by Shana Galen
“He wants to kill you. I don’t think he’s given up yet.”
She agreed with him on that point as well. He started for the end of the hallway, but she grabbed his uninjured arm and pulled him back.
“Nathan.”
He gave her an impatient glance then looked over his shoulder at the door. Vivienne lowered her weapon and took his face in her hands. That earned her his full attention.
“Just in case I don’t have another opportunity, I wanted to tell you I love you.”
“You will have another opportunity. But I love you too.”
She smiled. She couldn’t contain the burst of joy that raced through her. “Do you have the ring?”
“What?”
He must think her mad, and perhaps she was. This was no time to discuss marriage, and yet, she’d seen how quickly life as one knew it could come to a crashing end. Now might be the only chance she ever had.
“Your mother’s emerald ring?”
He stared at her for a long moment then his hand passed over the pocket of his waistcoat. “Are you saying you’ll marry me?”
“Yes. I was coming to tell you when I interrupted that tete-a-tete in your room.”
“I much prefer your company at any rate.” He pulled the ring from his waistcoat. “I don’t have time to do this properly.”
She waved his protest away. “Put it on my finger. That’s as proper as I need or want.”
He took her hand, slid the ring on her finger clumsily.
She kissed him quickly, ran her thumb over the unfamiliar piece of jewelry on her hand.
“Now, let’s go catch an assassin,” she said.
***
He would die. She’d finally told him she loved him, finally agreed to be his wife, his duchess, and now he was off to his death. Life was full of injustice. Nathan just hadn’t ever had so much of it thrown his direction.
He led her down the servant’s stairwell, emerging silently onto the house’s ground floor. Short corridor leading to the expansive vestibule in front of him, door to his library, which led to a parlor on his left. Door to the music room, which opened to a large sitting room on his right. The dining room was on the other side of the vestibule.
“I’ll take this side, you take that,” Vivienne said.
“Hell, no. Stay with me.” He would not let her out of his sight. “Let’s start in the library.”
He opened the door, crept inside, keeping his back to the wall. Vivienne followed, closing the door behind her. Smart woman, he thought. No one could come in or out without alerting them.
Nathan jerked his head toward a couch facing the fire. He doubted the man would be lying on it, but it would keep her out of the way while he checked behind the curtains. The two if them moved silently toward their corners.
Just as Nathan tugged the drapes open, he heard the swish of an arrow. He turned just in time to see the assassin raise his knife and hurl it.
At him.
Nathan jerked to the right, and the knife barely clattered against the window inches from where he’d stood.
“You missed!” Nathan yelled.
“So did she,” the assassin answered.
Vivienne was already readying another arrow, but the assassin didn’t wait. He flung himself at Nathan, and the two men rolled to the floor, Nathan’s knife clattering under his desk.
“Nathan!” Vivienne shouted. “I can’t get a clear shot.”
The assassin’s fist collided with his nose, and Nathan head butted him before the man kneed him in the breadbasket. The two tumbled over each other again and again, overturning tables and lamps. He smashed the assassin with an antique bowl and stumbled to his feet. For a moment he thought he’d won, but the man was up again and plowed him in the face.
Nathan saw darkness right before his head hit the floor. Vivienne’s scream brought him back and he moved his head right before another fist slammed into it. The assassin pulled the punch but too late. His fist hit the hard wood of the floor.
Nathan grabbed his neck and pushed him off, using his elbow to pop the assassin in the mouth. When the man was down, Nathan hit him again. And again.
He would have punched him a third time, but Vivienne stayed his hand.
“It’s done,” she panted. “He’s unconscious.”
Nathan gained his feet, putting his hands on his hips and drawing in gasps of air. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to think. It hurt to exist.
“And my father made me take fencing,” he said between breaths. “I told him those lessons were a bloody waste of time.”
Vivienne gave him a bewildered look. “What did you want to take?”
“Boxing.”
She nodded, drew in a breath. “All of our children will be pugilists.”
“Even the girls?”
“Especially the girls.”
He opened his arms, and she fell into them. He didn’t care if the servants were gathering in the doorway now, if Fletcher was calling for a doctor, if somewhere above a maid screamed.
Vivienne was in his arms. His princess.
His duchess.
Epilogue
“He’s an insufferable muc,” she said, using the Glennish term for pig. The door of the Grecian parlor at the residence of the Duke of Stoke Teversault closed as the Prince Regent made his exit.
“I will not argue.” Nathan leaned against one cream and dark lilac wall and watched her pace. His wife’s ire was stoked now
She was his wife. His wife. After they’d dealt with the business of the dead assassins and the live one, they’d received a letter from Prinny summoning them to an audience at the Duke of Stoke Teversault’s ball. Nathan had already planned to attend and to approach the prince, who never missed the annual affair, but he’d thought a formal audience a good sign. He should have listened to Stoke Teversault. The duke had cautioned him against reading anything into Prinny’s invitation. Nathan had hoped Stoke Teversault was just being...well, Stoke Teversault. He was naturally sober and restrained. Fortunately, Nathan had the foresight to procure a special license and marry Vivienne before the ball.
