Читать книгу The Princess And The Cowboy - Martha Shields, Martha Shields - Страница 11

“A princess!”

Buck snatched the newspaper from the counter of the gas station where he was getting the truck filled.

No. This couldn’t be true.

But the woman in the photo, staring stony-eyed back at him, looked exactly like Josie. Her hair was twisted up in a much more elaborate do than the one she’d taken down before they drove into Carson City, and instead of a Resistol, she was wearing a tiara.

A damned tiara.

The caption beneath the photo claimed this was Princess Joséphene Francoeur of Montclaire.

Joséphene. Josie. Josephine, she’d spelled for the court clerk last night. No coincidence. His wife was a princess. A real, honest-to-God, crown-wearing, kiss-her-hand princess.

“Princess Joséphene Missing; Feared Kidnapped,” the headline screamed.

Buck scanned the article that told how she’d attended an American friend’s wedding at the Porter ranch outside Auburn, California. The horse she’d evidently slipped away on had returned to the stable, riderless. The article went on to speculate about rumors that had been flying through the press about her imminent wedding to Alphonse Picquet, one of the richest men in Europe. By press time no one had an explanation for her disappearance, but the police were not ruling out foul play.

Foul play. Buck barked out a mirthless laugh. The only foul play had been committed by the princess herself—by conning him into marrying her.

Princess.

He threw the paper down as if it had suddenly been smeared with an offensive substance.

What the hell did she think she was doing? And why the hell had she chosen him as her scapegoat?

His eyes narrowed. Did his mother have something to do with this?

He shook his head. As much as Alicia Buchanan wished she hobnobbed with royalty, he knew damned well she didn’t.

She wasn’t going to, either. There was no way he was taking Josie to his father’s party tonight. His mother would be drooling so much they’d have to bring in buckets just to catch it all.

A damn princess. Not of some major European country, but—

Wait a minute. Royalty married royalty, didn’t they?

His mouth twisted in derision. Obviously not.

Alphonse Picquet certainly wasn’t royalty. He was a shipping tycoon whose greedy fingers reached all over the world. Buck had felt the strength of those fingers in an investment he’d made a couple of years back. Picquet had tried to play dirty. Only Buck’s quick influx of cash had saved the deal.

The guy was Eurotrash. He was more than twice Josie’s age, with all the charm and attraction of a bull moose. And if the rumors were true, his sexual appetites tended toward the bizarre and sometimes violent. The little princess had evidently heard about the women Picquet had scarred—mentally and physically—so she’d conned Buck into marrying her instead. But that was understandable—smart of her, really. It was the other.…