The Princess's Forbidden Lover

by Clare Connelly

  He worked the benches and the large oak table, then dusted the sofa and finally, the bed. It was a surprisingly homely arrangement, with a clean-looking duvet and several fluffy pillows propped against the headboard. He checked each of them for spiders, likewise beneath the bed and mattress and rubbed his hands down the front of his jeans.

  It was far from suitable for someone like Lilah, but it was also the last place on earth anyone would think to look fore her.

  Here, in a tiny cabin on the edge of a lake and surrounded by cliff-like mountain ranges, she might not be comfortable, but she would be safe.

  And her safety was all he cared about.

  Not her comfort.

  Nor her good opinion.

  With a nod to himself to affirm that viewpoint, he creaked out of the cabin and bounded down the stairs. At the car, he paused only for a single moment, before reaching across and unclipping her belt. She was so restful in sleep. Her eyes didn’t even twitch and flicker.

  He shook his head, for some reason disapproving of her easy respite, before gently wrapping his strong arms beneath her and lifting her from the car.

  She shifted a little, perhaps flirting with the idea of stirring, before cozying closer to his chest and sighing with contentment. He froze, the moonlight bathing him in a shard of haunted betrayal.

  This was a duty of honour.

  It was an obligation to an old friend and powerful man.

  It was a calling.

  The same silver line that shone over him dusted her, and he stared at her face. True, she wore the kind of make up one would expect a princess to. Her lashes were long though, even without the coatings of mascara, and her lips were full and sweet. Her cheekbones were pronounced and she had dimples in her cheeks when she smiled, as she had done, playfully, with Harry earlier that night.

  She was going to hate being in the cabin with him.

  And there was a small part of Will that was glad of that. He was glad that she wouldn’t enjoy herself. That this wouldn’t be fun for her, either.

  They were two people who had been thrown together for the most serious of reasons.

  That was all.

  He avoided the creaky step as he carried her to the porch and shouldered in the door. She didn’t stir as he gently placed her onto the bed, though it creaked a little with her weight.

  He frowned.

  She would sleep better without the high heels, but would she mind that he removed them?

  With a soft growl of frustration, he wrapped one hand around her ankle as he used the other to leverage a shoe off. He placed it carefully beneath the bed and then freed the other.

  She made a sound which might have been ‘thanks’, then rolled onto her side. Will placed the blanket over her then stepped quickly away from the bed.

  With a grim frown he bolt-locked the door as he kicked his boots off. The sofa didn’t look too inviting, but it was sure as hell better than the floor or bed. Unfortunately, for a man who was almost six and a half feet tall, lying down on it meant folding his legs up almost to his chest.

  He tried it and then made a soft noise of disgust before standing up again.

  He was wired.

  It was seeing Harry again.

  And being on the run.

  All the instincts that he’d honed in warzone after warzone were buzzing beneath his skin.

  He tossed the blanket and pillow onto the floor after all. He’d slept in worse places, and at least he wouldn’t risk permanent nerve damage to his legs this way.

  The sounds of this kind of nature were long since forgotten to him.

  He could distinguish the separate calls of no less than ten desert knight birds that owned the sands of the middle east; he could hear drones from miles away and he could discern when a tank had a problem with its fuel line. But these noises stumped him.

  In the distance, there was running water, and he vaguely remembered hearing that there was a waterfall near the lake. The trees brushed against one another in the canopy above the house. It was just leaves and twigs but to Will it almost sounded like whispers in the night.

  There were coyotes too, making their distinctive pitch, pitch, pitch howl sounds up at the round, full moon.

  Will squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to think of how tired Harry had looked. How dull the house had seemed. How empty. He tried not to think about the photos they’d passed of Maddie in the hall. Maddie as a child. Maddie as a girl. And Maddie as a young woman, beautiful and free-spirited.

