The Stolen Princess

by Anne Gracie

  She gave him a quick smile. Five-and-twenty years of rigid training slipping away, unregretted.

  Papa would have pointed out that this is what came of such laxness—grooms winked at her in the most familiar way, and cooks cuddled her and called her lovie.

  And the worst of it was, Callie quite liked it. Or she would if she weren’t so worried.

  “And you’re sure that Jim is all right?” Nicky asked Gabe for the third time.

  “Yes. It looked worse than it was. It’s sore, that’s all. The most important thing was to get it cleaned of all that mud. Wounds can fester if they’re left dirty.” Gabe finished strapping the portmanteau to Trojan’s back. “You weren’t worried about being left here?”

  “No,” Nicky said. “Here, I can see for miles. I can see the sea and the path and nobody could creep up to grab me. I saw you coming ages before you got here.”

  Gabe frowned at the boy. “Are you worried about people grabbing you?”

  “Yes, of course.” He spoke as if it was a perfectly normal fear.

  “Has anyone ever tried to grab you before?”

  “Yes.”

  “Really?” So Nicky’s mother had grounds for her anxieties after all.

  “How did you get that?” Nicky pointed at Gabe’s ear.

  Gabe automatically touched the thin, pale line that went along his jaw and ended with his severed earlobe. “A bayonet.”

  “If he’d got you a bit lower down you would have been killed,” said Nicky with a child’s blunt relish.

  “Yes, or my ear cut right off,” Gabe agreed. “I had a lucky escape.”

  “Mama has a cut like that in her ear, too.”

  “What?” Gabe stared at him. He hadn’t noticed. Her hair had been loose over her ears. “How did that happen?”

  “Someone ripped it.”

  “She was attacked?”

  The boy nodded, frowning. “I’m not sure if I’m supposed to talk about it in England.” He bit his lip. “I prob’ly shouldn’t have told you about the bad men, either. The thing is, I’m not perfectly sure what I’m supposed to say and what I’m not.”

  “I won’t tell a soul.” Gabe checked the saddle, feigning indifference.

  Nicky thought for a moment, then, apparently deciding he could talk about it after all, said, “Mama told me later it was just some thieves after her earrings…One earring did get ripped out. It bled everywhere. Mama said it didn’t hurt a bit.”

  Mama had lied, Gabe thought to himself, and wondered where Papa had been at the time.

  “But I think she was just saying that so I wouldn’t worry. Mama does that sometimes.”

  Gabe’s brows rose. A perceptive lad for one so young.

  Nicky fiddled with the reins that he was holding. He darted Gabe a solemn, fugitive look. “I don’t think the men were thieves, either.”

  “You don’t?”

  The boy shook his head. “They were after me. Only Mama stopped them.”

  “Has that happened before?” Gabe asked him.

  “Yes, I was kidnapped once, for three days, but they got me back. I don’t really remember; I was little then.” He shrugged. “Men are always after me.”

  “Are men after you now?” Gabe said quietly. It certainly explained a lot of things that had puzzled him.

  The boy hunched his thin shoulders. “We don’t know. Mama hopes not. That’s why—” He bit his lip.

  “Why you came to England,” Gabe finished for him. And why she had been so mistrustful of him last night, he thought. “Well, I don’t know who these men are, Nicky, but I promise you this—if they do come after you or your mama, I’ll do my very best to stop them.” He added, “I’m pretty good at dealing with bad men, you know. I’ve been a soldier at war for the last eight years.”

  The child gave him a long, considering look, then nodded, as if satisfied.

  Gabe mounted and swung Nicky up in front of him. “Time to go back,” he said. “Your mother is worried about you.”

  “Yes, and I must see how Jim is.”

  They moved off at a walk. The cliff-top path was too slippery with mud to go much faster.

  Nicky frowned. “I did the wrong thing, didn’t I? Hitting him with the stone.”

  “Yes,” Gabe confirmed. “Why did you do it?”

  “Well, he did not fight as gentlemen do in my country, and he was beating me and I remembered how you told Mama to hold a stone and to go for the nose, and you are a gentleman, so I thought that was how it was done in England,” Nicky concluded.