Prinny might offer his protection, but she’d have Nathan’s in any event.
“Can you believe the way he spoke to me?” she said, striding across the parlor and then back again. Through the open windows behind her, he could see the famous row of lime trees that lined the house’s drive. “He acted as though it was my father’s fault he and my mother were killed. As though anyone deserves to die that way!”
“He’s afraid,” Nathan said, moving toward her and laying his hands on her shoulders. “He knows but for luck and the grace of God, that could have been him.”
She turned into his arms. “He’s allowing me to stay in the country only because of your gift.” Her eyes narrowed. “What exactly was this gift?”
“A small token of my fealty.” Three ships was a token indeed. “But you are the Duchess of Wyndover now. He couldn’t make you leave even if he wanted.”
“And so there’s to be no outcry over the massacre at Glynaven Palace, no public condemnation.”
“Not from England, but you’ve written dozens of letters to other world leaders. Surely one of them will condemn the actions of the revolutionaries. Perhaps Spain or Russia.”
“Perhaps.”
He wrapped his arms around her, looked into her lovely eyes. The music from the orchestra Stoke Teversault had hired for the ball swelled and carried on a breeze scented with flowers. “I cannot give you public condemnation. But I can give you revenge.”
She stiffened. “What do you mean?”
He touched his forehead to hers. “Happiness.”
“Happiness?”
“Did you think I would suggest we hire mercenaries and order the revolutionary leaders slaughtered?”
“It would be a nice gesture.”
“You don’t want that.” Although he imagined a small part of her did, and he could hardly blame her. “Why not be my wife, have children with me,
grow old with me? The revolutionaries who tried to kill you, to kill off the royal line, will always know they never succeeded. Our children and our happiness will be the best revenge.”
She heaved a sigh of resignation. “You make sense, as usual.”
“I am an extremely sensible man.”
“You must be to tolerate all those swooning females. Three fainted in your path on the short walk to ballroom.”
He scowled, clearly not wanting to speak of the incidents.
“I’m certain the heat overcame the ladies, nothing more. This ball is a crush.”
“I’m certain it was one look at your pretty face. Oops!” She fell against his chest. “I accidentally looked directly into your eyes. Help!” She arched back so he was forced to catch her. “I shall faint.” Her hand brushed her forehead.
He lifted her off her feet and swept her into his arms. “In that case, perhaps we’d better retire to the bedchamber Stoke Teversault thoughtfully supplied. You’d better lie down, wife.”
“Take me to bed, husband.”
“With pleasure.”
A Prince in Her Stocking
Chapter One
He was being followed. Lucien hadn’t seen them, hadn’t heard them. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling someone watched him.
Perhaps he was delusional. God knew he came by it honestly, as his mother saw plots and assassins behind every door. The moral of every bedtime story had been not to trust anyone, not to be fooled. The sweet baker wanted to slit his throat, the smiling maid waited for an opportunity to smother him in his sleep.
His father had called it all rubbish, much to his mother’s dismay. The king had called it rubbish until the night the reavlutionnaire attacked and slaughtered the entire royal family.
In the end, his mother’s suspicion hadn’t saved her.
It might not save him either, but Lucien couldn’t help looking over his shoulder one last time as he stepped inside the bookstore in St. James’s. The heat reached out tentative fingers and stroked his frozen face as soon as he entered. He’d quickly learned December in London was colorless, cold, and compassionless. No one had the time or inclination to spare even a second glance at a poor man out in the sleet with only a threadbare coat for protection against the damp and cold.
His face stung as it began to thaw, and he unwound his scarf, exposing his face to the shopgirl, although he suspected she already knew it was he. He came here almost every morning right after the bookstore opened, partly because he wanted out of the cold and partly because he was still searching.
“Good morning, Mr. Glen,” the pretty blond shopgirl said in greeting.
It wasn’t his name, but when he told people his name was Prince Lucien Charles Louis de Glynaven, they didn’t believe him. Mr. Glen seemed easier.
“Good morning, Miss Merriweather. How are you today?”
“Very well, and yourself?”
He was cold and hungry and so tired he could sleep a week. “Just fine. Thank you for asking.” He unfastened the top button of his greatcoat, although he didn’t intend to remove it. The store was warm, but old books were dusty. He took pains to keep his clothing clean and presentable. He could not afford to soil his coat or shirt, as they were the last vestiges of respectability he had.
“May I help you find anything in particular, Mr. Glen?” Miss Merriweather asked. She already knew the answer. They performed this play nearly every day.
“Just browsing, Miss Merriweather.”
The bell above the door tinkled, and a woman of middling years entered On the Shelf, which was the name of the little bookstore in Duke Street. Lucien took the opportunity to slip away, walking along the rows and rows of shelves along three walls of the store until he found the location where he’d left off the day before. The shop was as familiar to him as the lines on his hands by now. It had become an old friend to him, the smell of paper and ink and leather bindings almost as comforting as the smells of the palace in which he’d grown up.
