His attorney had told him to stay out of trouble. He gritted his teeth, but forced his voice to an even tone.
"I needed some fresh air," he said simply. "I didn't know I was confined indoors."
Her lips pinched, her eyes flicking to his face and then away. "I don't suppose you are."
Her chin jerked as she looked away.
He watched her face as the wind blew strands of hair across her cheek. That pert nose... It frustrated him to still be attracted to someone who’d been so cold toward his uncle.
She frowned, brushed at the hair in her face. She didn't say anything.
"My uncle is fine," Cody said, not that she'd asked. "He had a minor episode but was able to take some meds and get stabilized."
She mumbled something under her breath.
He'd never been under the impression that everyone had to like him. Some guys on the circuit made no secret of their dislike for him. But her distaste seemed personal.
He stuffed his hands in his front jeans pockets. "Do you want me to go inside?" he asked, even though he'd been here first.
"What I'd like is for you to stop staring at me." Her words were venom-filled. "Didn't anyone ever tell you it's rude to stare?"
Though her words had started rude, they ended angry, like a sudden burst of thunder.
She moved past him, closer to the water's edge, and wrapped her arms around her middle.
Her shoulders were up, and her anger washed over him, but he couldn't help feeling the emotion behind her words. And with her arms like that…it sure seemed defensive.
Something inside him shifted. Some of his anger and frustration over what had happened falling away.
It bothered her when he looked at her?
He stood two paces behind her, watching the surf roll, not knowing what to say.
Eloise hadn't meant to yell at the cowboy. She definitely hadn't meant to reveal so much through her loaded statement. Now he knew her weakness.
She was feeling especially sensitive because Jill continued to harp on her idea of bringing the bull rider into their media plan to spin his presence here in a positive light. Earlier, she'd produced a full-page magazine spread that proclaimed Cody Austin not only the number one rider on the circuit, but also the number one most attractive man in bull riding.
All Eloise could remember was the way he'd stared at her during the wedding ceremony. She'd been so relieved to sit and turn her face away from the guests only to have his stare on her for almost the entire time.
She'd hated every second of it.
She should leave, before she made things worse. Go back inside.
But the cowboy stepped up next to her. "You know, the scars aren't that bad, if that's what you're worried about."
Her mouth opened in a shocked gasp, but nothing emerged. No one mentioned her scars aloud, nor the accident that had caused them.
She turned to berate him, but he was already gone, his broad back disappearing up the winding stone staircase.
How dare he?
But...what had he done, exactly? Gotten close enough to mention her scars? He'd been kind, even if she couldn't believe him. In light of everything that had happened, his gesture was even more surprising. Even if she hated that he’d felt he had to say the words.
Her scars had cost her everything. Had created the ugly creature that she was.
Not that bad.
If only he knew how her life had been upended. She'd gone from being beautiful, full of life, the beloved daughter next in line for the throne, to a monster her own father hadn't been able to look at.
She'd retreated from the world, and they'd been content for her to disappear. Until her father's illness had pushed her into the spotlight once again.
And now this cowboy was here, and unlike the rest of the kingdom, he refused to look away.
4
Two mornings after the wedding, Ethan stood in the small sitting room in the suite he shared with Mia.
He was still getting used to the luxury of having staff. Of having someone else launder his tighty-whities and make his breakfast. Yesterday, Mia had caught him tucking in the bedspread after they'd gotten up for the day.
Now, she emerged from the bathroom and touched up her lipstick using the small mirror in an alcove near the outer door.
She didn't meet his eyes in the mirror. "Would you mind terribly if I don't go with you to tour the university? I'm feeling a bit under the weather."
She sent him a smile over her shoulder. She didn't look sick, though maybe a bit pale.
"That's fine."
He'd wanted the company, but he was an adult. He meant to tour the nearby university and enroll, or at least find out what paperwork he needed to get sent over from the small town Texas high school he'd barely graduated from.
Going for the tour alone wasn't ideal. He was also still getting used to being in the public eye. Being a public figure. Him. A poor kid from Texas.
Sometimes paparazzi followed him and Mia around. What was he supposed to say if they trapped him somewhere and asked hard questions about the royal family? Or his family?
His brothers had been sent to a juvenile detention facility back home and refused contact with him.
He'd gone through several rounds with the palace's media specialist when he and Mia had arrived in Glorvaird after their Vegas wedding. During their early public appearances, most of the journalists seemed to want to ask about Mia’s dating life before him. All he had to do was refuse to comment. He could handle that without embarrassing Mia or her family, right?
Mia came close and pressed her cheek against his. "I need to run down to talk to Eloise before she gets going on her days' tasks."
But, once again, she didn't quite meet his eyes before she turned and swept out of the room.
And this was the first time she hadn't kissed him goodbye since they'd declared themselves to each other back in Texas.
Something was wrong.
He had a hunch that something had happened at Alessandra and Gideon's wedding. There was no other explanation for Mia pulling away the past two days. She'd been busy right up to the wedding, helping her sisters with preparations and all that entailed.
