Ever a Princess Read online

  "An act none of the other European ruling families could or would condone." Max shook his head. "No, Your Highness, in order to be crowned His Serene Highness, Prince Victor IV of Saxe-Wallerstein-Karolya, your cousin must marry you."

  "Or produce my body," Giana reminded him. "And my father's seal of state."

  "Then we have no more time to waste. We have only one year."

  "We must leave the country before Victor closes the borders. For the time being, we must bide our time, go to ground like the fox, and endure the wait."

  Max studied his princess, marveling at the strength and sense of determination he heard in her voice. He knew, even if she did not, that until the year was up there was no safe haven left to them, knew Princess Giana's life was forfeit if her cousin found her, knew she would never agree to marry her parents' murderer, and he also knew that Victor would search the countryside for the princess and post spies in every remaining monarchy in Europe in an effort to find her. "Where shall we go?" he asked. "What is to be our destination?"

  Giana's mouth thinned into a firm hard line. "I don't know. But it must be a place where no one would ever think to look for a princess."

  Chapter 1

  The
  —The First Installment of the True Adventures of the BountiFui, Baron: Western Benefactor to Blond, Beautiful, and Betrayed Women written by John J. Bookman, 1874.

  June 18, I87i

  USS Yankee Belle

  From New York to London

  “Call.”

  Adam McKendrick studied the cards in his hand for a moment longer before spreading them out on the table. "Full house. Gents and ladies."

  Ignoring the groans and the round of good-natured teasing, Adam pulled a gold watch from the pocket of his waistcoat, flipped open the lid, and stared down at the face. Squinting through the blue haze of cigar smoke that hovered over the tables and seemed to swirl beneath the prisms of the crystal chandeliers, he made out the time. Three forty-seven a.m. In a couple of hours the first light of dawn would begin to break the horizon, but none of the men in the Gentlemen's Gaming Salon would see it.

  The man across the table from him picked up the deck of cards. "You in or out?"

  "Out." Adam grabbed his hat from the hat rack and raked his earnings into it. He left his hat sitting on the table while he stood up and stretched his arms over his head, easing the tension in his neck from the long hours at cards. His head ached from the smoke he'd inhaled and the whiskey he'd consumed, and his body was stiff and sore from sitting at a card table all evening. "It's late, gentlemen. I'm calling it a night."

  "What about you?" The dealer nodded toward Murphy O'Brien, Adam's friend and traveling companion.

  Murph glanced at Adam and winked. "I need to recoup my earnings. I'll play another hand or two before I turn in."

  "Suit yourself." Adam shrugged into his jacket and picked up his hat. No one else at the table looked up as he crossed the room to the cashier's window.

  Adam helped himself to an expensive cigar from the humidor while he waited for the cashier to exchange his poker chips for currency. He snipped the end off the cigar and struck a match to it while the clerk counted out his cash. Adam pulled a bill from the pile and handed it to the clerk, then recounted the bills, folded the money, and tucked it into his pocket.

  Opening the door to the Gentlemen's Gaming Salon, he slopped into the passageway and made his way to the purser's office, where he deposited the bulk of his cash into the safe. Once he had his receipt in hand, Adam left the purser's office and climbed the steps to the deck. He circled the deck twice, I hen leaned against the rail of the ship to breathe in the cool air and study the stars as he smoked his cigar.

  Half an hour later Adam left the deck and made his way back down the passageway to his stateroom.

  A steward smiled broadly and greeted him as he unlocked the door. "Have a good evening, Mr. McKendrick."

  "Thanks," Adam replied as he stepped through the door and into his room.

  "Shall I light a lamp for you, sir?"

  Adam shook his head. "That won't be necessary. I can manage." He closed the door behind him and fumbled for a match. The odor of sulfur filled his nostrils as he scraped the match against the striking plate. He lifted the lamp globe and touched the flame to the wick, then turned toward his bunk. "Aw, hell! Not again!"

  A curvaceous blonde, naked except for the bedsheet, lay in the centerr of his bunk. "Hello, handsome," came the husky voice. "I've been waiting for you."

  "Dammit!" Adam crossed the room in four angry strides. "This is the third time this week. How did you get in?" "I bribed the steward."

