Linda Needham (6 page)

C
aro had never been so glad to see the moonlit granite gates of Grandauer Hall. A full half hour of Wexford’s unending staring at her from the shadows across the bench seat of his impregnable carriage had nearly jangled her nerves to tatters.

Not to mention his bay-spiced scent, his power, his occasional query into her past, her future, rumbling out of the dimness, all at such close quarters.

“Here we are!” she said, perching herself on the edge of the bench and holding onto the door grip, hoping to leap out of the carriage as soon as it stopped in the portecochere.

Maybe a few hours of sleep would wash the confounding dread from her veins and clear her head of the terrible images and thoughts that Wexford had lodged there.

Especially the very troubling idea that the arrogant man seemed perfectly willing to put himself between her and an assassin.

Which made her entirely responsible for him, when she’d never really been responsible for anyone but herself in her entire life.

As the carriage drew up to the very dear and ordinary sight of her home, she felt his large, hot hand slipping around her elbow.

“You’ll wait here inside the carriage, Princess, until I say it’s safe to leave.”

Then Wexford stepped easily through the small door, his weight against the outside step jolting her forward and then backward into the seat.

“Is this truly necessary, Wexford?” Caro righted herself and reached for the open door just in time for the man to slam it in her face.

“I said stay inside, Princess.” He was standing just beyond the little window, leaning the brunt of his weight against the door while he talked briskly to two brawny men she’d never seen before.

She didn’t mind him lending her a bit of support, or looking out for her, but keeping her prisoner in his carriage in front of her own house was just plain absurd!

“Open this door, Wexford!” She pounded on the jamb, then gave another shove with the flat of both hands, just as Wexford dismissed the two men and released the door.

Caro flew headfirst out of the carriage, her arms outstretched. She would have landed flat on the gravel drive in an ungainly slide but for Wexford, who turned to easily catch her in his arms like a sack of barley.

“You’re safe now, Princess.” He dropped her hips and then stood her on her feet as though he caught
flying royalty on a daily basis, his grin as crooked as his brow.

“Of course I’m safe; this is my own home.” She righted her skirts and her cloak then pointed into the darkness. “And who were those men?”

He smiled at some secret thing. “My operatives. They were just reporting that they have secured the grounds and the house and the perimeter.”

“Oh, have they?” Caro was about to object to Wexford’s high-handed intrusion, but she was weary, and after all, the man had brought her safely to her door, had now secured her property, however overbearing his methods.

“Well, then, good night, my lord. Thank you for escorting me home in such style and safety.” She lifted her hems and started up the stairs, trying to dismiss the man who was doubtlessly staring after her.

She was just beginning to wonder why Sebring hadn’t met her carriage with his usual butler’s efficiency when the large, hammered-brass doors opened wide to a complete stranger.

He was dressed like a butler and looked like one as well, but for the burly girth of his shoulders and the thick scar running from just above his left eyebrow nearly to his jaw.

“Welcome home, Princess Caroline.”

The voice hadn’t come from the odd butler, but from the step just behind her.

“Who is this man, Wexford?”

“My operative.”

“Where’s Sebring?”

“On holiday in Brighton.” Wexford walked past her up the steps and right into her house as though he
owned it. He was waiting for her beside the incongruous man as she stomped into the foyer. “Princess Caroline Marguerite Marie Isabella of the kingdom of Boratania, this is Mister Harold Runson, your new butler.”

“I don’t need a new butler, Wexford.” Caro’s jaw ached from grinding her teeth. “I am perfectly happy with the one I have.”

“But I wasn’t.”

“I’m pleased and deeply honored to meet you, Princess Caroline. Your wish be my dearest command.” Runson bowed deeply.

“Then I wish you to leave Grandauer Hall immediately.”

He cast a rolling eye at her and then at her surly escort. “’Cept for that particular wish, I’m afraid.” He bowed again and Wexford cleared his throat.

“That will be all for the moment, Runson,” he said. “The princess and I have other business to attend to.”

