Читать книгу The Runaway Princess - Patricia Forsythe, Patricia Forsythe - Страница 10

“Okay, the job’s yours,” Jace said abruptly half an hour later.

Alexis started and turned from the sink where she’d been rinsing the dishcloth after wiping down the counter for the sixth time. She’d had to fight the temptation to listen at the door of his office. In fact, she’d begun tiptoeing in that direction, but a squeaking floorboard in the dining room had announced itself loudly and sent her scurrying back to the kitchen.

Resigned to wait, she had instead done the washing up, wiped the table and the counter and swept the floor. Her sisters, and most of the people employed at the palace, would have howled with laughter at the sight. Bevins, the palace manager, who’d been an English butler in another life, would have been appalled. Esther, her lady-in-waiting, would have called for smelling salts.

“I do?” she asked with a delighted grin.

“Looks like it,” he responded with a shrug.

“Thank you. That’s wonderful. I’m so glad.” Alexis stepped forward excitedly and reached out to shake his hand. She’d forgotten to put down the dishcloth, though, so he got a fistful of wet rag. He grimaced and her face flushed scarlet.

“Oh! I’m sorry,” she cried, turning away to throw it into the sink. They both wiped damp hands on their jeans while she gave him an apologetic look.

“As I was saying,” Jace nodded toward the papers he’d laid on the edge of the table. “Your references checked out, though a couple of them seemed to think it was pretty funny to hear you wanted a job here.”

Nervousness fluttered in her stomach. Alexis folded her hands and gave him a cautious look. “They did?”

“Especially one of your professors who said he thought you were in Europe.” He gave her a sharply inquisitive look as he raised a dark brow. Again he reminded her of that painting in the palace’s long gallery. It took her a second, but she finally recalled that ancestor’s name. Hedrick. They’d called him Hedrick the Henchman.

Her gaze skittered away from Jace’s. If she remembered correctly, Hedrick had been fond of the technology of the time, most significantly, anything to do with the latest thing in torture devices.

“Were you?”

She blinked at him. “Was I what?”

“In Europe.”

“Oh, that. Yes. Yes, I was. Family business.”

He gave her another measured look. “Exactly what kind of business is your family in?”

Alexis’s smile froze. Her mind scrambled over scenes of the past months; her father working with the national council late into the night, her sisters making endless rounds of social gatherings to convince the people of their tiny country that the changes Prince Michael wanted would be the best for everyone. Alexis, herself, shunning the spotlight and staying behind to watch out for young Jean Louis, her nephew, eventual heir to the throne, and an unrepentant con artist and charmer who was able to convince everyone in the palace from his nanny to the guards at the front gates that it was perfectly acceptable behavior for a six-year-old to attempt to hang by his shoe tips from an upstairs window so he could “see everything upside down.”

“Alexis?” Jace prompted.

She glanced up. “Public relations…” she blurted. “…and government work. I chose to take a leave from the family business and pursue my real interest, which is teaching.” Inwardly, she winced at the half truth. Her “leave” had actually been a bit less forthright than that since she had told her father she was going to a spa in Arizona for an extended stay.

Prince Michael, who considered his daughters’ purpose in life to be purely decorative, anyway, hadn’t objected to her visit since he assumed she was planning to make herself even more alluring in order to appeal to one of the young men he would soon begin parading before her. The thought of that old-fashioned idea made her fume. She wouldn’t think about that right now, though.

Jace opened his mouth to say something, but she barreled ahead. “Now that you’ve decided I can stay, why don’t you show me to the school, so I can get started? There’s a great deal to be done before the first day.”

She held her breath, thinking he was going to question her further, but after a long moment in which he seemed to be trying to see right inside her head, he nodded slowly and said, “All right. You can drive your car over there and park it by the teacherage.”

Relieved, she nodded and broke into a wide smile that made her face glow. “Teacherage,” she breathed in delight. “That sounds so…”

“Old-fashioned,” he supplied with a lift of his brow. “Out-of-date?”

“Respectable,” she answered and saw surprise flicker in his eyes. “Remember that in the days of the Old West, the local teacher was the one people came to for information or to have disputes settled.”

This time his eyes narrowed and he gave her another long look. She wished he wouldn’t do that. It was unnerving. A lifetime of adeptness at hiding her thoughts seemed to do no good around him.

“You don’t think you’re in the Old West, do you?”

“No, of course not.” Alexis clasped her hands at her waist. She didn’t know how she could explain what she meant. If she told him how delighted she was to have the job, to be living in this remote corner of Arizona away from prying eyes and from her wellmeaning but meddling family, he might become suspicious of her and her abilities.

Evasively, she cleared her throat. “Well, never mind that.” She turned away from his too-penetrating gaze and said, “Let me get my things and I’ll be right with you.” She dashed to her room where she grabbed her things, made sure the place was neat, and then met Jace outside.

One of the twins had brought her car around front and she was dismayed to see the dent she’d put in the back fender. At least only a few people knew about it, she thought, with the instinctive reaction of someone whose family had long been stalked by the paparazzi. In Inbourg, the accident would have been front page news in their tiny weekly newspaper. In Sleepy River, it hardly mattered. She knew Rachel would trust her to have the damage repaired.

Jace drove by in a dark blue pickup truck and called out, “Follow me,” as he passed.

She doubted that he would be willing to wait long, so Alexis tumbled into her car and followed, wincing at the sight of the burned area of grass. She sincerely hoped it would grow back quickly and the near-disaster would be forgotten. Of course, there was still the matter of what to do about the heirloom quilt she’d ruined, but she decided to worry about that another time. She was determined to handle her problems like one of those American television martial arts experts handled the bad guys—one at a time.

Halfway down the lane leading to the highway, Jace turned off on a road she hadn’t noticed the night before. Through towering trees that almost scraped the sides of the car, they emerged into an open field that held a small white schoolhouse, an even smaller cottage and a baseball diamond.

Alexis’s happy gaze swept the area, then lighted dubiously on the ball field. She hoped no one expected her to coach baseball. She knew very little about it. Tennis, now, that was something she could coach, but she didn’t think she’d be called on to do so.

Her eyes were drawn back to the school and teacherage, pleased that everything looked to be in good repair. She stopped the car and bounced out, then up the ramp that led to the front door of the school.

Jace had stepped from his truck and was following her actions with puzzlement. “Don’t you want to see where you’re going to live?”