This, then, must be one of their offspring. But what was this miller about, allowing a defenseless maid to roam the countryside unescorted and dressed in such provocative garb—or completely undressed, as the case now stood?
As soon as Hugo arrived at Stephensgate Manor, he would send for the miller, and see to it that the girl was better protected in the future. Did the man not ken the riffraff that traveled the roads these days, the footpads and cutthroats and despoilers of young women such as the one below him?
So fixed was Hugo upon his musings that for a moment, he did not realize that the maid had paddled out of view. Where the waterfall cascaded, the pool below was out of his line of vision, being blocked off by the rock outcropping on which he lay. He assumed that the girl had ducked beneath the waterfall, perhaps to rinse her hair.
Hugo waited, pleasantly anticipating the girl’s reappearance. He wondered to himself whether the chivalrous thing to do was to creep away now, without drawing attention to himself, then meet up with her again upon the road, as if by accident, and offer her escort home to the Stephensgate.
It was as he was deciding that he heard a soft sound behind him, and then suddenly, something very sharp was at his throat, and someone very light was astride his back.
It was with an effort that Hugo controlled his soldierly instinct to strike first and question later.
But he had never before felt so slim an arm circle his neck, nor such slight thighs straddle his back. Nor had his head ever been jerked against such a temptingly soft cushion.
“Stay perfectly still,” advised his captor, and Hugo, enjoying the warmth from her thighs and, more particularly, the softness of the hollow between her breasts, where she kept the back of his head firmly anchored, was happy to oblige her.
“I’ve a knife at your throat,” the maid informed him in her boyishly throaty voice, “but I won’t use it unless I have to. If you do as I say, you shan’t be harmed. Do you understand?”
Thursday, April 27, 7 p.m., the loft
Daphne Delacroix
1005 Thompson Street, Apt. 4A
New York, NY 10003
Dear Author,
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to read your manuscript. However, it does not suit our needs at the present time.
Not even a signature! Thanks for nothing.
I just walked in the door and Mom wants to know why someone named Daphne Delacroix keeps getting all this mail from publishing houses addressed to our apartment.
Busted!
I thought about lying to her, too, but there’s no point, really. She’s going to catch me eventually, especially ifRansom My Heart does get published someday, and I build my own wing onto the Royal Genovian Hospital, or whatever.
Okay, well, I have no idea how much published novelists get paid, but I heard the forensic mystery writer Patricia Cornwell bought a helicopter with her book money.
Not that I need a helicopter, because I have my own jet (well, Dad does).
So I was just like, “I sent out my book under a fake name just to see if I could get it published.”
My mom already suspects what I wrote wasn’t a really long history paper. I couldn’t lie toher about it. She saw me in my room, listening to theMarie Antoinette movie sound-track with my headphones on and Fat Louie by my side, typing away all the time…well, whenever I wasn’t at school, princess lessons, therapy, or out with Tina or J.P.
I know it’s bad to lie to your own mother. But if I told her what my book wasreally about, she’d want to read it.
And there’sno way I want Helen Thermopolis reading what I actually wrote. I mean, sex scenes and your mother? No, thank you.
“Well,” Mom said, pointing to my letter. “What did they say?”
“Oh,” I said. “Not interested.”
“Hmmm,” Mom said. “It’s a tough market these days. Especially for a history on Genovian olive oil presses.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Tell me about it.”
God, what if TMZ got hold of the truth about me? What a liar I am, I mean? What kind of role model am I? I make Vanessa Hudgens look like Mother Freaking Teresa. Minus the whole nudity thing. Because I’m not about to take naked photos of myself and send them to my boyfriend.
Thankfully it was kind of hard to have a conversation with Mom because Mr. G was practicing his drums, with Rocky banging along on his toy drum set.
When he saw me, Rocky dropped his drumsticks and ran over to throw his arms around my knees, screaming, “Meeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhh!”
It’s nice to be able to come home to someone who’s always happy to see you, even if it’s an almost three-year-old.
“Yeah, hi, I’m home,” I said. It’s no joke trying to walk with a toddler attached to you. “What’s for dinner?”
“It’s two-for-one pizza night at Tre Giovanni,” Mr. Gianini said, hanging up his sticks. “How can you even ask?”
“Where were you?” Rocky wanted to know.
“I had to go shopping with my friends,” I said.
“But you din’t buy anything,” Rocky said, looking at my empty hands.
“I know,” I explained, heading to the kitchen drawer where we keep the silverware with him still attached to me. It’s my job to set the table. I may be a princess, but I still have chores. That’s one thing we established during family sessions with Dr. K. “That’s because we went prom dress shopping, and I’m not going to the prom, because it’s lame.”
“Since when is the prom lame?” Mr. Gianini wanted to know, wrapping a towel around his neck. Drumming can make you sweaty, as I know all too well, from the small damp person attached to my legs.
“Since she became a bitingly sarcastic, soon-to-be college girl,” Mom said, pointing at me. “Speaking of which, family meeting after dinner. Oh, hello.”
She said this last part into the phone, then gave Tre our standard order of two medium pies, one all meat for herself and Mr. G, and one all cheese, for Rocky and me. I’m back on the vegetarian bandwagon. Well, I’m really more of a flexatarian…I don’t order meat for myself except in times of extreme stress when I need a quick source of high protein, such as beef tacos (so irresistible, though I try to abstain). But when someone else serves meat to me—for instance, at last week’s meeting of the Domina Rei—I’ll eat it to be polite.
“Family meeting about what?” I demanded, when Mom hung up.
“You,” she said. “Your father’s scheduled a conference call.”
Great. There’s really nothing I look forward to more than a nice call from my dad in Genovia in the evening. That’s always a big guarantee a good time will be had by all. Not.
“What did I do now?” I wanted to know. Because, seriously, I haven’t done anything (except lie to everyone I know about…well, everything). But other than that, I’m always home by curfew, and it isn’t even because I have a bodyguard who basically ensures it, either. My boyfriend is way conscientious. J.P. doesn’t want to get on the bad side of my father (or mother or stepfather), and when we get together, he freaks if I’m not on my way home a half hour before I’m supposed to be, and so he literally hurls me into Lars’s arms every time.
So whatever Dad’s calling about—I didn’t do it.
Not this time, anyway.
I went to my room to visit Fat Louie before the pizzas came. I worry about him so much. Because let’s just say I do choose to make everyone I know furious with me, and go to a college in the U.S. instead of L’Université de Genovia, which really no one but the sons and daughters of celebrity plastic surgeons and dentists who couldn’t get in anywhere else attends. (Spencer Pratt fromThe Hills probably would have gone there, if he hadn’t leached his way on to his girlfriend’s ex-friend’s TV show.Lana probably would have had to go there, if I hadn’t forced her to make studying, not getting onto lastnightsparty.com, a priority her junior year.)