  Adam managed a half-laugh. "No wonder he was smiling. If this keeps up, he'll be a rich man."

  The woman stretched luxuriously like a cat and allowed the sheet covering her breasts to slip lower, giving Adam an enticing view.

  "Get your clothes and get out." She pouted. "I thought you helped women in need." "You don't need my help," he reasoned. "Or you wouldn't be bribing the steward."

  "A woman doesn't have to be financially destitute to need help." She smiled a meaningful smile. "I require a different sort of assistance."

  Adam looked her in the eye. "You've got the wrong man." "But you're Adam McKendrick," she purred. "Let me put this another way," he said firmly. "Madam, I'm not interested."

  "Helena," she continued, undaunted. "Helena Compton." "Mrs. Samuel Compton?"

  "The same." She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue in a move too practiced to be an accident. "I could be very good to you, you know."

  Compton. Adam raked his fingers through his hair. He'd just spent most of the night playing poker with Samuel Compton, a Chicago railroad tycoon, almost twice her age. "I don't want you to be good to me, Mrs. Compton," Adam told her. "I don't want you to be anything to me. And I don't want to come back to my room and find you in my bed again. Understand?"

  "No." She pouted prettily.

  "Too bad." He glanced around the stateroom. "I don't mind winning a man's money, but I draw the line at winning his money and bedding his wife. Now, where are your clothes?" he asked.

  "I didn't wear any."

  Adam raised an eyebrow at that. "How did you get from your room if you didn't have on any clothes?"

  “I had an accomplice. She came with me, waited while I undressed, then took my clothes back with her."

  “The woman who was here the other night?" Adam guessed.

  "My cousin.” She shrugged. "We figure one of us will get lucky sooner or later. And we don't mind sharing."

  "I do." Adam rang for the steward, then leaned down and scooped Helena Compton into his arms, sheet and all.

  "Won't you at least give me reason to hope?" She wrapped her arms around Adam's neck and pressed herself against him.

  "Nope."

  The steward knocked on the door almost immediately, and Adam invited him to enter. "You rang for me, sir?"

  Adam carried Helena Compton across the room and deposited her in the steward's arms. "This lady has mistaken my loom for hers," he said, removing a crisp fifty-dollar bill from his pocket. "Please see that she finds her way back to the correct one."

  "But, sir, the lady assured me that you and she—"

  "Please bring another sheet for my bunk." Adam folded the money and tucked it into the steward's breast pocket. "As you can see, the lady was mistaken. I know she can rely on your discretion in rectifying her error." He stared at the other man. "And I'm sure her husband would appreciate it if you'll see that this sort of mistake doesn't happen again." Adam backed the steward into the passage and closed the door in his face.

  How the hell was he going to face Samuel Compton over the poker table again? And how in the hell was he going to explain if the older man learned of his wife's escapade and took exception? Adam stripped off his jacket and shirt, tossed them over the nearest chair, and sat down on the edge of the bunk. His unwanted notoriety was beginning to be a p
ain in the ass.

  He blew out the breath he'd been holding and rubbed the throbbing spot on his temple. There were days when he'd give every penny he'd ever made to find a place where no one knew or cared who he was.

  Today was shaping up to be one of them.

  Chapter 2

  The Bountiful Baron defends the weak and helps the poor.

  —The Second Installment of the True Adventures of the Bountiful Baron: Western Benefactor to Blond, Beautiful, and Betrayed Women written by John J. Bookman, 1874.

  Later that morning

  USS Yankee Belle

  From New York to London

  Adam started a dime novel sailed past his shoulder and landed on the table in the main dining room, rattling his cup and saucer. He looked up from the newspaper he'd just opened and frowned at his friend. "What the... ?"

  "You're famous, my friend," O'Brien replied. "Your reputation has preceded you."

  Adam sat at his usual table, nursing a scalding hot cup of strong black coffee and battling the effects of a wicked hangover while he watched a group of fellow travelers file into the room for breakfast. He folded his newspaper and laid it aside, then picked up the small book and glanced at the title. The Second Installment of the True Adventures of the Bountiful Baron: Western Benefactor to Blond, Beautiful, and Betrayed Women.

