The Prince Who Loved Me (The Oxenburg Princes)

  Scott rested his chin on her knee, his large brown eyes so soulful, she was forced to kiss his forehead. “Prince or no, Alexsey will never be as adorable as you.”

  Scott wagged his tail.

  Despite the sting of being used, she couldn’t stop thinking about the first time she’d met Alexsey, when he’d merely been a handsome huntsman. Those kisses. She shivered at the memory. Kisses were far more exciting than she’d realized.

  But that was all in the past. Now she was dealing with a smug prince who deserved a setdown, and planning how to do that was unexpectedly exciting.

  Yet the whole thing had her topsy-turvy. Though she was prepared to give as good as she got, she couldn’t stop her well-fed imagination from whispering, Is that all? Don’t you really want more?

  She might want more—but the real question was, should she?

  It had been disconcerting to discover that some princes really were make-your-knees-weak handsome. It seemed unfair of fate to put such handsome men on earth and then give them flaws like arrogance and—Well, that was really the only flaw she knew he had, but there were sure to be more. And they would all help her resist his seduction attempts.

  Which would be difficult: they had already kissed, and the memory of those alone tempted her. And oh, what delicious kisses those had been. They still made her skin tingle, her heart pound, her nipples harden—

  Argh! She moved Scott’s chin from her knee and stood. “Princes and kisses. Both should be avoided by people with large imaginations who—”

  Someone came running up the steps; then the door popped open and Mairi stumbled in. Her hair was a mess, a comb sticking out over one ear, her gown wrinkled where she’d grasped it with both hands as she’d galloped up the stairs.

  She placed a hand on her chest and leaned against the doorframe, panting.

  “Goodness! What’s gotten into you?” Bronwyn asked.

  “Mama—says—you—all of us—must come—now! The prince—Strathmoor—sent a note!”

  A swell of excitement warmed her. Finally! “When will they be here?”

  “Mama says—we are to be—in the sitting room—ready—by noon!”

  “Excellent.” Bronwyn glanced at the clock. “That’s a half hour, just enough time to get ready. Thank you, Mairi. And walk back to your room. You won’t be fit to speak to anyone if you run up and down the stairs like a terrier looking for a rat.”

  With a grin, Mairi left, her footsteps only slightly slower as she went downstairs.

  Meanwhile, Bronwyn hurried toward her wardrobe, then stopped short. If she dressed in something bonnier than usual, it would make the prince think she wasn’t the woman he’d met in the woods. And he’d been attracted to that woman. To plain old her, without the frills and furbelows her mother thought so necessary to secure a man’s attention.

  Well. Perhaps I just learned one lesson in seduction—use what works. Smiling to herself, she turned to the dogs. “I won’t change, then. Let him see me as I am. Meanwhile, it’s time I let you two out to play.”

  At the word “out,” both dogs rose to their feet, stretching and yawning.

  Humming to herself (she really did have a nice voice), she took the dogs downstairs and let them out the back door to roam the fields. “Don’t chase Mr. MacGregor’s sheep. He’ll come a’yelling if you do.”

  With nearly fifteen minutes still left on the clock, she stopped long enough to collect a cup of tea and a biscuit from Cook before making her way to the sitting room. As the frantic sounds from the upstairs bedchambers were audible, she wasn’t surprised to find herself alone.

  She finished the small biscuit and put her tea on a side table as she walked to the shelves that lined one side of the room. There, she looked up and down until she found the tome on Oxenburg that Mama had mentioned.

  Within moments, she was pages deep into the book.

  Later she heard the door open and Papa wandered in, a messy stack of papers in his hand, a harassed look on his face. He was a slight man of slender build, with brown eyes and a mass of thick white hair that never seemed to have been combed, though her stepmother made certain it was done at least once a day. Ink stains marred his left hand, while a large inkblot colored the center of his crooked cravat where a pin should have rested.

  He brightened on seeing Bronwyn. “I’ve been a-lookin’ all over for you, wee ’un.”

  “How odd to see you abovestairs,” she teased, setting her book aside. “It’s not even dinnertime.”

  He looked at the clock, mild confusion flickering over his face. “Is it time for dinner already?”

