Ever a Princess

by Rebecca Hagan Lee

  Giana crossed her fingers behind her back and hid her uninjured hand in the folds of her skirt. "O-of course there was."

  Adam studied her closely, then slowly shook his head. "Was there? If I were to look through a few of those European lineage books in the library, would I find any reference to the countess of Brocavia? If I send for letters of reference from the countess's family, will I get them or will they be forged by one of your family members?" The blood seemed to drain from her face. Adam reached out to steady her. "That's it, isn't it?" he asked.

  Giana couldn't answer. She bit her bottom lip and sat perfectly still, barely breathing as she waited for his next move.

  The fact that she didn't offer to defend herself or to offer an argument sent a quiver of alarm up his spine. Adam took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. The wounded look in her eyes twisted his gut into knots. He didn't think he could feel any worse if he'd spent the morning robbing defenseless widows and orphans. Adam was suddenly deeply, inexplicably ashamed of himself. "I'm not going to check.

  She didn't respond.

  "I'm not going to investigate the countess, George. Do you understand? I don't care about references. You and your family have done a wonderful job here so far. I have no complaints."

  Her eyes lit up and she managed a brief smile. "Truly?"

  "Well..." He hesitated.

  Too long. He hesitated too long. "It's me, isn't it?" Giana glanced down at the handkerchief wrapped around her hand. "Because I am so clumsy." She picked at the edge of the linen. The bleeding had ceased.

  "You aren't clumsy."

  "I am like the bull in the teapot," she confided.

  Adam furrowed his brow, unable to comprehend her logic.

  She returned his frown, unable to understand why he didn't understand her perfectly correct English. The way he frowned one would think that she was speaking Karolyan to him. She unwrapped his handkerchief and handed it to him. "I am as efficient and careful as the other members of the house ... of my family ..." She gave a most unprincesslike shrug. "But it seems that the more careful I am, the more I break things."

  Like a bull in a china shop. It took a moment for him to grasp her meaning. Adam bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing at her mangled idiom. Adam handed the handkerchief back to her. "You keep it. You may need it again should the wound reopen."

  Giana recognized the wisdom of that advice. "Very well."

  She gave him her most regal nod. "But I will pay you for the shepherdess."

  "Forget the shepherdess!" Adam burst out. "I don't care about the shepherdess! I care about finding that blasted beast of yours in my bed again!"

  Chapter 11

  A Princess of the Blood Royal of the House of Saxe-Wallerstein-Karolya is ever mindful of the whereabouts and behavior of her royal pets. She protects her royal pets from palace guests or staff that might wish to do them harm and protects her guests and staff from the pets that might do harm to them or cause them to do harm to themselves.

  —Maxim 1112: Protocol and Court Etiquette of Princesses of the Blood Royal of the House of Saxe-Wallerstein-Karolya, as decreed by Her Serene Highness, Princess May, 1867.

  “Wagner?” Her woice held a note of panic. She sat back on her heels and looked up at him.

  "Yes, Wagner," Adam retorted. "Who else?"

  Giana glanced around. "Where is he?"

  "When last I saw him, he was snoring soundly."

  "Was Brenna with him?"

  Adam frowned. "Brenna? What does Brenna have to do with anything? She wasn't there. He was alone and stretched out in the center of my bed."

  "When I began cleaning Mr. O'Brien's room, I left Wagner with Brenna. Where was she and why was he not with her?"

  "Perhaps it's because your sister finds her bed more comfortable than mine," Adam commented, remembering Brenna's half-hearted attempts to cover her yawns and the sleep marks on her face. "Unlike the dog. Or maybe it's because she prefers a human sleeping companion to a canine one."

  "Wagner sleeps only with me."

  Adam snorted in amusement. "Apparently, he's more selective in his choice of bed partners than he is in his choice of beds."

  "On the contrary," Giana told him. "He is equally selective in his choice of beds. It was my bed until you arrived. He returns to it because it retains my scent."

