Kitabı oku: «The Prince And The Nanny»

The Prince and the Nanny
Cara Colter

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

COMING NEXT MONTH

PROLOGUE

“OH, DEAR,” Mrs. Abigail Smith stammered, “Oh dear, indeed.”

Mrs. Abigail Smith was not a woman easily ruffled. For forty-three years the graduates of Mrs. Smith’s Academy of Fine Nannies had been eagerly sought by business moguls, financial wizards, movie stars, the old money and the nouveau riche.

Famous people did not fluster her. Au contraire! She specialized in dealing with the sometimes difficult and eccentric people of substance, and she considered it her special gift to cater to the needs of their children.

Still, for all that, Mrs. Smith had never been in the same room as a real live prince.

Prince Ryan Kaelan, House of Kaelan, Isle of Momhilegra, more commonly known as the Isle of Music, sat before her radiating presence.

Though she had sat across this very desk from many of the world’s most powerful people, or at least their representatives, she had never quite felt this before.

Awe.

She was awed by him. He was an intimidatingly handsome man, dressed in a long, black cashmere coat, the pristine white of a silk shirt collar showing beneath. But even without the obvious expense of those tailored clothes showing off the broadness of his shoulder, his amazing height, he would have been arresting. His physical appeal cast what Mrs. Smith’s generation would have called the spell of the black Irish. He had hair the color of night, thick and manicured. The prince also possessed amazing skin, faintly copper-toned, golden, and his features, from high cheekbones to straight nose, to clefted chin, were unreasonably attractive.

But it was his eyes that were arresting. Midnight-blue mingled with the color of sapphires, they were ridged by sinfully sooty lashes, and they were the deep, dark eyes of a man much older than the twenty-eight years the prince had walked the earth. The prince’s eyes held command, charisma…and sorrow.

“Oh dear,” Mrs. Smith said again, of his request.

“Is there a problem?” His voice was the voice one would expect from a man of such stature: educated, composed, full of certainty, and yet mysterious and elusive music, the Gaelic accents of his homeland, were threaded through it. The result was, well, sensual.

Sensual? She was going to be seventy-three on her next birthday, but she felt herself blushing like a schoolgirl.

“Yes!” she said, grabbing a trifle desperately onto his own turn of phrase. “A problem! Miss Winslow is, er, otherwise engaged.”

He nodded, a slight incline of his head, but his gaze locked on hers, and he tapped his leather gloves lightly against his coat sleeve, ever so faintly impatient. She felt her state of fluster grow. He was a man who expected the world to bend to his will, who was used to his every request being granted.

But Prudence Winslow for his nanny? As the royal nanny to his two motherless children, a five-year-old boy, and a baby girl, just over a year? Impossible!

“We have many nannies who are imminently suitable for this position,” Mrs. Smith rushed to assure him. “In fact—” she began to go through the papers on her desk, aware that she was pawing in her haste to please him “—I have—”

His hand came to rest on top of hers, to stop her, and she nearly fainted at the intensity of that single, brief touch.

“I want her,” he said.

Mrs. Smith felt like a fish, beached, her mouth moving, but not a sound coming out. A statement like that could be left open to wild misinterpretation!

“Her,” he repeated, almost gently, gesturing to the picture in front of him, but there was no mistaking he intended to get what he wanted.

The picture he was pointing to was part of a newspaper article, the story that had put Miss P. Winslow—not to mention Mrs. Smith’s Academy of Fine Nannies—on the map.

The photo looked like a heap of dark clothing collapsed in front of a car. In fact, it was Prudence Winslow, moments after she had shoved the stroller she was pushing to safety after some maniac in a stolen car had run the red light where she was crossing the street.

It had, of course, been an act of singular bravery, so far above and beyond the call of duty that the whole of New York City was proclaiming Prudence a hero. It seemed everyone now wanted nannies who were willing to place their lives on the line for their young charges.

Prudence herself, to her great credit, was annoyed by the fuss, and eager to leave the incident behind her.

And sadly, save for that one incident, Prudence was not exactly the poster child Mrs. Smith would have selected for her academy.

