Royal bride on the run...

Into the arms of an enigmatic rescuer...

On the way to the Vallemont royal wedding, Will Darcy’s overblown sense of chivalry leads him to rescue a damsel in a muddy wedding dress! And, yes, it’s the princess-to-be! While the media furor dies down, they’re holed up in one hotel room where irrepressible Sadie makes buttoned-up Will reconsider his life. For once work isn’t his priority—resisting the tantalizing royal runaway is!

Australian author ALLY BLAKE loves reading and strong coffee, porch swings and dappled sunshine, beautiful notebooks and soft, dark pencils. Her inquisitive, rambunctious, spectacular children are her exquisite delight. And she adores writing love stories so much she’d write them even if nobody else read them. No wonder, then, having sold over four million copies of her romance novels worldwide, Ally is living her bliss. Find out more about Ally’s books at allyblake.com.

Also by Ally Blake

Falling for the Rebel Heir

Hired: The Boss’s Bride

Dating the Rebel Tycoon

Millionaire Dad’s SOS

The Royals of Vallemont miniseries

Rescuing the Royal Runaway Bride

And look out for the next book

Amber and the Rogue Prince Coming June 2018

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Rescuing the Royal Runaway Bride

Ally Blake

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07758-3

RESCUING THE ROYAL RUNAWAY BRIDE

© 2018 Ally Blake

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my husband, Mark,

who loves nothing more than looking to the stars.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

THE DAY COULD not be more perfect for a royal wedding, thought Will as his open-topped hire car chewed up miles of undulating Vallemontian roads.

The sky was a cerulean-blue dome. Clusters of puffy white cumuli hovered over snow-dusted mountains and dotted shadows over rolling green hills filling the valley that gave the small European principality its name.

By Will’s calculations, snow should fall on the valley any day. Instead, the delicate bite of a warm sun cut through the washed-clean feeling that came after lashings of rain. It was as if the influential Vallemontian royal family had wished for it to be so, and so it was.

But Will Darcy did not believe in wishes. He believed in the human eye’s ability to find millions of colours in a drop of light; the resultant heat of distantly burning stars; that weather forecasting was an inexact science.

This coming from an astronomer; his field truly a game of extrapolation, using ancient evidence to build current theory, relying on calculations that pushed against the edges of the range of known values. One had to be part cowboy, part explorer, part decoder, idealist and seer to do well in the field—something he’d addressed as the keynote speaker at the Space and Time Forum in London the night before.

It had been a late night too. Hence the fact he’d flown into Vallemont only that morning, and would arrive at the palace just as the ceremony was about to start.

The delayed flight had also given him plenty of opportunity to back out if need be. There was the lecture on worm holes he was due to give at the University of Amsterdam a few days from now, after all. The podcast with newyorker.com. The notes from his editor on the second edition of his graduate-level astronomy textbook due any day. And then there was the virtual-reality game set in the Orion Nebula for which he was both investor and technical advisor.

Reasons enough to forgo the trip.

But only one reason to get on that plane.

To see his old friend tie the knot.

A day for knots, Will thought, choosing to ignore the one that had formed overnight in his belly at the thought of what this day might bring.

He pressed down on the accelerator on the neat little convertible his assistant had hired for him in the hope he might “realise how damn lucky he was and take a moment to enjoy himself”. The chill wind ruffled his hair as he zoomed through the bucolic countryside until the road narrowed, heralding yet another idyllic Arcadian village.

Around a tight bend and he was in the thick of it—tightly winding cobblestone streets dotted with gaslight-style street lamps, stone houses with thatched roofs tucked tightly together and wedged into the side of a steep hill, their windowsills abundant with brightly coloured flowers; history in crumbling stone walls, mossy pavements and the occasional brass sign telling of times past.

The engine on the low-slung sports model growled as Will changed down a gear. The suspension knocked his teeth together as it struggled against the ancient stone beneath, but it was all he could do to avoid the crowd spilling from the thin footpaths onto the road.

Festive they were. All smiles as they headed to pubs and parks and lounge rooms all over the country to watch the wedding on television. Pink and gold ribbons had been strung across the road. Handmade banners flapped from weathervanes. Pink flower petals covered the footpaths and floated in tiny puddles.

All because Will’s oldest friend, Hugo, was getting married to some woman named Mercedes Gray Leonine, no less. Though those who had strung the ribbons and scattered the petals knew the guy as Prince Alessandro Hugo Giordano.

Then the roadway cleared and Will aimed for a stone bridge crossing the rocky river that trapped the village against the hillside and hit open space again.

It was all so very green, rain having brought a lush overabundance, shine and glisten as far as the eye could see.

And on he drove. Until he reached a tunnel of trees running parallel to the river.

Glimpses of fields pushing into the distance sneaked through the dark foliage. The ever-present mountains cast cool shadows through the sunshine. And, if his GPS wasn’t glitching, any moment to the east...

There. Sunlight bounced off arched windows and turned pale sandstone turrets into rose-gold. Pink and gold banners flapped high in the breeze while the Palace of Vallemont sat high and grand on its pretty bluff, like something out of a fairy tale.

And the knot in Will’s stomach grew so that it pressed hard against his lungs.

The first time he’d been invited to the palace had been well over a decade before. Circumstances—by way of a skiing accident—had seen to it that he’d been forced to stay at his grandparents’ mausoleum of a townhouse in London that summer, leaving his sister, Clair, to visit the royal family as Hugo’s special guest on her own.

Only a few weeks later, Will’s life had been irrevocably, tragically altered. The boy who’d already lost so much became a young man who’d lost everything. And Vallemont, this postcard-pretty part of the world, had been a throbbing bruise on his subconscious ever since.

Memories lifted and flurried. He’d handled things less than admirably at the time. This was his chance to put things right. He held the steering wheel tighter and kept moving forward.

The thicket filled out, the view narrowing to the curving tunnel of green and rutting muddy road that hadn’t had the benefit of recent sunshine. A herd of sheep suddenly tripped and tumbled their way across the road.

Will slowed again, this time to a stop. He rested his elbow on the windowsill, his chin in his hand, his finger tapping against his bottom lip. If life wasn’t so cruel, random and insensate, he might one day have attended a very different wedding in this storybook place. Not as a ghost from the groom’s past, but as best man and brother, all in one.

He shook his head.

What ifs were not relevant. The world simply kept on turning. Day would dissolve into night. And tomorrow it would start all over again.

The last of the sheep skittered past, followed by a wizened old man in overalls holding a crook. He tipped his hat. Will returned with a salute. And then he and the knot in his belly were off again.

He kept his speed down as rain had dug deep grooves into the ancient mud and stone. The trees hung dangerously low over the road, dappling sunlight over the windscreen, shadow and light dancing across his hands, hindering his vision for a second, then—

Will slammed on the brakes. He gripped the wheel as the car fishtailed, mud spattering every which way, the engine squalling, the small tyres struggling to find purchase.

