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He touched her ankles, noticed that she’d lost one white tennis shoe, though her short sock still hugged her narrow foot.
“Yes.” She wiggled her feet. “Your hands are warm.”
“I’m going to check if anything’s broken,” he said, then slid his hands under her long denim skirt. She had the legs of a dancer, he thought, or maybe a runner. Long and curved and well-toned. Her skin was like cool silk. He inched the fabric up to her knees, saw that her right knee was scraped, but there was little blood. “If you like, you can slap me later for being so brazen.”
He noted the small ruby-and-diamond ring on her left hand as he slowly raised her arm. When she sucked in a breath at the movement, he gently eased her arm down again.
“I don’t suppose I’ll be slapping you with that hand,” she said through clenched teeth.
When an icy gust of wind from the east struck them, Dylan felt the goosebumps rise on her skin. Fat raindrops splattered on the grass around them, and thunder shook the ground.
“She’s going to open up on us any minute.” Liam glanced up as a jagged bolt of lightning streaked down and exploded inside a stand of trees less than a quarter mile down the road. They heard the crack of a tree’s branch, saw the sparks rise upward on a cloud of smoke. The air, charged with electricity, turned thick and heavy and made the hair on Dylan’s arms rise.
“We can’t stay here,” Dylan yelled over the rising wind and the rumbling of thunder. “I’m going to pick you up and put you in the car.”
Another bolt of lightning struck, closer this time, and Liam’s prediction proved correct. The sky opened and a torrent of cold rain pounded them. As gently as possible, Dylan scooped the woman up in his arms. She shivered against him, and he held her close, did his best to protect her from the rain as he dashed to the car. Liam held the door open while Dylan laid the woman on the soft, gray leather back seat of the black limo. He climbed in beside her and closed the door.
Bullet-proof glass windows blocked out the raging storm outside. The interior of the car was quiet and warm. Liam jumped into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
“Shall I go back for her bike?” Liam asked.
“Later, after the storm subsides.” Dylan knelt on the wide floor of the car. “We don’t want you to end up like one of those poor moths caught in old Pierre’s garden bug zapper.”
In just the short run to the car, the woman’s dark hair had been drenched and several strands around her pale face had started to curl. When she started to shiver violently, Dylan lifted the lid of a compartment between the seats and pulled out a blanket, then draped it over her shoulders.
“Call ahead for Dr. Waltham,” Dylan said over his shoulder. “Tell him what happened and have him waiting by the infirmary entrance.”
Liam drove while he made the call. Dylan closed the heavy glass partition between the front seat and the back of the car so the woman wouldn’t hear. He saw the pain in her clouded eyes, felt his own frustration knot in his stomach. But there was nothing he could do for her until they got to the palace.
Dammit! He forced himself to concentrate on the woman instead of the car’s slow process up the road.
“We’ll be there in a few minutes,” Dylan said quietly. “Are you comfortable?”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered so quietly he barely heard her. “So very sorry.”
The intensity in her gaze and the quiet desperation in her voice confused him. He pulled the blanket up and tucked it under her chin. “You have nothing to be sorry for. We hit you, remember?”
She turned away from him. The welt on her face had darkened, and the wound on her head oozed blood.
“What’s your name?” He pressed the handkerchief still in his hand to her scalp. “Is there someone we can call?”
Slowly she turned her head back toward him. Dylan saw fear in her gray-green eyes, and confusion, as well.
“I—I don’t know.”
“You don’t know if there’s anyone we can call?”
“No.” As if in pain, she closed her eyes. “I mean I don’t know my name.”
Two
What should have been a five-minute ride to the palace had already been fifteen. Dylan silently cursed every bump in the road, every clash of thunder, every kick of wind that sent the limo sliding sideways. Rain fell in heavy sheets, battering the car’s roof and windshield. He knew that it was impossible for Liam to safely drive any faster, but that knowledge did little to curb his frustration at the limo’s snail’s pace up the mountain.
At least the inside of the car was warm and comfortable, Dylan thought as he studied the woman lying on the soft leather seat beside him. He pressed the linen handkerchief to the wound on her head, then frowned at the stark contrast of bright red blood on the white cloth. Lord knew he’d seen more than his share of blood in the past two years—some had even been his own—but this was different. The woman seemed so fragile, so delicate.
And he was responsible.
He’d examined the gash on her head more closely and felt certain that it wasn’t too deep. She’d stopped shivering after he’d covered her with the blanket, had even attempted to sit up twice, claiming that she was fine. Both times he’d gently eased her back down onto the seat. She wasn’t fine, for God’s sake. She’d been hit by a car—his car.
