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A Scandal to Remember
Chapter One
London, England
April 1851
"So, where've you stashed that princess of yours? You can't just keep her to yourself, old man."
"You know how bloody careless Drew is, Ross. He's probably gone and lost her."
"Sorry to disappoint you, Jared," Drew said, wishing once again that his meddling friends hadn't come to the duke's ball tonight. "But I have yet to meet the little virago."
"Andrew Chase, behave yourself!" Kate had been standing peaceably near her starry-eyed husband, but managed to look away from Jared long enough to give Drew one of her chiding scowls. "Princess Caroline is hardly a virago. I've met her myself; she's lovely."
"Begging your pardon, Kate," Drew said as he ad-justed his neck cloth, "but I've never met a royal who wasn't a pain in the ... trousers."
Ross laughed and whispered overloud, "Word around town is that she's stunning."
"Great." Drew snorted, not at all pleased to hear this. "Royal and beautiful."
Not to mention vain, arrogant, demanding. Bred in the bone.
"Husband, dear," Kate said, grinning up at Jared in that bountiful way of hers, hooking her finger into his lapel and drawing him closer, "if you and Ross had been paying the least attention, you'd know that the princess hasn't arrived yet."
Jared got that goofy look on his face again as he gazed down at his wife, lovesick and lusty. "My sweet, howcan I possibly pay attention to anything else in the room with you wearing that smile, that gown, with that necklace dangling between your luscious ..."
Fortunately, Drew didn't have to listen to the rest of Jared's sugary cooing because the man had buried his words against his wife's ear. Though Kate's sultry giggle left little to the imagination.
He turned away from the pair and Ross moved in to stand beside him as they overlooked the swirl of the dance floor. "Gad, Ross, how the mighty have fallen."
"And damned if he doesn't look happier than a bloody clam at high tide, lucky bastard." Ross lifted two glasses off a nearby serving table and handed one to Drew. "And you assigned to princess duty."
"My favorite kind of assignment, as you know." Putting his life on the line for another arrogant, illtempered royal. "But it's my fault this time. Stumbling into a hornet's nest."
"Punishment for doing your job too well, Drew."
"On time and under budget." It's what he did, without questioning. "I couldn't really refuse to finish what I began, could I? After all, the princess is a cousin to the queen."
Ross laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. "Ah, but who among them isn't, Drew?"
Indeed. Drew only grunted, deciding to reveal nothing more on the subject of the princess's family ties, at least for the moment.
"If the woman is any kind of a princess, Drew, she won't arrive until well after midnight."
And it was one minute till. Hours yet to go.
Time didn't seem to matter a whit to a royal. Keeping as many people waiting as long as possible seemed a heady pastime for most of them.
He should expect no less from Princess Caroline of Boratania.
Impatient to begin, he scanned the perimeter of the dancing below, assessing every move and gesture. He was on duty now, fully absorbed, carefully reading the room as he waited for this princess, who was indeed keeping everyone cooling their heels while she took her own sweet ti --
"Is that ... ?" Drew heard from the crowd below as the music faded.
"It is!"
"So beautiful ... !"
"So regal ..."
The idling crowd that had formed on the landing above the dance floor suddenly closed ranks around the great arching doorway.
"Well, I'll be damned," Drew heard himself say to no one in particular. Could it possibly be? Apunctual royal?
Rumblings of "Look! She's here!" and "Oooo, let me see" tumbled off the landing.
The crowd parted and poured down the stairs to form a gawking, gossiping gauntlet, everyone wanting to get a closer look at the pomp that was billowing above like a glittering cloud.
"Midnight on the dot, Drew."
"I'll believe it when I see her, old man."
If this was indeed Princess Caroline making her grand entrance, she was taking her time progressing through her sea of admirers, still masked from Drew's vantage point.
Not that he cared. Palmerston would officially present him to her soon enough.
And the game would begin in earnest.
Drew had just put the rim of his glass to his lips when an awestruck silence rolled across the room toward him.
And then came the booming announcement from the top of the stairs, "The Princess Caroline Marguerite Marie Isabella of Boratania."
Good Christ!
The crowd had parted like a bank of sun-setting clouds, revealing from their midst the most astoundingly beautiful woman he'd ever seen.
A curling, shimmering crown of golden hair, eclipsing the marvel of the gleaming tiara, keenly bright eyes and a dazzling smile that knocked around inside his chest and kept him waiting eagerly for more.
"You've got the luck of the devil, Drew!"
Ross's voice popped through Drew's soddened brain, a stunning reminder that he wasn't alone with the woman. He swallowed past a dry throat. "What's that?"
"I said you pulled this one out of your hat, man." Ross nudged him in the arm, once again bringing him back to the present. "She's ... amazing."
"Which makes her all the more dangerous, Ross." The woman wasn't going to be easy to protect, not if she was forever surrounded by a swarm of courtiers like those who now followed her down the grand staircase.
The portly Prince of Fontmere stopped her on the third step, redcheeked and groveling, nearly drooling over her gloved hand ...
A Scandal to Remember. Copyright © by Linda Needham. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
