lucy figured what the heck? Why not give him the pleasure of changing her tire? Right after that, she’d take her own pleasure in driving him straight back to the mental healthcare facility from which he’d obviously escaped!
CHAPTER TWO
On any other day, at this rainy, gloomy bridge into night, the village of Cotswold would have been deserted. The inhabitants would’ve long since gathered round their hearths or dinner tables or at the bar of the Hoof and Toe Inn. What they weren’t usually doing was milling about as if they had nothing better to do than wait on the side of the road for Lucy Gordon to drive by with a naked man!
“Can’t you hunker a little?” she asked him on their way past gaping Eleanor Lolly, who was out for a walk in matching rain slickers with her seventeen-year-old dachshund, Rudy. And then there was ten-year-old Charlie Raney floating a model cigarette boat in John Cleavon’s birdbath. Shouldn’t a boy his age—Charlie, not John—be inside doing homework?
On the left, the butcher shop was open curiously late. On the right, Drymore’s Chemist was just closing up. To her mortification, Pete Drymore waved as she passed.
Great. Just swell.
“I am the prince,” Lucy’s naked passenger proclaimed. “Men of my station do not hunker.”
“Right. I forgot.” So Lucy hunkered, managing surprisingly well to drive with just the crown of her head peeking over the wheel.
At least for the next ten feet.
“Get your wits about you, wench! Tis a body in the road.”
“A body?!” Lucy bolted upright. Super-duper. A dead person to add to her naked person—but wait, that was no mere body crossing the road, but Cotswold’s resident gossip—Ruth Haweberry. Of all people to encounter, she was the worst. A walking, talking tabloid rag, with a memory as reliable as a computer.
Faces, places, dates, times—Ruth knew it all.
A significant problem, considering the last thing Lucy needed with the reputation-conscious duke on the verge of proposing, was to have this old snoop telling him his intended had been seen chauffeuring a naked man!
Because the self-crowned prince deserved it for scaring her with that body line, Lucy smacked him on his shoulder, only to instantly regret it when a distracting heat licked its way up her fingers. She hazarded a glance his way, only to be graced with a wide, wicked smile that made her breath catch and heart tumble.
In the gloom, his unreadable dark eyes shone like wet ink, yet his high cheekbones and strong lips wore the determined mask of a warrior entering battle. A battle not about conquering an inferior civilization, but her!
Lucy shivered before looking away and tightening her grip on the Mini’s wheel.
“Ye need not feel shamed for wanting me.” His voice struck her as slow and sinful as hot buttered rum. “Every wench does.”
“Let’s get one thing straight,” she said on their way past at least three couples laughing and strolling hand-in-hand into the Hoof and Toe. “I’ve never been your—or any other man’s—wench. I am a highly educated, highly independent woman.”
“Right.” His royal snort incensed her. “Which must be why you needed a man a thousand years departed from this age to reassemble your carriage.”
“Correction. I didn’t need you to change my tire. I let you. In case you forgot, I was the one who reassembled all of those popped wires under the hood.”
“Is that what you call the vehicle’s front portion?”
“Yes, as you full well know if you’d once and for all give up this delusion.” Sweet, merciful heaven, the lights of Cotswold County’s cottage hospital shone straight ahead. “Good. We’re nearly there.”
“Where?”
“A place where surely someone can help you.”
“Help me with what? Aside from the chilly lack of respect coming from you, I feel quite extraordinary after having spent the last millennium a scant one hand high.”
Making the left turn into the hospital lot, Lucy rolled her eyes.
A few more minutes and she’d be rid of this nutcase. And seeing how she was almost rid of him, she’d even admit to the fact that even with his clothes on, he’d easily outclass any man she’d ever met—or even seen—in the looks department. But then she’d never really sought her companions for their looks so much as their brains. Obviously, what this guy had in the hot bod department, he lacked upstairs!
“Okie doke...” she put the car in park and cut the electric motor. Slipping off her seatbelt, she angled on her seat to face him. “Wait here. I’ll find a nurse to wheel you inside. I can’t tell with all that hair of yours, but...” Glorious thick, long dark hair I’d love to feel on my breasts and belly and—she swallowed hard. Get a hold of yourself! With a deep breath, she started over. “What I was about to say is that I suspect you have a head wound. Just to be safe, let me get you some help.”
He leaned close, bombarding her with his sheer masculinity and heady scents of sweat and the musky, mossy pond she loved. For a second, she feared he might again kiss her. His proximity made it an impossibility to think beyond that instant, that heartbeat, that perfect moment in time when his lips might settle atop hers. But then he pulled back, abandoning her with nothing but her surging pulse and cheeks fiery with shame.
On the heels of a short laugh, he said, “Looks like you are the one needing help, wench.”
“Whatever...” Without so much as a hint of a glance in his direction, Lucy got out of the car and trudged to the emergency entrance.
The hospital’s white, bright sterility came as a welcome change from the hot and steamy Mini.