Where had she come from? And the bigger question still, who was she?
The fact that she hadn’t an answer to that question disturbed him, but she’d taken a nasty fall and blow to the head. It was understandable she was confused and disoriented at the moment.
There was something vaguely familiar about her, though nothing he could put a finger on. Like a tune from his childhood, or an old saying that he hadn’t heard in years. It lingered at the edges of his mind, but refused to come closer.
He shook the odd feeling off. Most probably he’d never met her at all. Though it was late in the year, it was possible that she was a tourist, or maybe a guest at one of the neighboring estates. The countryside along the coast of Penwyck was breathtaking. Travellers came from all over the world to view and photograph the scenic cliffs and forests.
But he hadn’t noticed a camera, Dylan thought. She hadn’t even carried a purse with her.
A blinding bolt of lightning lit the inside of the car, then thunder crashed. The woman squeezed her eyes shut and huddled beneath the blanket.
“You’re all right now,” Dylan reassured her, though he wasn’t so certain. Her skin had paled and her breathing was shallow. “We’ll be at the palace in a few minutes.”
“Palace?” Her eyes opened, then narrowed in confusion as she glanced at him.
“Penwyck Palace. That’s where my driver and I were headed when you appeared in the road. Do you remember where you were going?”
“I—” She hesitated, then shook her head. “No.”
She started to shiver again. Dylan took both her hands in his to comfort as much as warm her cold skin. Her fingers were long and slender, her nails short and neat. Other than the ruby ring on her right hand that he’d noticed before, she wore no jewelry. No wedding ring or evidence that she’d worn one recently, either.
Another bolt of lightning flashed close by. The woman closed her eyes and whimpered.
“Sshh.” He squeezed her hands, hoped like hell that she wasn’t going into shock.
“Your hands,” she said quietly and opened her eyes. “They’re so warm.”
He smiled at her. “Only because yours are so cold.”
A smile flashed at the corners of her mouth, then quickly faded. “You’ve been so kind, and I don’t even know your name.”
“Dylan.” He checked the wound on her head again, was relieved that the bleeding had eased. “Dylan Penwyck.”
Her brow furrowed. “Your last name is the same as the palace you mentioned? Are you a member of the royal family?”
Even though Dylan had done his best to stay out of the public eye his entire life, everyone who lived on this island knew that Dylan Penwyck was King Morgan Penwyck’s son. Not everyone knew exactly what he looked like, especially since he’d been gone the past two years, but still, the name Dylan Penwyck was well known to his country’s general population.
Unless this woman wasn’t from Penwyck, he thought. Or, possibly, the blow to her head had wiped out more of her memory than her own name.
But as Liam pulled up in front of the infirmary, Dylan hadn’t time to answer her question, or ask any more of his own. Wearing a gray rain slicker and carrying an umbrella, the doctor hurried down the steps, then quickly opened the car door.
Questions and answers would have to wait for a while, Dylan knew. He scooped the woman into his arms and carried her up the infirmary steps while the doctor shielded her from the rain with his umbrella. Whatever the beautiful woman’s name might be, and what she’d been doing up on the mountain road, would have to remain a mystery for a little while longer.
Thirty minutes later, Dylan stared at the waiting-room clock and frowned. What the hell was taking so long? He swore under his breath, then spun on his heels and continued his pacing. Liam had gone to report the accident to Queen Marissa and Dr. Waltham was still in the examination room.
Dylan’s frown deepened, and he stared at the clock again. Surely the doctor had something to report by now.
For the hundredth time, Dylan recalled the sound of the car striking the woman’s bicycle, the expression of shock on her face just before she flew through the air, then the way her body had crumpled when she’d landed beside the road.
All the cuts and bruises, the blood.
His hands clenched into fists at the memory, then he turned and headed for the examination room at the end of the hall. Enough was enough. He refused to wait any longer. Someone was going to tell him something.
Now.
He lifted his fist to knock on the door, but it opened before he made contact. Mavis Weidermeyer, Dr. Waltham’s head nurse, stood on the other side. The woman quite literally filled the doorway.
Damn. Not Mavis, Dylan thought. He’d learned at a young age how to get around most of the staff in the palace, sometimes with charm, sometimes by pulling rank. But nothing worked with Mavis Weidermeyer. There’d been talk that Dr. Waltham’s nurse wasn’t human, but rather a mechanical military experiment gone awry.