“Aye, sir.” Runson tipped a finger at the earl, dipped another bow toward Caro and then disappeared into the darkness of the hall with a surprisingly nimble stride.

Caro swung on Wexford. “You put one of your spies in my house? Without asking my leave?”

He grunted and then stepped more deeply into her house. “Come.”

“No, Wexford. This whole thing is getting out of hand. I’ll ride in your carriage, but I want you and your butler out of here. Now!” Though he’d given her no choice but to follow his long strides around the corner into the main entry hall.

“And another thing, Wexford—”

She came to an abrupt halt as she entered the can
dlelit room. The man was standing between the grand twin staircases, holding court with a long line of uniformed servants—cooks and housekeepers, chambermaids and gardeners—none of whom she’d ever seen before.

“Ah, then, here she is, staff,” Wexford said as he spread his arm in her direction. “May I present Princess Caroline of Boratania. Your mistress for the duration.”

The duration?

They smiled at her as a group and offered that same bow, murmuring variations on “Pleased to meet you, Princess Caroline” and “Your wish is our command.”

Fighting back a scream of utter frustration, Caro managed a simple, “Who are they, Wexford?”

He was hiding a smile of triumph inside that stony expression, an unraised eyebrow, his fine lips drawn into a careful line.

“Your new staff, Princess.” The blighter had the gall to offer the slightest bow of his own before he turned his full attention to his wide-eyed conspirators. “It’s four thirty in the morning, people. Nearly dawn. You know what needs doing.”

Which seemed to mean silently vanishing into the shadowy reaches of her home like an invading army of fantastical creatures.

“What did you do with my household staff, Wexford, send them all to the Tower?” She’d had a full staff mere hours ago, when she left for the ball.

“To Brighton for a holiday, actually. With the compliments of the Foreign Office.”

This whole thing was beginning to smell very badly. “Palmerston again?”

“At my request, Princess. If I’m going to protect you from assassination, I need to have my own people close at hand, not a group of untrained amateurs to get in my way. Secrets, Princess. Now, if you’ll follow me, I’ll see you to your chamber.”

“I know the way to my chamber, Wexford.” Caro tried to form a coherent thought, but the man turned on his heel and started up the stairs.

“And I’ve a couple of rules to address with you,” he said with his easy stride.

“Have you now?”

Well, if the blackguard thought he could just waltz into her home and start tossing rules around, expecting her to obey just because he thought that someone was trying to kill her, he’d better think again, because he was sadly mistaken.

“I know you’d rather I leave, Princess.” He’d stopped midway up the curving staircase and was now looking down on her with that arched brow. “Believe me, I’d rather not be here either. But at the moment, we’re stuck with each other, whether we like it or not.”

“Stuck with each other how, Wexford?” If she didn’t know better, she would swear that the man had just moved himself into her house.

He had continued up the stairs without her and by the time she reached the wide landing he was halfway down the corridor, heading toward the Tudor wing.

And her bedchamber, where an unfamiliar chambermaid was waiting at attention outside the door.

“Morning, my lord,” the woman said to Wexford as she efficiently opened the door for him.

“Morning, Tweeg,” he said as he strode past her into the room.

“If you want anything, Princess Caroline…” Tweeg gave her a confidently steady gaze, one that lacked the usual chambermaid’s shrinking shyness that had always grated on Caro’s nerves.

On duty and ready to take a bullet for her too, Caro wondered.

She shook off the feeling and entered her room ready to throw him out, completely unprepared for the sight of him lighting a lamp beside her bed. His broad shoulders bent, his hands bronze and steady with the match flame.

Intensely inviting.

Looking just like he had moved in to stay.

“My rules are simple to follow and quite basic, Princess. You’ll go nowhere without me or one of my operatives at your side. Period.”

Caro blinked and cleared her head of the man’s powerful influence. “Is that why you’ve just barged into my private chamber, Lord Wexford? Do you plan to spend the night beside me in my bed?”

Oh, wonderful
, Drew thought, wrestling suddenly with a crystal-clear image of the fiery woman, smiling up at him from the bank of pillows, draped across the bed in lace and linen and moonlight.

