Princess Charming

by Pattillo, Beth

  Such thoughts, though, did nothing to help her in her present situation, so Lucy banished them as she stood concealed in the dark shadows of Mayfair. Besides, eluding her pursuers had bolstered Lucy’s confidence for the moment. She was not quite ready to accept her fate so meekly. Surely when it came to her ruined reputation, she had another choice besides marriage, one that did not involve Nicholas St. Germain. And one that certainly did not involve becoming a crown princess.

  Lucy reemerged onto the street and turned toward home. She was almost to Piccadilly when a dark shape materialized out of the shadows. A flash of steel glinted in the moonlight, and Lucy’s heart leaped to her throat. Even the West End of London was not safe from footpads. Lucy hesitated, unsure whether to retreat or to try and outrun the man.

  “Give me the jewels,” he hissed, gesturing toward the rope of brilliants in her hair. Lucy felt a brief pang of regret that she’d eluded Nick and his men so easily. For once, she wouldn’t have minded him being around to rescue her. Lucy fingered the brilliants in her hair. To be sure, they were only paste, but she’d had so much stolen from her already this night.

  “I will give you nothing. Let me pass.” Her bravado was convincing, even to her own ears. The man hesitated.

  With her rational mind, Lucy knew that she should just snatch the cheap bauble from her hair, fling it at the man, and run for her life, but she had lost so much. Her shoes, her fan, her future. She was not ready to part with anything else.

  Gathering her skirts in both hands, she feinted and then darted past the man. For a moment, he looked confused, as if no one had ever before denied the power of six inches of polished steel, especially a gentry mort with no cloak or shoes. Lucy moved quickly, and just as she was poised to break into a run once more, he grabbed her wrist. His fingers were as cold as the steely knife. “Give me the sparklers,” he demanded and yanked her toward him.

  Something within Lucy snapped. She was mortally tired of people grabbing her. She was tired of clawing hands and wrist irons and handsome princes who yanked her to and fro. She was tired of men with knives and scythes and pikes. Most of all, she was thoroughly tired of being at the mercy of others because she was a woman.

  Lucy was not wholly unschooled in the art of defending herself. With one quick motion, she stepped forward and lifted her knee, driving it into her assailant’s groin. He shrieked and dropped to the ground as if he’d been struck by lightning. The knife clattered against the pavement, and Lucy kicked it away, sending it skittering into the shadows on the opposite side of the street.

  “Women are not always the easy prey you think,” she said to the prostrate form of the footpad, resisting the urge to kick him again. “Good evening, sir.”

  Lucy was smart enough to flee while she could. She dashed toward Piccadilly and then, hovering in the shadows until the street was momentarily empty, she ran across the thoroughfare and toward her stepmother’s home. Once across, she paused to look back, and to her surprise, she saw Nick and the troop of Santadorran guards standing stock still, watching her in disbelief.

  Lucy hesitated, and Nick lifted his hand in a salute. So, he had seen her altercation with the footpad after all but had been too far away to intervene. Surely her actions would prove that she didn’t need his help.

  She couldn’t make out his expression in the darkness, only the outline of his form. He made no move to come toward her, and so they stood, immobile, watching each other across the width of the Circus. Lucy knew that while he’d been tempting as a gardener, he was even more so as a prince. For he had announced his intention to marry her, and she could have him, if she wanted. If she were willing to give up what was most dear to her. She could have a hero, to protect her from the villains in her life. She could depend upon him, and the cost would be the merest trifle in his eyes, only everything that made her who she was.

  It was too great a price to pay, even to assuage the ache of loneliness in her breast. Without returning Nick’s salute, Lucy turned and started for home. For the rest of the way, she could hear the faint sound of horses’ hooves behind her as Nick and his men followed at a discreet distance.

  Chapter Eleven

  LUCY REACHED the safety of Nottingham House without further incident. The pain of her humiliation still stung, her dreams of reform lay in ashes, and the pulse-pounding fear of her encounter with the footpad had yet to subside. More than any of those things, however, the memory of Nick’s kiss fed the restless agitation within her.

