The Duchess and Her Bodyguard. Mollie Molay
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he replied. If she’d asked for him as an escort solely because of his uniform, she was out of luck. “Today we’re going to play at being ordinary folk.”
Ordinary folk. Wade smothered a remark when she raised her eyebrows. No way was the lady going to be able to play at being ordinary. Not when she looked as if she’d just stepped off the cover of Elle magazine.
“Wal-Mart, here we come,” he muttered under his breath. “Is there someplace private where we can talk before we leave?”
She handed him a slip of paper. “If this is what you wish to talk about, I’ve already made a list of the places I want to see.”
Wade glanced at the list. Planet Hollywood. Hard Rock Café. The antique shops at the Capitol Hill District. The infamous grunge Morgan-Hill shopping area. The list went on and included places Wade knew from experience were definitely not for royal visitors. Especially one who could be the target of troublemakers.
The only item on the list he felt comfortable with was the National Portrait Gallery. He sighed and pocketed the slip of paper.
“We can decide later,” he said with a sidelong glance at the fashionable royal outfit. “First, we have to buy you some less obtrusive clothing.”
Over the duchess’s protests, he stopped to tell the Secret Service men to follow him before he hailed a cab. No way was he going to travel around D.C. in a black unmarked car that broadcast Secret Service presence.
“No car?” Her eyebrows rose suspiciously.
“Not today. It’s in for repairs.” He handed her into the cab and directed the driver to Wal-Mart. The duchess looked annoyed when she walked in the door, but thank goodness she kept her thoughts to herself. If she didn’t know what Wal-Mart was, she was in for a surprise. “Anyway, Your Grace, after we get through shopping, we’ll probably get by more easily by taking the tourmobile around the mall.”
“Tourmobile? Mall?” The Duchess frowned. “They are not on my list.”
“Maybe not,” Wade replied. “But they are on mine.”
He had to give the duchess credit when she bit her bottom lip and silently browsed her way through racks of inexpensive brightly colored summer clothing.
May refused to let her temper show. She’d agreed to dress down but she wasn’t thrilled about the variety of choices. Designer clothing was more what she was accustomed to wearing. Still, an agreement was an agreement if it would get her to where she wanted to go.
She had put the National Portrait Gallery and a few well-known museums on her list to throw her escort off the track. The Capitol Hill District and its antique shops were surely someplace where she was sure she could lose herself, or maybe even the Morgan-Hill grunge shops. No matter how her escort might protest, she told herself, she intended to draw the line at stone monuments.
She had had it with men controlling her life. If the commander persisted in trying to control her, she would make his job very difficult. For these few days at least, it would be just a matter of time before she would be on her own and have a chance to be true to herself.
She hid her satisfaction as she browsed through the hanging racks. One by one she handed Wade a pair of size-six blue-denim slacks and an oversize sweatshirt with a U.S. flag and Washington, D.C., written across the front in large red, white and blue letters. When he silently pointed to her shoes, she bit her lower lip and headed for the shoe department to try on a pair of sturdy white athletic shoes.
“Anything else?”
Wade bit back a comment and motioned for her to wait while he checked out the dressing room. When he indicated the coast was clear, she sniffed and headed inside to change. But not before she threw him a look that conveyed her opinion of him. It wasn’t good.
With the duchess safely behind a closed door, Wade checked to make sure the Secret Service men were still in the vicinity. When he finally located the two in the sports department, he snorted his disgust. It was beginning to look as if the care and feeding of the duchess was largely going to be up to him.
Twenty minutes later the duchess finally emerged from the dressing room in her new clothing. To his relief, she wasn’t the duchess Mary Louise any longer. She was the woman he’d asked her to be. And a damn cute one at that.
“Is this dressed down enough for you?”
Lost in admiration, Wade silently nodded. With her chestnut hair curling loosely around her shoulders, she looked like a typical tourist, courtesy Wal-Mart. He knew, as sure as he knew his own name, as he checked her over, that even as May she would never be able to fade into the landscape.
Gowned in white chiffon or dressed in jeans and a garish sweatshirt no duchess would willingly wear, she was the most beautiful and desirable woman he’d ever met. For a moment he was taken aback. Then he reminded himself he was here as the duchess’s temporary escort and that his reactions were out of order.
He shrugged and, for a brief few moments, felt guilty. He watched her looking into a full-length mirror. Most women would have chewed him out by now for being so controlling. To add to his misgivings, behind the jeans and colorful sweatshirt there was something about the look in her eyes that told him she wasn’t as docile as she appeared to be. She would bear watching.
The Secret Service agents, back from checking out fishing rods, silently looked at each other.
Wade put the clothing the duchess had worn into the store into a shopping cart and headed for the checkout counters. The duchess, with the Secret Service trailing behind her, followed.
He might have been a success in creating the all-American girl next door, Wade thought in despair. But, heaven help him, the lady looked just as royal and just as unattainable as she’d been before.
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