The Reluctant Princess Read online

  He caught his own dangerous thoughts up short. Not simply Elli. Never simply Elli.

  She was the princess. Her Highness. Princess Elli.

  But never her name by itself.

  From thought sprang action. And he couldn’t allow his thoughts to become too familiar. It was unacceptable. More than unacceptable.

  It was forbidden.

  He wanted her on that plane. He wanted her safe with his liege and out of his hands.

  But she would balk, would stall—would keep insisting she had until Thursday and she wasn’t leaving until then. The more he tried to get her to go, the more determined she became to stay.

  Dangerous, the games she played. For more reasons than she allowed herself to understand. Not only was she stuck with him, every moment, as she never seemed to tire of reminding him; he was stuck with her. He could go nowhere, do nothing, without keeping her in sight.

  This was the kind of assignment that, under most circumstances, he could do with one eye closed and a hand tied behind his back. Second nature. To watch. To guard. To remain detached and yet vigilant. Over the years, he’d delivered a number of important personages—and dangerous prisoners—into the proper hands.

  But this, he was learning, was not most circumstances. This was the daughter of his king. And something was happening to him, in this period of forced proximity with her. Something that had never happened to him before.

  He let himself think it: She draws me. I want her….

  He could hardly believe it. He’d thought himself well beyond such ridiculous weakness. A warrior, in particular the king’s warrior, learned early to effectively sublimate physical needs—especially sexual ones, which were no use at all to a soldier in his work.

  And yet, in a mere twenty-four hours, it had happened. This troublesome princess had somehow managed, all unknowing, to get under his skin.

  He found himself doing things he despised. Noticing the fresh, flowerlike scent of her. More than noticing. May the three Norns of destiny curse him, he was constantly sniffing the air when she was near. And he watched her. All the time. Yes, it was his duty to watch her. But he was not supposed to take such pleasure in the task.

  It was hopeless, this growing hunger he felt for her. Counterproductive in the extreme. The woman was so completely beyond his touch. So far above him that his king had not even bothered to remind him to keep his hands off.

  Hauk didn’t know for certain what scheme his king was hatching, but he knew that Queen Ingrid was right. His lord had plans for Princess Elli. And those plans did not include her lying down with her father’s bastard warrior. It would be a huge and unpardonable betrayal of honor and his king’s trust for Hauk to lay a hand on her, except as required in the furtherance of his duty.

  Still—in spite of how wrong it was, no matter the complete lack of discipline it showed—the woman enchanted him. She wove a spell over him, with her huge eyes and soft mouth, her clever tongue and quick mind. And her heart.

  Yes, that was surely her most alluring feature. That seeming contradiction of softness and strength only found in a woman with a true and loving heart. She would be a prize beyond price to the man who claimed her.

  And he would never be that man.

  Yet his orders forced him to this—to spending the nights at the foot of her bed—scenting her, listening to her small, sweet sighs as she dreamed.

  It was the purest kind of torture. A taste of Valhalla. A visit to Hel.

  And there was no way to make an end to it until she gave up and agreed to go—or until Thursday came at last.

  Chapter Seven

  When Elli woke in the morning, Hauk was gone from his place at the foot of her bed.

  But this time she had no illusions that he might have given up and returned to Gullandria without her. She tossed back the covers and went into the bathroom to wash her face and get dressed. When she got back to the bedroom, there he was, dressed in a fresh black shirt and black slacks, his square jaw smooth from a recent shave.

  Waiting.

  Elli sighed. “Let’s get some breakfast.”

  “As you wish.”

  Over scrambled eggs and toast, he suggested again that she pack so that they could leave.

  Elli just looked at him, a long look. She knew a bleak satisfaction when he was the first to glance away.

  Hilda came knocking at a little before noon. She scowled when she saw that Elli had a houseguest.

  “Why is he here? He doesn’t need to be here.”

  Elli finessed an answer. “I told you, he’s my escort. We’re leaving together tomorrow.”

