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She felt the first tear slip down her cheek, and yanked her hand out from under the weight of his to brush it away.
“Really, Corporal,” her defender said with annoyance.
“Sergeant,” Crenshaw corrected him.
“Sergeant, I think just a little sensitivity would not be out of line here.”
Crenshaw looked mutinous, like a little boy who had been reprimanded, but he dutifully took papers out of a drawer and began to fill them out. Rachel noticed his stubby fingers were nicotine-stained above the class ring he wore. She fished desperately in her pocket for a tissue. Her fingers felt a baby soother, and a crushed bonnet. Desperately, she considered blowing her nose in that, when a handkerchief was pressed into her hand.
She looked up at him. The gentle kindness in his eyes made her want to weep anew.
“Thank you,” she said, and dabbed at her running nose, and eyes. The handkerchief was gloriously soft, and held a scent so powerful and compelling, she wanted to leave her nose in it forever.
“Rachel,” said Crenshaw, “what is your second name? And your full street address?”
The pure monotony of being asked such routine questions as her correct street address, and Victoria’s, and watching Crenshaw write them out with a painfully slow hand helped Rachel regain her composure.
“I’m fine now,” she said quietly to the man beside her. She stared at the now used handkerchief, uncertain what to do with it. She certainly didn’t want to return it to him in this condition.
“Keep it,” he said, reading her mind.
“Thank you.” Two thank-yous in two minutes. If he did not go soon, she’d end up owing her life to him. That was the game she and Victoria used to play. If one did the other a kind turn three times in a row, then the other would say jokingly, “Now I owe you my life.” It was one of those funny, tender things that only they understood—their kindnesses to each other had been the life raft they both clung to in the turbulent waters of their growing up.
Prince Montague did not leave, and she was glad for that. She suspected Crenshaw’s cooperative manner would disappear when he did. But he did not disappear, a fact not lost on Crenshaw, either.
“Sir, is your report completed?” Crenshaw asked pointedly.
“It is,” Montague replied, deliberately not taking the point.
“We’ll do everything we can to find who vandalized your vehicle. One of those Thortons, most likely. You’re on their territory now.” He chuckled at his own humor. “Perhaps the Duke hisself. The tabs say there’s no love lost between your two families.”
“I’m sure the Grand Duke of Thortonburg has a little more to do than to follow me around breaking antennas off my vehicles,” Montague said, a thread of irritation appearing in that well-modulated voice.
“Just attempting a little levity, sir,” Crenshaw said. “Would be funny if it was him, wouldn’t it?”
“I don’t think so, particularly. Now what are you going to do for this young lady?”
“I done the report!”
“And then?”
“I’ll post it, naturally.”
“Perhaps it wouldn’t be too much trouble for you to stop by—did you say Victoria—Victoria’s place of residence and ask a few questions. Her landlady, her friends, might know something.”
That mutinous expression appeared on Crenshaw’s face again.
“Well?” Montague prodded, his voice so low that Rachel glanced up at him. There was no kindness in those eyes now. They were cold and hard. He was a man obviously very used to authority, to diffidence, to obedience.
And he got them now, though reluctantly. Crenshaw lowered his eyes and said, “We’ll do whatever we can.”
“Thank you,” Montague said. He turned to her, and his eyes were warm again, sympathetic. “Now, are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” But to her horror, just as she said the words she began to shake like a fall leaf in a breeze. She looked away from him, looked frantically at her watch. “Good grief, I’m late. I must go.”
“You aren’t driving anywhere in this condition,” he informed her levelly. “I’ll take you where you need to go.”
“No, I couldn’t. Not possibly. My car—”
“I’ll have one of my staff return the car to you.”
“Really, no.”
“Is it because I’m a stranger to you?” he asked.
She wanted to tell him she felt as though she had known him always, especially when his voice became so gentle as it was right now. She shook her head, unable to speak.
“Don’t worry,” Crenshaw said, eavesdropping shamelessly. “I seen you together. If you turn up missing, his Royal Highness will be my primary suspect.”
“I don’t find that amusing,” Montague snapped.
Crenshaw looked sulky. “Just trying to add a little levity, sir.”
“Quit trying! Her sister is missing. I have a sister, too, whom I love dearly, whom I would lay down my life for, if I had to. I know how I would feel if she was missing, and there is absolutely nothing funny about it.”
“Well, I guess I’ve been shown my place,” Crenshaw said. A rat-like glint of malice appeared in the darkness of his eyes.
Montague ignored him and turned back to Rachel. “Please. Allow me to see you home.”
