The Princess and the Duke

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  “Purely for George’s benefit.”

  She knew it. And it pained her immensely. “Do you have any sort of personal life, Pierce?”

  She’d surprised him. More by using his given name than the intrusive question, she suspected.

  “Enough.”

  “Enough of a personal life, or enough with my questions?”

  “Either.”

  She folded her arms, studying him. “Did it bother you? That I called you Pierce just now?”

  “Of course not.”

  She was almost enjoying this. The unflappable colonel was generally a stickler for protocol. He had been ten years ago, and he’d been growing more so ever since. “Well, then?”

  “What do you want to know, Your Royal Highness?” His expression was shuttered, belying his easy tone. “My life is an open book for you.”

  “Hardly.” Amazed at her audacity, she reached over and smoothed her finger along the surface of the bars pinned on his shirt. “Actually, I know very little about you.”

  “Would you like to review my vitae? I’ll have my secretary fax you one.”

  On anyone else, she would have taken the response for sarcasm. But with Pierce it was simply too difficult to tell.

  “Personally,” she clarified. She went around her desk to her briefcase and plucked out the newspaper Lillian had handed her. She flipped it open and tapped the photo that had captured them together on the terrace. “It says right there in the paper, Colonel. Elusive.”

  He barely glanced at the photo, making his disinterest clear. “Elusive implies there is something to elude.”

  “Or someone.”

  His lips twisted slightly. “Would it make you happier if I were to tell you that there is a woman I’m eluding? Or who is eluding me?”

  She slowly folded the paper and set it on her desk. “I don’t know what would make me happy,” she said. The honesty was more than a little painful. “Is there someone?” The words came without volition, and she wished she could draw them back.

  His eyes were more silver than green today, she thought fancifully as his gaze seemed to pin her in place. There was no possible way he would answer such a question from her. It was beyond rude.

  “Yes, there is someone.” His lips twisted a little. “Though neither one of us is particularly successful at eluding the other, lately.”

  It felt like a blow to her midsection. Though there was no logical reason for his words to hurt. He was a successful, powerful, extremely charismatic man. He probably had a litter of women of whom she knew nothing. Yet he’d said someone. “Who is she?”

  His thick, spiky lashes were very dark around his striking eyes. “I don’t believe this is an—” his jaw cocked a little “—appropriate conversation, Your Royal Highness.”

  “Ah, yes.” She forced a smile. “The age-old necessity of always being appropriate. Dressing appropriately. Behaving appropriately. Never, ever forgetting the most appropriate deportment under any and all circumstances.” She was staring at his mouth again. Now that was hardly appropriate.

  “Your behavior has never been less than exemplary.”

  “Coming from nearly anyone else, that would sound like fawning.” She was accustomed to dealing with men of power. And there was no question the colonel was very much a man of power. Yet he always maintained that edge of respect for her position. And, interestingly, managed to do so without relinquishing one iota of his sense of self. His own confidence. His position. He was neither overbearing nor subservient. And he fascinated her as much as ever.

  More than ever.

  “And,” she added wryly, “it is not entirely accurate.” She tapped the newspaper.

  “It’s just a photo. Doesn’t have to mean a thing.”

  “Megan and Jean-Paul thought all the speculation splashed about them in the papers meant nothing, as well. Until everyone in the land seemed to consider their relationship their business. You’ll have to assure your lady friend that these photos really were nothing.” Meredith was proud of her breezy tone. Though, frankly, she wanted to retch.

  It appalled her that she could be jealous of a faceless woman, someone who’d been allowed entry into Pierce’s personal life. She was too sensible, too intelligent to indulge in jealousy. Wasn’t she?

  “Were they nothing?”

  “You just said so yourself.”

  He looked amused, suddenly. “I believe what I said was that the photos didn’t have to mean anything.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “I don’t know, Your Royal Highness. You kissed me.”

  Her cheeks went hot. “And you kissed me back,” she said crisply. “Explain that to your Ms. Elusive.”

  “Are you certain?”

  She blinked. “About what? That you kissed me back? I know when a man has kissed me, Colonel Prescott.” But she wasn’t sure. Not at all. For all she knew, she might have imagined that returned pressure of his lips. That sense that he was kissing her back, feeling some semblance of the madness that had stricken her. Imagination? Wishful thinking? It was entirely possible, whether she liked admitting it or not. Maybe it was even imagination that made it seem as if he were standing closer to her, broader and taller than ever.

  His head lowered an inch, and she barely kept herself from taking an unthinkable step away from him. “When I do kiss you, Your Royal Highness, I assure you that you’ll know it.”

  She locked her knees to keep them from wobbling. “When?”

  “If.”

  “It’s not like you to retreat, Colonel. Or misspeak.”

  He was looking just the slightest tinge harried. It made her feel immeasurably better. “Your Royal Highness, it—”

  “Why do you do that?”

  “Do what?” His tone was that of a man seeking patience.

  “Your Royal Highness, Pierce. You always stand on ceremony. But you are a noble, after all. The Duke of Aronleigh is no small title.”

  “Your point?”

