Always a Princess

by Alice Gaines

  “You’d be surprised by what goes on at the meetings.”

  “Enough of this.” Chumley pulled at his coat, straightening it. “I have more important things to do than stand here and listen to such nonsense.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  “You’ll excuse me, Lord Wesley.” Chumley bowed in Eve’s general vicinity. “Your Highness.”

  “Good-bye to you, sir,” she said.

  With that, Chumley disappeared. Eve let out a breath that seemed to shrink her a bit and put the orchid back onto the bench.

  “He suspects you,” she said. “Which means, he also suspects me.”

  “I think we threw him off a bit.”

  “I must admit I don’t see a resemblance between this flower and the one we used last night,” she said. “Does it really come from Valdastok?”

  “South America.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “Do you have to make up lies when they aren’t necessary?”

  “Sometimes,” he said. “Your high-and-mighty act threw him off, too.”

  “For how long?”

  “I couldn’t say. Now, let’s have some tea. Dealing with the constabulary makes me thirsty.”

  She gave him an annoyed huff. “I didn’t come here for tea. I came here to discuss a certain diamond and how we’re to dispose of it.”

  “The Wonder is most likely thousands of years old. It won’t notice if we delay in selling it for a few weeks. Months, even.”

  “Months?” she repeated. “I have no intention of waiting months to get my part of the transaction.”

  “Well, perhaps not months.” In fact, he wouldn’t require months, but he might need a few weeks for her to move in and grow comfortable enough with his attentions for him to put the rest of his plan into action.

  For he’d concluded during the night that someone had forced Miss Eve Stanhope to deny her own sexual nature. That oughtn’t happen to anyone, of course, but least of all to a woman with Eve’s spirit. Good English morality constricted everyone, but it appeared to do so most unfortunately in her case. She needed unconstricting—badly—and he was just the fellow to do it. She had no idea how lucky she was to have stumbled on the one person in all of London who knew about the erotic side of life and wasn’t afraid to share his knowledge. By the time he’d finished with her, her passionate nature would be thrumming like a finely tuned engine.

  “…not even weeks,” she said. “Are you listening to me, Lord Wesley?”

  “You have my undivided attention, Miss Stanhope.” That was no lie. He’d thought of nothing but her ever since he’d convinced himself to become her tutor in the joys of physical love. “But some things shouldn’t be rushed. First, let’s have some tea.”

  “It’s early for tea.”

  “Not very early.” In fact, teatime wouldn’t be for a while. He hadn’t planned on her arriving just now. He hadn’t planned on her coming to him at all, but since she had, he’d take full advantage of her visit.

  Well, not full advantage, at least not today. He really did have to control the direction of his thoughts—and other things.

  “I’m sure Cook can muster something up quickly,” he said.

  “Why should she?” Eve asked. “We can conclude our business, and I’ll be on my way.”

  “Nonsense. You’re here, and you’ll have tea.”

  “If I’d wanted tea, I would have come at teatime,” she said.

  “I’m parched,” he said. “I don’t conduct business when I’m parched.”

  She glared at him. “I’m beginning to think you don’t intend to conduct business at all.”

  If she meant the diamond, he didn’t. If she meant installing her in a suite of rooms near his so that he could instruct her in the enjoyment of the flesh, he did. Tea and his mother were definitely in order for the latter.

  He extended his arm toward her. “Tea first. Business later.”

  She didn’t look the least bit pleased, but she took his arm, anyway, and let him escort her out of the glasshouse and up the gravel path. When they entered the house, the delicious scents of baking greeted them—yeast and cinnamon and some other spices he couldn’t quite place. His mother had no doubt alerted Cook to prepare tea the moment Miss Stanhope had arrived, and Cook would move heaven and earth to have something delicious ready for royalty, bless her. And bless Lady Farnham and her penchant for matchmaking.