  “Not quite yet. And you’d be sorry to miss it, for Cook has made apple tarts especially for you.”

  Papa brightened. “Well! Tha’ is something to look forward to, then.” He squinted at the book she’d left beside her chair. “Oxenburg, eh? Interesting country, tha’.”

  “Why do we have a book about it?”

  “Two of the researchers I correspond with are from there. I wanted to know a little aboot their country.”

  “It’s very interesting. What are you doing out of your workshop at this time of the day? Mama must have mentioned our visitors.”

  He grimaced and, with a harried look at the open door, said in a greatly lowered voice, “Is tha’ what she came blithering aboot down in me workshop? I was runnin’ the new gas machine and couldna hear a word she said, but dinna wish to hurt her feelin’s, so I just nodded and went on with my business.”

  Bronwyn patted his shoulder. “That’s all right. I’m sure Mama didn’t wish you to join us, or she’d have asked you to change your clothes.”

  His brows knit. “She might ha’ said somethin’ aboot tha’, but I dinna know. ’Twas too noisy in the shop. But now tha’ I have ye here, perhaps ye can help me with some correspondence while we’re waiting. I canno’ find me spectacles to save me life.”

  Chuckling, she rose on her tiptoes and slipped his spectacles from the top of his head back to his nose. “They were hiding on your head, as they always do.”

  Papa grimaced. “I should ha’ looked there first, bu’ I was distracted by this letter fra’ Lord Watt.”

  “About the rotative gear?”

  “Aye, aye. He questions all of the reports I’ve sent, and wonders if the gear is truly as efficacious as the tests show, the bloody arse!”

  She frowned. “Lord Watt thinks you’re forging the results?”

  “He hints at just tha’, though he’s no’ mon enou’ to come right out and say so.” Papa scowled. “I hate such mealymouthed methods.”

  “Oh dear. That doesn’t sound like Lord Watt at all. He’s usually so direct. Perhaps I should read the letter?”

  He dutifully handed it to her.

  She read it quickly, her brow clearing as she turned the page. “Papa, Lord Watt doesn’t question your results. He just says he can’t read your handwriting, and asks you to use a chart to display your findings. That’s all.”

  “Oh!” Papa squinted at the letter she’d returned. “Hmm.” He sent her a hesitant look over the rim of his spectacles. “Perhaps I should look up Lord Watt’s last paper on propulsion and see wha’ format he used for testing? If I matched tha’, he might better understand my results.”

  She arched a brow at him. “I take it you’d like me to find that paper for you?”

  He brightened instantly. “Och, me wee, sweet bairn, tha’ would be jus’ the thing.”

  “It should be in the bound works from the Royal Society. The newest version is in your study. I’ll look after dinner.”

  “Tha’ would be lovely.” He adjusted his spectacles and then returned to the messy stack of papers and began shuffling through them. “Also, I received a letter fra’ Knightley and he says the patent description you wrote was perfect, and the drawing quite thorough, too.” He beamed, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “You are a treasure, Bronwyn. I dinna know wha’ I’d do without you.”

  Normally, when Papa said such things, Bronw
yn would hug him or tell him not to worry, for she had no plans to be elsewhere than at Ackinnoull with him. But for some reason, the words stuck in her throat. In that instant, in a wild, unfettered moment, she had an image of herself and Alexsey, kissing under her favorite reading tree.

  It was a ludicrous vision and she instantly banished it, but the memory lingered. Do I really wish to be here for the rest of my life? Will I still feel useful, filing Papa’s patents when I’m thirty? Forty? Fifty? Will there come a day when I’ll wish I’d lived a more adventuresome life?

  It was funny, but before she’d met the prince, she’d never thought about such things. Now she was aware of—not a lacking in her life, for that implied she’d been dissatisfied, which wasn’t true—but a lack of ambition on her part when considering her future. Perhaps that was because Sorcha and Mairi had come into Bronwyn’s life when normally, she would have been dreaming of her own happy ever after. Whatever it was, somewhere along the way she’d stopped thinking of her future as being any different from her present, which was a great injustice. Things would change; she would change. Sorcha and Mairi would marry and have families of their own, while she—

  She frowned. What would she do?

