by Tamara Gill
Are you? a quiet voice asked.
How can you claim to be trustworthy—or even remotely scientific—when only one night past, you sat on your bathroom counter, eyes closed, practically begging Wolfe to kiss you full on your quivering lips?
And how can you claim to be a legitimate scientist when you didn’t play any part in finding Wolfe? How could you when, in actuality, he found you?
Pushing aside the voices in her head, Lucy forced herself to finish preparing dinner and set the table. One task at a time, she’d somehow get through this night. And if Wolfe did burst through the door, she’d handle that, too.
One task at a time.
One minute at a time.
And so the seconds wore on...
“Delicious,” the duke politely said of her lackluster meal. He occupied the prince’s usual place at the dining room table. A pea rolled off of his fork and onto the white linen tablecloth she’d taken out for the occasion.
Eyeing the pea, longing for a moment of levity to ease the knots in her belly, she picked it up and lobbed it at him, quipping, “Good thing you’re not dining with the queen.”
The pea hit him on his chest, then plopped with a single bounce onto the hardwood floor. William looked from the pea, to her, then back to the pea before asking, “What was that about?”
“What?”
“Hitting me with a vegetable.”
“I’m sorry,” she said with a faint smile. “I was just goofing around.”
Lips pressed tight, he used a napkin to retrieve the pea, then politely hid the wadded paper behind the salt and pepper shakers. “Yes, well, in the future, perhaps I should strive harder to keep my peas on my plate.”
Perhaps you should. Wolfe would’ve gotten my joke.
Though the words never left her mouth, Lucy put her hands to her lips just the same. What was wrong with her? Wolfe wasn’t even a real person, but a frog prince! William was a genuine flesh-and-blood duke. They didn’t come much better than that for fairytale endings.
But hadn’t Cinderella landed the prince and not a duke?
“Can I get you anything else?” Lucy asked. “Coffee, tea, or me?”
With his suit’s pocket square pressed to his lips, she thought William smiled, but couldn’t really be sure. “I’d take a spot of brandy if you have some.”
“Sorry,” she stood, reaching for his empty plate. “I’ve got dark beer.” Wolfe’s favorite.
“That’s all right. How about we retire to the living room and talk?”
“Sure. Let’s just clear these dishes first.”
“Leave them,” he said, hand on her arm.
“Ordinarily, I would, but...” Once Wolfe gets home, I’d hate for him to clean our mess.
She sucked her lower lip. If he gets home.
Had he taken a jacket? No. He didn’t even have one, but he had at least been wearing that mossy green sweater that looked so yummy with his dark eyes. Was he hungry? He was an awfully big guy. Judging by her latest grocery bill, he ate a lot. What was he doing for snacks?
William sighed. “Is there something on your mind, Luce?”
Directly in Lucy’s line of sight, dowsed in the accusing yellow stare of a side-table’s lamp, sat the prince’s reading flash cards, along with his tablet of wide-ruled paper and three Star Wars Episode Ten pencils, because contrary to what the duke had thought of the film, Wolfe had liked it very much!
“Excuse me?”
“Where were you just now?” He gave her arm a light squeeze. “You seemed a million miles away.”
“I’m sorry. It’s been a long day.”
“Would you like me to go?”
Yes! “Not at all. Come on,” she couldn’t help gazing over her shoulder out the dark window, before taking his hand. “Let’s have our talk.”
***
This was not good.
Glancing one last time at Lucy Gordon, Wolfe saw her take the insipid duke’s hand, leading him toward the so-faa. The so-faa where the two of them watched movies and shared pop-corn and conversation and kisses. By all rights, that so-faa belonged to him—that woman belonged to him. The mere thought of seeing another man lean her against those soft cushions filled his throat with bile.
The cottage window glass was not thick enough that he had not heard snippets of their conversation. All polite talk and no meat.
If the man intended to declare his intentions toward fair Lucy Gordon, why hadn’t he already done so?
Ad nauseam, Lucy had reminded Wolfe of how she and the duke were almost betrothed, and while granted Wolfe was no expert on current-day courting rituals, in his time, he had been considered quite the stud. To his way of thinking, Lucy’s heart was fair game up until the duke slipped his ring on her finger.
***
Ruth Haweberry put down her binoculars with a sigh of pure disgust.
Unbelievable!
Now, Lucy Gordon had one man waiting for her outside, while she held court with the duke inside!
Miss Gordon’s escapades were scandalous. It was high time the duke learned just what sort of soiled woman she truly was. The duke’s family came from a long, noble line of Englishmen. The last thing he needed was to be mucking the family bloodline by marrying this wholly unsuitable Yank.
Her hair was perpetually disheveled.
Her taste in clothes deplorable.
Everything about the woman screamed poor taste.
Now, her Abigail, on the other hand... She was the very definition of well-bred decorum.
“Yo, Mum!” her angel called from the car’s front seat. “You about done? I’m missing me shows on the telly!”
“Hush!” Ruth fired back. “Do you want us caught?”
“Tis rather late for worrying about that...” Was it shadows making the deep, masculine voice so ominous?