Prudence was simply a little too everything: too tall, too flamboyant and too rebellious. Too redheaded, Mrs. Smith thought though she knew to judge temperament by hair color was hopelessly old-fashioned. Still, that hair said it all: wild, cascading curls of pure copper, that refused to be tamed into a proper bun. And the girl’s eyes: green, snapping with spunk, with spirit, with that certain mischief that made her a huge hit with children. The eyes, the hair, the height and the mischief added up to an unfortunate distraction to any male member of the household over the age of puberty.

Prudence’s first two postings had not been great successes. Will not wear a uniform, the first had said as a reason for dismissal. Reading between the lines, Mrs. Smith suspected the man of the house had probably noticed Prue just a little too much. In a stroke of genius, when Prue’s second posting had ended as badly as her first, Mrs. Smith had placed Prue in a single-mother home.

Still, Mrs. Smith knew she was uncharacteristically indulgent of the girl’s defects, possibly because Prudence had been raised by one of her very own nannies.

When Marcus Winslow had died unexpectedly last year, it had quickly become apparent he had been holding together a house of cards. Not a penny left. And that house of cards had toppled right on top of his unsuspecting—and totally spoiled—only daughter.

Really, after the unhappy endings of those first two placements, Mrs. Smith shouldn’t have given her any more chances, but she admired how Prudence had risen to the challenges tossed at her. It was very hard not to admire a person who, when handed lemons, made lemonade.

And Prudence did love children! One day, Mrs. Smith was determined, that with patience and practice, Prudence Winslow would make a fine nanny.

But to test her optimism on a prince? One that the whole world watched incessantly? Whose every tragedy, triumph—whose every breath—was so documented?

“Dear—” She blushed, realizing dear was not the proper form of address for a prince. “I just don’t think Prudence would be a good match for your household.”

“Prudence?” he said, and then smiled as if everything he had thought had been confirmed. “So, that’s what the P stands for. A virtuous, old-fashioned name,” he said, pleased, ignoring the fact completely that she had just told him Prudence would not do for his household.

Mrs. Smith was not sure she had ever met anyone as dramatically mismatched to her name as Prudence was! The girl had once told her she had been named after a maiden aunt in hopes of gaining her favor and fortune!

“Your Royal Highness,” she said delicately, “Do you recall a movie called The Sound of Music?” He looked baffled, and she realized the movie was not of his generation, nor were Rodgers and Hammerstein tunes the kind of music that his kingdom, a tiny island in the southern most portion of the Irish Sea, was famous for.

The Isle of Momhilegra was known for music: classical schools, retreats for passionate music buffs, the trees that produced the most astoundingly beautiful musical instruments. At odds with its cultured reputation was its notoriety for hosting a world famous Soap Box Derby every year.

“Maria,” she said helpfully, just in case, sometime, somewhere he had caught a snippet of that lovely movie. “She’s more like a Maria than a Prudence.”

The prince looked puzzled.

“Maria times ten,” she said, a little desperately. She wanted to add, but didn’t, Maria with pizzaz. Jazz. Sex appeal.

He’d had enough and it showed in a subtle change of his posture, the faintest hardening around the line of his mouth. He leaned forward, and pinned her with those amazing eyes.

“I would like to meet her.”

The politeness of his tone did not mask the fact he had just issued poor Mrs. Smith with a royal dictate.

She told herself he had absolutely no authority anywhere in the world but his own small island nation. She told herself that, and did not for one second believe it. He was a man who carried his authority deep within him, separate from the title he enjoyed. She lowered her eyes from the devastating command of his.

“Yes, Your Highness,” Mrs. Smith said.

CHAPTER ONE

PRUDENCE WINSLOW was late. And for once it wasn’t her fault. Well, maybe a little her fault, but not entirely her fault.

She cast a quick look at her reflection in the doors that led her into the exquisite lobby of the Waldorf Towers, one of the grandest of the Manhattan hotels, though her father had always preferred to put up business guests in the St. Regis Club in Essex House right on the park.

She sighed at her own reflection. Disheveled. It was raining slightly, and humidity had a tendency to play havoc with hair that didn’t like taming at the best of times. Coils of copper had sprung free from the bun Mrs. Smith insisted on. Mrs. Smith had also insisted on a skirt, hem below the knee dear, and the skirt had not stood up well to her travels, apparently disliking humidity as much as her hair.

