Dixie Browning – Dark, Devastating & Delicious!: The Marriage Medallion / Between Duty and Desire / Driven to Distraction (страница 1)

DARK, DEVASTATING & DELICIOUS!

CHRISTINE RIMMER

LEANNE BANKS

DIXIE BROWNING

www.millsandboon.co.uk

THE MARRIAGE MEDALLION

BY

CHRISTINE RIMMER

Christine Rimmer, before settling down to write about the magic of romance, had been an actress, a salesperson, a caretaker, a model, a phone sales representative, a teacher, a waitress, a playwright and an office manager. Christine is grateful not only for the joy she finds in writing, but for what waits when the day’s work is through: a man she loves, who loves her right back, and the privilege of watching their children grow and change day to day. She lives with her family in Oklahoma.

For those who never looked for love,

those who had more important things to do.

I do so hope that love found you!

Chapter One

Princess Brit Thorson opened her eyes to find a blurry silver disc hanging directly in front of her face. Beyond the disc she could see the instrument panel of her Cessna Skyhawk.

She blinked. The metal disc still dangled, cold and heavy against the bridge of her nose, blocking the center of her vision. The controls were still there, too. Beyond them, through the windscreen now crosshatchedwith cracks, lay rocky ground. Farther away, steep black cliffs jutted downward, softened here and there with stands of evergreens, into a sliver of clear, pale blue Gullandrian sky.

It was cold and it was quiet—too quiet, except for the whispering whoosh of rising wind outside and various odd creaking noises all around her.

Her head hurt—and her arms were dangling over her head. “Huh?” The world swam and shifted, her addled senses locking at last onto the correct perspective.

She was hanging upside down from the pilot’s seat, held crookedly in place by her shoulder harness. The blurry disc? That silver medallion Medwyn Greyfell had given her before she left the palace on her way to the airport. “To keep you safe from all evil,” her father’s grand counselor had said.

Considering her current situation, the medallion could have done a better job.

Then again, though she hadn’t made it to that meadow farther inland where her landing would have been much less eventful, she was alive….

Brit groaned and shut her eyes as it all came flooding back: the unremarkable takeoff from Lysgard Airport. The smooth climbout to 6500 feet. Once she’d reached cruising level, she’d banked right, heading northwest, following the curve of the Gullandrian shoreline. At the mouth of Drakveden Fjord, she’d made a right ninety.

And then…

That routine oil-pressure check. The reading: zero.

The awful, hollow feeling of unreality as she went about setting up her best glide speed, running through her emergency checklist, reminding her guide in the rear seat to buckle up, getting on the radio at emergency frequency to broadcast her call of distress.

And all the time, checking below, seeking some viable strip of land where she might bring the Cessna down in one piece. She’d sighted the narrow spit of dry ground at what seemed like the last possible second.

The landing had been rough, but they’d made it down okay. It was during the rollout that she lost it. Some jut of rock must have snagged a wheel. She remembered the sickening lurch, the right wing going up.

About then everything went black…

Brit popped the belt latch and crumpled with a grunt to the deck—scratch that: roof. With some effort, she untangled her arms and legs and got herself into a sitting position. She stared at the dead instrument panel and tried to get her foggy mind to focus.

The Skyhawk was a beautiful, soundly engineered piece of machinery. No way it would completely lose oil pressure out of nowhere—not without help.

Whatever had gone wrong, it wasn’t by accident. Someone had tried to kill her. And someone had almost gotten what he—or she—wanted.

Gingerly she poked at the goose egg rising near her hairline. Hurt like hell. But other than that, now the disorientation was fading, she felt all right. Not terrific. Achy and stiff and bruised in places she’d never been bruised before. Also, a little too close to some serious cookie tossing. But passable. Once she and Rutland dragged themselves out of here, she should be able to keep up as the guide led the way to…

The thought trailed off unfinished. Rutland. When they boarded for takeoff, Rutland’s long, lined face had looked way too pale. “Don’t care much for flying, Highness. Think I’ll sit in back, if y’don’t mind.”

