Linda Needham Read Online Free Page B

Princess,” Lord Peverel said, with a nod to his fellows. “Do let usknow if we can be of assistance. Any time, for any purpose.”
    “Thank you, Lord Peverel. I’m very grateful to all of you.” She turned to Sir Wellstetter. “And I’ll see you, my lord, on the dance floor.”
    She left the delightfully eccentric little trio speaking overtop each other, wondering what had prompted Queen Victoria to choose these three men as her ministers.
    Not that she’d had any complaints about them. It’s just that they were a bit advanced in age and full of differing opinions.
    And speaking of dance cards, she could only hope she wouldn’t be accosted again on the dance floor by the bloody “Lord of the Maze.”
    He had a good kick in the nether parts coming, if he tried.

Chapter 3
    “D rew, old man! There you are!” Ross was leaning smugly against the terrace doorway, detached as always, as always on edge. “Did you find your princess?”
    “The woman is well and duly accounted for.” Safely under the care of her friends. Because he’d made damn sure she’d gotten there. And then had skulked the situation long enough to hear them gossiping in the sewing room.
    Which had been a good thirty minutes ago. Long enough for the daft woman to have decided to run off on another fool venture.
    “You actually met the woman?” Drew nodded and snagged two glasses of champagne from a passing footman and offered one to Ross. “We had a nice, long chat out in the garden.”
    At very close quarters. Very.
    Ross took the glass with a skeptical brow. “You didn’t do anything to offend her, did you?”
    How could he not? The woman was a princess, with delicately cultivated sensibilities.
    “When have I ever given offense?”
    “That little incident with Grand Duke William Charles springs to mind.”
    “The bastard was drunk and brutal and deserved that dunking in the Seine.” Drew ignored Ross’s snort of derision and scanned the roomful of dancers for his troublesome charge, knowing that the woman had yet to return to the ballroom.
    “Are you sure you merely chatted with your princess, Wexford?” Ross smiled crookedly as he reached across Drew’s shoulder, then produced a branching twig with two small, shiny leaves attached.
    Drew slashed Ross a frown, then grabbed the evidence and stuck it into his coat pocket. “I told you, Ross, we were walking in the garden, chatting.”
    Ross snorted. “God help you if she returns bearing a matching leaf. You’ll be the talk of the town.”
    “And Palmerston would have my head. Credit me with some sense, Ross.”
    Only where the devil had the woman gotten to?
    Drew was about to return to the service building to find the princess when he noticed a commotion in one corner of the ballroom. The crowd parted and there she was, entering the dance floor.
    Perfectly coifed.
    Perfectly gowned.
    Perfectly calm.
    Perfect, indeed.
    A wake formed behind her graceful step, rapt lords, reluctantly dazzled ladies.
    Bloody blazes, the woman was magnificent, radiant and distantly regal. And yet her soft scent stillclung to his lapels and his neck cloth, the implacable memory of her silky shoulder against his chin. Her nape just a breath away, the smooth shell of her ear.
    A temptation like no other he’d faced.
    As he watched her progress through her admirers, he felt an overwhelmingly possessive pride in her bearing. A sense that they now shared secrets between them, and shadows and private hijinks.
    Hell, they’d tussled in the bushes, played hide-and-seek, had dashed off an impromptu subterfuge. She’d boldly pinched the back of his leg!
    A touch that had caught him off guard, had roused him, and left him aching.
    “She looks bloody dangerous to me, Drew.”
    “Who is that?”
    Ross snorted and gave him a wry look. “Your fairy princess.”
    “She’s not mine, Ross.”
    “Yours to protect with your life.” Drew could feel his friend eyeing him closely. “So how did the princess react