  "Of orange blossoms and woman," Adam muttered beneath his breath. He couldn't argue with her logic. Although the linens had been laundered several times since she'd removed to another bedchamber, his bed still retained the scent of her perfume. He had thought the fragrance came from something the laundry staff added to the final rinse when they washed the sheets. He hadn't realized, until this moment, that the tantalizing perfume originated with George. But now he recognized the surprisingly erotic scent of orange blossoms and musk that emanated from her hair and her skin—a scent that was still faintly detectable despite the pungent metallic smell of fresh blood, coal ash, and lead blackening.

  Adam had always appreciated the fresh, clean scent of orange blossoms, but never more than he did now. And the scent of her wasn't all he found appealing. He was fascinated by George's words and even more fascinated by her mouth, so much so that he found himself staring at it. Everything about her mouth intrigued him from the perfect shape of her upper and lower lips to the subtle pattern of textures imprinted there.

  Giana had spent her entire life as an object of curious speculation. She was accustomed to having people stare at her and generally found it easy to overlook their rudeness, but Adam McKendrick's intense blue-eyed gaze disturbed her in a way she had never expected because it made her feel things she had never known existed. For the first time in her life she felt like a woman instead of a royal princess. But awareness of new feelings brought another kind of awareness—an awareness of Adam McKendrick as a man—a man who had an uncanny knack for making her forget who she was and the responsibilities she had been born to bear.

  Forcing herself to look away, Giana turned and reached for the pair of leather gloves balanced on the rim of the ash pail. "Pardon me."

  "No." Adam took the gloves from her and stuck them in his jacket pocket.

  "Excuse me." Assuming her English was to blame for his failure to understand her, Giana politely repeated her request, then picked up the pail and tried to move past him, but the McKendrick refused to let her by.

  "What do you think you're doing?" This time Adam reached for the ash pail.

  "I have to collect Wagner," Giana answered. "And complete my work."

  Adam set the pail out of her reach. "Your work day is finished."

  "But there is more to do...." she protested.

  "That may be. But you're not going to be the one to do it. You've a nasty cut on your hand. Someone else can finish cleaning the grates." Adam was suddenly struck by the notion that while Giana had been cleaning and polishing the coal grates in the second-floor bedrooms, Brenna had been napping. "Someone like your sister."

  Giana shook her head.

  "Why not?" he demanded.

  "Brenna's duties do not include work of this sort."

  Adam lifted an eyebrow at that. "But yours do ..."

  "Yes, of course."

  "Why?" He asked. "Why are you cleaning fireplaces while your sister sleeps? Other than watching the beast, which she has failed to do, what exactly are her duties?"

  "Brenna is a lady's maid," Giana explained.

  "Which means ..."

  "Her duty is to attend the lady of the house. To personally dress and undress her, arrange her hair, attend to needlework and repair personal items of clothing, and serve as companion,"

  "There is no lady in the house for Brenna to personally attend," Adam reminded her.

  Giana had never behaved coyly in her life, but she supposed there was a first time for everything. She turned her mysterious princess smile on the McKendrick and glanced up at him from beneath the cover of her lashes. "There will be."

  "Oh?" Adam gave her another
speculative look. "How so?"

  "When gentlemen begin extensive and costly repairs to their homes, it is generally supposed that they mean to settle down and begin their families...." Giana pretended to knowledge of the ways of the world that princesses of the blood royal were supposed to inherit at birth. "Naturally, we supposed that once the renovations to the lodge are concluded, you would do likewise...."

  "You supposed that?" Adam hadn't grown up with four sisters without learning more than he had ever wanted to know about the way their minds worked. He recognized a blatant fishing expedition when he saw it, and he also recognized the fact that none of his four sisters would ever had tried such an obvious ploy to gather information. His sisters were experts at toying with a man's sensibilities. George was a rank novice. Adam decided to respond in kind, gifting her with a devilish grin and an equally devilish reply, "Surely, you're not naive enough to think that renovating a building has anything to do with whether or not I intend to begin a family or that beginning a family necessarily includes marriage or having a lady in or of the house."