  Hilda never stopped scowling the whole time she was there. Elli put the cats in their carrier and Hauk helped her haul all the cat supplies down to Hilda’s 4×4.

  “Do I get a goodbye hug?” Elli asked the housekeeper just before she drove away.

  Hilda relented enough to bestow the hug, but kept her scowl in place. And of course, about fifteen minutes after she and the cats departed, Ingrid called.

  “You didn’t tell me that thug was staying at your apartment.”

  “Oh, Mom. It’s no big deal. I have a spare room.” Too bad Hauk refused to sleep in it unless she did.

  “Still, he has no right to—”

  “Mom. Let it be. Please.”

  A silence echoed down the line. Then her mother murmured, “Yes. I suppose you’re right.” She wished Elli well again and reminded her to call.

  “I will. I promise.”

  They said goodbye. Elli hung up.

  Hauk was right there, maybe three feet away. Watching. Listening.

  Elli decided she might possibly go insane if she had to stay cooped up in her apartment all day with two hundred-plus pounds of Viking observing her every move. She reached for her purse. “Come on.”

  He frowned at her. “You wish to leave now?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You have yet to pack your belongings.”

  “You are so very, very observant.”

  He might have flinched at that one. But if so, it was a tiny flinch—so small it probably hadn’t really happened at all. “You don’t wish to take anything with you?”

  “To Gullandria?”

  “Yes. To Gullandria.”

  “Well, as a matter of fact, I do intend to take a few things to Gullandria.”

  “Then hadn’t you better pack them?”

  “Not now.”

  He looked at her steadily, his expression especially bleak. He knew by then that she was up to something.

  And she was. “We’re not going to Gullandria. Not yet, anyway.” She waited. She wanted him to ask, Then where are we going? But apparently, he’d decided not to give her the satisfaction. Fine. She told him anyway. “We’re going to a movie.”

  “A movie. Why?”

  “Because it’s Wednesday. Because I can.”

  She took him to the latest James Bond thriller. Who could say? Maybe he’d be able to relate. At the snack counter, she bought a jumbo tub of popcorn drizzled with butter flavoring and a large Sprite.

  “We can share the popcorn,” she told him. “Want a Coke or something?”

  “No, thank you.”

  She accepted her Sprite from the guy behind the counter, who kept shooting sideways glances at Hauk. Elli supposed she wasn’t surprised. Hauk was hardly your average Joe. He stood at least a head taller than anyone else in the sparse weekday-afternoon crowd around them. And then there were all those muscles, that proud military bearing—not to mention the shoulder-length golden hair. Even with his shirt on, so you couldn’t see the blue-and-gold lightning bolt that blazed across his chest, Hauk could have walked right off a martial arts movie poster.

  Elli realized she might actually be starting to enjoy herself a little. She grinned. Oh, yes. Enter the Viking. Or maybe Warriors of the North.

  “You’re smiling. Why?” Hauk’s voice was low. Somehow, it sounded right next door to intimate.

  Elli felt a shiver run
beneath her skin. How odd. “Oh, nothing. Here.” She shoved the tub of popcorn at him. He took it and she got herself a straw and a handful of napkins and led the way up the ramp to the little stand where the ticket taker waited.

  There were thirteen theaters in the building. Each of them had Dolby sound and big, comfortable seats, like easy chairs, well padded with high backs and plenty of room between the rows. Still, in deference to Hauk’s massive frame, Elli chose the row in back, which had an extra-wide aisle between it and the next row down.

  Once they were seated in the dark, he offered her the popcorn tub. “Oh, you go ahead and hold it,” she said.

  “I don’t care for any.”

  She started to take it from him. And then a naughty whim took her. “Hold it anyway—because I am your princess, right? Because, after my father, you serve me.”

  He looked at her for a long time, his eyes shining at her through the darkness. “That’s right. I serve you.”

