The Stolen Princess Read Free Page B

fetch my portmanteau in the morning.”
    â€œFetched from where?” Gabriel asked. There was nothing for miles, only his house.
    There was a short silence. “From where we are staying,” she said warily.
    â€œAnd where is that?”
    â€œThat’s my business,” she said firmly. “Thank you for your concern. Good-bye.”
    Gabriel admired her spirit. She’d dismissed him like a little duchess, and on his own land. “I’m not going anywhere, without you,” he informed her. They were in dire straits and it was not in him to abandon any woman and child to their fate.
    She edged away from him, clutching the boy to her. “Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t even know us. And we don’t know you.”
    She took another step backward…Another…
    He strode forward and grabbed her as she started to slip. Before she knew what he was about, he placed both hands around her waist and lifted her away from the brink.
    â€œLet me g—Oh,” she stammered, as he released her. She glanced behind her and saw. “Oh…Th-thank you.”
    â€œMy pleasure. Gabriel Renfrew, at your service.” He bowed. “And you are…?”
    She drew herself up straight, fighting desperately for dignity. “Appreciative of your…assistance. But my son and I shall do very well now, thank you, good-bye.”
    â€œIt’s my land,” Gabe reminded her gently.
    â€œYes. Of course. We shall leave. Come, Nicky.” She took the child’s hand and took three lopsided steps away from him. Then she hesitated and said with a further heartbreaking attempt at dignity. “This is the path to Lulworth, I take it?”
    â€œIt is, but you’re not going to Lulworth tonight.”
    â€œIndeed we are,” she said as certainly as a female could whose teeth chattered like Spanish castanets.
    Gabe ignored her. He took Trojan’s reins and knotted them lightly on the horse’s neck. He pulled out his caped overcoat from the saddlebag and took the bandbox from the boy.
    â€œWhat are you doing? That’s my bandbox,” she said. “Give it back at once!”
    Gabe tied the bandbox to the saddle, put on the overcoat and held out his hand to her. “Come on.”
    She pressed back against the rocks at the rear of the path. “I won’t!” She gave a panic-stricken glance at the horse and in a different voice said, “I can’t!”
    He shrugged and swung the boy onto a ledge above the path.
    â€œLet him go!” In desperation she swung a fist at Gabe, but he caught it easily.
    She lifted her fist to swing at him and he caught her hand in his. At that moment the moon came out from behind the clouds, flooding the cliff top—and the woman’s face—with clear, silvery light.
    Gabriel had had the breath knocked out of him a dozen times. Each time he’d thought he was dying.
    He’d been kicked in the head by a horse once. It had scrambled his wits for a while.
    And a couple of times in his life he’d been so drunk that he’d lost all sense of time and place.
    Seeing her face in the moonlight was like all of those rolled into one. And more. Gabe’s breathing stopped. He forgot how to speak. He was unable to think. He could only stare. And stare. And stare.
    She had the sweetest face he’d ever seen, round and sweet and sad and somehow…right, framed by a cloud of dark, wavy hair. An angel come to earth. With the most kissable mouth in the world.
    He swallowed, drinking in the sight of her like a man facing a waterfall after a lifetime of thirst.
    She gazed back at him. Her eyes were beautiful, he thought, eyes a man could happily drown in. He wondered what color they were.
    â€œRelease me this instant!” the angel snapped, and Gabriel’s breath came back in a great whoosh of air. The angel was very, very human. And very, very frightened.
    He held her clenched fist up,