But she hadn't held herself back from him.
He knew that two of her former beaus had been in attendance, because of their political connections with the Glorvaird royal family. She'd told him about the guest list well before the wedding, which he'd appreciated.
He hadn't particularly worried about those guys until now.
Mia had spent most of the wedding day at his side, but had there been a time where they'd been apart and one of the beaus had approached her?
Jealousy flared through him, thinking about Mia even sharing a peck on the cheek with someone she'd had feelings for before.
He didn't want to think it, but what if something had happened...?
Because the other choice was that Mia had grown tired of him in the seven months they'd been married.
Maybe the extravagant wedding had upset her, since theirs had been so small, only witnessed by Alessandra and Gideon. Did she regret marrying him that way?
Or maybe it was him.
Did he really know how to keep her interest? A small-town guy like him? He'd been excited to sell the dairy and be out from under its mortgages. Surprisingly, there’d been a small amount of profit from the sale, and Mia had forced him to bank it in a special account.
Should he have bought her an extravagant present, since he hadn't even given her a wedding gift? The wedding rings they'd exchanged had been simple gold bands.
He'd felt incredibly blessed when Mia had declared her love for him, bestowing a kiss on him that had meant she wanted to marry him.
But ever since they'd arrived in Glorvaird, he'd felt uncertain. Out of place. How could someone like him fit in here? Gideon had been something of an ally when he wasn’t busy with security or wedding preparations. He was nothing like Gideon, though. Gideon was college educated and well
-traveled. If he didn't feel he belonged, the soldier never showed it.
Ethan, though. He was a very different story.
Eloise had welcomed him stiffly—which Mia had warned him about—and while the staff was kind, he still wasn't sure of where he fit around here.
He'd hoped his decision to focus on business, economics, and political courses at the university would help ease his transition into his role as Mia's husband.
But her behavior over the last two days had him questioning everything.
Everything except for how much he loved her.
The next morning, Eloise's mood hadn't improved.
Jill had called an early-morning impromptu meeting with Father, surprising Eloise with her new idea for showing the public a softer side of Eloise.
After the fact, it was apparent that she'd blindsided Eloise with the meeting because she never would've agreed to the idiotic idea.
But Eloise had been five minutes late to the hastily-scheduled meeting, and Jill and Father had made the decision for her.
For once, Father had looked bright-eyed and excited.
She couldn't mess this up for him. For the kingdom.
But... A camera crew. Inside the palace walls? Like they were some reality TV show?
Apparently Jill had been contacted by a local news network’s producer who wanted to do a week's worth of pieces on life inside the castle.
And Eloise had been nominated to be in many of the shots. It was her chance to show her people how personable she could be.
Except she wasn't. Not personable. Not nice. Not friendly.
She had no idea how she was going to pull this off.
Eloise was right. She’d been slathered in makeup, then blinded all morning by bright lights.
Behind the camera crew, Jill looked more worried than ever.
And her obvious fear about how this was going was just making Eloise tighten up more.
They'd just visited the kitchens where the on-staff chef had been tense and unnatural in front of the cameras.
Now they moved through one of the staff hallways, but the camera guy paused when laughter seeped out between a cracked door.
A laundry room, if she remembered correctly, though it had been ages since she'd explored down here. She and her sisters had played hide and seek—and driven the staff crazy—but that was well before the accident.
The reporter stopped, curiosity crossing her features. And unfortunately, it matched Jill's expression.
Eloise knew Jill would do anything to have this make a positive impression.
"That's just the laundry—" Eloise started, but Jill had already pushed open the door.
It opened to a large, sun-filled room, with washing machines along one wall and electric dryers along the opposite wall. An older maid, Cindy, who'd been on staff since Eloise had been a little girl, worked at folding bundles and bundles of sheets laid out across tables beneath a huge window.
In the center of the room, the bull rider was flipping and parachuting a towel over the head of a young girl Eloise didn't recognize.
As the camera crew and reporter pushed into the large, airy room, the occupants froze.
Cindy bowed quickly. "Your highness."
The cowboy was next to move, nodding his head. "Ma’am."
Cindy put her hand on the little girl's shoulder. Cindy's face had gone white, though the little girl showed only simple curiosity. Of course her gaze went straight to Eloise's scars. When she saw them, she gasped.
"Who's this?" Eloise asked, trying to find a friendly smile and too aware of both the cowboy's gaze and the camera crew filming everything.
The little girl continued to stare, and Eloise felt her face heat. Lovely. Now her scars would stand out more.
"My granddaughter, Christy. Her mother was sick today, and Mrs. Ellison"—the head housekeeper—"said it would be okay if I brought her to work."
Eloise saw the tremble in the older woman's hand and felt the tension throughout the room. As if they were all holding their breath. They were all waiting for her to react.
"Of course it's fine," she said, but that horrid heat remained.
