The Princess and the Duke

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  “My, my, my.” Anastasia leaned toward Meredith. “Look who decided to make an appearance.”

  Meredith grinned at the toddler on Anastasia’s hip and handed the little girl an ice cream cone. She followed Anastasia’s gaze, and her nerveless fingers dropped the metal scoop into the enormous cardboard container of vanilla. “He said he wasn’t going to be here.”

  “Well—” Anastasia deliberately handed Meredith the scoop she’d dropped “—something obviously changed his mind. Or someone.”

  “Don’t look at me.”

  Her sister smiled impishly. “I don’t need to. The colonel is looking at you enough for us all.” She whirled away with the little girl, only to be immediately surrounded by a gaggle of chattering children.

  Meredith stuck the scoop into the ice cream and managed to make another somewhat rounded scoop, which she plopped into a cone and handed to the next child waiting in line. Her wrists were already aching, and she’d barely begun. She knew she could pass the task on to someone else, but there was little point to that. All the adults who were helping to run the opening celebration had tasks of their own, and it was hardly anyone’s fault that the ice cream was so solidly frozen.

  What she also was not going to do was stare at the colonel. It was immaterial that she hadn’t been able to get him out of her thoughts since last week when he’d been in her office. When he’d spoken her name through no desire of his own. When he’d said, “When I kiss you.”

  She winked at the little boy who was licking his lips on the other side of the table. “Chocolate or vanilla?”

  “Chocolate,” he said fervently, and she laughed.

  “It’s my favorite, too,” she told him softly, and began chipping away at the ice cream. Considering it was an August afternoon, she would have thought the stuff would have begun thawing.

  “Looks like you could use a hand.”

  Her tender palm slipped on the cold metal scoop, and her knuckles bashed into the edge of the carton. “Colonel Prescott.”

  He held up his hands, palms outward. “Washed and ready to serve.”

  At least he could put muscle behind the scoop, she thought dazedly, and handed it to him. “You said you weren’t coming.” She picked up a cone and held it for him to put the perfectly rounded scoop of ice cream on top. Then she handed it to the boy, who grinned and ran off.

  “Vanilla,” the next child whispered.

  “I changed my mind.” Pierce had the scoop of ice cream ready before Meredith had pulled the next cone from the sleeve. She grabbed two and held them up for him.

  “Why?”

  “Look at your hands.”

  She handed over the filled cones and grabbed two more. “What’s wrong with them? Aren’t I allowed to get my hands sticky in chocolate and vanilla ice cream?”

  “You’re allowed anything your heart desires,” he said smoothly, and filled the cones. Before Meredith could reach over and hand them to the children, he plucked them from her fingers and did it himself.

  One of the kids—a little girl—dropped her cone flat on her shoe. And Meredith watched in amazement as the colonel prepared another and gave the girl a little wink, making her wobbling lip turn into a wide smile and a giggle. Particularly when he topped her serving with a second round ball of ice cream.

  “Now—” he pointed with the metal scoop at the rest of the children waiting in line “—that does not mean you can all start dumping your single scoop on the grass to get a second. Clear?”

  They all nodded, eyes wide.

  “So,” he said to the next boy. “You want a triple or a quadruple? I’m warning you, if you want only a single, you’re going to have to bribe me pretty heavily.” The boy—Meredith gauged him at about ten or eleven—laughed, and Meredith’s heart melted much more thoroughly than the ice cream was ever going to have a chance to do, considering how rapidly Pierce dipped it up.

  “We’re going to run out of ice cream at that rate,” Meredith observed after a moment.

  “We’ll get more from the mess.”

  She figured he was smart enough to make his own decisions about that. So she handed him several sleeves of ice-cream cones and picked up the second metal scoop.

  “No,” he said abruptly.

  She blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “Look at your hands,” he said again. And when she eyed him, he took one of her hands, flipping the palm upward. “You’re getting blisters.”

