Linda Needham (12 page)

“W
ere you aware, Lord Wexford, that this is the first tilting tournament since the one at Eglinton in 1839?”

“That’s because, Your Highness,” Drew muttered through clenched teeth from his post just behind his eager princess in the grossly gothic grandstand pavilion, “it turned out to be the biggest disaster ever conceived. Three days of rain, a hundred thousand people in attendance. It’s no wonder why it’s taken so long to mount another.”

“Don’t be such a spoilsport, my lord.” The woman smiled broadly and sat forward as she looked out over the colorful field of tents and banners, the well-groomed lists. “The sky is as big and blue as the sea, the breeze is cool, and I’ve never seen so many people having so much fun in my life.”

A sinister detail that had caused him to post two rings of his operatives around her today, costumed quickly from the wardrobes of the Factory and not.
Nearly thirty men, alert to any possible threat to the princess.

“Call me unduly cautious, Princess, but Swanbrook and your cousin Prince Albert are tempting fate. Look at them out there: two dozen wild-eyed, undertrained men armed with deadly lances, thundering down the lists on massive horses, charging headlong toward each other with bloodlust in their eyes and sawdust in their brains—”

“Oooooohhhhhh…!” The princess jumped to her feet with the rest of the spectators as Bucky Bledsoe was launched backward from his armored horse by Ollie Pierpont’s lucky lance.

“Ohhhhh…no!” Everyone in the grandstands held their collective breath as Pierpont reeled wildly in the saddle and finally lost his seat as well, crashing to the dusty ground on the opposite side of the list fence.

“Yaaaayyyyyyy!” The crowd whooped and bellowed as both men were hauled to their feet like a pair of metallic crabs and held upright by their erstwhile squires.

“That being the third lance between these two brave knights,” the announcer shouted, “the match goes to Sir Pierpont…the Steady.”

The crowd erupted again as “Steady” Pierpont waved his arm before being led, wobble-legged, off the field.

Pomposity heaped upon pomposity, danger upon needless danger.

At least the Grand Procession had begun and ended without an international incident: his endangered princess resplendent in her medieval finery, riding in the open, atop a greenery garnished wagon,
while he and his men walked alongside. She had waved and smiled at the cheering crowd that had lined the meandering path from Swanbrook’s enormous house, through the garden, and finally around the inside perimeter of the tournament grounds.

He had only just breathed a sigh of relief when the archers began their demonstrations of skill directly in front of the heavily festooned court of the Queen of the May, not fifty feet from where Caro was sitting with the other Damsels of the Dell.

The absurd tilting tournament had finally begun in earnest in mid-afternoon. And now, two hours later, another pair of knights approached the ladies in the pavilion, both dressed in shiny, undented armor, with gilded helmets, and crowned by feathers.

Alert for trouble, Drew stood up and surveyed the two men and their entourage, though he knew that they had already been vetted at their individual dressing tents by his operatives. Any change in personnel meant a possible new threat.

The herald looked harmless enough in his bumbling with the leather-cuffed pedigree scroll.

“My lady Countess of Swanbrook, Queen of the May, and her beauteous Damsels of the Dell, please allow me the honor of introducing my liege, Sir Ranulf the Fierce, of Upper Wigmoor Street, Mayfair.”

“My ladies!” Sir Fierce waved his gaudy helmet in the air and then bowed from atop his steed to the Queen of the May.

But the feathers on his topknot swept across the horse’s ears and the huge beast snorted, bucked at the idiot on his back, then stomped around in a small, annoyed circle until one of the squires caught its bridle.

The princess stood up as the next young knight approached the pavilion. But before Drew could stop her, she stepped forward to the railing.

“Princess, stop.”

But the hardheaded woman ignored him as he moved in behind her, taking up his post just in front of her chair, pleased to see his protective perimeter of men also adjusting to her foolish movements.

“My dear ladies of the Queen’s court,” bellowed a second herald, “with utmost pride and all due humility, I announce His Splendidness, Lord Broadsword of Swanbrook, riding today at the pleasure of Princess Caroline Marguerite Marie Isabella of Boratania.”

A roar of approval rose up along the grandstand, and then another when she waved expansively at the crowd with a blue-and-gold square of silk.

