The Earl Takes A Bride

Two

Diane shooed her three darlings outside. Tommy, named after her dad, a retired Amtrak conductor, was leader of the pack. As the oldest child on the street, he was undisputed monarch of the neighborhood. Occasionally his sister, Annie, tricked him into doing what she wanted. But most of the time he saw right through her ploys.

Gary, Jr., known only as Gare from the time he was born, was the baby of her adored litter. He would begin kindergarten in the fall but didn’t look old enough. He idolized his big brother, collected dinosaurs and favored chocolate syrup poured over everything. Including mashed potatoes, if she’d let him have his way.

Altogether, they got along well and Diane would have cheerfully welcomed three more of the same. She loved children, so much so that she’d begun a day-care service in her home to enable her to stay home with her own while bringing some money into the house to help with expenses.

She let a nearly forgotten wish pass through her mind. If she could…if she ever had the money, she’d take her children with her on marvelous trips to far corners of the world. They would hike through exotic countries…share delicious foods of other cultures…listen to the music and language and laughter of other lands…and learn about people others called foreigners but she thought of as neighbors.

Dreams. Beautiful girlhood dreams that had been nourished by three years of studying international relations and sociology in college. They would never come true.

Diane put out a hand to touch the door frame and let her eyes close for a moment. The darkness behind her eyelids brought a temporary sense of separation from reality. It was so tempting to stay like this—shut off from overdue bills, from the loneliness, from the knowledge that traveling the world would never come to be.

As fond as she was of Thomas, she’d lied to him the night before. How she was going to make ends meet, she didn’t have a clue. Not yet. She had to come up with a plan.

When she opened her eyes, Tommy was helping little Gare onto the swing. Annie was swooping down the slide in their securely fenced yard. The June sun was warm. Unless someone took a spill, they’d be content for at least an hour on their own. And it was Saturday—no day-care kids. Now was as good a time as any to consider her options.

Forty-five minutes later, her checkbook lay open in front of her on the kitchen table. Checks to cover the most urgent bills had been written, bringing her balance down to almost nothing. In two weeks she’d be paid again, but without Gary’s earnings she’d be hard put to continue making ends meet.

Thomas had been right. She’d been too proud to ask Gary for help. But she wouldn’t go begging to her ex now. Alternatives. That’s what she needed. What were hers?

She could ask her parents for a loan. Or she could reconsider Jacob’s blank check. But either one would be a temporary fix at best and leave her feeling indebted to her family. She stood up, stretched and walked across the kitchen to work the stiffness out of her bones. It took making a cup of tea and circling the kitchen table for another ten minutes to come up with the obvious answer: get a better paying job.

That would mean working outside of her home, leaving her children in someone else’s care when they weren’t in school. Other mothers did it; she could, too. But she felt as if she was breaking a silent promise she’d made to her babies when they were born. She sat down again at the table, convinced she couldn’t feel any worse.

A moment later a series of fist-on-wood thuds rattled the glass pane in her kitchen door. She twisted around in her chair with a startled jerk just as Thomas Smythe opened her door without invitation and stepped inside. She was immediately reminded of the deliciously illicit feelings he’d awakened in her the first day they’d met…and every time since.

“I thought you’d have left for Elbia by now,” she said, pushing back from the table to stand up.

He shrugged, his shoulders threatening to break out walls. “I had a few more matters to look into before I left,” he said, placing a white paper sack on her table that looked as if it had come from the local bakery. He had only a slight English accent, which she attributed to the amount of time he’d spent in the United States and other countries on behalf of Jacob.

“What kind of matters?” She dug into the bag and brought out an enormous raisin scone. As anxious as he’d seemed to get out of her house the night before, she figured they must have been terribly important to keep him in Connecticut.

“Just details. Like making sure you have enough cash on hand to survive the next few months.”

The big guy doesn’t give up easy, does he? she thought, amused by his insistence on doing his job, but also a little annoyed at Jacob’s interference. “Well, there’s nothing you can do if I don’t want help, is there?” She took a bite of the scone, then waved it in challenge at him. “Short of dumping truckfuls of cash into my accounts, but you don’t have the name of my bank or the account numbers, so…” She nearly choked on a mouthful of crumbs at the mischievous twinkle in Thomas’s dark eyes. “You wouldn’t. You didn’t!”