  But it was impossible to push them from his thoughts. As he slept fitfully, he dreamed of them. Of her. Of the first time he’d seen her, when the sunlight had acted like a halo around her whole body. She’d been wearing the white dress – more like a slip, actually – and some chunky black leather boots. Harry had smiled affectionately and said, “Grunge, huh.”

  “Doesn’t she realise Kurt Cobain is dead?”

  “Don’t matter to her,” Harry had chipped back. “This girl moves with the wind, just like her mama did.”

  A crash to his left startled him, some time early if the light was anything to go by. He was instantly awake. He sat bolt upright and looked around, his heart pounding as he took in all of his surroundings. The fireplace beside him was still dusting in an obvious sign of guilt. It had been responsible for the noise. But why? He moved closer to investigate and smiled when he saw the snow covered nest that had fallen to the ground. Ashes, twigs, rubbish and ice were everywhere.

  He cast a glance over his shoulder then, towards the bed.

  Lilah was still asleep, though she was stirring, her arms stretching above her head in a tell-tale gesture of awakening.

  Will’s heart pounded in his chest, from the surprise of the chimney evacuation, he assured himself.

  His watch marked it to be a little after six, and a quick glance through the grimy window showed snow had indeed begun to fall heavily overnight. The temperature in the cabin must have dropped by several degrees.

  They’d need the fire, and they’d need it fast.

  He stood carefully and walked across the floorboards. Everything looked a little dustier in the day than he’d realised at night, and for the first time he questioned the wisdom of bringing Her Royal Highness Jalilah Mazroui to a place such as this. Could he have taken her across the border and organized a hotel under a pseudonym?

  Not in this day and age.

  He slipped his boots on; they were ice-cold from their position by the door. There were heavy coats hanging on a hook. He shook one to check for spiders then slipped it on.

  Lilah watched him surreptitiously from beneath shuttered eyes. Slowly, as daylight had broken into her sleep, shards of memory had come back to her. The exhilarating and terrifying escape from the tower, the drive to Jersey and the nice man with the small house. The conversation they’d had right before she’d fallen asleep.

  But none of this was familiar. Had she slept the whole way? And where were they? It looked like a relic from a wild-west film.

  She heard the door pull inward and felt the gust of wind barrel through the cabin and fill it with ice. The door slammed shut almost immediately afterwards and Lilah let out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding.

  He was somewhere outside.

  Will.

  The Journalist.

  The American.

  She swallowed as she sat up and took note of her surroundings.

  It was a very rustic cabin, and not rustic in the Martha Stewart way, either. There were no swags of autumn leaves hanging from the framed ceiling, nor were there bowls of red apples and spiced oranges adorning the oak surfaces.

  There was a small kitchen down one end, with windows that overlooked a thick assortment of tree trunks. It looked to have the basics: a fridge, a sink, some cupboards.

  Beyond it there was a door which, Lilah prayed, would lead to a bathroom of sorts.

  The main room itself was simple. There was the bed on which she slept, a sofa, and a dining table that loo
ked like it would sit ten or so people at a pinch. There were pictures on the walls, though they were faded.

  She pushed the covers back and ran her hands down the front of her suit. She was relieved to see she was still dressed in what she had been wearing the evening before. Though her shoes had been removed, the idea of Will having done anything more intimate filled her with an emotion she couldn’t analyse.

  Will’s bulky frame pushed through the door just as she was stepping deeper into the room. “Grab the door, would you,” he said huskily, his arms loaded up with thick chunks of firewood.

  “Oh, right, yes.” She padded quickly across the floor and Will concealed a smile at her light-footedness. Lilah didn’t make the boards creak. It was only his oafish weight that did that. She held it but it was not easy. The wind was strong, pushing it inwards then trying to suck it back out. She closed it and it thumped into the frame. Lilah bolted the slide lock across in case it changed its mind and burst back into the room.

  “Where are we?” She asked his back, as he crouched down and placed the firewood in a basket on the floor.

  “About five miles out of Kentauck.”

