is settling in. Unless you have another mode of transport under that skirt, you’re either coming with me or you’re sleeping under the stars. Trust me.”
Trust him? Did he think she was born under a mushroom? Quite possibly, she thought, considering the amount of mud covering the bottom half of her dress.
Not witness to the conversations going on inside Sadie’s head, the stranger went on, “How could I look myself in the mirror if I heard on the news tomorrow that a woman was eaten by a bear, the only evidence the remains of a pink dress?”
Sadie coughed. Not a laugh. Not a whimper. More like the verbal rendering of her crumbling resolve. “Bears are rare in Vallemont. And they have plenty of fish.”
“Mmm. The headline was always more likely to be Death by Tulle.” He swished a headline across the sky. “‘Woman trips over log hidden entirely from view by copious skirts, lands face-first in puddle. Drowns.’”
Sadie’s eye twitched. She wasn’t going to smile. Not again. That earlier burst of laughter was merely the most recent mental snap on a day punctuated with mental snaps.
She breathed out hard. She’d walked miles through rain-drenched countryside in high heels and a dress that weighed as much as she did. She hadn’t eaten since...when? Last night? There was a good chance she was on the verge of dehydration considering the amount of water she’d lost through her tear ducts alone. She was physically and emotionally spent.
And she needed whatever reserve of energy, chutzpah and pure guts she had left, considering what she’d be facing over the next few days, weeks, decades, when she was finally forced to face the mess she had left behind.
She gave the stranger a proper once-over. Bespoke suit. Clean fingernails. Posh accent. That certain je ne sais quoi that came of being born into a life of relative ease.
The fact that he had clearly not taken to her was a concern. She was likable. Extremely likable. Well known, in fact, for being universally liked. True, he’d not caught her in a banner moment, but still. Worth noting.
“You could be an axe murderer for all I know,” she said. “Heck, I could be an axe murderer. Maybe this is my modus operandi.”
He must have seen something in her face. Heard the subtle hitch in her voice. Either way, his head tipped sideways. Just a fraction. Enough to say, Come on, honey. Who are you trying to kid?
The frustrating thing was, he was right.
It was pure dumb luck that he had happened upon her right in the moment she’d become stuck. And it was dumber luck that he was a stranger who clearly had no clue who she was. For her face had been everywhere the last few weeks. Well, not her face. The plucked, besmeared, stylised face of a future princess. For what she had imagined would be a quiet, intimate ceremony, the legal joining of two friends in a mutually beneficial arrangement, had somehow spiralled way out of control.
She’d had more dumb luck that not a single soul had seen her climb out the window of the small antechamber at the base of the six-hundred-year-old palace chapel and run, the church bells chiming loud enough to be heard for twenty miles in every direction.
Meaning karma would be lying in wait to even out the balance.
She looked up the road. That way led to the palace. To people who’d no doubt discovered she was missing by now and would search to the ends of the earth to find her. A scattered pulse leapt in her throat.
Then she looked at the stranger’s car, all rolling fenders and mag wheels, speed drawn in its every line. Honestly, if he drove a jalopy it would still get her further from trouble faster than her own feet.
Decision made, she held out a hand. “Give me your phone.”
“Not an axe murderer, then, but a thief?”
“I’m going to let my mother know who to send the police after if I go missing.”
“Where’s your phone?”
“In my other dress.”
A glint sparked deep in her accomplice’s shadowed eyes. It was quite the sight, triggering a matching spark in her belly. She cleared her throat as the man bent over the car and pulled a slick black phone from a space between the bucket seats.
He waved his thumb over the screen, and when it flashed on he handed it to her.
The wallpaper on his phone was something from outer space. A shot from Star Wars? Maybe underneath the suave, urban hunk mystique he was a Trekkie.
The wallpaper on the phone she’d unfortunately left at the palace in her rush to get the heck out of there was a unicorn sitting at a bar drinking a “human milkshake”. Best not to judge.
She found the text app, typed in her mother’s number.
But what to say? I’m sorry? I’m safe? I screwed up? I would give my right leg to make sure they do not take this out on you?
Her mother had been a maid at the palace since before Sadie was born. It had been her home too for nearly thirty years. If they fired her mother because of what Sadie had done...
Lava-hot fear swarmed through Sadie’s insides until she imagined Hugo’s response to such a suggestion. No. No matter how hard he might find it to forgive her for what she’d done to him today, he’d never take it out on her mother. He was that good a man. The best man she’d ever known.
Maman
Good start.
By now you know that I’m not at the chapel.
Another deep breath.
I couldn’t go through with it. It wasn’t right. Not for me and certainly not for Hugo. If you see Hugo...
She paused, deleted the last line. Whatever needed to be said to Hugo, she would say herself.
I’m so terribly, desperately sorry for all the confusion and complications that will come of this and I promise I will make everything right. But today, right now, I have to lick my wounds, clear my head and prepare. Know that until then that I’m whole and I’m safe. xXx
Before she could change her mind, she pressed “send”. Only remembering belatedly that her mother wouldn’t recognise the strange phone number.
In fact...
She found the camera app, held up the phone and said, “Smile!” Her benefactor turned and she took a photo.
She quickly started a new message. Added the picture.
I’ve borrowed this phone from the gentleman in this picture, so do not message back. I’ll call when I can. Love you.
The picture slid up the screen as the message was sent. The top of his head was missing, and an ear, but it was still him in all his grumpy glory. His hand was at his tie, giving it a tormented tug. His dark eyes bored into the lens. He wasn’t smiling but there was something about the shape of his mouth, a curving at the corners, the barest hint of what might—under just the right circumstances—become a dimple.
Her