  "What do you think of that?" Murphy asked.

  Christ! There was another one! Adam opened the novel, scanned the first couple of pages, and let out a derisive snort. One good deed, he thought. If the truth were known, he'd probably never done an entirely unselfish deed in his life— including the one that was currently causing so much trouble. He'd been furious at his sister Kirstin's husband because the bastard had beaten her for attending a suffragette rally. Adam shoved his fingers through his hair. The truth was that he'd been angry enough at his brother-in-law to kill him, and he'd taken his frustration out on a cowboy he'd caught slapping a saloon girl around. Adam let out another snort. He'd done one good deed, protected one saloon girl from an abusive customer, and this was the result. He flipped through the pages. The pen and ink drawings in the first installment had depicted him as a gentleman defending a saloon girl from a ruffian; this installment appeared to have expanded upon the theme with drawings of women from all walks of life—rich and poor— escaping tyranny and neglect, turning to him for help.

  Adam groaned. Instead of confining his good deed to the defense of one saloon girl, this installment depicted him as an avenging angel defending blond womanhood everywhere. Well, at least that explained Helena Compton's uninvited appearance in his bed. She'd seen the book and wanted to share a pillow with the Bountiful Baron. "I think that if I'd eaten breakfast, I'd be losing it about now."

  Murphy laughed, then reached over and helped himself to the pot of coffee on the table.

  "Need my cup and saucer?" Adam cocked an eyebrow at his friend.

  "No, thanks." Murphy held up a thick mug. "I brought my own. I figured that since the Bountiful Baron would provide the coffee, the least I could do was bring my own cup." He commandeered the chair across from Adam and sat down.

  "Very funny." Adam shoved the book back across the table and glared at Murphy. "Where'd you get this?"

  "From one of the dudes at the poker table last night."

  "Which one?"

  "The one with the foreign accent and the fancy embroidered vest," Murphy replied.

  Adam narrowed his gaze, wrinkling his forehead and draeing his brows together in a concentration.

  "You won't remember him. He came into the salon with three companions—all foreigners—after you raked up your winnings and left."

  "It was nearly four before I left the table," Adam told him. "I thought you were right behind me."

  O'Brien chuckled. "I couldn't help myself. I had to stay awhile longer and pad my winnings. You'd left the table and I couldn't stand the thought of anyone else winning the cash those foreigners were flashing around." He smiled at Adam. "And when one of them started showing this"—Murphy picked up the dime novel and stared at the cover—"around the table and asking if any of us had ever heard of him, I became curious." He dropped the book on the table and turned back to Adam.

  Adam rubbed his forehead in a futile effort to rub away his headache. "Did anyone answer?"

  Murphy shook his head. "Fortunately, no one else at the table had seen a copy of the book and the foreigner referred to you as the baron instead of by name. But you're a passenger on this ship and your name is on the manifest. If they want to find you, it won't take them long."

  "Jesus, Joseph, and Mary! How many of those are there?" He nodded toward the dime novel. "I've bought up as many copies of the first installment as I can find. Am I going to have to buy the publisher just to put an end to this? Why did"— Adam stared at the author's pseudonym—"John J. Bookman print my name? He doesn't use his real one." He muttered a curse beneath his breath. "It was bad enough when the first one came out. Now there are two of them." His reputation for lending a helping hand to women in need had spread like wildfire through the mining camps to Virginia City, Sacramento, and San Francisco before the publication of the first installment. Now a second installment had appeared. At least there was some truth to the first installment. The second one was pure fiction. "You're the Pinkerton. Do something useful. Find out where these things are coming from." He picked up the book and shipped it down on the table. "This is almost as bad as having a reputation as a gunslinger. I can't turn around without tripping over someone who's read all about me. . .."

  Murphy commiserated. "Yeah, beautiful blondes every time you turn around and all of them desperately seeking aid and succor. Damn the luck."

  "Luck and beauty have nothing to do with it," Adam protested. "There will be women and girls of all shapes and sizes, from sixteen to sixty looking for help. My life is going to be living hell when I get back home."