  “Meredith. Can’t you bring yourself to say it?” There was more pleading than challenge in the question, and Meredith wanted to cringe. “Forget my position, for once. Is that so difficult?”

  His gaze was shuttered. “Meredith, you are the daughter of my King. You will always be the daughter of my King. And that is the end of it.”

  She’d forced him into addressing her by name, and there was absolutely no pleasure in it whatsoever. She didn’t even know what had been spurring her on. After all, he’d admitted there was a Ms. Elusive. She was not one to step on someone else’s toes when it came to relationships.

  Not that she had all that much experience when it came to relationships. Despite what she’d said to Pierce about being able to take care of herself—which she did believe—she’d never once lost her heart to any man.

  Because no man was Colonel Pierceson Prescott, the Duke of Aronleigh.

  She forced herself to remain relaxed, leaning against her desk. “Well, as pleasurable as this is—” her voice was dry as dust “—I do have work to do.”

  “Feeling anxious?”

  “Pressed for time.”

  He smiled slightly. Then drew his thumb down her cheek—confusing her even more than she already was—before striding to the door. “When you see your father, tell him I’m sorry he missed our meeting this morning.”

  “He was having breakfast with my mother,” she said faintly. Her cheek still felt the tingling heat from that barely there caress.

  “With your mother.”

  Behind her back, she pressed her palms against the edge of her desk. Hard. “It’s not unheard of, Colonel Prescott. We are a family, after all. One that shares meals on occasion.” Though she had to admit it wasn’t often that the King was in the residence at that hour. He was usually in his office by then.

  “Of course.” His expression was once again frustratingly inscrutable. “Good morning, then, Your Royal Highness.”

  Meredith watched him leave. When she could no longer he
ar his footfalls in the corridor outside her office, she sank into the nearest chair, letting out a long, shuddering breath.

  When he kissed her?

  If only.

  Pierce could hear the laughter and high-pitched squeals of children at play all the way from Horizons, the new child-care center, to his office. He was used to working with any number of distractions, but he wasn’t used to working while knowing that Meredith Penwyck was just out the door, across the tarmac, in the playground area surrounding the building the base had dedicated to the center.

  Though he hadn’t gone to the opening festivity and had not laid eyes on her, Pierce still knew that Meredith was there. She and Anastasia had been up to their pretty aristocratic noses in the planning for Horizons. It was his base, he’d approved the final site selection and other staffing matters for the base’s contribution to the joint project, and he’d seen Meredith’s and Anastasia’s names on numerous memos, numerous agendas. But he had staff to handle those details, and he’d never personally involved himself in the matter beyond barely glancing at and approving the final decisions.

  He trusted the decisions of his staff, for one thing. And he trusted the judgments of Penwyck Memorial Hospital and Anastasia’s contribution there for their part. As for the RII and Meredith’s involvement, Pierce knew nobody could do a better job than she could. He knew that keeping his distance from her was always the wisest course.

  Until lately.

  Stifling an oath, he pushed aside the reports he was well over a day behind on attending to. As the files slid to one side of his metal desk, they knocked something off the edge.

  He leaned over and slowly picked it up.

  A microfilm cartridge.

  He still couldn’t believe he’d stooped to palming the small cartridge and taking it from Meredith’s office when he’d been there last week. He half expected to have her hounding his heels demanding to know what was wrong with him for taking something so innocuous as microfilmed copies of decade-old newspapers. It was information she could get from any number of sources. It just might take her a little more time to accomplish.

  But she hadn’t even noticed. Not while he was there, at least.

  His fingers tightened around the cartridge, squeezing it hard enough to crack the brittle black plastic. The sound felt like another nail being driven into his soul.

  From across the way, he heard a cheer go up, and whether punishing himself or easing his grim thoughts, he stood and went to the window.

  Balloons bobbed in the afternoon sunlight, tugging and jerking at the strings that attached them to nearly every immovable object. Little colored flags stretched from the building to the corner posts of the fence surrounding the play yard. And in that yard were crowds of children racing around parents, volunteers and staff. There were games, music and food.

  Meredith was down there somewhere. Though he couldn’t see her from his vantage point.

  “Why don’t you go on down there instead of standing at the window drooling like a kid outside a candy store?”

  At the first word, he’d turned on his heel. “Estabon. What are you doing here? What’s happened?”

  The other man lifted a long hand in a calming motion. “Nothing’s happened. I was accompanying the King to a meeting with the shipbuilders’ federation on the North Shore.”

  The North Shore was less than an hour over the Aronleigh Mountains from the base’s location in the north central portion of the country. It was across the island from Marlestone, a solid hundred miles.

  And the King had no business conducting meetings with anyone over anything that wasn’t strictly approved by the RET. He left the window and went to his office door, pushing it closed. “And you left him there?”

  Sir Selwyn Estabon was the King’s royal secretary. He was also a highly placed member of royal intelligence and one of Pierce’s associates with the RET, a fact that was known to only the other members of the RET. And the King. The true King.

  “Relax.” Selwyn sat in one of the chairs facing Pierce’s desk and absently brushed a speck of lint from his immaculate trousers. “Logan is with him. When the King dismissed my services for the afternoon, I couldn’t very well hang around, now could I? His security detail is with him, naturally. I’ll rejoin them in a few hours.”