Then the car skidded to a jarring halt, momentum throwing him forward hard against the seatbelt, knocking his breath from his lungs. At which point the engine sputtered and died.

His chest burned from the impact of the belt. His fingers stung on the wheel. Blood rushed like an ocean behind his ears. Adrenaline poured hotly through his veins. And beneath it all his heart clanged in terror.

He’d heard a noise. He was sure of it. The growl and splutter had been punctuated with a thud.

Expecting carnage, axle damage from a fallen log, or, worse, a lone sheep thrown clear by the impact, Will opened his eyes.

Sunlight streaked through the thicket. Steam rose from the road. Wet leaves fell like confetti from a tree above. But there was no sheep in sight.

Instead, dead centre of his windscreen, stood a woman.

He blinked to make sure he wasn’t imagining her. So pale, sylph-like in the shadows of the dark, dank vegetation, she practically glowed.

As if in slow motion, a leaf fluttered from above to snag in a dark auburn curl dangling over her face. Another landed on a fair bare shoulder. Yet another snagged on the wide skirt of a voluminous pink dress three times bigger than she was.

Those were details that stampeded through Will’s mind during the half-second it took him to leap from the car. The mud sluicing over the tops of his dress shoes and seeping into his socks mattered only so far as the fact it slowed him down.

“Where are you hurt?” he barked, running his hands through his hair to dampen the urge to run them over her.

Not that she seemed to notice. Her eyes remained closed, mouth downturned, black-streaked tears ran unstopped down her cheeks. And she trembled as if a strong gust of wind might whip her away.

Best case scenario was shock. Worst case... The thud still echoed against the back of his skull.

“Ma’am, I need you to look at me,” he said, his voice louder now. It was the kind of voice that could silence a room full of jaded policy-makers. “Right now.”

The woman flinched, her throat working. And then she opened her eyes.

They were enormous. Far too big for her face. Blue. Maybe green. Not easy to tell considering they were rimmed red and swollen with dark tears.

And every part of her vibrated a little more, from her clumpy eyelashes to the skirt of her elaborate dress. Standing there in the loaded silence, the hiss and tic of his cooling engine the only sound, he knew he’d never felt such energy pouring off a single person before. Like the sun’s corona, it extended well beyond her physical body, impinging on anyone in its path.

He took what felt like a necessary step back as he said, “I cannot help you until you tell me whether you are hurt.”

She let out one last head-to-toe quiver, then dragged in a breath. It seemed to do the trick as she blinked. Looked at his car. Lifted her hands into the air as if to balance. Pink diamonds dangling from her ears glinted softly as she shook her head. No.

Will breathed out, the sound not altogether together. Then, as relief broke the tension, anger tumbled through the rare breach in his faculties.

“Then what the holy hell were you doing jumping out in front of my car?”

The woman blinked at his outburst, her eyes becoming bigger still. Then her chin lifted, she seemed to grow an inch in height, and finally she found her voice. “I beg your pardon, but I did not jump out in front of your car.”

Will baulked. The lilting, sing-song quality of the Vallemontian accent that he had not heard in person in years was resonant in every syllable. It took him back in time, making the ground beneath his feet unsteady.

He refocused. “Jump. Leap. Swan dive. It’s all the same. You had to have heard me coming. My car engine isn’t exactly subtle.”

That earned him a surprisingly unladylike snort. “Subtle? It’s a mid-life crisis incarnate. You should have been driving your overcompensation more slowly! Especially with the roads being as they are after the rain we’ve had.”

“It’s a rental,” he shot back, then gave himself a swift mental kick for having risen to the bait. “Speed was not the issue here. The pertinent fact is that you chose to cross at a bend in the road shaded by thick foliage. You could have been killed. Or was that your intention? If so it was an obtuse plan. Nearly every person in the country is already at the palace or sitting by a TV to watch the royal wedding.”

At that she winced, her pale face turning so much paler he could practically see the veins working beneath her skin. Then she broke eye contact, her chin dipping as she muttered, “My being right here, right now, was never part of any plan, I can assure you of that.”

Okay. All right. Things had gone astray. Time to bring everything back to fundamentals. “So, just to be clear, I did not hit you.”

She shook her head, dark red curls wobbling. “No, you did not.”

“I could have sworn I heard a thud.”

Her mouth twisted. Then she looked up at him from beneath long, clumping eyelashes. “When I saw you coming I did the only thing I could think to do. I threw a shoe at you.”

“A shoe?”

“I’d have thrown both if I’d thought it would help. But alas, the other one is stuck.”

“Stuck?” Will was aware he was beginning to sound like a parrot, but the late night, early morning, the knotty reality of being in Vallemont after all these years were beginning to take their toll.

He watched in mute interest as the woman gathered her dress and lifted it to show off skinny legs covered in pale pink stockings. One foot was bare. The other foot was nowhere to be seen—or, more precisely, was ankle-deep in mud.

Will glanced back at his car. Then up along the road ahead.

Time was ticking. Hugo’s wedding was looming. Will wasn’t sure of the protocol but he doubted a soon-to-be princess bride would be fashionably late.

The woman in pink was calmer now, the static having dulled to a mild buzz. Best of all she was unhurt, meaning she was not his problem.

Will did not do “people problems”. His assistant, Natalie—a jolly, hardworking woman who performed miracles from a desk at home somewhere in the Midwest of the United States—was the only person in the world to whom he felt beholden and only because she told him every time they spoke that he should. Even then her efforts on his behalf were well-compensated.

He preferred maths problems, fact problems, evidentiary problems. His manager would attest that time management was Will’s biggest problem as he never said no to work if he could find a way to fit it all in.

And yet... He found that he could not seem to roust himself to wish the woman well and get back on his way.

There was nothing to be done except to help.

Decision made, he held out both hands as if dealing with a wounded animal. “Any way you can jiggle your foot free?”

“Wow. That’s a thought.” It seemed she’d hit the next stage of shock—sarcasm.

“Says the woman who threw a shoe at an oncoming car in the hope of saving herself from getting squished.”

Her eyes narrowed. Her fists curled tighter around her skirt. Beneath the head-to-toe finery she was pure street urchin itching for a fight.

Shock, he reminded himself. Stuck. And she must have been cold. There wasn’t much to the top part of her dress but a few layers of lace draped over her shoulders, leaving her arms bare. The way the skirt moved as it fell to her feet made it look like layers of woven air.

Air he’d have to get a grip on if he had any hope of pulling her free.

Will slid the jacket of his morning suit from his shoulders and tossed it over the windscreen into the car. Rolling his sleeves to his elbows, he took a turn about her, eyeing the angles, finding comfort in the application of basic geometry and calculus.

She looked about five-feet-eight, give or take the foot stuck in the mud.

“What do you weigh?”

“Excuse me?”

“Never mind.” It would come down to the force of the suction of the mud anyway. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to take you from behind.”

A slim auburn eyebrow rose dramatically. “I thank you for asking first, but I do mind.”

