Jeopard grasped her wrist with a trembling hand. “Stop.”
“I saved your life. You owe me.”
He groaned. She had his shorts unzipped now. “That’s not fair.”
“You force me to play this way, the way you like.”
“No. I love your honesty.”
“Then give some in return.”
She quickly tugged his shorts and briefs down to his thighs and cupped him in both hands. His chest heaving. Jeopard fell back on one elbow and cursed softly.
“This is honest,” she murmured hoarsely. “Your body, hard and hot and eager for whatever I do to it. Is this all you’re willing to share with the future queen of Kara?”
“Yes,” he said in harsh agony.
“So be it.” She stripped his clothes off and straddled him, then ran her hands over his chest and stomach with wicked intent. “I shall enjoy ruining your defenses, my fine peasant.”
His back arched as she slid herself over him. Her hips moved fluidly while she circled his nipples with her fingernails. “Love me, Jep,” she begged. “Love me the way I love you. Please.”
His defenses broke apart at the sound of her sweet English voice torn by passion and despair. “Tess, I do.” He moaned and dragged her down to his chest.
Jeopard kissed her intimately, sucking the tongue she slipped deep into his mouth and gliding his own tongue between her lips. She cried out and slid her arms around his neck, careful even in her wildness not to hurt his swollen shoulder.
Her body shuddered, driving him to the brink and holding him there as she loved him in a slow, breathless rhythm. He grasped her hips and arched upward, knowing that he’d never get enough of her, either in bed or out of it.
She whispered his name, giving herself to a vortex of emotion that defied him to remain aloof. Lost, lost, he thought as he sank his hands into her hair and kissed her face desperately, licking her skin with the tip of his tongue, making gruff, yearning sounds deep in his throat.
Tess surrounded him with an explosion of pleasure that stroked the last bit of restraint from his body and his mind. He was lifted to a level of loving that merged the physical with the spiritual, until all he could do was float in a dimension where her voice was his only connection with reality.
She called him back, her lips on his face, her hands fervently caressing his hair.
“Did I hurt you?” she implored. “Are you all right?”
No, he’d never be all right if he lost her.
He was almost crying, and as much as it horrified him, he couldn’t keep his voice from cracking when he said, “Do you want me to go with you to Kara?”
“Yes, yes, of course.” She made a whimpering sound. “Is that what’s upset you? I thought perhaps you wanted to get rid of me, that you’d be glad to send me off without you.”
“You think I’d stop loving you that easily?”
“No, but you’re accustomed to being alone. And we’ve become so inseparable so quickly. Does it worry you?”
“No. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. But you need to face the fact that your whole perspective on life is about to change. You can have anything or anyone you want.”
“I’ve already got the anyone.”
“You may not be free to make that choice.”
She speared her fingers into his hair and looked down at him possessively. “Now, you listen to me. Doesn’t a princess have special privileges to do what she wants and love who she wants? Certainly! Otherwise, why would anyone take the bloody job?”
Jeopard would have chuckled, but he was afraid it might sound ragged. “I can’t imagine,” he told her solemnly, and hugged her to him, wishing that their last night in the mountains together would never end.
SHE ABSOLUTELY WOULD not cry, because she didn’t want to admit to anyone that she was already homesick for those ancient, blue-green Nantahala mountains and that she was terrified of what waited for her outside them.
The same small jet sat on the same runway, ready this time to take her and Jeopard to New York, where they’d board the Concorde for Europe.
Jeopard clasped his brother’s hand, then Drake’s. Tess handed Drake her medallion.
“I have a favor to ask.”
He looked down at her with gentle, curious eyes. “Anything.”
“Will you take it to the reservation and see if anyone can translate it?”
“I’ll be glad to.” He carefully slipped the medallion into a shirt pocket.
Tess blinked hard and fought a lump in her throat. “I intended to do that myself, but I … I’ll have to put it off.”
