Mrs. Brumble was squinting at Damon with interest. “My, my. Aren’t you that Montague boy?”
Rachel did not think this was a very suitable way to address a prince, but he didn’t seem to mind at all.
He grinned. “That would be me, all right. That Montague boy.”
Mrs. Brumble offered her hand, and he took it in his, covered it with his other one for a brief moment, a gesture that Rachel could tell pleased Mrs. Brumble to no end. “I’m Eileen Brumble. I’ve had tea with your mother, Princess Nora, several times when I’ve been over to Roxbury. We have the Cancer Society in common. I met your lovely wife on one occasion, as well. I was so distressed by her death. Such a tragedy.”
Rachel thought Damon’s smile had become somewhat fixed, but he said pleasantly enough, “I’ll remember you to my mother.”
Rachel realized her little old landlady moved in the same circles as him, among dukes and duchesses, marquises and earls. Perhaps the huge manor house that shared the same property as this humble cottage should have given her a clue. Imagine asking someone of that stature to baby-sit!
“Thank you! That would be a darling thing for you to do.”
The entryway was too small for all of them, so Damon slipped into the living room while Mrs. Brumble got organized, and Rachel shed her jacket. Underneath, she was wearing a white sweater that matched her skirt, an outfit that had failed her at the police station, and which she felt failed her now because it was decidedly “blah,” a selection an old-maid librarian might have made to wear to the church tea.
Maybe she did know life was not a fairy tale, maybe she had taken a vow of celibacy until Carly was safely grown-up, but she also knew there was not a woman alive who could be alone with an attractive man and not want to look her absolute best.
When the door finally closed behind the unlikely nanny, Rachel turned to find Damon studying a painting on her wall that suddenly struck her as tacky and cheap, not fun and bright.
Mrs. Brumble popped her head back in the door and called in a whisper that must have carried nearly to the Thorton estate, “This one’s a keeper, child. Don’t let him get away.”
It was an embarrassing remark, but a kind one, too. It made Rachel feel as though the social barriers between them were not so important these days as they once had been—probably far larger in her mind than they were in either Damon’s or Mrs. Brumble’s.
The door closed again.
Since Rachel had expected Damon would drop her off and go, she stared at his big back with some vexation, and then said, “Would you like tea?”
Of course he wasn’t going to want tea. He was waiting for an opportunity to say goodbye, and take his leave.
And they’d never see each other again.
Which was not a good ending for a fairy tale, but a far more realistic one for the way life really was, something she should be well-versed in by now.
Still, the thought of never seeing him again filled Rachel with an ache that felt oddly like sadness. Regardless of his station, he seemed like the rarest of finds.
A nice guy.
“I’d love some tea.” He turned and looked at her, and the light in his green-gold eyes confirmed that. A nice guy. Not at all above sharing tea with a distressed woman in her humble hovel, despite the fact he must be used to grander things, and grander company.
“I’ll take your coat then.” He shrugged out of it, and for a moment she just stared at him with the coat suspended in the air between them.
The coat had really hidden a great deal of his masculine potency. She wasn’t so sure about the nice guy definition anymore. Didn’t nice guys generally have freckles and eyeglasses and arms the size of toothpicks?
But Damon Montague exuded an almost electrical sensuality. He had on a white shirt, pristine, definitely silk, but at sometime during the evening he had abandoned both the tie and jacket that must have gone with it. Now it was unbuttoned at the throat, showing enticing whorls of dark hair, and rolled up at the cuff, revealing forearms that looked powerful and sinewy.
The passionate part of her that had raised its ugly head so swiftly and powerfully in her past made its presence known again. Just when she thought she had successfully laid it to rest, there it was, that sensation of a fist tightening in her tummy, that sensation of wanting that made her mouth go dry, and her hands curl into the rich fabric of his coat. She yanked it out of his grasp, and spun away from him. She could feel the heat in her cheeks. She took a great deal of time arranging the coat on its hanger. Even when that was done she stayed behind the open door of her coat closet for a moment, afraid to come back out, afraid everything she was feeling would show in her face.
“This painting is quite good. Where did you get it?”
“At the thrift store,” she said bluntly, shutting the closet door with a snap. There. A nice reminder of the chasms between their worlds.
“A good find,” he said and then turned and regarded her solemnly. “Tell me if I’m being too personal, but is it very difficult? Being a single mother?”
“At least it’s anonymous,” she said.
He looked startled and then he grinned. It erased years from his face, and made him look roguish and even more handsome than before.
The fist did that thing in her stomach again.
“You’re right. It’s not as much fun as one might think being recognized everywhere you go, having your family’s private affairs brought up for discussion by every Sergeant Crenshaw and Mrs. Brumble you meet.”
His smile reappeared, boyish and charming. “On the other hand, if being royal is my biggest problem, you should come over and give me a slap for complaining.”
“I don’t think my life’s as difficult as you imagine,” she said with dignity. “I’ve enjoyed some success as a technical writer. And I’ve written a children’s book that I have currently submitted. If that were published, it would mean a great deal of freedom for me.” She found herself blushing wildly. Why on earth had she told him about the book? She hadn’t told another soul in the whole world—except for Carly. She hurried on, “Of course, parts of bringing up a baby alone are hard. But parts of it are absolutely heavenly, and they far outweigh any challenges I face.”
He looked at the baby, busy once again dumping the basket she had just refilled. “I don’t have to ask about the heavenly part, do I?” he asked. “And the hard parts?”
“Really, I think they’re the same difficulties anyone has. Never enough time or money.” She realized everyone but him would have those kinds of problems. He was still looking at Carly, a look on his face she could not quite decipher.
“Do you have children?” she asked.
He looked at her shrewdly. “My wife, Sharon, was pregnant with our first child. A boy. They both died.”
“Oh, Damon!” His name came off her lips as though she had always spoken it, always known him so familiarly. “I’m so terribly sorry.” Still emotionally vulnerable from her visit at the police station, her eyes filled with tears again. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“Quite frankly, it’s refreshing when someone genuinely doesn’t know. As I said, the world seems to know everything about me. Sometimes I catch a line in one of the trash papers that announces to the world something I didn’t even know about myself.”
“I don’t read them. I don’t have a television, either. I don’t know one single thing about you that you don’t know about yourself.”
He laughed at that. “Go make tea. And then I want to ask you some questions about your sister.”
She left the room and he took