He’d never considered red and wrinkled to be beautiful, but he did like the look of the woman. She interested him. She kept looking at him in the oddest way. It wasn’t just that she was attracted to him. Women usually were. But there was something more, something mysterious in her smoky green eyes.
She was very pretty, but it was a careless sort of beauty. The way she held herself, the way she moved, he could tell she didn’t think about her looks any more than she thought about the weather. There was an innocence about her, and yet at the same time, a sophistication, as though she knew a lot, but it was mostly secondhand information, experience gained from books and not from mixing with the masses.
“Funny,” he said softly, looking at the way her bronze hair lay against the smooth pale skin of her neck and wondering if she smelled as good as she looked. “You don’t look like a pastry chef.”
“I am not a pastry chef,” she responded automatically, looking up at him. It didn’t occur to her to say she was a princess. She never said things like that. If she had her way, the whole princess thing would fade from her life and no one would ever know about it again. Of course, being a princess was the very reason she was here, a fact she had practically forgotten by now.
“I saw Milla, the kitchen maid, in the hall and she said you’d come about the pastry chef position.”
Tianna gave him a long suffering look. “Milla was wrong.”
He frowned. Thinking wasn’t as painful as it had been a few minutes earlier, but it still wasn’t back with its usual zing. “What are you, then?”
“I’m a photographer.”
He groaned, dropping back down into the chair and stretching. “Not another photojournalist sniffing around for a story on the royals.”
“I’m not a photojournalist,” she assured him quickly. “I told you, I’m a photographer. I mainly concentrate on architectural photography. And I have no interest in photographing royals.”
“Good. Then we won’t have to kick you out on your ear.”
She bristled. “I’d like to see you try,” she said sharply, one hand on her hip.
“Oh. That’s right. I forgot you were the dangerous one.” His blue eyes glinted at her in a way that sent a new awareness skittering along her nerve endings. “Quite the little wild cat, aren’t you?” he said in a tone that made her sound downright erotic.
Her breath caught in her throat and color flooded her cheeks, but she lifted her chin and tried to ignore it. “I’m nothing of the sort. But I do know how to defend myself.”
“I’ll say you do. I’ve got the sore hand to prove it.” He shook the hand, deemed it basically unscathed, but looked up at her accusingly anyway. “That was quite a nice demonstration of the old thumb trick you put on this morning. What other escape moves do you have up your sleeve?”
She looked fully at him and for just a moment, their gazes seemed to connect, fuse, and sizzle.
“I…I think I’d better keep that to myself,” she said, feeling a bit muddled and looking toward the window, absently noting that the rain was coming down pretty steadily now. “The element of surprise is half the battle.”
“Here,” he said, coming to his feet. “I’ll show you a good one.”
“No thanks.” She turned away, shaking her head, but he moved too quickly for her.
“If someone grabs you, like this,” he said, coming up behind her and sliding his arms in, locking them just beneath her breasts, pulling her close in against him. “What would you do?”
She gasped. His face was next to hers, his breath tantalizing her cheek, his rough day’s growth of beard rasping against her skin. It had all happened so fast, she had to wait a beat or two to make sure she understood just exactly what was going on here.
“You snap back your right elbow and at the same time, you make a turn to the left,” he was advising, his voice silky, so very near her ear.
She could hardly breathe. He was holding her to his long, strong body and she thought she could feel every one of his muscles against her back. Her natural inclination was to do as he said and turn toward the left, but one second of clear thinking and she realized what that meant. She might be in his arms now, but if she followed his instructions she would be in his embrace and in perfect position to be kissed.
A lovely thought—if only she could believe he wasn’t doing this on purpose just to mock her. Which, of course, he was! She steeled herself. She wasn’t going to follow through and fall into his trap. Instead, she made another move her personal defense trainer had taught her and quickly raised her foot, coming down hard on top of his.
He yelled. She pulled out of his grip, whirling to glare at him hotly. Half-laughing, he was hobbling in pain.
“My God, woman, you’re lethal. I was just trying to show you…”
She raised her hands as though to defend herself. “Stay back!” she ordered him.
And at the same time, the cook came bustling in through the outer doorway, her hair damp, her look very cross. She took in the scene at a glance, nodded at Tianna, and glared daggers at the man standing beside her.
“Young mister, you know the rules,” she said sternly, shaking a finger at him. “There’s to be no trifling with the help.” She all but stamped her foot and pointed to show him the way out of her kitchen.
“Trifling?” He glanced at Tianna and shook his head, laughing softly. “Don’t worry. This lady is definitely a no-trifling zone.”
His gaze met hers and held for a moment, then he turned his full charm on the cook.
“That you, of all people, should accuse me of trifling.” He had the confident smile of a man who had used charisma as his currency out of many a sticky situation in his life and was pretty sure it would work for him again, any time he chose to use it. “I was doing no such thing. I was merely keeping a visitor company while waiting for you to return and do your duty by her.”
The cook was still pointing. “If you want to practice your profligate ways, you’ll do so somewhere else,” she insisted. “I’ve got work to do here.”
The handsome charmer reacted with weary resignation.
“Aye aye, Cook.” He gave her a somewhat disjointed salute, then leaned toward her teasingly. “My mentor, my conscience, my guide. As ever, words of wisdom fall from your lips like petals from the rose….”
The cook colored and had a hard time not showing pleasure at his affectionate mockery. “Get on with you.” She swatted at him with a dish towel, but she was beaming in a way that gave full evidence to how much she cared for him. “And keep your crazy poetry to yourself.”
“Hey, watch that talk,” he said as he prepared to depart. “You know I have to maintain my reputation as a soldier. Don’t start spreading that poetry rumor.”
He stopped to drop a quick kiss on the cook’s cheek, then dodged another swipe with the dish towel as he made his way toward the exit. Tianna noted with a twinge of guilty satisfaction that he was limping slightly. He paused in the doorway, looking back.
“Goodbye, lovely lady,” he said to Tianna just before disappearing out the door. “I hope we meet again.” A fleeting smile, and then he was gone.
Tianna thought she’d probably seen the last of him and was disappointed in herself for caring. She had to admit, it would be tempting to let herself get a healthy crush on a man like that, to start thinking about the scent of roses and kisses in the moonlight. The only love affair she’d let herself attempt had ended badly and had seemed hardly worth the