  She curled her fingers defensively over her stinging palms and tugged away from his grasp. Aware of those in line still waiting for their treat, she smiled cheerfully. “I’ve never scooped up ice cream before,” she said under her breath.

  “And you needn’t do it again.”

  She picked up two more cones, being careful not to crush them in her frustration. “How is it that you make me feel like a spoiled brat with very little effort at all?”

  “A spoiled brat wouldn’t bother with anything that took her remotely close to blisters.”

  She didn’t take the statement as a compliment. He was far too matter-of-fact for that.

  She looked at him from the corner of her eyes. Despite her personal vow not to, it was hard not to stare at Pierce. For one thing, he was out of uniform. Wearing a short-sleeved gray shirt that hugged his broad shoulders and made his eyes look more gray than green, and a pair of blue jeans that simply went to prove why the things had been popular for more than a century.

  He looked thoroughly male, and she’d have to be in a coma not to appreciate the sight of him.

  “How much longer is this little soiree supposed to last?”

  “Until five.” She turned to the side table and opened another sleeve of cones. They were going through them at an astonishing rate. “You needn’t stay if you have other things to do. I’m sure the ice cream is softening by now. I’ll be able to finish up here.”

  “Want to get rid of me?”

  She smiled wistfully. Hardly. “And lose a pro ice cream dipper upper like you? Of course not.”

  He smiled faintly. “Smart girl. Now, hand me another cone.”

  She felt her cheeks flush, but managed to hold out cones as he needed them, and through some miracle managed not to drop a single one.

  The line was nearly finished when Pierce spoke again. “George Valdosta make it?”

  “He was here earlier, but he left.”

  “One hundred screaming kids not his cup of tea?”

  She watched him from the corner of her eyes. George Valdosta’s brief visit had been the last thing on her mind. And his obvious discomfort being around all the children could be something as simple as being unaccustomed to children. Whereas the colonel seemed perfectly comfortable among the under-thirteen set.

  It wasn’t necessarily a trait she would have expected of him.

  Commanding his troops, keeping his thumb on the pulse of national and international intelligence, even piloting a plane or rolling around in the muck. But dipping up ice-cream cones for a hoard of excited children?

  It was a side of the colonel that sent an unfamiliar tug through her.

  A tug that continued throughout the afternoon. As Meredith had predicted, they did run out of ice cream, and as promised, Pierce called for more from the base’s kitchen. And after all the children had eaten their cones, and second and sometimes a third one, he pitched in with finger painting. Then face painting. Egg tosses and sack races.

  If he weren’t in the thick of things, Meredith had only to look a few feet and she’d find him tying a child’s shoelace, wiping a nose or pulling a coin from behind the ear of a wide-eyed little one.

  She never expected he’d stick it out until five o’clock. Not only did he do so, personally seeing off every family that had attended the opening celebration, but he remained afterward. Moving tables and chairs inside the center. Washing up sticky floors and carrying out mammoth bags of trash.

  Anastasia, on her way out because of another engagement that evening, stopped beside Mer
edith and nudged her arm meaningfully. “Did you see the way he wiped down the wall those kids had taken a marker to? Not a spot left.”

  Meredith flexed her back. She was exhausted and had a new appreciation for anyone who provided care for more than one child at a time. “So?”

  “So?” Anastasia leaned closer, her eyes glinting with mischief. “That is a man who knows how to attend to details.”

  “Anastasia!”

  Her sister lifted innocent shoulders then brushed a kiss over Meredith’s cheeks. “I’m sorry I have to cut out before all the dirty work is finished.”

  Meredith laughed. “Yes, sweetie, I can tell by the smile on your face just how very sorry you are.”

  “I’d rather stay here than have to make an appearance at the hospital benefit tonight.”

  “Absolutely.” Meredith nodded seriously. “Scrubbing donated toys and picking up pieces of popped balloons so nobody decides to eat them is far preferable to dining under the stars.”