He just looked at her. He wasn’t quite smiling, but she was sure the effort to keep a straight face was costing him.

“Damn you, Thomas. And Jacob, too. It’s no doubt his name that loosened tongues.” She tossed his raisined peace offering on the table. Men! What right did they have to take over her life? She was perfectly capable of working things out for herself. Surviving the next few months might not be fun, but she’d find a way.

“It’s for your own good. In the children’s best interest,” Thomas explained solemnly.

“Well, you can tell Jacob that I resent his intrusion into my private life!” she snapped. “I don’t need anyone’s charity.”

“You’ll lose your house. You’ll be on the street,” Thomas said calmly.

“The hell I will.” She flashed her eyes at him.

“If accepting a gift isn’t your preference, consider the money a short-term loan.”

She glared at him, but couldn’t stay angry. She’d always liked him. What amazed her about Thomas was that he never seemed to think of himself. He was always doing things for Jacob—bringing him documents, keeping him on schedule for his appointments, driving him here and there, protecting him from outsiders. He seemed on duty twenty-four hours a day. And now he protected her sister, nephew and niece as well. He was a little scary sometimes—because of his size and booming voice. But he was, she believed, one of the most honorable and dedicated men she’d ever met.

He continued calmly, his dark eyes fixed on her face. “You have to be reasonable, Diane. If not for your own sake, then for the children….”

She felt silly, turning down gobs of money. Giddiness took over. She did what every first-grader learns to do when confronted with adult logic. She covered her ears, closed her eyes and belted out “The Star Spangled Banner” as Thomas continued his argument.

Halfway through the first verse, Diane was struck by a steamroller of male flesh. She let out a gasp of shock as Thomas forced her up against the kitchen counter, seized her by the shoulders and kissed her fiercely on the mouth.

Diane struggled for precisely two seconds, then went limp against him. Do men really kiss like this? she wondered dizzily, all other concerns driven from her head. His lips were warm and full. He didn’t just kiss her, he consumed her. The faint scratchiness of morning stubble added heat to his mouth against hers. His big hands released her shoulders, but only to allow his fingers to rake through her tousled hair. His palms clamped either side of her head and pressed her toward him again, increasing the pressure on her lips.

It felt so good, she thought she would die.

When Thomas finally relinquished his claim to her lips, he pressed her blazing cheek against his shirtfront and breathed heavily for several seconds. She felt the rise and fall of his immense chest beneath her cheek. Heard his heart thudding strongly.

“Is that supposed to satisfy my banker? Or just you?” she asked, her voice unusually husky sounding.

“Both of us—you and me.” He ground out the words.

“Uh-uh.” She had to catch her breath and refocus her thoughts before she could come up with anything more to say. Through the window over the sink she glimpsed Tommy, Annie and Gare. They’d been joined by two neighbor children and all were now busily digging in the sandbox.

“You started it,” Thomas said at last.

“What?” She tried to pull away, but he made no move to release her. “Me? I believe all I did was tell you I didn’t want Jacob’s money!”

“Last night, woman,” he said. “You kissed me.”

“But…but that was just an innocent peck on the cheek!” she protested, although she remembered the electricity she’d felt zap between them at the touch of her lips. “It was a gesture of thanks, that was all.”

“It was more,” he said, sounding irritatingly sure of himself.

“Was not.”

Was too, her Tommy would have replied.

But the Englishman said nothing more for another moment. At last he sighed and moved a step back from her, his hands dropping to his sides. “I’ve never met a more maddening woman in my life.”

She decided it would be safer to pretend smugness than to let him see how thoroughly he’d shaken her. “I’ll take that as a compliment,” she retorted, flashing him a chipper smile.

“It may well be,” he murmured, gazing down at her with more intensity than she had ever seen in any man’s eyes. “It may well be…Diane.” His hand rose from his hip to the level of her chin. She didn’t pull away as his thumb caressed the fragile line of her jaw, then touched her lower lip before retreating.

