Romancing The Crown: Lorenzo and Anna: The Man Who Would Be King / The Princess And The Mercenary

Put on the spot, she said, “No!” But then she immediately changed her mind. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. You’re a duke, for heaven’s sake! Dukes and cowboys are as different as day and night.”

Lorenzo appreciated her honesty, but his title had been granted to him by the king in appreciation of his military service for Montebello. Just because he’d been raised by Marcus and Gwendolyn after his parents died and the palace had become his home didn’t mean he was some kind of pampered royal who was afraid to get his hands dirty. He hadn’t received any special treatment when he was in the military; he’d carried his own weight.

“We’ll see,” he said as the waitress arrived with a breakfast fit for a king. “You just might be surprised.”

She had her doubts and she didn’t make any effort to hide them, but Lorenzo wasn’t worried. Digging into the ham and eggs and hashbrowns he’d ordered, he could already see himself dressed as a cowboy. A slow grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. His mission was a serious one, but he had to admit, this was going to be fun.

“The mall is the other direction,” Eliza told him thirty minutes later when he pulled out of the diner parking lot and turned left. “I thought you wanted to get some western clothes.”

“I do,” he said. But instead of turning around, he drove slowly down the street, reading the signs of every business they passed. “Here we go,” he said suddenly, grinning as he turned into the parking lot of a used-clothing store.

Eliza took one look at it and said, “You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, ye of little faith,” he teased, and got out to open her car door for her.

The shop was everything he’d hoped it would be. Crowded and musty, it was packed full of everything from used Levi’s jeans to old prom dresses from the fifties. And somewhere in all those old castoffs was his disguise.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Eliza said when he moved to a rack of used jeans and started going through them. “I thought you’d buy something new.”

“And look like a drugstore cowboy? I don’t think so. I want to look like the average John Wayne on the street, and I can’t do that in new clothes.” Glancing up from the jeans he was checking out, he arched a brow when he saw her smile. “What’s so funny?”

“There was nothing average about John Wayne. That’s why he was John Wayne.”

He couldn’t disagree with that. “Okay, poor choice. Let’s try for a hired hand who doesn’t have two nickels to rub together. That means I need worn jeans and faded shirts that are frayed at the cuffs.”

“And something to drive around in besides a brand-new Tahoe SUV,” she pointed out dryly. “It doesn’t fit the image.”

“Good point,” he replied. “We’ll take care of that later. Right now, let’s work on the clothes.”

With her help, it didn’t take long to find exactly what he was looking for. The shop even had an old, scuffed pair of cowboy boots that were just his size. When Eliza looked aghast at the idea of him wearing someone else’s used boots, he laughed. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to ruin my feet. I just want to see how they look.”

He disappeared into the small dressing area, only to emerge a few minutes later in his disguise. Settling the used and abused black Stetson hat he’d picked out on his head, he opened the dressing room door to find Eliza waiting for him outside. “Well?” he asked, spreading his arms wide. “What do you think?”

Stunned, she blinked, wide-eyed. “I don’t believe it.”

She’d always heard that the clothes made the man, but she’d never quite understood what the phrase meant until now. She’d covered the Sebastianis for years in her column, and during that time, she must have seen dozens of photos of Lorenzo in his military uniform tuxedos, and suits that came right out of Saville Row. And in each of those pictures, he’d always looked every inch the duke.

There was no sign of that man now. She didn’t know how he’d done it, but even his posture had changed. With the scarred cowboy hat set low on his head, concealing his sandy-brown hair, the pointed old boots on his feet and the faded clothes molding his lean body, he looked like he’d just walked in off the range.

“Incredible,” she said, amazed. “I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes.”

Pleased, he grinned and tipped his hat back slightly, and just that easily, he changed the image again. He still looked like a hardworking cowboy, but now he had the look of a rogue, a flirt. With nothing more than a crooked grin, he set Eliza’s heart pounding.

Shocked, she pressed a hand to her heart before she realized it, drawing a curious look from Lorenzo. “Are you all right?” he asked with a sudden frown. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly, and blushed to the roots of her hair. “You just surprised me. I never thought you’d be able to pull it off.”

“I told you I could,” he said with another grin that made her heart trip. “Now, what about you?”

She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“You can’t dress like that when I look like I just walked off a roundup,” he explained. “You’re too citified. We don’t look like we belong together.”

Eliza wouldn’t have described her black wool slacks and black and white sweater as citified, but she had to admit, he had a point. “I’ve got jeans in my suitcase. I’ll change.”

“You need a flannel shirt,” he insisted, grabbing one off the rack. “And a sheepskin coat. It’s cold out.”

Eliza had never had a sheepskin coat in her life—the western style had never suited her. But even as she started to tell him no, she made the mistake of touching the one he held out to her. “Oh! It’s so soft!”

