The Stolen Princess

by Anne Gracie

  She knotted the skirt and her petticoat high on her legs, as she’d seen fisherwomen do. The icy wind bit into her wet skin. “Now, for the climb,” she said and picked up the portmanteau.

  Nicky stared up at the cliffs. “Do we really have to climb all the way up there?” No wonder he sounded daunted by the prospect. She could just make out the top by a faint lightening of the darkness—a change of texture, rather than shade.

  “Yes, but the man said there was a path, remember?” Callie tried to keep fury out of her voice. The cliffs were enormous and very steep—dumping them there was more than outrageous, it was criminal, given Nicky’s leg!

  They scrambled upward, Nicky in front, so Callie could help him if he stumbled. The weight of the heavy portmanteau soon had her palms burning. Gusts of wind whipped at them.

  “Stay away from the edge!” she called to Nicky every few minutes. The path was frighteningly narrow in places: in the darkness it was terrifying.

  “I can see the top, Mama!” he called after what seemed like forever.

  Callie paused for breath, cooling her burning palms against her wet skirt, and looked up. Almost there. Thank goodness! She heaved a huge sigh of relief. With any luck it would not be far to Lulworth.

  Gabriel Renfrew rounded the bluff at a gallop. The narrow cliff path was barely visible yet Gabe didn’t slow his pace. One misstep could send them over the edge but both rider and horse knew the path well. They’d ridden it almost every night for the past few weeks.

  Cold salt air bit into his lungs. The storm was closing in, fast.

  Trojan suddenly broke stride. Gabe looked up. “What the devil—”

  A child stood directly in his path, staring and terrified. Horse and rider were almost upon him. There was no time to stop, no place to maneuver. On one side rocks rose steeply among scraggy bushes, on the other lay a plunge to certain death on the rocks below.

  “Get off the path!” Gabriel shouted. He hauled on the reins, felt Trojan’s muscles bunching in the effort to slow enough to stop before the child was trampled.

  The little boy didn’t move, was frozen with fear. There was no time to think, only react. “Get down!” Gabe yelled as he prepared to jump his horse over the child.

  But as Trojan rose, leaping high in blind obedience to the command of his master’s hands, a woman erupted from nowhere and with a scream flung herself at the child. It was too late—his horse was already in the air, clearing, Gabriel hoped, both woman and child. Did he feel a thud as he flew? It happened so fast he couldn’t be sure.

  He flung himself off his still-moving horse and ran back. He could hear something crashing down the cliff, sending stones and rocks rolling down. He hoped to God it wasn’t the woman. The child, he was sure, had gone in the other direction, away from the edge.

  In the darkness he could just make out a huddled female shape lying on the very edge of the cliff. Thank God it wasn’t her he’d heard falling. But if she moved an inch…

  He was three paces away when she started to stir. Before he could reach her she moved, tried to stand, and slipped toward the edge.

  Gabe hurled himself forward, grabbed a handful of wet clothing, and dragged her back. Wet clothing? “Stay still,” he barked. “Don’t move.”

  “Where is—?” She batted his hands away and scrambled to her feet, looking around frantically. “Nicky! Nicky!” she screamed.

  “Don’t move!” he ordered sharply. “You’re right on the very edge of the cliff.”

  She stared, horrified, at the edge. “Nicky!” She breathed. She swayed forward, peering over.

  “He didn’t fall,” Gabe said firmly, easing her back again. “If Nicky is a small boy, he’s all right.”

  “H-how do you know?” She was stuttering, almost past speech.

  “I saw him run off that way.” Gabe pointed further along the path.

  “Run off? Oh God, he must have been terrified. What if he goes over the edge in the dark!” She started along the way he’d pointed. “Niiicky!”

  “He’s all right, I’m sure,” he began in a soothing voice.

  “Niiicky!” she screamed again.

  “I’m here, Mama.” The voice came out of the darkness. “The bandbox rolled away. I had to chase after it.”

  “Oh, Nicky! I was so worried.” The woman pushed past Gabe and wrapped the child in a damp embrace.