Will’s gaze lifted from the behind in question to find the woman looking over her shoulder at him. Those big eyes were unblinking, a glint of warmth, laughter even, flickering in the blue. Or was it green?

Right. He’d heard it too. He felt his own cheek curving into an unexpected smile. “My intentions are pure. I only wish to get you out of your...sticky situation.”

Her right fist unclenched from her skirt, her fingers sliding past one another. Then her eyes dipped as she gave him a thorough once-over to match the one he’d given her.

Will crossed his arms and waited. He was the pre-eminent living name in modern astronomy. Eyes Only at NASA. An open invitation to the UN. On first-name terms with presidents and prime ministers alike.

Yet none of that mattered on this muddy country road as, with a deep sigh of unwitting capitulation, the woman waved an idle hand his way and said, “Fine. Let’s get this over and done with.”

First time for everything, Will thought as he moved into position. Adrenaline having been sapped away, he was now very much aware of the damage incurred by his footwear. He attempted to find purchase on the boggy ground. “Ready?”

She muttered something that sounded like, “Not even close.” But then she lifted her arms.

Will wrapped his arms around her waist. There really was nothing of her. More dress than woman. He grounded his feet, and heaved.

Nothing happened. She was well-bogged.

“Grip my arms,” he said. “Lean back a little. Into me.”

In for a penny, she wrapped her arms over his, her fingers shockingly cold as they curved over his wrists. But right behind the chill came that energy, like electricity humming just beneath her skin.

Will said, “On three I need you to press down strongly with your free foot, then jump. Okay?”

She nodded and another curl fell down, tumbling into his face. He blinked to dislodge a strand from his eyelashes. And a sweet, familiar scent tickled his nose till he could taste it on the back of his tongue. Honeysuckle.

“Here we go,” he grumbled. “One. Two. And...three!”

He felt her sink into the ground and as she pushed he pulled. With a thick, wet schlock her foot popped free.

She spun, tottered, her feet near slipping out from under her. And finally came to a halt with her face lodged into his neck.

There she breathed. Warm bursts of air wafted over his skin and turned his hair follicles into goose flesh.

Then he felt the moment she realised she had one hand gripping his sleeve, the other clamped to his backside for all she was worth.

The breathing stopped. A heartbeat slunk by. Two. Then she slowly released her hold.

Only, the second she let go, she slipped again.

With a whoop she grabbed him—the sound shaking a pair of bluebirds loose. They swooped and twittered before chasing one another down the tunnel and away.

And suddenly she was trembling in earnest. Violent shakes racked her body, as if she were about to self-destruct.

Dammit. Computing how best to separate her from her trap was one thing, but this was beyond his pay grade.

She made a noise then. Something between a squeak and a whimper. The next time she shook she broke free with a cracking laugh. Then more laughter tumbled on top of the first. Braying, cackling, riotous laughter—the kind that took hold of a person until they could barely breathe.

Will looked to the sky. He wasn’t built for this kind of roller coaster of emotion. It was so taxing and there was no logical pathway out.

Ready to take his leave before things turned again, Will took her firmly by the arms.

Another curl fell to dangle in front of her face. She crossed her eyes and blew it away with a quick stream of air shot from the side of her mouth. When she uncrossed her eyes she looked directly into his.

Spots of pretty pink sat high on her pale cheeks, clear even beneath the tracks of old tears. As her laughter faded, her wide mouth still smiled softly. Light sparked in the bluish green of her huge eyes, glints of folly and fun. And she sank into his grip as if she could stay there all day.

Instead of the words that had been balanced on the tip of his tongue, Will found himself saying, “If you’re laughing because your other foot is now stuck I will leave you here.”

A grin flashed across her face, fast and furious, resonant of a pulse fusion blast. “Not stuck,” she said. “Muddy, mortified, falling apart at the seams, but the last thing I am any more is stuck.”

Will nodded. Even though he was the one who suddenly felt stuck. For words. For a decision on what to do next. For a reason to let her go.

Which was why he let her go. He unclamped his fingers one at a time, giving her no reason to fall into his arms again.

The woman reminded him of a newly collapsed star, unaware as yet that her unstable gravitational field syphoned energy from everything she touched.

But Will wasn’t about to give any away. He gave every bit of energy to his work. It was important, it was ground-breaking, it was necessary. He had none to spare.

“Look,” he said, stopping to clear his throat. “I’m heading towards court so I can give you a lift if you’re heading in that direction. Or drop you...wherever it is you are going.” On foot. Through muddy countryside. In what had probably been some pretty fancy shoes, considering the party dress that went with them. From what Will had seen there was nothing for miles bar the village behind him, and the palace some distance ahead. “Were you heading to the wedding, then?”

It was a simple enough question, but the girl looked as if she’d been slapped. Laughter gone, colour gone, dark tears suddenly wobbled precariously in the corners of her eyes.

She recovered quickly, dashing a finger under each eye, sniffing and taking a careful step back. “No. No, thanks. I’m... I’ll be fine. You go ahead. Thank you, though.”

With that she lifted her dress, turned her back on him and picked her way across the road, slipping a little, tripping on her skirt more.

If the woman wanted to make her own way, dressed and shod as she was, then who was he to argue? He almost convinced himself too. Then he caught the moment she glanced towards the palace, hidden somewhere on the other side of the trees, and decidedly changed tack so that she was heading in the absolute opposite direction.

And, like the snick of a well-oiled combination lock, everything suddenly clicked into place.

The dress with its layers of pink lace, voluminous skirt and hints of rose-gold thread throughout.

The pink train—was that what they called it?—trailing in the mud behind her.

Will’s gaze dropped to her left hand clenched around a handful of skirt. A humungous pink rock the size of a thumbnail in a thin rose-gold band glinted thereupon.

He’d ribbed Hugo enough through school when the guy had been forced to wear the sash of his country at formal events: pink and rose-gold—the colours of the Vallemontian banner.

Only one woman in the country would be wearing a gown in those colours today.

If Will wasn’t mistaken, he’d nearly run down one Mercedes Gray Leonine.

Who—instead of spending her last moments as a single woman laughing with her bridesmaids and hugging her family before heading off to marry the estimable Prince Alessandro Hugo Giordano and become a princess of Vallemont—was making a desperate, muddy, shoeless run for the hills.

Perfect.

CHAPTER TWO

“YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS.”

Sadie swallowed as the man’s voice echoed through the thicket. Or she tried at the very least. After crying non-stop for the last hour, her throat felt like sandpaper.

In fact, her entire body felt raw. Sensitive. Prickly. As if her senses were turned up to eleven.

Adding a near-death experience hadn’t helped a jot.

Well, pure and utter panic had got her this far and she planned to ride it out until she reached the border. Or a cave. Or a sinkhole that could swallow her up. Where was a batch of quicksand when you needed it?

She gathered as much of her dress as she was able and kept on walking, hoping her sardonic liberator would simply give up and drive away.