  “Kentauck,” she nodded, though the strange word meant nothing to her.

  “It’s still New York State.”

  “I see.” She swallowed.

  “Can you have a look in the kitchen for a dustpan and broom?”

  “A dustpan and broom?” The frown was natural. “Sure.” Her quizzical expression didn’t ease as she moved into the kitchen and began to pull doors open. Things were not much better in the cupboards. Mostly bare, there were signs of rodent life and a few rusted tins without labels right at the bottom.

  “When did you last come here?” She asked, her head buried under the sink.

  “I haven’t been here before.”

  Lilah pulled out of the cupboard, banging her head sharply on the sink. She winced as she stood, rubbing the egg that was forming gingerly.

  Will saw the gesture and something strange clenched his chest. “Did the sink hit you?”

  “I hit it, more to the point.” She stood up and shook her head. “I can’t see a dustpan,” she said. He came into the kitchen, his expression masked as he closed the distance between them.

  He stopped right in front of her and Lilah swallowed. He was going to touch her. And though he must have carried her into the cabin the night before, she shied away from the idea of his contact now.

  “I’m fine,” she said, moving a step backwards.

  He pulled a face that instantly made her feel utterly juvenile. “Let me see.”

  “It’s nothing. Just a sign of my carelessness. Honestly, as a child I was forever banging into things. Ki always said it was a miracle I survived into adulthood after all the silly scrapes I got myself into. One time I fell off my horse because I’d saddled it up backward.”

  “You saddled your own horse?” He sent her a look and then lightly ran his fingers over her head. “I would have thought you’d have servants for that.”

  “Yes, we did.” What did he smell like? Whatever it was, it was strangely pleasant, especially given what they’d been through in the last few hours. Spice and alpine leaves. It was as though he’d taken himself into the woods beyond the cabin and wrapped himself in all of the natural fragrances that abounded. Her words were breathy. “But I was very funny about my horses. I had this one Arabian – Lisandra – who was meant to be one of the Al Khamsa. I wouldn’t let anyone else touch her. I spent hours saddling her, and then brushing her down after we’d been out. She used to look towards the desert with the saddest expression I’d ever seen, as though all she wanted was to be set free.”

  She was babbling. It was the first time in her life she’d ever chattered for no reason. Lilah, as a rule, was careful with every word that left her lips.

  “You’re going to live,” he said, dropping his hands and stepping away from her. “The Al Khamsa is a myth, I thought.”

  She arched her brow. “You have heard the story?”

  Will didn’t reply. He’d taken up the hunt for a dustpan and broom. It was in the pantry, where he’d seen her look only moments earlier.

  “Hey, Princess?” He stood up, a smile curving his lips. He was a good-looking man, but when he smiled, he was stunning. “Is it possible that you know everything there is to know about the United Arab Coalition and The Al Khamsa but you have no idea what a dustpan and broom looks like?”

  Her eyes flashed with something like embarrassment. “I just didn’t see it. Of course I know what a dustpan looks like.” And now that she saw him holding it, of course she did. She’d seen them in books and movies, and the one time she’d broken an ancient vase in the dining room and the servants had swiftly cleaned it while she stood, inconsolable, in Ki’s arms.

  “Uh huh.” His grin was teasing. “Come on. You can watch me work.”

  “Watch you work?”

  “I’d ask you to make us a tea but seeing as that involves boiling water I think it could be a recipe for disaster.”

  “I can make a tea,” she promised, though looking around the utilitarian kitchen she wondered how true that was.

  “Don’t worry about it.” His smile was disarming. “You’re a rookie in the real world. That’s nothing to be ashamed of, given who you are.”

  So why did she feel so embarrassed? She walked behind him, her back straight, her spirit crushed. He crouched in front of the fireplace and pulled out the largest obstruction. “Look.” He held it aloft, his eyes sparking as they met hers. “Some little bird is going to get a rude surprise tonight.”

