by Kate Johnson
And off she swept, back to the offices where she did whatever she did.
As soon as she was gone, Eliza sagged against Xavier. “Oh God.”
He slipped his arm around her. “Well, that’s one way to do it,” he said, relief pouring off him.
“She hardly ever even comes in here, she has her own kitchen in the office suite.”
“She must have heard us arrive.”
Eliza pressed her face against his chest. “Argh. How long do you think she’s known? Do you think everyone knows? Drina?”
“Drina would probably have said something,” said Xavier, because he thought—he hoped—she couldn’t have flirted with him so much if she thought he was Eliza’s.
At dinner, Drina chattered with nervous excitement about the two upcoming equestrian events. Xavier learned that she’d been competing since an early age and had set up her own stables five years ago, from where she trained and bred horses. The horse talk got quite technical, and he let it wash over him.
“Do you ride?” the Princess Royal asked him at one point.
“Ah, no ma’am. Not a lot of call for it in my job. Although there’s always the Mounted Patrol.”
“Do they have cool uniforms like the Mounties?” Eliza asked, smiling at him.
“No one has cool uniforms like the Mounties,” he replied, smiling back.
“Ohhh,” said Drina, and he looked up guiltily to see her watching them both. “Separate bedrooms, my arse. Did you actually go to see Jamie or was that just an excuse for a dirty weekend?”
Kinda both, Xavier thought, grinning at Eliza, who blushed prettily.
After dinner, she waited until her mother had retired before taking Xavier to bed, as if out of sight really was out of mind. She took him shyly to her bedroom, and chattered nervously about the paintings and the carvings on the fireplace and the curtains she wanted to replace, until Xavier took her gently by the shoulders.
“Do you want me to stay?”
She faltered. “Yes, of course.”
“You seem nervous is all, Princess.”
Her gaze skittered away. “I—I suppose I’ve never… I’ve had this room since I was a little girl and… this is the last time it will just be mine, isn’t it?”
It looked as if it hadn’t changed in years. How long had the princess waited in her tower?
“Should we choose another room? Do you want to come upstairs?”
She shook her head. “No. No. I’m not a little girl any more. Look at the size of that bed, Xavier, it’s time someone shared it with me.”
He wholeheartedly agreed.
The next morning, they watched as Drina loaded her horses into their trucks and set off with her mother, who apparently had some engagements somewhere in the country. Eliza, somewhat diffident, showed Xavier the luxurious full size Olympic pool her father had installed for her in a barn behind the stables, and swam a few lengths while he watched, impressed at her stamina and technique.
“Time?” she asked, and he told her. “Ugh, that’s rubbish. I’m so out of condition.”
“You look amazing.”
“I’m hardly fighting fit.” She rubbed at an ugly bit of scar tissue between her shoulder blade and arm. He’d gotten more used to the scars on her body now, even if she hated them. “It keeps pulling just here.”
Xavier knelt down, beckoned her closer and probed gently at it as she stood in the shallow end. “Here? Did the damage go down to the muscle?”
“Apparently. They said it will heal eventually, but I don’t know if it’ll ever really be the same. Still, what the hell. Not like I was going to make a career out of it anyway.”
Xavier still thought that was stupid. If Drina was allowed to ride horses, why shouldn’t her sister be allowed to swim?
“Will you go back to your auction house?” he asked. “After…”
“After the baby?” Her hand went to her belly. He wondered if she realised she was doing it. “I don’t know. I’m still on leave now. Maybe I’ll make a clean break of it.”
“Be a full time mom?”
“Well, it’s not exactly something you can do part time,” she said drily, and turned back to face him. Her hair was in a wet braid over her shoulder, her swimsuit was severe and technical, and she wore no make-up to conceal the scar on her face. Xavier thought she was lovely.
“Hey. You think we’ll have more kids?”
She laughed. “Steady on. Let’s see how we get on with this one first, okay?”
“Okay.” He’d always figured he’d have lots of kids. “We could practice making them, though.”
