A Royal in Christmas Town
Box Set 9 in Heartwarming Christmas Town
Welcome back to Christmas Town, Maine!
Fans of Hallmark movies set in small towns with quirky characters will enjoy this sweet collection of 5 clean holiday romances featuring a prince and his body double.
When Prince Evander of Verdenia embarks on a secret state visit to the U.S., he never imagines being stranded in small, snowy Christmas Town with his royal entourage. But the storm of the century has shut down all roads. And the only rooms left are at the Holly Berry Inn, which is in the process of being renovated. Not exactly royal accommodations. The inn doesn't even have a working kitchen!
Not even back-to-back-to-back blizzards can stop Christmas Town's holiday magic.
Despite road closures, the Knotty Elves find ways to encourage love through their matchmaking, meddlesome ways (and knitting, of course). There are kisses beneath the town square gazebo, slices of Posey's peppermint pie, and heartwarming holiday traditions galore!
This collection of romances hits all the right romance notes and tropes. From the prince to the royal bodyguard to the chef to the princess to the reporter out for a scoop, this set of connected, clean romances from Harlequin Heartwarming authors is sure to warm your holiday-loving heart.
Excerpt:
Mercy Montgomery had a long list of impossible tasks to accomplish and less time than needed to get things done before she re-opened the Holly Berry Inn.
This is why Santa needs a workshop full of elves.
Mercy followed her other Christmas Town Pageant Committee volunteers down the hallway of the retirement home. She admired the door decorations as she passed—a wreath with glittery gold ribbon and eight hand-stitched reindeer, a cluster of bells attached to a sprig of pine, a large, blinking snowflake.
There was Christmas wherever Mercy looked at Over the River, along with finished walls, clean carpets, and modern lighting. In comparison, the Victorian inn Mercy called home was unfinished, filled with construction supplies, full of renovation challenges, and without a lick of holiday cheer. Including inside Mercy.
That’s what stress did to a person. It sapped all their holiday exuberance.
“Look at the snow coming down,” someone ahead of Mercy said as the group entered the retirement home’s lobby.
“Over a foot of snow and the storm is only a few hours old,” the mayor said, pausing to pick up a candy cane that had fallen from the lobby’s Christmas tree. He placed it on a branch low enough for a child or someone in a wheelchair to reach.
“The state closed the highways within the past hour,” the sheriff’s deputy said, veering right, possibly to avoid standing beneath a sprig of mistletoe, much to the disgust of the Knotty Elves, if their scoffing behind Mercy was any indication. “Most bridges iced over last night. It’s too dangerous to drive far and it’s only going to get worse.” He glanced at Mercy. “The only thing we’re recommending anyone do over the next few days is shovel walkways, yours and your neighbors’, if you’re able. Otherwise, you stay inside.”
Mercy nodded. “You don’t have to tell me twice.” She’d stocked up on food and would gladly avoid the snow and icy wind. Miami born, this was her first Maine winter, and she was always cold, no matter how many layers she wore.
The mayor, sheriff, and several others hurried outside toward their vehicles in what was already looking like near white-out conditions.
“I was expecting a few days of quiet after Thanksgiving and before the Christmas rush,” Esther said. She owned Esther’s House, soon to be a competitor of Mercy’s. Esther picked up a snow globe on a coffee table and gave it a good shake, putting Santa and his reindeer in a blizzard much like the one building steam outside. “But with so many tourists staying rather than trying to travel home today, and with so many highway travelers looking for rooms, we’re fully booked. I’ve had to turn folks away.”
Preparing for the cold, Mercy zipped her jacket, wrapped her scarf twice around her face and neck, and then tugged on her knit hat and mittens.
Esther, a native Mainer, turned to face Mercy. Her gray head was uncovered, jacket unzipped, scarf draped simply around her neck. “Are you keeping to your schedule of opening by Valentine’s Day?”