Unfortunately, his deep voice cut through the clearing like a foghorn. “You’ve made your point. You can stop walking now.”

Sadie’s bare foot squelched into a slippery patch of mud. She closed her eyes. Took a breath. Turned. And faced down the stranger in her midst.

When she’d heard the car coming around the corner her life had flashed before her eyes. Literally. Moments, big and small, fluttering through her mind like pages in a picture book.

Not yet school age, screaming, pigtails flying behind her as she was being chased through the palace halls by a grinning Hugo. Her mother waggling a finger at her and telling her to act like a lady.

At five, maybe six, Princess Marguerite gently reminding her not to hold her hand up to block the bright lights from the TV crew. Hugo standing behind a camera making faces as she sat on a couch in the palace library, answering questions about growing up as a “regular girl” in the palace.

The blur of high school without Hugo at her side—the first sense of feeling adrift without her safety net.

Her attempt to overcome that feeling—wide-eyed and terrified, landing in New York when she was twenty. Then grabbing that safety net with both hands as, teary and weary, she fled New York and moved back into the palace at twenty-five.

Her memory had not yet hit the anxious, fractured, out-of-control mess of the past few weeks when she’d spied the driver on the muddy road.

For time had slowed—imprinting on her mind wind-ruffled dark hair, a square jaw, a face as handsome as sin. A surge of drama at the end. At least the last thing I’ll ever see is a thing of beauty, she’d thought.

Of course, that was before he’d proceeded to storm at her for a good five minutes straight.

Quite the voice he had. Good projection. With those darkly scowling eyes and that muscle ticking in his impossibly firm jaw she’d first thought him a Hamlet shoo-in. From a distance, though, with those serious curls and proud square shoulders he’d make a fine Laertes. Then again, she’d had a good grip on that which was hidden beneath the suit. A dashing Mercutio, perhaps?

Though not in one of her high-school productions, alas. One look at him and her twelfth-grade drama students would be too busy swooning to get anything done.

That, and she’d been “encouraged” to take a sabbatical from her job the moment she’d become engaged. The palace had suggested six months for her to settle into her new role before “deciding” if she wished to return.

“Ms,” he said again, and she landed back in the moment with a thud.

Focus, her subconscious demanded, lucidity fluctuating like a flickering oil lamp during a storm. Her brain seemed to have kicked into self-protect mode, preferring distraction over reality. But, as much as she might wish she was living a high-school play, this was as real as it got.

“Ms—”

“Miss,” she shot back, levelling the stranger with a leave me be glance. Oh, yes, she was very much a “miss”. Her recent actions made sure of that. She remembered the rock weighing down her left hand and carefully tucked it into a swathe of pink tulle.

“As I said I’ll be fine from here. I promise. You can go.” She took a decided step back, landing right on the cusp of a jagged rock. She winced. Cried out. Hopped around. Swore just a bit. Then pinched the bridge of her nose when tears threatened to spill again.

“Miss,” said the stranger, his rumbling voice quieter now, yet somehow carrying all the more. “You have lost both your shoes. You’re covered in mud. You’re clearly not...well. It’s a mile or more to the nearest village. And the afternoon is settling in. Unless you have another mode of transport under that skirt, you’re either coming with me or you’re sleeping under the stars. Trust me.”

Trust him? Did he think she was born under a mushroom? Quite possibly, she thought, considering the amount of mud covering the bottom half of her dress.

Not witness to the conversations going on inside Sadie’s head, the stranger went on, “How could I look myself in the mirror if I heard on the news tomorrow that a woman was eaten by a bear, the only evidence the remains of a pink dress?”

Sadie coughed. Not a laugh. Not a whimper. More like the verbal rendering of her crumbling resolve. “Bears are rare in Vallemont. And they have plenty of fish.”

“Mmm. The headline was always more likely to be Death by Tulle.” He swished a headline across the sky. “‘Woman trips over log hidden entirely from view by copious skirts, lands face-first in puddle. Drowns.’”

Sadie’s eye twitched. She wasn’t going to smile. Not again. That earlier burst of laughter was merely the most recent mental snap on a day punctuated with mental snaps.

She breathed out hard. She’d walked miles through rain-drenched countryside in high heels and a dress that weighed as much as she did. She hadn’t eaten since...when? Last night? There was a good chance she was on the verge of dehydration considering the amount of water she’d lost through her tear ducts alone. She was physically and emotionally spent.

And she needed whatever reserve of energy, chutzpah and pure guts she had left, considering what she’d be facing over the next few days, weeks, decades, when she was finally forced to face the mess she had left behind.

She gave the stranger a proper once-over. Bespoke suit. Clean fingernails. Posh accent. That certain je ne sais quoi that came of being born into a life of relative ease.

The fact that he had clearly not taken to her was a concern. She was likable. Extremely likable. Well known, in fact, for being universally liked. True, he’d not caught her in a banner moment, but still. Worth noting.

“You could be an axe murderer for all I know,” she said. “Heck, I could be an axe murderer. Maybe this is my modus operandi.”

He must have seen something in her face. Heard the subtle hitch in her voice. Either way, his head tipped sideways. Just a fraction. Enough to say, Come on, honey. Who are you trying to kid?

The frustrating thing was, he was right.

It was pure dumb luck that he had happened upon her right in the moment she’d become stuck. And it was dumber luck that he was a stranger who clearly had no clue who she was. For her face had been everywhere the last few weeks. Well, not her face. The plucked, besmeared, stylised face of a future princess. For what she had imagined would be a quiet, intimate ceremony, the legal joining of two friends in a mutually beneficial arrangement, had somehow spiralled way out of control.

She’d had more dumb luck that not a single soul had seen her climb out the window of the small antechamber at the base of the six-hundred-year-old palace chapel and run, the church bells chiming loud enough to be heard for twenty miles in every direction.

Meaning karma would be lying in wait to even out the balance.

She looked up the road. That way led to the palace. To people who’d no doubt discovered she was missing by now and would search to the ends of the earth to find her. A scattered pulse leapt in her throat.

Then she looked at the stranger’s car, all rolling fenders and mag wheels, speed drawn in its every line. Honestly, if he drove a jalopy it would still get her further from trouble faster than her own feet.

Decision made, she held out a hand. “Give me your phone.”

“Not an axe murderer, then, but a thief?”

“I’m going to let my mother know who to send the police after if I go missing.”

“Where’s your phone?”

“In my other dress.”

A glint sparked deep in her accomplice’s shadowed eyes. It was quite the sight, triggering a matching spark in her belly. She cleared her throat as the man bent over the car and pulled a slick black phone from a space between the bucket seats.

He waved his thumb over the screen, and when it flashed on he handed it to her.

The wallpaper on his phone was something from outer space. A shot from Star Wars? Maybe underneath the suave, urban hunk mystique he was a Trekkie.

The wallpaper on the phone she’d unfortunately left at the palace in her rush to get the heck out of there was a unicorn sitting at a bar drinking a “human milkshake”. Best not to judge.

