by Tamara Gill
Surely not. William was no monster. So, he preferred living his life on the quiet side? So had she before meeting the prince. A little over three weeks earlier, her idea of a wild night had been starting a new needlepoint project.
And now she was laughing...
...Engaging in tickle and popcorn fights.
She didn’t have to even think about what kind of husband Wolfe would make because she already knew. Living with him even this short while had proven beyond fun. Everything about Wolfe was bold, brash, larger than life and energizing. Just look at the courage he’d instilled in her to deal with Grumsworth.
“Wench, you must stop accosting me with pop-corn.” Wolfe knelt beside the cabinet beneath the sink to dump popcorn kernels into the trash.
“Me?” She flicked soap bubbles at him. “You’re the one who kept cheering for the wrong team.”
“The smart team. Notice they did not suffer the humiliation of defeat. They know tis a long walk from their camp to the tribal council crater.”
“Listen to you,” she teased. “A guy from the ninth-century chatting about moon lingo. Does it ever blow your mind?”
“What?”
“What’s happened to you? I mean, there are times I still can’t quite buy your story. But then I’d have an even tougher time figuring out why a guy like you would make something like this up just to hang out with me.”
“The pleasure of your company is not reason enough?” Wearing a potent grin, slowly rising to his full height, he used her hips for balance.
Despite Lucy’s seemingly eternal vow to stay cool around him, her pulse turned erratic. When he stood close like this, near enough for his wholly masculine scents of earth and sweat to blend with the creamy sauce they’d shared for dinner, she craved tossing her arms around him and gobbling him up for dessert.
“Wanna play a game?” he asked, nuzzling her neck.
Half-heartedly pushing him away, she dared ask, “W-what kind of game?”
“A naughty one,” he teased. “Definitely a nau—”
A knock sounded on the mudroom door, then William shouted, “Luce? It’s me! Let me in! It’s raining!”
O-M-G.
“Hide. Please, hide.” With her palms on Wolfe’s magnificent chest, she felt his muscles tighten beneath her fingers.
“Granted, only a moment earlier, it was I who suggested we play a game,” he said, voice lethally low. “But I now find myself tiring of games. Especially yours, Lucy Gordon. With the full moon nearly upon us, can you not see you need a man in your life? Not this boy? Were it I standing outside your door and I knew you to be inside, I would storm it down, not stand there politely knocking whilst I suspected you carried on with another.”
“Luce? Are you in there? Can you hear me above your telly? Bloody bother her love of shows...” His footfalls crunched on fallen leaves the groundskeepers hadn’t yet gotten around to raking as he walked around the side of the cottage. What would he think when he reached the back door only to peer inside and find the TV off?
“Please, Wolfe. William wouldn’t understand. He—”
“You dare talk of understanding when my very life is at stake?”
“But you—”
“Silence!” he roared. Gripping her roughly by her shoulders, he gave her a shake. “Now! This instant! Declare your love for me and demand that insipid creature to be on his way!”
Torn—not to mention terrified of what Wolfe might do, Lucy peered around his massive shoulders to where knocking could now be heard at the back door.
“Go to him then...” He cast her off with a disdain-filled sneer. “For I should rather spend eternity as a loathsome frog, then taste one more morsel of swallowed pride. I have lowered myself to the level of a common house servant for you, Lucy Gordon, brushing your hair, washing your clothes, preparing your meals and all for naught. It has become increasingly apparent that you value nothing in me but my strong arms and back.”
“That’s not true,” she said. “I mean, yes, I love what you do for me, but I’m not in love with you. There’s a huge difference. I wish I had more time to explain, but—” Standing on her tiptoes, she kissed his cheek, then snatched her rain slicker off the wall peg in the mudroom before slipping out the door and into a cold drizzle.
“William!” she called into the shadows. “I'm here.”
“Whatever are you doing outside?” he called, meeting her halfway around the cottage beneath the pungent-smelling shelter of a cedar of Lebanon.
“I-I had to get some school things from the car.”
“Oh. Well, let’s go inside.”
“Um, I’d rather stay out.”
“In the rain?”
“It’s not really a rain. More of a mist. Romantic in a spooky sort of way.” Wolfe would love walking in this kind of weather.
“Romantic? Are you daft?”
Odd, that in one night, two men who might as well be a thousand years of time and miles apart when it came to their differences had both called her the very same thing. And, yes, she was starting to think she might very well be daft for ever daring to hope she could pull off hiding Wolfe. Chin raised, she asked, “What’s wrong with the occasional eccentricity like walking in the rain?”
William snorted. “Do you consider catching pneumonia to be an eccentricity, as well?” Taking her hand, he said, “Come on, let’s get inside by your fire. I saw through the window that you have a rather nice one lit. It gladdens me to know your fire-making skills have vastly improved.”
“Yes, but I still don’t have anything good to eat. Let’s go to your castle and raid the fridge.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“You know, eat everything in your refrigerator.”
“Oh. Oh yes, of course.”
“Well, then?” Tugging his hand, she turned him toward the castle just as Wolfe scowled from the living room window.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“And then straightaway after the midday meal, we had to endure another round of negotiations and by the end of...”
