The Peculiar Princess

by Christina Graham Parker

  She skirted the table and stood in front of him. Had he understood what she’d done? What it’d cost her? She hadn’t met his gaze since he walked into the room. What would she find when she did?

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Please don’t leave.”

  She slowly looked up. She’d offered him her soul; what would he do with it? Lukas’s smile covered his face, and his eyes glistened in the candlelight. He cupped her face with his hands.

  “Oh, my love,” he whispered.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Lexy decided the next day that London was not as bad as she first thought. She shared a late breakfast with Lukas in the morning and by early evening, they had accomplished their goal of stuffing the saddlebags full of new material.

  “I’m not sure of the brown one,” she said after describing the fabric she’d decided upon. She chewed the side of her lip as they strolled down the dirt street.

  “Is there a problem with brown?” Lukas asked.

  “It’s just so…” she wrinkled her nose, “brown.”

  “If you liked it not, why did you agree to it?”

  “The merchant’s wife seemed to think if my seamstress trimmed it with gold and used a bit of the green, it would bring out the color of my eyes.”

  It sounded logical at the time, but in retrospect, she doubted the validity of the statement. It seemed more likely the woman wanted to make a sale.

  Lukas stopped and placed his hands on her shoulders. Her face flushed under his warm gaze. “Umm,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. He ran a finger down her nose. “She speaks the truth.”

  “Ha!” she cried, embarrassed by his attention and pleased at the same time. She moved around him and continued walking. “You expect me to take fashion advice from you? You rarely wear anything besides black.” She glanced back. “By the way, now that you reminded me, I went ahead and bought new material for you.”

  “Alexia,” he moaned.

  “No need to thank me. Anyway, I find it hard to believe you know anything about colors. You said you’d never noticed women much.”

  He smiled. “I said I had never been with a woman before you. I never said I was blind.”

  She lifted her skirts to step over a puddle of mud. A firm hand grasped her arm. Far be it from me to tempt all the men in London with a glimpse of my ankles. She wondered if the town would grind to a screeching halt if she did it again. Or perhaps I should throw my skirts up to my knees and do a can-can dance. The pressure on her arm changed her mind.

  “Abiel has three younger sisters,” Lukas said. “I spent many a meal hearing of material colors and ribbons.” He let go of her arm, and they walked in silence for a few minutes.

  “I believe four is a right good number,” he said abruptly. “What say you?”

  She glanced at a window overhead and moved to the side to avoid a puddle of questionable nature. “I say all that fabric better make more than four dresses.”

  “I meant not dresses.” He looked at her with a strange expression. “I meant children.”

  The street tilted to an odd angle, and she stumbled over her feet. “Ours?”

  He grabbed her shoulders and steadied her. “Yes, of course ours. For what reason would I talk of someone else’s? Are you unwell?”

  She nodded and grasped her waist. Why would anyone think a woman needed to be tied into a dress? It made it quite impossible to breathe. The corset Lukas helped her with earlier had no wiggle room. Normally she could deal with it, but she didn’t usually spend her afternoons in discussions about the number of children she wanted.

  After a moment, the street tilted back to normal, and her breath came easier. “Sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

  “Without a doubt.” He still held her by her shoulders.

  “I mean, children? You? I thought you believed us doomed and here you are planning the size of our family?” She put her hands on his. “Will you ever stop surprising me?”

  He brought her hands to his lips. “I trust this surprise more welcome than the last?”

  “Four?” She laughed. “You’ve given this a lot of thought haven’t you?”

  He returned her laugh and tucked her hand around his arm. Together they walked forward once more. “I admit I have. For years, if you must know.”

  “Years?” She held tighter to his arm.

  He patted her hand. “I treasured the time I spent with the Hastings. They were so far removed from my family. I vowed if I ever had a family, it would resemble the Hastings and not the Reynards.”

  She thought on what he said. “But if you planned to have children years ago, you must have thought you’d have them with Gwyneth.”

  He lifted one side of his mouth into a half grin. “But I will enjoy having them with you so much the more.”

  “Sure, you have to say that now.”

  “Gwyneth means naught to me. She never has.” He came to a halt. “God has worked my life to be more than I had ever thought possible. If I find it more pleasurable to think on the particulars of our family than our troubles with Severon, you must forgive me.”

  She knew by his expression he spoke the truth. “You’ll get no arguments from me.”

  They continued their walk in silence, but she found her thoughts never strayed far from Lukas’s comments. Before he’d mentioned them, she’d given no thoughts to their potential children. Her hand drifted to her stomach. Could she be pregnant now and not know? She blushed at the thought. Of course she could. How was it possible she’d not considered it before?

  On one hand, the thought of a baby made her smile. But on the other, it frightened her. Childbirth in the time she found herself had risks. Many risks. And no epidurals. No, she decided, she had not thought through all the specifics when she’d decided to remain in 1580. But it took only a glance at Lukas to know it wouldn’t have mattered if she had.