  Anastasia’s gaze drifted past Meredith’s shoulder. “Depends on the company, I’d say.” She smiled again, and with a wave to everyone still working around the center, hurried away to the silver limousine that was waiting for her.

  Meredith hadn’t needed Anastasia’s glance to know who’d come up behind her. She’d sensed Pierce all on her own.

  “Anastasia taking off?”

  Schooling her features, Meredith dropped the sponge she’d been using to wash a tabletop into the bucket beside her and glanced at Pierce. “Yes. There’s a benefit on her schedule for this evening.”

  “And you?”

  She was generally considered to be a highly intelligent person. Yet with Pierce, she felt as if the only thing guiding her were rudimentary instincts. “And I what?”

  “What are you doing this evening?” he elaborated patiently.

  She leaned back against the table. “With luck, having a foot massage.” She wriggled her feet. Her tennis shoes had been pristine white that morning, but were now spotted with ice-cream drips and grass stains. The rest of her hadn’t fared much better. “Though a shower first is probably in order. I look a mess.”

  “You should have had other people handling the messy stuff.”

  “Why? I can’t get blisters on my palms or stains on my shirt like other people?”

  Pierce took her hand, startling her into silence, and turned it over. He tsked at her hastily curled fingers, and with little effort spread them flat. “You need bandages on them.”

  “My palms are a little raw.” Her voice was blithe. “But not blistered.”

  He curtailed the impulse to lift her palms to his lips. “They shouldn’t even be raw.”

  “Why not? Because I’m Meredith, Princess of Penwyck? You take your duty to protect the King and his family far too seriously, I think. There is a woman under my title.”

  A woman he wanted under him. Over him. All around him. A thought that was beyond inappropriate. He released her hand and picked up the bucket. “I’ll have someone from the infirmary come over to tend your hands.”

  Meredith wanted to tear out her hair by the roots. “Colonel,” she said crisply, “I do not need anyone to tend to my poor little hands. The country’s health-care system is not going to crash to a halt because I have some tender red marks on my palms from wrestling with an ice-cream scoop and a mop!”

  His lips twitched. “Feel a little strongly about that, do you, Meredith?”

  Her heart seemed to stop beating. Meredith. He’d called her Meredith. With no maneuvering whatsoever on her part.

  She swallowed past the lump that suddenly lodged in her throat. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do,” she said honestly. “I receive enough special treatment as it is. I certainly don’t need to pull people away from their duties.”

  “All right, then you go to the infirmary and get your hands taken care of.”

  She wanted to grin like a silly fool. The man had a singular ability for sending her emotions all over the spectrum with no more than a blink of his eye. “How about if I just get some adhesive bandages from the first-aid kit inside that cupboard over there.”

  Pierce smiled faintly. Meredith in a saucy mode was something to behold. “Might work.”

  She turned with a flip of her ponytail and strode to the cupboard in question. She might have said she was a mess, but in truth, Pierce thought she looked better than ever. It was a common sight to see Meredith in designer gowns and the couturier suits she favored. But to see her in trim red shorts that made her long legs go on forever with a strappy little yellow tank top that clung to her womanly curves was a pure pleasure.

  Almost as much a pleasure as hearing her laughter ringing out all afternoon, as seeing her pitch in with her entire being at tasks with which she’d obviously had little experience. It had nearly made him lose his head, in fact. Coming close to asking her to spend the evening with him was about as dangerous a notion as he could have envisioned, yet he’d been on the verge of doing just that.

  Fortunately, she hadn’t picked up on it.

  She came back and presented her palms, decorated with printed bandages.

  He chuckled at the sheer delight in her expression. “That’s all it takes to make you happy? Cartoon-printed bandages?”

  “Actually, it’s the fluorescent pink and blue ones that I’m particularly fond of.” She looked at her palms, wiggling her long, slender fingers. “I tried one of each pattern from the container.” A fact that made her positively glow, as if she’d slid diamond rings on each finger instead of garish bandages across nearly every inch of her palms.

