Princess In Denim Read online

  PRINCESS IN DENIM

  By Jenna McKnight

  First Published By Harlequin Books

  Copyright 1998 by Virginia Schweiss

  E-book and Cover Formatted by Jessica Lewis

  http://authorslifesaver.com

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  Dear Reader,

  When Chloe Marshall met Princess Moira back in college, she never dreamed they'd one day be trading places. Imagine small-town girl Chloe in a 130-room castle with a maid, a stretch limo and a gorgeous king — hers for the asking!

  And where has the real princess been all this time? You can find out in Cowgirl in Pearls, when Moira hooks up with the sexiest cowboy in the West. I hope you enjoy this fun duet!

  A special thank you to Emma Jensen for her patience and generosity, to Bonnie Crisalli for seeing the possibilities, to Debra Matteucci for understanding and, last but not least, to Huntley Fitzpatrick for jumping in.

  I enjoy hearing from readers. You can reach me through my website at http://www.jennamcknight.com or through my blog at jennamcknight.wordpress.com/contact.

  Happy reading!

  Jenna

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title page

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Chloe Marshall tugged a dirty tank top out of the hamper, sniffed it to make sure it wasn't totally unacceptable for wear, then slipped into it. One had to make concessions when the washing machine broke down. Again. It seemed all she'd done lately was make concessions.

  She pulled her sun-bleached ponytail through the back of her Dodgers cap, grabbed a pair of toaster pop-ups for breakfast and her keys, then whistled up Friday, her black-and-white Australian shepherd. "Go for a ride?"

  The dog tore through the run-down apartment in order to get to the door before Chloe could change her mind, as if she would. They'd been inseparable since they first laid eyes on each other at the dog pound three years ago; Chloe had learned not to take another job where she'd take home more than her paycheck.

  Friday, stubby tail wagging and tongue hanging out, hogged the driver's seat of Chloe's army-surplus jeep.

  "Move over. You know you can't drive."

  Chloe slipped in behind the wheel, coaxed the vintage vehicle to start one more time, whispered a quick "Thank you" to the powers that be and headed north, away from Santa Barbara. Friday kept her brown eyes steadfastly on Chloe until she'd devoured all but the last crumb of her strawberry pop-ups, which she shared.

  Rancho Santa Ynez, a quaint, private little rancho with low stucco buildings and red-tiled roofs, nestled snugly in the Santa Ynez Mountains. Chloe couldn't afford to keep a horse there herself, but she bartered her equine skills for riding time.

  She tapped her horn to warn the barn cats that she'd brought their worst enemy, then parked next to her best friend Moira's limo. Friday leaped out and took up her vigilant post as man's best friend and feline eradicator. Though if the dog ever caught one, Chloe wasn't sure just what she'd do with it.

  "Morning, John."

  Moira's driver paced a slow circle around the princess's shiny black limo. He had a rolled up newspaper in one hand, and he tipped his head respectfully in Chloe's direction. "Miss Marshall."

  It was John's job to drive Moira to the rancho and wait for her. It was his passion to prevent the cats from adorning the limo's spotless sheen with pawprints. Now that Chloe was here and Friday had sent the cats scurrying for the rafters, John could take a break.

  "Have you been here long?"

  "Twelve and a half minutes, to be exact"

  John was always exact. Moira's whole staff, as a matter of fact, was exact. Unequaled. Perfect in every way.

  Which only highlighted the foibles in Chloe's everyday existence. The broken washing machine. The cranky Jeep. The dented front bumper that hadn't been her fault.

  "Chloe!" Moira yelled from inside the barn. "Come get this mutt away from me."

  "See you later, John."

  Everyone else steered clear of Chloe's dog, and vice versa. Moira, however, was a princess for real, in spite of being Chloe's best friend. And Her Royal Highness, the Princess Moira of Ennsway, didn't have it in her to give the shepherd a wide berth and ignore the perpetual growls.

  "Hi, Moira." With a simple wave of her hand, Chloe dispersed Friday to the other end of the barn before Moira had a hissy fit.

  "Who're you riding today?"

  Chloe didn't get her pick of whom she rode; it was determined by the number of hours she'd worked. And the drudge scale. Graining at dawn bartered a better mount than, say, graining in the evening. And a week of mucking out stalls gave her two hours' use of the owner's prize stallion.

  Chloe hadn't earned anything this week. "Bum's Henry."

  Moira snickered. "Really, Chloe, Doc's wasting a good equestrian like you on Hank."

  "Yeah, I know, but I had a test in geology and a paper in psych this week, so you know I didn't get much real work done. It's okay, though. Hank reminds me of the first mustang I caught and broke."

  Moira got a dreamy look on her face. Chloe suspected it had nothing to do with the fact that some poor lackey was tacking up Moira's Lipizzan for her. A princess, after all, didn't have to do anything on a drudge scale. She got to sit cross-legged on a bale of sweet alfalfa and wait patiently. Now, if a genie suddenly appeared and granted Chloe three wishes, that one sounded like a pretty good start. But that was about as likely to happen as her lottery numbers all coming up on the same day.

  "A real mustang?"

