The Princess's Proposal

He had no business even wondering, he told himself as he flashed his pass at the entrance to the members’ pavilion and was ushered inside. Until that brief encounter, he’d come to the show only to check out the Nuee horses. Found nowhere else on earth, they were a spectacular hybrid of the Lipizzans that the Spaniards had brought to the island long ago and a hardy native breed. The combination had proved extraordinary, and the most extraordinary of them all was Carazzan Liberte, a stallion capable of siring the perfect riding horses Hugh dreamed of breeding.

Carazzan wasn’t on show here, but he hadn’t expected it any more than he would expect to run into the stallion’s royal owner in the crowd. Later would do for that, when he attended a gala charity affair at the palace. He wasn’t looking forward to overdosing on so much pomp and ceremony, a legacy of his misfit youth, he supposed. But attending was the only way he could get close enough to the princess to convince her that Carazzan belonged at the centerpiece of Hugh’s new ranch.

A cheer went up from the crowd, and Hugh focused his attention on the arena, seeing the roughriders surge in at full gallop, stirring up clouds of dust and filling the air with their bloodcurdling cries. This was what Hugh had come to see.

Adrienne’s heart picked up speed as the roughriders galloped past, crossing and recrossing one another’s paths in impossibly tight formation. She knew the routines were inspired by centuries-old scenes depicted on cave walls throughout Nuee. The Mayat, ancestors of the modern-day Carramer people, had been legendary riders, training their wild horses to perform feats such as leaping from a cliff into the seething surf with a rider aboard, then carrying them safely back to the shore.

What she wouldn’t give to have seen that, Adrienne admitted. The riders supposedly had no other obligations but to ride to the glory of the gods. According to legend, they had lived with their horses and sometimes died with them. Then some of the famous Lipizzans had been brought to Nuee by their Spanish owners, the native horses interbreeding with the Lipizzans over time to produce horses of spectacular beauty as well as high intelligence and ready trainability.

The proof was in the demonstration in front of her. Fast, furious and exacting, the mock battle routines demanded split-second timing and hair-trigger reflexes. But the rough-riders and their mounts lived up to their name, and although a couple of carefully executed near-misses brought the crowd to their feet, there were no mishaps. By the time the thrilling display ended, Adrienne felt wrung out, as if she had ridden the course instead of watching it.

From force of habit she turned left out of the arena, toward the stables, which she made a point of visiting whenever she attended an event at the showground in her official capacity. She realized her mistake when she rounded a corner and found herself in a side alley with a cowboy barring her path. He wore a roughrider costume, but she hadn’t seen him in the show. And he was drunk, she discovered as soon as he opened his mouth.

“This area’s off-limits to the gen’l public,” he mumbled, swaying slightly.

“My mistake,” she said, backing away.

He followed her. “I’d be glad to give you a private tour.”

“No, thank you, I’ll just go back the way I came.”

He closed the distance between them. “No hurry. Nobody here but us. You like cowboys, little lady?”

His beefy hand closed around her arm, and he yanked her roughly toward him. The smell of alcohol bloomed on his breath, making her gag. “Please let me go,” she said as calmly as she could, although her heart was pounding.

“Inna minute. The name’s Kye. What’s yours?”

“Dee,” she said, still hoping she could make him see reason. The last thing she wanted was to be involved in a scene and risk having her identity discovered. “I didn’t see you in the show, Kye.”

“I was on this morn’n. Come on, whadda ’bout that tour? My horse is back here.”

His grip on her arm was like iron as he began to tow her toward the stables. As the balloon tied to her wrist broke free and drifted away, she struggled not to panic. “I can’t go with you, Kye. Someone will be looking for me soon.” She lifted her voice. “I’m back here, near the stables.”

The man squinted the way she’d come. “Nobody comin’.”

“I’m over here,” she tried again, louder this time.

“Stop that.” The cowboy’s free hand clamped over her mouth, reducing her cries to muffled protests. Lack of oxygen made her head start to swim. Keep calm, she willed herself. There has to be a way out of this.

Her legs almost buckled with relief when another man walked around the corner into the alley. Even more amazingly, she recognized him as the man she’d spoken to before the show. Desperately she bit down on the cowboy’s hand. He yelped and loosened his grip long enough for her to say, “Over here,” before her air was cut off again.