Her scent bedeviling him as it was now.

All that lovely golden hair, teasing him, inviting him to thread his fingers through it.

Christ, this was a perilous business. He took a breath of fresher, less-dangerous air.

“I don’t think that will be necessary, Princess. As long as you follow a few simple rules.” He went to
one of the tall windows. “Such as keeping these drapes and shutters closed at all times.”

She was standing like a sentry in the middle of the room, her glare fixed on him. “But I like to sleep in the breeze and wake up to the sunlight.”

Another image to wrestle to the ground. The morning sun entering through the window, slipping across rumpled bedclothes, limbs tangled—

“I’m afraid you won’t have time to miss either if a sniper gets to you from one of your hedges out in your garden.”

“Of course, and will you be nailing my door shut and shoving my meals under the door?”

A tempting idea which would solve just about everything.

“As long as you clear your intentions with me, Princess, you can go anywhere in the house, at any time.”

“Anywhere in the house, Wexford?” She stared at him for a long moment before draping her cape across the back of a chair. “And when I need to go into London, must I file a request with you?”

“In triplicate, madam.”
Not that you’ll be going to London or anywhere else.

He could tell by the irritated tilt of the woman’s hip and her little sniff that she still didn’t comprehend the gravity of the situation.

“As you please, my lord. Now I’ll say good night.”

He didn’t believe an ounce of the woman’s sudden cooperation. But she should at least be well protected from her own opinions until the morning.

“Good night, Princess.”

And besides, he would be lodged in the next room, just in case.

He closed the woman’s door behind him, a bit surprised that she hadn’t hurled her slipper at the back of his head.

Mrs. Tweeg was still posted in the corridor outside the door, as alert as a mother badger. “Everything all right in there, sir?”

Drew grunted. “Don’t let her out of this chamber for any reason, Tweeg. No matter what kind of wild story she tries to tell you.”

Tweeg winked as she crossed her arms over her ample bosom. “The princess won’t get past me, sir. Not even if her hair’s on fire.”

Drew laughed. Tweeg wasn’t a woman to cross, as many an undisciplined prince had discovered the hard way.

He checked with a few of his operatives in the kitchen and along the perimeter of the house, and then caught himself yawning broadly as he went back upstairs and into the darkened chamber beside the princess’s.

Too exhausted to even light a lamp, Drew shrugged out of his waistcoat and was just removing the studs from his shirt when he heard a scraping against the wall that his chamber shared with the princess’s.

He listened carefully for a moment, then leaned his ear against the green, silk-covered panel and smiled.

The little minx.

As the thought settled against his brain, a mechanism clicked deep inside the wall.

Then a crack of flickering candlelight appeared behind the gilded molding, and the panel began to swing open.

Drew planted his foot in its path and the door stopped halfway open.

“Oh, blast,” came the skulking whisper.

Then a shapely, alabaster hand appeared at the edge of the panel, and then her head with its mad crop of hair let down for the night.

And then her heart-shaped face, those gleaming blue eyes and her perfect mouth opened in shock as she saw him.

Drew removed his foot from the panel and it popped open. “Can I help you, Princess?”

“Oh!” She gasped as she stumbled into the room with the candlestick, startled and growling in royal outrage. “What are you doing in here, Wexford, spying on me?”

His yawn was genuine and noisy. “I thought I’d grab a few hours of sleep.”

“In the chamber connected to mine?”

“Exactly, Princess. Now you can tell me what you’re doing sneaking through the walls? Afraid of meeting Mrs. Tweeg in the hallway?”

“This is my house, I can go where I please.” She made a point of surveying the room carefully, her satin-slippered foot poking out from beneath her nightgown and a lightweight, form shaping, linen robe.

“Then I warn you not to try to climb down the wisteria trellis outside your chamber window. You’ll find a sharpshooter at the base who’ll only carry you back up again.”

“Just what did you mean that you were going to sleep in this room? Every night?”

“Until the matter of your safety has been settled, one way or the other.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, stubborn as ever. “You mean dead or alive?”

“Please, madam, no more escape attempts.”