  “Good thing we locked out the media from this particular event,” he said dryly. “They’d get photos of your hands and start speculating that the royal coffers were bankrupt, sending the eldest royal daughter to buckets and mops.”

  “Completely ignoring any marketability I might have in the professional world with my advanced degrees in economics and political science.”

  “The mop bucket would make for a more salacious story.”

  She straightened a few more child-size chairs and waved to the last few volunteers as they took their leave. “Not every story in the media is angled for that. Some do report the truth.”

  And some report what they’re told is the truth, he thought, wishing he’d never broached the subject. He deliberately looked around. “It looks to me like all the work here’s done.”

  She nodded, also looking around at the cheerful interior of Horizons. Bright white walls were made vivid with hand-painted murals depicting everything from cartoon characters to fairy-tale scenes. There was an area for naps, an area for play, for eating and for studying. Her shoulders lifted and fell in a faint sigh.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She brushed back a loose strand of hair. “It took us two years to get this place off the ground. Between the hospital and the RII and then the red tape of your base—” she eyed him “—and now it is all set for business, starting Monday, and…” She shrugged. “And my part in it is over.”

  “Only if you want it to be. There is still an oversight committee.”

  “On which people far more qualified than I am are already sitting.” She picked up a stuffed bear that someone had left sitting on one of the counters and tugged at the ears for a moment before taking it over to the toy chests and setting it on top of the overflowing mound.

  “Why was this project so important to you, anyway?”

  She looked at him, her clear green eyes surprised. “Because the children around here need it.”

  The facility wasn’t open only to children of the base, but the families in the surrounding communities, as well, right up into the Aronleigh Mountains. And while the base did have a small child-care center, they’d had continual difficulty keeping it staffed based on their budget constraints. The plan Meredith had come up with, dragging in the RII and Penwyck Memorial Hospital, would effectively overcome what the base hadn’t accomplished on its own. It was a good plan. And he
’d been proud of her abilities in bringing it to fruition.

  He watched her pick up another toy, then twitch a corner of a window curtain into place. “You ought to be having kids of your own.”

  After one brief look, her lashes swept down and she strode to the utility cupboard and pulled open the door. “Considering that my mother, at my age, had already had three children, you mean?”

  “I don’t mean anything except that the kids adored you today. You’d be great with some of your own.”

  “One could say the same thing about you, Colonel. You were very good with the children today.” She stuck the mop in the closet and waited for him to put the emptied bucket on the shelf.

  “You sound surprised.”

  “Well, I guess I am.” She closed the closet door and locked it with the key that hung on a high peg on the wall. “Maybe. A little.”

  “A nicely definitive answer.” He caught her faint smile. “I’m thirty-five and set in my ways.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Oh, please. You make thirty-five sound ancient.”

  “Feels that way sometimes.”

  She shook her head, muttering something under her breath as she went around slapping off the light switches until she came to the doorway.

  “If you have something to say, Your Royal Highness, then just say it. There’s no point to beating around the bush.”

  She turned to face him, the lowering evening sun lighting her from behind. “Back to ‘Your Royal Highness’ again,” she said, sounding annoyed. “All right. I said that thirty-five on you looks rather phenomenal to me.” Her hands lifted then fell to her sides. “But then you know what I think about you. You’ve always known. Whether we’ve ever had a civilized discussion, devoid of bush beating, about it or not. And please do me the courtesy of keeping your false denials to yourself.”

  “It really does annoy you that I don’t forget your heritage. You bring it up often enough.”

  She stepped out the door, and the sunset outlined the perfection of her profile. “Nowhere near as often as you put it squarely between us. So, yes. It really annoys me. If you have no interest in me, have never had any interest in me and all these years I’ve been imagining the—the whatever it is between us, then just say so. I’ll adjust. But if not—” she closed her eyes for a moment, then lifted her chin in that regal way that always drove him more than a little nuts “—if not, then I really wish for once that you would look at me and simply see the woman. Not the princess.”