“Did Jacob tell you to offer physical as well as financial consolation?”

For a fraction of a second he looked hurt. Then his expression hardened and he took three stiff steps back from her. “His instructions were to find out what, if anything, was wrong and offer help if that seemed prudent.”

“Prudent.” She couldn’t help chuckling dryly at the old-fashioned sound of the word. “I don’t believe what we were doing just now would be considered prudent by Jacob, especially in his present status as reformed-playboy king.”

Thomas cleared his throat, looking more uncomfortable by the moment. “I’m sure it wouldn’t, Mrs. Fields.”

She shrugged. “Please…we can’t very well revert to courtly etiquette, not after that kiss.”

Oddly enough she felt stronger, in better possession of her mental facilities in the aftermath of Thomas’s amorous onslaught. She was puzzled by this unexpected side effect. Maybe the brief taste of pleasure had syphoned off pent-up energies that had been interfering with her effective analysis of the situation. At the very least she’d been reminded that men and women did, under the right circumstances, interact with passion.

Had Gary even once embraced her with such fervent desire? She couldn’t remember. She thought not. No, definitely not. She certainly hadn’t felt her body respond as it had when Thomas kissed her. Which was somewhat in excess of cataclysmic.

“I-I’m truly sorry for overstepping my bounds,” Thomas muttered, avoiding her eyes. “I was out of line.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “You definitely were.”

He adjusted his shoulders, ran his tongue between his lips and seemed to make up his mind to meet her gaze again. “I’ve never forced a woman. It wouldn’t have gone further than the kiss. I wouldn’t even have kissed you if you were still married. Please, forgive me if I’ve embarrassed you.”

“I forgive you, Thomas.” Why did everything he say send teasing vibrations through her? “I suppose you might have been misled by that silly thank-you kiss. I’m not focusing very well these days on other people’s feelings. There are so many things still to be resolved, even though Gary’s been gone for over six months.”

“That long?” He looked surprised.

“Actually, it seems longer. For the past two years, maybe more, he hasn’t been around much at all.”

“I am sorry…truly I am.” Even now he looked as if he wanted to touch her, but she didn’t understand why that should be. Allison had told her something of Thomas’s taste for glamorous women.

Nevertheless she stepped around the kitchen table to the other side. Furniture made good defensive fortifications. From this distance she thought she saw a shadow pass over his eyes. It occurred to her she might have hurt his feelings or touched on some hidden injury without realizing it.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so rude,” she said apologetically. “I have been very short with you, and I know it. But it’s totally against my nature to accept help. I’ve always been able to fend for myself.”

“Isn’t that what your sister was trying to do by keeping her baby to herself?”

Diane remembered as if it were yesterday. She smiled. “At the time, it seemed unlikely the father of Allison’s child would ever come back into her life. Who could have known the college boy she’d fallen for was a prince—complete with royal palace and a country at his bidding?”

Thomas smiled, too, looking a centimeter less tense. “At one time I didn’t believe Jacob was other than a spoiled rich boy who needed looking after while he was in an English school away from his family.”

“You started working for him that long ago?”

“Yes,” Thomas said, pulling out a chair, then motioning for Diane to sit in it.

She sat, then picked up the scone she’d dropped on the table and took another bite. He spotted the pot of coffee on the countertop and poured each of them a cup.

“I’d just come out of the British army after serving overseas. I wanted to stay home for a while in London, see if I could find a decent job….” He winked at her. “Talk a few girls into bed while I was at it. Those were my only goals. Simple ones.”

“Simple but laudable for a young man,” she commented with a hint of sarcasm.

“Well, they didn’t work out. Instead, I acquired a young lad who always seemed to be getting himself into trouble. The first time I saw Jacob, he was at the wrong end of another man’s fist, getting beaten to a bloody pulp by a couple of what you Americans call longshoremen. I stepped in to even up the sides, and we managed to walk out of the pub alive.

