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“If you call me princess—or Your Highness—one more time, I think I’m going to forget all about my promise and my honor and start screaming. Then you’ll have to tie me up again and that will make me very, very angry. And you don’t really want me angry, now, do you?”
“No, P—” He caught himself just in time. “No.”
“Well, all right then. Don’t call me Your Highness and don’t call me princess.”
“As you wish.”
“And now, will you please get out of my bedroom?”
“If you’ll come with me.”
She threw up both hands. “All right, all right. Let’s go.”
Elli went straight to the kitchen. It was almost eight by then and her stomach was making insistent growling sounds.
Of course, Hauk followed right behind her. That was okay, she supposed. She’d resigned herself to feeding him, too.
“Sit down,” she told him and threw out a hand in the direction of the table. “Over there.”
He took the chair that put his back to the wall. He could see down the hall and into the living room and, of course, he had a clear view of her activities in the kitchen. The man certainly took his duties seriously. How did he do it? So much watchfulness had to wear a person out.
She pulled open the refrigerator and stared at the chicken she’d brought home to roast. It would be enough for both of them, but it would also take almost two hours in the oven.
No. She was hungry now.
She considered a quick trip to Mickey D’s or Taco Bell.
But then again, it wasn’t as if she’d be allowed to just jump in her car and go. The king’s warrior would have to be consulted. They’d have to wrangle over whether she could go at all. Then, if he allowed it, he’d insist on going with her. He’d decide who would drive—she was betting on herself. That way he’d have his hands free to deal with her if she broke her word and tried to leap to freedom from the moving vehicle. Then there’d be the question of whether she could actually be trusted to speak to the order taker at the drive-up window….
Uh-uh. Fast food was a no-go.
Elli tried the freezer. Ah. A pair of DiGiornos. Perfect. She glanced at the huge man in her kitchen chair again and decided she’d better cook both the three-meat and the deluxe.
When she set a plate before him, he frowned. “It is not necessary that you cook for me.”
And what was he planning to eat if she didn’t?
Better not even get into it. “It’s nothing fancy—pizza and a salad. Just eat it, okay?”
He dipped his shaggy golden head. “Thank you, Pr—” He stifled the P-word, barely. “Uh. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She had a nice bottle of chardonnay chilling. She’d grabbed it at the supermarket, thinking she’d have a glass with her roast chicken. She decided to open it now. She needed something to help get her through the night.
Elli set out two glasses, but when she tried to pour one for Hauk, he put his great big hand over the mouth of it. Well, fine, she thought. Be that way. More for me. She filled her own glass to the brim and sat opposite him. They ate in silence. Elli indulged in a second glass of wine.
She was feeling pleasantly hazy when she got up to put the dishes in the dishwasher. Hauk rose with her. He helped her clear off, and actually took the sponge and began wiping the counters as she rinsed the plates and put them in the dishwasher. She turned and looked at him, sponging her table, carefully guiding the pizza crumbs into his massive paw of a hand—and she couldn’t help it. A goofy giggle escaped her.
He straightened—still holding the crumbs cupped in his hand—and turned to her. “You find me humorous?”
“I…uh…” She waved a hand. “Never mind. It’s nothing.”
He came toward her. Maybe it was the wine, but for the first time, she didn’t feel particularly menaced by the sight of all that muscle moving her way. She stepped back a fraction, so he could brush the crumbs into the sink. Then she took the spray attachment and rinsed them down the drain. He handed her the sponge. She rinsed it, wrung the water from it and set it in the wire basket under the sink.
“Well,” she said. “That’s that.”
He nodded. And then he just stood there—awaiting orders, she supposed.
It was 8:50. A little early for bed under ordinary circumstances. But ordinary had nothing at all to do with tonight. She wanted some time to herself, for Pete’s sake, a few hours without the ever-watchful eyes of the king’s warrior tracking her every move. And the only way to get that was to say good-night and shut her bedroom door.
“Listen.” She tried a smile on him.
He gave her another nod.
She told him, “I’m just going to make up the futon in the spare room for you. You’ll find fresh towels in the cabinet to the right of the sink in the hall bathroom. And if you want to watch a little television, the living room is all yours—oh, and if you get hungry, hey, if I’ve got it, you can eat it.”
He just stood there, looking at her. She knew with absolute certainty he had something to tell her that she wasn’t going to like.
“What?” she demanded.
“Your intention is that I sleep in your extra room and you sleep in your own bedroom.”