  A small tremor went through her, a quivery feeling. Her heart beat too fast and her cheeks felt warm.

  Was something happening here?

  Oh, of course not.

  The dark screen lit up and the preshow snack-bar advertisements of dancing paper cups and singing candy boxes began.

  The movie was your usual James Bond flick. Fast-paced, fun to watch, with lots of drop-dead-gorgeous women and Pierce Brosnan, the perfect James Bond, dark and sleek, killer handsome, delightfully urbane.

  Elli sipped her Sprite and intermittently munched her popcorn and wished her silly heart would stop pounding so fast every time she reached over and grabbed a handful out of Hauk’s lap.

  Okay, she’d blundered. She should have taken the tub when he tried to give it back to her. She should have thought about how awkward it was going to be, how…intimate, to keep groping for fistfuls of popcorn while he was holding the container.

  Intimate.

  It was the second time that particular word had come to mind since they’d entered the theater complex.

  But what was so strange about that?

  Not a thing. Not considering the way it was between them, the way she had to be with him virtually round-the-clock. Even though they weren’t really intimate, it was hard not to think of the word. Intimate, at least in part, meant to be physically close. And that they were.

  Oh, yes, they were.

  She could feel the heat coming off his big body. And the outer side of her upper arm touched his, just barely, all the time. And then there was the scent of him, that scent of cedar and spice and…maleness. That scent that she did find so dangerously attractive.

  He whispered, out of the side of his mouth, “You’re not eating your popcorn.” She could have sworn she heard humor in his voice.

  Humor.

  And intimacy.

  She looked at him sharply. He was staring at the screen.

  And wasn’t that the main reason she’d dragged him here? To give him something else to stare at but her.

  She hadn’t thought it through, though. Hadn’t considered that they’d be sitting so close their bodies brushed, that she’d have the bad judgment to make a big deal of ordering him to hold the popcorn for her.

  She whispered, “Um, are you sure you don’t want any popcorn?”

  “Yes. I’m sure.”

  “Then I guess I’ll just hold it myself.”

  He leaned a fraction nearer, heat and size and maleness pressing in. “Are you certain? I am willing to serve.” His voice was low and soft and…silky.

  Elli’s mouth went bone-dry. She gulped. “I…yeah. I’m certain.”

  He handed her the tub, the pads of his big fingers brushing hers. A bullet of heat went shooting through her, so thrilling it was painful—from where his fingers grazed hers, straight up her arm—and right to her chest, which contracted sharply, so that she almost gasped.

  They were staring at each other. The Dolby sound swelled around them and images flashed on the big screen, reflecting at them, so that Hauk’s chiseled profile gleamed alabaster in the darkness. His hair shone, not gold, not platinum, but some rare color in between.

  He was the one who looked away, back at the screen. And this time she felt no triumph that he did. This time, she felt it as a tearing sensation, that he ripped something, left tattered raw edges, when he looked away.

  She stared at him for several bewildered seconds, thinking what she shouldn’t be thinking: that he was so very wonderfully male. That it would be a lovely, thrilling thing to have his big hands on her, to press her mouth to his…

  When they came out of the movie, it was a little after three. Hauk pushed the glass door open for her and she walked out, across the covered ticket booth area and into the bright sunlight of a beautiful afternoon. Overhead, the sky was clear and powder-blue.

  And she wasn’t ready—not yet—to go back to her place and be cooped up in there with Hauk. She headed for Land Park.

  Hauk saw they weren’t going where he’d assumed they’d be going. “Where are we going now?”

  “To Land Park.”

  “You wish to see your mother again?”

  “No. Not to my mother’s house. Just into the park. I want to walk by the duck pond.” She added, turning to give him a sarcastic smile, “Is that all right with you?”

  Their gazes collided. A shimmer of heat went through her. “Return to your apartment,” he said softly. “Pack your belongings. I’ll take you to the plane.”

  Elli yanked her gaze back to the street in front of her. She had to be careful. She could get them in an accident. “No. Not yet.”

