Linda Needham (11 page)

“Have a care with your hide, Mackenzie; the princess is a master thief. And as you know, I’m a jealous employer.”

“I’m takin’ no sides, your lordship, but may the prettiest of you win.” Mackenzie’s eyes flashed a grin as he pulled the door closed, leaving them alone with the most fragrant meal Caro had ever smelled.

“Master thief, am I?”

“Unbelievably good, Princess. The best I’ve met in a long while.”

Caro, please.
For some purely pathetic reason, she wanted him to be that intimate with her name, as intimate as he was with her eyes.

And her chin, the tips of her ears.

And her mouth. Just the way he was gazing there at the moment as he took a sip from his wine, leaving traces of himself, memories that she would cherish long after this was all done up and written down in the history books.

“Are you married, Lord Wexford?”

Drew nearly choked on his mouthful of wine. Now
there
was a royal change of subjects, with a royal tilt of her perfect nose and a gaze so direct it wasn’t fit for polite company.

He swallowed hard and steadied his breathing as he tried to decide her game, and if he wanted to play.

“Is that important?”

She shrugged as she carried a lamp from the desk to the low table. “You’re a guest in my house, following me everywhere I go, as though you were my shadow. I think I ought to at least know your marital state.”

“Why? Have you designs on me?”

She laughed lightly and turned up the flame. “Don’t be absurd.”

“Because if you do fancy me, Princess—”

She flicked an imperious brow at him. “I don’t. I couldn’t possibly.”

“Good, because if you did, much as I’d regret it, I’d have to decline your advances.”

“Ease your mind, Wexford.” She left him a teasing smile as she retrieved her own wineglass. “I have no intention of making improper advances to you, and you know it. I was merely curious about your life when you’re not plaguing me.”

“I’m not married.” Doubted he’d ever find the right kind of wife.

She eyed him, making a half circuit around him. “I didn’t think you were.”

He was feeling quite thoroughly inspected, her gaze as warm as a brandy. “What gave me away?”

She sat her glass beside the tray. “Your hair.”

“My what?”

“You wear your hair longer than the fashion. Most wives wouldn’t allow you to venture far from the house without an everyday trim.”

Drew frowned and made a show of raking his fingers through his hair. “Am I that unkempt, Princess? I’ll have to speak with my valet.”

“That’s not what I mean. Your hair is quite nice. It’s just that a wife looks after her husband’s appearance to the last nuance. Puts her mark on him.”

“What, like a tattoo? Her name? A monogram?”

She was standing very close, looking up at him with a keen eye. “A style, my lord. A distinctive look that she appreciates in a man.”

He’d never heard this before. Though he’d never stand to be groomed to a woman’s plan, he could imagine his princess giving it a good try. He might even submit to her attempt.

But she was spoken for in that royal way.

“I know it’s a bit out of order, Wexford, but I’d like to make a request of you.”

Drew found himself too often just staring at the woman, unable to look away from all that beauty, from the intriguing way her lips moved when she spoke, from the glittering blue of her eyes.

A deplorable habit that he would have to break before it broke him.

“What is it, Princess?”

“It’s
that
, Wexford. What you’re doing. I would appreciate very much if you stop calling me ‘Princess.’”

“Stop…What?”

“Please stop using my title. It seems very formal when you say it.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t do that, Princess.”

“It’s simple enough. I know you can do it. You’ve proved to me that you can see through solid brick, and read minds. Surely you can call me Caroline.”

“I…can’t.”

“I insist. A royal command.”

“That’s hardly fair….”

“Just wait till I’m an empress then.”

“Madam, you’re…” Stubborn. Compelling. Damn. “Very well, if you insist. Here goes—”

He cleared his throat to attempt this feat of impropriety, shaped his mouth into the start of her name but couldn’t quite manage. “I don’t think I can do it, Your Highness. You are the Princess Caroline. ‘Princess’ is your office, a tradition. And I’m bound to protect everything about you.”

Especially her title.

Especially that.

She huffed and put a stubborn hand against her
hip. “But the way you say ‘Princess’ makes it sound as though you don’t like me, as though I’m a bad taste in your mouth.”

God knows she’d be a very sweet taste in his mouth, sultry and salty and warm.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“‘Anything you say,
Princess
,’” she said, spitting the last with a curling lip, a deliciously piratical growl and a sideways thrust of her hip.

Now Drew was laughing. A princess with a sense of humor—utterly beyond his experience. “I didn’t mean to offend, Princess.”

“See what I mean?” She frowned dramatically and dropped the pitch of her voice an octave. “’I didn’t mean to offend,
Princess
.’”

Another explosive impersonation that suddenly felt and sounded too familiar.