  The house was quiet at this late hour. Lucy changed into her oldest dress and descended to the kitchen carrying her bedraggled ball gown. Cook must have come around long enough to bank the fire. After lighting a lantern, Lucy draped the mud-stained garment over the scarred trestle table and set about rebuilding the fire and heating water. If she attended to the dress right away, she might remove the worst stains. Her magical evening might have ended in disaster, but that was no reason to neglect the beautiful work of an exploited seamstress.

  Her solitude, however, proved all too brief. Scarcely a quarter hour later, she heard the clatter of a carriage and footsteps on the floor above. She sighed and put away her rags, dumping the bowl of water she’d been using into a waiting bucket. She was folding the damp dress when the door at the top of the stairs flew open, and her stepmother entered. Lucy cringed as the heavy oak banged against the wall. She tensed for the onslaught of the duchess’s wrath.

  “There you are, you darling girl!” The duchess stumbled over her skirts in her haste and grasped the stair railing just in time to prevent a tumble. “Whatever do you mean, skulking down here in the kitchen?” she asked, as bright as a counterfeit guinea. “If there is work to be done, Lady Lucy, you must ring for one of the servants, never mind the lateness of the hour.”

  Her stepmother’s smile was more ferocious than her frown. Lucy eyed her with caution. “I supposed I was one of the servants.”

  The duchess laughed, a cackling sound that would have been at home in a hen yard. “Don’t be silly, dearest. I have indulged your desire for domesticity, but no one has ever mistaken you for a maidservant.”

  Lucy thought of the endless hours she had spent brushing out her stepsisters’ hair or polishing the gleaming woodwork in the drawing room. “You have shown great forbearance, I am sure, madame, to indulge my lower nature.”

  The duchess looked puzzled, as if unsure whether Lucy was jesting. “Yes, well, you have always been like that, you know. Even from the first. Always vanishing into kitchens and stables at the most inopportune moments.”

  Lucy wanted to laugh at the irony. From the day the duchess had entered her father’s house, Lucy had known her stepmother’s malicious nature and had fled her presence whenever possible.

  “But that is neither here nor there,” continued the duchess. “The past is gone, I daresay, and we must move forward. And what a brilliant future it will be for you, too, my dear. The Crown Princess of Santadorra! I daresay the jewels alone will make you a wealthy woman.”

  Lucy stiffened. “There won’t be any jewels.”

  Her stepmother laughed. “Of course, there will be jewels, my dear. There always are when princes are involved. They seem to have piles of them stashed away in those drafty castles. I daresay Prince Nicholas will be sending some over as soon as it is light enough.”

  Lucy shuddered at the thought. Other women might envision breathtaking strands of diamonds and pearls, but to Lucy they would be little different from the wrist irons Nick had used the first night they met. “Madame, you seem to be under the mistaken impression that I am planning to marry. I assure you I have no such intention.”

  For a moment, all was still. The duchess paled. Her tight lips thinned even further while her beady eyes narrowed until they were two small jet buttons.

  “Of course, you will marry him!” Her screech echoed against the cold flagstone floor and rebounded off the crumbling plaster on the walls. “He is a prince, for heaven’s sake.”

  Lucy had thoug
ht her stepmother would be disgusted by the scandal, perhaps send her away to live in disgrace. It had never occurred to her that the duchess would be in favor of the match.

  “There is no need for us to marry. It was only a kiss, nothing more.” Her stomach tightened at the flagrant lie.

  “Only a kiss?” The older woman’s hand clutched the banister behind her for support. “In front of the Regent himself and the King of Santadorra? Not to mention ‘Silence’ Jersey? You might as well have been frolicking in the fountain in your shift.”

  As she’d worked on her dress, Lucy had convinced herself that the scandal would blow over, a seven-day wonder no one would recall past midsummer. The reformers would not ostracize her because of a bit of gossip in the beau monde. But her stepmother’s words brought her fears rushing back. She had not bargained on the duchess actually desiring her to accept Nick’s suit. “I care nothing for propriety or my reputation,” Lucy said to forestall her stepmother’s schemes. “You have already convinced the ton that my attics are to let. Given the gossip about my father, it will not be difficult to attribute my behavior to instability of mind.”