“He don’t have the right of primae noctis in Thortonburg, Rachel,” Crenshaw said.
Rachel gasped at this reference to the feudal custom of the lord of the land having first union with its young maidens. Not, she thought ridiculously, that she qualified.
She watched as Montague turned slowly and deliberately back to Crenshaw. “I beg your pardon?”
“Besides, the tabs all say that the womenfolks are pretty safe since the prince’s wife died. Grieving, he is. But I understand the bookies are taking odds on who your parents are going to match you up with. Sir.”
Montague leaned his expensively clad elbows on the counter and leaned across it, almost casually.
But Rachel was not fooled and neither was Crenshaw who took a wary half step back.
“I told you once before I don’t find you amusing. I don’t often find it necessary to repeat myself,” Montague said, his tone quiet but nonetheless low and lethal.
Crenshaw shot Rachel a look that somehow made this all her fault before he looked thoughtfully at his feet and said, “I’ve known Rachel since she was a baby. We’re practically family. That’s why I was kidding with her.”
Rachel looked hard at him. Practically family?
“In fact, Rachel, your father said you might be wanting a job. Clerical, right? I’m pretty sure I could dig up something here for you.”
How like her father, she thought, not to mention that she was a technical writer. He’d been angry when she had not followed through on her teaching degree, ignored the fact she had obtained at least a little success in her chosen field. Now he’d told Crenshaw any old clerical position would do. She didn’t want to think about the fact if she did not turn up a contract soon that might be true. She hoped she would never be desperate enough to work in this bleak place.
“No thanks,” she said firmly.
Crenshaw looked insulted, shot Montague one more look loaded with resentment, and then said, “Well, excuse me, Your Royal Holiness. If that’s all, I have business elsewhere.”
“Good,” Damon Montague said evenly, not rising to the bait of being addressed with such officious incorrectness. “I thought you might.” He did not turn away from the counter until Crenshaw had scuttled away, and closed the door behind himself. “How unfortunate that a man like that ends up a police officer. He needs to be reminded he has taken an oath to protect and serve, not bully and insult.”
He turned back to Rachel with a wry smile that gave lie to the lethal anger she had seen in his eyes only moments ago.
“He’s always been somewhat disagreeable,” she said.
“He said he was a family friend.”
“I think our definitions of friendship differ,” she said. “He was a student of my father’s many years ago. My father is the headmaster at Thortonburg Academy. They’ve been friends for many years.”
He nodded, then said softly, “Will you allow me to see you home? Please?”
It really seemed too ludicrous that Prince Damon Montague, eldest child of Prince Charles Montague of Roxbury, was begging to take her home.
It was a gift, really. A page pulled out of a fairy tale and dropped at her feet, humbly clad, no glass slippers. Only a fool would say no.
“No,” she said. Even Cinderella had the good sense to run.
“I really can’t allow you to drive in the condition you’re in.”
“I’m not in bad condition!”
He laced his fingers through hers, briefly, and they both felt the trembling. Only one of them knew that she was no longer trembling out of shock and fear, but from the awakening of a heart, long left sleeping, now shaking off its slumber.
As if she’d been kissed by a prince.
You are mixing your fairy tales, Rachel, she told herself sternly.
“Do you have any authority in Thortonburg?” she asked, hiding in her teasing note the quaking of her heart, ordering herself fiercely not to overreact to a random act of kindness from a stranger.
He laughed, and the sound of it was rich and warm, and made her very aware that her life, aside from the pure joy of Carly, had become bleak and worry-filled. At times the drudgery of working and caring for a baby, trying to stretch limited funds and even more limited time, made her feel strung as tight as a bow string about to launch an arrow.
“I don’t think so. I just want to play knight to your damsel in distress. What do you say?”
No wonder this encounter was catching her so off guard. She was vulnerable. Still, she could not say no again. It had taken too much to do it the first time, used every ounce of her will power. She surrendered. “I’d like a ride home very much, Prince Montague.”
“My friends call me Damon.”
“I don’t think we qualify as friends.”
“Maybe not yet. But we will.”
He said this so easily that she felt the warmth rush up her cheeks. Really, she was just a common girl. She was not spectacular to look at, nor wildly witty and outgoing. There was nothing about her that was going to interest royalty, to make him want to be her friend, even casually. She needed to remember that.
She went ahead of him. As they passed the man who still sat slumped in the chair, Prince Montague reached out a hand and squeezed that defeated shoulder for an instant. The man sat up straighter, managed a smile. Then the prince placed one hand on her shoulder. The fabric of her coat was light, and she could feel the heat from his hand, the utter strength of the man reflected in the sureness of his grip. He guided her down the steps and to the sleek black Jaguar parked at the meters right outside the police station. A white notice was tucked under the windshield wipers.
