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

by Jodi Ellen Malpas

  “What are you afraid of, Adeline?” Josh asks, his features softening. “Having real fun instead of the manufactured fun you claim maintains your free will?”

  “I have fun,” I counter quietly. Unconvincingly.

  He huffs a little bout of amusement, and then breathes in deeply, reaching for my cheek and stroking down my skin with the pad of his thumb. I close my eyes and relish his gentle touch, forgetting everything in that moment except for him. “I’m in London for a week. I like hangin’ out with you. Let’s make the most of it, yeah?”

  I’m having the most fun that I’ve had in . . . forever. With someone I rather enjoy spending time with. What harm can a week do? “Yeah,” I breathe easily.

  “Go get the pillion saddle,” he orders again, this time gently.

  I back away and do what comes instinctively to me where Josh is concerned: what I’m told. Trekking to the stables, I hand Stan’s saddle to one of the stable girls and request a pillion one instead, then spend the few minutes it takes her to deliver it trying not to think about the potential deeper trouble I’m about to get myself into. A week. We are just hangin’ out, as he says.

  “Would you like me to saddle him up, ma’am?” the girl asks when she returns.

  “No need,” I say, getting on my way.

  When I make it back to the courtyard, Josh is chatting to Stan. He looks up when I approach, taking the saddle and putting it on. “Stan and I are best friends,” Josh declares.

  “He already has a best friend.” I frown at my beloved horse as I take a sugar lump from my gilet pocket and hold it out for him.

  “Oh, playing dirty, are we?”

  “Dirty is your way of playing, Josh.”

  Slipping his foot into the stirrup, he swings himself into the saddle and holds his hand out to me. “Side-saddle, my lady?”

  “No,” I laugh, placing my hand in his.

  “You like to straddle?”

  “A horse, yes. You want me in front or at the back?”

  His eyes gleam. “After last night, I think I’ll try the front.” He pulls me up as I giggle like a silly little girl, once again wondering how he does this to me. The butterflies. The smiles. The lightness that could easily be weighted back down if I think too hard about what on earth I’m doing. So I’ll simply not think about it.

  I come to rest in the saddle and hiss at the unrelenting soreness of my backside.

  “Still hurting?” he whispers in my ear.

  “Very much.”

  He laughs, a light laugh full of satisfaction, as I take a hold of the pommel, feeling Josh’s chest pushed flush with my back. I gulp involuntarily, straightening my spine as he reaches past me and takes the reins. I can hear him breathing, as well as feel it. “Don’t move too much,” he warns. “There’s no more room in this saddle for any guests.” His hips push into my lower back, and I look to the sky for help. “Ready?”

  That’s the operative question, isn’t it? “Ready,” I reply, and he kicks Stan on, heading toward the lane that will take us to the bridle path. Stan falls into an easy, meandering pace, and I start to relax into Josh’s chest, content with him taking the reins, so to speak. Besides, he does it so well. In all areas of our involvement, it seems. The atmosphere is easy and comfortable. It’s refreshing not having a man fussing and so keen to strike up boring conversation in an attempt to keep my attention.

  “Is that your car?” Josh asks.

  I look up as it rounds the corner onto the lane. “Yes.” I had completely forgotten about Damon, and I had also completely let it slip my mind that I’m not supposed to leave the stables without him. I can only blame the present distraction. “He should be accompanying me.”

  “This will be even more romantic than I planned,” Josh quips as Damon slows to a crawl. I see his window slide down as he approaches us, and I smile when his thumb appears out of the window, hovering between up and down. “Is that some sort of code thing you guys have going on?” Josh asks, bemused.

  I smile and give my head of security a thumbs up as he passes. “Do you have your phone?” Damon asks, and I tap my pocket. “Don’t pass the boundary,” he orders, with all the threat he means. “You have half an hour.”

  “Thanks, Damon.” I smile and he nods, rumbling up the lane toward the stables.

