The Princess and the Duke

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  This was a dream. Contemporary but not cold. Masculine but not utilitarian. And between the three French doors stood beautiful, vividly green potted palms that reached nearly to the top of the door frames.

  “I had a decorator come in,” he said blandly.

  Meredith couldn’t imagine doing it any other way, though she knew there were plenty of people who spent hours poring over fabric swatches and paint chips. “You hired the right one,” she said faintly.

  His lips twitched a little. “I’ll tell her so the next time I see her.”

  Her. Naturally. Jealousy coursed, swift and hot, through Meredith, though she’d roast on a spit before showing it. “You’ll have to give me her name,” she said blithely, and headed toward one of the French doors.

  On the other side of it was a narrow, wrought-iron balcony that ran the length of all the doors. “Do you mind?” She reached for the handle.

  “Go ahead. Make yourself at home. I need a shower.”

  She froze. Of course he’d shower. He’d obviously been running.

  “Unless you want to join me.” He waited a beat, then laughed, though it didn’t sound particularly filled with joviality. “Relax, Your Royal Highness. I’m joking. Go on out. I won’t be long.”

  Her fingers tightened around the handle, and she quickly went out before she succumbed to temptation and followed him to share his shower, whether he was joking or not.

  Chapter Ten

  “Any place you’d like to particularly go?”

  Meredith turned quickly, her hands clutching the wrought iron behind her back. “I didn’t hear you come out.”

  He looked up from the silk tie he’d thrown around his collar but hadn’t yet knotted. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you. So?”

  She watched his fingers work the gray patterned silk. Fascinated. “I’ve never seen anyone do that.”

  His eyebrows shot up, and if she wasn’t mistaken, a dusky tinge touched his freshly shaven jaw. “You’ve been around men wearing ties all your life.”

  “Wearing them, yes,” she said, feeling foolish, particularly under the close way he was looking at her. “Oh, never mind.”

  His jaw ticked, and after a moment, he did something magical, and the knot was perfect, the tie looking nice against the paler gray shirt he wore. In fact, altogether, he looked nice. Not the least bit like the colonel. And very much like the man.

  She swallowed. “Must we go out somewhere?”

  “Afraid you’ll be seen with me?”

  She made a face, knowing he wasn’t serious. “It’d be more logical if you were afraid of being seen with me, considering all that Jean-Paul went through with Megan.”

  “Considering that Jean-Paul loves Megan, I doubt he’s troubled now by what went on in the tabloids.”

  “Well, you’re not in…in love with me,” she said hurriedly, wishing she’d never even suggested they stay in. It was patently obvious he was prepared to go out. Maybe he didn’t want to be alone with her.

  “I’ve got steak in the freezer, eggs in the fridge and a box of dried pasta in the cupboard. What’s your pleasure?”

  Oh, her thoughts were scrambling. “Er, dried pasta?”

  He loosened the knot of his tie and walked out of the room. “You’ve probably never had anything but fresh-made pasta your entire life.”

  She followed him, looking about, her curiosity as alive as ever. “Nice kitchen. More of the decorator’s work?”

  “Yes.” He pulled open a glass-fronted cabinet and withdrew a blue box that he tossed on the counter. It slid across the slick granite surface and stopped right in front of her. She turned it around to read the label. “Macaroni and cheese.”

  “It’s the ultimate comfort food,” he said dryly. “Trust me on this.”

  “I’ve had macaroni and cheese before.”

  “Right.”

  “Well, I have.” She picked up the box and studied it. “I can’t quite see how it came from something like this, though.”

  “From the kitchen at the palace? I’m sure it didn’t.” He plucked the box from her fingers and set it by the stove before filling a pot with water and plunking it over the flame. “Wine?”

  She slid onto one of the bar stools at the island in the center of the enormous room and propped her elbows on the counter. “Yes, please.”

