Princess Charming

by Pattillo, Beth

  The branches of a sturdy oak served as the foundation for the new tree house. Nick circled the tree, nodding and speaking softly to the tallest boy, while the others stood back and anxiously awaited his verdict.

  “Well done,” he finally pronounced, and there was a collective sigh of relief and smiles all around. “Very fine, indeed.” Of course, then nothing would do but that Nick should climb the homemade ladder and admire the structure from within. Lucy held her breath as he mounted the wooden steps, mere bits of plank nailed into the tree trunk. A few moments later, he emerged on the small balcony that overlooked the river. He waved down at her, his face awash with pleasure, his manner enthusiastic, and Lucy could only wonder what had happened to the cynical, jaded nobleman he claimed to be. For here was a man who took as great a pleasure in the company of small, illiterate boys as he would in the society of England’s most elite aristocracy.

  There was that pain in her chest again, Lucy thought almost offhandedly. She had felt it before, in her midsection, on the occasions when she had been in Nick’s company. That alarming but not unpleasant feeling had been born at their first meeting, when he had been laid out, unconscious, on the gravel path of Lady Belmont’s garden. She had felt it, too, that night in the maze at Carlton House, when she had first seen Nick in evening clothes instead of his rough gardener’s smock. Oh, she had felt this pain before in Nick’s vicinity more times than she cared to count—at Madame St. Cloud’s, in her stepmother’s kitchen, amid the press of the crowd in Spitalfields. Indeed, she felt it every time she was anywhere near him.

  And it was at that moment, as Lucy gazed up at a prince acting like an overgrown, overexcited boy, that she realized she was in love with him—the one man in all of England who was most ill-suited to her dreams and purposes. An ache sprung up in her head and her heart simultaneously. Stupidly, amazingly, against judgment and common sense and reason, she loved him. And so she could never marry him, for she could imagine no worse fate than a lifetime spent with a man who did not want her, but simply a woman to conform to his ideas of a wife. Truly, she had no choice but to win the wager, or lose her heart forever.

  NICK SO ENJOYED the company of the boys that he was tempted to linger at Mr. Cartwright’s school. He also wanted to postpone his explanation to Lucy. Once again he had deceived her, but this had been a harmless deception, one perpetrated solely so that he might enjoy the upper hand with her for a few brief moments. She had been a good sport not to expose his fraud in front of the headmaster and the boys. Instead, she had glared daggers at him and smiled in a way that promised decidedly feminine retribution.

  Oddly enough, Nick was looking forward to it, for retribution meant she would have to get him alone to scold him properly. And if they were alone, the odds were good that he could maneuver her into his arms again. She had not seemed to object the last time he had held her in his embrace.

  Their good-byes said, they left the boys behind to mourn the loss of their idol and Mr. Cartwright to contemplate what to do with the small bag of guineas Nick had pressed on him. Nick’s recent fortune at the faro tables should have been applied to a new pair of boots, but when Mr. Cartwright mentioned the need for cots for the seamstresses, the guineas grew too heavy for his purse. If he could report some headway with Lucy to his father, perhaps the king would relent enough to stand for new hessians.

  To Nick’s surprise, the short drive to Kew proved quite pleasant. It was a beautiful June afternoon, the kind of day that made the copious amounts of English rain well worth the bother. When Nick had first arrived in his mother’s native land at age twelve, he had missed the mountains and pine forests of Santadorra quite keenly. The green beauty of England, though, had won another corner of his heart, and there was no place he loved as he did the royal gardens at Kew.

  The carriage left them at the main gate. They passed beyond its pillars, and Lucy strolled at his side down the Broad Walk, evidently as willing as he to observe the natural beauty of the place in silence and to endure the uneasy truce that had fallen between them. A footman carrying the heavy picnic basket followed at a discreet distance, and Wellington wheezed alongside them, his asthmatic lungs preventing him from venturing too far off the path.