“Well…” Mercy hedged. She’d been working diligently on the Holly Berry Inn since she began last October. “Valentine’s Day might be a stretch.” There’d been a series of unfortunate events involving ancient plumbing and outdated electrical. “I’m farther than I expected to be but not where I’d hoped to be.”
Her great uncle had begun the renovation before he died. Or rather, he’d begun the demolition. He’d done nothing in the way of reconstruction other than doodle his plans on sheets of paper she’d found in the basement.
“It’s the ghost, isn’t it?” Interest sparked in Esther’s faded brown eyes. “Is the ghost causing mischief and slowing you down? When your great uncle bought the place, he swore it was haunted.”
Mercy scoffed. “There’s no ghost.” Not that anyone ever listened when she told them that. It seemed like the whole of Christmas Town wanted to believe in the ghost of the Holly Berry Inn as much as they did in Santa Claus.
“Or perhaps this ghost hasn’t shown itself to you yet.” Chuckling, Esther charged out into the storm, the loose ends of her jacket flapping in the wind like a cape.
“Mainers.” Mercy shook her head, hesitating to follow.
Two large, black S.U.V.s pulled under Over the River’s portico. Those big S.U.V.s were the kind of vehicles one saw pulling up to red carpet events in fancy places like New York City or Hollywood—tinted glass, fancy rims, glossy finish to the paint… Although both S.U.V.s were splattered with slush and blanketed in snow.
“Let’s go see who’s arrived.” One of the Knotty Elves linked her arm around Mercy’s and swept her toward the main doors to greet the newcomer.
A man in his thirties hopped out of the driver’s seat and hurried inside. He greeted them with a polished smile. And brought in a whiff of woodsy cologne. “Hello.”
His accent…
It wasn’t British. It wasn’t Australian. It was… He spoke in…
The language of love.
Mercy did a mental eyeroll.
“I am Prince Lucas Friedrich Evandrus Chanticleer.”
A prince?
Mercy gaped, drinking in the prince’s appearance while releasing the same satisfied sigh she used when she sipped her hot morning coffee.
He was blond, blue-eyed and handsome. And just looking at him made Mercy feel content, as if her to-do list was manageable, as if she should no longer worry about grand re-openings or what color tile to put in the honeymoon suite.
He wore black, shiny dress shoes glistening with melting snow. Black slacks. A sky-blue sweater that brought out the blue in his intelligent eyes. The black wool coat he wore almost reached his knees. It was the kind of coat men in northern cities wore over their suits.
He wasn’t dressed for a visit to a small town, to go out in a snowstorm, or to renovate a centuries-old Gothic Victorian. He was dressed to whisk a woman away from her daily cares for a cozy night in front of a fire.
The Knotty Elves closed ranks around him.
Struck by an unusual sense of romance, Mercy inched closer to the mistletoe the sheriff had avoided, hoping the prince was in the Christmas spirit.
A girl can dream, can’t she?
Lately, most of Mercy’s dreams involved shirtless, hot carpenters swarming the Holly Berry Inn with power tools, intent upon putting the old Victorian back together again.
I mean, if you’re going to dream, why not dream big?
But a prince? Even Mercy didn’t normally dream that large. There was just something about this prince that didn’t intimidate her. He was charming but also…approachable. Like a neighbor you could rely on to help you move a heavy piece of furniture.
Not charming and unreliable like her father.
“I’m looking for an establishment with vacancies,” the prince said in that deep, sophisticated, foreign accent.
My love language.
Mercy could listen to that voice all day long, whether he was talking about the number of wooden studs required to repair a termite-damaged wall or the ratio of water to cement when mixing mastic to lay tile.
“The highway is closed,” he with the beautiful voice went on, gaze coming to rest on Mercy with a smile that gave her the same warm fuzzy feeling she got from drinking hot chocolate with extra whipped cream. Pretty powerful, that charm of his. “We’ve contacted every hotel within the Christmas Town region, looking for shelter. But every single one is booked.”