She found the text app, typed in her mother’s number.

But what to say? I’m sorry? I’m safe? I screwed up? I would give my right leg to make sure they do not take this out on you?

Her mother had been a maid at the palace since before Sadie was born. It had been her home too for nearly thirty years. If they fired her mother because of what Sadie had done...

Lava-hot fear swarmed through Sadie’s insides until she imagined Hugo’s response to such a suggestion. No. No matter how hard he might find it to forgive her for what she’d done to him today, he’d never take it out on her mother. He was that good a man. The best man she’d ever known.

Maman

Good start.

By now you know that I’m not at the chapel.

Another deep breath.

I couldn’t go through with it. It wasn’t right. Not for me and certainly not for Hugo. If you see Hugo...

She paused, deleted the last line. Whatever needed to be said to Hugo, she would say herself.

I’m so terribly, desperately sorry for all the confusion and complications that will come of this and I promise I will make everything right. But today, right now, I have to lick my wounds, clear my head and prepare. Know that until then that I’m whole and I’m safe. xXx

Before she could change her mind, she pressed “send”. Only remembering belatedly that her mother wouldn’t recognise the strange phone number.

In fact...

She found the camera app, held up the phone and said, “Smile!” Her benefactor turned and she took a photo.

She quickly started a new message. Added the picture.

I’ve borrowed this phone from the gentleman in this picture, so do not message back. I’ll call when I can. Love you.

The picture slid up the screen as the message was sent. The top of his head was missing, and an ear, but it was still him in all his grumpy glory. His hand was at his tie, giving it a tormented tug. His dark eyes bored into the lens. He wasn’t smiling but there was something about the shape of his mouth, a curving at the corners, the barest hint of what might—under just the right circumstances—become a dimple.

Her thumb hovered over the screen as she thought about sending a text to Hugo too. What if the poor lady-in-waiting she’d sent off into the palace with the note to Hugo clutched in her white-knuckled grip hadn’t managed to get through to him? Even if she had, Sadie still needed to tell him...to explain...

What? That she was nothing but a scaredy-cat?

She slid her thumbs away from the screen.

“Done?” the phone owner asked.

Sadie deleted the conversation. She hoped her mother would heed her warning or her cover as a possible axe murderess would be blown.

She solemnly gave him back his phone. “And now I’ll go in your car with you.”

“You’re a brave woman.”

“You have no idea.”

His mouthed twitched and...there. Dimple. Heaven help the women of the world who got to see that thing in full flight.

Not her though.

If her mother had taught her anything it was to beware instant appeal; it had everything to do with genetic luck and nothing to do with character. A handsome smile could be fleeting, and could be used to hide all manner of sins.

With that in mind, it had taken her twenty-nine years to agree to marry Hugo and he’d been her best friend since birth. And still, when it had come to the crunch, she’d run. Something she’d learned from her father.

Sadie felt the backs of her eyes begin to burn as the home truths settled in. But she was done crying. She mentally forced the tears away.

She’d made a choice today. One that had sent her down this road alone. And alone she had to remain if she was to get her head on straight and figure out what the heck she was going to do with the rest of her life. But Grouchy Dimples wasn’t going to leave her alone unless she let him do his knight-in-shining-armour bit and get her safely out of sight.

So Sadie picked her way back through the rivulets of rock and dirt and mud.

The stranger moved around to the passenger side of the car, opened the door, bowed slightly and said, “My lady.”

Sadie’s entire body froze. Only her eyes moved to collide with his.

She looked for a gleam of knowledge, a sign that he knew exactly who she was. But the only sign she got was the return of the tic in his jaw. He couldn’t wait to get rid of her either.

“Sadie,” she said before she even felt the word forming. “My name, it’s...just Sadie.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Just Sadie. I’m Will.”

He held out a hand. She took it. He felt warm where she was cool. Strong where she was soft. His big hand enveloped hers completely, and for the first time in as long as she could remember she found herself hit with the profound sense that everything was going to be okay.

The sensation was so strong, so unexpected, so unsought, she whipped her hand away.

Will held the door for her once more. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

Taking a deep breath, Sadie gathered up as much of her skirt as she could, tucking and folding and looping the fabric under her arms. Then she squeezed backside-first into the bucket seat.

After Will closed the door with a soft snick, Sadie let the fabric go. It sprung away, filling the space right up to her chin. Relief at not being on her feet, on the run, in the open, rolling over her like a wave of bliss.

Will slid into the driver’s seat and curled long fingers over the leather steering wheel. He surreptitiously checked his watch again. He still thought he had a wedding to attend, Sadie realised, and for a fraught second she thought he might simply drive that way.

“You mentioned a village,” Sadie said, pointing over her shoulder in the opposite direction to the palace.

“The village it is.” Will gunned the engine, carefully backed out of the muddy trench, executed a neat three-point turn and drove back the way he had come.

A minute later, Sadie glimpsed the palace through the trees. The afternoon sunlight had begun to cast the famous pink and gold highlights across the sandstone walls which had lent the small principality the beautiful, romantic, quixotic colours of its banners.

Home.

But after what she had done, could she ever go back there? Would they even let her through the door? And what would happen to her mother, a maid who had lived and worked under the palace roof for the last twenty-nine years?

Sadie put the flurry of unpleasant questions to one side and closed her eyes, letting the dappled sunlight wash across the backs of her eyelids. There was nothing she could do about all that right now.

Later. She’d figure it all out later.

* * *

Will leant his elbow against the window of the car, feigning a relaxedness he did not feel as he drove over the bridge he’d navigated not long before. Back in the village, banners still flew. Music poured out into the streets. The roads were now bare, since everyone had moved inside to be in front of their TVs in order to see the bride make her first appearance. Little did they know they were looking the wrong way.

If Hugo hadn’t yet discovered his bride was missing, he soon would. Search plans would be afoot. Containment plans.

Will was forced to admit that his immediate plans would need to become fluid for the moment as well. But first...

As the engine’s throaty growl gave him away, Sadie sat upright. “What are you doing? Why are you slowing?”

“We need petrol,” he said as he pulled off the road and up to a tank wrapped in rose-gold tinsel that flapped in the light breeze.

He used the collective noun very much on purpose. He’d read enough books to know that, in hostage negotiations, making the hostage-taker feel they were on the same side was paramount. Though which one of them was the hostage here was debatable.

He pulled over and jumped from the car. But not before surreptitiously sliding his phone into his pocket.

Meanwhile, Sadie had slunk down so far in the seat she was practically in the footwell. All he could see was acres of crinkled pink and a few auburn curls.

“Can you breathe down there?”

A muffled voice professed, “Most of the dress is organically grown Australian cotton. Very breathable.”

“And yet I’m not sure it was intended to be worn over the face.”

Two hands curled around the fabric and a small face poked out. “Point made.”

She blinked at him through huge red-rimmed eyes above a pink-tipped nose. Her full lower lip was shiny from nibbling. When she wasn’t acting so bolshie and stubborn she was rather pretty.

