The Prince's Texas Bride / The Reluctant Princess. Leanne Banks

if they were just beneath the surface, ready to burst through, so he felt he had to exert enormous self-control.

      Gazing down at her, he saw a combination of compassion and challenge in her dark eyes. Her lips were pursed as if she were trying not to smile. His hand still encircled her wrist and the skin there felt soft in contrast to her spine of steel. What an odd mix of a woman, he thought. He wondered what she was like in bed. He wondered what she would do if he kissed her. A hot visual of her naked beneath him whipped through his mind.

      His immediate surge of desire took him by surprise. Eve wasn’t his type. She was argumentative. She had zero understanding of palace affairs. For God’s sake, she worked in a barn. In that flash of an instant, he glimpsed a shot of awareness that deepened her already dark eyes. In the next second, he saw the same surprise he’d felt.

      Taking a breath, she stepped back and pulled her hand from his. “If you can let me know by 8:00 p.m. on the nights you’ll be riding him, that would help me,” she said.

      “Waiting till that late will tie up most of your evenings,” he said.

      “I don’t have anything else on my calendar. You see, I have to get ready for this parade my boss neglected to tell me about,” she said in a confiding tone.

      “That’s why I required you to come to Chantaine within two weeks,” Stefan said, mildly amused.

      “It would have been nice of you to let me know ahead of time,” she said.

      “I’m not that nice,” he said. “Would it have made a difference?”

      “I guess not,” she said. “I just wouldn’t have sat through any of those orientation sessions,” she said.

      “I was told you skipped the afternoon session,” Stefan said.

      “That’s true,” she said. “As soon as Princess Bridget told me there was going to be a parade with some kook waving a whip, I was outta there.”

      “Count Christo is eccentric, but I wouldn’t call him a kook,” Stefan said.

      “You don’t have to,” Eve said. “And I’ll tell you now, he won’t be carrying a whip when he’s riding one of your horses.”

      “Eve,” Stefan said. “The count is an important and revered member of Chantaine society.”

      “He won’t even miss that whip, I promise,” she said.

      “Eve,” he said again.

      She waved her hand in dismissal. “That’s a week and a half away. No worries Your Highlyness,” she said with a sparkle in her eye.

      “Highlyness?” he echoed.

      “That’s what my aunt Hildie calls Tina every now and then.”

      The tidbit amused him. “I bet Tina loved that.”

      “Oh, you have no idea,” she said and gave a pretty little salute with her right hand. “I should hit the sack, Your Highlyness. I rise early these days. Sweet dreams.”

      The next day as Eve was grabbing a sandwich at her office in the stables, she mulled over the possibility of providing Black with a companion. The stallion led such a solitary life he might be more content with a gelding as a friend, or perhaps a goat.

      “There you are,” Bridget, wearing a dress and heels, said from the doorway. She walked inside the small office without invitation, wagging her finger in disapproval. “You’ve been invisible during the last week. I was certain you’d flown back to Texas until I overheard one of the staff discussing how early you leave your quarters in the morning and how late you return at night. You’re going to exhaust yourself before you’ve even been here a month, and Tina will have all our heads. This must stop.”

      Despite Bridget’s propensity for exaggeration, Eve felt a little less alone by her presence. She’d been so busy with the horses that she hadn’t had time to think about anything else except late at night before she fell asleep. She would die before she admitted it, but she was a little homesick.

      “I’m fine,” Eve insisted and set down her sandwich. “I just needed to jump in with both feet with the parade coming around the corner.”

      “Well, it’s simply not acceptable,” Bridget said. “I’m sure you haven’t even taken off one day since you arrived. Therefore, you shall go shopping with me this afternoon,” she said in full princess mode.

      Eve shook her head. “It’s sweet of you to ask, and I’m honored, but I can’t. It would just put me behind. I have to start scheduling appointments with the riders so everything will go smoothly during the parade.”

      Bridget wrinkled her brow in confusion. “We’ve never had appointments before. We just show up on parade day, mount the horse and ride.”

      “How did that work out?” Eve asked, already knowing the answer.

      “Fine with me. There have been a few little problems. One of the mares bucked her rider and took off through the crowd. One of the geldings stopped halfway through and refused to go any farther.”

      “And what about that year when one of the horses reared up and a half dozen of them went to the beach? Not just to the beach,” Eve said. “But in the water.”

      Bridget winced. “Oh, yes. I couldn’t really blame them. It was a very hot day and the master of ceremonies was long-winded, which meant we had to wait forever to get started. I guess you’re right. Good luck getting some of the old guys to agree to the appointments, though.”

      “Thank you,” Eve said in a long-suffering voice.

      Bridget sighed. “Well, if you won’t go shopping with me, then you must join us for dinner tonight. It’s family night. Stefan requires us to have dinner together every week since Jacques is on break from college. He’ll be there as well as Phillipa.”

      Eve immediately began to shake her head. “I’m not family. I wouldn’t want to intrude,” she said, also confident that she would feel totally out of place at a table full of royals.

      “No intrusion,” Bridget said. “Besides, you’re like family because of your association with Tina.”

      “Oh, no, thank you, but—”

      “I won’t take no for an answer. You must eat. You may as well eat with us. The food will be better than that sandwich,” she said, waving her hand in disgust at Eve’s lunch. “If you don’t come, then I’ll have to tell Tina, and she’ll fuss at Stefan and me. Trust me, it will get messy.”

      Eve sighed, realizing it would be easier to give in to Bridget’s invitation and beg off early. She could pretend to be a fly on the wall and resolved to keep her mouth shut. “If you insist,” she said.

      “I do,” Bridget said, smiling broadly. “We’ll dine at seven on the third floor. It’s a bit smaller and more intimate. I’m delighted you’ll join us. Ta-ta,” she said and turned to leave.

      “Bridget,” Eve said before the woman vanished. Geez, that woman could move like the wind despite the fact that she was wearing high heels. “What should I wear?”

      Bridget glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, it’s not formal. Just a dress will do.”

      Eve had brought only a few dresses with her since she figured she would be spending most of her time with the horses. Her choices were black, brown and black. She decided on black and pulled her hair out of her braid. For her corporate job back in the States, she’d always dressed in a conservative, businesslike manner, with careful attention to grooming.

      Looking in the mirror made her wince. She’d been so focused on getting the horses ready for the parade that she’d done the bare minimum in the grooming department. Her fingernails were all broken down to the quick, her hair was out of control, her lips were chapped and smudges of violet rimmed her brown eyes.

      “Thank goodness