“That bad, am I?”

“Much worse when you’re angry at me.”

“Impatient.”

“What?” Her voice had softened to silk.

“I get impatient, not angry. You’re stubborn, Princess.”

“I’m Caroline. Caro.”

“Caroline Marguerite Marie Isabella, empress-elect of Boratania. I know.”

“No one ever calls me just Caroline anymore. Not even my best friends, at least not since we were children. Not even at tea or when we’re just shopping or playing whist.” She fixed her soft gaze on him, heating his blood, giving him far too many ideas. “Won’t you please try? As a favor to me.”

Such an intimate request, ripe with trust and hon
esty and the truth. But she seemed so keenly eager, and her name felt like honey on his tongue.

“In private only, Princess?”

Her eyes brightened, within a breath of her triumph. “Of course.”

“And only when I feel the moment is proper.”

“Proper?”

“Outside of this dangerous business between us? I know my place in your life.” Professional. Distant.

A furrow flickered across her brow and then she nodded. “All right.”

“All right then”—she stood there looking up at him, eyes wide and waiting, until he said, “…Caroline.”

Then she smiled at him and his heart lurched and swelled, as though he’d just performed a trick of magic.

“Then that’s settled, my lord,” she said, turning away from him with a flick of her hem and heading to the table and its tray of food.

“Andrew.”

She turned and cocked her head at him, narrowing her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“A fair exchange, Princess. If you insist that I call you Caroline, then I’ll feel much more comfortable if you refer to me as Andrew.”

“Andrew.” She seemed to linger over it, smiled when she finished.

“Drew, actually. My friends call me that. After all, Wexford is merely my title, the name of my estate grounds. Frankly I’ve always felt odd about it. Like being called the Great Northern Railway or Cheese Wheel.”

She burst into peels of laughter, a sprightly, joyful
sound. “Cheese Wheel? You…? Oh, my lord, you…” And still she laughed. And laughed.

He liked the bright sound of it. Shiny silver, the small, unexpected ringing of a bell.

“You know what I mean, Caroline.”

She pointed at him, including him, still laughing, but sagging now against the desk. “You…you surprise me, sir! The Great Northern…” Her laughter gave way to giggles and wiping at her eyes. “I’ve never thought about a title in that way before, but you’re right.”

“Naming a person after a place? Yes, well, I’ve always thought that titles were more than a little absurd.”

“You wear yours well, Wexford.”

“Drew. Please.”

She’d recovered, leaving her cheeks blushed and her eyes sparkling as she studied him. Leaving him with a hope that she would laugh again soon.

“Very well…Drew.” She smiled with a silent and cunning challenge. “Shall we have supper, then? I wouldn’t want to disappoint Mackenzie by letting his superb meal grow cold and inedible.”

“As you please…Caroline.”

Still, he found this informality between them highly uncomfortable. Not because of their disparate titles—that had always seemed a false economy of privilege. Randomly bestowed, not earned.

It was the intimacy. The growing familiarity with a woman he was supposed to be protecting.

The guilt over being able to talk so easily to her about the truth, when every moment of every day he harbored a secret that belonged to her, that could al
ter her life forever—her image of herself if she ever learned of it. All he could do was to keep her safely out of trouble until her coronation, until she left England for her beloved Boratania.

And hope to hell she didn’t learn the devastating truth in the meantime. Or ever.

Dinner became a chaotic work session, with the woman popping up from the small table a half dozen times to fetch another pile of documents.

The stacks grew taller and more numerous. Letters to her mother from the far-flung members of her family. To her father from his generals and other kings. Bills of sale and menus for state dinners.

Stories cut from newspapers. Opera programs.

Hundreds of invitations. Calling cards.

Each of them safely unremarkable.

“These are all so amazing to me, Drew.” Her eyes often glistened as she examined the papers. “I’ve been so busy collecting these boxes of paper, I’ve never really taken the time to study any of it. But it’s like taking a journey backward into a time I can only imagine. When Boratania was a rich and influential kingdom, when my family name was respected, and my parents were alive.”

Her parents.
Bloody hell, this was the worst kind of torture.

Knowing too much.

Beginning to care too much.

The night ended in the same way that the next day began: with the princess spending the morning poring over the boxes of papers, and then the next afternoon and the next safely cataloging more of her
precious treasures. Until three full days had passed with Drew no closer to understanding who was trying to kill her.

He had turned Grandauer Hall and its extensive grounds into a fortress where she was well-shielded from any possible assassin, where every square foot was doubly secured.

He’d set his specialists at the Factory to work on investigating the few leads he’d collected.

Though no one was to know of it but Palmerston, he would saturate tomorrow’s tournament at Swanbrook’s estate with his operatives. The princess wouldn’t be able to breathe without running into one of his most trusted men.

