The Christmas Princess (22 page)

“That’s great, Hunter!” She was smiling, as he put distance between them. But she skated toward him, closing the gap. She had more speed. She swooped around him as he let his momentum fade to stillness. “You’re a natural. I bet you could spin.”

“No.”

“Sure you can. An easy move to get the feel… Here, take my hands.”

His hands clasped hers before he could tell his body no. Her tug on his hands turned him as the axis of the circle she skated around him.

“No, don’t look at me, Hunter. That will make you dizzy. Spot on something stationary, and keep coming back to it.”

How could he not look at her? Even though he was getting dizzy. But was it from their surroundings blurring as only her face stayed in focus? Or was it something different?

“Okay, now this is what you do.” She released his hands. With her skates shoulder-width apart, she twisted her body. She released the twist, and rotated smoothly, gradually drawing her arms in, increasing her speed. “Now you do it. Focus on one stationary object.”

He mimicked her motion. The blur before his eyes raced to a flow of colors. Now she was his stationary object, her face the one certainty in a blur.

“Great. You’re doing it, Hunter.”

“Excellent, my son,” said another voice in another language.

“No.”

He put one skate out to catch the ice with the tip, halting the spin abruptly. He half stumbled out of the motion.

“Hunter? Hunter, are you all right?”

She was right in front of him, a hand fisted into the material of each sleeve of his bulky sweater. He tried to twist away, she glided along with.

“Hunter.”

Her voice made him realize, the sympathy, the worry, the compassion. Yes, her voice told him before his own body realized that tears threatened.

There was only one way to hide his weakness, only one escape.

He grasped her shoulders and pulled her to him, dropping his mouth onto hers.

“I want to walk,” April said.

He didn’t look at her. He hadn’t since that kiss. Brief, comprehensive, and incomprehensible. His mouth firm and complete on hers. Caught by surprise, her lips had parted. His had, too. Their breaths mingled again. One more instant and—

He’d backed away from her immediately. Then he’d looked around as if searching for danger.

To her, it felt like the danger came from him.

She skated several more minutes, circling with the other skaters, ignoring his presence behind her, calming her mind.

When they announced it was time to clean the ice, she was done and exchanged skates for her boots.

She didn’t wait for his permission to begin walking, but headed to the center of the Mall. Turning one way, she saw the Washington Monument rising tall and straight with the Lincoln Memorial beyond it and the swelling rises of Arlington Cemetery across the river. Then she pivoted and looked toward the Capitol. In that instant, wandering snowflakes began to sift down.

She smiled and tipped her head back, opening her mouth to catch a slow-moving flake.

One finally dropped into her mouth, melting before it even reached her tongue. She straightened.

Hunter was right there. So close.

He was going to kiss her again. She saw it in his eyes.

Her lips parted, she looked up at him.

He leaned closer …

He straightened and turned away. “Time to get back.”

Hunter watched her return with Rufus and Derek to the embassy grounds after their walk Saturday morning.

Keeping out of sight, he heard her tell the king she was going to finish her Christmas cards in the library.

She was lying.

He didn’t question his certainty, but kept watch.

Yes, there she went. Slipping out with a quick look around. He followed on foot. She went straight to the nearest Metro stop. When she made the first transfer, with him trailing behind, he was as sure of where she was going as he had been that she was lying.

At the animal shelter, he asked to see a puppy that the woman at the front desk said had a waiting list for adoption. Through a window in the introduction cubicle, he watched April sit on the floor of the main area, cuddling Dragon and feeding him treats.

The puppy chewed on the edge of his shoe. He reached down and detached the puppy’s mouth, offering it a toy from a basket. But he never took his eyes from the window.

So he saw the moment she began to cry.

He caught Sharon on her way out of the embassy, after she’d spent half an hour with April.

They’d dispensed with the professional on Sharon’s way in. Now he asked her, “You’ve got a house and kids, right?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t tell me you’ve actually listened to things I’ve said about my personal life all these years.”

