Undercover Princess

He didn’t put his arms around her neck, but he didn’t resist, either. He leaned closer, and she just sat with him on her lap, content to hold him as long as he let her.

Which, considering that he was in truth a small boy, was longer than she would have expected, but not overly long.

He pulled free from her, the squeaky toy in his mouth. Dropping the toy in front of her, he backed away. If he’d had a tail, it would have been wagging.

“What do you want?” Katherine asked. She knew full well, she simply wanted to see if she could coax a word or two out of him.

But he didn’t speak. He simply pushed the toy closer to her with his nose.

She played along. After all, she had managed to give him a hug—something she suspected she’d never have gotten away with if she’d treated Doug like a boy.

First, Stacy had come into Katherine’s room to talk while she’d unpacked. Then Doug had actually let her touch him.

Today, she was going to be content with very, very small victories.

“Do you want to play fetch?” she asked Doug.

He barked happily.

Katherine tossed the little toy out into the room, and Doug scrambled for it, picking it up in his teeth and carrying it back to her on all fours.

He dropped it into Katherine’s hands. “Good dog,” she enthused. “What a good—”

“What is this?”

Trey Sutherland was standing in the playroom door, his face like a thundercloud.

Doug vanished. One minute he was there, and the next he was gone. Faster even than she could blink, he was back behind the drapes.

Oh dear, and they’d been doing so well.

“We’re getting to know each other,” Katherine told Trey.

“I’d like it a lot better if you could manage to get to know Douglas the boy, not Douglas the dog.”

Well. Talk about chilly receptions. Trey Sutherland couldn’t have sounded any colder if he’d tried.

Katherine glanced at the lump behind the drapery. “We should have this conversation elsewhere.”

“I don’t have a dog—I have a son. The conversation’s over. There’s nothing more to say.”

“You may have nothing more to say, sir, but I haven’t even started.” Although Katherine rarely had cause to use it, her royal upbringing in Wynborough had included learning to put plenty of frost in one’s voice. But she didn’t use it again, at this moment. Instead, she opted for earnestness. “Perhaps we could move to the privacy of your office?”

As she’d suspected, earnest took her a whole lot farther than frosty would have.

“That is,” she added with a smile, “if you’re up for the five-mile hike.”

Some of Trey’s own chill dissipated. “It’s not that far. But if you want, we could go somewhere closer.”

Her own room was nearby, but it would hardly be proper to invite him there, even though she had a suite that included an outer sitting room. She might have suggested it innocently enough a half hour ago—before Stacy started in with all that talk about her underwear. But now…

She was aware of that underwear right now—plain and white and nothing special beneath her jeans and turtleneck sweater.

Did she honestly think Trey Sutherland was out of her league?

Hardly—in terms of power and wealth and social standing. In fact, they were nearly perfectly matched. He was one of the richest men in the American Southwest, and she was Wynborough royalty.

However, in terms of romance, passion, lust and burning desire…Well, there was no doubt about it. When it came to attractiveness, Trey Sutherland was a fifteen on a scale from one to ten, and she, on her very, very best day, was merely a four. It wasn’t that she was unattractive. She simply was…nothing special.

Exactly like her underwear.

Good grief.

She forced a smile, and knew without a doubt that it had—like that blasted underwear—positively no attitude.

“No, let’s go to your office,” she said to Trey. “A brisk hike while I gather my thoughts might be perfect. I’ll be back later, Douglas,” she announced, with one last glance at the lump behind the drapes.

Trey was smiling crookedly as he led the way into the corridor. He didn’t smile often, but even his halfway, crooked almost-smile had ten thousand times the charisma hers ever did. And when his mouth was set in his default expression—a slightly tense, slightly grim line, well, then he positively smoldered with sexuality and intensity.

Katherine had never smoldered in her entire life. And it was nearly assured that she would go to her grave having never smoldered once.

Oh, yes. Trey Sutherland was so far out of Katherine’s league, it wasn’t even funny.

“How many rooms do you have here, exactly?” she asked as they headed toward the main wing and his office.

“Too many.”

“Whatever possessed you to buy this place? I mean, it’s absolutely lovely, don’t misunderstand,” she quickly added. “But—”

“But, it’s huge,” he finished for her. “When I first bought it, it was huge and crumbling, too. The owner was going to tear it down, but I persuaded him to sell to me. It’s actually a building with some historical significance. The Beatles spent a weekend here back in 1968.”

Katherine laughed. “And here I was thinking it was historically significant because it had been built by some Mexican bandito.”

“You’re almost right,” he told her. “Although he wasn’t a Mexican, he was American. He originally came from Syracuse, New York. And while he wasn’t officially a bandito, he was definitely a cattle rustler and horse thief, and, although it’s not substantiated, I suspect a few railroad payrolls padded his bank account, too. He made his fortune in Texas, and settled here in New Mexico to stay out of sight of all those Rangers he’d made as enemies during his five-year crime spree. Let me tell you, Kathy, only in America could a thief have a street named after him.”

“Some Americans do seem to have a place in their hearts for the legendary bad guys of the old West—although I think it’s just admiration for the rebel. Respect for the men and women who have cheated the rules and won—or better yet, beaten the system.” Katherine glanced at Trey. “This particular thief, was his name one I would recognize?”

“Oh, yeah. His name was Sutherland. Henry Sutherland. And yes, he was my great-great—I don’t even know how many greats—grandfather.”

“Oh, my.”

Trey smiled. “He was a gambler and lost his entire fortune—including this house—by the time he was forty. His son, Ford, was a gambler, too, and when he was twenty, he made enough money to buy back the house, but the owner carried a grudge and wouldn’t sell. Apparently Henry had played fast and loose with other women, including the new owner’s wife. He spent at least one illicit afternoon that came back to bite him hard on the rump.”

“Oh, dear.”

“You bet. Ford met an untimely end at the hands of a gunslinger who may or may not have been Billy the Kid—local legend says yes, but it’s never been proven and probably never will. He’s buried up on the hill, overlooking the house. I bought that land, too, about ten years ago. Ford’s money was lost, but about forty years later, his grandson made a fortune selling bootleg liquor during Prohibition. This Sutherland’s name was Ellery, and he tried to buy this house back, too—probably to use as a speakeasy. He got as far as a verbal agreement with the owner…who died before it could be put into writing. A nephew from Chicago inherited.

“He had plans of his own for the house, and wouldn’t sell. He turned it into a hotel, which is why there are so many bathrooms, and why the Beatles stayed here, too. It was a solid, prosperous business until the 1970s when the nephew died, and left the place to his two sons. The sons lived in L.A., and put the place in the hands of a manager who couldn’t even begin to handle the upkeep with the budget he was given. So the place started to crumble.