The Controversial Princess (The Smoke & Mirrors Duology #1)

by Jodi Ellen Malpas

  He rolls his eyes. “You don’t need to explain yourself to me. I understand, ma’am.”

  “Good. Now then, let me get back to my belated birthday celebrations.”

  “As you wish.”

  We both turn, but neither of us go anywhere, because someone is blocking the entrance into the library.

  “Josh,” I breathe.

  “YOUR HIGHNESS.” HIS STRAIGHT LIPS do not sit well. Not well at all. I fold on the inside, grabbing at air, unable to fathom why he looks so annoyed, and more significantly, why I am bothered by it.

  “Ma’am?” Damon questions, looking at me.

  “I will be fine, thank you, Damon.” I give him a forced smile that most definitely does not have him fooled. He leaves me, nevertheless, closing the French doors behind him and taking up position inside.

  “Can I help you?” I ask, trying to convince my mind to level out. That is not going to happen while I’m staring at him, only two feet away, so I turn on my bare feet and take the steps to the granite pathway that weaves through the botanical gardens.

  “It’s a cold night,” Josh muses, tailing me.

  “Then perhaps you should go back inside. Or better still, go home.”

  “Anyone would think you’re trying to get rid of me.”

  “I am.” I take a right when the path forks, wandering slowly as I study the white gravel in the beds that edge the pathway. The small stones sparkle with the help of tiny spotlights embedded between the plants, illuminating the neatly trimmed display. “You shouldn’t have come.”

  “It’d be rude to decline an invitation from a prince.”

  “It is rude to spank a princess, but that didn’t hold you back, did it, Mr. Jameson?”

  “The princess was begging for it. Flirting. Goading.” He takes a deep breath and sighs dramatically. “But it would seem she couldn’t handle me.”

  I slow to a stop and scowl at the open space before me. “I wasn’t begging for it.” I lie. “And I most definitely could handle you.”

  Josh’s front meets my back, his mouth at my ear. Sparks ignite the simmering flames within me, my eyes closing, my breathing becoming short, my body refusing to break the contact. “Your Highness, do you feel like you’ve met your match?”

  Yes. Yes, I do, and it is freaking me the hell out. Josh Jameson strips me of my trusty sass with one smoldering look. “You realize they will chase you out of the country if they get a sniff of your interest in me.” It has happened before when my father has found out about some of the men who I’ve kept company with, and it will happen again and again until I relent to my father’s demands and marry Haydon Sampson.

  “Then I’ll work hard to make sure they get no sniff.”

  “The King has a way of finding out things.”

  “I don’t think you’re scared of the King, Adeline.” His tongue meets my ear and licks slowly up the shell, spiking wild activity in every nerve I possess. “I think you’re scared of me.”

  My body softens, leaning back into him. “I’m not scared of you.”

  “Liar,” he whispers. I shiver, and it has nothing to do with the cold air. “Want to let me prove your powers of resistance are worthless?”

  “You can’t.”

  “You know I will.” His arm slips around my waist and hauls me back into him, the side of his face against mine. “Let’s have some fun, Adeline.”

  My mind spins for a moment. But only for a moment. I turn in his arms without thought or question, and lift my eyes to his. “That is all it will be.” Or can be. He will simply be a pawn in my mission to defy all the rules. I won’t get attached, because I can’t get attached. I don’t want to get attached. “Fun.”

  His lips meet mine softly, carefully, and we fall into a delicate kiss, a kiss that rebels against my intention. “Game on.” And with a smack of my recovering arse, I am reminded that Josh Jameson’s kind of fun may leave its mark on my skin. I can live with that. Just as long as I don’t let him leave his mark anywhere else. Like on my heart. I almost laugh at the thought. A stupid thought.

  A light cough interrupts us, and I glance to my left to find Damon a few feet away. “Apologies, ma’am, but you have a visitor.”

  “Who?” I ask, not liking Damon’s uneasy disposition. It’s a disposition I’ve grown to recognize acutely. Someone is here who I don’t want to see.

  Damon’s eyes flick to Josh momentarily. “Mr. Sampson, ma’am.”

