The Christmas Princess (20 page)

“April—”

She ignored Hunter’s warning from the front seat. “I’m buying presents for my friends, not King Jozef’s, so I’m spending my money. But if you want my opinion, he has better things to do with Bariavak’s money than pay full price.”

King Jozef came down the back stairway as they entered, as if he had been waiting for them.

“A successful afternoon of shopping?”

“If you will excuse me, sir, I have duties to fulfill in my office,” Madame said, descending the stairway to her basement command center.

“If you will excuse me, sir, I have things I need to do in my room,” April said, climbing the stairs past him.

King Jozef looked toward Hunter, as he hung his coat in the back closet.

“You were longer than I expected. A successful afternoon of shopping?” he asked again.

“Some things were bought, but I wouldn’t say it was particularly successful, no. Have you ever watched those nature shows where two Big Horn sheep run at each other, lock horns and butt heads? Let’s just say, it’s behavior not restricted to the males in some species.”

“Ah,” the king said. It held a wealth of comprehension.

For a moment, they shared the amusement, tinged with a hint of terror.

Then the moment was gone.

“Come into my office, Hunter.”

He would have preferred not to. But his preferences weren’t the issue.

The king took the seat by the fireplace he’d occupied the first time they came here, and gestured for Hunter to sit across from him.

“I have been receiving the extension of the flyover agreement. You wish that I sign?” King Jozef asked.

“Yes. Having access to that airspace will allow the United States government to maximize its air bases to reach trouble spots. It cuts hundreds of miles off flights, reducing risks for the crews and personnel they carry.”

“Why is it important to you that I sign this agreement, Hunter?”

“I’ve told you—”

“No, you’ve told me why it is important to your government and why it is important to your military. Why is it important to
you
?”

“I am a servant of my government.”

The king simply looked at him.

“Faster air support.” He wasn’t sure why those words had come out of him.

The king looked at him for a long moment then nodded slowly. “To support troops on the ground. To come to the rescue of those on the ground who might be under attack.”

“Yes.” The one word came grudging and sharp.

“To protect soldiers you don’t know in a war you’re not part of, because of the one soldier who died. Ah, Hunter, you are more Bariavakian than you know. The past rides on your coattails.”

Hunter, even more withdrawn than usual, escorted them to the row that held their seats for the concert at the Washington Cathedral that evening.

Them
included Madame, who apparently had received an order.

“Hunter, you will sit with us,” the king said.

“Your Majesty, that—”

“It is what I wish.”

The older man leveled a look at Hunter she had not seen him use before, and the order behind the wish was clear. If she had needed a reminder, considering Madame’s presence, of the power of a king, this provided it. Until today she had seen the man, not the sovereign.

Hunter’s jaw tightened, but he dropped his head in a curt nod. “I sit on the aisle,” he said grimly.

“But of course,” the king agreed, smiling.

Then, the king took her wrist, holding her back. He gestured for Madame to go in first, followed her, then drew April along after him. His maneuver left her nothing to do but sit one seat in from the aisle, with Hunter beside her.

The king tipped his head and spoke very quietly to her alone.

“Ah, you see, my dear, you must agree that at times, an order is much more efficient than a request.”

Madame issued formal thanks, then disappeared before the rest of them had their coats off.

The king asked her, “Did you enjoy that magnificent music, April?”

“It was magnificent, wasn’t it? It was so kind of you to secure the tickets for us, sir.”

“To instruct Madame to secure the tickets,” he corrected with a chuckle. But you have not answered my question concerning your enjoyment of the music. Is it, perhaps, that you did not care those moments of whispering, followed by an explosion of sound?”

“Why do they do that? Get so quiet and then shout at you?” She chuckled. “It’s like they’re testing to see if you’re awake — but first they put you to sleep. And it always makes me jump, even though I
have
been listening.”

“So it was this method that induces guilt that prevented you from fully enjoying the music?”

Hunter cut across whatever tactful response she’d been formulating. “She wanted to sing.”

“Indeed? You harbor an ambition to perform musically, my dear?”