  He led Miss Stanhope along the corridor to the sitting room and found that his parents had already arrived and taken their customary places doing their customary things—his father sitting with a book in his lap, and his mother busy with the teapot and cups that one of the maids would have set before her on a tray. His mother was still a handsome woman, despite the very faintest trace of gray just now entering her hair. His father, though not by any means handsome as a man, still exuded a sense of inner peace and contentment. All in all, the two of them made a picture of domestic comfort, if not outright bliss—something Philip had always wanted for himself when he finished with his wanderlust.

  The scene even seemed to affect Miss Stanhope, as she stood on the threshold, for once quiet and not even attempting to remove her arm from his. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and found an odd expression on her face. Wistful was the best way to describe it. Perhaps even a bit sad. Something had made her into the odd creature she was—at once both prickly and delicate, haughty and uncertain. He might not ever know what had brought her to that state, but he would replace that sadness with smiles and that prickliness with passion. Eventually. For now, he settled for placing his hand over hers and squeezing her fingers.

  That brought her up sharply. She stiffened next to him and pulled her arm from his. Before he could respond in any way, she’d lifted her chin and cleared her throat.

  “Why, there you are, darling,” his mother said. “The princess found you.”

  “She certainly did,” Philip said.

  “And none too soon,” Lady Farnham added. “You’re both just in time for tea.”

  His father looked up from his book, then over toward where the early-afternoon sun poured through the window. “They are?”

  “Of course, dear,” his mother said, although the pointed look of her gaze added a warning. “Just in time.”

  “But it’s early yet,” his father said. Always a man of habit, he sounded as if he resented the change in his daily schedule.

  “And so it is,” Miss Stanhope said in her best falsified Valdastokian. “I come back another day, no?”

  “No,” Philip’s mother said quickly. “That is, we’d love for you to come back another day and often, but do stay now. Cook has made some of her gooseberry tarts especially for you.”

  “Gooseberry?” Philip’s father said, his expression brightening. “I always say there’s no need to put off until later a gooseberry tart that’s ready to be eaten now.”

  Lady Farnham smiled at her husband. “Very wise of you, my dear.”

  “There you are,” Philip said. “We shouldn’t keep the gooseberries waiting.”

  Miss Stanhope smiled up at him, more or less. He’d take the expression for a smile. He was going to need whatever smiles he could cajole from her after he’d exposed her to his plans. He gestured toward the settee. Miss Stanhope crossed to it and assumed the seat next to his mother. Philip chose an armchair just to her side and sat down.

  His mother picked up a china cup and very delicately poured milk and then tea into it. “I want to thank you, Your Highness, for your courtesy last night during that dreadful affair with the Orchid Thief.”

  “Say nothing of it,” Eve Stanhope replied. “I could see that your ladyship was…how shall I say…discomforted over the sad happenstances.”

  Lady Farnham handed Miss Stanhope the full cup of tea and then placed her hand over her heart. “Discomforted, my dear princess. Your way with language is certainly understated. Lovely, but understated. I was perfectly terrified.”

  “Beastly affair,�
�� Lord Farnham piped up. “And quite thirsty. Might I have some tea?”

  “Of course.” Lady Farnham busied herself again and passed first one full cup to her husband and then another to Philip. She poured herself some tea and then leaned back against the settee. “You don’t know what an ordeal it was. You men weren’t even there when it happened.”

  Philip drank his tea in silence. His mother hadn’t been there when it happened, either. And as far as an ordeal, she’d had to endure a good deal more during her lifetime than finding a safe open and a diamond missing. Still, if she really wanted to enjoy the drama of the event, who was he to discourage her?

  “In fact, the whole thing has given me a brilliant idea,” she said.

  Oh dear, his mother had had a brilliant idea. That didn’t bode well. “Might we have some of those gooseberry tarts to fortify us for your idea?”

  “Oh my, yes,” she said. She used a pair of silver tongs to serve tarts all around and then picked up her fork. Philip set aside his teacup and started in on his own tart, finding it superb, just like everything Cook set her mind to.