Certainly not without running into himself.

A very pleasant prospect.

“O
h, you look magnificent, Princess Caroline!” Mrs. Tweeg was standing to one side of the cheval glass, beaming, her hands clasped against her bosom.

Caro studied her own reflection and had to agree. “Vincent has truly outdone himself this time.”

Yards and yards of rich, royal blue velvet. Long, pointed, medieval-styled sleeves trimmed in stark white pearls and gilded braiding, girdled low at her hips with a Boratanian belt of gem-studded golden medallions.

Along with an equally delicious blue velvet cap with a long, silky white veil trailing down her back to cover her hair.

And for some perfectly ridiculous reason, she had been wondering all morning what Drew would think of her gown. Not that she could let that matter at all.

“You look quite smashing yourself, Mrs. Tweeg.” Caro looked on in delight as the woman checked her
own image in the mirror for the tenth time.

“I’ll just go downstairs and see that all your bags get into the carriage. Highly trained operatives they may be, Your Highness, but they are men, after all.”

Tweeg left Caro looking at the other costume hanging from her bedpost.

His
costume.

Drew’s.

Vincent had put together a marvelous one, complete with sword, hat, and cape.

Though Andrew Chase, the Earl of Wexford, didn’t exactly seem the fancy-dress type. Actually getting him to wear it might prove to be a little difficult.

She’d heard him stirring about his chamber before dawn, had listened to him stalk down the corridor shortly afterward, but hadn’t seen him all morning.

Hadn’t had time to mention the costume to him.

Perhaps if she sneaked into his chamber through the secret panel and laid out the cape and tunic casually on the bed so they were there when he returned, he might not object so vehemently to wearing them. Because he would definitely object.

Picking up the outfit, Caro moved the delftware vase on the bookshelf and activated the latch behind it.

She pulled open her side of the bookcase, passed through the narrow passage in the wall, then shoved open the panel on his side, hoping to be in and out in a moment.

But, oh, dear sweet Lord!

The chamber wasn’t empty after all.

He was there.

And the sight of him stopped her in her tracks, struck her speechless.

No, not just speechless. She was…utterly dumbfounded.

And he was…naked.

Naked, and just standing there. Handsome. Fresh out of his bath and glistening and staring right back at her.

“You were saying, madam?” That was a smile she heard but didn’t see.

Because she wasn’t looking anywhere near his face. Couldn’t look there. It was safer to look…

Heavens, she couldn’t look
there
.

Even though she
was
looking
there
.

She gulped and expelled a hot breath. “Well, then, Drew, I can see that you’re…”
Large.
“…busy.”

Great heavens! She just couldn’t stop seeing him. Everywhere. All of him!

His very broad, very sleekly bronze chest that tapered to a tightly muscled belly and powerful hips.

And densely muscled thighs.

And the darkly shadowed root of him, thick and alive and mysterious.

“I
was
busy, Princess.”

And now, thank God, he was turning his back to her, striding away.

Though the delicious sight of his buttocks and his broad, strongly corded back, and those long, powerful legs, wasn’t helpful in the least to regaining control of her breathing or her thought process.

“What can I help you with, Princess?”

Let me touch you.

“Great heavens, did I say that aloud?”

Everywhere, Andrew. I’d like to touch you everywhere.

“Did you say
what
aloud, Princess?” he asked, still turned away from her.

Oh, good. Then she hadn’t been babbling to him.

Good also that the folds of his silken robe now swirled around him, breaking off her vision.

“Oh, well, nothing.” She cleared her throat of the tension there. “I’d been thinking that I should really have knocked first.”

“Indeed, Princess, you should have.” He seemed to be purposely calling her Princess again. Raising her business title between them. Though this particular moment seemed as far removed from any kind of business as the moon.

“I certainly will next time, Lord Wexford,” she said, watching his every move as he finished tying off his robe and turned toward her.

“An excellent precaution, Princess, if I’m to remain safely on my side of that wall.” She didn’t know what to make of the darkness of his eyes, or the tempting danger she could sense behind them.

“What do you mean by that, Wexford?”

He sighed heavily. “My job is to protect you, Princess. From everyone, including myself.”

“Yourself?” Caro laughed and sat down in a very comfortable, overlarge wing chair, his costume in her lap. “I have no reason to be afraid of you, Andrew. After all, you’ve insisted that I trust you with my life.”

“It’s not your life that I’d be afraid of taking, my dear Princess. It’s…”

“Then, what?” His smile was crooked, but his eyes were fixed intensely on hers. Oh, dear. He’d meant her…honor. “Oh, my.”

