In Pursuit of a Princess. Lenora Worth

the plan.” He turned and took her hand. “Thank you for tea and dinner and...a bit of excitement.”

      “Don’t get used to that,” she said on a soft smile. “My life is not as exciting as the world might think.”

      Gabriel bid her good-night, thinking she was wrong on that.

      And as he tipped his hand to the burly guard hovering on the front veranda, he was pretty sure the excitement was just beginning.

      * * *

      Lara sat at her dressing table in her upstairs bedroom, staring at her reflection in the mirror. With no makeup and her hair down around her shoulders, she looked drawn and fatigued. Not exactly the image the world wanted to see.

      She didn’t care about that right now. She only saw the shadow of a mourning widow in her gilded mirror. And so much more. How did she explain to the world that she was tired of being a princess and that she only wanted to be herself, free and unencumbered by rules and protocol and regulations and proper procedures?

      Lara turned from her brocade-covered stool and tugged her cashmere robe around her. It was early spring in the South, but the nights could still be cool. She paced over the hundred-year-old, hand-woven rug centered in the sitting area of the big, comfortable bedroom then went to the French doors and stared out into the back garden. Her mind fluttered here and there like a butterfly.

      Esther and Cullen had gotten married right here in the garden. She’d insisted on giving them a reception to remember, and they’d pulled it off without too many problems with the media. Friends of a princess getting married didn’t carry nearly as much weight as a princess getting married. Or remarried. The tabloids had a new story every week on that one. By the latest count, she should have been remarried about four times at least.

      But she had yet even to go out with a man, let alone consider marrying one.

      She thought of Gabriel Murdock and felt a strange tapping in her heart. He was certainly handsome in a swarthy, swaggering way. The man looked like a map of life, world-weary and scarred, well traveled and frayed, and interesting.

      Too interesting. When he’d taken her hand, a pleasant warmth had moved through her and reminded her she was still a woman.

      Her cell hummed. She didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?”

      “I got your invitation.”

      “And I got your gift. You can’t scare me.”

      “I’m not trying to scare you. I’m trying to help you.”

      “By threatening me?”

      “I don’t know what you mean.”

      Lara put her hand to her heart. “Good, because you have the answers I need, so I won’t fall for any tricks. I’ll see you at the gala.” She let out a breath. “And please quit making hang-up calls. It’s juvenile.”

      “Is that all you have to say after all this time, Lara?”

      “Yes. Good night.”

      Lara moved around the room, turning off lamps, her hands trembling. She kept going back over the day’s activities, wondering how that package had gotten past security. And wondering how he had found her private cell number.

      Putting her unwanted guest out of her mind for now, Lara regrouped and looked at her day-planner. Today had been busy, but tomorrow would be jam-packed. And she’d have Gabriel Murdock trailing her with every task. Was she really ready for that kind of up-close scrutiny? And by a man who seemed to read her like a book and look through her carefully controlled facade to see her deepest, darkest fears and secrets?

      She thought about the man who’d just called her. It had been a long time since she’d seen him or heard from him. And she’d been biding her time until she could see him once again. “I can do this,” she whispered. “I have to do this.”

      A shudder tiptoed down her spine.

      “Remain calm and carry on,” she repeated. That used to be a joke between Theo and her. It was the mantra of a great queen and it did apply to the average commoner, too.

      “That’s me,” Lara whispered as she climbed in bed and tugged at the last light. The room went dark on her fears and worries. She’d been a commoner, but a wealthy, well-heeled one at that. Money and prestige could open a lot of doors. Having a social pedigree that went back to the founding fathers didn’t hurt, either. But even so, when the announcement of her marriage had been made, she’d been analyzed, studied, prodded and trained in everything from etiquette to speaking in public to greeting people to writing a proper thank-you card, all of which her mother had already trained her on anyway.

      Being a princess was much harder than being a woman.

      Right now, however, she mentally pushed her princess away and, being a woman, thought about the fascinating man with whom she’d shared her dinner. And wondered why she’d invited him to stay for a meal. That hadn’t been on the agenda.

      But then, neither had receiving that hideous gift. The voodoo doll only brought back bad memories of other times when she’d been afraid and full of doubts. Maybe this had nothing to do with that. Or it could have everything to do with that and the phone call she’d just received. She missed Theo, but she was determined to live life on her own terms. And she was determined to find answers to the questions that had haunted her since Theo’s death.

      Obviously, after receiving that cryptic call, she understood the little voodoo doll had something to do with her nosing around where she shouldn’t.

      Lara punched her pillow, hating this time of the day when she felt so alone, so lonely, so unsure of anything but how much she missed her husband. Telling herself to get a grip, she pushed out of her mind that image of the little grinning doll with the pin stabbed through her heart.

      “You can’t pierce my heart,” she whispered to the night. “My heart has already been broken.”

      But she intended to find the man who’d killed Theo. And she intended to do that here in New Orleans, with the world watching.

      She drifted off to sleep thinking of her husband and Gabriel Murdock. Trying to hold one close in her memories and trying to push the other one back into a proper place, she finally went from being awake to being in a dream that ran through her head like a vivid movie, complete with voodoo and warnings from Deidre and Malcolm and with a man standing in the shadows, holding a camera.

      The man called to her and Lara tried to reach him. He threw down the camera and reached out a hand. But she couldn’t quite grasp his fingers.

      She woke up near dawn thinking of her husband.

      But the man in the dream had been Gabriel Murdock.

      Lara lay there pushing at the covers, her body still exhausted from running through that mist, her memories as wild and colorful as the images in her mind.

      A piercing scream sounded through the night, bringing her up and out of her bed. Grabbing her robe, Lara rushed to her door and followed the hallway to the sound of the scream.

      Deidre’s room.

      But before Lara could open the door, Malcolm and two bodyguards were there with guns drawn.

      “Step back, Your Highness,” Malcolm said, his beefy arm blocking her way. “It might not be safe.”

      He knocked and called out. “Deidre?”

      No answer.

      “Go and check on her,” Lara demanded, impatient with the head of security.

      Malcolm motioned to the two guards. They were about to break the door down when Deidre opened it and ran straight into Lara’s arms.

      “What happened?” Lara asked, holding the younger woman.

      Deidre lifted up, her dark eyes wide, her hair unbound and curly around her face. “I heard a noise on the upstairs balcony,