“C’mon,” he urged, grinning. “Try it.”

Her eyes met his, and she couldn’t resist the sparkle of fun she saw there. This was a side of him she hadn’t even known existed. “Oh, all right. But I probably won’t buy it. After we find the prince, I’ll have nowhere else to wear it.”

“So wear it to the grocery store,” he said with a grin as he held it open for her to slip her arms in. “It’s a used coat, Eliza. Have fun with it.”

“Easy for you to say,” she retorted sassily. “You look like the Marlboro man. I look like…” She glanced in the mirror and groaned “…a redheaded Olive Oyle being hugged by a sheep.”

Any other man would have laughed, but Lorenzo was truly amazed that she thought she looked anything like Pop-eye’s girlfriend. Did she truly not see how pretty she was?

“Why do you do that?” he asked in puzzlement, stopping her when she would have turned away and shrugged out of the coat. “Look at yourself.” And not giving her time to object, he turned her back to the mirror, then stepped behind her, holding her in front of him with his hands on her shoulders.

“Look at you,” he said again, this time huskily. “You’re not skinny like Olive Oyle. You have the slenderness and grace of a young Katharine Hepburn. Can’t you see it? Can’t you see the passion and fire in your eyes? Look at your bone structure, the line of your throat. You’re beautiful and you don’t even know it. Look.”

In the mirror, she watched as he pulled her fiery curls up off her neck, then cradled her face between his hands. His eyes met hers, and with nothing more than a look and the touch of his hands, he made her feel beautiful for the first time in her life.

And it shook her to the core.

Who was this man? she wondered wildly. How could he make her feel pretty when no one else ever had? For as long as she could remember, she’d been in that gangly stage where she was all arms and legs, angles and planes. Most girls outgrew that by the time they were sixteen. At twenty-seven, she never had.

He was a magician, she thought, dazed. A sorcerer with supernatural powers who painted images with words. Nothing had changed—she was the same person she’d always been—but when she saw herself through his eyes, images of the old Eliza Windmere fell away. And just that easily, she was pretty.

She wanted to laugh and cry and turn and throw herself into his arms. But she couldn’t do any of those things. She didn’t dare. Her heart was already pounding, her senses in a whirl, and it was all because of him. If she made the mistake of touching him now, she would be in serious trouble.

And that was the last thing she needed right now, she reminded herself. She wasn’t looking for a man, especially one like Lorenzo. Not when her breakup with Robert was still an open wound. He’d been jealous of her job and the time she gave to it, and that had destroyed their relationship. And now, here she was, attracted to another man who didn’t approve of what she did for a living. She wasn’t going there again. She couldn’t.

“I don’t know that I’d go so far as to use the word beautiful,” she said with a forced laugh as she took a step away from him, freeing herself from his touch. “But thanks for the compliment. Maybe I’ll buy the coat, after all. It’s really warm.”

The magic mood shattered between them, she hurried to the checkout counter and could feel his eyes on her every step of the way. He let the moment pass, however, and she told herself she was relieved. Unfortunately, she’d never been very good at lying to herself.

True to his word, Lorenzo was nothing if not thorough. From the used-clothing store, they went straight to a usedcar dealership and bought a ten-year-old pickup truck that looked like it had seen better days. It had a good motor, though, so they turned in the rented Tahoe without fear that they were going to break down in the middle of nowhere, then headed up into the mountains where Willy lived. Anyone seeing them in their new old clothes and the battered pickup would have never guessed that Lorenzo was a duke or she was a city girl who interviewed kings and queens and wrote for the Sentinel.

Smiling at the thought, she was just about to tell him how much she was enjoying going undercover with him when he ruined everything by saying, “When we reach Willy’s, I want to do the questioning. I know you’re friends and he trusts you, but he may know more than he realizes he does. He’s going to have to talk to me.”

Everything he said made perfect sense—to Eliza. It wouldn’t mean a hill of beans to Willy. “If we were talking about an average man on the street, I’d agree with you. But as I’ve told you before, Your Grace, Willy dances to the beat of a different drummer. He doesn’t have to do anything, and he knows it. He won’t talk to you.”

“Of course he will,” he said stubbornly. “You said yourself how upset he was at the thought of the king naming another heir when his son was still alive. He obviously wants to help find Lucas. To do that, he’s going to have to talk to me.”

Eliza could have told him that Willy wouldn’t even talk to her if she didn’t call him ahead of time and make arrangements to meet him, but what was the point? His mind was made up, and Eliza only had to look at the stubborn set of his jaw to know that nothing she could say was going to make a difference. He was determined to do things his way. He’d find out for himself that wasn’t going to work.