Lucy’s chin touched her chest, and she jerked awake with a start. “Wolfe?”
“Luce? Are you quite all right?”
Crackling fire.
Dark paneling.
Lumpy furniture that’d been in this musty old castle since the dark ages.
William’s endless talk of business.
It all came back.
“Sure. I’m great.” After pushing unruly hair from her eyes, she tucked it behind her ears. “Sorry. The heat had me dozing off.”
“Would you like me to open a window?” His dear voice was laced with concern.
“Thanks, but no. I should call it a night.”
“Probably so,” he said with a sigh. “It is well past ten.”
And I do still need to apologize to Wolfe.
“Let me ring for Fortescue to bring our coats, then I’ll walk you back.”
“No!”
“Why ever not?”
“There’s no need for you to go out in this weather.”
“But I want to,” he said with a dashing wink. “Weren’t you the one claiming the rain was romantic?”
“Well, sure, but that was before I realized I was so tired.” She yawned. “See? I’d be terrible company.”
Eyes narrowed, he reached for her hand. “It’s not company, I crave, Luce, but you. Surely you must feel close enough to me now that you don’t feel every second must be filled with conversation? We are allowed our silences, you know.”
“Thank you,” she said, surprisingly touched by his admission. Or was it the warmth in his eyes? The look that plainly said he loved her, and the knowledge that for the past two weeks she’d been hiding a terrible secret. I never meant to hurt you, she longed to explain. It’ll all be over soon, then I’ll listen with rapt interest to your every business story, and—
“Luce?”
“Yes?”
He glanced down, then back up, Adam’s apple bobbing. “Before we
go, while we’re still here by the fire, where I find it rather romantic...”
“Yes?” Was this it? Was he finally going to propose? If so, why was there a tight knot of dread fisting her stomach instead of zinging champagne bubbles?
“As you know, Christmas is fast approaching, and, well,” taking her left hand in his, he raised it to her lips, kissing her bare ring finger. “I was rather curious if there’s anything in particular you’d like Father Christmas to bring?”
I want to keep him.
I want to keep Wolfe and be a world-renowned biologist. I want my father’s love and my very own species of frog and my very own frog prince. That’s what I want, along with nights filled with crazy, laughing popcorn fights, TV debates and kissing. No—not just kissing, but fevered kissing, the kind that leads to torn clothes and popped buttons and—
Lucy’s cheeks blazed. “I-I guess I haven’t much thought about the holidays.” But now that she had, the thought of not sharing it with Wolfe felt inconceivable.
“Perhaps you should.” He grazed her finger with another light kiss before releasing her hand.
“Y-yes,” she said, “I definitely should.” Think very hard about the insane notions flitting through her head. Because they were a sure sign she was losing it! Keeping Wolfe wasn’t an option. Unless, of course, she’d meant keeping him in his form as a frog, which was already a foregone conclusion. “I-I have to go,” she said, already heading for the door. “Thanks for the snacks.”
“But I’m coming with you.” He followed her into the hall.
“No.” She landed a hasty kiss to his cheek. “But you’re a dear for offering.”
***
“Where could he be?”
Slashing her fingers through her hair, Lucy swallowed the coppery taste of panic. She’d searched the cottage from top to bottom, mucked her way over to the pond and all about the grounds. Where could Wolfe have gone? He knew better than to leave the house.
Oh, please, she thought with a strangled laugh. He knew better?
When had the prince ever done what she’d told him? In fact, wasn’t it far more the norm for him to do exactly the opposite of her wishes?
Gnawing her lower lip, snatching her keys from the hook in the mudroom, she ran outside to the car.
By now, rain fell in silvery sheets and the dirt lane had turned to deeply rutted mud. By some miraculous twist of fate, she finally made it the ten miles to the main road, then turned toward Cotswold. The likelihood of Wolfe being in town was about as possible as her meeting up with a lost saucer of Martians, but then hey, weeks ago, would she have ever believed she’d find herself living with a ninth-century frog?
Much like the first night she’d found him, then lost him, Lucy drove round and round, only to park at the village rose garden, then strike out on foot, peering down High Street’s few alleys, and behind parked cars, and into Timothy Highcombe’s leaning gazebo. The spooky graveyard looked extra creepy in the rain and all duck pond residents were huddled in a circle on their island, beaks tucked beneath their wings.
Soaked and shivering, Lucy climbed back into her mini, gazing into the darkened chemist and grocer’s and Rumbold’s Men’s Clothing Emporium.
She was probably overreacting. Probably at this very minute Wolfe was back home, lounging in his black silk PJ bottoms in front of a cozy fire, snarfing a big buttery bowl of popcorn while she was out here worried sick, searching for him.
And wasn’t that just like a man? Driving her crazy with worry about him lying somewhere hurt or cold or hungry or lost or—
Whoa. Don’t you mean frog instead of man?
And shouldn’t your worries be more about what happens to your newfound relationship with your father if Wolfe isn’t back at the cottage, politely waiting for you to watch him get poofed back into a frog? And what about the duke? What if Ruth Haweberry sees you roaming the streets like a madwoman and reports back to William? What’s he gonna think?