“It would please me greatly, Lord Broadsword of Swanbrook, if you would carry my token into battle.” She leaned deeply over the railing, startling Drew.

Bloody hell! He nearly dove after her before realizing that she was merely beckoning to the young knight on the dancing palfrey.

The apple-cheeked young man trotted forward on his horse and bowed with a flourish, grinning like a loon at all that beauty focused on him.

“With every fiber of my being, Princess Caroline.” He reached out and took the silk token from her, put it to his nose and sniffed, before he tucked it into his sleeve. “And in the name of your beloved Boratania!”

The rascal boy. Swanbrook had obviously schooled his son in the art of the tournament, and the countess was beaming at her son from her ornate throne.

The three lances were run blessedly quickly. Two misses by both charging knights, and then the young Swanbrook’s deft clout to the middle of Ranulf the “Farce’s” chest, which sent the man pitching off his horse and the crowd roaring to its feet.

“Bravo, Sir Knight! Bravo!” Caroline shouted over her own applause as Swanbrook took his bows. “Wasn’t he wonderful, Lord Wexford!”

“The boy’s alive, Princess,” Drew murmured, out of the countess’s hearing, “I’ll give him that.”

She raised that brow and then a smile. “Aren’t you glad I insisted that you wear a costume? You’d look completely out of place if you hadn’t.”

So would his operatives, he realized now. They had complained bitterly at having to wear doublets and hose and choking little capes, but they would have stood out in their mid-century caps and coats and neck cloths.

“I’ll remember you endlessly, for this little caper alone, madam.”

That only made her smile grow brighter. “Then my work is done, my lord.”

“Ah, there you are again, Princess!” He knew that grating voice as he knew an alley full of battling tomcats.

“And you, Prince Malcomb!” Drew caught Caro’s eye-rolling glance as the densely dressed royal shoved his way up the stairs and into the pavilion, three bright red ostrich feathers bobbing from his slouching Elizabethan cap, an open bottle of wine in one hand, a wide-eyed young woman on his arm.

“How goes the tilting, madam?” Malcomb bellowed forth as he dropped into the chair beside hers,
ignoring Drew, letting his bewildered female companion find a place to stand on her own at the back of the box.

“A win for Boratania. Lady Swanbrook kindly lent me her son as my champion.”

“A pleasure, my dear princess.” The Queen of the May was still beaming. “I’m so proud of my boy.”

Malcomb waved a royal hand. “Mark me, Your Highness, I would have joined in the tilting contest myself,” he declared for all to hear, “but that would have taken me from your side here in the pavilion, and I could not have abided that.”

“I appreciate your thoughtfulness, Prince Malcomb,” Caro said as the slithery man bent over and gave her a loud, drunken, smooch on the back of her hand—which nearly brought Drew to his feet. “But I really couldn’t have asked for a better champion than Lord Broadsword of Swanbrook.”

“Perhaps next time, Your Highness.” The oaf looked up from her hand and wriggled his kohl-darkened brows at her. “At our marriage celebration, eh?”

Drew readied his fists for the prince’s jaw, but kept them to himself as Caro pulled her hand expertly out of the man’s grip and stood up.

“Now, Malcomb, that would be leaping a bit ahead of ourselves, wouldn’t it?” She looked up at Drew over the top of the prince’s feathered hat and nodded almost imperceptibly toward the stairs.

Well. Could Her Highness, the self-reliant princess, actually be asking for his aid?

“Your pardon, Princess Caroline,” Drew said, keeping his smile to himself as he wedged his body
squarely between Caro and the prince. “But haven’t you promised to meet Lord Peverel about Boratania’s new library?”

She put her fingers to her lips in surprise. “Dear me, is it that late, Lord Wexford? Then if you’ll please excuse me, Lady Swanbrook, Prince Malcomb…”

Caro couldn’t stand another moment of Malcomb’s boorish blathering. She sped down the stairs into the main aisle, with Drew thankfully on her heels and at least three of his men filling in around and ahead of her. Mrs. Tweeg hadn’t yet returned from the food vendors, but would doubtless deal with Malcomb’s vulgarities with her usual efficiency.

The poor man, if he tried.

“Great heavens, Wexford, have you command of an entire army?” She slowed when he placed his broad hand on the small of her back, collecting its astonishing warmth, the simple pressure making her feel far more protected than the sight of his wall of sharpshooters ever could.

