Princess In Denim (22 page)

The sky opened up, and they dashed for the door before they got drenched.

"The harp music is beautiful," she said.

He regretted that the harpist could not follow them around the castle. It was just as well, though, as he was not going to let anyone else into his suite with them. Whenever he finally got Moira there.

He showed her the gallery, which also housed more gifts. The smallest was a solid-gold quill pen; the largest, a grand piano; the most delicate, a handmade lace tablecloth; the oldest, an eighteenth-century grandfather clock.

Then came the tropical room, which was very tropical and very little actual "room." She was properly astounded by the indoor pool, as some ancestor of his had been very freehanded with the gold leaf on the wall tiles around the deck. He did not show her every room, as he wanted to reach his suite sometime that year.

"So many rooms!"

He indicated that they should turn right. "And my suite is in this wing."

"Oh, uh...I don't believe you showed me the towers."

"The towers," he repeated slowly. "All of them?"

She pursed her lips, then replied, "We can skip the ones along the curtain wall, if you like."

He shrugged as if it were of no importance, which it would not be if he did not ache to get her alone in his chambers. And if he did not have a prisoner—the same man she had ordered released—in a tower she wanted to view.

Did she suspect?

"There is really nothing of interest in the towers."

"Oh, but I'd like to see them."

"The electricity is unreliable in bad weather."

"Then bring a flashlight."

"I am sure I do not have one."

"Let's risk it."

"No, I think not You could trip on the steps in the dark and hurt yourself."

"William..."

"You can see them when the weather clears."

"You don't want me up there, do you?"

"I do not want you to get hurt."

"Well..." She tapped her toe on the marble floor, and he knew he was in trouble. "If I can't see everything, I might as well go home."

Do American men have to go through this?
"If you promise to see everything, I suppose I could have someone follow us with a light, just in case."

"What are you up to?"

He strove to look as innocent as a little boy caught near the cookie jar. "Nothing."

"Okay."

"Everything?"

"Well, you don't have to show me any of those closets that used to pass as toilets."

"I promise to leave them off the tour."

He summoned Leonard, who looked very surprised and mumbled what sounded like, "Do I have to explain everything?"

"You have taken to muttering in your old age, Leonard."

"Sorry, Your Majesty. I said, do you need anything?"

While Moira admired a hand-carved frieze, William told Leonard about needing a flashlight and, more important, instructed him as to the prisoner.

"What progress has been made on the investigation?"

"Looks like we have the wrong man, Your Majesty. The reports on him, to this point, have all been exemplary."

"Release him, then."

"Very well, Your Majesty."

In a matter of minutes, a flashlight made its way into William's hand, and he led Moira away.

"See?" he asked when she had made a thorough inspection of all four towers.

"I don't know. It feels as if someone's been living in this one."

"You think it...feels different?" he asked dubiously.

"It's warmer here than in the others. And it smells like coffee."

He stepped close enough to whisper in her ear. "All I can smell is coconut"

She touched her hair self-consciously as she bolted away from him. "It's my shampoo."

"Yes, I know. Come, there is only my apartment left for you to see."

Her eyes darted around the tower, as if seeking something to hold her there.

"You promised, Moira."

She took a deep breath and stiffened her spine, which just jutted her breasts forward and served to distract him more.

"Okay," she said.

"You act as though there is a firing squad there instead of a Renoir."

"You have a Renoir and didn't tell me?"

He shrugged innocently. "A man likes to save some surprises."

As they exited the door at the bottom of the tower, he pushed the flashlight back into Leonard's hands and told him to get lost. When they reached his suite, he pushed the door open and let Moira enter first so that she could get an unobstructed view of his favorite painting.

"It's beautiful."

After thirty seconds of that, he no longer wanted her looking at his painting with the same rapt interest she had shown fossils at the summit. He wanted her to be interested in him. As a man. As a lover.

He felt his pocket to be sure he still had the ring.
Check.
He laid his arm around her shoulders in a friendly gesture, and she did not step away.
Check!
He turned her into his embrace and nuzzled the corner of her lips as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the small velvet box.

Damn, she needs to be seated for this to work right.

He inched her backward until they reached a chair, any chair, until her knees were against it and she could not move farther. He knew he was supposed to sit her down in it so that he could get on bended knee in front of her, but he could not bear to put space between them.

"Moira," he whispered against her lips, just as his name was on her lips, also.

"William."

When she would have laughed about it, and possibly broken the spell, he traced her bottom lip with the tip of his tongue. Any words she would have spoken were smothered by her soft moan.

"Moira, please, you must sit down."

She clung to him. "Don't want to."

Checkmate.
"You must."

"Why?"

"I have something to ask of you." He heard knocking, and absently thought it was supposed to be bells ringing. He wanted to tell her he loved her, but he dared not. Not yet. He could not bear to have her tell him that he was just caught up in "the moment" again. He would pick that time very wisely.

"Your Majesty!" His man-at-arms's interruption startled him and made Moira jump.

"Unless you want to be shot at sunrise—"

"Your Majesty, the prisoner has escaped."

"You imbecile!"

"What prisoner?" Moira asked.

The man-at-arms apparently thought his news was more important than his life. "I just went on my shift, sir, and the tower is empty."

Stalemate!

