Page 28 of A Problem Princess

“Yes, for ruling, but not for living their lives. Royals are only people, with the same weaknesses and foibles as everyone else, just on a grander scale.” She glanced toward the house and grimaced. “Amuchgrander scale. But no one is willing to grant us that consideration. Yet sometimes I wish…I wish royals could give it all up,” she admitted in a longing sigh as she turned her face away to stare across the garden. “But I’m not certain that can even be done, if our countries would even allow it. After all, how do you take away royal status from someone who was born to it by the grace of God? And what would our existence be if our duties were abandoned, our very identities lost?” She added softly, “For royals, itisduty before all else, even our own happiness.”

“A lot of us understand duty, Your Highness. I’m still a soldier, still in service to my country.”

She stopped and faced him. “Because youchooseto be. You carry out your duty because you chose this path, not because it was thrust upon you.”

“Don’t assume that because I wasn’t born into wealth or position that duty wasn’t thrust upon me,” he countered.

She hesitated, then asked, “Because of your father?”

His heart skipped as the quiet question jarred him. “What do you know about my father?”

“Not much.” She gestured toward the house and avoided eye contact. “The aunties said…that he’d gotten into trouble for smuggling.”

Gotten into trouble.Well, wasn’t that a pleasant way of saying a man had been hanged? “He did.”Among other things…things Clayton had no intention of sharing with her. “As I said, we have duty in common, Your Highness.”

He could tell by the way she hesitated before walking on that she didn’t believe him, but he certainly had no intention of telling her exactly where that sense of duty came from. If the prince regent had made him a viscount because a mere general wasn’t good enough to guard a princess, what would she think about him if she knew the truth about his father? Would she ever trust that the son of a murderer was good enough to be in her presence, let alone protect her?

“And as for my current duty,” he said, injecting a lightness into the conversation he didn’t feel, “I serve at the pleasure of the princess.”

“But that’s why I wanted you to oversee my guard, because youdon’ttreat me like a princess.” Frustration heated her voice. “When I was with you the other night, when we were simply talking and you weren’t being deferential, I didn’t feel royal or duty bound. I felt…ordinary, as if I were someone other than a princess.” She looked away across the pond as she explained, “The beautiful and brilliant woman you teased me about being.”

The floral scent of her perfume reached him on the breeze, and he breathed it in. “I wasn’t teasing,” he murmured.

She stopped so quickly that she nearly tripped over her own feet as she turned toward him. Her mouth fell open in stunned surprise. “Is that why you kissed me—because you truly thought I was beautiful?”

He crossed his arms and grinned. “I believeyoukissedme.”

Her lips slapped shut, and a storm brewed in the warm chocolate depths of her eyes. “Why, you—”

“I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy it.” His gaze went to her mouth, to those plump, pink lips of hers that had tasted as sweet as ripe strawberries. He could do nothing to satisfy his longing to kiss her again, yet the devil inside him couldn’t resist adding, “After all, what man doesn’t enjoy having a beautiful woman kissing him? Soft and warm, pliant in his arms…”

She swallowed, and the gentle movement undulated down her throat. A powerful urge gripped him to put his mouth right there against her slender neck, to feel it beneath his lips along with the speeding pulse he knew throbbed through her.

“Trust me,” he murmured. “The last thing I cared about at that moment was that you were a princess. At that moment…” Unable to touch her, he swept his gaze over her face, and she trembled as if he’d truly caressed her cheek. “You were just a woman.”

Andthatwas the problem. He had to stop thinking of her as anything but a royal under his protection. Yet she didn’t help when she gazed up at him as she was doing right then, with a look of longing and curiosity. As if he were good enough for a princess.

“If given the chance,” she asked breathlessly, searching his face, “would you kiss me again?”

Damn if he wasn’t wondering the exact same thing himself. Would he be mad enough? “I think we—”

“Princess!” A loud wail cut through the soft afternoon, followed by the sound of running footsteps.

Startled, Cordelia turned toward the house just in time for a little girl to hurl herself against her skirts.

***

Cordelia stiffened with a gasp of surprise as two little arms wrapped fiercely around her legs. Then she bent down and cradled against her bosom the sobbing child who cried as if her heart had been shattered. She was the same little girl to whom Cordelia had given her bow.

“Elizabeth,” she cooed softly and placed a kiss to the top of the girl’s head. She lifted her eyes to Clayton and saw his concerned expression. “What’s wrong?”

“She—she—” The child sobbed so hard that she couldn’t squeeze out the lisped words between tear-strangled breaths. So she pointed in the direction of the terrace.

Too many people lingered in the direction of her pointing finger for Cordelia to understand. “Who, sweetling?”

“N-Nurse B-Beecham.”

When Cordelia looked at Clayton questioningly, he answered, “One of the caretakers from the hospital who accompanied the children today.”