  Nick’s heart soaked up the pleasure of a day in Lucy’s company as readily as his bones soaked up the sunshine. The gardens at Kew had been planted two generations before by Augusta, the Princess of Wales, mother of the poor, mad king. Plants of every kind, from every corner of the world, found their place at Kew under the watchful eyes of numerous gardeners. It was a place of science, but Nick found it more a place of beauty. And as an adult, he had grown aware of its ideal setting as a place for the wooing of females.

  “The day is very fine,” he said casually, testing Lucy to gauge her temperament. She had not railed at him once they had left the school and gained the privacy of the carriage. He had anticipated a scolding that would leave his ears singed, but instead she had seemed distracted and disinclined toward conversation. Nick found himself strangely disappointed, for a row with Lucy was more engaging than flirtation with London’s finest beauties.

  “The day?” She looked up at him blankly before comprehension dawned in her impossibly blue eyes. “Oh yes. Lovely. The kind of day that inspires poets, I suppose.”

  He had offered her his arm at the gate, but she had declined, and now he found he could not walk as near to her as he wished. The Broad Walk seemed very broad indeed.

  “I am waiting for my scolding.” His words were meant to provoke her. He anticipated the explosion and was disappointed when it did not come. For some inexplicable reason, she had softened toward him. Nick could see the change in her as she looked anywhere but at him in a fruitless attempt to maintain her distance.

  Just when he had given up hope of engaging her in conversation, she spoke. “Why do you not return to Santadorra? Surely you must miss it. When you described it to Mr. Cartwright’s boys, it sounded like heaven on earth.”

  Her question caught him off guard, as she had no doubt intended. He swallowed and gave careful thought to his reply—and whether he should make one at all.

  “I prefer England, particularly London. Santadorra is the back of beyond, nothing in comparison with this country.”

  “And yet you described it for Mr. Cartwright’s boys with great enthusiasm. Surely you miss it.”

  Nick was accustomed to prevarication about his past, and so he ignored the way his heart beat a sudden, nervous tattoo. “I miss a great many things from my childhood. Excessive amounts of cake. Rolling in the mud. But those things belong to another part of my life, as does Santadorra.” Perhaps that would put her off the scent. Nick wished she would turn the conversation to casual remarks about the Orangery they had passed, or the pond in the distance.

  “It’s hard to envision the Crown Prince of Santadorra rolling in the mud.” Her smile was warm, forgiving, when he really would have preferred her to be contrary. He was accustomed to placating Lucy Charming, not allowing her to relax him with her conversation.

  “Yes, well, it was known to happen, my rolling in the mud. Especially when my sister . . .” He stopped, the sudden tightness in his throat shutting off his words. He rarely spoke of Josephine—Jo, they had called her—always as ready for a bit of roughhousing or sport as he had been. Her hoydenish ways had distressed their mother to no end.

  “Yes?” Lucy stopped and waited for him to finish, but Nick knew he could not. All this talk of Santadorra, his father’s arrival in England and the prospect of a royal wedding made those long-ago events come alive once more. His sister would have approved of Lucy, he thought suddenly, while his mother would have immediately set forth a scheme to turn her into a proper young lady. God, he missed them still, and in many ways the pain was as fresh as it had been the day he first set foot on English soil. Nick had no choice but to turn the conversation if he were to keep his composure.

  “Look how the pagoda looms over us from this distance,” he said, pointing to
the oriental structure. “Shall we consider it more closely? We can picnic in its shadow, if we have the stomach for it.”

  “I’m quite fond of the hideous thing, actually,” Lucy replied. “It appears as out of place as I often feel.” She stopped, and Nick realized he’d been given an insight into the puzzle that was Lucy Charming.

  Nick was so occupied considering this interesting piece of information that they walked the rest of the distance to the pagoda in silence. He led her to a shady spot beneath the wide branches of an ancient elm. With no breeze to cool the air, the day had grown stuffy. “Perhaps we should have settled by the pond,” Nick said as the footman approached. “It’s awfully still and warm.”