  He went to the wine rack on the wall between the kitchen and the dining room and slid out a bottle, which he set on the counter in front of her. Then he went to the wide stainless-fronted fridge and pulled out a bottle of beer. He popped it open even as he reached for a corkscrew. Meredith held up her hand, though, as he reached for the wine. “Do you have another beer?”

  He looked surprised. But he opened the refrigerator door again and pulled out another bottle. “I’ll get you a glass.”

  “No.” She held out her hand for the bottle and twisted off the top when he handed it to her.

  “You’ve done that before.”

  “Is that so hard to believe? That I’ve had a beer or two in my life? My friend Lissa Lowell introduced it to me while I was at university. I did go away, you know.”

  He smiled faintly. “Yes, I know you did. But you still had a staff and were very carefully chaperoned, living with some distant cousin of the King’s, I believe. So, university antics aside, you still seem more the Château Lafite Rothschild sort.”

  She laughed a little. “I pinched a bottle of Lafite from the wine cellar for a picnic a few years ago. Nineteen forty-nine. Our cellar master nearly had a stroke.”

  His smile died, and he turned to the stove. “I’ll bet.”

  The water was boiling, and as she watched, he tore open the box and dumped the dried macaroni in, catching a white envelope from going into the water with the pasta, and pitched the empty box in the trash beneath the sink. “Is something wrong?”

  “Rothschild,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I’m boiling macaroni from a bloody box, and you pinch a bottle of wine worth more than a thousand dollars for a picnic. Who was it with, anyway?”

  “The picnic? Why?” Her head tilted, and she pushed her hair away from her shoulders. “Jealous?”

  “Whomever it was you had a picnic with accompanied by a near-priceless bottle of wine was probably far better company for a princess than I am,” he said flatly.

  Back to that again. Her thumb rubbed over the corner of the label on the bottle. “It was with my sisters, actually. We were celebrating Ana’s twenty-first birthday. Just the three of us, with no pomp and circumstance, no servants, no guards, no public relations interference. Just us. We had to be rather creative to accomplish it.”

  “So you chose a picnic.”

  “Yes. Is it difficult for you to see me on a picnic or something?” She gestured. “Pierce, I think your pot is about to boil over.”

  He turned to the stove and flipped a knob, lowering the flame. He stuck a wooden spoon into the bubbles and stirred until the frothy boil subsided. “Difficult, no. Unexpected, yes. When you were ten, you were scandalized at the notion of eating off paper plates, much less sitting on the ground without a cloth beneath your royal butt.”

  “My royal butt was a pain,” she admitted ruefully. “I was very much on my high horse that summer. I was trying so hard to emulate my mother, you know.” She remembered that summer vividly. How utterly horrid she had behaved. How fascinated by him she had been. “I failed miserably, of course. Even now I don’t come close to Mother’s standard.”

  He turned off the heat and grabbed a brass colander from the rack of pots over her head. “You are the image of Her Majesty,” he said flatly.

  “Her Majesty is grace personified,” she demurred, watching him drain the macaroni, then dump it back in the pot to which he added a lump of butter and a splash of milk. But when he tore open the white envelope and began sprinkling a vile orange powder into the mixture, her eyes widened. “Pierce?”

  He was stirring it all over a low flame. “Yeah.”

  “Was
that orange…substance cheese?”

  “Yeah.”

  She smiled weakly. “Oh.”

  He laughed softly. “You ought to see your face. I believe you had the same expression when you were ten and learned you were expected to not only eat a tuna fish sandwich for lunch off a paper plate while sitting in a circle on the ground with the other school kids, but that you had to help make the sandwich, as well.”

  “Your mother handed out can openers to five of us,” Meredith recalled. “And cans of tuna to another group. Then she handed around the loaf of bread for us to divide.”

  “It was to help the twerps learn teamwork.”

  “You were with the older kids. Mostly girls.”

  He tilted his head, remembering. “Yeah.” His eyelids lowered, giving him a devilish look. “God bless those teenage girls. It made that summer particularly worthwhile.”