  “Haydon?”

  “Oh,” Josh breathes, a sarcastic edge apparent as he releases me. “This should be amusing.”

  I take his remark as a clear indicator that he is up to speed on all things Haydon Sampson. “How so?”

  Josh takes my hand and lifts, pointing at my birthday present from Haydon. “I know you appreciated my birthday gift a lot more.”

  I raise my brows, interested. “Oh, really?”

  “Really.” Turning me toward Damon, he swats my bottom to send me on my way. “Get rid of him.”

  “I can’t just—”

  His palm covers my mouth from behind, and I stare at Damon, eyes wide, while Josh pushes his mouth to my cheek. “Would you rather I did?” I shake my head. “The party’s over. His party, anyway. Ours, Your Highness, is just beginning.” Releasing me, I virtually stagger toward an interested Damon, caught in a state of awe and trepidation.

  “Ma’am.” Damon nods as I pass him.

  “Do not say a word.” I exhale, breaching the entrance into the palace.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.” Damon picks up pace beside me. “Although it’s quite a bemusing sight, seeing you do what you’re told for once.”

  I glare at him, not in the least bit amused. “I am not . . .” I trail off when Damon’s eyebrows pinch, challenging me to try and talk my way out of it. I sigh, relenting. “Where is Haydon?”

  “In the foyer, ma’am. I thought it best to keep him away from the . . . action.” He nods in the direction of the dining room, where I expect things are even messier now than when I escaped.

  “Thank you, Damon.” Goodness, Haydon would keel over with shock if he saw what was happening in there, or in the garden. “What is he doing here, anyway?”

  “A bedtime kiss?” Damon quips.

  “Funny ha ha.”

  “With all due respect, ma’am.” He takes my arm and pulls me to a stop, just before we round the corner to the foyer. He looks back toward the garden.

  “I know what I’m doing,” I say before he can lecture me.

  Damon laughs lightly. “Do you?”

  “Of course.”

  “I don’t think you do.”

  “Why?”

  His hand flexes on my arm. “You’re still shaking. A man has never made you shake before.”

  “It’s cold,” I say automatically, claiming back my arm.

  “You’ve also never done what a man has told you before. And I’ve never seen this sparkle in your eyes, either. I can’t figure out if it’s mischief, or something else. Something more.”

  I blink, as if I can dull down this so-called sparkle. I’m struck rather dumb, surprised by Damon’s observations, and especially surprised he has voiced them to me. I scamper through many replies, many counters to put his mind at rest. And maybe mine, too. But though my words of reassurance gather and form satisfactory sentences in my mind, none of them are prepared to be spoken. “Is that all?” I mutter, looking away.

  “That’s all, ma’am.” Damon links his hands behind his back and steps away, giving me space. “Here if you need me.”

  “Thank you.” I find Haydon pacing the foyer when I make it there. “Whatever are you doing here, Haydon?”

  He breathes out and comes to me, and I brace myself for his kiss. But he stops before he gets his hands on me, looking me up and down. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “You look . . . off.” At that moment, a huge crash comes from the dining room, followed by loud cheers. Haydon glances across the lobby. “Wha
t was that?”

  “Eddie is entertaining a few friends. I was just going to bed.”

  “Oh, I see.” Haydon mumbles, as more bangs and crashes ring out. I wince with each and every one of them. “Sounds . . . rowdy.”

  “It is, which is why I am retiring to my room.” Take the hint! “Why are you here, Haydon?”

  “Dinner,” he says, his attention constantly flicking between the dining room doors and me. “I wanted to take you to dinner tomorrow evening. An extended birthday treat, if you will.”

  I study him for a few moments, his disposition twitchy, his attention split. He could have called and asked me to dinner. Is he checking up on me? “You have already treated me enough.” I am not going to dinner with Haydon Sampson. It will potentially give the press pictures and cause to speculate. My father and his minions will delight in it all too much. They might even be the ones to tip off the paps.

  “Is that your way of saying no?”