  “This day’s charms lie in its imperfections,” Lucy replied with a teasing smile. “I often find that to be the case with time spent in your company.”

  The impish light in her eyes made Nick’s breath catch in his throat. He coughed and turned away. The servant laid out the picnic cloth and unpacked the basket. Lucy had taken a few steps away, closer to the pagoda. Wellington followed her, looking miserable. Nick had no affection for the annoying little canine, but he did have the common decency to feel sorry for the fat, panting pug.

  “I like it here,” Lucy said over her shoulder. “It has an air of the exotic not often found in England.”

  Nick moved toward her, and Wellington growled. Nick’s level of sympathy dropped. “And are you a connoisseur of the exotic, madame? I would hardly have expected it of a reformer,” he teased to lighten his own thoughts. “Are you not all seriousness and passion for your cause? I would never have expected an affection for chinoiserie.”

  Lucy laughed at his sally, and Nick felt gratified. Perhaps his dwelling on the past would not ruin the day after all.

  She turned back to him. “After we eat, I shall give you the scold you deserve. It was quite wrong of you, you know, to deceive me about your relationship with Mr. Cartwright and the school.”

  Nick did have the good grace to dip his chin slightly. “It was only a small deception, and besides, I enjoy your passionate diatribes on reform, even if I do not agree with them. Every woman should have some cause or person who can evoke that much feeling.”

  “As should every man,” Lucy replied, arching her eyebrow.

  “Touché.”

  The footman had withdrawn to a discreet distance, and Nick held out his hand. “Our feast awaits, Lady Lucinda.” She placed her fingers in his—an action that awakened both tenderness and possessiveness within him—and he led her back to the picnic cloth. Wellington trailed behind, already drooling.

  Nick’s valet had outdone himself, preparing a feast far too generous for two diners. Cold beef, potted quail, and an assortment of cheeses were flanked by bread and muffins. A selection of apples and two oranges lay in a bowl, and beside them rested a small platter of cakes. Two bottles of ale, as well as two of lemonade, completed the repast.

  They sat down at the edges of the cloth a few feet apart. “It seems your valet mistook your directions, Your Highness,” Lucy said, and Nick eyed her warily, for the curving lines around her mouth spoke of mischief. “Apparently he was under the impression that the whole of Mr. Cartwright’s school was to join us.”

  Nick smothered a laugh and replied, with mock seriousness, “I thought it best to be prepared, in case you turned out to be one of those females with an endless appetite. Besides, Wellington could demolish this within minutes if we were to leave him unattended.”

  Lucy gasped in laughing indignation, on her own behalf as well as Wellington’s, picked up a napkin, and swatted at Nick. Wellington barked his encouragement of her attack. Nick retreated, chuckling, and reached for the bottles of ale. Lucy looked as if she were considering swatting him again before her hunger got the better of her, and she helped herself to bread and cheese, pausing between bites to slip Wellington a few morsels of cold beef.

  Though it was not yet high summer, the droning of the bees had lulled the garden to sleep. Nick wondered if Eden had been as peaceful, and if Adam had enjoyed Eve’s companionship as much as he enjoyed Lucy’s. One could say what one liked about her want of propriety, but Lucy Charming was never dull. He had impressed her with his patronage of the school, he was sure. And when she forgot to hold him at arm’s length, there was a warmth of feeling between them that bespoke not only physical awareness but similarity of mind. For all that they were worlds apart on the issue of reform, they were not so different at heart.

  This was life at its finest, this leisurely picnic beneath the towering pagoda. The thought caused him to stop chewing the bite of muffin. Suddenly his mouth felt exceedingly dry. He reached for his bottle of ale and downed half its contents in one long swallow. Lucy looked at him curiously, her eyebrows raised.

  “You appear excessively thirsty, Your Highness.” She leaned forward, prepared to tease him, but something she saw in his eyes must have changed her mind, for in the next moment she became quite sober. “Are you unwell, Nick? You look rather pale.”

  Pale? Yes, well, he felt rather weak. Quite right that he should. After all, it was not every day that a man realized . . . That is, it was a rare moment, indeed, when . . .