  She opened her mouth to reply, but no words came out.

  Unable to resist, Adam reached out and smoothed a smear of soot off her cheek with the pad of his thumb. "Who are you? And what have you done with George?"

  Giana's felt the color leave her face as she straightened her backbone, stiffened her spine, and prepared to have her deception revealed. "I do not understand what you mean."

  Adam exhaled. She had proved to be such a stimulating adversary in verbal sparring he'd forgotten that, for all her pretense to the contrary, she was a naive young woman for whom English was obviously a second language. "I mean that coyness doesn't become you, George."

  Giana moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. "Nor you, sir."

  "I've been called many things, George, but never coy." He smiled to show that there was no censure in his words. "When a woman answers the way you did, it's generally thought that she's deliberately being coy. When a man answers that way, it's generally supposed that he's being evasive."

  "Are you?"

  Adam's smile widened into a grin. "Now, there's the George I know and lo—" He broke off abruptly.

  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Adam wiped his hand over his face. Where had that thought come from? He was in trouble. Big trouble. George was everything he had always said he didn't want in a woman. But his preferences no longer seemed to matter. God, she was a beauty. And worse than that, she was a beauty who sent his pulse racing. He was definitely in trouble. He recognized the warning signs, but he wasn't sure he could prevent the damage. He might be too late to prevent the damage. He might be too late to save himself.

  Unless ...

  He'd never before been tempted by a woman like George. He'd always preferred more demure women.... He tended to be attracted to petite, dark-haired, dark-eyed beauties. Never blondes. Which made those damned dime novels so laughable. But he hadn't shared a bed with a woman since he'd left Nevada. There was always the chance that he might simply be attracted to the novelty of kissing a woman who could look him in the eye....

  Adam bent his head and leaned closer. There was always the chance that kissing her would prove to be nothing more than a pleasant distraction—an enjoyable way to pass the time while in Scotland.... And there was always the chance that he was a bigger damned liar than she was. He'd have to be a fool to find out....

  And he had never been a fool. Until now ...

  Adam made one last valiant attempt to save himself. He tried to back away, tried to give her room to retreat, but George showed no signs of retreating. Standing on tiptoe, she leaned toward him, lifted her chin, parted her lips, and closed her eyes....

  He stared down at her face, at her softly parted lips, and was lost.... Adam covered her mouth with his and licked at the seam of her lips. She gave a startled gasp at the intimacy of that gesture. He took advantage of the opportunity and slipped his tongue inside her mouth.

  And discovered he was both a liar and a fool. George was sweet and innocent and incredibly tempting. Although he used his tongue to tease, tantalize, and seduce, it was quite apparent to Adam that the woman he held in his arms had never had anyone kiss her the way he was kissing her. And it was equally apparent to Adam that he never wanted anyone else to have the chance.

  The idea scared him so much, Adam broke off the kiss. He stepped back and fought for control, but he knew he was fighting a losing battle when George looped her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him.

  "God help me!" He murmured the heartfelt prayer moments before he bent and traced the delicate contours of her cheekbones with the pads of his thumbs. Leaning forward, Adam pressed a gentle kiss on her eyelids, then worked his way down her face, back to her lips. He kissed her again and again, paying particular attention to her plump bottom lip, savoring the texture, flicking his tongue over it, touching the roughness of the myriad tiny abrasions she made with her teeth each time she bit her bottom lip. He lavished her mouth with attention, sucking on her lower lip, teasing her, tempting her to open her mouth and allow him further access.

  She yielded to temptation, and the touch of his mouth was a revelation, producing an avalanche of hidden emotions. Giana parted her lips, allowing him to deepen the kiss. He complied, moving his lips on hers, kissing her harder, then softer, then harder once more, testing her response, slipping his tongue past her teeth, exploring the sweet hot interior of her mouth with practiced finesse. As he leisurely stroked the inside of her mouth in a provocative imitation of the mating dance, George followed his lead. She moved her lips on his and kissed him back. Her abundant talent and enthusiasm inspired him as much as it surprised him, and Adam made love to her mouth, teaching her everything he knew about the fine art of kissing.