“Something wrong with that?”
“It appears you haven’t clearly understood the agreement you made with His Majesty.”
She backed up a step, slapped a hand down on the counter tiles and glared at him sideways. “What are you talking about? I agreed to go visit him. I agreed that you could hang around in my apartment until it’s time to go, keeping an eye on me so I won’t change my mind. I agreed that you would be my escort to Gullandria.”
“Yes, all that is correct.”
“Good. So we know what I agreed to. And I’m going to bed.” She moved forward. He didn’t move aside. “Hauk. If you don’t tell me what is going on here…” She let the threat trail off, mostly because she couldn’t think of anything sufficiently terrible to threaten him with.
“All right,” he growled. He looked especially bleak right then. “His Majesty instructed me to watch over you at all times. That means wherever you sleep, I sleep as well.”
Chapter Four
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard,” the princess announced. “I never agreed to sleep with you. My father never said a word about my sleeping with you.” She shook her head as if to clear it. “Why would my father want me to sleep with you?”
Hauk realized she’d drawn an erroneous conclusion. “Of course you would not sleep with me. But whatever room you sleep in—I will be there, also.”
She blinked, and then she said, very slowly, “You think you’re going to sleep in my room.”
“It is of no consequence to me what room I sleep in. I’m merely informing you that it will be the same room as the room in which you sleep.”
“But I don’t… Did he say that to you, did he actually say you had to sleep in the same room with me?”
“He said not to let you out of my sight.”
“Ah.” She slapped the counter again. “But you did, remember? You let me out of your sight when I went to the bathroom and nothing happened. I’m still here.”
By the runes, he hated arguing with this woman. She was too clever by half. “You have a right to your privacy, when it comes to…private matters. But not for hours. There are windows in every room. Given time, you could easily find a way to escape without my knowing it.”
“But I won’t escape. I gave you my word that I wouldn’t.”
“And I am ordered by my king to make certain that you keep your word.”
Those proud slim shoulders slumped. She looked away. “I’m not going to win this one, am I?”
He wanted to say, No, Your Highness. But she had forbidden him the use of her title.
He also wanted to say he regretted this—all of it. But she had ordered him to stop apologizing.
And he might as well admit she was right—not about his addressing her properly. He didn’t like the familiarity she was forcing on him by making him drop the appropriate form of address. But as to his regrets, well, they had no more value than a promise made by Loki, the god of dirty tricks.
It was what a man did that mattered, not what came out of his mouth. And what Hauk would do was continue to follow the orders of his king.
She asked, sounding forlorn, “Will you at least leave me alone while I take a bath?”
Hauk allowed her the bath.
But she couldn’t relax. She lay in the scented water, thinking of the huge man waiting on the other side of the door, knowing that if she stayed in there too long, he’d be busting in to see what trouble she’d gotten into now. After ten minutes or so, before the water even started to cool, she got out, toweled dry, pulled on her pink sleep shirt, and quickly brushed her teeth.
He was waiting in the middle of her bedroom. He’d found some blankets and a pillow and laid them out on the carpet at the foot of her bed. Her suitcase was still there, on the bed where she’d tossed it, full of whatever he’d chosen to put in it while she lay, drugged and bound, on the couch in the living room.
“I took bedding from your closet in the hallway,” he said, his head tipped down, as if he expected a reprimand.
Who cared if the man borrowed a blanket? He could borrow a hundred blankets—if he’d only take them in the spare room to sleep on them.
Elli crossed her arms over her chest—a gesture of self-protection. All of a sudden, she felt way too naked, though her sleep shirt was baggy and reached almost to her knees. She stared at the Viking, biting her lip.
Maybe she could bear it, having him in her bedroom all night, if he wasn’t quite so…masculine. He was very controlled, but still testosterone seemed to ooze from every pore. And then there were all those hard, bulging muscles…
Elli hugged herself tighter and looked away from him. She stared at her suitcase.
He must have noted the direction of her gaze. “You wish to do your packing now?”
A shiver slid beneath the surface of her skin. It was all so eerie. He was her jailer. And yet, at the same time, he behaved like a loyal servant, ready to do her bidding before she even told him what her bidding was.
“No, I’ll do it later. I have until Thursday, remember?” It was something of a dig. Even if he had almost kidnapped her, he seemed, at heart, a noble, straight-ahead kind of guy. He probably didn’t like sleeping at the foot of her bed any more than she liked having him there. No doubt he hoped she’d make their time in forced proximity as short as possible, that she’d be ready to head for Gullandria as soon as she’d had that talk with her mother—tomorrow night, or Wednesday morning at the latest.