He stood up, and pulled off his shirt. He’d dispensed with the sling for now, and most of the time didn’t miss it.
“Xavier!” She looked around, scandalised, but there was no one else in the barn. “What are you doing?”
“Joining you for a swim.”
“You don’t have anything to swim in.”
He grinned at her and unfastened his jeans.
“Xavi!”
“I love the way you say my name.” He kicked off his jeans and underwear all in one go, and slid into the water beside her. “Say it again.”
She slipped her arms around his neck. “Xavier. Xavi.”
“Mmm. Again.” His hand slipped inside her swimsuit.
“Xavi!”
Chapter Thirteen
Badminton was as busy as ever. Eliza regarded the crowds and took a deep breath. She’d chosen her outfit with care, to blend in, cover her arms and legs no matter how many layers she removed if the sun came out, and to conceal as much of the scar on her face as possible. She’d patched herself up with some stuff that would probably take paint stripper to remove, and had her hair falling over that side of her face, in addition to sunglasses. She even had a tweed cap in her bag.
“You look great,” said Xavier, who looked unfeasibly handsome in a pale pink polo shirt that set off his tan. When he put on sunglasses he looked like a movie star. People turned to stare at him far more than they did at Eliza.
Thankfully, he decided the English May weather was freezing, and put his jacket on. It was a sensible Barbour, and it did rather more to conceal the Miami glamour he exuded than his form-fitting t-shirt had.
Her security team stuck to her like glue, but at least they were useful for carrying her shopping. Eliza bought a scarf her mother might like, and a pendant she would give to Drina as either a congratulation or commiseration prize, as had been her habit since her sister had begun competing.
Xavier bought small bits and pieces of branded merchandise to send home to his family. Send, not take. He was planning on staying.
“You’ll have to come meet them,” he said as they wandered through the shopping village. “I mean, before… November,” he added, quirking his eyebrows at her. “Abuela will probably put a curse on us if I don’t take you.”
“I’d love to meet them,” Eliza said, smiling up at him. He took her hand, and smiled back.
She’d taken the opportunity of her mother and sister being away to meet with a midwife—one of the advantages of a royal name was that people generally made appointments when you wanted them, not the other way around—who assured her everything was fine and booked her for a scan in a fortnight. A scan. It was happening, it was really happening.
“Oh look! How cute are they!”
The stall sold children’s riding equipment, from the practical to the twee. Eliza picked up a pair of tiny riding boots and nearly cuddled them there and then.
“They’re very adorable. But a kid that small can’t sit on a horse,” said Xavier, slightly alarmed.
“No, of course not. They’re just to match Mummy.” Oh hell, she felt tears gathering behind her eyes. “I mean, maybe, um, one of my cousin’s kids might like them.”
She couldn’t bear to put them down, and bought them on the pretext of giving them to one of her cousin’s kids, despite all of them being far too big now.
The thought of them made her
smile all afternoon. When someone took a picture of her, she didn’t even mind.
“Oh my gosh! You’re Princess Eliza!”
Well, at least the scar meant they could be told apart now. Eliza nodded and smiled, but the woman’s attention was already on Xavier.
“And you’re the hero cop who saved her!”
“No, I—”
“He was very brave,” Eliza interrupted, smiling sycophantically up at him. “I owe him my life.”
“Don’t overdo it, Princess,” he muttered as the woman, and several others, took pictures of them smiling together.
“You guys are such a cute couple!”
“We’re just friends,” said Eliza, because that was the official line until they spoke to Granny. And besides, no one ever believed it. The story could be that Eliza was maybe dating her hero cop and then romantically married him in secret. Yeah, that would work perfectly.
She beamed at Xavier. “Come on. Let’s go and find Drina.”
Drina was getting ready for the Trot-up, and Eliza had no wish to get sucked into her outfit dilemmas, so she followed the directions of a groom to find her father in his hospitality pavilion, talking finance with a load of men in suits. He was in full waxed-jacket, pink corduroy, country gent mode, enjoying playing the stereotype for his visitors.