“Your Royal Highness.” Nurse Mavis stepped out of the room and closed the door behind her. At six foot, the woman didn’t have to look up to meet Dylan’s eye. “Is there something I can help you with?”
If I ever need a piano moved, Dylan thought.
He straightened his shoulders. “I’d like to speak with Dr. Waltham.”
“I’ve already told you that Dr. Waltham will speak to you when he’s finished his examination,” Mavis said firmly. “Please have a seat in the waiting room. I’ll call you when the doctor is ready for you.”
She turned before he could respond and walked behind the waiting-room counter.
He stared at the woman’s broad back. Dammit. He was the one who was supposed to give the commands around here. Nevertheless, he turned and headed back to the waiting room, then sat stiffly on one of the leather-and-chrome armchairs.
Mavis sat at her computer and began typing. He was considering rushing the exam-room door when Liam came into the office, a cup of steaming coffee in his hand and a worried expression on his face. Mavis glanced up at the driver, gave him a stiff nod, then turned back to her computer.
Good, Dylan thought. Reinforcements.
“How is the lass?” Liam held out the coffee to Dylan, but he shook his head.
“I can’t get past Attila to find out,” Dylan muttered under his breath. “I could use a little diversion.”
Liam grinned. “My specialty.”
“Mavis, me darlin’.” Liam sauntered over to the woman and leaned across the counter. “The wife’s been asking why you haven’t been to quilting circle.”
Mavis eyed him suspiciously. “I’ve never been to quilting circle, Liam McNeil. Clair knows that.”
Liam scratched his neck and frowned. “Maybe it was the gardening club, then, or was it—”
The cup of coffee in Liam’s hand tumbled over the edge of the counter and exploded across Mavis’s desk. With something between a shriek and a roar, Mavis jumped up, grabbed a box of tissues on her desk and blotted at the mess. When Liam came around to help, Dylan ducked past them both and headed down the hall.
He knocked lightly, heard “Come in,” then opened the door and stepped inside.
Wearing a light-blue gown, she sat on the edge of an examination table. Her legs and feet were bare and the sight of the scrapes and bruises on her knee and down her left leg made Dylan’s chest tighten. She glanced up when he closed the door behind him and her eyes widened in surprise.
“I thought you were the nurse,” she said, wrapping her arms protectively around her waist.
“She’s been detained and asked me to come check on you.” Dylan moved closer, winced at the blossoming bruise on the woman’s cheek.
“Nurse Mavis asked you to check on me?”
“Well, not exactly,” Dylan fessed up. “I ordered three of the palace guards to tie her up so I could slip past her.”
A smile lurked at the corners of her mouth, then she glanced down and shook her head. “I’m so sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you. You’ve every right to be angry with me for being so careless.”
“If I were angry, believe me, you would know. For that matter, the entire palace would know.” He glanced at the top of her head, saw a small white butterfly strip covering the gash above her hairline. “Stitches?”
“No. Dr. Waltham said it should heal all right without any.”
Gently, he took her chin in his hand, then tilted her face up. He saw the pain in her smoky-green eyes and had to bite back the swear word threatening to erupt. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine.”
“Liar.”
Her gaze dropped from his, her thick, dark lashes like a fan against her pale cheek. “I—I do feel as if I missed the top step of a tall staircase. The doctor gave me something for the pain a few minutes ago.”
He knew he should remove his hand from her chin, but he lingered there a moment longer. Her skin was soft and smooth in his callused palm, ivory-white against his tanned fingers. But when his gaze strayed to her lips, when his pulse jumped, he released her and stepped back. “Where is the doctor?”
“He’s looking at the X rays. He should be back any minute.” She glanced up again. “Prince Dylan, I mean, Your Royal Highness—”
“Just call me Dylan.” He hated the damn titles, hated that people treated him with such formality once they knew who he was. That was the one thing he’d enjoyed most these past two years. He’d been accepted by others for himself, not for his royal blood. “I still don’t know what to call you, though. Have you remembered your name?”
She hugged her arms tightly to her. “No.”
“Well, then.” Dylan stared thoughtfully at her. “I suppose we’ll have to try a few and see if anything rings a bell. Agnes?”
“I look like an Agnes?”
“Maybe not. Hortense?”
She lifted a brow.
“No, of course not. Gertrude?”
Dylan saw the amusement in her eyes as she shook her head.
“Irma? Sibyl? Chloe? Cornelia—”
“How about Emily?”