  “Why on earth would I do that?” The duchess’s eyes held the gleam of a starving woman at a feast. “This is what I have waited for. Your ridiculous behavior will trap you a prince, and nothing could be better for Bertha and Esmie. Why, they will move in the very highest circles. I believe that a duke is not beyond reach for either of them, now that we are related to royal blood.”

  She had seen that greedy look in her stepmother’s eyes before, and Lucy knew that once the duchess determined a course of action, there was little that could dissuade her. “I have declined Prince Nicholas’s offer, and the matter is at an end,” she insisted.

  Her stepmother moved toward her. Venom, pure and green, shone in the duchess’s eyes. “I think not. By the end of the season, you will be married. In fact,” she paused and smiled coldly, “I will even grant you a choice of husbands. You may accept the Crown Prince’s proposal. Or you will marry Mr. Whippet.”

  Lucy knew better than to show fear. She leaned forward and laid a hand on the scarred wood of the trestle table. “I will do neither of those things. We live in a more enlightened age. No one can force me to wed.”

  Her stepmother smiled slyly. “I understand Mr. Whippet has already informed you he has my permission to pay his addresses. I wondered if you might be difficult about him, but I never dreamed that you would catch Prince Nicholas. How fortunate that I took precautions on the way home and sent one of the grooms to Whitehall.”

  “Whitehall?” The name unsettled her, as the duchess had intended it to. “Surely the government could have little interest in this scandal?”

  “They will not be interested in the scandal, but they will be delighted to learn that I have uncovered a plot to conceal radical reformers in my home.”

  Lucy’s eyes flew to the door at the far end of the kitchen.

  “I had no way of knowing when the information might be helpful, but it appears that time has come.”

  With those few words, Lucy felt herself trapped as neatly as a hare in a gamekeeper’s noose, for even though the Selkirks had departed, they would not be difficult for Sidmouth’s men to find. She could never allow Mr. Selkirk and Tom to be arrested, for guilty or not of any crime, most reformers either met with the gallows or found themselves transported. The duchess held the winning hand, and Lucy’s fate was the prize.

  Or was it? A sudden memory of Mr. Whippet barking like a dog filled her thoughts. The idea forming in her mind was risky, but perhaps it might work. “If I agree to marry, then you will let my friends alone?”

  Lucy hated the look of satisfaction that spread across her stepmother’s countenance. Fortunately, the duchess would not be smug for long.

  “Of course.” Her stepmother raised one hand to adjust her turban. “Though the government will trap all of the radicals eventually, I suppose. It is only a matter of time.”

  “But their freedom from harassment requires only my agreement to marriage?” Lucy wanted the terms of their bargain to be quite clear.

  “Yes. Haven’t I just said so?”

  Lucy laughed. Her stepmother thought her neatly trapped, but the duchess had unwittingly left a loophole, an oversight that Lucy planned to use to her full advantage. “Then I consent. And thank you, madame.” Impulsively, she leaned over and kissed the duchess’s cheek.

  The duchess jumped back in surprise and rubbed her face in annoyance, smearing the liberal application of rouge. “Whatever was that for?”

  “Why, for helping me to make a sensible decision,” Lucy replied. “Good night, madame.”

  Lucy bounced up the stairs, her earlier despair forgotten. She need not depend on Nick, or on anyone else, for that matter, for she herself could save the day. All was not yet lost.