  She captured her ridiculous imagination and forced it back into its box. Of course I’ll still be happy. Papa and I make a good team, and his work is so important.

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs and then Lady Malvinea swept into the room, followed by Sorcha and Mairi. “Perfect!” she said, smiling brightly. The smile faltered when she saw Papa’s ink-stained cravat. “You didn’t change your clothes.”

  He blinked, clearly surprised at the idea. “Why would I do tha’? ’Tis no’ time for bed.”

  “You are hopeless.” But she smiled again as she shook her head and placed a peck on her husband’s cheek.

  He turned pink and shuffled from foot to foot, looking for all the world like a schoolboy. “Och, Malvinea. No’ in front of the girls.”

  Mama laughed. “It cannot hurt our daughters to know that a restrained show of affection between a husband and wife is perfectly acceptable in the privacy of one’s own parlor.”

  Bronwyn eyed her stepsisters’ brightly hued gowns. “Dressed like princesses for the prince. Very pretty!”

  Papa’s brows knit. “The prince? What prince?”

  Lady Malvinea sighed. “Murdoch, I expressly visited your workshop not thirty minutes ago to tell you we were expecting guests—important guests!”

  “Ah yes, so you did. I ah, I forgot in the excitement of—” He waved the papers. “I had letters and Bronwyn needed to help and—”

  “And you didn’t hear a word I said,” Mama said impatiently. “You do remember that you agreed to go with me to Tulloch Castle to see Sir Henry, to return the honor of the prince’s and Strathmoor’s visit today?”

  Papa instantly looked contrite, even as he shifted toward the door. “I promised to visit Sir Henry?”

  “Yes. And soon. He’s in residence at Tulloch now, but heaven knows how long he’ll stay.”

  Bronwyn’s happier thoughts instantly dimmed. How soon will the prince leave?

  “Tulloch Castle, eh?” Papa eyed the door now, looking as if he’d like to disappear out of it.

  “In fact,” Lady Malvinea said, warming to the topic, “it would be appropriate for us to call on Sir Henry tomorrow, even though it is pushing things a small bit. Were these normal circumstances we should wait another day or two before we returned the courtesies.”

  “But Malvinea, I’m quite busy right now, wha’ with my new gear system and—”

  “William,” Lady Malvinea said firmly. “Just one visit. For your daughters.”

  “Of course. Of course.” Papa backed toward the door with more certain steps. “Seein’ as how I’m not dressed for the visit today, per’aps I should go and leave the prettier ones in the household to do the pleasantries.”

  “No. You must at least greet the prince. You don’t have to stay for the whole visit, though.” She sighed, but waved him on. “Go. I’ll send one of the girls to fetch you once the prince arrives.”

  He agreed with a sigh. “I will be in my workshop.”

  “And tomorrow you’ll escort us to Tulloch?” Mama asked.

  “Aye, as soon as my model is finished and I’ve answered a few letters and tried to make a chart t’ show the . . .” His voice trailed off as he vanished out the door.

  Bronwyn saw the flash of hurt in her stepmother’s eyes. “Papa always hides from humanity when he’s in the grip of a new invention,” she said soothingly.

  “He’s never comfortable with people.” Mairi hopped up to fetch a pillow from the chair by the window.

  Mama forced a smile. “He’s the shyest man I’ve ever met. It’s a wonder he gathered up the nerve to propose to me.”

  “He loves you,” Bronwyn said softly. “There’s no other reason he’d have done so.”

  Mama’s smile quavered a moment, and she quickly bent to stir the coals, her face now hidden from view. “I do wish the maid would learn to make a proper fire.”

  Bronwyn wondered if she should say something else or perhaps even hug her stepmother, but the older woman wasn’t comfortable with displays of affection. It was one of the many ways she differed from Bronwyn’s mother, and perhaps one reason Papa had chosen her.

  Mother had been bubbly light, the house filled with laughter, muddy shoes, and stories by the fireplace. When Mother was alive, the curtains and tabletops had never been free from dust, but the walls had been warmed by laughter. Lady Malvinea, meanwhile, kept Ackinnoull perfectly clean, the draperies ironed, the bed linens always fresh. No hint of dust was ever allowed to gather. The house was perfect, but colder.

