wind that made a plaything of her skirts, coiled around her shoulders and lay like a shadow across one breast. Something glittered in the twist of braids on top of her head…caught an elusive source of light and winked. He couldn’t see her features in that purple dusk, but he’d known at once who she was. In a strange way, her body, the way she moved, seemed already familiar to him.
Leila almost lost her courage. The tall figure silhouetted against the evening sky and framed by gold-washed pillars seemed so forbidding, utterly unapproachable, like a sentinel guarding the gates of Heaven. But, oh, she thought as her heartbeat pattered deliriously in her throat, how commanding he looked in his evening clothes—how elegant, even regal.
And yet—the notion came to her suddenly, the way such insights often did to Leila—as elegant and at ease as he appeared, there was something about the formal dress that didn’t suit him. As if his appearance of ease went no deeper than his skin…as if it were his soul that was being suffocated.
Almost…almost, she turned to run away, to leave him there with his solitude. For uncounted seconds she hovered, balanced like a bird on a swaying branch, balanced, she was even in that moment aware, between two futures for herself…two very different paths. One path was familiar to her, its destination dismally certain. The other was a complete unknown, veiled in darkness, and she had no way of knowing whether it might lead her to the freedom she so desired…or disaster.
She hovered, her heart beating faster, harder, and then, somehow, she was moving forward again, moving toward that imposing figure in evening clothes. She felt a strange sense of inevitability as the figure loomed larger, as she drew closer and closer to the American named Cade Gallagher. And it occurred to her to wonder if she had ever had a choice at all.
They were only a few feet apart now, close enough that one or the other must speak. But Cade only looked at her and went on quietly smoking…something too brown to be a cigarette, too slender to be a cigar. Reminding herself what Kitty had said, that in America—in Texas—it was permissible for a woman to speak first, Leila summoned all her courage and sent up a small prayer.
“Good evening—it is Mr. Gallagher, is it not?” She kept her voice low to hide the tremors in it. “May I call you Cade?”
“I wish you would.” His voice was a husky drawl that shivered her skin as if someone had lightly touched her all over. He gave a bow, and she wondered if he might be mocking her. “Good evening, Princess—or is it, ‘Your Highness’?”
“If I am to call you Cade, then you must call me Leila.” She was glad for the shadowy torchlight that hid the blush she could feel burning in her cheeks. On the other hand, she hoped he would see the dimples there, and as she joined him, she smiled and tilted her face toward him and the light.
He waited for her to reach him, then turned so that they walked on together toward the terrace, side by side. Leila’s heart was beating so hard she thought he must hear it.
After a moment he glanced down at her and said, “Shouldn’t you be at the royal reception?”
She hesitated, biting her lip, wondering just how “cheeky”—it was a word she’d acquired during her school days in England—she dared be. Hoping he wouldn’t think her insolent, she looked up at him through lowered lashes and colored her voice with her smile. “Yes, I should. And…should not you be, as well?”
He acknowledged that with a soft and rueful laugh. Emboldened, she added, “You are certainly dressed for it.” And after a moment, bolder still, “You do look quite nice in evening dress, but…” She counted footsteps. One…two…
She felt his gaze, and, looking up to meet it, caught a small, involuntary breath. To get his attention, a woman would have to be a little bit…She smiled and said on the soft rush of an exhalation, “But, I liked what you were wearing yesterday—especially your hat. You looked quite like a cowboy.”
She heard the faint, surprised sound of his breath as he looked down at her. “Yesterday?”
“I saw you in the garden,” she explained with an innocent lift of her shoulders. “I was with my sisters, on the balcony outside our chambers. I could not help but notice you. You stood out, among all the others. I thought you looked…very American—like someone I have seen in the Western movies.”
He gave a little grunt of laughter, but she didn’t think it was a pleased sound.
She conjured up a new smile. “But tonight…tonight you look very different—elegant, very sophisticated. And, of course, very handsome.”
He laughed uncomfortably. “Princess—”
She laughed too, in a light and teasing way, and before he could say more, hurried on. “But, you have run away from the reception and all the ladies who would admire you, to walk alone in the gardens…” She left it hanging, the question unspoken.
Cade brought the slender cigar briefly to his lips before answering. “I needed some air,” he said abruptly, and there was a certain harshness in his voice now. They had stepped onto the terrace that overlooked the sea. He made a gesture toward the emptiness beyond the marble balustrade. “Some space.”
A breeze from the sea lifted tendrils of hair on Leila’s neck. She felt a shivering deep inside her chest. Space…
“Yes,” she whispered, forgetting to flirt, for all at once her throat ached and she no longer felt like smiling.
They stood together at the balustrade in silence, shoulders not quite touching, and she felt the ache inside her grow. I shouldn’t have done this, she thought in sudden and unfamiliar panic. This is terrifying. Perhaps I am not cut out to be a pushy woman.
Far below, waves collided gently with the rocky cliff, sending up joyful little bursts of spray. The rhythmic shusshing sound they made was familiar and soothing to her soul. She listened to it for several more seconds, then lifted her eyes to the almost invisible horizon.
“I understand, I think,” she said quietly, leaning a little on her hands. “I come here often when I am feeling…”
At a loss for the word, she gave a little grimace and shook her head.
“Cooped up?” Cade softly suggested, watching the horizon as she did. She looked him a question, not being familiar with the expression. He glanced down at her. “Walled up…fenced in—”
“Oh, yes!” She turned toward him, her breath escaping in a grateful rush. “That is it exactly—walled up and fenced in. But what is this…coop? I do not know—”
He shrugged and turned his gaze back to the sea. “It’s an expression they use where I come from. A coop is a kind of pen. They keep chickens in it.”
“In Texas?”
“Yeah…” He said it on a sigh. “In Texas.” After a curiously vibrant pause, one that fairly sang with unspoken communion, he jerked himself upright and away from the silence with a loud and raggedy attempt to clear his throat. “Other places, too. Pretty much any place they have chickens.”
He couldn’t believe he was having this conversation with a princess. One that, even in a designer gown, really did look like something out of The Arabian Nights. But talking about chicken coops, dopey as it was, seemed infinitely safer than that terrifying sense of…what in the