  Home for Adam McKendrick was Queen City in the Nevada Territory, a town built from the fortunes made on the silver ore of the Comstock Lode. Adam owned the largest hotel in town and the Queen City Opera House, a fancy name for a saloon and gambling house, but one the city council insisted would lure moneyed visitors to town. Adam doubted that the grand name he'd given his saloon had as much to do with the draw as the fact that new silver strikes occurred in Queen City on a regular basis and the fact that it was the last large town on the main stage line to Virginia City and San Francisco. But the city fathers were right about one thing—business was booming.

  "If you get back." Murphy took a sip of his coffee.

  "If? What do you mean, if?" Adam demanded.

  Murphy shrugged. "You're going to the Scottish Highlands to check out the hunting lodge you inherited. You might decide to stay and be lord of the manor."

  Adam snorted. "I didn't inherit the lodge. I won it in a poker game. And why would I decide to stay in Scotland and be lord of a manor when I've got several perfectly good businesses to run back home?"

  "The Highlands are known for their wild and desolate beauty. And McKendrick is a Scottish name. You may develop a fondness for the auld sod."

  "I don't give a damn how beautiful the Highlands are or what the name is. I'm an American. And any fondness I develop for the auld sod will come from the fact that there's money to be made there."

  "Not to worry, then." Murphy laughed. "You won't be forming any undue attachment to Scottish soil. They may be beautiful, but there's nothing in the Highlands but poor people, shaggy cattle, heather, and sheep. If there was a way to turn that into money, surely someone would have found it by now."

  "Maybe they weren't looking at it the right way." Adam reached over and cuffed Murphy on the shoulder. "The world is changing, my friend. Wealth isn't confined to the aristocracy anymore. Men are making fortunes in gold and silver mining, in railroads and steel mills. There's a whole new class of millionaires looking for new ways to spend money and new things to spend it on." He grinned. "I earned my first fortune breaking my back
digging silver from the Comstock, and I can tell you that the money pouring into the hotel and the opera house is a hell of a lot easier to make. That's why I decided to see if the hunting lodge has potential."

  "Potential for what?"

  "For recreation. Manly recreation that relies heavily on hunting and fishing, drinking whisky, and playing cards, polo, and golf."

  "Golf?" Murphy raised his eyebrows as if he'd never heard the word before. "I know hunting and fishing and playing cards and drinking whisky. And I've heard of polo. But what the hell is golf?"

  Adam smiled. "A game Scotsmen like to play."

  "Where did you hear about this game?"

  "From an old Scotsman who worked the claim next to mine. He always talked about going back to Scotland and building a gentleman's club where men could play golf."

  "Is it an indoor or an outdoor game?" O'Brien asked.

  "Outdoor," Adam answered.

  O'Brien threw back his head and laughed so hard that he had to wipe tears from the corner of his eyes. "It's so damned cold and windy in Scotland that a man would have to be a fool to pay good money to play any kind of game outdoors."

  "McTavish swore his kinsmen loved it."

  O'Brien continued to chuckle as he looked at Adam. "Are you sure that old Scotsman was right in the head?"

  "Absolutely," Adam replied without hesitation.

  'This I've got to see."

  "That's why I asked you to come along," Adam told him.

  O'Brien helped himself to another cup of coffee. "You didn't just ask me to come along. You're paying me to come along because you wanted someone other than your sister to talk to during the crossing."

  Adam grimaced. "That's true. I love my sister, but she gets on my nerves." He did love his sister. There was no one in the world he loved more than his mother and his four older sisters, but there was no doubting the fact that they could try the patience of a cathedral full of saints. And Adam was no saint. Still, he'd grown up with them. He knew what to expect. Conversing with his other three sisters could be a trial, at times, because they were so opinionated and stubborn, but talking to Kirstin about anything of importance or of real interest was next to impossible. His mother and his other three sisters might be budding suffragettes, but they hadn't succeeded in converting Kirstin. She didn't understand what the fuss was all about. Kirstin was just as beautiful, but she wasn't as smart as his mother or his other sisters. Learning to read had been difficult for her and schoolwork, a chore. But their mother had always preached about using the talents God gave you, so Kirstin used hers—a beautiful face and body and stubborn persistence—to get what she wanted out of life.