  “I get a thumbs up?” Josh murmurs in my ear, causing all kinds of funny sensations to spring into various parts of my body. “Does that mean I get to keep my head?”

  “Yes.” I laugh as he steers Stan onto the bridle path.

  He sighs, inching forward in the saddle a little more, as if he doesn’t feel close enough. “Then why do I worry that I’m already losing it?”

  I smile at the endless space before us. “What, you? The irresistible Hollywood heartthrob? Behave. With the amount of women throwing themselves at your feet, I bet you are losing your mind weekly.”

  He drops a light kiss on my cheek. “I’m a single guy. I date.”

  “A lot of women.”

  “I get bored easily.”

  My lips purse. That right there is another reason to rein myself in. “I must remember that,” I reply quietly.

  “I don’t think I could ever get bored of you, darlin’.” I don’t want that statement to warm me. Yet it does. “And that’s bad news.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you are quite literally the only woman in the world that I can’t have.”

  “One week. Fun.” I force the words over the worry clogging my throat. Josh doesn’t reply, and my thoughts become further warped with what he might be thinking.

  We walk for a while, the silence easy, the fresh air luscious and refreshing. The sky is a tie-dye of powder blue and fluffy white, the sun drifting in and out of the clouds. The springtime breeze licks my cheeks as we amble along in a blissful haze, the only sound that of nature. The English countryside cannot be rivaled—the various shades of green, from subtle to vivid, canopying the path we’re taking down the side of a field. A tractor rumbles in the distance, cows graze, and birds swoop the sky as free as I’m feeling right now. Every so often, a bunny darts across the path, and a couple of times Josh has to calm Stan when he is startled by one of the speedy little creatures.

  “Whoa.” Josh pulls on the reins when a swan waddles out of a nearby clearing and stops slap bang in the middle of our path.

  “Just hold him still,” I tell Josh, as Stan starts to tread on the spot. “There is a lake through these bushes.” The swan starts to hiss, warning us back.

  “Nasty little fucker,” Josh mutters. “If we were back home, I’d have my shotgun. Boom. Bye-bye, Mr. Swan.”

  “You can’t kill it.” I laugh.

  “Why not?”

  “Because it belongs to the King.”

  “He has a pet swan?”

  I shake my head, thoroughly amused by his ignorance. “The King owns every unmarked mute swan in UK open waters.”

  “He does? Fuck, that must keep him busy.” He nudges me in the back with a light thrust of his hips, and I laugh. He does it so easily. Makes me laugh, just as easily as he makes me a wanton mess. “So what do we do?” he asks.

  “About the swan?”

  “No, about this.” Another thrust.

  “Will you stop?” I swat his hand in front of me, and squeal when he sinks his teeth into my neck.

  “Having fun?” he asks around a mouthful of my flesh. “I mean real fun?”

  “I am.” I push the side of my face into him. “You can walk on now,” I say as the swan relents and waddles out of our way.

  “We should probably turn back before they send out a search party for you.”

  I sag, disappointed. He is right, of course. We have been gone for twenty minutes, and it will take another twenty to make it back. I’m already going to be late. “No, keep going,” I say, not wanting our time to be up just yet. “I’ll text Damon.”

  “I’m not going to argue with you.” He kicks Stan on while I tap out a quick message
to Damon, telling him that I’m fine and we’ll be another half hour.

  “Your father’s accent is different to yours,” I muse, clicking send and slipping my mobile back into the pocket of my gilet.

  “I’m a southern boy, darlin’,” Josh drawls, his accent now as thick as the senator’s. “Born and raised, but fifteen years bouncing between New York and LA diluted it. I grew up on my father’s ranch in Alabama.”

  “So you’re a true cowboy?” I smile, imagining Josh in boots and a Stetson. It is a ridiculously hot mental image indeed.

  “Until I was eighteen. Rodeos, mountain trekking, you name it. Two hundred acres of unspoiled beauty.”

  “Sounds wonderful.”