  Meredith rolled her eyes. She’d detested the gaggle of girls who’d surrounded him nearly every hour of those days during that summer-long project. “I didn’t know how to use the can opener.”

  “So, you could have asked for help instead of pitching a little fit about it.”

  “It didn’t occur to me that most of my classmates didn’t know how to use the things, either. I felt utterly like the odd princess out.” She smiled faintly. “I never did learn how to use one.”

  “A can opener?” He turned off the flame once again and opened a cupboard and a drawer. He plunked a can of mandarin oranges on the counter in front of her and handed her a small can opener. “Give it a go.”

  It wasn’t the kind of opener that had long handles covered in rubber. In fact, the little metal contraption was small enough to enclose with her fist. She picked it up, turned it over and around in her fingers. “I thought kitchens were usually equipped with electric can openers. I’m fairly certain that is what is in Chef’s kitchen.”

  “Stop stalling and open the can.” He reached over and turned the can opener around so she was holding it correctly. “Like that. Come on, Your Royal Highness. You’re an intelligent woman. You drink beer from the bottle. You can do this, too. Open the can.”

  She looked at the label. “So that we can have little canned oranges to go with the orange cheese stuff.” She couldn’t help smiling.

  “We can always go out.”

  “No, no. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.” Besides, she was enjoying herself. Immensely. And though she hadn’t really known what to expect when she’d asked Bobby to stop at Pierce’s building, she wasn’t sure she’d expected this much enjoyment to come of it.

  She studied the can opener for a moment, then fit it to the edge of the can. The teeth bit, and slowly, she turned the metal handle while squeezing the other two parts together, and managed to open the can of oranges. When she was done, she looked up, feeling triumphant. “I did it!”

  Pierce leaned on the other side of the island counter, his eyes glinting with laughter. “A well-rounded, talented woman.”

  He was so close, she could see the fine web of lines that arrowed out from the corners of his eyes, could see each individual, spiky eyelash that seemed so dark in contrast to his pale, ever changing gaze. And just that suddenly, the ease between them was once again pregnant with tension. “Why did you invite me for dinner?” The words came before she could think.

  Those thick, spiky lashes narrowed around his eyes as he watched her closely. “Why did you change your mind and accept?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted in a low voice. She didn’t. She truly did not know what was driving her these days. It troubled her, that inability to figure out her motivation. “Except that maybe I couldn’t stay away from you.”

  “Well,” he said after a moment, “maybe for now it’d be better if we just forgot about reasons.”

  She slowly reached over the island countertop and handed him the can opener. “Has there been anything in your life that you’ve done or not done without considering reasons? Or consequences?”

  His fingers grazed her palm as he took the can opener and dropped it in the drawer. “Sometimes, Meredith, you’ve got to just follow your—” he hesitated for a moment, as if searching for the right word “—instincts.”

  Or follow your heart, she thought. It’s what Megan had done with Jean-Paul, and on the day of her wedding, her sister had been about as happy as a woman could be. Maybe that’s what had led Meredith to Pierce’s door, after all.

  She smiled slightly. “I guess we need some plates for that macaroni concoction.”

  He nodded and straightened. “China or paper?”

  “Paper, of course. Just to prove to you that I’m a changed woman from that ten-year-old.”

  He’d turned and was reaching into an overhead cupboard but looked at her over his shoulder, one eyebrow lifting. “No doubt about that, Your Royal Highness.”

  He held her gaze far longer than was polite or comfortable, and she felt her cheeks heat. She didn’t know why, though. Less than a week ago, she’d practically thrown herself at him, nearly begged him to take her to his bed. Then he was getting out the plates and telling her which drawer to open for the flatware, and she began breathing again.

  Despite his comment over paper versus china, it was stoneware, manufactured on Penwyck. And they ate there at the kitchen island, feet propped on the rungs of the wooden bar stools. Macaroni and cheese from a box—which she vowed to pressure Chef into preparing for her at least once a week from now on—beer in the bottle and mandarin oranges they ate out of the can with a fork they shared.