“What’s up, Luce?” Dr. Luke Hodges, who dated her friend Bonnie, who taught primary math at Lucy’s school, strode toward her dressed in blue surgical scrubs. The familiar—not to mention, sane—grin he cast her way warmed her to her toes. The closer he got, however, the more that grin of his faded. “You’re looking a bit dicky. Been drinking, have you?”
She managed to crack a small smile. “When I tell you why I’m here, you’ll probably think so, but I promise every word of what I’m about to tell you is true.” Though his expression grew increasingly more dubious, Lucy told him start to finish about her supposed prince. Well—he wasn’t her prince, but surely Luke knew what she meant.
“Let’s have a look at him, shall we?”
Lucy led the way while Luke followed with a wheelchair.
“That the Reverend Bart?” she asked, eyeing a bedraggled-looking soul huddled beneath a stack of blankets on one of the exam tables. He’d long since retired from the church but he loved Cotswold, so the congregation had built him a quaint cottage alongside the rectory. He still helped with occasional clerical duties.
“’Fraid so. Seems he was well into his evening meal when he spotted Napoleon charging through his tomato sauce.”
“This a regular thing for him?” Lucy asked, relieved she wasn’t the only one having a bizarre night!
“Quite. Last week he found the queen swimming in his jacket potato.”
Lucy eyed the poor man one last time. Compared to him, she had nothing to worry about! At least her visions were life-sized!
Outside, the rain had stopped, and ghosts of summer wild
flowers and the stand of firs at the far end of the parking area flavored the air with a pungent sweetness that tickled her nose and made her think everything just might be okay. The wheelchair’s left tire squeaked, echoing the sharp noise across the otherwise silent lot.
More to ease the tension knotting her gut over wondering what the duke would have to say about all of this than because she was in the mood for chitchat, Lucy asked, “Did Bonnie tell you about the school dance we’re going to chaperone?”
“Absobloodylutely. Also said some rubbish about me having to wear a dinner jacket. A dinner jacket! Like I’m going to find one all the way out here?”
“We’ve got three weeks. Anyway, the duke has dozens. You two are about the same size. Want me to borrow one for you?”
“That’d be decent.” Approaching her Mini, he said, “I don’t see your prince. Think he could’ve gone arse-over-tit?”
“I suppose.”
“Here, take this.” Luke passed over the wheelchair, then jogged the last few feet. He jerked open the passenger door, only to freeze.
“What’s the matter?” Lucy asked, embarrassingly out of breath from the short run.
Luke glanced her way. “That’s what I was going to ask you.”
“Wait a minute.” To clear the internal fog, Lucy shook her head. “You don’t think I made this up?”
He shrugged, then eyed the length of the parking lot, paying particularly close attention to the dark stand of firs. After a few seconds’ awkward silence, he released a long, slow breath. “Look, Lucy, Bonnie told me what happened today. Grumsworth has given you an exceptionally rough time of it. Sometimes when a person’s upset...” He shrugged. “Let’s just say that on these desolate country lanes, sometimes it’s easy to confuse fact with fantasy.”
“You can’t be serious? You do think I made the whole thing up. Like I’ve been having king-sized delusions, as opposed to the Reverend Bart’s baby ones?”
“I didn’t say that. I was just—”
“Yes, you did. Just like everyone else in this town. Oh, you play nice enough to my face, but behind my back you think of me as that crazy Yank.”
“Come on, Luce,” Luke cupped his hand to her shoulder. “You know that isn’t true. Bonnie thinks of you as a sister and seeing as how I hope to one of these days save up enough to make Bonnie me wife, well, I guess I think of you in the same light. You’re a breath of fresh air. A nice change in our otherwise dull existence.”
Arms crossed, Lucy said, “He was real, Luke. Just as real as you or me.”
“Okay. I believe you.” He gestured toward the firs. “You know how much wilderness is out here, Luce, what with the Childip Hills not that far off. Bet your man was spooked by the hospital and took off. With any luck, you’ll never be bothered by him again.” Lucy’s friend’s tone implied what his words didn’t. That he was placating her. Granted, her latest round of blows with Grumsworth hadn’t been pleasant, but it hadn’t been bad enough for her to start hallucinating, had it?
No.
To prove it, she’d damn well find that stupid prince and bring him right back here to shove in Luke’s disgustingly concerned face!
CHAPTER THREE
Two hours and no luck later, crushed didn’t begin to describe Lucy’s spirits.
She’d searched everywhere.
Starting at the stand of firs at the far end of the hospital lot and ending with the stand of regulars crowding the Hoof and Toe’s bar. She’d parked at the town rose garden and walked High Street in its entirety, peeking into dark alleys, beneath trash piles and parked cars and Timothy Highcombe’s leaning gazebo. She’d checked the shed behind the chemist’s and another shed behind Mr. Dooley’s. She’d checked the church and the spooky graveyard and even the duck pond, but the all ducks had been asleep on their island. Surely, if they’d had a recent scare by a naked, self-crowned prince, they wouldn’t have been quite so settled in for the night.
In short, she’d looked everywhere and the prince was nowhere.