“I don’t care what he thinks,” she only just realized, voicing her rebellious streak aloud, “Right now, I don’t care what anyone thinks. I just want him back.” Him. Wolfe.
Her frog prince who had somehow become so much more.
And then there he was, laughing behind the brightly lit fogged window of the Hoof and Toe. All this time she’d been worried, he’d been yucking it up in the pub!
Careening her Mini into the only vacant spot in the inn’s rear lot, she forced her wild mane into a scrunchie she’d fished from beneath the passenger seat, then marched inside, guns loaded for a loudmouthed medieval-type bear!
Inside, though, blessed heat kissed the freezing tip of her drippy nose just as she caught sight of her prince.
Holding court at the bar, with a good twenty adoring subjects surrounding him, sat Wolfe, long, lean legs astride a bar stool, dark hair streaming about his shoulders as he tossed his head back in a hearty laugh. Compared to him, other men in the room looked like mere boys. Like the born leader he was, the villagers seemed drawn to him.
Raising a frosty mug of dark ale, he called, “To big-bosomed wenches!”
“To big-bosomed wenches!” all gathered shouted—even the grinning bartender and a few women who were staring at the prince as if he was the masculine answer to their every lusty prayer.
Steeling her shoulders, Lucy marched across the room. When she got her hands on that man, she was going to—
“Aye, my fine friends. Here she is. My very own big-bosomed wench.”
She’d just parted her mouth to tell him to hush, when he snatched her about her waist, hoisting her onto his lap for a claiming kiss.
Lips pliant and warm against hers, when he had her so dazed with relieved longing that she could hardly remember her name, let alone the fact that she was in a very public place kissing someone who should have remained a private crush, he deepened the kiss still, brazenly stroking her tongue, tasting of beer and salty pretzels and man—all intriguing, wickedly thrilling man.
By this time, the crowd had gone wild with ribald taunts, laughing applause and cheers.
Lucy knew full well she had to at least put up a struggle, or else William would know for sure that she’d enjoyed being held in the prince’s strong arms. But, then, what was the point anymore in trying to hide what days earlier she must have already known in her heart?
Like it or not, she was falling for Wolfe.
Now, her only problem was, how to remember to breathe when he was gone. For while it was one thing admitting herself infatuated with his conversational flare and kisses, it was quite another admitting herself in love—which she wasn’t.
Which meant he was leaving—soon.
Granted, she and William shared no great passion, but what simmered between them had to be love, for it had grown over time, and didn’t have this all-consuming urgency that made her lungs feel near exploding from lack of air whenever she even thought of never seeing Wolfe again, let alone what her fellow scientists would do to him once they happened upon his many secrets—which she must make certain they never do.
Right after the conference, she’d spirit him away back to the castle pond, where at least if he were a frog he’d be in familiar territory.
But then all of her thoughts went blissfully blank as, to the delight of the cheering crowd, Wolfe deepened their kiss still, crushing her to him as if he’d never let her go.
Finally drawing back, he stared long and hard into her eyes before reaching for his mug, then raising it high. “One last toast, my friends! To my wee one, Miss Lucy Gordon, the finest big-bosomed wench I have ever known!”
“To Lucy!” they all somberly said, raising their mugs.
Happy chills ran through her.
She’d never been toasted, even by her father or friends—let alone strangers! And yet here she was, on an ordinary weeknight, seated on the lap of the most extraordinary man, laughing, putting her hand atop his when he held his mug to her lips. And then she was being lifted onto her own bar stool, close
enough that their arms still touched. There was rowdy music and chips and pretzels, and even more laughter as Wolfe finished one after another of his outrageous tales.
All present assumed the stories to be pure fiction, and while Lucy had doubts as to the authenticity of the entire lot, some of his sagas she knew to be true by the scars raging across his chest.
“Aye,” he said, finishing a yarn about a small boy he’d once known named Colin, whose father had gallantly attempted to save him from a flock of angry geese only to end up getting nipped on his own arse. “The child was grateful enough then to have been saved by his dear old dad, finally hauling the goose off to Cook’s pot. But later, when he grew into a fine young man, when his dad had been called off to battle never to return, he had nothing much in the way of kindnesses to say. He blamed his dad for deserting him. But what he did not know was that the man had been taken prisoner. Held against his will for year upon year, and would but he could have seen the boy into adulthood.”
“A toast!” one of the men called. “To boys and their fathers.”
“To boys and their fathers!”
While everyone else raised their mugs, Lucy studied Wolfe, the sudden wet shimmer in his haunted eyes. Colin. Was that the name of one of his sons?
He took a hasty sip of his ale.
“Wolfe?” she asked, glad the inn’s other occupants were occupied in a new round of ever increasingly maudlin toasts. “That story was about you, wasn’t it?”
“What of it?” He took another long drink.
“Here you are, punished for all eternity for being some sort of emotionless monster, when you very much loved each and every one of your children, didn’t you?”
For a long pause, he stared before taking another drink.
Hand on his wrist, she guided his mug back to the bar, then took his fingers in hers. “Did you love your children?”
“I was a warrior. What could I have known of love?”
“You loved your land, didn’t you? Your brother and father?”