Young Brian, clingy since the accident, and unhappy with the replacement nanny—without giving her a chance, naturally—had managed to spill butterscotch pudding on Prue’s navy trench coat just as she was getting away. Despite her best—and time consuming—effort the smear had refused to be totally eradicated.

Still, she crossed the lobby with the haughtiness of a queen, and eyed the desk clerk.

Cute, she thought. Blonde. A poor girl’s Brad Pitt. Then she reminded herself she was a reformed woman. Still, she had to fight the smallest urge to smile at him. Six months without so much as a date!

And six months to go, she warned herself sternly. Being as businesslike as one could be with a smear of butterscotch pudding on her lapel, and while fighting the temptation to just offer one little smile and see what happened, she announced, “I’m here to see, um, Kaelan Prince.”

On the phone earlier, Mrs. Smith had been uncharacteristically chatty, and evasive at the same time. Prudence had gotten that a man wanted to meet her. Because of the newspaper story. Be on time, be presentable.

“A skirt,” Mrs. Smith had specified sternly. “And, dear, do something with your hair!”

Well, she was in a skirt, not anything like the flirty little numbers she once would have worn. Mary Poppins approved. But she was not on time and not particularly presentable, either. Prue didn’t want to meet a man because of all the silly attention of that newspaper story. So far, after the financial scandals surrounding her father’s death, Prudence had managed to stay out of the relentless radar of the press. No connection had been made between Winslow, the-heroic-nanny, and Winslow-the-crumbled-empire.

She wanted it to stay that way, so she had tried to refuse this meeting, but Mrs. Smith had been adamant.

“For the good of the Academy, dear,” she’d said.

Prue had not needed to be reminded how much she owed Mrs. Smith, who had been there for her when so few others had been.

“Kaelan Prince,” she repeated to the clerk, who was looking baffled.

Suddenly a light came on for him. “Kaelan Prince? I think you must mean Prince Ryan Kaelan.”

“Whatever,” she said, thinking right, everyone’s a rock star, and glancing at her watch. Ten minutes late. Shoot.

“Ah,” he said, a trifle uncomfortably, “the young women over there are trying to catch a glimpse of him, as well.”

Prue followed his gaze and frowned. A gaggle of young girls and women were clustered together by the elevators, giggling.

“I’m expected,” she said, and saw that her change of tone affected him as much as the words. Oh, she could still be her father’s daughter when she wanted to be.

“Your name, madam?” he said, picking up the phone.

She gave it to him, and he made a call. He looked at her with an entirely different kind of interest when he set down the phone. “Someone will be down to escort you immediately, Miss Winslow.”

“Thank you.”

Down to escort her? What was going on? Was the man really a rock star? It would be totally unlike Mrs. Smith to be influenced by celebrity.

The doors to the elevator slid open, and the small crowd by it pushed forward hopefully, and then started calling out questions. “Will he be down today? How is Gavin?” One girl, lovely, stood out from the rest. She looked all of twelve, and was wildly waving a sign that said Someday My Prince Will Come.

The child reminded Prudence of herself at twelve, hoping, craving, living in a fantasy because real life was too lonely.

Girl, she thought, we need to talk.

But her focus changed to an older, very dignified looking man in a dark green uniform with gold epithets on the shoulders coming toward her. There was some sort of crest on his breast: it looked like a dragon coiled around an instrument she thought might have been a lute.

He ignored the gathering, came to her and inclined his head ever so slightly. “Miss Winslow? If you’ll come with me. Ignore them,” he suggested out of the side of his mouth as they passed through the throng.

“Ronald,” he introduced himself as the elevator doors whispered closed, and she found herself alone with him in the elevator. She regarded him thoughtfully.

Older, but very handsome. One little smile. She sighed at how very hard it was to become a new person.

“Have you been briefed in protocol?”

“Excuse me?”

“Aside from punctuality, certain forms are expected of visitors.”

He managed to say that in a way that took the sting out of the fact that he was mildly reprimanding her for being late.

“A curtsy is no longer necessary, though of course, if you desire—”

“You’re kidding me, right? A curtsy?” She laughed, and then registered the faintly offended dignity on Ronald’s face. She recalled, the desk clerk correcting her on the name. Not a rock star after all!