Now, she was right back where she’d started, driving her Mini down the deserted lane leading toward Sinclaire Castle and, in particular, toward that small portion of the castle grounds that was hers—Rose Cottage.
Who knew, maybe Luke was right?
Maybe she had dreamt the whole thing?
She’d always loved immersing herself in the medieval history of her home, but maybe it was high time she traded history for those spicy Hollywood reads her friend Mary Jane sent along with regular shipments of MoonPies.
Exhausted, Lucy finally pulled up alongside her sweet, wisteria-covered home.
Acres away across vast formal gardens and rolling lawn, the castle lights glowed, twinkling like a soothing bedtime fairytale against the heavy black sky.
This view reminded her where her attention should be.
On the castle—the life that, with any luck, she’d soon be living with William inside of it. She needed him now. His kind heart and gentle laugh. The quiet ease and grace with which he handled every conceivable crisis—not that her imagining herself with a naked prince was a crisis, because it wasn’t.
The whole episode had been nothing more than a sign that, as the duke had so many times teasingly pointed out, she needed to spend less time on lesson plans and more time on him!
Shoulders aching, she climbed out of her Mini, leaving her school bag on the backseat in favor of just grabbing her purse. It was already after eight and no way did she feel up to doing anything other than making a quick meal of soup and a sandwich, then soaking in a steaming tub.
Inside, the mudroom was dark save for the faint yellow glow from the night light she kept on in the kitchen. The cuckoo clock she’d bought on a Swiss holiday merrily tick-tocked, and the faint smell of her morning coffee still flavored the air, along with the ever-present richness of centuries-old plaster and wood.
Tilting her head back and closing her eyes, she sighed. This place was real. These comforting, familiar scents and sounds wrapped around her each evening like a cozy quilt. Here, where she belonged, her day of pure frustration was finally ending on a mellow note.
Everything was going to be okay.
She was going to be okay.
Happy.
Happy in her marriage to the duke.
Happy in her teaching.
Happy, happy, happy.
Eyes opened, shoulders squared, Lucy kicked off her filthy pumps and wound her way into the kitchen, stopping off at the fridge to see if the Dinner Fairy might’ve left her a plate of steaming pot roast and mashed potatoes.
No such luck.
There was a small care package from her two-nights-earlier spaghetti dinner with the duke, though, so while that heated in the microwave, she unbuttoned her mud-encrusted blouse and headed for the stairs.
Rose Cottage had been extensively remodeled a few years back but the designer had been quite the history buff and, instead of opening up the space like so many people did with their old homes—preserving the exterior while gutting the interior—he’d kept the original boxy plan which made just walking to the living room, let alone heading for the two upstairs bedrooms and bath, a lot like walking the castle hedge maze.
She entered the dining room to see an orange glow dancing on the library’s ceiling.
How odd. And wonderful!
Knowing she was hopeless at lighting her own fires, the duke must’ve lit one for her in the living room hearth. With any luck, he’d soon be popping out to surprise her.
“Come out, come out wherever you are,” she sang on her way into the coffered-ceiling room, eager to share with him an edited version of the night’s events. Meaning, she’d have to come up with a reason for why she was muddy and hours late getting home that didn’t involve a naked prince!
After all, a man in the duke’s position did have his reputation to consider and, if she were to become his wife, she’d have to embrace his necessity for propriety. “William? William, honey, where are you?”
&
nbsp; “Ah, tis honey you have taken to calling me then, eh?”
Clutching the open halves of her blouse, Lucy screamed.
The prince vaulted over the back of the sofa that faced the hearth, then calmly, confidently—nakedly—strode her way.
Lucy gulped.
He looked much different in her cluttered, floral-chintz-and-toile-beruffled home than he had on the lane or in her car. If possible, he’d grown even taller. His dark hair longer, his wide smile even more disarmingly handsome—not that any of those qualities made him less certifiable!
“What is the matter?” he asked, coming ever closer.
“H-how, how did you get in here? The door was locked.”
He rolled his eyes. “Ye think a prince does not have ways? You forget, I own not only this place, but every other for as far—and farther—than the eye can see.”
“Why did you run away from the hospital?”
“I did not run. I walked.”
“But why? I was trying to get you help.”
“But like I tried telling you in that cramped carriage, I need no help.”
At that, she laughed. “Oh, so you don’t even have clothes, yet you need no help?”
“I grow weary of your incessant questions, wench.” After a regal dismissive wave, he said, “Getting to the heart of the matter, you have earned a royal bedding, which I see by your unbuttoned state of affairs that you must be ready to claim. After that, I shall storm my castle and finally get on with the business of ruling.”
Lucy could only stare.
The man was insane.
Not to mention delicious!
All those rippling muscles on his chest and abs and those shoulders... Dear Lord, had any man ever had broader shoulders? His arms looked strong enough to sweep even her off of her feet.
Lucy licked her lips, dropping her gaze from his spellbinding features to the floor, but on the way down, she accidentally caught another peek at his package. Dear, dear Lord!
