The Impatient Groom

‘Would you like coffee, Your Highness?’ suggested the secretary, in a sickeningly unctuous voice.

He shot her a hard look. ‘In my country,’ he said softly, pained that he felt driven to make the rebuke, ‘women take priority over men.’

‘Yes, Jean, bring coffee for everyone!’ The solicitor’s glare at his secretary said it all.

And then Luscombe turned his attention to the seraphic woman behind Rozzano. As the solicitor drew her forward and welcomed her, the anger in his face inelted away and he was all smiles.

So was Rozzano, though he wasn’t sure why. Smiling hadn’t been in his repertoire of expressions for a long time, but when he looked at the Madonna it just happened. While she solemnly shook the solicitor’s hand, he reflected that her very presence seemed to have a balmy effect on his seething brain.

As Frank Luscombe completed the introductions, Rozzano took Sophia Charlton’s slender and graceful hand and, on a totally uncharacteristic and flamboyant impulse, bent low to kiss it.

He looked and smelled gorgeous, she thought, staring at the top of his smooth, dark head and still trying to recall where she’d heard his name before. Since he was a prince, she supposed that she must have read about him attending some jet-set party or a film premiere. How glamorous!

And then his eyes lifted to hers—warm, inky-black and magnetic. Sophia was startled. This was no playboy. He had depth. Intelligence.

A glow relaxed all her muscles, the same inner glow she’d felt when he’d first walked into the waiting room and she’d heard his rich, chocolate-syrup voice and its intriguing accent.

His arrival had prompted her to dream of meeting her prince one day, falling in love and having his children. Even if that ‘prince’ turned out to be a farmhand or an estate agent, he’d be a prince to her!

And they’d have children. Four would be perfect. Sophia sighed. She longed for a baby. The desire had grown more urgent as her biological clock had begun to tick away. Although she’d always made the best of whatever situation she was in, a family would make her life complete.

Humour and common sense dragged her back to reality. Out here in this quiet country setting, white horses bearing spare bachelor princes, farmhands or estate agents were thin on the ground. Especially ones who’d fall madly in love with a thirty-two-year-old spinster in a terminally ill brown cardy!

Amused, she imagined Prince Rozzano leaning down from his white stallion and hooking her up to sit in front of him. He’d unbutton her demure cardigan and fling it away in a fit of unbridled passion.

She stifled a giggle and paid attention, her face as sombre as she could make it.

‘So please, take a seat. And I must apologise for Jean,’ Frank was saying. ‘She’s a temp. My own secretary is on maternity leave.’

‘How lovely!’ she said, suppressing her envy. ‘But I’m sure it’s been difficult for you,’ Sophia sympathised.

She sat down and tried to make her too short skirt cover a bit more thigh. The prince had already given her legs a couple of glances. Unfortunately she couldn’t tell if he’d disapproved or enjoyed the experience.

The secretary knocked on the door and placed a tray on the solicitor’s desk, her hands clumsily knocking against the phone as she did so. Simpering, she handed the prince a cup, looked disappointed when he coolly declined her further services via milk and sugar and stalked out in a sulk, leaving Sophia and Frank to reach for their own less than pristine mugs.

Frank sighed. ‘I give up!’

Sophia’s eyes were laughing at his mock despair. ‘If you’re stuck any time in the future, I could always pop in and give you a hand,’ she offered. ‘I used to do Father’s typing and accounts for him.’

Frank looked bemused. ‘I thought you ran a day nursery before you stopped working to care for him?’

Her face grew soft with the happy memories of those days. ‘I did. I adored it, too,’ she admitted. ‘But I helped Father in my spare time. Frankly, I’d do anything now—so long as it doesn’t involve night or daylight robbery, pushing drugs or—’ She stopped, realising she’d gabbled on without her usual sense of caution. This definitely wasn’t the place to mention prostitution!

‘Or?’ prompted the prince.

‘Anything illegal.’ She made the words as prim as possible.

‘Ah.’

From the look in his eyes, it was plain that he knew exactly what she’d meant! Demurely she continued. ‘Apart from the voluntary work I do at the school, I’ve been out of work since Father died.’ She grimaced. ‘You know what it’s like finding a job here, Frank. If I lived in a town it would be easier, but I can’t afford to move.’

A low laugh escaped when she remembered her last attempt at finding employment.

‘Share it, please, Miss Charlton,’ murmured the prince, the expression in his eyes veiled by his impossibly long lashes.

Both men seemed interested, so she gave a shrug and shared. ‘I was desperate for any kind of work,’ she told them solemnly, ‘so last week I applied for a job as a bin man—person,’ she corrected, remembering to be politically correct.

‘Bin...person?’

The prince’s English was amazing, but obviously aristocrats didn’t know about such things. Solemnly she explained. ‘Refuse collector.’

The prince’s only response was a millimetre lift of his eyebrows. Not a man to wear his humour on his sleeve, then. She was seized by a wicked desire to shock him, or to force a smile to crack that composure.

Frank was more forthcoming. ‘And?’ he queried, grinning.

‘Looking around at the competition, I thought I had a good chance,’ she said, keeping her expression deadpan. ‘Then in came a guy with a shaven head, tattoos and a vest, bursting at the seams with Herculean muscles. I knew all was lost. Given an hour or two I could manage the first three of those, but not the last!’

Frank laughed. She thought the prince was smiling, but she kept her eyes firmly ahead. For some reason he was making her feel edgy. What could he possibly have to do with her?

‘I think,’ Frank observed, still chuckling, ‘you’ll soon have better things to do than to collect other people’s rubbish.’

The prince leaned forward a fraction. Sophia treated herself to a quick glance. From the slight lift of his shoulders she deduced that he was tense, even though no such emotion showed on the perfection of his smooth, oliveskinned face.

But as a vicar’s daughter she’d had practice in reading small gestures. Perception came with the job. How else did you know when a widower was being brave but really wanted to talk and weep over his bereavement? Or that the jar of home-made jam, which one of the parishioners had brought in, was only an excuse for needing a heartto-heart about their wayward daughter?

Her wandering mind suddenly snapped back, to focus on the present situation. And suddenly she was tense too, wondering how an Italian nobleman fitted in with Frank’s mysterious phone call, which had promised she would hear something to her advantage.

‘Like...the offer of a job as a nursery nurse?’ she had asked hopefully.

‘Much better,’ was all Frank would say at the time.

But that was what she wanted—to return to the career she’d adored, surrounded by children, loving them, mothesring them.

‘Sophia?’

Her hand went to her mouth in dismay and then she gave a small laugh of apology, used to missing conversations when she retreated into her inner fantasy world.

‘sorry! I’m a terrible drifter!’ she said amiably.

‘Thinking of Hercules and his vest?’ suggested the prince.

Her eyes twinkled Beneath that cool exterior lurked a decent sense of humour! She felt irrationally pleased.

‘I was thinking of children,’ she told him, with unconscious tenderness. ‘I wish I could find work with them.’

Frank coughed meaningfully but his eyes were smiling at her in a kindly way. Reluctantly she pushed back the memories of the blissful times she’d spent with the kiddies in her care.

‘Yes, I’m listening!’ She sat very calmly, her hands in her lap. ‘Go ahead.’