  "Uh-huh." In the stall, Chloe had to squeeze into a corner with Hank, a bay gelding, just to get the halter on the opinionated beast. She started to lead him out, and Friday ran in to nip at his heels, just in case he didn't feel up to a workout today. No one was surprised when Hank bolted through the door, barely missing Chloe's feet, which was entirely due to her quick reflexes and not his sparkling personality.

  "You're so lucky," Moira said.

  Chloe tripped over her own feet. "Excuse me?"

  "Well, look at you."

  Chloe checked out her unwashed tank top, her faded jeans, and her cowboy boots, which were so old, they had stories to tell. "Yeah, so?"

  Moira lowered her voice. "You live by yourself. You drive by yourself. You can cover a bad hair day with a ball cap

  "I always wear a ball cap."

  Moira smiled apologetically. "I know. I didn't mean anything by it. I just meant if you had a bad hair day, no one would notice."

  "Uh-huh." She'd never heard her friend quite like this. "And this is leading where?"

  Moira sighed as Chloe hooked Hank in the cross ties and applied the mud scraper and a good deal of elbow grease to hi
s coat. "I dreamed about the castle last night."

  Chloe perked up. Moira used to tell such wonderful stories about the castle where she'd grown up in actual bailey, a great hall, a staff that outnumbered a small city, birthday parties with elephants to ride...

  "I'm surprised I dreamed about it. I don't miss it at all."

  Chloe did, and she'd never even set foot in Ennsway, or any other part of Europe for that matter. "Tell me about it," she begged.

  "My dream?"

  "Your castle."

  And so, while Chloe scraped crust off Hank, Moira rewove fairy tales about her childhood—a stable full of prize horses, Christmas gifts of porcelain dolls and diamond bracelets from heads of state, a canopied bed in a room big enough to house an orchestra....

  Emma, Moira's private secretary, perched herself on a nearby bale of hay. She was a tall, slender woman, smartly dressed in a chambray suit that earned its price tag by looking deceptively casual. "If you miss it so much, we can go home," she said softly.

  Moira shot to her feet. "But I don't!" She paced the dirt-packed aisle. "I never have. Chloe, remember when we used to trade places with each other?"

  Chloe darted a glance at Emma. Sure, it was a little late now to worry about getting caught, but they'd never told anyone. Or at least she hadn't.

  "Oh, she knows." Moira's laugh was light and carefree. "She had us figured out all along."

  "Yeah, I remember." With Hank clean and his hooves picked, Chloe started to tack up. She looked forward to these rides and wanted to get on the Santa Ynez trails as soon as possible. It wasn't punching cattle in Texas. It wasn't trick riding in rodeos. But on the mountain trails, all her problems melted away for an hour or two. "As I recall, I got the better end of the deal."

  "You think?"

  "Sure. I got Emma, the chauffeur, the maid, the nice clothes, meals which I still can't pronounce the names of—"

  "How would you like to do it again?"

  "What?"

  Moira checked over her shoulder and lowered her voice. "How would you like to trade places again?"

  Chloe grinned. "You have some prince coming to court you that you don't want?"

  "I'm serious."

  "So am I. Throw in a prince and you've got a deal." When that got no response, Chloe peeked over Hank's withers at Moira and Emma. The two women were standing as near to side by side as they could get, keeping in mind Emma's subservient position. "You're serious?"

  "Deadly."

  "But we only did it years ago to fool the professors. You're not even in school anymore."

  It was Moira's turn to grin. "Well, some of us have to graduate. Unlike you, who just keeps on learning."

  "I could graduate."

  "You have enough credits for four degrees."

  "What can I say? I like college."

  Chloe didn't catch Moira's mutter, but it sounded suspiciously like "I guess."

  Her mind proceeded to race with imagined delights. Maybe Moira needed a substitute for a grand ball. There was nothing wrong with a weekend of chauffeur-driven limousine rides, wearing a long gown and dripping in diamonds. She'd never seen Moira with a tiara; maybe one of those was too much to wish for.

  "Who would we be fooling? And for how long?"

  There was a moment of total silence, a rather rare thing in a barn. No dog barking at a cat, no horse stomping its irritation with a fly. Just one woman waiting for an answer that was slow in coming from two others.

  "Everyone," Moira finally answered. "Forever."

  "Yeah, I wish. April Fool's was last month."

  "We're serious, Chloe," Emma said. The fact that she'd joined the conversation and included herself with that "we" gave Chloe her first hint that she'd been set up.

  "Serious?" Chloe tightened Hank's girth and snickered. "Uh-huh."

  Moira stepped closer and faced Chloe across the seat of the western saddle. "Honest to God, Chloe. We're serious."

  Chloe looked her in the eyes. She'd known Moira for ten years. In all that time, Moira had never teased her mercilessly, which was what Chloe feared this might be. "You know, it wouldn't be nice for y'all to tempt me with an offer like this and then yank it back out of my reach."

  Expectation lightened Moira's smile. "You'll consider it, then?"

  A chauffeur, a maid, a chef, a private secretary, a castle in Ennsway...

  What was not to consider?

  "Nah. You're loco if you think we'd get away with it There are too many people here who know us."

