The Earl Takes A Bride. Kathryn Jensen

rustling sounds came from behind the door. As if Diane was throwing on a robe…or searching for a weapon before she opened her door at night to a stranger. Now he was certain Gary wasn’t around.

      Good, he thought. He wouldn’t have liked any man who had married Diane, but even with an open mind he hadn’t been impressed with Gary Fields. There was something about the fellow he didn’t trust.

      The white eyelet curtains lifted a bare inch from the left side of the window in the door. An apprehensive fern-green eye appeared for an instant, a sweep of chocolate-brown bangs, then the curtains swung back into place. But the door didn’t open.

      Thomas cleared his throat. “Diane, it’s Thomas Smythe, the king’s advisor. It’s important that I speak with you.”

      That did the trick. He heard the latch open. The door jerked wide. Diane stood in a splash of fluorescent light, backed by her kitchen table and a sun-flower-yellow decor. She was wrapped in a pink chenille robe. Quickly she pulled it into place when it slipped off one shoulder. Her hair looked damp, as if she’d recently showered and had only bothered to towel dry it. Even from a few feet away, she smelled of strawberries. She smiled in welcome, but looked a little puzzled.

      “Thomas, I didn’t recognize you. Is something wrong? Are Allison and the babies all right? And Jacob?”

      She would have kept rattling off questions at him if he hadn’t stepped into her kitchen, nearly filling it. And apparently startling the woman to silence. It was a reaction he often saw from strangers. The intimidation factor of his size was something he actively cultivated in certain situations. After all, he had been responsible for Jacob’s safety for many years, and now it was his duty to see to the entire royal family’s security.

      Unfortunately, in this case, his physique and threatening scowl wouldn’t work in his favor.

      With effort, he relaxed his shoulders, trying to make himself seem smaller, smiled and put on the charm he usually saved for visiting dignitaries and particularly bedworthy young women. “I’m sorry to arrive unannounced, Diane,” he lied in as soft a voice as his rumbling baritone could manage. “I’m in the States on several errands for Jacob, and I hoped you wouldn’t mind if I stopped by on my way through.”

      She smiled up at him, unsurprised, as if people frequently dropped in on her at odd hours. “You’ve shaved off your beard.”

      He chuckled. “Do I look very different?”

      “Only for a moment,” she admitted. “At the window, in the dark. Not many men can make themselves look like James Bond just by shaving.”

      He never went to films, but he was warmed by her comparison to a movie character she seemed to admire.

      “Although,” she continued, “you’re probably head and shoulders taller than 007.”

      He grinned, pleased. “Are the children still up?” he asked, knowing they weren’t.

      “No.” She sighed. “They would have loved to see you again. Tommy took an immense liking to you. Maybe because you have the same name. He’s grown, you know. You’d be surprised how much, for a seven-year-old.”

      Although she was smiling and chattering lightly, filling him in on accomplishments and changes in her three offspring—Tommy at seven, Annie, six and Gare, five—he could read an underlying tension in her nervous movements. Her fingers sought out unnecessary tasks—lining up the salt and pepper shakers on her table, straightening the kitchen towel hanging over the oven door handle. Another sign of anxiety revealed itself in the delicate lines around her pretty eyes and mouth.

      He concentrated too long on her mouth, her elegantly shaped lips…and felt himself lean toward her.

      She automatically fell back a step as if to make more space for him in the little room. “Do you have time for coffee? Or do you prefer tea?”

      “Coffee would be great,” he said, although it hadn’t been at the top of his list of desires.

      She spun around and busied herself with measuring grounds into the coffee maker, fetching milk from the refrigerator, digging two blue ceramic mugs from behind a collection of children’s plastic cups in the cupboard. She was offering him her best, though her mugs would have looked common beside the von Austerand’s fragile Sheffield bone china.

      “May I help with—”

      “No, no.” She cut him off with a wave of her hand as she transferred the sugar bowl and milk to the table. “Sit, sit. So, tell me how everyone is. Really,” she added breathlessly, sweeping damp brown tendrils out of her eyes. She looked suddenly very tired, holding herself together by threads as she swung back to the counter to watch coffee drip into the glass decanter. “Summer in Elbia…it must be lovely.”

      “You’ve never been there, have you?” Thomas asked.

      “To Elbia? To Europe?” She laughed. “Not likely. Do you realize the cost of foreign travel these da—” She caught herself, turned to blink at him and smile weakly. “Of course you don’t. Everything’s on the royal budget, isn’t it?”

      “Most everything,” he admitted quietly.

      “Must be nice,” she murmured, more to herself, he expected, than for his benefit. She sighed again. “Such an exotic world…far away…the stuff of dreams.”

      The coffeemaker sputtered out its last drops of dark, fragrant liquid. A pungent aroma filled the kitchen, and Diane pulled herself out of her reverie to fill the mugs and bring them to the table. She sat down heavily, with a little inward sound that wasn’t quite a groan.

      Thomas watched her as he lifted his steaming mug of black, unsweetened coffee to his lips. It was weak compared to the way he liked it. If they’d been together under different circumstances he’d have shown her how to make a strong European brew to his taste.

      He hastily shook away the intimate thought as he watched her add two spoonfuls of sugar and a generous dollop of milk to her own mug. He reminded himself of his mission.

      “You look well,” he said slowly.

      Her eyes were fixed on her beverage. “Absolutely,” she said with a chipper lilt that didn’t come from the heart.

      How to proceed? Thomas felt a little desperate. “I…we, that is, wondered…”

      An arrow of suspicion shot through her eyes as they rose to meet his. “So that’s what this is.” She sounded hurt, and he kicked himself for not handling the situation more tactfully.

      “Now, Diane—”

      “You’ve come to spy on me,” she accused with a touch of dry humor.

      “I’m sorry if I’m intruding,” Thomas whispered gruffly. “Jacob and Allison are worried about you and the children. They’ve received phone calls from Florida. Your parents believe you’re having problems of some sort but won’t tell them what it’s all about.”

      The touch of anger in Diane’s eyes softened. She set her mug down a little too hard, and coffee sloshed over the lip onto the tabletop. “It’s nothing they can do anything about. I didn’t want to burden anyone unnecessarily.”

      “I see.”

      She gave him a look that could only have come from deep sorrow. Whatever had happened must have been pretty awful.

      He set down his own mug firmly, hiked himself up even straighter in his chair and spread his huge hands over hers on the table in front of him. “If it’s that serious, Mrs. Fields, your family should be told.”

      “It’s nothing that I can’t— It’s just that—” Something seemed to catch in her throat. A watery glaze covered her eyes, and she looked away from him.

      Was she going to cry? He would never have thought it possible. Diane the fighter. Diane the veritable tigress when it came to chasing off the press in the days just after her sister’s