Her Secret Prince by Madeline Ash

Author:Madeline Ash [Ash, Madeline]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Fiction
ISBN: 9781942240587
Publisher: The Tule Publishing Group, LLC
Published: 2015-04-06T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Five

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From: Oscar M <[email protected]>

02-05-2015 (4 hours ago)

To: Jed Brown <[email protected]>

Subject: Meeting

We could meet tomorrow for lunch. Café Georgette, in the city centre, at midday. It has a blue sign. Would that suit?

Oscar

Jed read out the latest email as Dee parked in front of a thatch-roofed stone cottage. The clouds were darkening from grey to graphite, but even the biting, cold evening couldn’t lessen her delight at the lodging and country garden before them.

“We could do midday,” she agreed. It would only take them a couple of hours to reach Legaurday. “And then I’ll have to come back here. I need to write in that window bay, overlooking those flowers.” Scratch flying straight home. She would spoil herself with a garden view.

Jed didn’t answer. As she got out of the rental car, she noticed him typing a response to Oscar. His mouth was a thin line—thin for those lips, anyway—and he’d hardly spoken since the airport. They’d found a quaint café in Paris where he’d stared into the middle distance. Distracted, she knew, and he’d always been the kind of person that needed space to process change, so she’d kept quiet, kept the coffee coming, and let him be.

She’d be processing too, if she was this close to meeting her father for the first time.

“I’ll take our bags in,” she told him, but he didn’t seem to hear.

Inside, with the luggage by the door, Dee lost herself in the split-level wonderland of the cottage. White walls and exposed structural beams, clean tiled floors, and dinky corridors. She found a small bedroom clinging to the end of one such passage, abundant with lace and frills and all things floral. She grinned at the cheery little kitchen, with green wooden cupboards, drying herbs strung above the bench and a jar of wildflowers next to a plate of pastries. Bonjour et bienvenue! read the note beside it. Fire is lit and champagne is in the fridge.

A narrow staircase set off from the wall beside the pantry—four steps and a bend took Dee into a tiny raised laundry. Back the way she’d come, she passed through a sunken living area with a stoked fireplace. She stopped to test the mismatched couches that huddled close to the heat, all heavenly soft, and then climbed half a staircase to the mezzanine that overlooked the crackling fire. It was enthralling, this home of hidden rooms and crooked stairwells.

Still smiling, she continued up the stairs that curved, sharp and narrow, and emerged in a sparse loft. It had a wide side window at waist height, loaded bookcase, and wooden beams forming a steeple over a large bed.

This would be Jed’s room. Flowers and lace should keep her chaste.

Downstairs, she was sitting at the table, eating a second pastry, when Jed finally came inside. The door closed and there was the thud of one boot falling to the floor, then another. He appeared, socks soundless on the tiles, raindrops seeming to weigh him down through his grey jacket. His hair was wet.

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