Jeopard slid a consoling arm around her shoulders, sensing her distress. “Damn, I haven’t got any handkerchiefs.”
Tess chuckled hoarsely and kissed his cheek. “Then we’d better leave this instant.” She hugged Drake and Kyle, feeling like a sorrowful Dorothy leaving Oz.
She and Jeopard would have to find their way back to this side of the rainbow, somehow.
CHAPTER 11
DURING THE FOUR days since Jeopard and Tess’s arrival, the palace-protocol officers had let him attend every meeting with her—but only because she had insisted. They’d assigned him a servant’s room adjoining her luxurious ten-room apartment in the palace, even though Tess had delicately explained that he’d be staying in her suite.
As soon as the maids confirmed that the princess wasn’t kidding, that she shared her bed with the liv-vakt, the bodyguard—everyone went into quiet hysterics.
Sanders, the U.S. State Department man, explained that Jeopard was a former government agent and now a self-employed businessman, but wild rumors started anyway.
Jeopard sighed. Now they simply pushed him to the sidelines, and when Tess protested he gallantly winked at her as if it were all some silly game that she and he would win eventually. When she wasn’t looking he seethed behind his nonchalant facade.
One day he was waiting tensely in a high-backed chair to one side of a conference table in a huge, opulent meeting room. Tess was seated at the head of the enormous table, flanked by the Karan prime minister and his five-member cabinet.
She looked serene and elegant in a white double-breasted dress ornamented by a sapphire broach that had belonged to her mother. But Jeopard knew that the antler amulet was hidden underneath her clothes, and the way she kept glancing at him over her shoulder radiated volumes of anxiety.
Various people got up and made speeches. Since Jeopard didn’t understand Swedish, he had no idea what those speeches concerned.
But he knew that Tess was upset. When it was time for her to respond she stood up and clutched the edge of the table, her knuckles white. She spoke at length in fluent Swedish, her demeanor gracious but firm, and his heart twisted with bittersweet pride.
Even if she hadn’t had one drop of royal blood, she deserved to be queen; they’d never find another woman with such intelligence and innate class.
Whatever she was saying, it knocked them on their Scandinavian ears. Strained looks and nervous finger-tapping shouted the politicians’ discomfort.
She finished, gestured to him to accompany her, and they walked out of the meeting hall.
Back in her suite, he got right to the point. “What went on in that meeting just now?”
“They asked me outright if I want the crown and the responsibility that goes along with it—you know, representing Kara all over the world, lending my support to charities, acting as a proper figurehead. They want me to do it. They say I was bred for it by generations of royalty, all the way back to the Vikings, at least on my mother’s side of the lineage. And Jep? Olaf Starheim arrives tomorrow. They want to introduce me to him. My second cousin.” Sheadded drolly, “Isn’t that special?”
Jeopard finally had reason to smile, even though it was the kind of smile that might have frozen a fjord in midsummer. “I look forward to tomorrow.”
THEY WANTED TO persuade her to take the crown, and they went all out, starting the next morning
.
She liked purple irises; when Jeopard strolled out of the bedroom wearing nothing but a sleepy squint, he found several maids and butlers setting a dozen vases full of irises around Tess’s suite.
One of the maids saw him, squealed, and dropped her vase. Jeopard stalked back into the bedroom.
“What does otrolig mean?” he demanded.
Tess collapsed in the center of the bed, laughing. “ ‘Incredible.’ ”
After breakfast a palace aide requested that they come to one of the courtyards. There sat four sleek, shiny Jaguars in assorted colors. The aide handed her four sets of color-coordinated keys, smiled, bowed, and said, “From the royal collection.”
Several local designers were waiting for her after lunch with racks of clothes and accessories to suit her everyday needs. Then she met with a renowned Paris couturier to discuss “a few simple gowns for your formal needs, mademoiselle.”
What he proposed was a wardrobe worth close to two hundred thousand dollars.