“No! No, I — I don’t know what he—”

“She wanted everybody to sing.” Let her try to deny that.

When she didn’t, the king said, “Ah.”

She glared at Hunter. He looked back at her.

“All right, yes. It seems a shame to have everyone sit there when we could all be participating — yes, singing—” She shot at him, as if it were a high caliber retort. “Everyone knows the words and the songs are so beautiful when voices simply come together. Plus, if the idea is to get people into the spirit of the season, having them participate does a lot more than making everyone sit there being sung at.”

Her crescendo of belligerence — which had grown as she’d stared at him — fell off a cliff of good manners when she looked back at the king. “Not that it wasn’t beautiful signing. I don’t—”

“Do not apologize for having an opinion, April.”

Hunter saw April studying the King’s face at breakfast Wednesday.

When Madame came in with the daily digest, he watched with a good deal of surprise as April caught the older woman’s eye, raised her brows and tipped her head slightly toward the king. The surprise deepened when Madame, after surveying the king under the guise of rearranging the plate of toast, gave a brief nod.

“This evening is the open house at—”

“Sir,” April interrupted. “Would you mind if we skipped that tonight? I want to do a bit more shopping this morning, but beyond that I could use a quiet day. If you don’t mind?”

The king looked over his reading glasses at her. “Whatever you wish. You’re not feeling poorly, are you?”

“Not at all. But I could use a laidback day.” She flashed a look toward Hunter that he didn’t understand, but that put him on alert. “Especially because I do have one more thing I would like to do this week. I thought of it yesterday while we were out shopping — a personal holiday tradition that I’ve done every year since I was little, no matter where we were living. May I fulfill my tradition Friday night, since we have no social obligations then?”

What was she going to inflict on him now? Her holiday traditions were ending up as holiday tortures.

“Of course, my dear,” the king said. “May I inquire what it is?”

She smiled. “Ice skating at the Mall.”

“I don’t know, Sharon. It’s awfully … uh …”

Hunter heard April’s voice through the open doorway of the Periwinkle Room. He could see in, but neither she nor Sharon seemed to know he was there.

April’s face was turned away, while her figure was in profile to him.

He heard Maurice’s voice in his head. Chin, throat, chest, to your bosom. Yes, you have a fine, high bosom.

She wore a floor length dress in a reddish color. It dropped straight over her hips with a subtle flare at the bottom so her movement wouldn’t be restricted, say, if she were dancing.

“That’s exactly the point,” Sharon said. “Sometimes you need a dress that’s awfully ‘uh.’ Sometimes you need dynamite to blast through granite. Or an ice jam.”

“Granite?” Her voice went up. “I’m not trying to blast through granite. Why would you think —”

“You don’t believe me? Here’s Hunter, let’s see what he thinks.”

April pivoted to face him through the doorway, her right hand holding a wrap in the same material over her left shoulder. “Hunter. What are you doing here?”

Good question. “I don’t remember this dress.”

“I’ll return it. I wasn’t sure—”

Sharon overrode April’s words. “Tonya from Maurice’s delivered it with those that needed additional alterations” And that explained the three tea cups on the coffee table. No doubt April had insisted they all sit down and chat. Probably ate cookies. “Along with a note from Maurice de Chartier saying he’d come across it after you left the shop last week and he’s convinced it’s perfect for April. I agree, but she won’t listen.”

“It’s a beautiful dress, but …” April looked down at the skirt. Uncertainty resided right beside fragile exultation. “We didn’t order it, but Tonya and Sharon say … And Maurice sent it and they say Maurice has the best taste in Washington. I don’t know.”

“It looks very nice on you.”

“Without the wrap,” Sharon said from the loveseat beneath the window.

The smirk in her voice warned him. It didn’t matter. April released her hold on the wrap, it slid off her shoulder, and then it could have burst into flame as far as he knew. All he saw was what it revealed.

