Princess In Denim Page 11

  For some reason, she couldn't stare him down and lie at the same time, so she resumed her path to her room. "I'm a bit rusty with the language."

  "Well, I shall fill in what you missed, then. As you well know, there has never been a queen of Ennsway."

  She mumbled something that she hoped sounded like agreement if he was right, and scathing if not.

  "That is why your father said you were making history today." He grasped her arm and spun her around. "Moira, must I remind you? Throughout history, if the eldest child of an Ennsway king was a daughter, she never survived him."

  He wouldn't make that up, would he?

  "You are in great danger."

  * * *

  Until Emma arrived, Chloe paced the hardwood floor in her sitting room. Was she in danger? Had those mishaps really been accidents? Was this why Moira's father had never brought her home until he had a prospective husband—William—in the bag? The truth about Ennsway princesses never living to become queens should have made her nervous; instead, it burned her britches.

  A knock at the door received her sharp, "Come in."

  "Your Majesty," Emma said.

  "Close the door," Chloe ordered.

  "Yes, ma'am."

  Chloe had snapped at Louis. She'd been prepared to have the men-at-arms throw William out if he'd laid a hand on her, though she would have enjoyed a little wrestling match with him first. But she'd never thought, when she'd agreed to this charade, that she'd ever have words with Emma.

  "You're angry, Your Majesty?"

  "You could say that."

  "Why? As queen of Ennsway, you'll have much more power than you would as princess."

  "I'm mad because William says no female has ever lived long enough to become queen!" she shouted. "Is that reason enough? Is it even true?"

  Emma stared at her feet.

  Chloe's eyes narrowed at the woman she'd thought was her friend. "You knew that. You put me in danger. I guess you thought I was expendable, huh?"

  Emma's head snapped up. "Oh, no—"

  "Send Chloe in, let's see if she gets knocked off first," Chloe said, imitating Emma and adding a dramatic flourish.

  "Your Majesty—"

  Undaunted, Chloe continued, "If so, well, at least Moira was safe."

  Emma glanced around nervously. "Please be careful what you say."

  "Be careful? Now you want me to be careful? Why? Do you need me as a decoy a little longer?"

  "Stop it!"

  "Oh, I forgot. Of course you do." Her laugh was brittle. "I'm still alive."

  "Let me explain!"

  Chloe arched her eyebrows at Emma's lack of respect. After all, if Chloe determined that it wasn't safe to have Emma around, she had the power to banish her. Maybe worse.

  "King Albert was king by accident of birth, nothing more." Emma seemed to choose her words carefully as she kept pace with Chloe across the room and back, though her path was shorter. "Likewise, she would have been queen by accident of birth. But you are queen because you're adventurous and unselfish."

  The admiration in Emma's tone brought Chloe to a grinding halt. "You planned this? It was your idea?"

  "Yes, Your Majesty. Out of loyalty to my country and my family, not to a spoiled princess."

  This was getting interesting. Chloe didn't know whether it was true or just a good act.

  "She would have made a poor queen, Your Majesty. If she had abdicated the throne, Louis would have made an even worse king than their father."

  "Worse how?"

  Emma snickered. "Oh, please! Ninety percent of the people in this country are illiterate. The hospital is no more than a place to go to die. The roads are so bad we can't attract tourists. I could go on for an hour. King Albert did nothing for the people. Louis sucks out whatever he can get his hands on. She wouldn't know how to correct matters, and Louis wouldn't bother."

  Chloe realized she'd stopped pacing when Emma got another soapbox. "She didn't stay in the U.S. just to avoid her father?"

  "No."

  "Because she might change her mind, now that he's gone. You know, have second thoughts and decide it wouldn't be so bad to be queen."

  "Being queen wasn't her dream."

  "People've been known to change their minds."

  "Even if she did, she can't come back."

  Chloe chuckled. "Why? You've got her picture posted at the border or something?"