Without appearing to hurry, the man closed the distance between them, and she saw him size up the situation at a glance. But he didn’t wrest her assailant off her. He simply said quietly, “What’s the problem?”

“Just a little dis’greement between me and my girl,” the cowboy mumbled. “Nothin’ to do with anybody else.”

“How about you let the lady go so she can speak for herself,” the American said in the same low, controlled tone. There was no hint of threat in it, but his stance altered marginally, his assured body language suggesting that he was more than ready to back up his words with action if required.

She saw the cowboy read the same message, but he drew himself up belligerently, keeping a firm grip on his prize. “It’s none of your business. She’s with me.” But he did remove the beefy hand covering her mouth.

Hugh glanced at her. Surely this wasn’t the man she had claimed to be meeting? They seemed as ill-matched as chalk and cheese. Then he thought of himself and Jemima. “Are you with him?”

The disgusted set of her mouth gave him his answer. “I never saw him before, and if I never see him again it will be too soon.”

Once again Hugh was stricken by her porcelain-doll looks. What he could see of her skin was a flawless honey-gold, and there was a hint of glossy black hair under the sun hat. It had stayed on throughout the struggle. He couldn’t see her eyes behind the dark glasses but he imagined they would be as striking as what he could see. What in blue blazes was a woman of her apparent breeding doing, wandering around the stables of a fairground? Didn’t she know it only took a few too many drinks before these cowboys fancied themselves as Don Juan?

Despite his vow not to concern himself with her, it wasn’t in his nature to abandon someone who needed his help. “I said let her go.” His tone suggested that he wouldn’t like to have to say it a third time.

The cowboy’s certainty wavered visibly. Hugh was as tall as he was, although more compactly built. Balancing lightly on the balls of his feet, he let his stance suggest—accurately—that he could take care of himself. He could almost read the cowboy’s dilemma: give up the female companionship he’d anticipated or take on a fight he wasn’t sure of winning. Given the woman’s seductive appeal, Hugh wasn’t sure which decision he would make if it were up to him. It came to him that the woman looked worth fighting for. He braced himself instinctively.

Before the cowboy could resolve his dilemma, the woman brought her knee up between his legs and connected with her target with a crunch that made Hugh wince inwardly in sympathy. With a befuddled screech, the man dropped into a spinning crouch, giving vent to a torrent of Carramer words that Hugh would bet shouldn’t be used in polite company, before hobbling away toward the stables.

“I’ll call security.”

She couldn’t let him call the authorities. It would mean too much explaining she didn’t want to do. Her hand on his arm stayed him. “There’s no need to call anyone, I’m all right.”

“But that drunken oaf attacked you.”

“Drunken is the right word. He didn’t know what he was doing.”

“And if he tries it with some other woman?”

Another woman might not have a white knight handy to help her, the princess admitted to herself. “I’ll…I’ll report it when I get home,” she conceded. “He isn’t going far in that condition.”

“You’re probably right.”

He sounded reluctant to leave it there, and she got the impression he was a man who liked to see justice done. It would be, but not right now. “Thanks for coming to my rescue,” she said. “How did you know I was here?”

“That silly balloon of yours. I saw it jerking around in the air from the other side of the wall.”

That silly balloon as he called it just might have saved her life, she thought, and shuddered. He noticed her shudder and asked again, “Are you sure you’re all right?”

She wasn’t, but she made herself nod.

Hugh noticed the way her lovely long-fingered hands were clenched together, the gesture not quite concealing how much she was trembling. He took her arm. “Come on, we’re going to get you a drink.”

It was a measure of her agitation that she didn’t argue this time, he thought as he led her out of the alleyway and through the crowd to the members’ pavilion. In the lounge, he found a quiet table in a corner and pulled out a chair for her. “What would you like to drink?”

She sank into it and rested her head on her hands. “Just coffee, thank you. I…I can’t stay long.”

He corralled a waiter to bring them steaming cups of the wonderfully aromatic local coffee. When it arrived, his companion seemed content to cup her hands around it, drawing comfort from the warmth.

“Feeling better now, Dee?” he asked her.

Her head came up. “What did you call me?”

“That is the name you gave the cowboy, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “He said his was Kye.”