Prince Charming Read Online Free PDF Page A

flamboyant, silver-tongued, devil-may-care.
    Having singled out the useless lords of his entourage as her prey, Dani knew all about the royal scoundrel and his friends.
    He drank, the gazettes said, referring to him merely as R . He gambled. He squandered fortunes on beautiful but useless things, like the paintings and the priceless objets d’art he collected and the jewel box of a pleasure palace that he had built himself on the edge of the city. He dueled. He swore. He flirted with virgins and old maids alike, so ludicrously charming to all women equally that it was clear he wanted none to take him very seriously. He laughed too loud and played practical jokes; he sailed that blasted yacht of his around the islands morning and noon, whooping and bare-chested under the sun like a savage. He frequented houses of ill repute and merrily tormented the night watchman as he went staggering home with his friends in the wee hours of morning.
    Yet for all his faults, there was not a female in the kingdom who had not dreamed of what it might be like to be his princess for a day. Even Dani had lain awake wide-eyed in her bed for several nights, pondering her questions about him following the single occasion on which she had glimpsed the man himself, when she had ventured into the city with Maria to buy the winter’s grain. What was he like? she had wondered. What was he really like? What made him so mad? Behind his wall of guards, he had been coming out of a posh boutique with a stunning blond on his arm, who dripped with diamonds. The prince’s head was lowered as he listened attentively to what she was saying and he had laughed softly at her words.
    Scraping their half-pennies together, Dani and Maria had been standing right there on the sidewalk, nearly close enough to touch their exquisite clothes as the celestial pair passed and disappeared into the coach that waited in the middle of the street, blocking traffic.
    She winced at the memory of her own girlish awe and her certainty that she had just fallen in love at first sight with him. It was easier now to remember that the man cared for nothing but himself and his pleasures. The present throbbing of her arm where he had shot her was enough to dispel any leftover fantasies. In this world of unreliable men, a wise woman dared depend only on herself.
    A shout from outside suddenly broke into her thoughts.
    Finally! Thank God they’re all right. Dani swept away from her grandfather’s bedside and dashed to the window, but then her blood ran cold.
    She stared down at the dusty lawn, gripping the window frame. Mateo, Alvi, Rocco, and little Gianni had made it onto her property, but even now, before her eyes, a thundering pack of soldiers closed in on them, surrounded them, and pulled them down out of their saddles, brawling on her lawn.
    One soldier brought the butt of his pistol down on the back of Alvi’s head. Another knocked little Gianni to the ground, and she knew the fire-eater Mateo would fight them with all he had and likely get himself killed.
    She whirled away from the window and ran for the door. Brushing past Maria, she tore down the steps. Enraged and reckless, she threw open the door and burst out into the night, but when she saw them, in her heart of hearts she knew already it was too late.
    Mateo and the others were already being placed under arrest by the prince’s soldiers. Even the child was being seized.
    She saw red. Descended from a line as proud and old and nearly as royal as the prince’s own, she stood clenching and unclenching her fists for a second, feeling the blood of dukes and generals surging in her veins.
    Then she charged forth with a battle cry. “Let them go!”
     
     
    Bested! — by a mere slip of a lad, he thought. He was surely going to wring someone’s neck. “Little cutthroat savage little hellion,” Rafe was muttering in fury as he staggered to his feet a moment or two later. “A cheap and ungentlemanly shot! I’ll get you, vile