“Hello, Daddy.”
“Darling!” He forgot his conversation and threw his arms around her. “How are you? Let me look at you. You look much better. Picture of health. Isn’t she? How long have you been here? Have you seen your sister?”
Eliza held up her hand. “Daddy, stop. Breathe.” He looked a bit sheepish. “I’m fine, thank you. How are you?”
“Oh, very well, very well. Have a drink,” he said, and waved at somebody with a bottle of champagne.
“No, thank you.” She’d got so used to this lie now it just tripped off her tongue. “Reacts badly with some of my medication. Have you met Xavier?”
She’d thought a lot how to do this part, but it came pretty easily. Her father, more at home in the loud, boozy world of corporate entertaining than the politely distant Royal arena, simply turned and shook Xavier’s hand vigorously.
“Lovely to meet you, Xavier…?”
“Rivera. Xavier Rivera.”
“Marvellous. Now, these chaps are…”
He clearly hadn’t remembered most of their names, but they introduced themselves. Eliza smiled and shook hands, Xavier did the same, and nobody asked any awkward questions.
It wasn’t until later, when they were watching the Trot-up, that her father turned to Xavier and said, “We have met before, haven’t we?”
“I don’t think so, sir. But you sent me some beautiful flowers.”
“Did I, by God? Remind me what I was sending flowers for?”
Dearest Daddy, so clever when it came to finance, and so useless in the rest of the world. “Xavier rescued me, Daddy. We were on the desert island together?”
Her father’s face went comically astonished, mouth and eyes opening wide. “Rivera! Detective Rivera!” He grabbed Xavier’s hand and pumped it hard. “Well, this is an honour indeed. I owe you my daughter’s life, sir. When I think what could have happened…” He shuddered.
Xavier’s smile became a bit fixed as the Duke continued to crush the bones of his hand.
“Calls for a celebration! I say, where have they got to with the champagne?”
“No, really, Daddy—”
“I have to drive later,” Xavier extemporised, trying to extract his crushed fingers. “But thank you. And you’re welcome. I was just doing my job.”
“Your job, indeed. Ought to be a knighthood in it for you, old chap, you mark my words.”
“Jamie reckons a George Medal,” said Eliza. “Daddy, Xavier got shot on that side, so maybe leave his arm alone for now, yes?”
“Oh!” Her father dropped Xavier’s hand. “Terribly sorry, old chap. Got carried away.”
“Hey, isn’t that your sister?” said Xavier desperately.
It wasn’t, but looking out for her occupied her father. Xavier exchanged an amused look with Eliza, who rolled her eyes. She loved her father dearly, but maybe she should have warned Xavi how exuberant he got after a few drinks.
“This is number 36, Drina Suffolk with Moons of Jupiter, owned by the Duke of Suffolk. Number 36.”
“Yeah! Go Drina,” cheered Xavier, and people turned to look at him in horror.
“We don’t yell,” Eliza told him.
“I wasn’t yelling, I was cheering. We don’t cheer?”
“You hear anyone else cheering?”
Xavier looked at her like she was no fun, but stayed quiet as Drina paused with the horse, then began to run alongside him.
“Oh, he’s looking splendid,” said her father. “I always said, horses by Titan might be the fastest but out of Europa are the most beautiful.”
“I must know where she got that outfit,” said a woman nearby. Drina had on a coat dress that belled out prettily around her knees as she trotted with the horse, and tall suede boots.
“Primark,” said Eliza sagely, and the woman looked baffled.
“Moons of Jupiter accepted,” intoned the announcer.
“Jolly good,” said her father. “I have a couple more to see. Are you sticking around?”
Eliza glanced at Xavier, who shrugged. “We’ll get something to eat, then see you for the presentation.”
They ate in the private hospitality tent, and Eliza still had to fend off well-wishers and Xavier’s admirers.
“I’m going to have to put a collar on you,” she said. “Property of Eliza.”
He shrugged. “Back atcha. I’ve been watching guys look at you all day. They can’t their eyes of that sweet tush of yours.”