Chapter Twelve

Under normal circumstances, William dressed himself just fine. But today his thoughts raced ahead to the wedding ceremony that was to take place in two hours, and it was thanks only to his valet's handing him his clothing in proper sequence that William managed to don his country's midnight-blue military uniform.

The gold braid hung straight; the brass buttons were polished to a glow. It was said that women could not resist a man in uniform. If that was true, he could only hope this one would do the trick with Moira, the woman he had chosen to be his bride before he really knew her. He had deliberated over asking King Albert for her hand for months. If he had been acquainted with the lovely woman she had grown into, there would have been no deliberation at all. She was the one he wanted, desired, dreamed about.

And he had not slept with her, so no one could accuse him of lust, could they?

He had never planned on
not
sleeping with his queen before the ceremony—much less after, as she had said they would not. He smiled to himself.
That
was a situation he was determined to correct at the earliest possible moment. Preferably tonight.

Leonard appeared at the door. "Your Majesty, His Royal Highness, Prince Louis, would like a moment of your time."

"Show him in."

He guessed Louis had come to shake his hand and wish him well. It was the right thing to do. He had never much liked Louis; he was as selfish as his father had been spineless. If his mother had lived longer, he might have turned out different, although Moira had grown up without their mother and turned out wonderful.

Nearly perfect, except for that damned American independent streak.

"Your Majesty," Louis said as he entered the room. As the man who would give the bride away, he was already dressed in Ennsway's military uniform, the color of trees in deep shade.

"Louis, how nice of you to come see me."

"I feel I must tell you something of utmost importance."

William strove for levity. "Relax. My father explained it all to me years ago." His valet handed him his sword, which he hung at his side.

"Seriously. William, I have shocking news."

"All right. I am listening."

"First you must promise me not to do anything drastic. Not to go off half-cocked until you have all the facts."

Had King Albert's prediction come true?

Fear gripped William, and he strode across the room, tempted to grab Louis by the throat. "If anything has happened to Moira, I swear—"

"That's just it. I don't know where
Moira
is."

"She is missing?"

"No. Yes. You don't understand." Louis paced the carpet.

"Spit it out, man!"

Louis glanced around at the curious valet and Leonard. "Dismiss your staff, please."

At a jerk of William's head, the men disappeared.

Louis continued in a tone laced with both apology and outrage. "The woman in Ennsway Castle, the woman getting ready to marry you today, is not my sister."

William took a step back, as if that would give him a clearer picture of this confusing accusation. It was one thing for the staff to gossip about it; it was quite another for her own brother to deny her.

"She is not Moira, I tell you."

It took William a moment to let it sink in, to disbelieve it, to find his voice. "And on what do you base this... suspicion?"

"It's more than that. I've felt uncomfortable with her since the day she arrived. I knew something was not right, I just couldn't put my finger on it. And then I saw her with the dog, and she didn't cry or shake. She petted it." He sounded as if that were unbelievable.

William felt a moment of relief as he began to doubt the man's sanity. "So she is not afraid of dogs anymore."

In a tight voice, Louis said, "So you noticed it, too."

"I noticed nothing of the kind."

"You don't know my sister as well as I do. She's not the same."

William thought one of them should remain calm. One of them should be reasonable. "She has been gone sixteen years, Louis. Over half her life."

"I would still know she isn't my sister. She isn't Ennsway's queen. She isn't the woman promised to you by my father."

William took up pacing when Louis stopped, his logic racing as fast as he covered the carpet. "She does not want to marry me. If she were not Moira, she would not go through with this wedding."

"So she says. But think about it. A stranger gets the opportunity to be a queen."

Ah, a hole in Louis's argument.
"She is already queen."

"Then she gets to marry you."

"I told you, she does not want to marry me."

Louis snickered. "Get real, William. Any woman wants to be richer than she already is."

"I do not believe you."

"Then think on this. She's an impostor, I'm sure of it The foolish woman knows nothing about running a country. That was obvious when she eliminated the death tax. This way, she'll have
you
to run the country for her."

"Enough!"

"Think on it." Louis's vehemence was palpable.

Life without Moira?
William's hands itched to throttle the prince. "You should leave now."

"I'll be at the castle. You call me, and I'll put a stop to this wedding, but I can't do it without your support There would be a revolt, I'm afraid." Louis exited the room as neatly as an actor leaving the stage.

Could it be true?
William wondered whether it was worth putting off his wedding night over a silly rumor.

Or was she an impostor? Was he marrying the wrong woman? And once he had, when she was discovered, what would happen to Baesland-Ennsway, the new country being formed?

Preposterous!

Such a thing could not happen. Emma would have known. And just why had Emma disappeared for days? Had she really been dismissed? And by whom?

Good God, had he fallen in love with the wrong woman?

* * *

Chloe lingered over her brunch, putting off the moment when she would have to shed her robe, climb up on the pedestal that had been moved to her sitting room, and let Angela and the French women hook her into her wedding gown.

She should have been looking forward to this, her wedding day. Instead, she'd spent the early morning with her new minister of education, redefining the educational standards for Ennsway's children. With or without William's help, illiteracy in Ennsway was going the way of the dinosaurs. By midmorning, she'd selected half a dozen rooms in the castle and outlined her plans to devote them to child care.