  “It isn’t,” Gabe said ruefully. “I told your mother to do that because a lady should never have to fight, and she is smaller and weaker than most men, therefore not subject to the rules a gentleman is.”

  “So I should not have hit Jim?”

  “Not with the stone, no. But it was not wrong to fight to defend your mother’s possessions. And if he was fighting with gutter tactics, your move was understandable. You should not blame him for it, either; he has not been trained as a gentleman has.”

  Nicky considered that. “I am not sure what I should do—whether I should apologize to him or not.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “Papa used to say one should never apologize to an inferior. And Jim is a peasant, is he not?”

  “We don’t speak of peasants in England anymore,” Gabe told him. “But Jim is probably a poor fisherman’s son.”

  “So Papa would say I should not apologize.” The boy sighed. “But Mama says if I do the wrong thing, I should always apologize, no matter who the person is. But then Mama is a lady and ladies are different.”

  “They are indeed,” Gabe agreed.

  “Of course I always obeyed Papa, but sometimes it did not feel good, here.” He touched his chest.

  “I see,” Gabe said. “This matter has nothing to do with Mama or Papa, has it? So what do you think you should do?”

  Nicky thought for a while. “I feel bad that I hit Jim and broke his nose, and that I did not fight him as a gentleman should.”

  Gabe nodded.

  “I would like to talk to Jim again. He may be a peas—a poor fisher boy, but he is an interesting boy.” Nicky gave Gabe an upward glance. “I don’t want him to stay angry with me.”

  “So you would apologize so you can be friends?”

  Nicky thought about that. “No, I will apologize because I did the wrong thing,” he decided.

  “And if you didn’t like him? Would you still apologize?”

  He considered the question. “I think I would still apologize but it would not be easy, for if he was my enemy, he would feel superior.”

  Gabe nodded. “Which is more important, what an enemy thinks of you, or what you think of yourself?”

  “That is a good question,” Nicky said thoughtfully. “My enemy’s opinion is nothing to me. You are right, sir.”

  They rode on for a little. “Sir, this has been a very good conversation. Thank you,” the small boy said solemnly.

  Gabe ruffled his hair. “I’ve enjoyed it, too. You’re a good lad, Nicky. No wonder your mother is proud of you. Now, shall we ride a little faster?”

  “Yes, and gallop like the wind, please,” said Nicky firmly.

  They galloped like the wind, Nicky clutching Gabe’s forearms, and urging Gabe to go faster, faster, faster!

  Finally Gabe judged that Trojan had had enough, and slowed to a canter.

  “That was splendid!” Nicky exclaimed. “I never understood before that riding could be like flying!” The boy held himself much more loosely now, responding to the movement of the horse instinctively. With a proper saddle, and a few adaptations for his weak leg, Gabe was sure the boy could ride.

  “It is indeed. You said your father was an excellent rider.”

  “Yes, the finest rider in all of Z—my country.”

  Gabe drew a bow at random. “And he died in a riding accident. Was it jumping a fence?”

  “No, he was shot. They said it was an acc
ident, but it wasn’t true, though.”

  So he was dead, Gabe thought. “Wasn’t it?”

  “No. They were after him and they got him. Now they’re after me,” the boy said in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “I see. And how long ago was this?”

  Nicky thought for a moment. “More than a year. Papa was killed a month before my birthday. I wasn’t even seven, then.”

  “I see.” Gabe was silent for a while. The child was in genuine danger then. He owed her an apology.

  “And does Mama have a name other than Mama?”

  Nicky laughed. “Of course. Papa called her Caroline, but Grandpapa always called her Callie.”

  Gabe rode the next few miles without thinking, his thoughts miles away.

  Her name was Callie. And she was a widow. Of more than a year.

  They came to the arch into the courtyard and Gabe slowed Trojan to a walk.

  “Can’t we do it again?” Nicky begged. “Gallop like the wind?”

  Gabe grinned. “Not right now, you young fiend. Your mother would throttl—whoops, here she comes!”