Of course he had. It was important to know who you were working with so you could anticipate their weaknesses and bring out their strengths.

“Three kids — two boys and a girl.” Maybe he was showing off a little.

“Be still my heart! If you know their names, I’ll faint dead away.”

He didn’t. Which was just as well, since he was the only one around to pick her up. Besides, their names didn’t figure in to this. “Kids should have a dog. It’s … it’s good for their character. Teaches them responsibility. And, uh, loyalty and … and about social structure and interactions.”

“If you say so, Hunter. You do know I have a husband, too, don’t you? You’ve met him, oh, five, six times.”

Hunter waved off the existence of a man he remembered vaguely as stocky and with a wide grin. Why did she keep straying from the subject? She was as bad as April, with these detours.

“A dog,” he said. “Your family needs another dog. One for each kid. I know just the dog. Housetrained, good with kids and other animals. He—”

“Hold on there, Dr. Doolittle. If we get another dog our community says we have to declare ourselves a kennel and get a special license. I already have a zoo — no way am I going to add a kennel. Why don’t you keep him yourself?”

“Me? What would I do with a dog? I’m …. I’m a professional.”

“You don’t think I’m a professional?” Her voice was even, but she jammed her hands on her hips. “I’ve got, as you’ve said, a house and kids and a husband and — yes — dogs. So that makes me not capable of doing my job professionally?”

Hunter knew the ice had thinned under his feet in the last few seconds. Damn. Why’d he have to think of ice. And skating. And kissing—

“You’re not only capable. You always do your job professionally. If you did not, I would ask for another assignment.”

Her posture relaxed. “Ah, you silver-tongued charmer, you,” she murmured. “As for what you would do with a dog, you would love it and play with it and let it look at you adoringly. Oh, yeah, and let it chew up some of your shoes. So why do you have it in your head that this job means you can’t have a dog?”

He glanced at his shoes, as if they could protest against hypothetically being chewed. “For you, this job is a place to work. For me, it is …” He backed away from that and started again. “If someone came to you with the offer of another job, a good job, you would consider it. Because this job doesn’t… You do it well,” he continued quickly, “but still it is only a part of your life. Maybe not the most important part.”

“Your
maybe
is right. It shouldn’t be for you, either, Hunter.”

He said nothing.

She shook her head at him, then said in a tone she had never used to him before, “You can be a professional without pulling down all the shades and pretending there’s nobody home inside your life, Hunter.”

They went to a performance of the Messiah at the Kennedy Center that night. With Madame.

She unbent enough during the drive back to the embassy to express pleasure at the music.

April was quieter than usual and heavy-eyed.

The king gave Hunter a sharp look, as if suspecting he was the cause. Nope. A four-legged scruffy, old dog.

Where the hell was the king?

He usually kept April right by his side. But now, when a royal presence — a disapproving royal presence — could do some real good, he was … Hunter checked that King Jozef was still talking to the British Ambassador in the State Dining Room, beside the fireplace under the portrait of Abraham Lincoln.

The British Ambassador had added his government’s pleas to the Americans’ that the king extend the flyover agreement. And Hunter knew an unofficial conversation at a function like this often achieved more than a formal exchange.

But, dammit, the man had an obligation to keep April from getting out of her depth.

Which was exactly where she was at the moment, and judging by the way she was smiling up at the slick chief of staff to a certain rising senator, she didn’t even realize her feet couldn’t touch bottom anymore.

This First Lady’s well-known passion for ballroom dancing had led to the Family Dining Room being cleared of most of its furniture, festooned with garlands, outfitted with a quartet from the Marine Band adding dance rhythms to carols, and a portion of the guests dancing happily.

The dancing wasn’t the problem. In fact April’s dancing was so effortless, that unlike when they’d practiced in the hotel suite, she had plenty of attention left over to chat away while looking directly into the eyes of her partner.

That was the problem. Her partner.