  ****

  Since her arrival to the sixteenth century, Lexy often found it difficult to sleep soundly. The mattresses were lumpy, the sheets scratchy, and the pillows flat. And recently she’d had to share her bed with her sizable husband. It wasn’t his fault. He’d inherited his stature from his father, and his years as a mercenary only added to his build. That he took his own portion of the bed and then some was, perhaps, to be expected. While overjoyed he embraced the nontraditional decision to share a room with her, she had yet to fall quickly into sleep with him nearby.

  That night, however, she could not blame her lack of sleep on the mattress, sheets, or pillow. The blame truly was her husband’s, but not because he took up most of the bed. Most nights, she drifted off to sleep as she listened to his deep, rhythmic breathing. There was no such sound then.

  She turned to face him. With the candles long since extinguished, darkness cloaked the room. “Are you awake?” she whispered.

  His voice came from the deep recesses of the bed. “I meant not to keep you from sleep.”

  “You’re not keeping me from sleep.” She sat up long enough to punch her pillow. “I still find it difficult to sleep in this century.”

  His chuckle shook the mattress. “One would think the particulars of sleep similar between centuries.”

  “One would not think to have an opportunity to discover the differences.” Her voice held more sarcasm than she meant.

  His hand touched her shoulder. “Come close, my love.”

  She turned her back to him and settled against his chest. A sigh escaped her lips as his arms slid around her waist. In his embrace, she felt safe and protected. When he held her, he drove all her fears away, and Severon ceased to exist.

  “What troubles you?” he asked.

  “I’m used to you falling asleep first, and you didn’t tonight.”

  “I have been praying about meeting with my father.”

  She peered over her shoulder. “Again?” They had prayed before bed, and he told her he wasn’t concerned about the meeting. He had lived under his father’s wrath for most of his li
fe. For his father to be angry with him now would be nothing new.

  “I found myself awake and thinking on it.” He stroked her hair, slid his fingers down her back, and returned to repeat the motion. “I want not to talk of my father, I want to talk of you. What difficulties do you find in sleeping?”

  She wiggled closer to him. “Nothing specific. Everything in general.”

  “That bad?”

  “Nothing seems bad right now.” She giggled as his chest vibrated with laughter.

  “You found sleep difficult the first night, did you not?”

  “First night?”

  “Umm. In Dresdonia, when you stood by the window and watched me.”

  She stiffened in surprise. “I’d forgotten. What were you doing?”

  “Contemplating what to do with you. How to return you to the future. How to keep Severon from discovering you were back. Trying to get the image of you in those clothes out of my head.”

  It was her turn to laugh. “I had no idea.”

  “Had I known my snores would aid your sleep, I would have offered my assistance earlier.”

  She reached over her shoulder to thump his head. “Ebbe and Margaret would have died of shock. And if I remember correctly, you weren’t offering anything other than nasty comments.”

  “Vixen.” He grabbed her wrist and pinioned it to her waist. “You began to invade my thoughts that day. I was taken aback by your comments the next morning, but it was not until you apologized at Lord Yager’s that I knew you would change my life.”

  His hand renewed its sensuous stroking of her hair. Margaret had told her she should wear it braided at night, but since she had to wear it up during the day, she rebelled and wore it loose at night. Lukas never complained.

  “God was at work even then,” she murmured.

  “He was. And it is marvelous in my eyes.”

  Her heart lifted at his reference to Psalm 118. They’d read the chapter over breakfast. “I meant to comfort you tonight,” she said.

  He swept his hand down her hair again. “You do, my love. You do. I wonder…”

  “Hmm?”

  “Will I ever be allowed to call you Lexy or am I to be reminded of my rudeness every time I speak your name?”

  “Oh,” she said, shocked. “That.”

  “Yes. That.”

  “Well, it’s just…I…um.” She should have known this would come up one day. Of course he’d want to call her Lexy. She had to admit why she didn’t want him to. “I like it when you call me Alexia.”

  “Pardon?”

  She felt her face flush. “I like it when you call me Alexia.”

  “Indeed?”

  “I didn’t mean for it to happen that way. When I first told you to call me Alexia, I did mean it to be an insult to you.” She stopped for a moment as he massaged her back. “But then you said it and something happened. You were the first person to ever call me Alexia, and it was like you claimed part of me. You do it every time you say my name.”

  His hands stilled their movements, and she held her breath. Then he slowly spun her around to face him. “Alexia,” he whispered, pulling her close. His lips brushed her jaw and she melted against him. “Alexia,” he murmured in her ear.

  “I’m never going to live this down, am I?”

  “Do you want to?”

  She didn’t. But it was much too late for any further talking.

  ****

  “Alexia,” her husband called through the door the next morning. “Let me in.”

  The man who met her looked as if the past hours had removed a heavy burden from his shoulders. A smile lit his entire face, and his eyes glowed with unrepressed happiness. He truly was the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen.

  “Someone had a productive morning,” she murmured, still struck by the transformation before her.

  He closed the door and swung her around the room, oblivious to her shrieks.

  “I had a most productive morning,” he admitted once he finally set her down.