“Are you telling me,” she said slowly and softly, “I’m going to meet a prince? A real prince?”

“Yes, miss. I’m sorry. I thought you knew.”

Why hadn’t Mrs. Smith told her this? Or had that snippet of information been buried somewhere in that muddled phone call?

No, no, NO! Life was too unfair. Coincidence was too cruel. Just like that girl at the elevator, Prudence had believed in princes. Oh, had she ever! She was the love junkie! She had collected books and movies, she had craved the things they promised. Since she was fourteen years old, and had discovered how much men liked her, she had been searching, she had known deep in her heart that when she kissed the right one her fairy tale would begin.

But so far she had kissed a thousand toads, and not one of them had turned into a prince.

And then, last year, after the death of her father, she had realized, ever so painfully it was the love of that remote and disconnected man that she had craved, and that now she would never receive it. Never.

She had turned over a new leaf. No romance for a year. Not a single date, not a kiss, nothing. Somewhere, she knew, in that desperate search for a prince, she had lost herself.

And lately, she’d begun to have a sense of finding what had been lost.

The universe was testing her resolve! That’s what was happening. Prudence became very aware that she did not want to meet a prince, she was not ready to have her resolve tested! She eyed the emergency stop button on the elevator.

A hand touched her sleeve, and she looked into her escort’s eyes. They were kind and good-humored. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he said quietly.

“Afraid?” she said defensively. She, Prudence Winslow had never been afraid of anything! Unless winding up alone counted!

And lately even thought didn’t fill her with panic the way it once had. She thought, resolutely, of her volunteer work. Before finding Mrs. Smith’s academy, shortly after her father’s death, she had found herself at a food bank, humiliated and hungry. Now, every spare moment and cent she had were spent paying back to that wonderful organization that not only fed the hungry, but allowed them to keep their dignity.

Her life was on track! She wasn’t ready for this challenge. She just wasn’t.

“Dammit,” she said, and tried to capture some of those loose curls and force them back into place.

Her escort eyed her with a trace of uneasiness. “Naturally we don’t curse in the presence of His Royal Highness,” he said, tactfully.

“Naturally,” she repeated, gave up on her hair and folded her restless hands primly in front of her.

“The correct form of address, when you are presented to him, is Your Royal Highness, not Prince Ryan. After the initial meeting, you may call him ‘sir.’”

“Ah,” she said. “But no curtsy.”

If he detected even a hint of sarcasm, he pretended not to. “Unless you want to,” he assured her.

“Believe me, I don’t.” An attempt at a curtsy would probably land her right on her nose not, thank heaven, that she was the curtsying type. Even in her fantasies!

Ronald’s sigh was barely audible. “I believe you.” The elevator doors slid open and she was led across a thickly carpeted hallway to double doors that opened to sheer opulence.

The hotel suite was resplendent with vases of fresh, sweetscented lilies. There was a grand piano in the main room, silkcovered sofas, rich carpeting. An elegant chandelier dripped raindrops of light, the fireplace was lit against the dampness of the day.

“May I take your coat?”

She didn’t want to surrender her coat, even with its stain! It felt like some form of protection!

Against what? she asked herself annoyed. She shrugged off the stained jacket. Underneath she had on a plain white blouse that had been pressed, but was intent on reacting to the humidity in the same way as the skirt and her hair.

“Please, have a seat,” Ronald said. “I will announce you.”

But she couldn’t sit. She studied the tasteful paintings, the view out the window, glanced in at the dining room that was through adjoining double doors. A maid, in a crisp uniform, was setting the Queen Anne table for eight.

The time ticked by. Why was she here? Why had Mrs. Smith sent her here? Prudence hated this! She did not like mysteries. Since her father’s death she was absolutely allergic to surprises. She liked control, the neat and tidy little world that she was building for herself, the amount of money she was managing to raise for Loaves and Fishes.

Once upon a time, that amount of money would have seemed laughable to her.

It occurred to her, she did not want to be using the phrase once upon a time when she was about to meet a prince. She was the girl who had sworn off fairy tales! Suddenly she relaxed. She got it! The prince was going to be ugly. Old. Fat. Balding. She was here to learn how ridiculous her fantasies had always been!