“He was still in school at the Crenworth Academy and headed, he informed me, for more years of formal education in the United States. His future had been mapped out by his family. He hated not being able to make his own decisions about what to do with his life.”

Diane nodded. “I understand.” Hadn’t so much of her own life been determined by chance?

“To make a very complicated story short,” Thomas continued, “Jacob attached himself to me. I don’t know why. Maybe because I didn’t keep reminding him of who he was, because I really didn’t know.” He smiled. “But it wasn’t long before a crotchety royal chancellor cornered me and filled me in. You could have knocked me flat with a teaspoon. A crown prince. Being prepped to take over the throne of one of the wealthiest little countries in Europe—Elbia. And there I was taking him out to pubs, pulling him out of fights and walking him home, both of us drunk as skunks. I was shocked. I apologized and promised the man I’d never meant Jacob any harm. It was just that I liked him, I really did. And I sort of felt sorry for the lad.”

Diane was amused by Thomas’s tale. “Then what happened?” she asked, as he polished off his first scone and reached hungrily for a second from the sack.

“I told the old man I’d make myself scarce. But he says in this German accent you could cut with a knife, ‘You vill continue to go everywhere with Jacob. You vill not let him out of your sight for as long as you or he lives. The king vill pay you vell to continue protecting his son.”’

Diane laughed at his imitation. This was a piece of palace lore she hadn’t heard from Allison. But she couldn’t help noticing that Thomas mentioned surprisingly little of his own background before he’d met Jacob, and she made a mental note to ask him about that later. She was curious.

Diane finished her own buttery scone and sat back to lick delicious crumbs from her fingertips while Thomas finished a third pastry. They drank another cup of coffee slowly, in companionable silence. For some reason she had the distinct impression that Thomas’s mind wasn’t as quiet as his body.

At last he looked across the table at her.

“What now?” she asked. “No more Mr. Nice Guy?”

He frowned. “What?”

“I think it comes from a movie, or maybe a TV show. Don’t know which,” she murmured, automatically taking in the sounds of play from the backyard. She’d learned to read them so well she could tell the children were safe.

Thomas folded his hands and observed her over the wide knuckles. “Learning to accept help when it’s necessary to one’s survival is an important life lesson,” he said solemnly.

His eyes felt as if they were driving an opening through her body to her heart, making way for his message. She lifted her gaze to the ceiling and sighed. “I see. So what you’re telling me is that Jacob intends to help me whether or not I want his help.”

“That’s right,” Thomas said. He reached across the table, lifted a strand of hair from over her eye and tucked it behind her ear. “I’d say you’ve had a rough six months, at least. You deserve a rest and time to think about what you want to do. It’s not just your own life, it’s your children’s future that is in the balance.”

Tears suddenly threatened. She willed them away and swallowed over the tightness in her throat. This was the one argument that had a chance of swaying her. Her children’s welfare. She could insist that everyone leave her alone, as long as she risked only her own security. But as soon as Thomas put the situation that way, she couldn’t let her pride make decisions that might hurt her babies.

Thomas nodded as if he understood the shift in her mind set. “Good. Your immediate finances can be dealt with in the form of a short-term loan from Jacob,” he said calmly, his hand rising to stave off an objection she no longer had the strength to make. “I’ve already deposited money into your checking account. And—” he rushed on “—please don’t make so much of this. You have no idea how insignificant a few thousand dollars is to His Majesty. Think of it as a fistful of pennies taken from Fort Knox.”

Diane let out a deep breath. Viewed that way, she was probably being foolish to make such a fuss. “All right. But it’s just a loan.”

“Agreed.” Thomas looked quietly pleased with the negotiations, though he didn’t risk setting her off with a full-blown smile. “Next of concern—your health and emotional well-being.”

She laughed dryly. “Believe it or not, money can do nothing to repair a heart that’s been stomped flat.”

“I suppose not,” he admitted, his huge dark eyes lingering compassionately on her face. “But a change of venue and a break from work might.”

“You mean, a vacation?”

“I think it’s time you visited your sister. She misses you, you know. It’s not as if a queen can dash halfway around the world whenever she feels homesick or wants to see her family.”