Leanne Banks: The Princess and the Outlaw

“Nah. Take a seat. What’s on your mind? I can tell something’s going on,” he said, waving his hand as if the yacht belonged to him instead of Nic.

Nic sank onto the sofa next to his father. “I got an interesting call tonight.”

“Must have been a woman. Was she pregnant?” his father asked.

Nic gave a short laugh. “Nothing like that. I’ve been offered a cottage where you and Mom can stay. On Chantaine.”

His dad gave a low whistle. “How did you manage that?”

Nic shrugged. “Lucky, I guess. The problem is you still have legal issues in Chantaine.”

His dad smiled and rubbed his mouth. “So I do, and punching Prince Edward in the face after he insulted your mother was worth it ten times over.”

“Easy to say, but if you stay in Chantaine, there’s a possibility that you could get caught.” Nic shook his head. “Dad, with their legal system, you could be stuck in jail for a while.”

“So?” he asked.

“So, it’s a risk. You’re not the young buck you once were. You could end up stuck there while Mom is…” He didn’t want to say the rest.

His father narrowed his eyes. It was an expression Nic had seen several times on his father’s face. The dare a pirate couldn’t deny. He descended from wily pirates. His father was no different, although his father had gotten caught a few times. “Your mother wants to rest in Chantaine. We’ll accept the kind offer of your friend. To hell with the Devereauxs.”

“Might not want to go that far,” Nic said, thinking another glass of Scotch was in order. “A Devereaux is giving you the cottage.”

“Well, now that sounds like quite the story,” his father said, his shaggy eyebrows lifted high on his forehead.

“Another time,” Nic said. “You need to rest up for your next voyage.”

His father gave a mysterious smile. “If my great-great-grandfather escaped the authorities on a peg leg, I can do it with a cast.”

Nic groaned. “No need to push it, Dad.”

The next morning, he dialed the princess.

“Hello,” she said in a sleep-sexy voice that did weird things to his gut.

“This is Nic. We’ll accept your kind offer. Meet me at the cottage and I’ll clean it. The less people involved, the better.”

Silence followed. “I didn’t think of that,” she confessed. “I’m accustomed to staff taking oaths of silence.”

He smiled at her naïveté. “This is a different game. Too many people need to be protected. You, my mother and father. We need to keep this as quiet and low-profile as possible.”

“Okay. I’ll meet you at the cottage mid-morning,” she said.

“What about your security?” he asked.

“I’ll tell them I’m going to the library,” she said.

“Won’t they follow you?”

“I’ll go to the library first. They’ll get bored. They always do.”

“Who are these idiots on your security detail?” he asked.

“Are you complaining?”

“No,” he said. “And yes.”

She laughed, and the breathless sound made his chest expand. He suddenly felt lighter. “How do you end up with the light end of the security detail?”

“I’m boring. I don’t go clubbing. I’ve never been on drugs. I babysit my nieces and nephews. I study genealogy, for bloody’s sake.”

He nodded, approving her M.O. “Well done, but does that fence ever feel a little too tall for you? Ever want to climb out?”

“I climb out when I want,” she said in a cool voice. “I’ll see you this afternoon around 1:00 p.m. The address is 307 Sea Breeze. Ciao ,” she said and hung up before he could reply.

Nic pulled the phone away from his ear and stared at it. He was unaccustomed to having anyone hang up on him, let alone a woman. He must have really gotten under Pippa’s skin to affect her manners that way. The possibility brought him pleasure. Again, he liked the idea of bothering her.

Just before one, he pulled past the overgrown hedges of the driveway leading to an expansive bungalow. Looked like there was a separate guest bedroom. Dibs, he thought. He could sleep there and keep track of his parents while keeping on top of the businesses.

He stopped his car behind another—Pippa’s. He recognized it from the other day. Curious, he stepped from his vehicle and walked to the front door and knocked. He waited. No answer. He knocked again.

No answer again, so he looked at the doorknob and picked the lock. Pirates had their skills. He opened the door and was shocked speechless at the sight in front of him. Pippa, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt with her wild hair pulled back in a ponytail, was vacuuming the den.

The princess had a very nice backside, which he enjoyed watching for a full moment… okay, two.

Pippa turned and spotted him, screaming and dropping the vacuum handle. She clutched her throat with her hands. The appliance made a loud groan of protest.

“Did you consider knocking?” she demanded.

He lifted two fingers, then pulled up the vacuum cleaner handle and turned it off. “Twice. You didn’t answer. I would have never dreamed you could be a cleaning fairy. This is a stretch.”

“I spent a couple summers in a rustic camp in Norway. Cleaning was compulsory. We also cleaned the homes of several of the camp leaders.”

“You didn’t mention this to your parents?” he asked.

She laughed. “I didn’t speak to my parents very often. I mentioned something about it to my nanny after the second summer and was never sent back after that. The cleaning wasn’t that bad. The camp had a fabulous library and no one edited my reading choices. Heaven for me,” she said.

“Will clean for books?” he said.

She smiled and met his gaze. “Something like that.”

He held her gaze for a long moment and saw the second that her awareness of him hit her. Breaking the visual connection, she cleared her throat. “Well, I should get back to work.”

“Anything special you want me to do?”

“Mop the floors if you don’t mind. I’ve already dusted the entire house, but haven’t touched the guest quarters outside. I think it would also be a good idea for you to assess the arrangement of the furniture throughout the house for any special needs your parents may have, such as your father’s foot problem. We don’t want him tripping and prolonging his recovery.”

“I don’t know. It might be a good thing if my father is immobile. He could cause trouble when he’s full strength,” Nic said. “He’s always been a rebellious, impulsive man. I hate to say it, but he might just take a trip out of the house so he can feel like he’s flying in the face of your family.”

Pippa winced. “He wouldn’t admit his name, would he?”

“I hope not. That’s part of the reason I wasn’t sure this was a good idea,” he said.

“What made you change your mind?”

“You did. My father will be okay if he’s reminded that his responsibility is to make this time for my mother as trouble-free as possible. I’ll make sure he gets that message in multiple modalities every day.”

“Thank you very much,” she said.

“If you’re so terrified that your family will find out, why did you take this risk for yourself? Your relationship with your brothers and sisters will never be the same if they know you did this.”

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a half beat as if to bolster her determination. “I hate the idea of disappointing my brothers and sisters. I hate it more than you can imagine, but I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I could help your mother with this one wish if I had the ability. And I have the ability.”

“I’ll do what I can to make sure the rest of the Devereauxs don’t find out. I haven’t told my mother yet about the cottage. She’s going to be very excited.”