The universe wasn’t testing her. It was rewarding her, saying, girl, you are on the right track.

Just in case she was wrong, she eyed the door wistfully, but knew she could not let Mrs. Smith down. If Mrs. Smith wanted her to meet a prince, and thought it might be in some way good for Mrs. Smith’s Academy of Fine Nannies, Prudence would do her best.

Did Mrs. Smith know, that if you said it really fast, three times in a row, the last time it came out Mrs. Smith’s Academy of Nine Fannies? What if Prue accidentally said that to the prince? What if she thought about it when she was with him? At her father’s funeral, she had suddenly thought of the time she had wrapped his favorite dog, Kelpie, in toilet paper, and then she’d had to fight the absurd desire to giggle for the rest of the service.

This was going to be the same. She just knew it. She might as well leave now, before she brought eternal shame down on the Academy of Nine Fannies.

But before she could act, the double doors opened on the other side of the suite, and Ronald came through first, holding the door.

Prue felt her mouth fall open at the man who swept through those open doors, and she snapped it shut.

He was not ugly. Old. Fat. Balding. He was every girl’s fantasy of what a prince should be. If ever a story started once upon a time, it would be the story that began with him sweeping into the room.

Mrs. Smith’s Academy of Nine Fannies was wiped from her mind as she watched the man cross the room toward her.

He was tall enough to make her feel small, and at five feet eleven inches Prue had not enjoyed that sensation since she was about eight years old. He was dressed in an ivory sweater, dark shirt and dark slacks, but even if he had been dressed in dungarees there would have been no mistaking his station in life. He carried himself with a kind of pure confidence, the inborn grace of a man who knew exactly who he was. He carried himself as a man born to inherit the very earth, and he knew it.

Though each of his features was chiseled masculine perfection, it was his eyes that caught and held her. They were an astounding shade of blue, reminding her of the waters off the Hawaiian coast of Kona, where her father had kept a winter house.

Still, she told herself desperately, he was not at all her type. She had decided long ago that a man with dark coloring wouldn’t do. If she married someone fair, her children might be strawberry-blondes, instead of flaming redheads!

Plus, something about his confidence set her teeth on edge, because it looked like it bordered on arrogance, and arrogance headed her list of fatal flaws that barred a man from ever being her Mr. Right. Of course, the list contained many other items, terribly superficial, but important to her nonetheless, from hairy nostrils to bad toenails!

The prince was the one who closed the space between them, since she found she could not move. He extended his hand, which she had not expected. She shot a look at Ronald, and caught his slight nod. She took the hand offered her.

And felt enormous strength…and something else, a sizzle of pure awareness, despite his dark coloring and the fact she had not inspected his toenails, though his nostrils were a definite pass. Still, the feeling was not appropriate—not nanny and prince, but man and woman.

The universe was being exceedingly cruel! She jerked her hand out of his. There was no feeling in the world she had to fight more than that one! Oh, how that feeling could make a woman weak, and cloud her judgment.

She should know.

No, there was no trusting yourself once that zing, was in the air, once that hope blossomed to life. In no time at all, she would be wasting hours of her life mooning, shopping for the perfect little thinking-of-you card, waiting for the phone to ring, trying on dresses with a view to what he might like.

She was having this reaction without his passing the toenail test!

It felt as if every bit of progress she had made in the last six months was suddenly threatened by a single touch from this stranger. It was as if the bottom was falling out of her world, as if she was tumbling crazily down with it.

“Miss Winslow,” he said, and his voice was an enchantment—deep, masculine, faintly musical. “What a pleasure.”

She loved his accent. She tried to bite out Your Royal Highness, but somehow she could not. If she knew how to curtsy, she suspected she would!

She tried to tuck a wayward curl behind her ear, failed, and then shoved her hands behind her back.

Say something, she ordered herself. “Hi.”

She felt the man in the green uniform’s tiny flinch, but if the prince was in any way offended it did not show.

He regarded her with those clear, astonishing eyes, and then smiled faintly.

The smile was devastating, despite the fact his two front teeth were faintly crooked and over lapped each other. Crooked teeth was on her list!