“What about the Blue Spruce? The Loon Country Lodge? Or Frosty Acres?” Prudence Parker ticked off options like a child reciting a well-rehearsed Christmas wish list.
“Full. Full. And full.” The gorgeous man’s smile never wavered, never indicated worry or stress. Here was a man who was in the midst of an emergency and hadn’t lost his cool.
If only he’d been around during what Mercy now referred to as the Great Mouse Nest Discovery of Thanksgiving Eve.
Mercy sighed. The truth of the matter was that she was alone. There were no hunky construction workers or polished, handsome princes to witness her startled screams when she discovered spiders of unusual sizes and rodents who’d laid claim to the place long before she had.
“What about the Holly Berry Inn?” Odette slid her arm around Mercy’s waist with a soft tinkling of bells that rang Mercy’s internal alarm. “Mercy, didn’t you tell us earlier that you had bedrooms finished?”
Those foreign, beautiful blue eyes turned toward Mercy once more.
But this time, Mercy didn’t feel entranced. She felt trapped, exposed as a fraud despite hiding beneath layers of red and green, knitted scarf. “Finished is such a strong term. I have walls up, floors repaired, and doors on. But the beds haven’t been assembled and—”
“We’ll take it,” the prince said in a commanding voice, one that lacked even an ounce of charm. “There are six of us. Five men and a woman.”
Mercy’s mouth went dry. She wasn’t ready for guests, not by any stretch. And royals? They’d have expectations. And in order to fulfill them, she couldn’t keep to her construction schedule.
“Mercy has enough room to take you all in,” June reassured him, pinning Mercy with a stern stare from behind those owlish glasses of hers, as if she knew Mercy wanted to refuse.
“Our Mercy’s got a big heart,” Prudence added, moving in to give Mercy a side hug. “And the Holly Berry Inn is full of character.”
That may have been true, but it was also full of building materials, power tools, and an oil furnace she couldn’t afford to use above the lowest setting to keep the pipes from freezing.
All eyes were on Mercy now, waiting for her to say something.
She shrugged deeper into her layers, putting up her guard against royal charm as she reluctantly accepted the inevitable, supposing income would counter inconvenience. “Will two unfinished rooms and a bunkroom do?”
He nodded briskly. “That will suffice.”
Respectfully, you don’t know what you’re getting into, royal hot stuff.
“I don’t have a kitchen,” Mercy admitted. The cabinets weren’t due in until closer to Christmas.
“We can make do as long as we have a roof over our heads.” The prince was pragmatic. He had an answer for all her attempts to put him off. “We will, of course, want discretion. Please don’t advertise our presence.”
The Knotty Elves held up their hands as if taking an oath. Odette grabbed one of Mercy’s hands and raised it as well.
“Welcome to the Holly Berry Inn,” Mercy said as if the inn was finished and up to royal standards. There was no turning back now. She decided then and there to proceed as if the renovations were done. Who knows? They might even give her a good review upon check-out.
Mercy made a little curtsy. A bad one if his royal raised eyebrows were any indication.
“Don’t mind the ghost,” Odette added.
The prince’s blue eyes widened.
“They’re joking about the ghost. Mostly.” The Victorian had a habit of making noises that Mercy ignored. She gestured toward the door and the thickening snowstorm. “Follow me.”
The Story Behind the Story
We blame the theme of this collection on Cari Lynn Webb. She wrote the bonus epilogue for Lights, Camera, Christmas Town! And in that scene, Cari had the Knotty Elves mention that a prince was rumored to be in Maine.
But we had a lot of fun writing about royals, a royal double, their chef, and their press secretary. And we hope you enjoy reading about them, too.
Amazon (now in Kindle Unlimited)
Already read Lights, Camera, Christmas Town? Download your FREE bonus epilogue HERE.
If you enjoy Christmas Town, you may also like Her Alaskan Valentine’s Day Matchmaker, written by me, Cari, and Anna J. Stewart.
