Protecting The Princess - Nadine Millard Page 0,21
a question he really didn’t want to ask. “Are they cruel?” Prince Christopher didn’t seem as though he would hurt his sister, but Jacob supposed one never knew what happened behind closed doors.
If anyone, royal or otherwise, abused her in some way, that changed things. He wouldn’t bring her back to a bad situation—ordered to or not.
But to his relief, she was already shaking her head in denial.
“No, they’re not cruel. Just – just protective,” she hedged. “My family are – well, powerful you might say.”
Yes, you might, he agreed silently. Considering they were the royal bloody family.
“And they mean well. But—” She shrugged helplessly. “My brother wants to send me away to England. And I don’t want to go.”
“Send you away?” he repeated. “Why?”
Jacob couldn’t have said why this news displeased him so. Only that it did. He’d known that the princess was being sent with the Furbergs before she’d run. But not that she was being sent from Aldonia.
“It doesn’t matter why. All that matters is that I don’t want to go. And I don’t want him making all of my decisions anymore.”
She studied his face as though looking for a reaction, and because he didn’t know what she was looking for or what might send her storming off into the forest, he kept his expression smooth.
After a while she sighed again.
“It sounds ridiculous,” she muttered. “But my whole life I’ve never been able to go anywhere by myself, decide anything for myself, and when Christo—I mean, my brother—wanted to send me away, I thought maybe, just this once, I could strike out on my own.”
Her shoulders slumped, and Jacob felt that odd protectiveness once more.
“I didn’t even make it past the first day without help.”
She sounded so despondent, so desolate, that Jacob’s heart twisted.
“I don’t know about that, Miss Royal. There isn’t a single lady of my acquaintance that would have the courage to do what you’ve done.”
He watched in fascination as a pink blush crept into her cheeks and she smiled up at him.
“And I’m sure,” he continued, noting the sudden gruffness in his tone, “that had I left you to your own devices, you would have found a way to manage perfectly well without my interference.”
Her smile widened, those sinful eyes sparkling with pleasure, and Jacob felt a burst of pride that he’d made her smile in such difficult circumstances.
Perhaps, he thought hopefully, she was ready to return home. Now that someone had acknowledged her bravery, now that she’d proven she could do it—or at least thought she could do it—she’d return to safety.
“Thank you, Mr. Lauer,” she said softly, and it was all Jacob could do to keep from reaching out to her.
It was getting harder and harder to remember that the princess was off limits.
“Now that you’ve proven you can do it, perhaps you’d like to go home?” he blurted, more harshly than he’d intended.
The second the words were out of his mouth, Jacob knew they’d been a mistake.
Her eyes hardened, her shoulders stiffened, and that defiant chin of hers notched up.
“I don’t think so, Mr. Lauer,” she answered glacially. “If you’ll excuse me?”
He watched in amazement as she bent down, heaved up both of her silly, oversized bags, teetered around a bit under their weight, then righted herself and began to stagger off.
Jacob prayed for patience. And when that didn’t work, he cursed fluently in five languages then set off chasing after the runaway princess. Again.
Harriet fumed her way through the forest, not even paying attention to where she was going.
For a moment—a brief, wonderful moment, she had felt as though someone understood her. She thought that perhaps Mr. Lauer understood her need for a sense of freedom. Freedom from the strictures of her life. Freedom to make her own path, even temporarily.
There’d been something in his piercing blue eyes—a sense of affinity. But no, she was wrong. He was just another man who’d barrelled into life and wanted to control what she did. At least Christopher, Alexander, and her father were related to her. This oversized, overbearing, overly handsome man was a practical stranger.
“Miss Royal.”
Harriet rolled her eyes. And he was harder to shake than the royal bloody guard.
“What?” she bit out over her shoulder. She knew she resembled a toddler having a tantrum, but she couldn’t help it.
“You’re going to do yourself an injury.”
“Well it will be my injury then,” she shouted back churlishly. “And my business.”
“Please, Miss Royal. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
Harriet swung back around to