  “Mama, you’re all wet!” said the boy, and with a laugh that sounded suspiciously like a sob she stepped back. She caressed the boy’s hair gently.

  “Are you all right, darling? That horrid horse didn’t kick you, did it?”

  “No, it jumped right over the top of me—like flying, like Pegasus. But you pushed me, Mama, and that’s when I dropped this.” The boy lifted the bandbox. “It rolled away. It nearly went over the edge, but I stopped it.”

  “How clever of you,” she told him shakily, starting to recover from her fright. “I don’t suppose you saw my slipper, too, did you? I dropped it somewhere.” She was shivering quite badly, Gabe saw. Cold, or reaction, or both.

  “I told you he was all right,” Gabe said.

  She turned on him in fury. “Don’t speak to me! If you had hurt one hair of his head with your criminally irresponsible behavior, I would—I would—” Her voice cracked and she hugged her boy convulsively.

  She took a deep, ragged breath and said shakily, “Are you drunk? I expect you are, to jump a horse over a child! The fact that my son is all right is no thanks to you and that creature!”

  “I’m not drunk. Had I been, I could not have reacted with such split-second—” Gabe took a deep breath and harnessed his temper. He said in a deliberately calming voice, “Look, the boy is perfectly safe and—”

  “Safe! You almost killed him!”

  “Madam, I risked my horse and myself in order not to hurt him,” he said with some asperity. “I don’t normally use small boys and women for jumping practice. He suddenly appeared from nowhere and stood stock-still, right in my path—”

  “With that horrid great beast thundering toward him, he was probably too terrified to move!”

  “The sensible thing to do—”

  “Sensible? You expect a child to think clearly when a man is riding straight at him? He’s just a little boy!” She hugged the child again.

  “I was not riding at him! He was in the middle of the path—and at a time when small boys ought to be in bed. And there was not enough time to stop—”

  “Because you were riding like the devil!”

  “Quite so. On my own land.”

  “I see.” She took a deep breath, making a visible effort to gather her composure. “I…I see. I gather we are trespassing. In that case I shan’t bother you any further. Good evening.”

  Gabriel frowned. The moon was still behind the clouds, but he could see her well enough to notice she was rubbing her shoulder. “You’re hurt.”

  “A little bruised,” she admitted.

  “Are you sure it’s not worse than that?”

  “No, it’s not serious. The shoulder was already sore from carrying the portmanteau.”

  Gabriel looked around. “What portmanteau?”

  “It’s…It must be here, somewhere. I lugged the wretched thing all the way up from the beach. It’s as heavy as lead.”

  They all looked but there was no sign of a heavy-as-lead portmanteau.

  “It must be here,” she said. “It couldn’t have rolled away like the bandbox.”

  “Ahh,” said Gabriel. He had a sinking feeling where the portmanteau was. “I think it went over the edge when you, er, fell.”

  “Oh no!” she exclaimed. “Perhaps it didn’t fall far.” She started forward, but Gabe stopped her.

  “I will look,” he told her. “My nerves can’t stand any more of you perched on the edge of that drop.” He stepped forward and peered down into the gloom.

  “Perhaps it was further along,” she prompted.

  He moved along and his boot connected with somet
hing small. It fell, taking a light scatter of pebbles down with it. “Um, I think I found your slipper,” he told her.

  “Thank you. Hand it to me, if you please.”

  “I, er, just kicked it over the edge.”

  She sighed. “Of course you did.”

  “I shall retrieve the portmanteau for you in the morning,” Gabe said stiffly. “The slipper may be more difficult to find.”

  “Pray do not bother about either,” she said wearily. “The slipper was probably ruined anyway and I shall send someone to fetch my portmanteau in the morning.”

  “Fetched from where?” Gabriel asked. There was nothing for miles, only his house.

  There was a short silence. “From where we are staying,” she said warily.

  “And where is that?”

  “That’s my business,” she said firmly. “Thank you for your concern. Good-bye.”

  Gabriel admired her spirit. She’d dismissed him like a little duchess, and on his own land. “I’m not going anywhere, without you,” he informed her. They were in dire straits and it was not in him to abandon any woman and child to their fate.