  “So,” his mother said, her fork poised for serious contemplation. “It struck me this morning how utterly useless the entire male sex has been throughout this whole Orchid Thief affair.”

  “I beg your pardon,” his father huffed.

  “It’s true, Reginald. The duke was nowhere to be found, and neither was my own son, while I had to undergo the entire ordeal on my own.”

  “But still…” his father interjected.

  “You were in the privy the entire time.” Lady Farnham gestured upward with her fork, as though asking for patience from on high. “And that Constable Chumley is no more than an imbecile. He couldn’t find his own shadow on a sunny day.”

  “I’m sure we’re all a very great disappointment to you,” Philip tossed in.

  His mother smiled indulgently at him. “You men are darlings—most of you. But truly, only the duchess took matters in hand, and only the princess offered me any real comfort.”

  “As was my pleasure,” Miss Stanhope said.

  “If you want something done, you need a woman to do it,” his mother said. “In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that the Orchid Thief is a woman.”

  Eve Stanhope choked on her tea at that last proclamation, but after clearing her throat, she managed a laugh. Unfortunately, it was one of those laughs of desperation she made when someone was getting too close to the truth about her.

  “Oh dear, I’ve said something to upset you, Your Highness,” his mother said. “I keep forgetting that women are so much more modern in England than other parts of the world.”

  “Entirely too modern, if you ask me,” his father grumbled.

  “I don’t know, Father,” Philip said. “I think a woman should be allowed to do anything she puts her mind to.”

  “Balderdash,” his father said. “Rubbish.”

  “In any case, women have more important things to do than to steal each other’s jewelry,” his mother declared. “And that’s just what I have in mind if the princess will agree to help.”

  “I?” Miss Stanhope made another choking sound, more quietly this time. “I am not…could not…what could I do?”

  “Serve as cofounder, of course,” Lady Farnham said.

  “Cofounder?” By now, Eve had almost completely lost her accent.

  “Of the Ladies Society for the Investigation and Prevention of Theft Employing Flowers,” Lady Farnham said with a little flourish of her fork.

  It was Philip who choked this time, with barely suppressed laughter. “The Ladies Society for the Investigation—”

  “—and Prevention of Theft—” his mother chimed in.

  “—Employing Flowers?” Eve Stanhope concluded.

  “Of course,” his mother said. “I knew you would see the wisdom of my plan, Your Highness.”

  “But why flowers?” Eve demanded, sounding less and less Valdastokian by the minute.

  “I had a brilliant flash of deductive reasoning this morning,” Lady Farnham said. “The reason men like Chumley have been unable to find this Orchid Thief is that they’re treating him like a common criminal. Men, being terribly common themselves, simply can’t think in uncommon ways.”

  “Now, see here,” Lord Farnham sputtered.

  “Really, my dear, a man who spends all his time contemplating pigs can hardly claim any special enlightenment.”

  “But the Orchid Thief is most likely a man,” Philip said. “You’ve agreed to that.”

  “Yes, but not a common man,” she said. “He must be a man of some gentility.”

  Eve laughed again—a fluttering, high-pitched sound that could become distinctly annoying if she kept it up.

  “I didn’t mean a member of the peerage,” Lady Farnham said. “I thought more a sensitivity of upbringing. A man who had the delicate hand of a woman in raising him. Otherwise, why would he seem so concerned with the beauty of the jewels and the flowers he leaves in their place?”

  “You think the Orchid Thief is a fop?” Philip asked.

  “I think a society of dedicated ladies could explore the way the man’s mind works better than men have done. I think we could also follow the progress of other investigations of the thefts. Gather weekly, even daily, reports on Chumley’s progress.”

  “Keep the fellow honest?” Lord Farnham said. “Supervise him?”

  “He hasn’t accomplished much without supervision,” Lady Farnham said.