Will pushed the thought away. He turned his back and splashed a nominal amount of petrol into the tank before heading for the shop. Inside, he gave the guy behind the counter a wave. Then, finding a private corner, he made the call, using a phone number he could only hope still worked.

It answered on the second ring.

“Yes?” came the voice from Will’s past. The voice of the Prince.

Will leaned against a shelf. “Hey, mate, how’s things?”

A beat. “Darcy? Look, I can’t—”

“You can’t talk because you’re meant to be getting married but your bride seems to have gone missing.”

The silence was deafening. Then footsteps echoed through the phone as Hugo obviously set to finding himself a private corner of his own.

“How the hell can you possibly—?”

“She’s with me.”

Will gave a very quick rundown of the events. Leading to his decision to keep her close.

Hugo’s voice was uncommonly hoarse, even a little cracked, as he said, “I was given a note just before you rang by a maid refusing to leave my doorway. Written in lipstick, on the torn-out page of a hymnal no less, telling me she couldn’t go through with it. I didn’t believe it until just now. Yet at the same time it felt like I’d been waiting for that note all my life. I—Dammit. Excuse me a moment.”

Hugo’s voice was muffled. Will imagined him covering the mouthpiece of the phone. His tension was palpable in his short, sharp responses to whomever had disrupted their conversation.

It had been years since he’d seen Hugo in person. Even as a teenager there’d been gravitas about the Prince, the weight of the world sitting easily on his shoulders. Until his own father had died in a car crash and that world had collapsed.

Will had born Hugo through that horrendous time. Hugo had tried to return the favour after Clair’s death only a few months later, putting aside his own grief, but Will had rejected Hugo’s counsel out of hand.

Will had been mistaken then. He would not turn his back on the Prince now.

Will waited, glancing around the petrol station. Pink and gold streamers hung limply from the ceiling to the cash register. The guy behind the counter hunched over a small TV while sipping pink milk through a straw. The vision showed a variety of invited guests smiling and waving as they walked up the gravel path to the palace gates.

A frisson of tension pulled tight across Will’s shoulders. Everything had happened so fast—the near crash, the rescue, the discovery, the uncommon decision to get involved—the repercussions that went far beyond his inconvenience didn’t hit him until that moment.

An entire country held its breath in anticipation, clueless as to the axe that had already begun to swing, while Hugo sat somewhere in the palace, looking into the face of an emotional ruination that he did not deserve. Again.

“Apologies,” said Hugo as he came back on the line.

“Mate,” said Will, his own voice a little rough. “What the hell happened?”

The silence was thick. Distant. Elongating the miles and years between them.

Hugo’s voice was cool as he asked, “Is she injured? Is she distressed?”

“She’s shaky but unhurt.”

“I’d very much like to talk to her.”

Will thought he’d very much like to kick her out of his rental car, and dump her on the side of the road; force her to face the bedlam she had unleashed. But it was clear Hugo was not of the same mind.

If Will’s intention in coming to Vallemont had truly been to put things to rights with his oldest friend, then it seemed he’d been gifted the opportunity to do just that. The fact it would not be easy was ironically just.

“In full disclosure, she doesn’t know I’m talking to you. In fact, she doesn’t know that I’m aware of who she is at all. I believe that’s the only reason she agreed to let me give her a lift.”

He let that sit. When Hugo made no demur, Will went on.

“I can give her the phone or I can keep her with me until you send someone to collect her. Unless, of course, you want me to bring her back right now so you can work your magic and marry the girl.”

He half hoped Hugo would say Bring back my girl—then Will could deliver her and tell himself he’d achieved what he’d come to Vallemont to do.

“If you could stay with her I would very much appreciate it,” was Hugo’s eventual response. “I’ll send for her when I can. Till then, keep her safe.”

Will nodded before saying, “Of course. And you? Where do you go from here?”

“That, my friend, would be the question of the hour.”

“As opposed to, Do you take this woman?” Will imagined a wry smile filling the silence. And suddenly the miles and years contracted to nothing.

“Yes,” was Hugo’s dry response. “As opposed to that.”

The Prince rang off first. No doubt plenty on his to-do list.

It left Will to stare at the picture he’d linked to Hugo’s private line; the two of them at seventeen in climbing gear, grins wide, arms slung around one another’s shoulders, mountains at their backs. Clair had taken that picture the day before Will had broken his leg.

By the end of that summer Clair had been taken ill. A week later she’d been diagnosed with an incurable brain disease. Mere months after she’d taken that photo she’d left them for ever.

Will slid his phone into his pocket. He tucked the memories away too before they started to feed on him rather than the other way around.

Hugo wasn’t the only one with things to do.

Only, while Hugo would no doubt be fending off a buffet of advisors as he determined the best way forward, Will had to go it alone.

It was a concept that didn’t come easily to a twin, a concept that had haunted him for a long time after his sister was gone. Until one day, while hiding from his economics professor at Cambridge, he’d slipped into a random lecture hall. Taken a seat at the back. Discovered it was Stars and the Cosmic Cycle. And found himself skewered to the seat.

For Clair’s last gift to him, one she’d planned to give to him on what would have been their eighteenth birthday, one he’d only found in her bedroom after she’d died, was a telescope.

As a man who’d never believed in signs, he’d gone with it. As the lecturer had talked of the universe as unmapped, unchartered and mostly incalculable, many in the lecture hall had twittered and shifted on their seats, finding the concept overwhelming.

For Will it had changed the concept of being “alone” for him completely. And it was that ability to dissociate from the everyday, to enjoy a high level of dedicated solitude, that had paved the way for his being the pre-eminent voice in modern astronomy.

Will paid for the petrol, steadfastly refusing to look at the pre-wedding coverage on the monitor. He was halfway to the car when he remembered.

He wasn’t alone.

He had Sadie.

She peered up at him from the mound of wriggling pink as he slid back into the car, her curls flopping onto her pale shoulders, her big eyes filled with pandemonium. This woman was chaos incarnate, and she was leaving a widening swathe of trouble in her wake.

“Everything okay?” she asked. “You were gone for a while.”

“Was I?” Will started the car with more gusto than required.

He’d come to this country, pained at the thought of having to watch Hugo marry someone who wasn’t Clair, quietly wondering if the invitation was his penance for having laid the blame for what had happened at Hugo’s guiltless feet for all these years.

Now he realised he’d miscalculated. She was his penance. Mercedes “Sadie” Gray Leonine. Looking after her on Hugo’s behalf, keeping her out of sight until he could send word to Hugo where he could find her would go some way to ameliorating past wrongs.

And when it was done, he might even be able to get an earlier flight out. It was meant to be an unusually clear night, a rare opportunity to spend some time with London’s night sky.

Feeling better about the world, Will shot Sadie a smile, which faded a tad at the way her eyes widened as he did so.