Still, that smile took the faint sternness on a face too young to hold sternness and washed it away. The faint imperfection of his teeth was oddly appealing.

So, despite the teeth his mouth was entirely kissable. One kiss and she would know. Prince, or toad?

Stop it, she ordered herself.

“Please,” he said, “have a seat.” He gestured to a chair, and then took a seat on the sofa at right angles to it. “Would you care for a refreshment?”

Whiskey on the rocks. Make it a double. “No, thank you.” She knew she should add Your Royal Highness or at least sir, but she was unable to do so, barely able to squeak out her refusal.

“Tell me a little about yourself,” he invited.

She stared at him, and then asked, flabbergasted, “Why?”

He frowned slightly. She suspected he was not accustomed to any request being questioned. Arrogant, she reminded herself. Still, he regarded her so thoughtfully she had to fight to keep from squirming.

Finally he said, “I read about your act of heroism in the newspaper. I’m here in New York on business. It made me curious about you.”

“Oh.” There was a terrible desire to spill it all—about the fear and loneliness and crippling self-doubt and self-evaluation and humiliation since her father’s death. There was a terrible desire to dismiss the arrogance, and trust whatever it was she saw in those eyes.

Depth?

Those eyes, she reminded herself, that had complete strangers in the lobby making fools of themselves, waving signs that said Someday My Prince Will Come.

“There’s nothing to know,” she said, hastily, her voice cool in defense of that familiar craving that she felt.

His silence was as commanding as his question had been, so she added, “Really.”

He still said nothing, and so she felt compelled to fill the silence between them.

“It wasn’t an act of heroism,” she said hurriedly, though she realized probably one did not correct the prince. “It wasn’t anything of the sort. It happened very quickly, and I never once made a conscious decision. I was crossing the street with the light, I realized a car was coming much too quickly, and that it wasn’t going to stop. I managed to shove the stroller out of the way, the car hit me. Not even very hard, really.”

She had a bruise on her hip the size of a pineapple, but even thinking about her naked hip in the presence of the prince seemed wildly off color, like thinking of nine fannies, which of course now she was!

“But isn’t that the nature of true courage?” he asked softly, “That it comes naturally, without a conscious thought?”

“No,” she said, “it’s not. True courage is to feel fear, and then to act in an honorable way, despite that.”

“Is it possible both forms are equally relevant?”

She had a feeling of being in a dream. She, who was only an hour removed from having butterscotch pudding spilled down her front, she who had irreverent and uncontrollable thoughts about the name of her employer’s most dignified business, she who thought about toilet paper wrapped dogs at funerals, was now sitting in a suite having a philosophical conversation with a prince. She was trying desperately to see him through the filter of her Fatal Flaws List, and just as desperately trying to conduct herself with some semblance of grace.

Prudence might have laughed at the absurdity of life, if she didn’t make the mistake of meeting his eyes.

She saw it again. Depth. Something absurdly compelling. Eyes like that could make a woman do or say something really stupid.

Mrs. Smith’s Academy of Nine Fannies.

“It wasn’t courage,” she insisted. “Instinct.”

“A mother having that kind of instinct I could understand. But to put yourself in such peril for a child that was not your own, that is something else.”

“I’m trying to tell you it was nothing,” she said.

“And I’m trying to tell you,” he said, his voice soft with command, “that it was something.”

“Oh.” Nearly as bad as hi but the man was stealing her breath and her wits at the same time as he was being arrogant! He hadn’t even been there. Who was he to decide what it had or hadn’t been?

“I am considering offering you a position in my household.”

She stared at him, aghast. She was barely going to be able to survive this interview with her vow intact. No men. No kisses. No attractions. No dates. No. No. No. She had six months to go! He was flawed, obviously, but to test herself by working in his household? Never!

“Your Royal Prince,” she said, “I don’t want to work for you. I mean in your household. I mean I am very happy where I’m at.”

Your Royal Prince! Mrs. Smith should have never trusted her with this kind of delicate assignment!

She didn’t like that smile one little bit, now. It said clearly that what she wanted was of little or no significance to him.

His life was about getting what he wanted. She suspected always. She hated that. Men who always get what they want was moving to number one on her list.

“I look after children,” she stated uneasily. “What would I do in your household?”