Lucien had no trouble finding the shelf where he’d paused his search the evening before, which was not far from the counter where Miss Merriweather spent most of her time. He took solace in the fact that he was now several shelves deep in his search. He had made progress. Last night he’d ceased searching when he reached the bottom of the shelf, of course. His back had ached by the end of the day, and he’d left the lower shelves for the morning. Unfortunately, he’d spent the last of the money he’d earned tutoring students in Glennish, which meant he’d spent the night in a doorway of an abandoned shop, rather than in his usual spot in a cheap boarding house where men slept twelve to a room on straw pallets infested with lice and other vermin it was too dark to see.
As a consequence, his back felt no better than it had the evening before. He leaned against the shelf behind him and closed his eyes. How much longer could he go on this way? He’d fled the revolution more than seven months before and had been all but living on the streets of London for the last six and searching the bookshop whenever he did not have tutoring work for more than four months. He was hungry, cold, and tired. He didn’t want to give up hope, but at some point he must accept that he might never find the goddamn papers. He might never reclaim his title or the money so carefully put away for just this eventuality. He might die on the streets of London, and no one would give a damn.
To the world, he was already dead.
“What is that man doing?” he heard a woman ask Miss Merriweather. “Is he sleeping?”
“Oh, he’s harmless enough. I think he comes in to stay out of the cold,” Miss Merriweather answered. As he was the only man in the shop—for some reason, the bookshop seemed to always attract more women than men—he assumed the ladies were speaking of him. He wished he had a few coins so he might buy a book today. He tried to do that when he could in order to maintain the illusion of actually patronizing the bookshop.
“Miss Merriweather!” the first lady admonished. “Half of London will be loitering in your shop if you continue to allow this. I must insist you send him on his way.”
Lucien drew in a breath and held it. He might be weary of the search, but he was not ready to be forced to abandon it or the little shop he had begun to think of as home.
“Lady Lincoln, I assure you the man is no trouble. Please do not allow him to concern you. Now, just the volume of Fordyce’s Sermons today?”
Lady Lincoln sniffed. “Your mother will hear of this. See if she does not.”
When the bell tinkled again, signaling her retreat, Lucien blew out the breath and crouched. He pulled the first volume of a book of poetry from the shelf, opened it, and turned every single page. He liked to think of this as his “no page left unturned” method. He knew it was highly unlikely the papers he sought had found their way into a book of English poetry—mediocre poetry, he decided after scanning a page or so—but all other methods of obtaining the books and documents had failed. He had no other choices, no other options, and so he did the only thing he knew. He searched.
“Will she really tell your mother?” a voice he recognized as the young Miss Hooper, the auburn-haired friend of Miss Merriweather, drifted across the shelves. She’d lowered her voice, but the store was almost empty and quiet, and he knew every sound by now. Lucien paused in his perusal of a poem about a lovelorn shepherd to listen.
“She has nothing else to occupy her time, so I imagine she will.”
“Will your mother force him out?” Miss Hooper asked.
“I don’t know. Why? Don’t tell me you’ve developed a tendre for him.”
Lucien could almost hear the blush rise to Miss Hooper’s cheeks. “Of course not, but I do feel sorry for him. Imagine. The poor man thinks he is a prince.”
Lucien laid the volume of poetry on the shelf and moved closer. He did not want Miss Hooper’s pity—Miss Merriweather’s either, unless it served to keep him from being evicted from the shop. Strange to be the object of pity after so many years of being reviled for his privilege.
“I am well aware of his delusions.” That was Miss Merriweather’s voice. “You forget I was here the morning he stormed in and demanded we hand over the shipment of Glennish books we bought at auction. I had no notion which books or which auction. The man was quite mad with desperation, so I showed him the only books we had on Glynaven.”
“But he didn’t want them,” Miss Hooper said. She knew the story and could have probably told it herself at that point. “And he’s come every week since?”
“Yes, and he even apologized for his rude behavior that first day.”
“Did he? I am not surprised. He has a very kind look about him.”
Miss Merriweather gave a bark of a laugh. “I beg to differ. He has no such thing. He has the look of a gypsy—all that dark hair and golden skin.”
“But his eyes,” Miss Hooper said with a sigh.
Lucien rolled his oft-mentioned eyes. In Glynaven, poetry worse than the volume he’d just perused had been written about his leonine eyes. They were brown—a golden brown, yes—but brown. He might think it ludicrous, but he was not above using those eyes to persuade the Merriweathers to allow him to continue his frequent browsing.
At this point, he was not above anything. Oh, how the mighty—and haughty—had fallen.
He turned, intent on returning to the shelf of mediocre poetry, and almost rammed into a petite blond woman, who circled her arms frantically for balance. Acting on instinct, he reached out and caught her shoulders, hauling her back to her feet. Lucien realized immediately he wasn’t quite as gentle as he might have been. The force of his action sent the woman careening toward him, and he was forced again to right her.
He held her shoulders, ensuring she was finally stable.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I didn’t see you there.”
She had the fair complexion typical of the English, and a pink flush crept over her cheeks when he spoke. “It is my fault,” she said in a voice little more than a whisper. “Please forgive me.”
She wore spectacles, and her eyes behind the lenses appeared quite large and blue. Those were the sort of eyes one should honor with bad poetry. They were the blue of the Mediterranean Sea.