“The tank is full, the sky is blue.” Will tapped the car’s GPS. “North? South? East? West? Coast? Mountains? Moon? Where are we going?”

CHAPTER THREE

SADIE NIBBLED SO hard on the tip of a pale pink acrylic nail, the thing snapped right off, so she carefully hid it in the door pocket and racked her brain for an answer.

Where are we going? Will had asked. As if she were following some kind of plan.

Her only goal had been to get as far from the palace as possible without being seen. Her luck would not hold out for much longer. Her best bet now was to hole up, get in touch with Hugo somehow. Apologise, grovel, make him see that while her timing had been terrible it had been the right decision, for both of them.

“A room,” she said. “To stay for a night. That’s what I’d like.”

“Excellent. Do you have a place in mind?”

“Not exactly. Some place...quiet would be fine.” Discreet. Not one of Hugo’s palatial resorts, for example. “Where are those dodgy motels you see in American cop shows when you need them?”

“I’m sorry?”

Sadie glanced at her companion, thankful to find he was back to looking at her as if he was barely containing his impatience. That momentary flash of perfect white teeth as he’d smiled had been disconcerting to say the least.

She usually went out of her way to make people feel comfortable. Hugo joked that her need to be liked by everyone was pathological. Sadie simply wanted to make sure everyone around her was happy. But in these circumstances a little distance felt safer. It was easier to think of the man as a means to an end rather than a collection of dimples, warm hands and crinkles at the edges of his eyes as he smiled. Especially now, when she was feeling so untethered. In the past her decision-making skills had not been at their peak at such times.

She turned on the seat; her skirt bunching under her hip. “You know, the kind where the anti-hero in the vintage brown Cadillac hooks around the back of some dreary, anonymous, flat-roofed roadside joint where the ancient woman with a cigarette dangling from her cracked lips doesn’t even bother to look up from her crossword as she signs the guy in?”

He glanced at her and said, “Flat-roofed?”

How odd that he focused on that. It was the kind of detail that usually tickled only her. When she found herself looking into those dark eyes of his a beat too long, she glanced at her fake fingernails instead. One down, nine to go. “You know—squat. Like it’s been flattened by the weight of the world. Why doesn’t Vallemont have places like that?”

“Because it’s Vallemont,” he said, and he was right.

The sentiment wouldn’t have made as much sense to her as a kid.

Watching Hugo go away to school had made Sadie itch to see the world, to see life outside the borders of the peaceable country in which she’d been born. And eventually she’d managed to talk her way into a four-year acting course in New York.

At first it had been a dream. Auditioning, waitressing, living in near squalor with three strangers in a studio in Brooklyn. Walking streets where nobody knew her story, with its urban canyons, subway smells, its cracked sidewalks and manic energy, as different a place from Vallemont as it was possible to find.

Halfway through she’d begun to feel lonely, the brilliant, fraught, nerve-racking, ugly, beautiful and eye-opening experience taking its toll.

By the end of that year she’d realised that it wasn’t the noise and hustle and energy of a big city she had craved, but control over her life. Taking control over her narrative. That’s what she loved about theatre. Not acting, but the chance to shape a play from beginning to end.

She’d lasted another year before she’d come home. Giving up a dream many would kill for.

And oh, that land of rolling hills and green pastures. Of crystalline streams fed by snow-capped mountains. And towns of cobbled streets and dappled sunshine and quiet, happy lives. The relief had been immeasurable.

And here she was again—gifted a rare opportunity and she’d thrown it all away.

Sadie groaned and let her head drop back against the seat.

“If it’s accommodation you’re after, what about this place?” said Will, the car engine growling as he slowed.

Sadie cracked open an eye to find herself looking at a place as far from a dreary, anonymous, flat-roofed roadside joint as possible.

A sign reading “La Tulipe” swung from the eaves of a ramshackle dwelling, three storeys high, with a pitched roof and balconies all round. Bright purple bougainvillaea was starkly stunning as it crept over the muddy brick. Oddly shaped, it dissected two roads, one heading up the hill to the left, the other dipping down the hill sharply to the right, creating an optical illusion that made it look as if it had a slight lean down the hill. Or maybe it was falling down the hill. It had an ancient, ramshackle appeal either way.

A skinny black cat skittered across the way as Will pulled into a spot on the low side of the building. He turned off the engine, got out of the car and reached into the back seat for a soft black leather bag.

Sadie sat up straight. “Ah, what are you doing with those?”

“I plan on seeing you inside. And I’m not leaving my bags in the car while I do so.”

Sadie peeked over her shoulder. A gentle breeze skipped autumn leaves over the cobbled road. A small brown bird danced from one semi-bare tree to another. Other than that, there was no one as far as the eye could see. “We’re not exactly a crime capital here.”

Will followed her gaze, paused a moment, then, ignoring her, heaved his other bag—a big square silver case—out of the car and set it on the footpath. “Coming?”

Sadie heard voices—a couple laughing as they crossed the street at the bottom of the hill. Time to get inside. Except...

“I can’t go in there dressed like this. I look—” Like the girl who’d left the country’s most eligible bachelor standing at the altar. She’d be less likely to be recognised naked than in that dress. She’d heard knock-offs were already available. “A total mess. What do you have in your bag? Or your case?”

Will’s hand went to the battered silver case. It was big enough that she might even fit inside. For a brief moment she considered asking.

“Anything I might be able to borrow? I’ll take it off the minute I get inside a room.”

That muscle ticked in his jaw. Another flickered below his right eye. He appeared to be making a great effort at keeping eye contact. And Sadie realised what she’d said.

Feeling a wave of pink heat rising up her neck, she backtracked. “I mean I’ll find something else to wear, even if it’s a bed sheet, then you can be on your way.”

Her reluctant knight breathed for a beat or two, his dark eyes pinning her to her seat. Then, muttering under his breath, he lifted the leather bag and plonked it onto the driver’s seat.

Then he moved down the footpath and away from the car, his back to her, giving her some privacy. Not ideal, but needs must.

Inside his bag she found an expensive-looking knit sweater. Black. Soft as a baby’s bottom. It smelled delicious too. Like sandalwood, and fresh air and man. Like the scent she’d caught in that strangely intimate half a second where Will had put his arms around her, pulling her back into the nook of his strong, warm body, before yanking her out of the mud.

She cleared her throat and shoved the sweater aside, rifling until she found a utilitarian tracksuit top. Black again. And some black tracksuit pants. The guy sure liked black. Maybe he was a spy. Or a magician. Or clinically depressed.

She glanced over her shoulder to find he still had his back to her as he stood on the footpath, hands in pockets, face tilted to the sun.

Even in a suit it was clear he was built like a champion diver—all broad shoulders and thick, roping muscle. His profile as he squinted down the street was strong, sure, forbearing. He might not be the most easy-going man she’d ever met, but there was no doubting he was very comfortable in his own skin.

Not depressed, then. Perhaps he simply liked black.