“Who’s there?” Ruth asked, pulse hammering as she switched on her high-beamed torch, aiming it toward thick rhododendrons. “You’d better show yourself, or I’ll summon the law.”
A rustling came from brambles at the forest’s edge.
“Who’s there?” Ruth repeated, gaze and torch darting about.
“Who is there?” the deep voice ever so politely inquired. Seconds later, not two feet behind Ruth, a man stepped from the shadows, tapping her left shoulder. “...Tis just I—your worst nightmare.”
Ruth tried to scream, but from behind her, the soon-to-be killer clamped his hand over her mouth.
Her torch clattered to the ground. Upon impact, the light went out.
“If you know what is good for you,” he advised, “you will leave my land never to return. Understand?”
Eyes frantic and wide, nostrils flared, heart hammering, Ruth nodded. When the man released her, she ran straight to her car and jumped behind the wheel, gunning the electric motor so hard it caught and nearly died before she fishtailed onto the dirt lane.
“It’s about time,” Abigail said, oblivious to her mother’s encounter. “And step on it. You know how I hate missing me shows.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“You’re back...” Lucy stood on the threshold of Wolfe’s room wearing her oversized pink T-shirt. Her bare feet felt like ice chunks against the age-old hardwood floor.
“Aye,” he said, sweeping first his sweater, then a white T-shirt over his head. Save for the faint light eking from the hall the room was dark, but not dark enough for Lucy to miss his stormy expression.
He’d already removed his shoes and socks. Standing before her magnificently bare-chested, noble chin raised, eyes unbearably dark, angular cheeks shadowed with stubble, long black hair wild as if he’d become one with the night, she’d never seen him look more like a true prince. She’d never felt more apprehension about being with him alone—not because of what he might do to her but because, seeing him like this, chest bared in all his primal glory, she feared it would be all too easy to forget her true goal.
This man was a frog, for heaven’s sake! Her frog.
&n
bsp; The frog that, if she just held her course for a couple of weeks, would make her every dream come true.
“You are staring,” he said.
“I’m sorry.”
“What do you want?”
You.
She cleared her throat. “Nothing. I’m just glad to see you safely home.”
His only answer was a grunt.
“Don’t believe me?”
“I saw you with him on the sofa, Lucy Gordon. I saw his hands on you. His lips. I did not like it.”
Me, neither.
Lucy squeezed her eyes shut.
While the duke had been kissing her, she’d traitorously done nothing but compare him to Wolfe and found him lacking. What kind of woman was she? Comparing her future husband to a man who lived only in her imagination. For, essentially, Wolfe was a ghost, here on earth for only a short while.
“I’m sorry.” Choking back frustrated tears, she added, “I don’t know what else to say.”
“How about that you love me?” he coaxed. “How about that I am the only man possessing the power to drive you senseless with desire.”
Dear Lord, it was true.
Just standing there in the dark, feet away from him, she felt him cupping her cheek, her breasts, her belly. If she but closed her eyes, she’d once again know his fingertips’ heated graze, working her nipples to pleasure-cored aches. And his lips, his torturous, bruising lips that left her mouth swollen and wanting. Always wanting, yearning for the forbidden, unreachable more.
But all of that was lust, not love.
It was wrong. William—she had to remember William.
Raising her chin, she dared ask, “Who are you to demand love from me, when you yourself don’t give it?”
“I have neither the time nor patience for fairy stuff such as love.”
“Yet you expect a declaration from me?”
“Women are different. Such things come easily.”
“You think?”
“I know.”
All right. That was it. She had just about enough of his self-righteous egotism.
“Here’s what I know...” Marching a few feet forward, she planted her index finger against his chest. “I know every single thing you’ve said and done has been nothing more than a cleverly designed campaign to win me over to your affections. I know guys like you only care about one thing—your own agenda. How? Because all my life, I’ve dealt with the likes of you ingratiating yourselves to me, only to gain access to my father until I finally got so sick of being lied to and used, that I eventually gave up all men. That’s when I met the duke. Who’s kind, caring and, since he’s already wealthy and a smidgeon famous—at least in his social circle—he couldn’t give two figs about my father.”
“You suppose I do?” he said with a royal snort. “Unless he is a border king come to exchange your hand for land, I do not care about him, either. What I do care about is you, Lucy Gordon.” Softening his tone, Wolfe eased his hands beneath the fall of her hair. “I care about your happiness. Even if I were out of the picture as you seemingly claim to desire, you would not be happy with the insipid duke.”
“H-how could you possibly know?”
“Because even now, when I but hold you, you tremble. Even in the dark, your lips quiver with fear. But is it my kissing you, you fear? Or the notion that I might not kiss you? Thus leaving you alone and wanting in your cold bed.”
To stabilize herself, Lucy pressed her palms to his chest, but when they met with smooth, hot muscle dotted with coarse hair, her mouth went dry and her fingertips longed to wander. Up, she’d find an inconceivably broad set of shoulders attached to arms that found even a weight such as hers no burden. Down, she’d find an abdomen so honed as to make her fingertips rise and fall with the waving ripples. Lower still, was a promise of unparalleled pleasure she knew by sight but not yet by touch.