  "Not here," Moira said quickly. "My father wants me to come home to stay. No one in Ennsway has seen me since I was twelve."

  Chloe heard hope in Moira's voice, desperation, as if she were a hungry animal sensing that its prey will tire before it does. It was reaffirmed by Moira's quickening speech.

  "We fooled all of our professors, Chloe. Some of our classmates. You liked being treated like a princess, you said so every time. We can do this, Chloe. I know we can. And...and Emma will go home with you. You know, to help you over the rough spots. Say you'll do it, Chloe. Please."

  Who in her right mind would say no?

  Chapter One

  How I Spent My Spring Break... by Chloe Marshall.

  Chloe pulled her ponytail through her blue-and-white ball cap and amended that to How I Spent the Rest of My Life as a Princess... The "by" part got her on that one. Would it be by Chloe Marshall? Or, having spent the past week learning princess rules and wearing princess clothes and practicing princess things, it probably should be by Princess Moira.

  But she wasn't feeling a hundred percent royal just yet. Not because she was tired from a long day of getting ready, but because the reality just hadn't sunk in. She'd gone over and over the plan, looking for a catch. But knowing Moira as well as she did, she wasn't surprised to find none.

  "Friday! Come on, girl. Time to go."

  After a week of round-the-clock intensive trading-places study in Moira's cliffside condo, Chloe's apartment looked even more worn. Everything that hadn't been sold or given away was packed. Moira was moving on, and wouldn't be taking Chloe's place here. They were both leaving California behind, a part of their past never to be revisited.

  And, as she'd thought a couple of times this past week, she wondered how she was going to get over moving away from her best friend. It wasn't as if Moira could fly to Ennsway for a visit; that would be tempting fate. As a royal princess, Chloe wouldn't be able to just hop a jet and move in with Moira for the weekend, wherever she ended up; Chloe would have an entire entourage to account for.

  She took one last look around the apartment. No, last week it had been worn. This week it was shabby. She lugged out three pieces of mismatched luggage, closed the door and led the way toward a taxi. Friday followed closely.

  "I don't like dogs in my cab," the driver said bluntly.

  Friday growled ominously, and the short, round man backed off slowly, then made a dash for his place behind the wheel. He turned the key, shifted into drive and promptly killed the engine. Fortunately for Chloe, who was then able to throw her luggage into the back seat and jump in after it before the cabbie could leave her standing on the curb.

  "Santa Barbara Airport," she told him, and hoped he was listening.

  Friday, who'd leaped into the cab with her, rested her head on the back of the front seat and growled every time the poor man glanced her way. By the time they reached the airport, he had beads of sweat popping out on his neck.

  He scurried out his door, opened the back one and reached in tentatively. Friday apparently decided it was her job to keep this man from robbing Chloe of her few possessions, and escalated her growls accordingly.

  "Come on, lady, gimme a break."

  "Oh, now you're talking to me?"

  She snapped the brand-new leash onto the brand-new collar, her going-away present to her second-best friend. Before she knew it, she was standing on the sidewalk beside her luggage as the cab sped away, tires squealing.

  "But wait, sir, I
forgot your tip," she said airily. "Come on, girl."

  Friday wasn't accustomed to a leash, and Chloe wasn't very handy with three bags and a leashed dog who had her hog-tied in eight seconds. On the ninth, Chloe hit the pavement. A nice young man in a business suit stepped forward to help, but the dog scared him into backing off.

  About this time, with Chloe wrapped up on her rear on the pavement, Moira's limo pulled up. Her baggage master whisked her luggage away. Moira waited for John to open the door for her and then emerged in a beautiful pale yellow jacket-and-skirt ensemble that would have cost Chloe six months' pay. It was topped off with a pearl necklace and matching earrings that were undoubtedly real and of the finest quality. Not that Chloe would know, except that she knew Moira only got the best. Emma saw to that. They immediately headed toward the terminal entrance.

  "Uh, hel-lo-o..." Chloe said, when no one seemed to notice her sitting there. She tried to get up, but she hadn't gotten untangled yet.

  Emma's jaw dropped open, and then she closed her eyes, as if not looking would assure her the whole week's worth of princess tutoring hadn't been wasted.

  Moira's regal look gave way to a grin. "Hello, yourself. Teddy, see to Miss Marshall's bags, too, please."

  Teddy jumped to do her bidding. "Yes, Your Royal Highness."

  "I'd have someone help you up, Chloe, but nobody can get near you with that mongrel growling like that."

  Chloe ignored her friend's smirk. "Hey, she's purebred. And she doesn't bite."

  "How would you know?"

  "She's never bitten anyone." Chloe unhooked the leash from Friday's collar; it was the only way she could get unwound. Moira and Emma immediately looked anywhere but at the dog, knowing that aggravated her, until Chloe was on her feet and reattached.

  Moira looked at the leash pointedly. "I didn't know you knew how to use one of those things."

  "If I did, I wouldn't have been sitting on the sidewalk."

  As they walked side by side through the arched doorway into the Spanish-style terminal, Moira lowered her voice and asked, "Did you remember everything?"