It was sweet of him to flatter her. “Yes, until I turn around,” she said morosely.
“Then they see the scar and think you’re badass. My badass,” he qualified, stealing a tomato from her plate.
After the presentation, they went back to their hotel, where Xavier changed into a suit Serena had managed to get altered in time, and they had dinner with her father and Drina. Drina, high on adrenaline, barely stopped chattering about the competition tomorrow and drew their father’s attention away from Eliza and Xavier. This was just as well, as Eliza’s hormones had demanded she order a sea bass which she suddenly found she couldn’t eat.
Xavier sneaked chunks of it off her plate when no one was looking, and she loved him for it.
She lay in his arms that evening, feeling his heart beat, and thought about those tiny little riding boots.
“Jamie’s had a brilliant idea,” Eliza told him the next evening as she sat drying her hair with a towel. It had rained that day at the horse trials, and he’d been worried about her health, but Eliza had just laughed and said she’d been specifically bred to withstand rainy days watching horses.
“Has he?” Her cousin seemed to be full of brilliant ideas, some of which Xavier even understood.
“Yes. He said, don’t go straight to Granny about us. Go to Grandpa. Who else has her ear the way he does?”
Xavier guessed at the answer, “Nobody?”
“They’ve been married for a thousand years. And anyway she’s usually in a good mood at Windsor, especially if her horses do well. Anyway, Mummy was always rather Grandpa’s favourite. He was the one who stuck up for her decision to divorce Daddy. No one else had really done it before.”
“Aside from Henry VIII?”
“Five hundred years ago,” she reminded him.
Yeah, you know what else went out five hundred years ago? Not marrying Catholics, he wanted to say, but didn’t. Eliza looked so happy, so excited. He’d seen the tears in her eyes when she’d picked up those tiny riding boots. She shone with joy.
“So your Grandpa—the Duke of Edinburgh?”
“No, darling, not Edinboro, Edinbruh. Don’t give them easy ammunition.”
He raised his hands in surrender. Jesus, t
hese rules.
Her phone pinged, and she glanced at it. “Drina asking why we’re not at the cocktail party. I don’t suppose ‘because not drinking is boring and I’d rather shag my fiancé’ would be an acceptable answer?”
“My momma always told me the truth is best,” he said solemnly, and she stuck out her tongue as she typed a reply.
“Okay, so the Duke of Edinbruh has a soft spot for your mother?”
She put down her phone. “Yes, and by extension me and Drina. Huge supporter of her riding, and he even came to see me competing once or twice at Uni. He was the only one who told me to keep it up. The thing is, if we tell him, she’ll be softened up for it.”
“Tell him what? All of it?” He sat on the end of the bed beside her.
Eliza took a breath and sighed it out. “Yes. Well, why we need to get married so quickly. Present it as a fait accompli, and what can she really say?”
Xavier had no idea. He was still figuring out how to break it to his own Abuela who, no matter what Eliza said, was way scarier than the Queen.
“Also, we should probably give notice to marry somewhere aside from Windsor. I mean, there are an awful lot of nosy parkers around, and it’s not like I can pretend I’m some other Princess Elizabeth Victoria of Suffolk.”
“I guess there aren’t many of you.”
“Perhaps the one nearest Brakefield Hall, and maybe we can have the ceremony there. Just something small and quiet, and then we can have a blessing in St George’s after the baby is born. And that can be the whole dress and veil caboodle.”
“Caboodle, huh?”
“Caboodle. You can wear morning dress. You’ll look very dashing.”
More words he thought he understood, and clearly didn’t. He sighed. “Morning dress?”
She stretched back to pick up her tablet and Xavier watched the movement of her body under her silk pyjamas. Oh, this was a woman he would want for a very long time.
“Here.” She scrolled through a few pictures. “Top hat and stripey trousers essential. You could probably wear a different colour of waistcoat though.”
“Such choice,” he said drily, looking at the pictures of men wearing basically identical outfits, all of which were ludicrous. Perez would wet himself laughing.