Cody didn't know what was going on with the high-tech TV cameras, the dude holding a boom mike, or the princess, but he could see in the fine lines around her eyes and the tense set of her shoulders that whatever was happening, it was important to Eloise.
He'd been bored again this morning and the attorney had nothing new for him. He had met Cindy and Christy in the staff kitchen at breakfast. The little girl had charmed him. He'd had nothing better to do when she'd invited him to "help" her and her grandma, and now found himself here.
And it was obvious that Eloise didn't know how to relate to anyone in the room.
He couldn't say what possessed him, but he shot a wink at Christy. "I think the princess needs a lesson in folding laundry, don't you?"
Eloise's brows crunched together.
The little girl remained frozen, obviously scared of what the princess would do. He'd heard whispers among the staff about the princess's beastly temper, had seen it for himself on the beach, but he also had that split-second memory of Eloise on the shore, the way she'd held herself together, as if she might fall apart.
He grabbed one of the washed sheets from the pile of rumpled, clean laundry. He took a few steps toward Eloise and flipped it up. Air whooshed beneath the light fabric, light refracted for a moment on the princess's luminous eyes as the sheet descended on her. He didn't cover her face, but wrapped the sheet around her shoulders, letting it flow around her like a kid might play dress up as a superhero.
"C'mon, Christy," he encouraged.
For a long moment, the room descended into shocked silence. Everyone seemed to be waiting for the princess to lose her temper, all eyes on her.
But a sudden giggle emerged from her pert pink lips.
And then all bets were off.
Christy grabbed a corner of the sheet and unwound the princess, and the two of them played tug-of-war until he joined Christy's side, and they ripped the sheet out of Eloise's hands. Christy laughed, and he found himself chuckling.
Eloise's eyes flashed, and she turned to the pile of clean linens, snagging a sheet of her own, and then a real battle was on as she whipped it through the air.
It was easy to forget the cameras as the princess, Christy, and he dueled it out, whirling between sheets as they tried to capture each other. Cindy had ducked out of the way, joining Jill behind the cameras.
As he panted and tried not to look like a wimp because he was winded from a little linen fight, Eloise bent and whispered something to Christy. Both girls shot him evil looks and then joined forces and chased after him. He gave it his all, feinting left and then right, imagining he was a steer in the arena, giving his ropers a merry chase.
Of course, he let them catch him, because Christy was all-out belly laughing, and he'd never seen the princess's eyes so filled with light.
The girls laughed as they wrapped both sheets around him, holding his arms to his middle and keeping him from walking. He wobbled across the room and was rewarded by their laughter.
Eloise ended up right in front of him, tucking in the sheet to a fold of linen up against his chest. His chin was about level with her forehead, and he found the little wrinkles of concentration across her brow entirely too distracting.
They'd only been this close once before, in the hall of art when he'd thought to step in between her and the photographer-turned-party-crasher, and that time, she'd shied away from him quickly.
But now she was so focused on what she was doing, maybe she didn't realize exactly how close they were. The warm air from the massive set of electric dryers against the far wall was still swirling from all their running around, but the sweet smell of clean laundry didn't overpower the scent that was distinctly the princess. She smelled like ocean spray and something exotic he couldn't name.
Looking down at her, he barely registered the scars, instead fixate
d on the sweep of her golden lashes against her cheeks and the way her lips puckered in her concentration.
Then all of a sudden, she looked up. He could see the realization of how close they were as it dawned in her eyes. Color crept up her throat and into her face, and he really wished his hands were free because he wanted to touch her skin to see if it had warmed.
Maybe it was the cameras or the little girl on her knees at their feet, still happily wrapping all the way down to his boots, but Eloise didn't jerk away this time. She patted his chest twice, cleared her throat, and stepped back.
"I think we've saved the kingdom from this rapscallion, Christy," she said. Was he the only one who heard the huskiness in her voice?
"Awesome!" the young girl exclaimed. She jumped up and raised her hand to high-five the princess, who looked surprised, but only for a moment. Then she lifted her own hand and high-fived back.
A woman in a suit he'd seen around the castle but hadn’t met herded the camera crew out the door as Cindy collected her granddaughter and also made a quick escape, which left him and the princess standing somewhat alone.
"Well, that was…"
"Fun?" he finished for her when she seemed to stall out.
She glanced at him, and maybe it was the play of sunlight through the dust-motes they'd stirred up, but he once again got a glimpse of that vulnerability he'd seen on the beach.
"I suppose it was," she said softly.
"Been awhile since you've experienced it? You don't sound too sure." He meant the words as a tease, and maybe if the crew and staff was still close enough, they'd have frozen up again, because did anyone really tease this woman?
Her lips pinched a little, but she nodded slightly. Then she looked embarrassed at the silent admission and turned her chin slightly away.
He was a little afraid she was going to bolt out the door. "You aren't going to leave me like this, are you?"
Her lips twitched slightly as she moved toward him again. This time, without the distraction of the faux fight and Christy playing with them, he noticed the hesitation before she reached for the linen at his chest.
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