  “This is foolish.”

  And it was. She knew it. Something more than a James Bond flick had happened in the darkened movie theater. They’d emerged into the sunshine with everything changed between them—or if not changed, at least mutually acknowledged.

  Looking back, it seemed that maybe there had been attraction between them almost from the very first. She’d denied it. That hadn’t been difficult. What self-respecting woman would ever willingly admit that her kidnapper made her heart go pitter-pat? Not Elli.

  But time had done it, made her see it. Time and the forced closeness that they shared. She was coming to know him a little, coming to understand that though she despised the job he was doing, she didn’t—she couldn’t—despise the man himself. She knew there was goodness in him. That honor and loyalty meant more to him than life. How could she help but admire that? How could she help but let down her guard with him, at least a little?

  Now it seemed terribly dangerous to imagine the night to come, should she continue to insist on remaining in Sacramento until the last possible moment her agreement with her father allowed.

  She should do what Hauk kept trying to get her to do. Pack. Get on that plane.

  And yet, she held back. Beyond this impossible attraction to the man her father had sent to kidnap her, she had other issues here.

  The more she thought about this whole situation, the more suspicious she became of her father’s motives. What if her mother was right? Could she be walking blind into some ugly palace plot?

  Her doubts ate at her. True, she was going. Hauk would make certain of that. But she saw no reason to rush headlong into the jaws of a possible trap.

  Who knew what might happen in the next eighteen hours or so? It didn’t seem particularly likely, but some new and valuable piece of information just might come to light. Maybe everything would become clear, after all.

  Right, whispered a knowing voice in the back of her mind. Everything might become clear. Oh, certainly. Anything might happen….

  Now, that did ring true. Anything might happen, all right—between her and Hauk.

  Elli tossed her head. “I don’t care. I don’t want to go yet. I’m not sure I want to go at all.”

  She waited for the man beside her to tell her that she had no choice. She’d vowed to go and she would go.

  He said nothing.

  Land Park boasted its own outdoor a
mphitheater across from a children’s amusement area called Fairy-tale Town and not far from the zoo. Below the amphitheater, sparkling in the afternoon sun, lay the duck pond.

  Elli parked the car above the amphitheater, to the side a little. A steep, tree-shadowed, grass-covered hill swept down to the pond. They got out and Elli took off at a run down the grassy slope. Maybe she’d leave him behind.

  Yeah, right.

  Elli kept running anyway, not looking back, almost tumbling head-over-heels once or twice, but somehow managing to keep her feet.

  Hauk followed close behind. She could feel him there. Never once did he stumble. And she knew he wasn’t running full-out, that he effortlessly paced himself to keep a few yards back.

  She reached the base of the slope, where the ground leveled out, drawing to a halt on the asphalt path that encircled the perimeter of the pond. Ducks and geese glided on the sun-sparkled surface and oaks and sweet gums grew at intervals along the bank, inviting wooden benches waiting beneath them.

  Slightly breathless, she turned to Hauk. “It’s pretty, isn’t it?”

  His sky-blue gaze darkened. “Beautiful.”

  She knew what he meant and it wasn’t the duck pond. Her mouth was dry again. She swallowed.

  He looked away from her. “What now?”

  Good question. “Let’s, uh, walk.”

  He started walking. Fast.

  “Hey, wait up.”

  He stopped where he was. She hurried and caught up.

  They stood on the path, facing each other. He was looking at her again—gazing at her as if he would eat her up. And she liked it, to have him look at her that way.

  He said, as if it hurt him to tell her, “You will have to go. I will have to make you go.”

  “I know. But not till tomorrow. You won’t make me go…until tomorrow.”

  “You enjoy this? Pushing the boundaries? Tempting the fates?”

  Anger sizzled through her. “I’ll tell you what I don’t enjoy. Being kept in the dark. Knowing that if I break my word, you’ll make me keep it anyway.”