you wouldn’t see me because you didn’t want to.”
It was bad enough being cut off in midsentence. Of the many people in her life, perhaps only her brothers would have dared. “Royalty has its obligations,” she said, annoyed at being second-guessed so accurately.
“Then Nuee’s prosperity should be high on the list.”
“Of course it is. It’s the smallest of Carramer’s main islands with the least resources.”
“One of them being native horses with the potential to be the world’s greatest saddlebreds.”
“Agreed,” she said.
“So why put up a fight?”
“Because I refused a meeting?”
His eyes gleamed. “A confession, princess?”
Too late, she saw the trap. “A question…and you haven’t answered it.”
He spread his long fingers wide. “Your brother tells me you’re the greatest living expert on Nuee’s native horses. With your expertise and my setup, we could conquer the riding world.”
“Why not the other way around?” she said softly.
His breath hissed between those inviting full lips. “So that’s what this is all about. You wanted that land for yourself, didn’t you?”
“It’s perfect for raising saddlebreds.”
“So why didn’t you buy it?” He swept a gaze around the banquet hall. He knew the value of the silverware alone would feed a normal family for a year. “It can’t be lack of money.”
“Try lack of a Y chromosome.”
He looked startled, as if the idea would never occur to him. “Because you’re female? Carramer isn’t that feudal.”
“It depends on one’s family.”
“Your brothers?” When she nodded, he said, “They must have good reason for keeping you out of the ranching business. Maybe they’re trying to protect you.”
“Spoken like a typical male,” she said. “I can take care of myself.”
“The way you did this afternoon? What’s with you, anyway, princess? You could have been injured or killed sneaking out like that.”
She let her eyes flash regal fire at him and waited for him to quail. When he didn’t, she snapped, “I would have handled that drunken oaf. I did handle him, come to think of it.” She saw Hugh wince at the memory of her well-aimed kick. “And I never sneak.”
“So this isn’t the first time you’ve gone out alone and in disguise.” It wasn’t a question. It was certainty. He didn’t seem surprised when she didn’t deny it and went on in an angry voice, “Princess, it seems to me that you don’t know when you’re well-off.”
Confusion gripped her. She had feared he would use what he knew to gain some benefit, but instead he sounded angry on her account. This was getting much too personal. Luckily the next course was being brought in. “I’m glad we had this talk, Hugh, but I can’t monopolize you all evening.”
He knew a dismissal when he heard one. He might be a self-made man but his education, rough as it was, had included the rules of etiquette. Both of them owed some of their attention to the guests on either side of them. “There’s still my dance,” he reminded the princess before she could turn to the man on her left. He had the satisfaction of seeing her lovely eyes widen.
“Your dance?”
“As your appeal’s biggest benefactor, I get to dance with the princess at least once tonight.”
“I may retire early.”
“Even you wouldn’t buck the system that far.”
He was right, damn him. She still had a feeling he wanted something from her, something he hadn’t mentioned yet. She resolved to make it a short dance. “Very well, then, we’ll continue this later.”
He nodded graciously enough but muttered something that sounded like, “You bet we will.” With a resigned sigh, she turned her attention to the man seated on her left. He was a meteorologist, she remembered from Cindy’s briefing. She hoped discussing the weather would be easier on her blood pressure than talking with Hugh.
Even with her attention directed elsewhere she was aware of him, she noticed uncomfortably. As her companion launched into a long dissertation about the effects of the various currents on Carramer’s water temperatures, she nibbled around the edges of her food, mostly pushing it around her plate to give the appearance of eating.
When the lecture faltered, she dragged a snippet of information out of her memory. “I believe you’re also interested in the thermal mapping of tropical storms.”
The meteorologist colored with pleasure. “Your Highness is well informed.”
Efficient, too, in studying the briefing notes Cindy had prepared for her ahead of time. Adrienne inclined her head. “It’s kind of you to say so. Please, go on.”
This started a fresh wave of information that she absorbed with only half her attention. The other half kept shifting to Hugh who had his head bent close to a middle-aged blond woman on his right. Had Cindy mentioned her? She was somebody’s wife, Adrienne recalled, although right now she wasn’t acting much like one.
The woman was all but batting her eyes at him. Hugh didn’t seem to mind, lapping up the attention like mother’s milk. She wasn’t jealous. The woman was welcome to him, Adrienne told herself. He annoyed her, and not only because he knew her secret. He refused to treat her with the deference due her position, challenging and insulting her in a way no one else dared to do.
In fairness she couldn’t blame him for securing the land she had wanted for herself. That fault lay with her brother. But she did resent Hugh’s ready acceptance of it as his right, and his attitude that, as a woman and a princess, she needed protecting from the big, bad world.
All the same he intrigued her, possibly because she didn’t intimidate him. America had no royal family, she recalled, having shed their ties with their monarch centuries before. Yet Hugh’s attitude didn’t seem to come from lack of experience with royalty as much as from the depths of his own character. He would bow before anyone who had earned his deference, but not otherwise, she sensed.
The thought of dancing with him was scary and exhilarating by turns.
At the end of the elaborate meal she stood up, signaling a return to the ballroom, where her heart started to flutter in anticipation. Surely she couldn’t want to dance with Hugh Jordan? If he passed on what he knew, he could cause trouble for her with her brothers. By right she should keep as far away from him as possible. Yet her eyes sought him out with the same recklessness that sent a moth darting to a fatal flame.
“May I have this dance, Your Highness?” he asked formally as the orchestra struck up a waltz.
“Yes.” Strange how hard it was to force the single word out.
With