Not yet?
What was she thinking?
“I-I’ve got to go.” Pushing away from the insanity just being near him brought on, she said, “I-I can’t do this anymore. What I share with William means too much.”
“Your William is a fool.”
At the door, she steadied herself with a white-knuckled grip on the knob. “Then consider me a fool, too, because he’s the man I love. He’s the man I’ll one day marry.”
***
Ms. Roberts—Penelope—popped her head through the crack in William’s London office door and said with grinning wink, “Your Mrs. Haweberry’s on the phone. Line three.”
“Bloody hell.” William slammed his pen atop the Morganstern file. “What does that nut cake want from me now?”
“Do you mean fruitcake?” she asked with another wink.
“Fruitcake.” William couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, that about sums her up to perfection. Thank you, Penelope. Whatever would I do without you?”
“Let’s hope you never have need to know.”
When he stared at her, she said, “Line three?”
“Oh, yes. Right.” After putting the nasty woman on speaker phone, he pressed line three’s blinking button. “Hallo, Ruth. Having a pleasant day?”
“I most certainly am not.”
“Oh?” He made a note on a copy of that morning’s board meeting minutes. “What seems to be the problem?”
“The problem is that only just last night, I was viciously attacked—on your land!”
“Attacked, you say?” He put down his pen, sitting straighter in his chair.
“Yes. By a deranged killer claiming the land to be his. I didn’t get a good look at him, but feel quite certain that this man and the man your Lucy has been cavorting with are one and the same. What’s worse, is that—”
“Dear Ruth,” he prayed for patience where she was concerned, “if you must know, I had dinner with Lucy at Rose Cottage just last night and I assure you, everything seemed quite on the up and up, with no sign of additional occupants, be they male or female.”
She snorted.
“Ruth? Are you listening? You’ve got to put this obsession with Lucy Gordon out of your mind or I fear you’ll be needing professional help.”
“Mark my words,” she said, “you’ll be the one in need of assistance once you realize what I say is true.”
***
“Need help?” Lucy asked the prince the following Sunday in the cottage’s cozy library. Hard rain pelted the windows and, after they’d shared a silent afternoon snack, followed by a silent dinner and now still more silence, while she’d managed to get a lot done on her conference paper, all of this quiet, save for the relentless rain, was starting to be disquieting. He hadn’t even eaten the candy bar she’d brought him Friday afternoon from one of the school vending machines.
“No, thank you.”
“Wolfe, please...”
“What?” He looked up from the children’s world history book she’d checked out for him in her school library.
“Can’t we talk? This silence is—”
“Hurting you?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then maybe you will know a mere fraction of what my pain will soon be.” Easing his book shut, slowly setting it on the mahogany side table, he leaned forward in his chair. “Maybe you will think about what it will be like for me spending not an afternoon in silence, but hundreds upon thousands of years.”
“Y-you’ll make friends.”
“More turtle friends?” Pushing himself to his feet, he laughed. “That gives me something to anticipate.”
Heart tight with sympathy, Lucy wrung her hands.
Granted, his being turned back into a frog would be sad, but it was the way things were supposed to be, right? He’d long ago been imprisoned within himself for abandoning all of his children. Shoot, he was no better than the absentee fathers who dumped their kids at her school.
Oh yeah? Did those dads ever play games with their children like Wolfe reported he’d done? Did they talk to their kids and care for them in every way but giving them p
roper last names?
Sighing, Wolfe headed for the back door. “I am going for a walk.”
“But it’s raining...” Her feet remained frozen to that spot.
“I would not trouble yourself with worry for my health. After all,” he said with a cold smile, “I have been wet before and, if you have your way, shall soon be again.”
After he’d gone, Lucy stood in the library’s center for a long time, eyes closed, hugging herself and gently rocking, while wishing for some way to grant Wolfe his dreams and still keep hers. If only she could find some other new species of frog to present—but considering the fact that the conference loomed closer every day, the likelihood of discovering a replacement was less than zero percent.
The phone rang and she jumped.
“Geez,” she mumbled under her breath on her way to the kitchen. Heart still racing, fearing with her luck it could be no one but her father, she was relieved to hear Bonnie’s chirpy hallo, then, “Say, Luce, do you remember telling Luke he could borrow one of the duke’s dinner jackets for the dance?”
“Sure,” Lucy said. “Does he still need one?”
“Yup. I thought I could squeeze him into my brother’s but I’d somehow forgotten it was baby blue.”
“Ugh. Say no more, I’ll call the duke right now, then call you back.”
“Thanks, Luce, you’re a star. Anyway, got to run. I’m looking after my nephew, Bryant, tonight, so I’ve got to baby-proof the house and make sure Sammy’s secure.”
After saying goodbye to her friend, Lucy hung up the phone and frowned. Bonnie sounded happy, bustling, busy and in love. And here she sat, almost a household name—at least in scientific circles—but not quite yet. Almost at peace with her father, but not quite yet. Almost happily engaged, but not quite yet.
Impatience stormed through her, along with frustration at not just this unmoving situation, but at seemingly having waited her whole life for the elusive happiness that was always just around the corner.