  The kitchen door crashed open and Nicky’s mother came flying across the courtyard, fully dressed and wearing shoes.

  “I’ll take you out again later.” He lifted the boy to the ground.

  Nicky clung to his arms. “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “Nicky, you’re all right! Oh, thank God, thank God!” His mother hugged him fiercely. Gabe dismounted in a leisurely manner and unstrapped the portmanteau.

  Nicky suffered his mother’s embrace for a moment, then wriggled free. His face split with a grin, he gabbled, “Mama, I had the most splendid time! Mr. Renfrew took me out on Trojan—that’s his horse’s name—he’s a magnificent animal, don’t you think? As good as any of Papa’s horses, and it was utterly splendid and I never fell off, not once, and we went fast, so fast it was like riding the wind and I never even got scared because Mr. Renfrew held me in front of him and he’s very strong and an excellent horseman, and oh, we galloped across the moor so fast, Mama, and—”

  She hugged him again, half laughing, half crying. “So you’ve had a wonderful time, you horrid boy, and to think I’ve been so worried. And look at you! You’re covered in mud!”

  “Yes, I know!” The boy’s eyes sparkled in his dirty face, as if the dirt had been as much of a treat as the ride, Gabe thought. And perhaps it was. Nicky had been kept on a very tight leash. For good reason, he supposed, but still, it was hard on a boy, not to be allowed to be a boy.

  “And I hear you’ve been fighting with that boy in there!”

  Nicky looked suddenly guilty, “Yes, I know, Mama, but Mr. Renfrew said it wasn’t wrong to fight to protect our portmanteau—”

  “As if I care about the portmant—”

  “Mama, I must go and see how he is. Mr. Renfrew said he was all right, but I must see him for myself. I owe him an apology. I know he’s a poor peasant boy and very dirty, but—” He looked down almost proudly at his filthy state and grinned again. “So am I—dirty, that is! And I don’t care if anyone forbids it—he’s my friend, Mama.”

  And with that, he ran off with his ungainly, lopsided run toward the kitchen door, leaving his mother standing in the middle of the courtyard, staring after him with such a look of astonishment on her face it made Gabe laugh out loud.

  At the sound she turned. “You!” she declared, her magnificent green eyes sparking with anger. “How dare you laugh? Do you have any idea how I felt? Any idea of what I went through when I found him missing?”

  Gabe gave an apologetic shrug. “I was actually bent on fetching your portmanteau for you,” he said mildly, backing slowly toward the stables. As he’d intended, she followed.

  “You should have asked!”

  “Would you have given me permission to take him?”

  “Of course not! Why would I entrust my child to a perfect stranger?”

  The stables were quiet; Barrow had unsaddled Trojan and put him in his stall. Gabe gave him a subtle signal to him to disappear. He went, quietly shutting the stable door behind him.

  “And you know he is terrified of horses—”

  “He’s not. He’s terrified of falling off, which I gather he’s done a lot of in the past. Once he was assured he would not fall off, he had a whale of a time.”

  She stared at him, nettled.

  “So you think I’m perfect, do you?” he said as he opened a stall door.

  She looked bewildered. “How could you possibly think that?”

  “You just told me I was.”

  “I did not!”

  “You said I was a perfect strang—”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “I meant a complete stranger,” she corrected him. “A wholly unknown person, and certainly not a person to be trusted with my son. And do not be flippant when I am reprimanding you!”

  “No, ma’am.” Gabe murmured. “You’re very pretty when you’re cross, you know.”

  Her nostrils flared enchantingly as she gave a scornful snort.

  “I’ll wager you’ve been fretting yourself to flinders with all sorts of horrid imaginings and now that you’ve seen Nicky is perfectly all right and apparently as happy as Larry, you’re feeling all cross and out of sorts. So you blame me.”

  “I do blame you, yes! Because it was your fault. If you hadn’t taken him—”

  “Yes, yes, mea culpa. Do you know, I have the perfect solution for the way you’re feeling,” Gabe told her.

  “Oh, do you? And what might that be?”