  The warm sensation that flooded over him was unfamiliar, little known in his life, and so it took a moment for him to understand its meaning. It was a sense of rightness. Of belonging. He had not felt it in so long.

  By Jove, it was love.

  By Jove and all that was holy, it was indeed love.

  Wellington barked, demanding more cold beef, and Lucy turned to feed him while Nick tried to refrain from panicking.

  THE RETURN from Kew to Mayfair had never seemed so interminable. Lucy spent the entire ride trying to prevent Wellington from gnawing on the velvet squabs, and Nick could only be grateful for the distraction. At least the mangy pug diverted her attention and kept her from reading the guilty secret that must be plastered on his forehead. In love with Lucy Charming. Of course, it all made perfect sense now. It was inevitable, really, now that he looked back upon the days he had known her. How could one not love a beautiful, independent woman who introduced herself by knocking a man unconscious? It was his own fault for being on the other side of that door at the wrong moment.

  Nick squirmed. He’d persuaded himself that it was only the situation, not Lucy herself, that had fanned the flames of his protective instincts. He had misled himself, refusing to consider what motivation truly lay behind his actions. Now he could no longer deny the truth. For though he was a compulsive hero, he was not generally a fool. And, in his experience, there was only one thing that made men act so incredibly foolish. And that one thing was love. The kind of love that would make a man act against his better judgment, even against his own instinct for self-preservation. Only a definite case of love would make a man conceal his identity, rescue a woman who wanted no part of him, allow him to secretly rejoice that he must make an offer of marriage, and cause him to offer the object of his affection the most absurd wager—one he was not sure he could honor if he lost.

  His realizations were like burning coals held to the bottom of his feet. He wanted to bolt, to some remote corner of the earth, but by sheer dint of will, Nick managed to maintain his composure.

  At long last, the carriage pulled to a stop in front of the Duchess of Nottingham’s home. Nick did not wait for the footman; he flung open the door and sprang to the ground. Impatient to be away, he did not even lower the steps, which was a mistake. Instead, he urged Lucy into his arms and swung her down from the carriage.

  That brief contact, her slim form so close to his agitated one, did nothing to ease his mind. When her feet touched the pavement, she looked up to utter her thanks, and it was all Nick could do not to settle his lips upon hers for a kiss she would not soon forget. The only thing that held him back was the panic that churned in his midsection.

  Lucy was speaking to him, but he could scarcely listen. The drumming of his own heart filled his ears. He tried to urge her u
p the steps so he could be rid of her, but she balked.

  “Will you come or not?” she asked insistently. Nick, completely unaware of what she was requesting, nodded in agreement, willing to grant her anything in exchange for his escape.

  “Yes, yes. Whatever it is, I’ll come.”

  Lucy’s eyes lit with surprise, and Nick wondered what he’d just agreed to do.

  “Then we may meet Thursday morning at the Blue Barrel,” she answered, obviously delighted at his acquiescence. “We can travel with the others, if you do not mind a bit of a rough ride.”

  “Rough ride?” Nick echoed tonelessly. “Where is it again that we’re going?”

  “To Nottingham, for the largest reform meeting in the history of England. Spitalfields is nothing to what Nottingham will be,” Lucy answered with a smile whose very eagerness threatened Nick’s self-composure. In a moment he’d probably be falling to his knees to declare his undying love for her, right on the pavement of South Audley Street.

  “Reform meeting? Yes, of course.” He backed away. “Blue Barrel, Thursday morning.” Turning, he had almost gained the safety of his father’s carriage when she called after him.

  “Of course, I shall wear my breeches, since I will be traveling as a boy.”

  Nick refused to be provoked, if anything could provoke him more than the realization of his love for Lucy. He vaulted into the carriage. Thursday would be soon enough to worry about Lucy and her breeches. Today he had to come to terms with his blasted feelings for the woman.

  The carriage jolted forward, and Nick sank helplessly into the squabs.