  “It is my way of saying you have already treated me enough,” I clarify. “Besides, Damon is off tomorrow evening, and I have resided myself to a much-needed evening beside the fire.”

  “Then another day, perhaps?”

  “Perhaps,” I agree easily, if only to move things along. To get him out of here before any drunk men fall out of the dining room and Haydon snitches to the King, or, worse, Josh Jameson makes an—

  “There you are.” Josh’s voice has my shoulders shooting up to my earlobes on a flinch of dread. I watch, stunned into stillness, as Haydon turns to seek out the source of the rough accent. Oh, goodness me. Josh strides toward us, confident, his blue eyes focused solely on me, as if Haydon is not here, as if he isn’t looking at Josh in worried interest. “I’ve been looking for you.” Josh’s arm lands around my bare shoulders, his lips on my cheek.

  Well . . . damn.

  I soak up his attention, helpless, as he makes a banquet of my flaming face. The bloody rogue. Damon coughs, and I shoot my gaze to him, finding him trying very hard to conceal an amused smirk. I narrow my eyes on my head of security and shrug off Josh.

  “Josh Jameson,” Haydon says, clearly taken aback by Josh’s brash behavior.

  “And you are?” Josh, full of feigned politeness, offers his hand to Haydon, who doesn’t entertain his invitation to make his acquaintance.

  Instead, he just looks at Josh’s extended offering before turning questioning eyes my way. “I didn’t realize you had company.”

  “I don’t have company.” I move away from Jameson, feeling irritation growing. “Mr. Jameson is Eddie’s guest.” That is technically true. “Like I said, I was just retiring to my suite.” I move toward the stairs, eager to remove myself from the thick atmosphere. “Good evening, gentlemen.” I take the steps fast, hearing a few mutters from Haydon before the doors of Kellington close behind him.

  When I reach the top of the grand staircase, I turn to find Josh standing at the bottom, Damon a few steps behind him. “That was not necessary,” I grate, my jaw tight with frustration. His Tarzan move may have landed me in very hot water with the King. I don’t need any more lectures on appropriateness, and who to be appropriate with.

  “Did you want him to stay?” Josh asks seriously.

  “No, but that is not the point.”

  “Would you like me to stay?”

  I withdraw, my mouth snapping shut. I don’t know, is the truth. “Yes.” The answer comes from nowhere, something taking over my questioning mind, and I reach for my lips as if I have said something sinful. Josh smiles, victorious, and turns to Damon, offering his hand. “I’ve got it from here, buddy.”

  Buddy? I’m stunned further when Damon accepts Josh’s hand and shakes on a nod. “Watch her, Mr. Jameson. Like your life depends on it.”

  “Because it does?” Josh asks, smiling.

  Damon returns his smile. “I don’t want to hurt you. I love your movies.”

  My mouth falls open and Josh laughs. “Understood.”

  Damon gives me his customary nod, straight-faced and sharp, before moving away, leaving me alone with Josh bloody Jameson.

  “Let the games begin,” he muses, slowly pivoting back toward me. I don’t want to, but I start fidgeting with anticipation, my blood alight with thrilling forbiddance.

  “Maybe I don’t want to play.”

  “You don’t get to play.” Josh tells me with an authority I wouldn’t dream of challenging. It’s a revelation, one that I am mad at myself for liking entirely too much. “You, Your Highness, will obey.” He stalks up the carpeted steps slowly, making sure I have ample time to try to regulate my ragged, shallow breaths. Ample time that is useless to me. All the time in the world wouldn’t help. I’m virtually panting by the time he is one step below me, his face perfectly level with mine. Brushing his palm across the material of my T-shirt, onto my stomach, and over my hip toward my bum, he tilts his head, as if thoughtful. “I’m the one who gets to play.” Slap! I jerk forward, my palms shooting to his torso to support me. The feel of solid, sculpted muscle beneath registers quickly, and my palms start moving across his delectable chest. “I get to play with you. With this.” His gaze plummets down my body. “And I’m quite possessive of my play things.”

  Oh, bloody hell. “I’m a play thing?” I should feel repulsed. I don’t. I’m simply turned on.