“
Better
than an army, Princess,” he whispered close to her ear as their progress slowed in the crowd, “my own specially trained force. But they’re only as capable as their ability to keep you and your enemies in their sights.”

Caro heard most of his words, something about his army and her enemies, but he had such an overwhelming presence that all she could really think about was how fine he looked in green brocade, and how broad his shoulders were.

And how natural it seemed that he would be her unwavering protector.

That he was so willing to give his life for her. She
remembered that only too well, and it had begun to worry her, because his chest was such a broad, warm target.

And she’d felt the strong beating of his pulse in his hand.

“I do try to behave myself, my lord.”

“Then where are you off to now, Princess? The appointment with Peverel was just a ruse to extricate you from the prince’s clutches.”

“For which I shall be forever grateful to you, my lord Wexford.” She stopped and turned to him, not wishing to shout. “But I’m off to the ladies’ comfort pavilion. You see, I really
did
need to take a break. An…um…a private break, if you please, and I haven’t time to wait for Mrs. Tweeg.”

He caught her arm before she could hurry away. “If you should need help, just shout for it. I’ll be waiting just outside the door when you’re…um, well, finished.”

“Yes, yes.” Feeling as closely watched over as a three-minute egg, Caro wound her way through the crowd toward the ladies’ comfort pavilion surrounded by Wexford and his agents.

She smiled at the two chambermaids as they pulled aside the canvas drape and then she slipped through the doorway into the warren of masking curtains, needing all the privacy she could find.

The pavilion hadn’t any roof, was open to the bright blue sky, and had been built in the midst of the garden with the huge swan fountain at its center. There were umbrellas and chairs, settees to rest upon, maids to touch up one’s hair, cups of wine and cool water.

She found a cubicle, finished quickly and was just
accepting a hand towel from a maid when she heard her name called and a familiar giggle.

“Don’t you look just magnificent, Princess Caroline!” Lucie crooned and took Caro’s hand, giving her gown a quick scan. “You’re the absolute sensation of the tournament, isn’t she, Sylvia?”

“You are that, Princess!” Sylvia grinned and grabbed Caro’s other hand. “You’ve stolen the eye of every man, on the field and off.”

Lucie giggled again. “Especially that big, handsome Earl of Wexford, who’s never more than two strides behind you. The same one from the ball!”

Oh, dear. If Lucie noticed, then surely others might have…and wouldn’t that be quite the scandal! But better a scandal than the truth about Drew’s real purpose. And a perfect bit of cover for them.

Caro rolled her eyes in a great drama. “He’s really been a pest, ladies. He’s advising me on my waterway treaties and border surveys, and oh, what a bore he is on the subject!”

Sylvia clucked her tongue and winked. “But you certainly can’t fault the view, Princess.”

“No you can’t, Sylvia.”
But oh, my, if you only knew the view I had of the luscious man this morning.

It was still with her, bronze and shimmering.

Her face began to flame with the memory, her fingers tingling at the thought of touching him.

“Well, yes, ladies, I must be going”—she gave each a hug and a kiss on the cheek—“else the man will surely launch into another of his endless theories on canal traffic versus railways.”

Their good-byes took a few minutes, and then the pair went flying off toward the comfort cubicles themselves.

Caroline turned to leave, but in the labyrinth of canvas she suddenly found she had no idea which opening she’d arrived through.

But she wasn’t about to shout for Wexford to come rescue her. She was a grown woman and could find her way out on her own, thank you very much.

Besides which, what an everlasting scandal to have Wexford come racing through the ladies’ pavilion like a desert sheik come to add women to his harem.

Simply impossible to imagine.

So she went west. Always a lucky direction for her.

And great heavens, it couldn’t possibly have been more lucky.

The St. Timmin’s Cloister bell! As well as its great brass yoke. Stolen from the abbey in Boratania within a week of her father’s death. Here it was, in the far corner of the garden, standing as an ornament in a patch of Swanbrook’s yellow pansies.

She ran to it, took out a pencil from her belt purse, unfolded her ever-ready sheet of vellum and began to draw the details, noting its measurements, its hallmarks, taking a rubbing of the delicate filagree on the yoke.