  THE NEXT MORNING, Nick stood before the Duchess of Nottingham’s town house, a bouquet of early summer roses in hand. His father and Crispin stood behind him like seconds at a duel. While it was early yet to pay a call in the fashionable part of town, the deed must be done, and Nick wanted it behind him as soon as possible. Despite Lucy’s protests and her abrupt disappearance the night before, she was not likely to refuse his suit. By now she would have had the opportunity to come to her senses, and he could not endure another episode like the one the night before. He’d been a hundred feet away when the footpad had pulled the knife on Lucy, and that old feeling of helpless panic had ripped at Nick’s gut. No, he was going to secure his ties to Lucy and then keep her under lock and key for the rest of her life. He was determined to find himself betrothed before luncheon, and one step closer to a return to Santadorra. The thought sent another swell of emotion through him. His attempts at heroism had led him full circle, it seemed, straight back to the past he’d been running from all these years.

  “There’s naught to be gained standing here on the street,” his father said and nudged him forward. Nick’s feet seemed to have a will of their own, carrying him up the steps and into the waiting arms of fate. Crispin wisely said nothing, merely rubbed his jaw at regular intervals.

  The butler escorted them to the formal drawing room. Again, Nick hesitated at the threshold, but his father, using his silver-tipped walking stick as a prod, prompted him forward. The butler, who looked as dry and withered as an autumn leaf, bowed to all three of them. “Your Highnesses, your lordship. I will inform the duchess of your presence.”

  Nick’s father raised a hand. “It is not the duchess we desire to see, my man. We have come to speak with Lady Lucinda.”

  The butler’s eyebrows lifted a fraction of an inch, a flagrant display of emotion for the stolid servant. “Very well, Your Highness. She is entertaining a visitor in the morning room and will attend you shortly.” The butler disappeared, leaving the door ajar.

  Nick wondered who else might be calling on Lucy at such an early hour. Probably one of her fellow radicals. He glanced longingly at the brandy decanter on the sideboard but decided against it. It was best to have all his wits about him when dealing with Lucy Charming.

  “I have never heard of a proposal by committee,” he said, pacing around the room. “I daresay I could be trusted to do this properly on my own.” He cast a withering look at his father and Crispin. The king was studying the paintings along one wall, and Crispin had gone to prop himself against the fireplace, one hand on the mantel and one boot propped on the grate in a classic pose.

  Crispin ignored his gibe. “I wonder who Lucy is receiving at such an early hour.”

  The king frowned. “Not much burdened by propriety, is she? That will change, of course, when she is your wife, Nicholas. You will see to it.”

  Nick thought the chances of making Lucy conform to propriety seemed remote indeed. He would rather try his hand at something simpler, like handling venomous snakes. “I have no doubt that Lucy and I shall suit each other, sir.” Especially after he had molded her impulses to his liking. “As for suiting the r
est of the world, that is another matter altogether.”

  The conversation was interrupted by the sound of a man’s voice in the hall. Curious, Nick stepped toward the doorway in time to see the butler handing Mr. Whippet his cloak, gloves, and cane.

  “Who is it?” Crispin asked, but before Nick could answer, he was forced to step back from the doorway, and Lucy entered, trailed by that canine menace, Wellington. She lifted her chin and ignored Nick, going straight to his father. The little pug ignored Nick as well.

  “Good morning, Your Majesty.” She turned and nodded at Crispin. “Lord Wellstone. Thank you, sir, for sending my old friend to keep me company.” She reached down and scratched Wellington behind his ears. Her greetings stopped there as she pointedly refused to acknowledge Nick’s presence in the room. “Would either of you gentlemen care for some refreshments?”

  Nick stepped up behind her, and Wellington growled at him. “Hello, Lucy.”

  She tried to conceal the shiver that ran down her spine. If she’d been facing him, he might never have seen it. The involuntary reaction lit a warmth in his midsection and gave him hope. Any emotion, even hate, was better than indifference, especially in a wife.

  Lucy slowly turned. “Oh, it is you, Prince Nicholas.” She looked at him as if he were a particularly sticky glob of mud that had adhered to her half boots. “Forgive me. I did not notice you.”

  Nick breathed a sigh of relief. If she were totally set against him, or if he had proved himself beyond redemption in her eyes, she would not be treating him to such a spectacular show of indifference. Apparently he still had hope of winning Lucy’s agreement to the marriage. Like most women, she was signaling her willingness to be coaxed out of her megrims.