A flow of creamy skin from April’s throat, over her delicately carved collarbone, and down, to the rising curve of her breasts. Then the dress curved in, defining the line between her breasts, cupping their smooth curves like a lover’s hands would cup them in the second before his mouth —

“It’s too low.”

The words came too fast, but his voice sounded normal. That was a damned miracle.

Sharon made a sound that might have been an aborted chuckle, but he didn’t look her way. He made himself look up, to meet April’s eyes.

Uncertainty had surged to the lead in her expression, leaving the exultation trampled in the dust.

Then she sighed.

You would think a man with any sort of discipline would have no trouble surviving one single intake and output of air by a woman. Hell, all he had to do was look somewhere else. The ceiling, his shoes, out the window. Anywhere.

Instead, he saw her lips part for the inhalation and his gaze dropped to her chest. Her breasts rose, micro-millimeter by micro-millimeter. The fabric rose, too, but not at the same rate. Einstein should have had a formula to show how a low-cut dress and a deep sigh could bring a man to his knees. Her breasts seemed to fight for freedom with that breath, gaining territory an atom at a time. He wanted the battle to go faster, to be over, to know the result and have it behind him. He wanted to slow it so it lasted a lifetime.

Stillness. Absolute stillness. No sound, no movement. The smooth flesh’s curve pushed above the slight restriction of material. He could feel the smoothness of that flesh in the tingle of his fingertips, taste its sweetness in the dryness of his mouth, smell its musk in the flare of his nostrils.

And then the slow release of April’s breath, the slow retreat of her breasts back into the cover of the clinging material.

Those precious micro-millimeters out of sight, though God knew not out of his mind. Not out of his body, either.

It was as if the release of that pent-up air from her body had entered his, expanding and swelling his groin until it hurt.

“I’m sorry you don’t like it.” She squared her shoulders and replaced the wrap over her shoulder. “But I’m going to keep it. I might never have a chance to have another dress like this, and I’m going to keep it. I’ll pay for it. I wonder if Maurice has a lay-away plan? Or—”

“We’ll pay,” Sharon said. “You need something for the White House party.”

“Oh, God. The White House.”

“Relax, April. It’s a party — a big party, but just a party. First say you’ll keep the dress.”

But April wasn’t listening. She was turning toward him, and as she did, the wrap slid off her shoulder again.

He had to get out of here. Now. Before his body reacted — Oh, hell! Before she or Sharon spotted his body’s reaction.

“But … Are you sure it’s okay, Hunter? If you think it’s too low …?”

He didn’t answer. He grabbed the doorknob and pulled it after him.

Before the door closed, he heard Sharon’s chuckle behind him, along with something that sounded like “Ka-
boom
!”

He could hear Maurice’s voice.

Yes, you have a fine, high bosom, and we shall show that off.

But it was what he kept seeing behind his closed eyelids that was driving the bus at the moment.

April blushing. The slow rise and fall of her breasts. Her head tipped back as if waiting for a kiss. Her hair mussed from pulling a sweater over her head, the way she would look if she were peeling her clothes off … for a man.

He shifted against the cold, stone seat of the bench in the small garden by the embassy’s back entry, and he knew it wasn’t the cold or the stone that made him uncomfortable.

April put her own coat and gloves on first, took his jacket from the peg by the back door, and outside, going directly up to him. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

His head came up at that.

“Put this on,” she ordered.

And he did.

“If you didn’t bite other people’s heads off and if you weren’t so hard-headed yourself, you wouldn’t be out here freezing with no jacket on.”

His mouth quirked. “
That’s
why you think I should be ashamed of myself?”

“Of course. You shouldn’t have come out here without a jacket, and then everybody was too afraid of you getting on their case to bring a jacket out to you. It’ll be your own darned fault if you get sick from freezing out here.”

“I’ve been colder.” He tilted his head, watching her as she sat beside him. “You weren’t afraid to bring my jacket to me.”

“No, I wasn’t.” She turned toward him. “I’m not.”

They looked at each other for a long moment.

She thought … but she’d thought before that they’d moved past some of his walls, only to have them reappear in time for her to walk right into them.