She pulled out the tracksuit pants, shuffled up onto her knees, twisted her hands over her shoulder to attempt to rid herself of layers of lace embedded with tiny pink crystals...no luck. She twisted around the back of her waist. Still no luck. As panic tickled up her spine she thought about ripping the thing over her head, but it was so dense she’d probably find herself caught in a straightjacket of her own making.

Sadie bit her lip and looked up at the sky. Cloudless. The brightest blue. Such a happy sight. She muttered a few choice words under her breath.

Then, “Ah, excuse me. Will? I need some help here.”

He spun on his heel so the sun was behind him, his face in shadow. Resistance was evident in the hard lines of his body as he said, “Help?”

She flapped her hand towards the trillion pearl buttons strapping her in.

It was his turn to mutter a flurry of choice words before he took a few slow steps her way. “What do you need me to do?”

“Start at the top? Truth be told, I wasn’t paying much attention as I was strapped in.” Trying not to panic had been higher on her list of priorities.

Will took in a long, deep breath before his hands moved to her neck, surprisingly gentle as they pushed her hair aside. So many curls had dropped during her run from the palace. She helped, taking them in hand as she tipped her head forward.

A beat later, Will’s fingers worked the top button, which was positioned right against a vertebra. That was what it felt like anyway, as if he’d hit a nerve cluster. Goosebumps sprung up all over her body.

With a sweet glide, it unhooked, Will’s warm thumb sliding against her skin as he pressed the fabric aside.

“Sadie?” he asked, his voice deep and low and close enough to cause a rumble.

“Yes, Will?”

“There are about a hundred-odd buttons on this thing.”

“One hundred and eight.” One for every year the Giordanos had been the governing family of Vallemont. Seriously. When the small wedding she and Hugo had planned had twisted into the kind of circus where the number of pearl buttons on her dress had a backstory, that was when she ought to have put her foot down and called the whole thing off.

Will said, “Take this as a serious question, but are there...layers underneath the dress?”

“Layers?”

“Ah, under...garments?”

She’d not been able to pin down his accent until that moment. It was crisp and clear, but worldly. As if he’d travelled a great deal. In that moment it was pure, upper-crust, Queen’s English.

He sounded so adorably repressed, she was unable to stop herself from saying, “Are you asking if I’ve gone commando?”

A beat, a breath. Then, “Sure. Why not?”

“No, Will. I am not naked beneath my dress. There are undergarments to spare.”

“Glad to hear it. And are you planning on wearing your dress again?”

“Once this thing is off I never want to see it again, much less wear it!” A tad effusive perhaps?

“Excellent. Here goes.” Solid nails scraped lightly against her shoulder muscles as his fingers dived beneath the fabric. Then with a rip that split the silence he tore the dress apart. Buttons scattered with a pop-pop-pop as they hit the dashboard, the steering wheel, the metal skin of the car.

As the fabric loosened and fell forward across her chest, Sadie heaved in a big, gasping breath. The first proper lungful of air she’d managed in hours. Days even. Weeks maybe. It might well have been the first true breath she’d taken since she and Hugo had shaken hands on an agreement to wed.

She felt the moment Will let the fabric go, the weight of his warm hands lifting away. More goosebumps popped up to fill the gaps between the others.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice a little rough, as she wriggled free of the thing until she was in her bra, chemise and stockings.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Will turn away again, this time to lean his back against the car.

As the chill autumn air nipped at her skin she hastened Will’s clothes over the top. There was that scent again. This time she also caught layers of leather and skin and cologne. Subtle, expensive and drinkable. The sooner she was out of his clothes the better.

Kicking her dress into the footwell with more force than was probably necessary, Sadie got out of the car.

The stony ground was freezing against her bare toes. Bracing.

When Will’s tracksuit pants—which were far too big for her—began to fall, she twisted the waistband and shoved it into the top of her knickers. The jacket falling halfway down her thighs covered the lump.

At last, she bent to check herself in the side mirror. And literally reared back in shock at the sight. Her hair was an absolute disaster. Her cheeks were blotchy and wind-chafed. She could barely recognise herself beneath the rivers of dried mascara bleeding down her cheeks.

Licking her thumbs, she wiped her face clean as best she could. Then she set to pulling out the thousand pins from her hair. Dislodging the hairpiece was a blessed relief.

Once her hair was all her own again she tipped over her head, ran fingers through the knots, and massaged life back into her skull. With practised fingers, she tied the lot into a basic ponytail. No longer a clown bride. Now she was rocking more of an athletic goth look.

An athletic Goth with a mighty big engagement ring on her finger.

She glanced Will’s way. He was checking something on his silver case.

She looked back to the ring. It was insanely ostentatious, with its gleaming pink diamond baguette in the rose-gold band. But was it her? Not even close.

Hugo’s face slid into her mind then, with his oh-so-familiar laugh.

“My grandmother left it to me, which was a matter of contention in the family, as you can imagine. Her intention was that I give it to my bride. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

“It looks ridiculous on you.”

“Thanks a lot!”

“Seriously. Your fingers are so scrawny, it looks like you’re trying to balance a brick on the back of your hand. Take it off.”

“No. Never. Do you remember the first time you said you’d marry me? I do. I was four and you were seven. Kind woman that I am, I never planned to hold you to it back then. But I’m not letting you off the hook now. This ring is what it is: a symbol. If a brick is what will help keep roofs over both of our families’ heads, then it seems like a pretty fine symbol to me.”

Another promise broken, Sadie slid the brick from her finger. The fact that it came right off, without even the slightest pressure, seemed like a pretty big sign in and of itself.

She quickly tugged down the track pants, found a ribbon hanging from her garter and tied the ring to it with a nice tight knot. Then she gave the jacket one last tug. “Okay, I’m ready.”

Will pressed away from the car and turned. His dark gaze danced over her clothes—his clothes—her bare feet, then up to her hair. It paused there a moment before dropping to the hand clutching the bouffant of fake curls. At which point his mouth kicked into a smile. Dimple and all.

As it had been the first time, it was as unexpected and magnificent as a ray of sun slicing through a rain cloud and Sadie’s heart thumped against her chest.

“What?” she shot back.

Will held a hand towards the doorway of La Tulipe. “I didn’t say a thing.”

Sadie grabbed the hood of his jacket and pulled it over her head. Then, scooting past him, her chin imperiously high, she said, “You didn’t have to.”

* * *

As soon as they entered the lobby of the old hotel, Sadie’s adrenaline kicked up a notch. For all her efforts to escape, everything could fall apart right here, right now.

She tucked herself in behind Will, breathing through her mouth so as not to drink too deeply of the deliciousness of his cologne. Skin. Washing detergent. Whatever.

“Sadie,” he said, turning so she was face to face with his strong profile. The heavy brow, nose so perfect it could have been carved from marble, the hint of that dimple.

“Mmm?”

“Have you heard of a little something called personal space?”

“Sorry,” she said, searching desperately for a sane reason why she might be snuggled into him as she was. “I’m...cold.”

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