  “Oh, no!” Her eyes widened with sorrow. “Do you mean it’s a nest?”

  “Yeah. Lucky the bird wasn’t in it when the snow came.”

  “But that’s terrible! We have to put it back.”

  He laughed. “If we put it back we can’t light the fire and we’ll freeze to death.”

  Her heart turned over in her chest. “Are you sure a bird was still using it? It looks old.”

  “Yeah. They make them with whatever they can find. But it’s the perfect spot to ride out the winter. A chimney like this? Probably hasn’t been used in years.”

  “How do you know that? You said this hut isn’t yours? Who lives here?”

  He turned his attention back to the fireplace, resting the nest at Lilah’s feet. She scooped down and picked it up on instinct, fascinated by the way the leaves and rubbish and gossamer-like strands had been compressed to make a sturdy structure.

  Will paused, brush poised above the bricked floor of the fireplace, so that he could watch Lilah. She was intent on her inspection of the little home. Her fingernails, manicured a soft pink, ran over the surface thoughtfully.

  “Will?” She flicked her eyes to his, surprised to find him staring at her. A sharp bolt of awareness flared between them. It was an arc of electricity; a shock of sensation. Lilah’s cheeks flushed pink as her eyes refused to budge from his.

  He was stronger than she; he turned back to the fireplace as though the world hadn’t tipped on its edge for him too. “No one lives here,” he said calmly, his pulse racing. “It belongs to the family of … a buddy of mine.”

  “And they won’t mind us being here?”

  “Nah. I’ll go explain it to them later. When this is all over. I’ve been meaning to visit them anyways.”

  She watched as his hands worked, deftly scraping out the rest of the detritus from the bottom of the fireplace, emptying it into a bucket she hadn’t noticed before.

  “We’ll have to find somewhere else to put this,” Lilah murmured decisively, earning a slanted look of sardonic amusement from Will.

  “Oh, we will, will we?”

  “Yes. We can’t have the bird coming back to find its home destroyed.”

  Something like ice was hammering in his veins. He hadn’t expected her compassion. Not for a bird.

  “That’s bird life.”

  “Well, not on our watch.”

 
“If you say so, Princess.”

  A frown tugged at her lips and he was saddened by it. “Why do you do that?” She asked, latching her eyes to his.

  “Do what?”

  “Call me Princess, as though you mean to say something far worse?”

  Now it was Will’s turn to frown. He stood, wiping his hands on his pants. “I hate to state the obvious, generally, but aren’t you a princess?”

  She nodded, biting down on her lower lip and turning away from him. “But when you say it …”

  “I mean to remind us both,” he said more sharply than he’d intended. “Now, do you think you can manage to turn on the taps in the kitchen?”

  She nodded, wondering at the strange feeling of failure that was spreading through her. “Of course I can turn a tap on.”

  He watched her glide across the cabin. Was she afraid? Worried? He’d taken her straight out of her luxuriously comfortable existence and brought her to the ends of civilization, and still she looked fit for a sit down tete a tete with the Queen of England.

  “Hmm. Will?” She called, her smile embarrassed. “Maybe I spoke too soon.”

  He reached down and put a couple of logs into the grate, then sauntered towards her.

  “I turned it,” she was saying, leaning forwards and twisting the tap once more.

  “Lilah, it might be–,” But his warning came a moment too late, as sludgy grey water began to spurt and groan out of the taps. It was iced water, probably only an hour or so from having frozen over completely. She made a squawk of surprise as she lurched away from the sink.

  But too late.

  She was covered. She turned to him in surprise. “Did you do that on purpose? Did you know that was going to happen?”

  “Of course not,” he denied, his words genuine. Lilah believed him.

  “Though now that you mention it,” he said ruefully, “I should have warned you that the pipes would be close to frozen.”

  “Most people would have known that for themselves. Don’t blame yourself.” She looked down at her suit and began to laugh. “Fortunately, my cleaners will be able to repair this once I return to the palace.”