the wide skirt of a voluminous pink dress three times bigger than she was.
Those were details that stampeded through Will’s mind during the half-second it took him to leap from the car. The mud sluicing over the tops of his dress shoes and seeping into his socks mattered only so far as the fact it slowed him down.
“Where are you hurt?” he barked, running his hands through his hair to dampen the urge to run them over her.
Not that she seemed to notice. Her eyes remained closed, mouth downturned, black-streaked tears ran unstopped down her cheeks. And she trembled as if a strong gust of wind might whip her away.
Best case scenario was shock. Worst case... The thud still echoed against the back of his skull.
“Ma’am, I need you to look at me,” he said, his voice louder now. It was the kind of voice that could silence a room full of jaded policy-makers. “Right now.”
The woman flinched, her throat working. And then she opened her eyes.
They were enormous. Far too big for her face. Blue. Maybe green. Not easy to tell considering they were rimmed red and swollen with dark tears.
And every part of her vibrated a little more, from her clumpy eyelashes to the skirt of her elaborate dress. Standing there in the loaded silence, the hiss and tic of his cooling engine the only sound, he knew he’d never felt such energy pouring off a single person before. Like the sun’s corona, it extended well beyond her physical body, impinging on anyone in its path.
He took what felt like a necessary step back as he said, “I cannot help you until you tell me whether you are hurt.”
She let out one last head-to-toe quiver, then dragged in a breath. It seemed to do the trick as she blinked. Looked at his car. Lifted her hands into the air as if to balance. Pink diamonds dangling from her ears glinted softly as she shook her head. No.
Will breathed out, the sound not altogether together. Then, as relief broke the tension, anger tumbled through the rare breach in his faculties.
“Then what the holy hell were you doing jumping out in front of my car?”
The woman blinked at his outburst, her eyes becoming bigger still. Then her chin lifted, she seemed to grow an inch in height, and finally she found her voice. “I beg your pardon, but I did not jump out in front of your car.”
Will baulked. The lilting, sing-song quality of the Vallemontian accent that he had not heard in person in years was resonant in every syllable. It took him back in time, making the ground beneath his feet unsteady.
He refocused. “Jump. Leap. Swan dive. It’s all the same. You had to have heard me coming. My car engine isn’t exactly subtle.”
That earned him a surprisingly unladylike snort. “Subtle? It’s a mid-life crisis incarnate. You should have been driving your overcompensation more slowly! Especially with the roads being as they are after the rain we’ve had.”
“It’s a rental,” he shot back, then gave himself a swift mental kick for having risen to the bait. “Speed was not the issue here. The pertinent fact is that you chose to cross at a bend in the road shaded by thick foliage. You could have been killed. Or was that your intention? If so it was an obtuse plan. Nearly every person in the country is already at the palace or sitting by a TV to watch the royal wedding.”
At that she winced, her pale face turning so much paler he could practically see the veins working beneath her skin. Then she broke eye contact, her chin dipping as she muttered, “My being right here, right now, was never part of any plan, I can assure you of that.”
Okay. All right. Things had gone astray. Time to bring everything back to fundamentals. “So, just to be clear, I did not hit you.”
She shook her head, dark red curls wobbling. “No, you did not.”
“I could have sworn I heard a thud.”
Her mouth twisted. Then she looked up at him from beneath long, clumping eyelashes. “When I saw you coming I did the only thing I could think to do. I threw a shoe at you.”
“A shoe?”
“I’d have thrown both if I’d thought it would help. But alas, the other one is stuck.”
“Stuck?” Will was aware he was beginning to sound like a parrot, but the late night, early morning, the knotty reality of being in Vallemont after all these years were beginning to take their toll.
He watched in mute interest as the woman gathered her dress and lifted it to show off skinny legs covered in pale pink stockings. One foot was bare. The other foot was nowhere to be seen—or, more precisely, was ankle-deep in mud.
Will glanced back at his car. Then up along the road ahead.
Time was ticking. Hugo’s wedding was looming. Will wasn’t sure of the protocol but he doubted a soon-to-be princess bride would be fashionably late.
The woman in pink was calmer now, the static having dulled to a mild buzz. Best of all she was unhurt, meaning she was not his problem.
Will did not do “people problems”. His assistant, Natalie—a jolly, hardworking woman who performed miracles from a desk at home somewhere in the Midwest of the United States—was the only person in the world to whom he felt beholden and only because she told him every time they spoke that he should. Even then her efforts on his behalf were well-compensated.
He preferred maths problems, fact problems, evidentiary problems. His manager would attest that time management was Will’s biggest problem as he never said no to work if he could find a way to fit it all in.
And yet... He found that he could not seem to roust himself to wish the woman well and get back on his way.
There was nothing to be done except to help.
Decision made, he held out both hands as if dealing with a wounded animal. “Any way you can jiggle your foot free?”
“Wow. That’s a thought.” It seemed she’d hit the next stage of shock—sarcasm.
“Says the woman who threw a shoe at an oncoming car in the hope of saving herself from getting squished.”
Her eyes narrowed. Her fists curled tighter around her skirt. Beneath the head-to-toe finery she was pure street urchin itching for a fight.
Shock, he reminded himself. Stuck. And she must have been cold. There wasn’t much to the top part of her dress but a few layers of lace draped over her shoulders, leaving her arms bare. The way the skirt moved as it fell to her feet made it look like layers of woven air.
Air he’d have to get a grip on if he had any hope of pulling her free.
Will slid the jacket of his morning suit from his shoulders and tossed it over the windscreen into the car. Rolling his sleeves to his elbows, he took a turn about her, eyeing the angles, finding comfort in the application of basic geometry and calculus.
She looked about five-feet-eight, give or take the foot stuck in the mud.
“What do you weigh?”
“Excuse me?”
“Never mind.” It would come down to the force of the suction of the mud anyway. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to take you from behind.”
A slim auburn eyebrow rose dramatically. “I thank you for asking first, but I do mind.”
Will’s gaze lifted from the behind in question to find the woman looking over her shoulder at him. Those big eyes were unblinking, a glint of warmth, laughter even, flickering in the blue. Or was it green?
Right. He’d heard it too. He felt his own cheek curving into an unexpected smile. “My intentions are pure. I only wish to get you out of your...sticky situation.”
Her right fist unclenched from her skirt, her fingers sliding past one another. Then her eyes dipped as she gave him