A Princess for Christmas - Jenny Holiday Page 0,33

you think that was merely because word had gotten out about me rather than because someone actually recognized me of his or her own volition?”

He shrugged. “You do have a way of drawing attention.”

“I do?” Marie looked down at herself. She’d tried to look more American today, and under her coat, she was wearing a simple black day dress, though she supposed the very concept of a day dress wasn’t American. The coat itself, though, was bright pink, belted, swingy, and decorated with black wool piping. Princesses didn’t really do parkas. And she was wearing Grand-mére’s emerald brooch. “It’s the clothes, isn’t it? The clothes are all wrong.”

He looked at her for a long time without saying anything. The line was outside in the cold, but his gaze heated her from the inside. Embarrassed her. He did that so easily. “No,” he finally said. “The clothes are just fine.” He drew out the vowels in the last two words: juuust fiiiine. She did not know what that meant, but it caused more of that heated embarrassment.

Soon enough, they were easing themselves onto the ice. Marie felt her shoulders relax, and the vestiges of her discomfiture faded as they took their first few strokes.

“You’re very good!” she said, and indeed, Leo had an easy grace as he matched his pace to hers.

“I played organized hockey as a kid and was in and out of rec leagues after I graduated from high school.” He sped up and rapidly spun around so he was skating backward in front of her, grinning from ear to ear. The move was so well executed that she laughed in delight. “I haven’t been on the ice in years, though. Not since before—”

She knew what he’d been about to say. “I imagine you gave up a lot more than hockey after your parents died.” She had seen firsthand the way he took care of his sister. That kind of guardianship didn’t come without a cost.

He shrugged as he fell in beside her again. “It’s worth it.”

“I’m sure it is. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t sacrifices.”

His face shuttered. She had said too much. Poked at a topic he clearly didn’t want to discuss. She should have known better—the private life of Leonardo Ricci was none of her business.

She was trying to decide if apologizing would only exacerbate matters, but he cleared his throat and said, “You’re not too bad on the ice yourself, Your Royal Mostness. I suppose everyone in Eldovia has to learn to skate, like a citizenship requirement?”

She smiled, thankful for the new topic. She picked up speed, and he matched her. “Something like that, but I did have lessons as a girl.” Somehow, they’d taken in a way the dancing lessons hadn’t. It made no sense that she should be lighter on her feet on ice than inside in a ballroom. Perhaps the difference was that no one ever watched her skate. No one was judging her skating. “I’m actually fairly accomplished at most winter sports.”

It was her turn for a trick. She skated away and built up speed for a single axel, which was as far as her lessons had taken her. She wasn’t sure she would land it—it had been years since she’d attempted one, and she was just as likely to land on her . . . booty, to use the American term she’d learned this week. But she was successful. She enjoyed a sharp prick of satisfaction, entering her like a needle and diffusing like a drug, as her blade sliced against the ice as she stuck the landing.

Leo whistled and clapped as he caught up with her. They grabbed hands. She wasn’t sure if he grabbed hers or she grabbed his, but something like a shiver ran up her arm when they made contact, even though she was wearing gloves. It was a warm shiver, though, which should have been a contradiction but somehow wasn’t. He spun them around once before letting go and saying, “You’re really good.”

“My mother loved skating.” Marie took off on a lap around the rink, a slower one this time, and Leo fell in beside her. “We had this pond in the woods near . . . our house.”

“You were going to say ‘the palace’ or something, weren’t you?”

“I was not!” she lied, but her laughter was giving her away.

“No?” he teased, his brown eyes twinkling. “The castle then?”

Now she couldn’t stop laughing. There was something about the crisp, cold air, the familiar, comforting zing