  She edged away from him, clutching the boy to her. “Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t even know us. And we don’t know you.”

  She took another step backward…Another…

  He strode forward and grabbed her as she started to slip. Before she knew what he was about, he placed both hands around her waist and lifted her away from the brink.

  “Let me g—Oh,” she stammered, as he released her. She glanced behind her and saw. “Oh…Th-thank you.”

  “My pleasure. Gabriel Renfrew, at your service.” He bowed. “And you are…?”

  She drew herself up straight, fighting desperately for dignity. “Appreciative of your…assistance. But my son and I shall do very well now, thank you, good-bye.”

  “It’s my land,” Gabe reminded her gently.

  “Yes. Of course. We shall leave. Come, Nicky.” She took the child’s hand and took three lopsided steps away from him. Then she hesitated and said with a further heartbreaking attempt at dignity. “This is the path to Lulworth, I take it?”

  “It is, but you’re not going to Lulworth tonight.”

  “Indeed we are,” she said as certainly as a female could whose teeth chattered like Spanish castanets.

  Gabe ignored her. He took Trojan’s reins and knotted them lightly on the horse’s neck. He pulled out his caped overcoat from the saddlebag and took the bandbox from the boy.

  “What are you doing? That’s my bandbox,” she said. “Give it back at once!”

  Gabe tied the bandbox to the saddle, put on the overcoat and held out his hand to her. “Come on.”

  She pressed back against the rocks at the rear of the path. “I won’t!” She gave a panic-stricken glance at the horse and in a different voice said, “I can’t!”

  He shrugged and swung the boy onto a ledge above the path.

  “Let him go!” In desperation she swung a fist at Gabe, but he caught it easily.

  She lifted her fist to swing at him and he caught her hand in his. At that moment the moon came out from behind the clouds, flooding the cliff top—and the woman’s face—with clear, silvery light.

  Gabriel had had the breath knocked out of him a dozen times. Each time he’d thought he was dying.

  He’d been kicked in the head by a horse once. It had scrambled his wits for a while.

  And a couple of times in his life he’d been so drunk that he’d lost all sense of time and place.

  Seeing her face in the moonlight was like all of those rolled into one. And more. Gabe’s breathing stopped. He forgot how to speak. He was unable to think. He could only stare. And stare. And stare.

  She had the sweetest face he’d ever seen, round and sweet and sad and somehow…right, framed by a cloud of dark, wavy hair. An angel come to earth. With the most kissable mouth in the world.

  He swallowed, drinking in the sight of her like a man facing a waterfall after a lifetime of thirst.

  She gazed back at him. Her eyes were beautiful, he thought, eyes a man could happily drown in. He wondered what color they were.

  “Release me this instant!” the angel snapped, and Gabriel’s breath came back in a great whoosh of air. The angel was very, very human. And very, very frightened.

  He held her clenched fist up, nearly at eye level. “This,” Gabe shook her right fist a little, “would have hurt you more than it would have hurt me.” He turned her fist palm up and explained. “See how your thumb is placed here? If you’d connected with my head, it would have been shockingly bruised, maybe even broken. I have a very hard head.”

  She frowned uncertainly. His tactics were confusing her. As he’d intended. Tension still vibrated in the small, rounded body, but she was listening.

  “Next time you go to punch someone—anyone—some poor innocent fellow who accidentally rides his horse over you in the dark and keeps saving you from falling off a cliff, for instance—hold your fist like this.” He showed her, rearranging her fingers. “And hit with the heel of your hand—not your knuckles—whack upward to the fellow’s nose.” He looked down at her and added, “Or his chin, if you’re too short to reach the nose.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I am not short.”

  “No, of course not,” he assured her solemnly.

  “Better still.” He bent and picked up a stone and pressed it into her palm. “If you hit a man with that, it would really pack a punch. Make sure it is large enough that it fits in your palm and you can get a good grip, but not so small that your fingers can close right around it. Hit the man with the stone, not your hand. Next time you are in fear for your life, remember the stone.” He released her hands and stepped back.

  She clutched the stone tightly, staring at him in baffled suspicion.