  Philip set aside his plate and picked up his tea again. So his own mother wanted to participate in his capture. His and Miss Stanhope’s. He could hardly stop her, and perhaps he shouldn’t try. There wasn’t much a committee of ladies could think of that a professional—even one as incompetent as Chumley—couldn’t accomplish. And he’d have a spy, the princess, in their midst if anything truly effective in catching the Orchid Thief should occur to one of them. In fact, he might be able to subvert the society to his own ends by using them to plant false suggestions in Chumley’s little mind. At the very least, the ladies might keep the man occupied and out of Philip’s way. And it might help to keep Miss Stanhope too busy to dwell on the fact that they hadn’t yet sold the Wonder of Basutoland.

  “I think it’s an excellent idea,” he said.

  Eve Stanhope looked at him with eyes as wide as her saucer. “You do?”

  “Yes, I do. And it makes even more sense given what I was planning to propose this very afternoon.”

  Miss Stanhope’s eyes narrowed. She was suspicious of his motives. Good. She had reason to be.

  “Yes, dear, what was that?” his mother asked, right on cue.

  “I was going to propose that the princess accept our hospitality while she’s in London and move herself and any servants she has into the house with us.”

  Miss Stanhope’s teacup settled into its saucer with an audible clink at the same moment that her mouth fell open. Philip just managed to suppress a chuckle at her expression.

  “You were?” she said.

  “What a splendid idea,” his mother declared. “Oh yes, Your Highness, you must do.”

  “I could not ask of you.” Miss Stanhope set her teacup down and placed her hand over her bosom. “That would be not proper, no? To live in the same house with a single man?”

  “And his mother and father and a full staff of servants,” Philip corrected.

  “But, Your Highness, you’re part of our family,” his mother added. “Reginald, do tell her to move in. Convince her.”

  “Yes, Father. Tell her. She’s part of our family, and we can’t leave her unprotected with a jewel thief on the loose in London.”

  His father harrumphed a few times, no doubt just now recognizing his obligation as the patriarch of Miss Stanhope’s English family. Or the princess’s, in any case. “I say, you’re right about that, lad. Would have proposed it myself if you hadn’t first.”

  And indeed, his father would have, if he’d thought of it
at all. Philip turned toward Miss Stanhope. “There, you see. It’s all settled.”

  She gave him a look that made clear the only thing she’d settled in her mind was some sort of painful death for him. But she didn’t dare object, at least not too strenuously, in front of his parents.

  “It’s not wise,” she said slowly. “It’s not wise at all.”

  “Oh, but it is,” his mother declared. “It’s wise and wonderful, and it will help so much with the Ladies Society. We can have meetings here, and you’ll get to meet everyone you need to know.”

  “I don’t need to know anyone,” Miss Stanhope said. “Truly.”

  “But, of course you do,” Lady Farnham replied. “Just think of what fun we’ll have. I’ve never had a daughter, just the two boys. We’ll be great friends. For heaven’s sake, Reginald, insist.”

  “When Lady Farnham’s right, she’s right,” Lord Farnham intoned. “I really must insist. For your own safety.”

  Miss Stanhope said nothing but only glared at Philip. He lifted his cup to her in a toast and smiled. Pleasantly.

  Chapter Eight

  Only by making dozens of excuses and then leaving the earl’s sitting room in a manner that bordered on rude did Eve finally get free. She wasn’t entirely free, though, as Lord Wesley followed her outside. Fine. All the better for her to tell him what she thought of his ridiculous idea of her moving in with his family. And his mother’s equally ridiculous notion of a Ladies Society for the Prevention of Criminal Flowers. Or whatever it was. And his father’s even more ridiculous assumption of responsibility for her as a family member. The whole lot of them—every single, blasted Rosemont—could take a leap into the Thames as far as she was concerned. The sooner she was rid of them the better.

  She headed down the stairs toward the street, but he caught her elbow. “Wait. Let me take you in the carriage.”

  “Like hell you will.” She pulled her arm free and continued to the bottom of the stairs and toward where she could catch an omnibus to St. Giles. He fell into step beside her, but even with his longer legs, he had to move along smartly to keep up.