  Bronwyn thought her father felt that loss keenly. Once Lady Malvinea and her daughters had been installed in their home, he’d seemed to find more and more reasons to stay in his workshop, away from the family, leaving them to their own devices.

  It’s not fair. No matter Lady Malvinea’s faults, she was capable of great love. Though Bronwyn had very little interest in the things that stirred her stepmother, she was deeply grateful for the older woman’s efforts to include her.

  Mama replaced the poker and came to join them. “Well, my dears! We must discuss the prince’s visit.” She sank into a chair, collecting herself enough to send a teasing look at Bronwyn. “We sadly missed you at breakfast. Reading another book, were you?”

  “Yes, I was rereading some of my favorite scenes.” Plotting the punishment of a certain prince.

  “I would like to read The Black Duke when you finish.” Mairi plopped down on the settee, her skirts billowing.

  “Mairi, your manners!”

  “No one is looking, Mama.”

  “As I’ve told you time and again, a lady never forgets her manners, even in private.”

  Mairi sighed. “I’ll try, but I can’t imagine everyone actually acts in private the way they do in public, never putting their feet up or talking about anything other than the weather and the latest gossip in London. Well, except old Mr. Grisham from MacCuen Hall.” She grinned. “I’ll wager he does exactly the same in private as he does in public, which is to fondle maids, belch loudly, and drink ale.”

  “Mairi, Mairi!” Mama pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers as if she had a sudden headache.

  Sorcha and Bronwyn barely held their laughter.

  Schooling her expression, Sorcha patted Mairi’s arm. “Mama is right; please show some comportment.”

  “I’m showing comportment. Besides, I’m not the one wearing muddy boots.”

  All eyes turned to Bronwyn.

  “I’m sorry. I went for a walk early this morning, and completely forgot about my boots.”

  Mama glanced at the clock. “Sadly, there’s not enough time for you to change them. You’ll just have to wear them as they are. Tuck them back under your skirts, please. That will have to do.”

  Mairi turned a pouting face toward Mama
. “How come you never worry about Bronwyn’s clothes?”

  “Bronwyn is twenty-four, my dear, past the age to be wishful of a suitor.”

  Though she’d thought the exact same thing herself many times, the words hit Bronwyn with a new force, her stepmother’s tone damning in its casual finality. Good God, was she too old to ever have a suitor? Why did that stark sentence pinch so much?

  Mama caught her surprised look and, with a concerned frown, added, “Not that you couldn’t do so if you tried, but you seem content with the way things are.”

  “I am—I mean, I have been. I’ve never met a man I wished to marry.” Just one I enjoy kissing.

  That was a beginning, wasn’t it?

  Mama’s expression softened. “Perhaps one day you’ll meet someone who will change your mind.”

  And perhaps someone was well on his way to doing so. Or had been, until she’d seen his true colors.

  Sorcha smiled at Bronwyn. “The truth is that you are too in love with the men in your novels to spare your time on mere mortals. How can one compete with Miss Edgeworth’s Roland?”

  Mairi clasped her hands together beneath her chin and stared dreamily into the air. “Oh, Roland!”

  Bronwyn couldn’t keep back a chuckle. “Fortunately, I am well aware of the vast difference between fact and fiction. And speaking of facts, Sorcha, it dawned on me last night that you’ve barely mentioned your dance with the prince when we were at the ball.”

  Mairi turned her attention to her sister. “Did the prince dance as well as Lord Strathmoor? It seemed to me the viscount was lighter on his feet.”

  “The viscount was the better dancer.” She didn’t seem at all happy about it. “Although his manners left much to be desired. I was glad when our dance was over.”

  “Viscount Strathmoor is not a concern,” Mama said. “I asked about him, thinking he might do well for Mairi, but he has almost no income and, despite his close relationship to Sir Henry, does not stand to inherit in that direction, either.”

  “A pity,” Mairi agreed. “I thought he had kind eyes, but—” She dusted her hands. “I shall focus my attentions elsewhere, for I’m determined to wed a wealthy man. I’ve books to buy and gowns to purchase, jewels to wear, and—oh, a thousand very expensive things.”