  And George was an excellent pupil. She progressed rapidly, mirroring his actions and inventing a few of her own as she moved from novice to expert in the space of a few heartbeats.

  The jolt of pure pleasure he felt as she used her newfound talent with her tongue and teeth and mouth to entice him shook him down to his toes, threatening to steal his breath away along with his suddenly tenuous control.

  "Stop." Adam let go of her. He needed distance. He needed space. He needed to let go of her before he took her on the floor of O'Brien's bedroom.

  "Why?" Now that she'd discovered kissing, Giana meant to continue practicing it for as long as possible. "I like it."

  "I'm gratified to hear it," he answered curtly. "But your lesson is over." He clenched his fists to keep from touching her.

  "I do not want the lesson to end," Giana informed him in the imperious tone she had long ago learned to use in order to get her way. Being a princess of the blood royal did have its uses, and one of them was being able to order people of lesser rank to obey one's commands.

  Adam stared down into bright blue eyes. "You probably don't want to end up on the floor on your back with your skirts over your head, either, but that's what's going to happen if we don't stop kissing."

  "Truly?" Giana had no idea why she'd be on the floor on her back with her skirts over her head, but the notion of such a thing happening to her intrigued her. "How extraordinary!"

  "Yes," Adam agreed, "it's extraordinary. So extraordinary that millions of people do it every day."

  "Do they?"

  Adam shook his head in wonder. "Yes, they really do. Why do you think there are so many babies?"

  He could tell from the expression on her face that he had finally succeeded in shocking her.

  "Babies?" She stared up at him in awe. So that was how babies were born. She knew, of course, that babies were a natural result of marriage, just as she knew that her duty as a princess of the blood royal was to marry for the good of her country and provide her husband and country with an heir. After kissing Adam McKendrick, Giana could finally understand how children might come to be born out of wedlock. "I had no idea."

  The expression on her face was so appealing that Adam
fought an almost overwhelming urge to kiss her again. "You still have no idea," he told her. "And I intend to keep it that way. For both our sakes." He turned and started toward the door. "Stay out of my way, George. Stay out of my room and out of my bed and keep that beast of yours away as well."

  Giana attempted to point out the fact that he had come in search of her and not the other way around. "But, sir..."

  Sir. She had called him sir. After kissing him senseless and nearly causing him to lose control of his extraordinary control, she'd called him sir. He'd become a caricature of every lusty landowner who'd ever tumbled a serving wench in his employ. He wiped a hand over his forehead. Christ! He couldn't feel any worse if she'd kicked him in the groin. "Adam," he said softly. "When a man teaches a woman to kiss, the least she can do is call him by name."

  "And the least a man can do, after teaching her, is to continue, Adam." Giana didn't wait to hear his reply. She simply turned and walked out of the bedroom, leaving Adam Mc-Kendrick staring after her.

  Chapter 12

  The Bountiful Baron hates a mystery or a riddle and feels duty bound to solve it.

  —The Second Installment of the True Adventures of the Bountiful Baron: Western Benefactor to Blond, Beautiful, and Betrayed Women written by John J. Bookman, 1874.

  “There is something strange going on here boyo." O'Brien swirled his whisky around the bottom of his glass before taking a hefty swallow.

  "Oh?" Adam quirked an eyebrow at him and gave an ironic chuckle. "What makes you think so? The fact that every manservant in this household has taken the lord of the house to task for daring to drink whisky instead of brandy after dinner or for sharing the bottle with his valet?" He and Murphy had retreated to the library after dinner and remained there long after the other members of the household had retired for the night. Neither Albert's frowning disapproval or Max's pointed comments had dissuaded Adam from treating Murphy like the friend he was instead of the gentleman's gentleman he was pretending to be.