  "No, ma'am. Even if she wanted to, she could never take your place. All the records have been changed. You know, fingerprints, dental, medical...the lot."

  "You can do that?"

  Emma shrugged and didn't elaborate, so Chloe wasn't sure whether it was a bluff.

  "I know you'll make a good queen once you get the hang of it."

  "Yeah, right."

  "No, I do," Emma insisted. "You have a sense of justice that I've never seen in...her."

  Chloe chewed the inside of her lip. "I think you're wrong, Emma. I think she has a lot more spunk than you give her credit for. I think she'll show."

  "Your Majesty..."

  "Hmm?"

  "If she does come for the funeral, don't think you can undo what's been done. You have no identity to return to."

  Chloe wasn't sure, but she thought she'd just been threatened.

  * * *

  The morning dawned bright and cheery, bringing out thousands of people. They lined up outside the curtain wall, cheering and calling out for their new queen, who presently wore jeans, sat cross-legged and barefoot in a window seat, and picked over her breakfast.

  "Emma," she said, after a great deal of thought.

  "I've spoken to the staff, about getting you some pop-ups, Your Majesty."

  Chloe hadn't even noticed what she'd been served this morning. She had bigger changes she wanted made. "Have the gates opened."

  "You are going out?"

  "No, I'm letting the people in."

  "In, Your Majesty?"

  "Yes, in. I like the way William does it in Baesland. People feel free to approach and talk to him. He shakes their hands and asks about their families."

  "What about the danger?"

  "Apparently whoever's trying to harm me—and I'm not saying anyone is—but apparently he has no difficulty getting in now. Opening the gate won't make any difference."

  Emma smiled gleefully. "Then I shall tell Humphrey to get right on it."

  Chloe thought Emma liked any reason to one-up Humphrey, who, she'd confided in Chloe, had taken to her job a little too quickly when she was dismissed.

  "Tradition dictates that you wave to your new subjects from the tower."

  "Screw tradition."

  Emma was still beaming. "Yes, I thought you might say that. Might I suggest a new location? A second-floor balcony, perhaps?"

  "Sounds good. You pick it."

  "I'll be most happy to. Oh, and one more thing. His Majesty, King William, has arrived and would like to see you."

  Chloe set her plate down on the leather cushion and gently pushed it away with her foot. She wiggled her toes, letting the sunlight add sparkle to the pink nail polish. Yesterday had been another first for her—a pedicure. Every time she thought she was getting used to royal treatment, something else popped up.

  "Send him in."

  "I am already here," William, with a noticeable bounce to his step, announced on his way in.

  "Your Majesty should wait to see whether Her Majesty is properly dressed," Emma scolded on her way out.

  His broad smile lit up the room. "She likes me."

  "She obviously wasn't too worried about you tossing her out the window for insolence."

  "I reserve that only for women who refuse to marry me.

  "Oh? Have there been many?"

  "Just one."

  Chloe abandoned the window seat, not because she was afraid he'd toss her out, but because she preferred thinking on her feet "Did you come to invite me for a ride this morning?"

  "I came to ask if you would like to choose my new ap
artment."

  "You're tired of your old one?" If this was a trick just to get her to set foot in his castle again, so that he could lower the portcullis and keep her there, he was in for a big surprise. "Are thirty rooms too small for you?"

  "No, but it is rather difficult to move them here. And I would not need anything so large."

  "Here?"

  "Yes, I am moving in."

  ''You're not invited.''

  "Moira, I promised your father I would protect you and marry you. If you will not come to Baesland, I shall have to come to you."

  "You're not invited!"

  His grin warmed his eyes. "Yes, I believe you said that already."

  Repeating herself was the best she could do at the moment. Those three words said exactly what she felt. Anyone other than William would be embarrassed at having overstepped his bounds and would retreat like a hound dog with its tail between its legs.

  "Your father would expect it."

  His cheer was as galling as his monumental ego. "My father's dead."

  "Exactly."