  He breathes in, not that I hear it, more feel it from the expansion of his chest against my back. “It wasn’t really all that awesome.” He pauses for a few long seconds, and I look back to him. He smiles, but it goes nowhere near his starry eyes.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” He returns his attention forward, prompting me to do the same, though I do it reluctantly, wondering what is playing on his mind. “It’s weird how so much space can be suffocating.”

  “I know how that feels,” I agree, casting my eyes across the vast beautiful land before us. Feeling damned and blessed is so conflicting.

  “My hometown was in the middle of nowhere. Population 1341.”

  “That’s tiny. How did you meet people?”

  “I didn’t. Everyone knew everyone or was related to you in one way or another.”

  “So how did you get into acting?”

  “Anyone would think you want to get to know me,” he muses teasingly. “Isn’t that off limits for you?”

  “Everything about you is off limits. Yet here I am on a romantic horse ride in the English countryside with you.”

  I feel him smile against my cheek as he moves the reins into one hand, his spare now pulling up the sleeve of my jumper. “Quite a contrast to last night, huh?”

  I look down and see him fingering the red welts glowing around my wrists. “Quite.”

  “Do they hurt?”

  “Not as much as my bottom.” I say as he lifts my hand and gently kisses my reddened flesh, heating the dying burn. “Have you always been so . . .” Drifting off, I ponder the right word.

  “Kinky?” he finishes.

  “Or brutal.” I shudder for effect, earning myself another bite of my neck.

  “You loved it.”

  I really can’t oppose him. “So have you always been kinky?”

  “Not really. I guess my tastes developed as I did. My first time was a very clumsy affair.”

  “Who was your first time with?” I ask, smiling to myself.

  “I’ll tell you, but remember I told you I was from a small town, okay?”

  I frown. “Okay.”

  “My third cousin.” I feel him juddering behind me. “Nice, huh?”

  “That’s not so bad. My great grandparents were first cousins.”

  “They were? That’s kinda . . . wrong.”

  I shrug. “It wasn’t unusual. It kept the royal bloodline strong.”

  “Rather than diluting it with vulgar American commoners such as me?” He dips and rests his chin on my shoulder, and I peek out the corner of my eye on a grin.

  “You are not vulgar.”

  “Why, thank you, Your Highness. Does that mean you like me?”

  “You’re all right, I suppose.” I return my attention forward, smiling like crazy on the inside when he flexes his hips into my bottom. “So tell me about your acting.”

  “I left Alabama when I was eighteen. I caught a part in a low-budget series. In fairness, no one held out much hope for the network taking it from the pilot episode.” He laughs. “I look back and cringe my ass off. It was a pile of trash, but they bought it. Six years and six seasons later, total hit.”

  “What was it called?”

  “The Wanderer. I was a bounty hunter in the late eighteen hundreds. My horse and I roamed the West and wreaked havoc on the vigilantes. And the women.” I hear the smile in his tone and turn my face into him, finding a smile, too. He shrugs. “I was quite good on a horse.”

  “And on a woman.”

  “A pro,” he replies, biting my nose. “Tell me about you.”

  “Me?” I ask abruptly, turning away from him. “Doesn’t the world know everything there is to know about me?”

  “I’m not talking about Princess Adeline of England that the papers talk about. I’m talking about the real you.”

  “That is the real me.”

  “What, the style icon? The headstrong royal who doesn’t believe in marriage?”

  “I do believe in marriage. Just marriage to someone I love. Not someone unsuitable for me but suitable for my family.”

  “Is Haydon Sampson unsuitable?”

  “Grossly,” I mutter.

  “Not according to the British Monarchy.”

  “What do they know?” I ask, resentment tingeing my words. “Half the marriages in my family are loveless. Arranged to strengthen the crown.”

  “You want to be loved for who you really are, not who your family wants you to be.”

  His words come from leftfield, startling me a little. “Is that a statement or a question?”

