Who is it?” The cold had set her nose running. She sniffed.
“Gen’lmen. Pa said I should bring ’em up.” He stepped to the side and revealed two men standing on the path some distance away.
Mariah scowled at their caped greatcoats and black top hats. Whoever they were, they dressed like bankers. The thought made her heart seize.
She started to rise and realized her skirts were twisted around her, exposing her old woolen stockings and muddy boots. She knew there was dried dirt on her face, where she’d pushed her hair back earlier; she looked a mess. But then, she hadn’t invited them here. Clumsy from the cold, she staggered to her feet and brushed her skirts before realizing that her dirt-caked gloves were making her even more of a mess. Scowling, she pulled them off and threw them into the wooden trug that held her tools.
The men’s backs were to her; they seemed to be surveying her garden.
“You wished to see me, gentlemen?”
They turned as she approached.
She stopped dead on the path as her gaze connected with a pair of cool bronze-colored eyes and the bottom dropped out of her stomach.
Him.
“EDGAR MARCHANT, madam—Baron Marchant,” the shorter man introduced himself, tipping his hat. It took her a moment to recognize “Jack O. Lantern”…the prince’s friend with the round face and pomaded hair.
“John St. Lawrence, Mrs. Eller.” Jack B. Nimble removed his hat, and her knees weakened. Broad shoulders, dark hair, golden eyes; he was exactly as she had remembered him.
She crossed her arms and refused to give in to the panic blooming in her chest.
“Gentlemen,” she said, thinking that despite their smooth manners and expensive clothes, they were anything but.
JACK ST. LAWRENCE took in Mariah Eller’s dirt-streaked clothes and rosy, dirt-smudged cheeks. This was hardly how he expected to be received by the feisty widow. She looked like a servant girl sent out to weed the kitchen herb patch. Younger and fresher than he had recalled, and even more appealing. It was a good thing Marchant had spoken first; his own throat had tightened.
“We have come on an errand of some importance,” Marchant intoned with lordly precision. “Perhaps you would like us to return in an hour or two, so that you might have time to—” he glanced at her clothing “—prepare to receive our news.”
It was the wrong thing to say, apparently. She seemed startled by Marchant’s offer of time to make herself presentable, then offended by it. Her gaze darted to the basket by her feet; she looked as if she could gladly drive a garden tool through the baron’s heart.
Damn and blast Bertie, Jack thought, sending him on such an errand. He was used to handling matters and seeing to it that the prince’s desires were carried out. Capable and always in control, he was the perfect man for a sensitive mission. But not this mission.
He dreaded facing this woman the way he dreaded a dentist with a pair of pliers. And he didn’t want to think about why.
“Anything you have to say to me, sir, you may say here and now. As you can see—” she gestured to her bulbs and tools “—I am quite busy. I doubt there will be many more days this season suitable for planting.”
A very bad feeling developed in the pit of Jack’s stomach as her chin came up. It was his presence that raised her hackles, he was sure of it.
“At the very least, let us be seated.” Marchant gestured to a nearby pair of stone benches in a leafless bower among the hedges. After a moment she exhaled irritably and complied with the request.
Feeling stiff all over, fearing his knees might not bend, Jack waved Marchant to the seat on the bench beside her while he stood nearby.
“We bring sincerest greetings from the Prince of Wales,” Marchant declared with a smile. “No doubt you recognized him during his recent stay at your fine inn.”
“Of course,” she said, obviously still nettled.
“He has asked us to convey to you how impressed he was with your hospitality, your ingenuity and the warmth of your person,” the baron continued. “He was quite taken with you, Mrs. Eller. And he has entrusted to us a somewhat delicate—”
“Are you going to sit, Mr. St. Lawrence?” She pinned Jack with a look, her tone peppery.
God, they were making a hash of it, he thought.
“Certainly.” He sat down on the opposite bench, as far from her as he could get and still have stone beneath his bum cheeks. “As the baron has said, the prince was quite taken with you. It is rare, I can tell you, for His Highness to be so…so…”
He found himself staring into big blue eyes filled with questions and suspicions and not a little indignation. He struggled to recall the persuasions he’d practiced in his mind on the way down from Scotland.
“…so relaxed in the presence of a lady…um…”
“A lady with whom he has not established relations,” the baron supplied smoothly. “To come to the point, Mrs. Eller, the prince wishes to see you again.” He studied the puzzlement in her face and came right out with it. “He wishes to establish personal relations with you, Mrs. Eller. Very close…personal…relations. St. Lawrence and I are here to make the necessary arrangements.”
She blinked and looked from the baron to Jack.
“Relations? He wishes to have close…oh…oh, my Lord…relations with me?” Her shock was too artless not to be genuine.
Jack had the urge to knock the smirk from Marchant’s face. In the seconds it took him to master that shocking impulse, she shot to her feet.
“That is absurd. What would the prince want with a simple widow who—” She stiffened, reddening. “Take your ugly little joke back to your friends and tell them that their insult found its mark and was keenly felt.”
“Mrs. Eller!” The baron was on his feet before her, alarmed now. “This is no jest, I assure you. We have come at the behest of the Prince of Wales himself.” From the breast pocket of his coat he produced a letter as evidence. “If you doubt the authenticity of our mission, let the prince himself reassure you. You must surely see that this is not a matter he is free to undertake on his own behalf. He has entrusted both his desire and his honor to us in this matter. I assure you, we are faithful to that trust.”
She stood for a moment, regarding the letter as if it were a snake. Then with a fierce look at Jack, she took it from the baron and inspected the royal seal before breaking it open. The trembling of the paper was the only sign that what was penned on the vellum made any impact on her.
“I believe, gentlemen,” she said, sounding as if her mouth were dry, “that the events of a week ago may have given His Highness a mistaken notion of my character.”
The baron’s eyes narrowed and his oily smile appeared.
“I believe the prince knows precisely