  “Don’t keep me waiting,” she said, still dizzy from her spin around the room. “Your father took it well?”

  He kicked his shoes off and rummaged about the room. Picking up the discarded breakfast tray, he polished off the bacon he didn’t have an appetite for earlier. “My head was attached to the rest of me the last time I checked. He took it well enough.”

  She poured him a cup of weak wine and sat at the table, waiting for him to continue. After a few bites of egg, he spoke, “I have you to thank, of course. He is quite taken with you.”

  “Your father?” she asked. “Tallish, dark-haired man? His Grace, the Duke of Culberton?”

  “He has difficulties showing his true feelings. It is a shortcoming of us Reynard men.”

  “Of course. Shortcomings. That would explain why the room still wobbles a bit.”

  “Ah, yes. Well, I have a most delightful inspiration.” His eyes twinkled, and she felt her stomach flutter in response. “By the by,” he added. “We have been invited to a ball this evening at the Duke of Oldenburg’s London residence.”

  The flutters gained ten pounds and dropped to her feet. “Which you politely declined,” she said, forcing herself to sound calmer than she felt. “Or at least you did if you want your delightful inspiration to continue in her delightfulness.”

  His face fell.

  “Oh no,” she said. “You said we’d go?”

  He wiped his mouth and pushed back from the table. “There is no reason for us not to go, my love. It is good to be seen out in society, and it would afford us the opportunity to gather more support.”

  “But I don’t have anything to wear.” It was a last ditch effort, but a truthful one.

  “Not yet, but you will,” he said, looking much too pleased with himself. “I arranged for a seamstress to arrive this afternoon. She will have a gown ready by then that will just need slight adjustments for you.”

  “Highhanded males,” she mumbled. “Blasted century is full of them.” But he was probably right. It would be good to be seen out and about. Besides, Ebbe would be ecstatic and across the table, Lukas sat in quiet expectation of her response. “All right, we’ll go.”

  He stood up and walked to her, a wicked grin stretched across his face. “I suppose this means I need to teach you to dance?”

  No going back now. She tried to scrounge up some excitement. “I suppose it does.”

  Three hours later, sixteenth-century dances swirled around her mind until she felt dizzy. Her patient teacher demonstrated several dances he felt necessary for her to learn. Of those, she thought she might be able to carry two or three off without embarrassing incident; she’d drawn the line at the hopping ones.

  Their giggles began with Lukas’s attempts to provide music. He started humming at one point to emphasize their movements and she talked him into keeping it up. When they stopped and rearranged the furniture to create more dancing space, the giggles blossomed into full-blown laughter. The innkeeper, thinking they were in the process of destroying the room, sent a servant upstairs to check.

  The afternoon passed faster than she could have imagined, and it thrilled her to see the light-hearted side of Lukas. She vowed to do whatever it took to ensure it came out more often.

  An hour before the seamstress was to arrive with the ready-made dress, Lexy grabbed Lukas and pulled him close. “My turn.”

  “Indeed?” He wrapped his arms around her. “Your turn for what, love?”

  She slipped her hands behind his neck. “To show you a twenty-first-century dance.”

  “I admit, it does sound enlightening.” His breath ruffled her hair. “But I find I am quite reluctant to move at present.”

  “Lucky for you, you don’t have to.”

  “Pardon?”

  “We just stand here like this and sway to the music.”

  They slow danced for a few minutes, gently rocking. She closed her eyes and inhaled the scent of him.

  “This is dancing in t
wenty-first century?” he asked, dragging a hand up her back and pulling her closer.

  She laid her cheek against his chest. “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Scandalous.”

  Chapter Twenty

  The windows of the Duke of Oldenburg’s residence glowed with the light of inumerable candles. Lexy held onto Lukas’s arm as they made their way up the stairs to the door.

  “Pretty powerful guy, this Duke of Oldenburg?” she asked.

  He squeezed her hand. “Quite. But a nice one.”

  She glanced down at her gown. The seamstress had come through with a beautiful light blue gown. Lukas helped her dress and she’d attempted to put up her own hair. She wasn’t as elaborately dressed as Margaret would have wanted, but she was passable.

  A few hours later, Lexy checked dinner off her list of obstacles to get through. The practice of separating spouses made no sense to her. Why in the world would she want to sit near total strangers? Lukas had been seated on the opposite end of the table and she’d only been able to catch his eye a few times. Each time his smile told her he shared her feelings.

  After dinner, they met up again before entering the vast ballroom. The first dance was one Lukas had taught her earlier in the day, and she joyfully joined in. Lukas grinned as they finished, whispering how well she’d done. They also danced the next dance and as the evening progressed, Lexy felt her confidence grow. The ball was turning out to be a complete success.

  Lexy begged out of the third dance and waved Lukas on when he indicated he’d join Oldenburg and some other men in the card room. She watched two more dances and made small talk with some of the ladies before looking toward the large open doors with longing. The early May temperatures had been mild, but with so many bodies crowded in one place, the heat was starting to border on uncomfortable.