“Not including shoes,” she told Jeopard breathlessly.
They escaped for an hour to explore the palace gardens. She wore a very feminine red suit with a blousy bodice, padded shoulders, and white lapels. Jeopard sank his hands into the pockets of yet another black suit and watched her wistfully gaze into a fountain.
She glanced up, tilted her head to one side as if she were seeing him for the first time, and said huskily, “Well, hello, gorgeous. Do you know that you look mysterious and dramatic in those black suits?”
He felt as if he’d just been enchanted by a garden elf. “Do you know that you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen?”
Her eyes glowed with devotion. “We are very much in love with you.”
“We?”
She grinned. “The royal ‘we.’ ”
His heart sank. She was enjoying her new status, it was obvious. He couldn’t blame her, but he ached to keep her from drifting away from him.
“No one’s watching. Go ahead,” he urged wickedly. “Enjoy the water.”
She looked from him to the fountain, biting her lower lip. “All right.”
Tess stripped off her white pumps, then went behind a bush and quickly shucked her panty hose, glancing around with delighted naughtiness. She tossed Jeopard a kiss, climbed over the fountain wall, and stood in knee-deep water.
“Brrrr! Jep, this must have come straight from a glacier!”
But she padded around happily, bending down to scoop water over her hands, holding the water to her nose, and inhaling its scent. “It’s so crisp and pure!”
“It’s probably Perrier.”
They both laughed. Tess flung water in the air and watched the silver droplets fall. “Did I ever tell you about the Cherokee fairies?”
“Is this a bad joke?”
“No. Really. The Cherokees believed in all sorts of spirits. They called the fairies ‘Little People.’ The Little People were very good-hearted and helpful; they were best known for leading lost hunters back home.
“Then there were the Nuhnehi, a race of invisible immortals who looked just like ordinary Cherokees—when they wanted to be seen, that is. They were also good-hearted; sometimes they’d show up and help fight the Cherokees’ enemies.
“There were also fairies who lived in the caves and on the mountaintops, and some who lived in the rivers and creeks.”
Jeopard peered over the edge of the fountain. “I hope a few followed us here. We can use the help.”
“I hope so too.”
She delicately flung some water at him, as if christening him. “I’m going to bind you to me forever. This is part of a love charm I read in the book on sacred formulas.”
His heart pounded as Tess raised her wet hands to the sky and chanted, “Listen! No one is ever lonely with me. Now he has made the path white for me. It shall never be dreary.
“Let him put his soul in the very center of my soul, never to turn away. Grant that in the midst of women he shall never think of them. I belong to the one clan alone that was alloted to him when the seven clans were established.
“I stand with my face toward the Sun Land. No one is lonely with me.” She looked at Jeopard solemnly. “Your soul has come into the very center of my soul, never to turn away. I take your soul.”
He gazed at her with a sweet breathlessness inside his chest. “Will you marry me?”
So much for objectivity.
Her hands paused in the air. She stared at him, and time seemed to stop under a sky as blue as the Blue Princess, a sky as eternally beautiful as the look in her eyes.
“Yes, Sundance, I will.”
He stepped close to the fountain. She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him, happy tears shining in her eyes. Jeopard ignored the self-rebuke that stabbed at him. He’d enjoy this wonderful moment and let the future take care of itself.
“Ahem. Prinsessa, pardon.”
They looked up to find a stern protocol officer glaring at them.
“The duke, your cousin, is here to meet you.”
• • •
OLAF STARHEIM WAS perhaps forty years old, short and very pale, with thinning blond hair and pink cheeks. He wore a gray necktie and a gray suit that made him look even less vibrant.
Tess was shocked to find him so harmless in appearance; then she looked directly into his washed-out blue eyes and saw a sharp slyness that chilled her skin.
This was the man who wanted her dead, though there wasn’t any way she could prove it.