For the fourth time tonight.

The man known among many Washington women as Nine-Handed Neil, because he was beyond an octopus. That’s what Sharon had said when they’d crossed paths with this guy before.

The man also had sat next to April at the dinner for a few dozen select guests in the Diplomatic Reception Room before the party. From his distant view, as befitted someone at the bottom of the social pecking order for this event, Hunter had obtained only glimpses of her talking and smiling at her tablemates, especially the senator from Missouri’s chief of staff. And then he’d watched her go from dance to dance, with one eager partner after another.

But while the others who asked her to dance were satisfied with one song, this particular partner had come back again. And again. And again.

The music ended, the dancers applauded, and April’s gaze went toward the doorway. She shifted, clearly trying for a sight-line to the King through the crowd and intervening decorations. Hunter breathed a little easier.

Then Nine-Handed Neil leaned closer, as if whispering in her ear were the only way to make himself heard. She glanced in the direction of the king again, that giveaway tuck of concentration between her brows. It smoothed out as she nodded, then smiled up at Nine-Handed.

The man put his palm to the small of her back.

A snarl clawed at the back of Hunter’s throat.

Only because she was letting herself be directed through the momentarily still dancers,
away
from this doorway where he stood.
Away
from the king.

She should be at the king’s side, adding her support to whatever the British Ambassador was saying.

That’s why he was so frustrated.

A thought flickered at the back of Hunter’s head. He shot it down.

Not that kind of frustrated. Professionally frustrated. About the mission. Getting the agreement extended.

Where was Nine-Handed Neil steering her? As if she couldn’t find her way across that room without his hand on her back. Did the jerk think she was stupid? Asses like that wouldn’t care if she was, wouldn’t notice that she wasn’t. Asses like that only looked at the way that de Chartier dress clung to her curves, at the swing Etienne had given her hair, at the heels, and manicure.

Nine-Handed Neil didn’t care about the woman who visited animals she couldn’t save, who made friends with every soul in a hotel, who made muffins for one of the best known men in D.C., who had to find the perfect Christmas tree for a king she barely knew, who had come down the back stairs at the embassy earlier with a fluttering smile and uncertain eyes.

Hunter saw where Nine-Handed Neil had her headed now.

The Ushers’ room that connected the Family Dining Room and the Entrance Hall. Probably told her it would be quicker to go that way than through the crowds. Right.

Hunter headed toward the Entrance Hall side of the Ushers’ room with as much speed as he could without attracting attention.

He pulled the doors closed behind him as he entered, noting the corresponding doors to the Family Dining Room were already closed. Long drapes covered a slightly recessed window to his right, the space beyond it dim.

Still, plenty of light to spot the sweep of April’s dress there, partially obscured by the curtains, and how the man was crowding her deeper into the shallow window alcove.

“No, Neil—”

Hunter was there before she finished the second word.

The space was cozy for two. With three it was downright crowded. Especially with the distance April had put between her and Nine-Handed Neil. She had both palms planted on his chest, and her elbows locked.

The man wasn’t called Nine-Handed for nothing, however. He was palming the points of her bare shoulders, murmuring something about her being a “babe.”

Hunter yanked him back. April stumbled sidewise at the release of the resistance to her stiff-arm. The other man swung around on Hunter — literally.

Hunter sidestepped at the same time he blocked the ineffectual punch with one forearm. Neil stumbled into the curtain, seemed to get all nine hands tangled momentarily.

“You all right?” Hunter demanded of April.

“I’m fine. What on earth are—”

But he’d turned back to the other man, who was nearly free from the curtain.

“The senator’s looking for you.”

“What?” It was like magic. Or like the man’s brain had suddenly retaken control after being hijacked by regions significantly farther south. “Where?”

“Got back through the Family Dining Room. You’ll see him.”

Straightening and smoothing clothes and hair as he went, Neil was out through those double doors in an instant, leaving Hunter alone with April.