  “You are, and I have a feeling you might become my favorite toy.” He bends and catches me behind the thighs, lifting me over his shoulder.

  I pull in air quickly, nearly choking on it. “What on earth are you doing? Put me down.” A man has never dared to throw me over his shoulder in such a caveman way.

  “No. Which way?”

  “Left at the end of the corridor,” I answer without so much as a millisecond’s hesitation, quickly accepting that I’m desperate to be his play thing. His favorite toy, because I know without question I have found mine. I get a lick of pleasure bolt through me. It’s unnerving. But it is far more exhilarating than that. This scandalous bastard deserves at least some of my time, if only because he has achieved what no other man has ever achieved before. He has made me want. Really want. He has made me desire something because I really want it for myself, not to be disobedient and defy the rules. It both surprises me and scares me.

  He carries me like I weigh nothing. “Here?” he asks, approaching the double doors that lead into my suite.

  “There.” I mentally hurry him along.

  He lets us in, makes a quick scan around, and moves straight across the thick, luxurious cream carpet to the bedroom on the far side. “Nice pad,” he quips, throwing me onto the four-poster bed.

  I land with a gentle thud. “You must be used to nice pads.” I lie still, burning his clothes off with my eyes.

  “I’m used to luxury, not palaces.”

  “Comes with the job,” I murmur, and he smiles, a smile that could blow my knickers off. And then he walks away, casually strolling around my room, looking at photos, gliding his finger across the wood of my dresser, picking up and toying with pieces of jewelry. What is he doing?

  “Has a man ever been in here?” he asks, gently setting down a sixteenth century broach that has been passed down to me through my mother’s Spanish royal heritage.

  It’s only now I realize I haven’t ever invited a man into my private quarters. I haven’t done this before. Mind you, Josh Jameson didn’t exactly ask to come in. “No.”

  He sits on the edge of the antique dresser, folding his arms over his chest. “So I’m the first?”

  “And the last,” I retort softly, casting my eyes around my space that’s packed with historical pieces of art, treasures, and family heirlooms. My suite is so very old-fashioned and extravagant for a thirty-year-old single woman, but again, it comes with the job.

  “I like the sound of that,” Josh says, kicking one ankle over the other, relaxing back, getting himself comfortable.

  I realize my error quickly. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Are you gonna rain on my pa
rade?”

  “Are you going to fuck me?” I ask, losing both my patience and will to remain on the bed. Lord, if I have to have a man in my suite, he could at least hurry himself along and make it worth my while.

  “Come get me.” He remains where he is. A ruggedly handsome, suave, if cocky, Oscar-winning Hollywood actor . . . on one of the Princess of England’s historical dressers.

  Pushing myself to the edge of the bed, I slowly get to my feet and take one step forward. I’m not too shy to take what I want. And I want him more than I’ll ever openly admit. I wrestle with my mind momentarily, wondering why. The men I bed are off limits, apparently. But you don’t get any more off limits than Josh Jameson. Is that why he thrills me? The forbidden, as it were. Yes, that must be it. Because I refuse to let myself believe it is anything else. I take another step, and ano—

  “Stop where you are.”

  I’m stunned to a halt, not only by his sharp order, but by his palm held up.

  “Take off your clothes, Your Highness.”

  I balk mildly. “You want me to strip?”

  “You’re bright, aren’t you?”

  I scowl at him as I pull my T-shirt over my head, toss it aside, and unzip the fly of my jeans. I wriggle them down my legs before stepping out and kicking them away. I take the greatest pleasure from his pupils dilating and his nostrils flaring.

  “Bra and panties.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t wear panties.” I leave my underwear exactly where it is, relishing in his frown. “I’m British. I wear knickers.”

  His smile is so bloody beautiful. “Please, ma’am, will you remove your knickers?”

  “I will.” I smile sweetly and push them down my thighs slowly, watching his lazy gaze follow them to the floor.

  “That’s a line I never imagined I’d say,” he muses quietly, moving his stare to the juncture of my thighs, before continuing to my breasts. “The bra.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Sir? You learn fast.”