After this experience, Rutland would probably never get in a plane again.

Brit shivered. With the heater as dead as the upside-down instrument panel in front of her, the cabin was getting colder by the minute. Outside, the wind kept whining and fading and then rising to whine again.

“Rutland?” Her voice sounded strange—strained and a little shaky—in the unnatural creaking quiet of the cabin, with the eerie wind whistling outside. She wriggled around, getting herself facing aft. “You all ri—” That last word became a tight, anguished cry.

Her guide was rear-end up, knees to the roof along with his head, which was pressed into his shoulders at an impossible angle. He stared at her through sightless eyes.

She’d got it right a moment ago. Rutland Gottshield would never get in a plane again—except maybe to be flown somewhere for burial.

Brit clapped a hand over her mouth. Very carefully, she sucked in a long, shaky breath through her nose. She let the air out. And repeated the process.

She wanted to scream. To throw up. To totally freak. To just give herself over to the sick, swirling combination of pity, panic and guilt that threatened to overwhelm her.

She swore low, and commanded herself through clenched teeth, “No. Don’t you dare lose it. You keep it together.”

Ignoring as best she could the dead eyes of her guide, Brit took a slow, careful look around. Both left and right hatches were crumpled shut. She moved back and forth, testing the handles. She beat on one and then the other, getting her shoulder into it. Neither gave so much as a fraction.

Okay, so she wasn’t getting out through the doors. But she most definitely was getting out. And she was taking her pack, her coat and her weapon along with her, all of which waited aft—safe, she hoped—in the baggage net behind the rear seats.

Brit swallowed, sucked in another fortifying breath and wriggled between the front seats. Rutland was squarely in the way. As she tried to squeeze past him, his body crumpled to the side, landing half on top of her with a weird grunting rush of expelled air.

Deadweight, she thought with bleak humor. Never had the meaning of that phrase been so nauseatingly clear.

One deep breath. Another…

And then, with considerable effort, she pushed and prodded the body—still warm, oh, God—until it was rearranged into a marginally more dignified pose, resting against the battered side window, out of her way.

She collapsed the right rear seat back, got the baggage net unhooked and dragged out her stuff. Then, hauling it all along in front of her, she scrambled backward, slithering between the seats until she attained the cockpit area again.

“Weapon,” she muttered, breathless, panting. It was wild country out there. Also, she hadn’t fallen out of the sky by accident—and she’d do well to remember it.

Yes, she could shoot. Her uncle Cam had taught her, out in the vineyards of his Napa estate, years and years ago. And she kept in practice at a certain San Fernando Valley shooting range. When you lived and worked in one of the rougher areas of L.A., it never hurt to be able to protect yourself—whether at home or on the job. The job being the East Hollywood pizzeria where Brit waited tables to make ends meet.

The painful truth? Though Brit could handle a weapon and fly a plane, she’d dropped out of UCLA—and somehow she could never quite manage to live on the income from her trust fund. There were always too many things she had to do. Flight lessons. Backpacking trips. Self-defense classes. Shooting range fees. And then, well, sometimes a friend would need a loan and she couldn’t bring herself to tell them no.

Thus, the Pizza Pitstop had become part of her life. Paolo, Roberto and the guys always found it so amusing, when she told them to keep hands off or they’d be looking down the barrel of her trusty SIG 220. “Macha woman,” they called her, chuckling with affection.

Not much to chuckle over now. Brit strapped on her shoulder holster, loaded her weapon and slid it in place beneath her left arm. Then she pulled on her thick down jacket. Barely September, and already it was major nippy in the Vildelund—the Vildelund being the Gullandrian name for the wild north country of her father’s land.

Weapon loaded and ready, wearing her coat—unzipped, so she could reach the gun if she had to—her pack close at hand, she was ready to go.

Yet she didn’t move. Cold as it was in the cabin, it would be colder still outside. She’d almost rather stay in here with her dead guide and the increasing chill and the creepy creaking sounds. At least in here she knew what she was up against.