The Duchess and Her Bodyguard

“Thank you,” she said with a winsome smile. “I find I like Mexican food. I shall have to find a way to bring it to Baronovia.”

Wade thought rapidly. No matter if she’d invited him to call her May while in public, even in private, touching her was not appropriate behavior for an escort. Why had the duchess welcomed his intimate touch? Was it an act?

Or, more to the point, was she now the real May and no longer the devious duchess Mary Louise?

As if to remind him he was her bodyguard as well as her escort, the holster and his Beretta dug into the side of his chest. At the reminder, he tensed and casually glanced around to make sure no one was paying undue attention to them. He would have felt a lot better about being so exposed to danger if he could be certain the Secret Service had caught up with them.

Her appetite momentarily satisfied, May gazed happily around her. The Old Post Office and the air of excitement generated by the hundreds of tourists were just what she wanted to experience. Stone tributes honoring the American heroes she’d known from studying history books were not.

She understood her escort’s appreciation of the places she had said she wanted to visit. The commander was, in or out of the uniform that had attracted her, in the service of his country.

She would have been pleased if he’d worn his uniform now.

She shouldn’t complain, she thought as she gazed at Wade Stevens. Dressed in beige slacks, loose matching jacket and a white shirt open to his throat, he looked like an ordinary tourist. What he couldn’t hide was that he was a military man. At least, not to her. She’d reviewed enough military parades in the company of her father to recognize the proud demeanor and the assurance of a military man.

She yearned to be plain May Baron. To have a man like Wade for her own. To have the child she hadn’t been able to conceive when she was married. Foolish dreams, she told herself and lowered her eyes. She was a dowager duchess with a future royal role yet to be played.