  Duke Carson Logan served as the King’s personal bodyguard. These days, Pierce likened Logan to Broderick’s personal guard dog. Since Logan was the fourth member of the RET, he realized he needn’t worry that Broderick would get up to too much mischief. “Any new word on our patient?”

  Selwyn shook his head, looking grim. “This was supposed to be a one-shot deal with Broderick.” To make one critical appearance as King Morgan to keep the alliance negotiations with Majorco moving forward. “There was no way we could have known things would go on this long.”

  “It’s the King’s wish,” Pierce said flatly. The RET all knew how badly Morgan wanted the alliances to go through. Once he was on his feet, he’d have their heads if they’d let the negotiations fall through during his illness. “I still think it was wrong not to inform Her Majesty. The law is clear. Power falls to her in the case of the King’s incapacitation.”

  “The King of Majorco loathes women. He wouldn’t have dealt with the Queen, and the alliance would have gone dead in the water. Everything that His Majesty has worked for these past few years would have been for nothing. We all agreed with Monteque’s decision to pull in the prince. Broderick may not care about Penwyck as a rule, but his ego won’t let him be anything less than a great King, even if he has to be using his brother’s name to do it.”

  Pierce eyed Selwyn. “I think we’re underestimating the Queen’s abilities.”

  Selwyn’s eyes remained steady. “I’ve never once underestimated her,” he said smoothly. “We did what we had to do. It can’t be undone now.”

  Pierce knew the other man was right, whether he liked it or not. “So you left him in safe hands. And you came down here because…why? To kill some time? You could have stayed on the North Shore for that. There’s that one bar…what’s it called? Belinda’s. You remember Belinda, don’t you? An American. Six feet of well-put-together blonde. Has always had a bad case for you.”

  Selwyn smiled ever so faintly. “Nice try. The Queen mentioned something to me the other day,” he said. “I thought I’d look into it.”

  Selwyn was devoted to the royal family, the Queen and her daughters in particular. Pierce knew Selwyn would never consider any kind of romantic involvement with one of the Penwyck ladies. He was far too easily entertained by much less complicated relationships.

  He and Selwyn were the same age, but there the similarities ended. Selwyn was honorable down to the core of his elegant being when it came to the royal women.

  Pierce’s gaze drifted over the cracked cartridge he’d left on his desk. He wasn’t the least bit honorable. And the notion of romantic involvement with one of the Penwyck ladies was constantly plaguing him. He didn’t know what was worse—thinking about Meredith during every waking hour or having her sneak into his excruciatingly vivid dreams.

  None of which he intended to discuss with Selwyn, even though they were friends. “Look into what?”

  “Her Majesty mentioned some concern over your interest in the princess.”

  “Which one? There are three.”

  Selwyn cocked a dark eyebrow. “Really. Yet there’s only one in whom you’ve been taking a special interest. Enough of an interest that it’s been noticed by others.”

  “The Queen has no need to worry about my intentions toward Meredith.” If he kept telling himself that often enough, maybe he could make it true.

  “Perhaps you might tell Her Majesty that yourself.”

  Pierce paced the confines of his austere office. “And when would I do that, Estabon? When I just happen to be dropping by the palace to check on the man posing as her husband? Or when I’m wondering whether or not to be concerned that Meredith’s got it into her head to r
esearch her uncle’s death?”

  Selwyn sighed faintly. “There’s nothing she could learn that would harm anyone.”

  “Except the Queen, if she knew.”

  “She’ll never know, because we are all protecting her. Besides, you always did have an overabundance of conscience, my friend. Perhaps it’s because your father was a clergyman. All that religion, you know.”

  “Conscience?” Pierce smiled grimly. “You couldn’t be more wrong.” He heard the childish cheering coming from Horizons, muffled though it was by the window, and it seemed like each joyful little shriek was an announcement of his sins. “My conscience died ten years ago when I had to face the Queen across her brother’s casket and express my condolences.”

  “You did what you had to do, Pierce. And thank God for it.”

  “And I’d do it again,” he said flatly. “Which hardly makes me the kind of man Her Majesty would like sitting at her dining room table with the family, much less courting her eldest daughter.”

  “Is that what you want to do? Court Meredith? You always did have a soft spot for her.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I’ve always had,” Pierce said flatly. “She is a royal.”

  “You have your own title, too. A duchy under your authority.”

  “Earned because of killing a man.”

  “Awarded for saving several others,” Selwyn corrected evenly.

  Pierce paced to the window, staring at the gleeful celebration below. He caught a glimpse of a curvaceous, leggy woman, her distinctive brunette waves pulled into a ponytail. He pressed his hand against the glass, as if he could reach out and touch her. But the distance between him and Her Royal Highness, Meredith Elizabeth of Penwyck, had never seemed greater.

  “Earned. Awarded.” He deliberately turned away from the view and tossed the microfilm cartridge into the metal trash bin beside his desk. He should have gotten rid of it the day he’d stolen it, rather than keeping it in sight to torment himself. It clattered raucously. “What’s the difference?”

  Chapter Seven