  He doesn’t hesitate. “A statement.”

  “That’s very observant of you.”

  “You don’t need to be observant to realize that.”

  “How come no one else has, then?”

  “Because you’ve not let them close enough.” He pulls Stan to a stop and takes the reins in one hand, using the other to slip around my waist and pull me back into his warmth. I go with ease, no resistance at all, despite not liking our direction of conversation. Nuzzling into my face so I am forced to turn into him, Josh looks so deeply into my eyes, I fear he may have found my bitter soul. “The question is, have I got the real Adeline?”

  I don’t realize my hand is over his on my stomach until he laces our fingers and constricts, and I don’t realize I am holding my breath until I release it on my answer. “I don’t know who the real Adeline is anymore.”

  He doesn’t say anything in return, he just kisses me, tilting his lips onto mine and gently working them in a delicate, dreamy dance of tongues. “I don’t think you’ve ever really known,” he murmurs, and I know he is right. I haven’t. And I’m not in a position to figure it all out at this moment in time, when I’m lost in his deep, meaningful kiss. I’m not sure which side of Josh I like the most. The domineering, controlling, brutal lover. Or the gentle, soft, and giving gent. I’ll take both. Both sides of him ease me, settle me in one form or another. I hum my contentment and fall deeper and deeper and deeper. “You taste fine, Your Highness.”

  I’m floating away, but I am cruelly yanked from my dreamy moment by the sound of a roaring engine, and I pull away, all too breathless, blinking back the stars from my vision until I see a Land Rover racing across the field in the distance. I’m about to curse whoever is at the wheel, knowing if they come much closer at that speed, Stan will get distressed, and with two of us in the saddle he’ll be harder to control. But then the vehicle slows, and the blurry form of the driver becomes Damon. I have seen Damon mad only once in the time he has served me. It was not a sight I relished. And it isn’t now. He looks fuming.

  “Damon?” I question when he gets out of the Land Rover, his shiny leather shoes sinking into the soft muddy ground. He looks down and breathes in, his jaw tight.

  “Your Highness.” He addresses me properly but tightly. “We agreed half an hour.”

  “But I texted you,” I argue, getting my phone and pulling up my messages to prove it. “Oh.” I stare at the red icon telling me the message failed to send. “I must have lost network.” I hold up my phone to Damon and give him an apologetic smile. “Sorry.” At that moment, with my phone held high, obviously catching a few bars of service, Damon’s phone dings and mine notifies me of a dozen missed
calls.

  He shakes his head. “I believe it’s time to get back, ma’am.” He sounds calmer than he’s clearly feeling. “Kim is on her way to the stables and wishes to see you urgently.”

  “She couldn’t have waited for me to get back to Kellington?”

  “Apparently not, ma’am. I believe Felix has accompanied her.”

  Felix? Stupidly, I wrack my mind for another Felix who works for the household. Any Felix. Any Felix other than the head of communications at Kellington. The fixer.

  Damon clears his throat, obviously seeing the questions and worry in my expression. “Something about a bank, ma’am.”

  I recoil without thought, and Josh catches it, tightening his grip of me. A bank? Or a banker? “Oh . . . umm . . . yes.” I nod decisively. “Then I suppose I ought to get back.”

  Shit, shit, shit.

  There is only one reason Felix would make a trip to the mucky stables, where his fine threads and Italian loafers are at risk of being polluted by horse manure. There is a crisis that needs fixing. With a banker.

  Damon motions to the Land Rover. “I suspect they’ll have arrived by now. May I suggest Your Highness drives back with me?” He looks past me to Josh, communicating silently everything he means. I have to agree. I trust Kim wholeheartedly, but I won’t hear the end of it from her or Felix if they catch me riding back into the stables with Josh Jameson wrapped around me. Especially after Kim caught sight of my blemished wrists this morning and answered my phone to him.

  I look at Josh, who has remained respectfully quiet, but I can see the questions in his eyes. “Do you mind?”