  At a stalemate, they grew quiet enough to hear that the volume outside had risen. The crowd had drawn closer and surrounded the castle in an attempt to be heard by the queen.

  William strode to the window and looked out. "How he hell did they get past the gate?"

  "I ordered it opened."

  "You?"

  "I'm the queen, remember? I like the way you run your country. I thought I'd give it a try with mine."

  Your country, my country—what a hoot!

  For a moment, she put aside her worries. She missed Moira more than ever. She wanted to share the irony of this with her.

  William's eyes twinkled again, and he casually strolled closer to her. "You like what I do?"

  Was she imagining it, or was he putting more meaning into her words than a simple compliment on how he ran his monarchy?

  She backed away, striving to match his casualness, but failing miserably. "I thought I'd make some changes here."

  "The prime minister was right." His voice was warm and thick as he followed her slowly. "You are a breath of fresh air."

  "Yeah, well, this breath of fresh air is about to go greet her subjects from a balcony."

  "In jeans?"

  "I suppose you think that's not proper for a queen? That I should wear an expensive dress and don a crown?"

  "Yes, but I will marry you anyway."

  She turned and took a few steps toward the door, but decided she'd rather keep her eye on him and resumed her backward retreat.

  "It is not safe for you to go outside," he cautioned.

  "How can you say that? You have people wandering through your castle."

  "No one has reason to want me dead."

  "Don't push your luck."

  "I have never heard that expression before."

  "It means—"

  "Oh, do not worry, Moira. I know what it means. I can tell just from the fire in your eyes."

  "I don't have fire—"

  "And the blush on your cheeks."

  Her back bumped up against a wall. "Stop that."

  He closed the gap until they were toe-to-toe, his head towering above hers as he held her with nothing more than the heat in his eyes. "And the way the tiny pulse in your neck beats faster."

  She hadn't realized until that moment that he hadn't done his ritual cheek-kissing thing this morning. As he dipped his head toward her, she told herself that was all he was doing. As she felt his warm breath caress her cheek, she wished for him to get it over with before she grabbed him and showed him how an America woman kissed.

  As his lips touched hers, her eyelids fluttered shut and her heart pounded so hard she was sure he could hear it.

  "Moira," he whispered against her lips. "I have wanted to do this since I first saw you on the plane."

  As his lips closed over hers again, as he tasted them from one corner to the other, her fingers reached for something safe, something other than him to hold—anything lest she crush herself against him.

  Her hand hit something hard, knocked it to the floor where it crashed—and splintered. Shards bit into the top of her foot and her toes.

  His broad chest brushed against her breasts as he turned and stared down at hundreds of colorful chunks littering the floor. Her gaze followed his.

  "I trust you were not going to hit me over the head with that?"

  "No, I...I bumped it. With my hand."

  His palms slid down her arms until her fingers were engulfed by his. "Perhaps the antiques would be safer if your hands were better occupied."

  "Antiques? Oh, God. Oh, God." She broke loose from his grasp and stared down at the vase. "What did I break?"

  "Nothing that can be replaced, I am sure."

  It looked old, what she could see of the fragments and chunks scattered around. Really, really old. "It's Egyptian, isn't it?"

  "Yes, I should think so."

  As if she were a child who'd touched a no-no and broken it, she thought somebody was going to be very mad. Careless of her knees, she knelt down amid the remains. "Oh, God, they'll kill me."

  "Who?"

  "The...uh..." But everything in the castle was hers, wasn't it? All the same, she'd had enough education to feel bad about the piece of ancient history she'd just destroyed. "The maids."

  "They will clean it up without a word." He crouched beside her. "Leave it."

  She picked up two jagged pieces and butted them together. "Maybe it can be glued." No matter what angle she tried, they didn't match up.

  Careful not to cut her, he wrenched the shards from her fingers and dropped them amid the others on the floor. "If it can be repaired, there are others who will tend to it."

  He was dangerously close, his hands on hers, their shoulders brushing.

