Rescuing The Royal Runaway Bride

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 (#u6f6eb8ce-925f-51d5-80af-85a5e041d0bd)

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.