With a crowd of officials around them, she could only smile at him and try not to shiver when he smiled back. She wanted Jeopard beside her, but Jeopard had been barred from the room. The look in his eyes had left no doubt that he was frustrated by the exclusion.
“What a remarkable claim.” Olaf said softly. “So you say you’re the queen’s daughter?”
“I am Isabella’s daughter.”
“With such, hmmm, unusual coloring. Your father was an Indian?”
“A nearly full-blooded Cherokee, yes.”
“But you grew up in England?”
“In boarding school there.”
“And you think someone such as yourself is capable of assuming the queen’s duties?”
“Yes, but I may relinquish my claim. I understand that if I did, Parliament could vote to discontinue the monarchy.”
“And destroy more than a thousand years’ of tradition?”
“It seems to me the best of the tradition died with my mother. Perhaps the world is no longer a place where a few can expect privileges because of their bloodlines.”
“You talk nonsense, like an American!”
“I am an American. From the original Americans.” She gestured toward the Cherokee angles of her face. “And that heritage is much older than the ruling house of Kara.”
He was almost trembling with rage. Tess tried to freeze him with her eyes and hoped that she looked half as deadly as Jeopard could.
Then she turned and walked away.
TESS WENT TO bed with a mournful headache caused by seeing what kind of cousin she had on her mother’s side of the family. She made a note to call Georgia and learn whether the lawyer had located Erica and Kat yet.
She needed a dose of good cousins to wipe Olaf from her mind.
Jeopard waited until she was sound asleep, then slipped out of her apartment. He found the palace maid who’d called him “incredible” and thanked her with so much charm that she nearly dissolved inside her uniform.
Then he asked her whether Olaf had an apartment at the palace.
Yes, there were apartments for him and other members of the extended royal family. He was in his suite now—she knew because she’d heard a servant complaining about the duke’s demands for liquor. And yes, she could tell him how to find the duke’s apartment.
When Jeopard arrived there, he told Olaf’s secretary that he had a private message from the prinsessa. The secretary ushered him into a sumptuous office, where Olaf sat brooding in a
thronelike chair behind a large desk.
When he saw Jeopard his face grew even paler than usual. “My people told me that you’d gone to work for her after finishing my job,” he said icily. “She provides benefits I did not, I’ve heard.”
Jeopard stopped at the edge of the desk, pulled a small automatic pistol from one pocket, leaned forward, and pointed it directly at the Duke’s forehead.
“I know that you tried to kill her. I can’t prove it, but it’s true. Listen to this carefully. If she has an accident or develops some sort of suspicious ailment, you’re dead. Dead.
“Even if you manage to get rid of me first, I have friends who know everything about you. They’ll make sure that the job gets done. Believe me, they can find you anywhere, and it won’t matter how much money you have or what royal title you have or how well you try to protect yourself. Understand?”
“Such bizarre fears shouldn’t worry you, Mr. Surprise,” he managed to get out in a faint voice. “I’m sure no one wants to harm you or the prinsessa.”
“You’ll return the Blue Princess diamond to me.”
“Now, really, your accusations—”
Jeopard pressed the gun’s muzzle between Olaf’s eyes. “I want that diamond back. Understand?”
The duke shut his eyes and nodded.
“Good.” Jeopard stepped away and slipped the gun into a pocket. “One other thing. Your twenty-thousand-dollar fee. I donated it to charity.”
Jeopard went to the door, paused with his hand on the latch, and turned for one last look at the duke, who seemed to be wilting behind the enormous desk.
“Don’t come near her again; don’t talk to her. Ask your people for details about my reputation. Believe what they tell you.”
The duke buried his head in his hands as Jeopard left the room.
IT WAS THE most amazing dress. Tess gazed at herself in the mirror. The sleek satin ball gown was meant to look regal, and in truth, it made her feel that way.
The sleeves were long and tight, with puffed shoulders. The V-necked bodice hugged her gracefully to the waist, where it flared into a voluminous and flowing skirt.