The Prince And The Nanny

A door opened behind them, and her green clad escort came in. And through the open door with him, unnoticed save by her, slipped a child.

He was a devilish looking little imp, perhaps five. He tucked himself behind the back of the sofa the prince was seated on. Ronald bent and said something to the prince in an undertone, the prince turned his attention over his shoulder to him.

Prue watched the place where the small boy was. Sure enough, in a moment, the unruly black hair appeared over the sofa, and then eyes bright and blue and full of dark mischief. The child’s eyebrows beetled down as he regarded her with pint-size disapproval. There was no doubting he was his father’s son!

She beetled hers back at him.

He shifted upward, so that his face was revealed. He was an exceptionally handsome little boy. He regarded her with what she could only conclude was patent dislike—much like Brian had shown the temporary nanny this morning. Then he crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue, not in play.

She shot a look at the prince, who was still otherwise engaged, and then looked back at the child.

She did something that probably would have given Mrs. Smith a heart attack. Prudence crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue back.

Ryan chose that moment to look back at her.

He had to bite the side of his cheek to keep from reacting to her crossed eyes and her tongue stuck out. He felt as if he had been biting the side of his cheek since the moment he had first seen her.

The truth was nothing—not his meeting with Mrs. Smith, and not the photo in the paper—had prepared him for Miss Prudence Winslow in the flesh.

She was tall and slender, and had one of the most magnificent heads of hair he had ever seen. Those red curls crackled and curled around her head as if they were filled with electricity. She was intensely beautiful—a perfect nose, wide mouth, milky skin—not at all the demure nanny Mrs. Smith’s rather plain office and the heap of clothes in the newspaper picture had led him to believe he would be meeting.

Her eyes were as green as the pool beneath Myria Falls, on his island home, and they flashed with spirit, a subtle defiance, again on a collision course with his expectations.

Though her clothes were rumpled and dowdy, she carried herself with such cache that it looked as if the clothes were meant to be that way!

She was really the kind of woman a man should be prepared to meet, and he was not.

The defiance showed itself again when she did not use his title, and when she did, she used it incorrectly. Deliberately?

She had been tardy and rude, and though he suspected neither was intentional, he was aware within moments of meeting her that she would not be a good fit in his smoothly run household, just as Mrs. Smith had tried to warn him.

The people retained by his family had worked those positions through generations, father teaching son, mother teaching daughter. They were proud to be of service to the House of Kaelan. A woman like this one would be a terrible disruption to the routine of the castle, which had probably not changed in three hundred years.

The thought made him feel oddly restless, rather than contented.

Besides, the royal nannies were proving problematic. It was a different age than the one he had been raised in, and the prince was aware of wanting something—no, aching for something—different for his children. His son in particular was having such problems since the death of his mother. The child who had always been like the sun was querulous now, and angry. His mischief ran to meanness.

His son, Gavin, needed someone not quite so rigid as the nanny Ryan had just dismissed a week ago. He needed something. He was not sure what, but when he saw Prudence Winslow he was certain she was it.

And when he turned back from his conversation with Ronald, to see her green eyes crossed and her tongue out, he thought for the first time, I’ve made a mistake. My instincts were wrong. Let her go back to her life.

But then, surprised, he became aware his son had arrived in the room and tucked himself behind the sofa. He turned and gave Gavin a look he intended to be stern, but the look melted.

Gavin was smiling.

And not that wicked black smile that Ryan had come to dread, that meant his son had been up to no good, had been tormenting the staff, or the baby, or his nanny, or one of the queen’s dogs. Six nannies in six months because of one small, hurting child.

No, on Gavin’s face was a true smile, tentative, but true. When he saw his father watching him, the smile disappeared, he glared and marched from the room.

“That was my son, Gavin,” Ryan said, watching her face. “He lost his mother thirteen months ago. He’s having a hard time of it.”

He saw, finally, what he needed to see in her eyes. Not pride and not belligerence, a terrible softness, so soft he could feel a longing in himself.

He killed it quickly. His entire marriage he had longed. He had been young and hoped for happiness, despite the fact the marriage had been arranged. Raina had hoped, too. She had hoped by marrying so well, by marrying a prince, by becoming a princess, she could forget that she had loved another….

Sternly he turned his thoughts from those painful memories. He had two beautiful children.

“There’s a baby as well,” he said, watching her even more closely. For some reason, he found himself fishing in the pocket underneath his sweater, passing her the photo of his little Sara. “She’s still a little too young to travel with me.”

Prudence hesitated, then leaned forward and took the photo.

The tiniest of smiles tickled her lips.

Sara had that effect on people: with her sparse hair always standing straight up, black dandelion fluff, and her huge eyes, blue, intense, curious.

“She’s thirteen months old. My wife died while giving birth to her.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said, and she meant it. Her eyes drifted from the picture, followed where Gavin had gone.

Ryan felt something in him sigh with relief. She would love his children. That was the ingredient that made you guard someone else’s child with your own life.

Love.

The missing ingredient in his life. The thought was renegade and he amended it quickly, the missing ingredient in all the other nannies, including the ones he had grown up with.

Caring, of course. Dedicated, yes. Respectful, naturally.

But always falling just a hair short of what he saw, unguarded, for just a moment in the green of Prudence Winslow’s eyes as she looked at the place where his son had stood only moments ago.

He had managed to get some skimpy paperwork on the nanny from Mrs. Smith. He knew Prudence Winslow was qualified for this job.

But where he really knew it, that place he had learned to count on more than any other, his instinct. Instinct had told him not to marry Raina. But he’d been twenty-two, under pressure, not really given a choice…

Since then, aware of the cataclysmic consequences of ignoring his instincts, Ryan tried to pay more attention to that voice. It had been nagging him since he had first seen the picture, and now it whispered, firmly, yes.

Even though she would probably never call him Your Royal Highness without nearly choking, even though his household was probably not ready for her, and neither was he, he knew his children needed her. He had known that from the moment he had seen that newspaper and read about a young nanny who had put the life of her young charge ahead of her own.

“I want you to think about returning to the Isle of Momhilegra with me,” he said. “As the head—” Suddenly he was no more able to call her a nanny, than she was able to call him Your Royal Highness. “To look after my children,” he amended.

She stared at him, looked away, leaped suddenly to her feet.

“May I have my coat?” Her cheeks were staining a beautiful, angry shade of red. “Thank you, but I said no. I’m very happy with the position I have now.”

For a moment her eyes trailed to his lips, the look in them so intense he felt scorched. But then her coat was brought and she left in a flurry of activity.

He smiled slightly as the door slammed behind her. “Ronald?”

“Yes, sir?”