  Gabriel repressed a smile. The look on her face was priceless. Surprise tactics always had been his forte.

  “You know I’m not going to hurt you or the boy. So just be sensible and get on my horse.”

  “I—I don’t like horses. I prefer to walk.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, it’s five miles and there’s a storm brewing.”

  “I don’t care. I’ve walked much farther than five miles before.”

  “Not in the dark and in a storm and with only one shoe,” he reminded her. “Come, madam, I’ll lift you up.”

  She fended him off, one-handed. “No, no, I can’t!”

  She was genuinely frightened, Gabe saw.

  “It’s all right, Trojan is a very gentle horse. There’s really no need to be scared—”

  “I’m not scared!”

  “Of course you aren’t,” Gabriel agreed. She was terrified. “Don’t worry, I’ll hold on to you and you’ll be safe as houses. I’ll just lift you up—”

  “You’ll do nothing of the sort!”

  “That’s your last word?”

  She gave him a stiff little nod. “It is.”

  “Excellent,” said Gabriel and before she knew it, he lifted her by the waist and set her sideways onto the horse. Trojan, bless him, stood steady as a rock. Almost in the same movement, Gabe swung up behind her and wrapped one arm firmly around her waist before she could jump off. She gave a small, stifled scream.

  In her hand she still clutched the stone he’d given her. She raised her fist and waved it, fraught with indecision. Gabe waited.

  Trojan stamped his hooves and moved restlessly.

  She gasped and dropped the stone. Her free arm flailed desperately, touched Trojan’s mane, recoiled, and then groped around for something to hang on to. She found Gabe’s thigh. And gripped it tight.

  He held out his hand to the boy, perched on the rocky ledge, watching unhappily. “Come on, Nicky, take my hand.”

  The child hesitated. Both of them were scared stiff of Trojan, Gabe saw.

  “I promise you won’t fall. Just take my hand and I’ll swing you up behind me.”

  Again the boy shook his h
ead.

  “N-Nicky can’t ride,” she told him through clenched teeth.

  Gabe said patiently, “I’m not asking him to. I’ll do the riding. All he has to do is sit behind me and hang on.”

  “I can’t ride, either.” Her hand gripped him tightly.

  “I know. I’m holding you safe, see?” He squeezed her waist gently. She was sitting so rigidly he could snap her in two. “I’ll hold him safe, too.”

  She said in a voice that shook, “If one of your hands is holding me and the other is for Nicky, who will hold the horse?”

  “I will. With my thighs.”

  “Your what?” Faint outrage showed through the terror.

  He smiled to himself. She obviously had no idea it was his thigh she was hanging on to with all her might. “They’re very strong thighs, and he’s a very well-behaved horse. Now come on, Nicky, that rain is almost upon us. Get on.”

  As he spoke several large drops of rain pattered down. “Do it, Nicky,” she said at last.

  His misgivings obvious, the child hesitantly reached out and took hold of Gabe’s arm.

  “Good boy. Now put your left foot on my boot here and when I give you the word, jump and swing your right leg over the horse behind me. You’re perfectly safe. I won’t let you drop.” The boy obeyed, closing his eyes and making a blind leap of faith. In a moment he was seated behind Gabe on Trojan.

  “Now lift my coat over the top of you so that when the rain starts, you don’t get wet. You can hold onto my belt or my waist, whichever you prefer,” Gabe told him. He felt the coat lift, then two little arms wrapped around his waist in a convulsive grip.

  Gabe nudged his horse and Trojan moved off as the rain started. The woman and boy clutched on to Gabe like grim death.

  Icy needles of rain pelted down on Gabe’s face and trickled down the inside of his coat. He was cold and wet and he should have been miserable.

  Instead, he grinned, suddenly exhilarated. Until an hour ago his life had stretched out before him, an endless stretch of pointlessness and ease. A life sentence of tranquility.

  Now, suddenly—blessedly!—he had a problem, a difficulty, trouble. And she was sitting rigid and unbending in his arms like a small, wet piece of wood, her eyes screwed tight shut, clutching his thigh as if she would never let go; his own little piece of trouble.