The Blacksheep Prince's Bride. Martha Shields

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СКАЧАТЬ Wilde hated this house.

      The Dowager Cottage was a dismal place. Built three centuries ago of native granite, the three-story “cottage” sat on the edge of the cliff like an old woman hunkered down against the storms blowing off the North Sea.

      It was where extraneous queens grieved for lost husbands, relived former glory and waited to die.

      As she stood with one hand wrapped around a cold iron spoke on the front gate, Rowena recalled the times she’d accompanied Princess Isabel as she visited her grandmother, who’d died three years ago. They’d sipped tea in the gloomy parlor with heavy velvet curtains shutting out the light. Though central heat had been installed years ago, the house was never warm. Even with a blazing fire. Even in the middle of July.

      Rowena had known she’d have to stay here when she and Isabel had concocted this plan. Which was one reason she’d been half-hoping Jake Stanbury would refuse to accept her as his son’s nanny.

      The cottage was full of ghosts, and Rowena had never been comfortable around ghosts.

      The other reason, of course, was Jake.

      Jake and the Dowager Cottage. Alone, each was a daunting prospect. Together…

      Rowena shivered despite the bright April afternoon sunlight.

      Both Jake and the cottage got her blood pumping, but for vastly different reasons—all related to fear.

      Which was ridiculous.

      Taking a deep breath, Rowena marshaled her inner resolve.

      There was nothing to be afraid of. The cottage was just a pile of stone. She could dissipate the gloom by tearing down curtains and turning on lamps. And Jake…

      Well, she was here for a reason. As long as she kept her mind on her purpose, she wouldn’t get sidetracked by feelings she understood all too well…and dreaded.

      Rowena forced her lips into her customary smile. Her mother had always said that the best way to conquer fear was to smile your way through it. She’d learned a long time ago that her mother was right. As long as she was smiling, she couldn’t scream.

      Rowena released the gate latch…wishing she didn’t feel like Sleeping Beauty about to prick her finger.

      “I’m going to get you.”

      Jake Stanbury stopped dead, his hand still on the knob of the massive, intricately carved front door. He recognized the voice immediately.

      So Rowena Wilde had moved in.

      The new nanny’s heavily sinister tone seemed to prove the possibility that had occurred to him when his royal cousin, Princess Isabel, had suggested her lady-in-waiting as caregiver for his two-year-old son—the possibility that Rowena had been placed in his household as a spy.

      What the hell was he going to do now? Leave her here to poke through his papers and roam the dreary old house he’d been assigned when Sammy’s noisy antics became too much for the guests—notably Edward, his own father—in the palace apartment where they’d been staying? What if she rifled through his things while Sammy was around? Would she blithely tell the boy that his father was suspected of kidnapping the King of Edenbourg?

      “I’ll find you, Sammy-Jammy. You just wait.”

      Muffled giggling followed her words.

      Relief flooded through Jake. They were playing a game.

      Shaking his head, he closed the door and placed his briefcase on the chest in the foyer.

      This is what the strain of the past month had brought him to—suspecting a sweet, beautiful young woman of playing Mata Hari. Probably the biggest intrigue Rowena had been involved in was finding the laundress responsible for scorching the princess’s favorite gown.

      Jake stripped off his suit coat and laid it across his briefcase, then followed the happy sounds to the door of the formal parlor, heavily furnished in some Gothic style. Whoever had decorated this house either had eclectic tastes or access to the palace attic, because every room was decorated with a different period of antiques.

      Blindfolded, her arms outstretched, Rowena wandered around the large room. Sammy peeked out from under an antique side table on the other side of the couch, one hand over his mouth to stem the tide of his laughter.

      Blind Man’s Bluff. Such a simple game, but Jake had never thought to play it with his son, who was having such a good time he relieved Jake of any lingering suspicions. Sammy’s happiness was all that mattered.

      Ever since Sammy’s mother had deserted them, his son had panic attacks every time Jake had to leave him with a sitter. Which was the main reason Jake needed a nanny.

      He was determined to give his son a stable home. He’d been forced to use baby-sitters—strangers to Sammy—when he was out of the house, and had rarely managed to get the same one twice. Since Jake couldn’t be with Sammy twenty-four hours a day, he hoped having a live-in nanny would add stability to his son’s life.

      Though he no longer had to work for a living, Jake’s expertise in mergers and acquisitions was in high demand. And there were some offers he couldn’t refuse. Like the one presented last week—as a consultant to Edenbourg’s acting king, his cousin, Nicholas.

      The work was just a way to keep him busy. He knew it, and everyone else knew it. The suggestion that his expertise was needed by Nicholas was simply a way to save the royal family the embarrassment of asking him to turn over his passport so he couldn’t leave the country and return to America while they investigated any involvement he might have had in the king’s disappearance. His uncle’s disappearance.

      Recognizing the frustrating path his thoughts were traveling down, Jake forced his attention back to the playful pair in the parlor.

      Sammy’s giggling should’ve led Rowena right to him, of course, but she flailed around comically, running into tables and upsetting lamps and antique knickknacks which she pretended to barely catch in time. Her antics sent Sammy into fresh peals of laughter.

      Jake couldn’t suppress a smile, though the tenderness melting his heart was all for his son. It definitely wasn’t for the petite, auburn-haired beauty bungling around his living room.

      The only thing he felt for Rowena was gratitude. He finally had someone he could leave Sammy with—and feel good about it. Someone who’d already proved she could coax his son out of his panic attacks and shyness.

      Jake leaned against the doorjamb to watch their antics, but straightened abruptly a moment later. Something was out of place. The only item in the room made during the last century was a shiny steel step stool…directly in Rowena’s path.

      He didn’t have time to wonder what it was doing there. Vaulting over the couch, he launched himself off the side table just in time to catch Rowena as she stumbled into it.

      Their combined momentum took them down, but Jake grabbed her waist and twisted so his back hit the floor first, taking her slight weight.

      Rowena didn’t scream as they fell, just emitted a quick, “Oh!”

      She landed flat on top of him, her legs straddling СКАЧАТЬ