help came. From the most unexpected of sources. Suddenly she felt the brush of that expensive overcoat against her shoulder, and saw a glove quickly slipped from the strong and warm hand that covered hers.
The sensation was shocking, unexpectedly delightful, like coming to a place of warmth and comfort after a long and lonely trek through the cold.
How long since anyone had offered her such a simple human gesture of support? How long since she had been touched?
Far too long. All the stresses and strains of single motherhood now seemed to be pushing from behind her eyes, too, this tenderness from a stranger breaking the dam of control she had built around her heart.
She felt the first tear slip down her cheek, and yanked her hand out from under the weight of his to brush it away.
“Really, Corporal,” her defender said with annoyance.
“Sergeant,” Crenshaw corrected him.
“Sergeant, I think just a little sensitivity would not be out of line here.”
Crenshaw looked mutinous, like a little boy who had been reprimanded, but he dutifully took papers out of a drawer and began to fill them out. Rachel noticed his stubby fingers were nicotine-stained above the class ring he wore. She fished desperately in her pocket for a tissue. Her fingers felt a baby soother, and a crushed bonnet. Desperately, she considered blowing her nose in that, when a handkerchief was pressed into her hand.
She looked up at him. The gentle kindness in his eyes made her want to weep anew.
“Thank you,” she said, and dabbed at her running nose, and eyes. The handkerchief was gloriously soft, and held a scent so powerful and compelling, she wanted to leave her nose in it forever.
“Rachel,” said Crenshaw, “what is your second name? And your full street address?”
The pure monotony of being asked such routine questions as her correct street address, and Victoria’s, and watching Crenshaw write them out with a painfully slow hand helped Rachel regain her composure.
“I’m fine now,” she said quietly to the man beside her. She stared at the now used handkerchief, uncertain what to do with it. She certainly didn’t want to return it to him in this condition.
“Keep it,” he said, reading her mind.
“Thank you.” Two thank-yous in two minutes. If he did not go soon, she’d end up owing her life to him. That was the game she and Victoria used to play. If one did the other a kind turn three times in a row, then the other would say jokingly, “Now I owe you my life.” It was one of those funny, tender things that only they understood—their kindnesses to each other had been the life raft they both clung to in the turbulent waters of their growing up.
Prince Montague did not leave, and she was glad for that. She suspected Crenshaw’s cooperative manner would disappear when he did. But he did not disappear, a fact not lost on Crenshaw, either.
“Sir, is your report completed?” Crenshaw asked pointedly.
“It is,” Montague replied, deliberately not taking the point.
“We’ll do everything we can to find who vandalized your vehicle. One of those Thortons, most likely. You’re on their territory now.” He chuckled at his own humor. “Perhaps the Duke hisself. The tabs say there’s no love lost between your two families.”
“I’m sure the Grand Duke of Thortonburg has a little more to do than to follow me around breaking antennas off my vehicles,” Montague said, a thread of irritation appearing in that well-modulated voice.
“Just attempting a little levity, sir,” Crenshaw said. “Would be funny if it was him, wouldn’t it?”
“I don’t think so, particularly. Now what are you going to do for this young lady?”
“I done the report!”
“And then?”
“I’ll post it, naturally.”
“Perhaps it wouldn’t be too much trouble for you to stop by—did you say Victoria—Victoria’s place of residence and ask a few questions. Her landlady, her friends, might know something.”
That mutinous expression appeared on Crenshaw’s face again.
“Well?” Montague prodded, his voice so low that Rachel glanced up at him. There was no kindness in those eyes now. They were cold and hard. He was a man obviously very used to authority, to diffidence, to obedience.
And he got them now, though reluctantly. Crenshaw lowered his eyes and said, “We’ll do whatever we can.”
“Thank you,” Montague said. He turned to her, and his eyes were warm again, sympathetic. “Now, are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine.” But to her horror, just as she said the words she began to shake like a fall leaf in a breeze. She looked away from him, looked frantically at her watch. “Good grief, I’m late. I must go.”
“You aren’t driving anywhere in this condition,” he informed her levelly. “I’ll take you where you need to go.”
“No, I couldn’t. Not possibly. My car—”
“I’ll have one of my staff return the car to you.”
“Really, no.”
“Is it because I’m a stranger to you?” he asked.
She wanted to tell him she felt as though she had known him always, especially when his voice became so gentle as it was right now. She shook her head, unable to speak.
“Don’t worry,” Crenshaw said, eavesdropping shamelessly. “I seen you together. If you turn up missing, his Royal Highness will be my primary suspect.”
“I don’t find that amusing,” Montague snapped.
Crenshaw looked sulky. “Just trying to add a little levity, sir.”
“Quit trying! Her sister is missing. I have a sister, too, whom I love dearly, whom I would lay down my life for, if I had to. I know how I would feel if she was missing, and there is absolutely nothing funny about it.”
“Well, I guess I’ve been shown my place,” Crenshaw said. A rat-like glint of malice appeared in the darkness of his eyes.
Montague ignored him and turned back to Rachel. “Please. Allow me to see you home.”
“He don’t have the right of primae noctis in Thortonburg, Rachel,” Crenshaw said.
Rachel gasped at this reference to the feudal custom of the lord of the land having first union with its young maidens. Not, she thought ridiculously, that she qualified.
She watched as Montague turned slowly and deliberately back to Crenshaw. “I beg your pardon?”
“Besides, the tabs all say that the womenfolks are pretty safe since the prince’s wife died. Grieving, he is. But I understand the bookies are taking odds on who your parents are going to match you up with. Sir.”
Montague leaned his expensively clad elbows on the counter and leaned across it, almost casually.
But Rachel was not fooled and neither was Crenshaw who took a wary half step back.
“I told you once before I don’t find you amusing. I don’t often find it necessary to repeat myself,” Montague said, his tone quiet but nonetheless low and lethal.
Crenshaw shot Rachel a look that somehow made this all her fault before he looked thoughtfully at his feet and said, “I’ve known Rachel since she was a baby. We’re practically family. That’s why I was kidding with her.”
Rachel looked hard at him. Practically family?
“In fact, Rachel, your father said you might be wanting a job. Clerical, right? I’m pretty sure I could