How to Propose to a Prince by Kathryn Caskie

Elizabeth! What is happening?”
    “Don’t just stand there gawking. He’s been shot. Please help me!” she pleaded. “We must away. Now!”
    Edmund climbed into the cab and pulled theprince completely inside, positioning him on the forward bench. He reached out a hand and pulled Elizabeth inside. “He’s bleeding fierce, miss.”
    “I know. I know.” Her nerves were screaming, her mind a complete jumble. “Can you take us from here, at once? I know it is dangerous to help us now, Edmund, but I need you to climb atop the carriage and take us from here. Someone is trying to kill the prince.”
    “Aye, miss. I am your servant.” Edmund gave a parting look at the prince, then scrambled from the cab and latched the door behind him. “Where to?” he called back.
    “Hyde Park. The Serpentine,” came the prince’s low voice. “Hurry.”
    “Hyde Park, Edmund. At once!” Elizabeth knelt down on the floor beside the prince as the carriage lurched forward and departed the carriage queue.
    He opened his eyes as she smoothed back his hair from his face, then peeled open his coat and then his lawn shirt. She slid her right hand under him and felt a round hole in the back of his coat. She exhaled.
    The prince winced as she slipped her finger around the opening of the hole, and then he tried to sit up.
    “Do not attempt to rise,” she said as she tore a swath of silk from her skirt and balled it up. “You’ve been hit just below the shoulder. It seems to have gone through cleanly, but you are bleeding quite a lot.”
    Through his pain, he managed a weak smile. “How do you come by your medical expertise, Miss Royle?” He bit into his lower lip as the carriage tilted, rounding a corner.
    She forced a practiced nurse’s smile at her patient and began to chatter as calm gave way to great concern. “Did I tell you that my father was a physician? My sisters and I all worked by his side as we were growing up. I tell you this because I can help you. You will be feeling much better very soon.” She peered into his half-open eyes. “Only what I must do now will hurt. Please, remain as still as you can. I am going to bandage you to slow the bleeding.”
    She ripped a second piece from her skirt and positioned one of the silk pads she’d fashioned atop the entry wound and the other atop the place on his back where it exited. She removed the dark blue ribbon that encircled her ribs and tied it around both pads. It barely reached.
    The prince blinked up at her and sighed. “I apologize for marring your gown—for a second time.” He tried to laugh, she knew, but his effortsounded like a groan the moment it left his mouth. “I’ve bled all over your gown. This time I fear a little air will not suffice as a remedy.”
    Elizabeth looked down and saw a rivulet of blood trickling down her bodice. She touched the wetness and traced it upward along her neck, to her ear, and to a place throbbing just above her temple. Warily, she settled her finger atop it. Pain seared through her skull, making her dizzy and nauseous. The blood on her gown was not his. It was her own.
    “I fear…this time,” she muttered, “you were not at fault.”
    “Dear God.” His eyes went wide with concern. “You’ve been shot?”
    “It is nothing,” she replied, not wishing for him to worry since his injury was far more severe. “It is only a scratch. Minor cuts to the head are notorious for bleeding.” But then she felt it—overwhelming fear. Doom.
    Her nightmare had come true.

Chapter 6
    E lizabeth heard the driver’s leather whip crack in the night air as he urged his team onward, faster. It took only a clutch of minutes to reach the gates of Hyde Park, and by then the prince had managed to sit propped upright on the bench.
    His strength and fortitude, after being literally shot through, astounded Elizabeth. Why, she almost believed he had commanded by sheer will the color to begin to return to his lips and cheeks.
    He hadn’t been so