“Yes, my dear Princess. Oh, my.”

Her heart started pounding again, twice as quickly and twice as hotly as it had when she’d come upon
him stark naked in the candlelight. “Because you find me attractive.”

“Indeed.”

“And so this can be a problem between us.”

He arched a roguish brow. “Because, my dear, I find you more attractive than any woman I’ve ever met, and I refuse to let that become a problem between us.”

Dismissed as a problem. Declined, before she’d had a chance to savor the feeling of being wanted by a man who thought she was attractive.

A man that she might want right back—given the appropriate circumstances.

Mired to her nose in a predicament of her own making, Caro stood up and started back toward her room before she remembered why she’d ventured into his chamber in the first place.

“Oh, dear.” She didn’t really want to turn back and look at him, but she couldn’t very well toss the costume over her shoulder at him and just bolt. “I’ve brought you this to wear today.”

He was scowling at her when she turned back to him, one dark brow raised in an ominous slant. “Thank you, but I have my own clothes to wear.”

“But I had Vincent assemble a knight’s costume for you.”

“No.”

“Swanbrook has insisted that everyone wear a costume, Drew.”

“Not me. Besides, I’ll be on duty, Princess.”

“I’m afraid a full costume is required of anyone who sits in the Grand Pavilion.” His scowl deepened and he seemed to grow taller the longer she spoke.
“So if you’re planning to post yourself anywhere near me, Drew, you’ll have to wear this. Or something.”

He didn’t say anything for a very long time, only glared at her and then at the costume she was holding up and then at her, and then he finally growled out a “bloody hell!”

Relieved to her bones, she hooked the costume over the back of a chair and sidled toward the open panel.

“Thank you, Drew.”

“Don’t thank me, madam.”

“I’ll leave you to get dressed. I…um…hope you accept my apology for staring at you earlier. It’s just that I’ve…well, I’ve never seen a naked man before, and I didn’t quite know what to do, or, um…where to look, actually.”

His brows shot up into his forehead, disappearing under the dark tangle of his finger rumpled hairline. “Leave, madam. Please.”

“At least I’ve never seen a naked man made of actual flesh.” Her cheeks were already aflame—why not set them on fire. “I must say that you’re far more inspiring than any statue in my collection.”

That only made him frown deeply. He strode to where she was standing beside the panel and held it open for her. “Be ready in twenty minutes, Princess.”

“Right.” Her knees wobbly and her cheeks tingling, Caro ducked back into her own room, jumping out of her skin when Drew closed his side of the door firmly behind her.

Her skin still tingling with his delicious heat, Caro shut the bookcase with a resounding
clunk
, then went back to the mirror to straighten her cap.

And to see if she could possibly have changed in the last few minutes.

Her cheeks were still blooming crimson, would probably remain so until she was an old woman. Her heart was still slamming against her chest, her pulse thundering in her ears.

And that was a kind of smile she’d never seen before.

Elusive, wiser, profound, tucked like a secret into the corner of her mouth.

And why not? She’d just seen her first man without his clothes. And not just any man, but the most amazing man she’d ever met.

An earl, because he’d worked hard for the honor.

A champion to his friends.

A man who had repeatedly pledged himself to protect her with his life.

Naked.

“Bloody wonderful!” How the devil would she rid herself of that distracting image?

Just don’t think about it.

She hurried down the stairs in her amazing blue gown, not thinking about the man in the room upstairs.

Not, not, not.

“Was his lordship surprised, Your Highness?” Mrs. Tweeg asked, from the base of the stairs.

“Surprised?”
Not half as much as I was.
“Let’s just say that he’ll wear the costume, though not happily.”

Caro went to the library and gathered up her traveling journal—she was certain that Swanbrook was harboring a Vermeer portrait that once hung in her mother’s sitting room, made sure that she had a
silken favor to bestow upon the knight who would be representing Boratania in the lists.

And by the time she returned to the foyer, Tweeg was standing at the bottom of the stairs, preening in her whimple, with Runson and Mr. Mackenzie, looking up at something on the landing.

Caro knew exactly whom she would find at the top of the stairs, and in what mood.

Thunderous.

But he was splendid!

Breathtaking!

Her very own Green Knight, clad in his fine tunic and very, very well fitted britches, the hem of his long cape trailing behind on the marble stairs.

And, oh, the afterimage of his nakedness:

Bronze and glistening.

The corded muscles of his thighs shifting as powerfully as they were now as he continued down the stairs, glaring daggers at her.

And at his operatives, who stood red-cheeked and wide-eyed as though on the brink of breaking into laughter.

“Don’t even think it,” he said to the entire group as he strode past them toward the door. “Come, Princess. Let’s get this damned thing over with.”