  “This.” And before she could even guess what he intended, he took a step forward. Which brought her hard against him, breast to chest.

  She gasped. The most kissable mouth in the world formed a perfect O of surprise and Gabriel did what he’d been planning to do since he’d first clapped eyes on her.

  He kissed her.

  Five

  His lips were warm and firm and his action so unexpected that at first Callie was too surprised to move. Or resist.

  She was being kissed in the stable like a maidservant.

  She ought to scream. She ought to resist.

  But the way he kissed…resistance was futile.

  He tasted of salt and apples and of man. It was just a kiss, she told herself, and yet it felt so…intimate. He kissed her with his whole mouth, not just his lips, possessive and sure, and she felt herself melting against him.

  After a moment he released her. She stood staring at his mouth, dazed.

  “That was wrong,” she murmured. “I’m a respectable wi––woman. Let me go, please.” He didn’t move, but his gaze dropped to her hands and his mouth curved into a slow grin. She followed his gaze and saw her own hands clutching his coat lapels in a convulsive grip. She hastily released them.

  “If it was wrong, we’ll get it right this time,” he murmured. “This will be a very respectable kiss.”

  She pressed her hands against his chest, meaning to hold him off, but somehow, it changed. His mouth closed over hers again, and again she felt those swirling, heady sensations. She could feel his heartbeat under her fingers. He cupped her face in his hands as if he were holding something precious and the kiss went on forever.

  Her hands slipped up over his chest, along his strong, rough jawline, and her fingers tangled in his hair. His tongue caressed hers and flames licked along her nerve endings, pooling in her core.

  By the time he stopped Callie could barely stand, let alone speak.

  Her legs felt strange and rubbery and for a moment she thought she was going to sink into the hay on the floor. She locked her knees as stiffly as she could until they were back in working order and tried to look serene. And dignified. A princess, not a maidservant.

  “I don’t kiss strange men,” she managed feebly after a moment. Had she really run her hands through his hair? It wasn’t like her. And yet, his hair was undeniably messy.

  He smiled down at her in a way that made her blush and feel str
angely unsettled. “I’m glad to hear it. Though I’m not so very strange, am I? I always thought I was a fairly ordinary fellow.”

  He was far from ordinary. “I meant I don’t know you!” she said, desperately trying to compose herself. She could not believe that she’d allowed herself to kiss him back. She knew where this sort of thing led.

  Straight to heartbreak.

  He gave her a tragic look. “You’ve forgotten me, so soon? But I’m the fellow who took you up to bed last night. You were dressed most delightfully in an enormous pink nightgown. Ring a bell?”

  She blushed. “You know what I mean.”

  “Never mind, since you’ve apparently forgotten me, I’ll introduce myself: Gabriel Renfrew, at your service.” He gave her that wicked, glinting smile. “At your very exclusive, very personal service. How do you do? Redundant question, really. You do beautifully, don’t you? You certainly taste delicious—like wild honey.”

  He leaned forward to kiss her again, but this time Callie managed to step back out of reach. “No! Stop. It’s impossible.”

  “I’m hoping you’ll decide I’m very possible. You have to admit we’re progressing. Last night you called me a snake, remember? But you must concede now that I’m very warm-blooded. You can feel that about me, can’t you? My warm blood?”

  Callie’s blush deepened. She didn’t know what to say or where to look. Under no circumstances was she admitting that she could feel anything warm about him. Not his mouth, not his big, warm body, not anything. He was far too warm-blooded for any virtuous woman’s comfort.

  He smiled. “Well, if you’re finished having your way with me, we’d better not stay here dillydallying the day away.” She gave a gasp of indignation, but he continued, “We have to unpack that portmanteau of yours. I fear it’s rather sea-damaged and some of your things could be ruined.” He held out his hand to her. “And then there’s the question of breakfast.”

  She turned toward the door. He followed her, saying, “Next time we’ll find somewhere more comfortable.”

  She turned back. “Next time? There will be no next time. I told you before, I’m a respectable, married la—”

  “Widow,” he said, trying to keep his pleasure from showing. “Of more than a year, Nicky seemed to think.”