  Meredith knew that no matter how long she lived, she would probably never enjoy a meal more.

  “Is something wrong with the coffee, darling?” Marissa watched as her eldest child slowly seemed to become aware she’d been asked a question and looked at the small gold spoon. She’d been stirring the coffee for goodness knows how long. It was still very early, and Marissa and Meredith were alone in the breakfast room.

  “No.” Meredith tapped the spoon once and balanced it on the delicate china saucer. “I guess I’m a little distracted this morning.”

  Marissa hid her smile by taking a sip of coffee. She thought it a bit strong and made a mental note to ask Chef to switch to the French roast. For some reason, Morgan had forsaken tea altogether and had lately taken to liking coffee at breakfast. Coffee that was strong enough to melt a spoon, but that didn’t mean the rest of them had to suffer. “I’m told you were rather late getting in last night. Or should I say this morning?”

  “Mother, I’m hardly a teenager.”

  “No, you’re a grown, very beautiful, highly sought-after woman. But you are still my daughter, and I am concerned about you.”

  “Concerned?” Meredith laughed faintly. “I had dinner with a friend. We were late getting in. It was nothing.”

  “That friend happening to be Colonel Prescott.”

  “Do you have your spies at work again, Mother?”

  “Meredith,” Marissa chided gently.

  “I know.” Meredith sighed. She picked up the spoon, adding a drizzle of cream to the coffee and stirred again.

  “Darling, you’re about to send me insane with that stirring. What is it?”

  Meredith stared at the spoon as if she’d never seen it. Set it down. Folded her hands in her lap. “How do you know when you’re in love?”

  Marissa’s eyebrows rose, and a bittersweet pang swept through her. She wanted her children to all find love with the right partner. That didn’t mean it was all that easy as a mother to let go when they did. It was a lesson she’d had to begin learning with Megan and Jean-Paul. “Do you think you’re in love?”

  Meredith picked up the spoon, seemed to realize it and set it down. “He makes me crazy.”

  “That’s a start,” she said humorously.

  “When did you know you were in love with Father?”

  Marissa went still for a moment. She set down her coffee. “Darling, your father and I had an arranged marriage.”

/>   “I know, but you did fall in love.” Meredith didn’t seem to question it.

  “Yes,” Marissa said softly. “I did fall in love with your father.” Surprisingly easily. But then Morgan had been handsome, powerful, charismatic. Giving him five children had been Marissa’s joy. But had Morgan ever fallen in love with her? Thirty-five years of marriage ought to have given her the answer to that. Yet it hadn’t. And even after thirty-five years, she sometimes felt very much as if she were married to a stranger.

  “How did you know?” Meredith asked again.

  “I looked at him one day and knew it was so,” Marissa said simply.

  “Why? Was there something special about the day? Something you were doing together to make you realize it?”

  Marissa studied her daughter. “You always were one to pick apart every situation so you could better understand it. You’re very much like His Majesty in that respect.”

  “And?”

  “We were doing nothing special,” Marissa said gently. “Goodness, darling, I can’t recall even what we were doing or where we were. But I do remember very clearly looking at him and simply knowing it. I love this man, I thought.” She watched Meredith for a moment. “Love doesn’t always arrive with a clash of cymbals and waving flags. With pounding hearts and mouths gone dry. Sometimes it just seeps into you, barely noticed at first, until you realize your soul has become filled right up to overflowing with it and you can no longer remember a time when you didn’t feel that way.”

  “He didn’t even kiss me good-night,” Meredith murmured, and Marissa stifled another smile as her daughter’s cheeks colored. “We spent the entire evening together. He took a shower, fixed dinner—”

  “Took a shower?”

  “He’d been out running,” Meredith said absently. “After dinner, we sat in his living room and…”

  Marissa sipped the dreadful coffee for courage. “And what?”