Well, okay. Maybe she would be ready to leave before Thursday. And maybe it would please him to know that. But pleasing the Viking in her bedroom was the last thing on her mind right then.
Stone-faced as usual, he lifted the suitcase off the bed and carried it over to set it against the wall. She smelled toothpaste as he went past. Sometime during her too-short, not-at-all-relaxing bath, he must have brushed his teeth.
What a truly odd image: the Viking in her guest bath, with a toothbrush in his mouth, scrubbing away. Somehow, when she thought of Vikings, she never imagined them brushing their teeth. Did he floss, as well? She supposed he must. Everything about him shouted physical fitness. He had to be proactive when it came to his health. Proper dental hygiene would be part of the package.
He marched by her again and returned to stand at attention near his pallet of blankets. “Do you wish to sleep now?”
As if. “In a minute. First, I need to lock up.”
Before she could turn for the door, he said, “I’ve already done that.”
“Surprise, surprise.” She went to the bed and slid under the covers. Doodles and Diablo, with that radar cats seem to have for the moment when their human has settled into a soft, inviting place, appeared in the doorway to the hall. “Well, come on,” she told them, and reached for the remote, which waited on her nightstand.
The cats settled in. She turned on the TV in the corner—okay, Feng Shui, it wasn’t. But Elli didn’t care. She loved to watch TV in bed with her cats cuddled close around her.
And a favorite program was in progress. Law and Order: Criminal Intent. Vincent D’Onofrio had the perp in the interrogation room and was psyching him out with skill and subtlety.
And the Viking was still standing there—awaiting orders, she supposed.
“Hauk. Go to bed.”
He nodded and dropped to his blankets. A minute later, he was stretched out beneath the top blanket, his boots and belt a foot or two away. She wondered briefly where he kept that black switchblade knife when he slept—but then she told herself that where Hauk FitzWyborn kept his knife was no concern of hers. She watched the rest of her program, and after that turned to an old movie on TCM.
At the foot of the bed, Hauk lay utterly still. She could swear he hadn’t moved since he crawled beneath the blanket over an hour ago.
When the movie ended, Elli switched off the television. The room seemed so very quiet. She could hear Doodles purring—and nothing else.
Could the Viking have died?
Hah. No such luck.
Had he fallen asleep? It certainly seemed that way.
What a thrilling development. Hauk. Dead to the world. Dreaming whatever a Viking warrior dreamed, and for once—since the moment she’d walked in her door that afternoon—not guarding her.
Why, she might do anything. She might get up and go in the kitchen all by herself. Might walk out on the balcony and look up at the stars. Might go down the steps and along the walk and get in her car and…go for a drive.
And not to run away, not to break her word. Oh, no. Simply because she could.
She’d return later, after he woke and found her gone. He would be frantic. Old stone face. Freaking out.
Ah, yes. How lovely…
Elli rearranged the cats a little, pushing them gently to the side so they wouldn’t be disturbed when she slid from the bed. Then she switched off the lamp and lay back to wait awhile. She could see the glowing numerals on her bedside digital alarm clock. She’d wait half an hour. And if she still heard nothing, she was out of here.
Okay, maybe it was pointless and a little bit childish. But this whole situation deeply offended her. To show that she could leave if she wanted to would be something of an object lesson—to Hauk, and by extension, to her father. And maybe, if she left and came back of her own accord, Hauk would realize it wasn’t necessary to take the orders of his king so literally. Maybe, by tomorrow night, she’d have her bedroom to herself.
The time passed slowly. She used it to consider her next move. Should she creep to the foot of the bed and have a look at him, see if he truly was in lullaby land?
Uh-uh. No point in tempting fate—not to mention squeaky bedsprings. Better just to ease out from under the covers and tiptoe to the door. If it turned out he’d been lying there for hours, stone still and awake, she’d find out soon enough.
The minutes crawled by. There was nothing but silence from the man at the foot of her bed.
At last, that endless half hour was behind her.
Slowly, so quietly, Elli eased back the covers. In one careful, unbroken move, she swung her feet out and over the edge of the bed. She slid her weight onto them without a single spring creaking. Doodles, sound asleep by then, didn’t even open an eye. Diablo lifted his sleek head, blinked at her, then laid his head down again.
