Protecting The Princess - Nadine Millard Page 0,30

run off again, away from the lake. But before long, he arrived at the small lake he’d washed in earlier.

He steeled himself for what he might find. If she was naked, he’d simply have to avert his eyes and be a professional.

Jacob placed his hands on his hips and lifted his face to the sky, breathing deep and preparing for whatever he might find in front of him.

“What are you doing?”

Jacob screeched and nearly jumped out of his skin as the voice sounded right beside him.

He turned to glare down at the princess, unimpressed with her giggling.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. That scream could wake the dead.”

Jacob scowled his displeasure.

“Excuse me, madam,” he bit out. “I did not scream.”

“Oh no?” she laughed. “What would you call it then?”

Jacob eyed her, singularly unimpressed. She had scared the damned wits out of him. And he had not screamed.

“I yelled,” he sniffed. “In a manly fashion.”

For some reason, that just made her laugh harder.

Jacob wasn’t used to feeling embarrassed, and it wasn’t an emotion he enjoyed.

But as he eyed the freshly scrubbed princess with her rosy cheeks and that glorious hair only half-tied with a ribbon making her look innocently lovely, he felt his own lips twitch in response to her laughter.

At least she didn’t appear to be angry at him anymore.

“I’ve left a pot of water on the fire, you know.” He tried to bring things back to some sort of sensibility, but his words set her off into peals of laughter again.

“How is that funny?” he demanded.

“You sound just like one of our cooks, Mrs. Bremmer,” she giggled. “Scolding me about the water and screeching like you’ve found a mouse in your kitchen.”

Jacob had long since had a reputation of almost mythical success when it came to ladies. Hans had often complained that one flash of his dimples had even the most sophisticated woman swooning like a schoolgirl.

Never had he been compared to a screeching cook with a rodent problem.

And he didn’t much care for it.

Desperate to ease some of his humiliation, Jacob tried to assert some authority.

“Let’s get you back to the cottage so I can look at your head. Then once you’ve eaten, we will need to think about our next steps because you are out of supplies already.”

He watched her expression go from amused to bemused, to downright furious. The sparkle of humour in her eyes changed to a glint of anger.

And once more, those tell-tale hands planted themselves on her hips, which was quite the fete considering one of them held her belongings all bundled up in yesterday’s dress.

“I beg your pardon?”

Damn. He was in trouble again.

He’d never clashed so frequently with another person in his life. Not even enemies he’d interrogated, or captors who’d interrogated him.

“What?” he asked defensively. Perhaps even a little petulantly, he acknowledged. But only to himself.

“I don’t need you checking my head or deciding when I should eat. Or what I should eat. Or how I should eat.”

Her voice grew shriller with every word, but he felt it best not to flinch at the tone.

“And what will you do?” he asked, his own temper sparking to life. Never had he met a more infuriating female in his life. “Starve to death?”

“Of course not,” she bit out before she suddenly took off, marching back toward the cottage.

“Then what?” he demanded, easily keeping pace with her shorter strides. “Because out here, you need my help and you’re getting it whether you want it or not.”

They reached the cottage and Princess Harriet threw her bundle haphazardly on the bed before spinning to glower at him.

“You can’t help me against my will. I forbid it,” she yelled.

Jacob raised a brow. She needed to be more careful. Her princess was showing.

“You forbid it?” he questioned and watched as her eyes widened. “Do you make a habit of ordering people around as though you had a right to, Miss Royal?”

As he’d expected, she began to blush furiously at his goading.

“No, of course not.” She tripped over the words, more flustered than he’d seen her thus far. “I just – I don’t appreciate your interference. But I know I can’t order people about. How silly.”

Her laugh was as brittle as the fake smile she had plastered on her face.

The water on the fire began to spill over, so Jacob rushed to remove it. Wordlessly, Harriet began to prepare tea. They worked together in silence for a moment or two then by unspoken consent, they