“What do you want to bet our friend lost no time in running right out here to give this to me?” he asked, slipping it into his pocket without looking at it.
She shot a worried look across the street at her little red Volkswagen. How much was a parking ticket these days? Her budget was already stretched to breaking with the move back here to Thortonburg, and the fact she had not yet found a contract. But there was no telltale white slip on her windshield.
“I should just go put some change in my meter,” she said. “I—”
“Never mind,” he said. “I’ll look after it.”
Rachel took fierce pride in her independence. In the fact she had never asked anyone for help since Carly was born. Why did it feel so good to have someone say that? They would look after it?
For once, she would swallow her foolish pride and accept. Just for tonight, she would let herself believe in the fairy tale.
“Thank you,” she said. There. Three times. Now she owed him her life.
She wondered what it was like to be born into a family that had more money than several generations of them could spend. She wondered, as he held the door open for her and she slid into the deep leather luxury of the seats, what it felt like never to worry about money, to have as much to spend on a car as it would take to buy the small cottage that she dreamed of for herself and Carly. She had been squirreling away tiny amounts of cash toward that end since Carly had been born. But it suddenly occurred to her Carly could be a mother of three herself before she could save enough on her tight budget.
The car started with a rich purr that became a throaty growl as he put it in gear and pulled smoothly into traffic.
* * *
He found her utterly beautiful, the woman who sat beside him. Her hair, shoulder length, cut perfectly to frame the loveliness of her face, was a rich blend of colors that he did not think the term auburn did justice. Her eyes were the spectacular color of the purest jade. Her nose was small and neat and her mouth was sweet and vulnerable. There was a hint of stubbornness in the tilt of her chin.
She wore hardly a trace of makeup and the scent that wafted his way was clean and pure—soap, rather than perfume.
Her clothing, a navy blue trench coat over a white skirt and matching pumps, was plain and yet tasteful. Her hair was tucked behind her ears, and there were little white drops that matched the skirt attached to tiny earlobes.
Earlobes that begged a man’s lips to nuzzle them.
The thought shocked Damon Montague. Sergeant Crenshaw might not have been delicate about it, but he was right. Since the death of Damon’s wife just over a year ago, he’d been walking in a fog, held in the grip of a grief so deep, he was convinced it would never heal. Of course, it wasn’t just the loss of his wife.
Sharon had died bearing their first child, a son. The infant, perfectly formed, a tiny, angelic replica of Sharon, had died, too.
He knew that people thought he had everything. And once that might have been true. But the fact was, tragedy had made him long to be the most ordinary of men. Because money, position, prestige—none of it could buy him out of this place he was in. A place of feelings so raw and overwhelming, he did not know what to do with them. All his position had done was put his grief in a harsh spotlight, for viewing by the likes of Crenshaw. And now his position was making demands on him to get better. Get over it. Get on with life. Do his duty.
Even tonight, he’d come by private ferry from his island home of Roxbury to this neighboring island of Thortonburg to squire one of the many beautiful young women his well-meaning mother kept putting in his path. An unusually tall, if attractive girl, well-educated, from the best of families. Eligible, in other words.
When he’d come out of the opera to find his antenna broken, he’d felt relief, not anger. It was the perfect excuse to put the blond titan on his arm in a cab with his assistant, Phillip, and bid her adieu on the Opera Hall steps. No awkward moment when he had to try and escape kisses he had no heart for, conversation he could not stir interest in.
Other men’s stations would not demand that they remarry before their hearts had fully healed. Other men would not have to endure such pressure to put their feelings aside and produce an heir.
An heir. No, he did not think so. He spent many quiet hours locked in a nursery that would never have a baby in it now, no matter what his station demanded.
A nursery where Sharon was, still. In that silent room, sunshine-yellow, white lace at the windows, teddy bears everywhere, he could see his wife, her head thrown back in laughter, her eyes bright with the excitement of the coming baby, of the future. She could have had a staff of a dozen in there painting and decorating, but there she would be, alone, in a paint smock that stretched ever tighter over the beautiful mound of her belly, paintbrush in hand, her tongue caught between her teeth as she painted the bumblebee on the end of Pooh’s nose.
“Is something wrong?” the woman beside him asked softly.
He came back to the present with a jolt. “No,” he lied, and then realized he had wasted an opportunity. His offer to drive her home was motivated not just by a sense of wanting to help her, but a desire to know more about her missing sister.
