The Perils of Pursuing a Prince

For some inexplicable reason, the first thing that occurred to Greer Fairchild when three men -- robbers, for all she knew -- stopped the coach in which she and Mr. Percy were traveling was that the death of Mrs. Smithington, to whom Greer was a traveling companion, was not only tragic, but extremely inconvenient.
They had almost reached the foreboding Llanmair, having lumbered up a rutted road for the better part of an afternoon, yet the day's gloomy light had not faded so much that Greer couldn't distinguish the ancient gray castle from the crag on which it sat, rising high above the woods and mountains that surrounded it.
It was an imposing structure, four stories high, built with gray stone, and anchored by four turrets in each corner. They were so close to the castle! They were so close to ending Greer's ordeal, and now this!
"Stay here," Mr. Percy said, looking quite grim when the coach rattled and groaned to a halt at the approach of the three riders. "I shall speak with them." He climbed out of the carriage, shut the door soundly, and strode forward to the three men who now stood between Greer and the man in the castle who held her inheritance.
"This is not to be borne," she muttered under her breath. Not after all she'd endured in the last year. Not after her guardian aunt's death and the endless hours she'd spent with Mrs. Smithington in public coaches with people who thought nothing of bringing their chickens and dogs along with them. Not after all the bouncing she'd endured along every pit and rut as they'd traversed empty moors, or losing sight of the sun in forests so thick with trees that no light could filter through. She'd come within a quarter of a mile of the gates to what she hoped was her final destination, only to be stopped.
It was extremely vexing.
Greer peered out the window to where Mr. Percy had confronted the three men with his legs braced wide and his arms akimbo. She groaned with exasperation and laid her head against a torn squab. She supposed she ought to feel frightened of the men, being as far from civilization as she was, but she felt nothing but exhaustion and the grime of hard travel on her body. Not to mention the disgust of having traveled three days in the same gown, for it was bloody cold in Wales and the poor gown was the warmest garment she possessed.
"Astoundingly inconvenient," she said aloud.
Really, if Mrs. Smithington hadn't died when and where she did, poor thing, Greer might have made this trip to Wales in the summer, when the sun was bright and warm. Not now, in late autumn, when the weather was dreadfully cold and damp. She might have reached Llanmair, where the Prince of Thieves -- as she'd come to think of him -- supposedly lived in half the time it had taken them over these ridiculously muddy and pitted roads.
But then poor Mrs. Smithington had lain down for a nap on the very day Greer reached her uncle's dilapidated and long-sought estate. The elderly woman had just lain down and never awoke. It was a horrible way to die -- alone, with no relatives save one distant nephew, her heir, in London. While it was true Mrs. Smithington could be entirely too vexing, Greer had developed a certain exasperated fondness for her, and would not have wished such a lonely death on her.
Mrs. Smithington's tragic death, on top of everything else, made Greer wish she'd never come back to Wales. If it weren't for good Mr. Percy, she surely would have turned back for London along with Mrs. Smithington's effects. But Mr. Percy had encouraged her to continue on her journey.
The journey had begun a year ago, when Greer's legal guardian, Aunt Cassandra, Lady Downey, had died unexpectedly. Aunt Cassandra's second husband, Lord Downey, had no desire to support Greer or her cousins, Ava and Phoebe...