Dani blinked and looked again to the men. She was not accustomed to feeling what went on inside her chest. But she was also not accustomed to broad shoulders or black hats or male visitors. She glanced at her parents. They were frozen on the sofa like prey.
Oh, for Pete’s sake, Dani thought. He was just a man. She stood. “Good morning, sir. May I help you?”
Ever so slightly, the tall man raised his brows, the gesture of someone insulted or unimpressed or—? Dani couldn’t guess the meaning of the subtly arrogant brow lift. She knew only that he’d interrupted the most important discussion of her life.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. His words were polite, but his tone barely endured. “We’re in search of the home of Silas and Miriam Dinwiddie and the prin—”
“I am Silas Dinwiddie,” cut in Whittle, struggling to his feet. “And this is my wife, Mrs. Miriam Dinwiddie.”
The man at the door squinted beyond Dani to her parents. He studied Whittle, studied Miriam, studied Amelia and the cats and their cottage. Finally, he looked again to Dani. He had the expression of a man surveying a guest room before he agreed to the price.
“I am Lucas Bannock,” he went on. “I’ve come from London to introduce myself and—”
When he said his name, the uncorked thing in Dani’s chest was matched by two, three, four more holes. Her insides were perforated; she was a sieve. Her lungs could not retain air.
“How do you do, Mr. Bannock—er, Captain Bannock, is it?” Miriam was saying. Out of her seat now, Miriam was grinning at the man—nay, she waswelcominghim.
Dani was suddenly too hot, she was breathless. She felt like she’d stumbled into a buzzing hive. The name “Lucas Bannock” expanded inside her like a swarm.
“We’d not known when to expect you,” Miriam was saying.
Dani blinked at her surrogate mother and father. She looked at Amelia. Her friend had clamped a hand over her mouth, her eyes huge. Dani swallowed. She looked at the floor. She took a deep breath.
Right, she thought.
Fine.
This person has come.
I’d not known of his existence before three minutes ago, but he’s here now, and...
She glanced at her parents. Miriam and Whittle stood before the sofa like they faced a firing squad. Amelia embodied blissful shock; a statue of anticipation.
Meanwhile, the man called Lucas Bannock,her fiancé, stared at the lot of them like he barely recognized their shapes as human.
Well, Dani thought,someone has to acknowledge him.Her family mustn’t appear witless or without manners.
She drew in another deep breath. She would reckon with the whys and hows after he’d gone. Surely he would not toss her over his shoulder and haul her away today?
Pasting on a smile, Dani bobbed a quick curtsy and made her way to the door.
“How do you do, Captain Bannock?” she said. “Please do come in.”
Chapter 3
Luke Bannock didn’t trust things he couldn’t understand, and he’d never understand things that couldn’t be looked up.
Princess Danielle Allard d’Orleans was remarkably un-look-up-able; not in a book, nor a newspaper, nor in a report from a paid informant. He could research her French family of birth and locate Ivy Hill, Kent, on the map, but beyond that, she was a mystery. He wasn’t even certain how old she’d been when she’d come to England. It was an understatement to say that she wasunknownto him. Luke scarcely crossed the road without careful study of what might lay on the other side, and now he’d ridden two days and a night to bind himself to a question mark. His obsession withacquiringPrincess Danielle had, he now realized, kept him from learning a bloody useful thing about her. He’d not dared to ask St. James’s Palace for fear they would snatch the betrothal back.
Instead, he’d hired a man to travel to France and learn more about the exiled Orleans family. The last thing he needed was to marry the girl, haul her to France, and discover some legal obstacle to their union. While his man prowled about France, Luke himself spent considerable time researching princesses in general and French exiles in particular. Exiles seemed to share one goal: to return home. And why wouldn’t they? Born in a palace, waited upon by servants, awash in jewels? What self-respecting royal exile would want to remain in cottage-y, sheep-thick Kent if castles and a royal court awaited them in France?
As for princesses in general, the more Luke learned, the more he realized he was marrying more of a rank or an institution than a person. Princess Danielle was, obviously, a person, but she was a person whose life was devoted to the service of her title. In essence, she belonged to France, a country to which Luke intended to return her. After he used her as leverage to recover his friend, he would take her to Paris and set her free. Luke’s own mother had been the daughter of an earl—hardly a princess, but titled just the same—and she was so very devoted to her title, she’d rejected anything that might tarnish it, including her bastard son. Princess Danielle, he’d surmised, would be no different.
Prince George had offered to bring Princess Danielle d’Orleans to London so that his courtiers might ease the awkwardness of their unconventional union, but Luke had refused. Too time-consuming, too much fuss. Instead, he’d dragged Fernsby to Kent to meet her where she’d exiled for some twenty-odd years. Fernsby was, for all intents and purposes, a courtier himself. Even better, he was predisposed to fine manners and good cheer. The introduction would go better with his air of pleasantness.
Standing here now in the sunny village of Ivy Hill, Luke cursed all the things he’d allowed himself toassume. First of all, Princess Danielle’s house made no sense. They’d found New Bridge Road with little effort, but the size and scale of the property was all wrong. The cottage was tidy and boasted a thriving garden, but it was small and modest. French princesses, even in exile, surely resided in proper manor houses with private grounds for safety and a stable for livestock. In Luke’s hometown, his mother’s family lived in a castle on a cliffside with a walled garden and a gatehouse occupied by round-the-clock guards.
“Perhaps she makes her home inall fiveof these cottages,” Fernsby theorized, looking at the dwellings up and down New Bridge Road. “A sort of compound? Perhaps there’s value in hiding her within the confines of a humble cottage, but comfort in colonizing more than one of them.”