  She popped to her feet, like a piece of bread in a toaster escaping the heat before it burned. "Gotta go."

  "Your feet are bare."

  "My maid'll get me some shoes."

  The room spun for a brief moment as she found her self scooped up in his arms, held snugly against his chest.

  "I do not want you to cut your feet," he expained.

  "Put me down." It should have sounded like a command, but even Chloe had to admit it wasn't much stronger than a whisper.

  "I think I shall." He stepped clear of the debris, but still held her so close she could feel his heart beating against her ribs. "If you will call me by my name."

  William. She'd be lost if she said it out loud. She was nearly lost just hearing it in her head.

  "Okay. Put me down, Bill." It was so ludicrous a name for him that she burst out laughing.

  He dumped, her to her feet. "Who is this Bill?"

  "It's a nickname for William."

  "Will is a nickname. Bill is...is... If your father were not already dead, I think I would kill him for sending you to live in a country that butchers a man's name into a duck's anatomy."

  Chloe spotted Angela lurking just outside the doorway. "Angela, I need a pair of shoes before I go outside to meet the people."

  "Yes, ma'am." Angela rushed away.

  "You told the prime minister that you were not partial to tradition. How did you put it?" William grinned. "Ah, yes, I remember. 'Royal brouhaha.'"

  "That's true."

  "Yet it is tradition for the new sovereign to greet the people."

  "Well, I'm in jeans. I won't wear a crown or anything."

  "It is still tradition."

  "And I'll give 'em a real wave, not one of those dinky little royal wrist rotations."

  "No, I must object."

  "Tough toenails."

  "Damn your American influence!" William ranted.

  "I hear it's just what this country needs."

  * * *

  Chloe slipped into the flats Angela had brought her, along with a denim jacket to match her jeans. If the people wanted American influence, American influence they would get.

  Angela beamed. "You look l
ike...model."

  As Chloe approached the doorway to the balcony that Emma had selected, the crowd's chanting grew louder and more distinct. It sounded as if hundreds of people were partying out in the bailey. Celebrating.

  As she stepped out onto the balcony, a collective roar went up. The force of it nearly shoved her backward into the castle.

  "Smile." How she heard Emma's advice, she had no idea.

  "I didn't know there were so many people out here." Not hundreds, but thousands.

  "You're doing fine. Now wave."

  Simple instructions, but difficult to follow at first. Chloe had never stood in front of thousands of people or anything, much less a crowd that cheered her every movement, the least little smile, the raising of her hand above the stone railing.

  Surprisingly, she was not unaware of what William was up to—maybe because, since she knew so few people in Ennsway, he represented an anchor in her life. Just before she stepped outside, he'd grabbed the nearest man-at-arms, barked at him and scowled at others, and now he had several stationed around nearby windows and doors.

  She watched the Ennswayans below; the men-at-arms scrutinized them. All she saw were happy, smiling, laughing people who were pleased to have a new ruler. Pleased that it was she.

  When Emma said, "That's better," Chloe took stock and discovered that her smile had grown and her wave was genuine. She was truly enjoying herself. Who wouldn't want to be loved by thousands?

  William stood behind her. Oh, he was out of sight of the crowd. He hovered just inside the doorway, several feet back, but she could feel him anyway. She knew he watched her every movement, protectively because he believed she was in danger. After that kiss they'd shared, she suspected he might seize the first opportunity to pounce on her and gleefully claim he was coming to her defense.

  She remained unconvinced that she was in danger These people obviously meant her no harm, and she would not take to hiding inside stone walls just to pacify William.

  If he didn't like her going out among the people alone, let him come with her. There was work to be done in Ennsway, and, for these wonderful people who welcomed her with open arms, she was fixin' to give her best.

  * * *

  Chloe sat in the huge leather chair behind King Albert's centuries-old desk. She'd never studied antique furniture; it wasn't something that had interested her. Now she regretted it. Such history! Perhaps wars had been declared across its surface. Perhaps treaties had been penned on it by candlelight.