Free Princess Annie by Linda Lael Miller Page A

struggling to calm the terrified gelding. The mare had already bolted and was just disappearing into the trees.
    Rafael managed to tether the remaining horse to the low branch of a tree, then sprinted toward the cottage.
    Not wanting to be caught watching him, Annie turned quickly from the window and scurried over to the stone fireplace, kneeling on the hearth and hastily arranging a few dry twigs on the grate. The first faltering flame was just beginning to lick at the wood when Rafael burst through the door.
    He was wet to the skin and, without hesitation, or any apparent consideration for Annie’s sensibilities, he hauled his sodden shirt off over his head and tossed it over the back of a chair—one of the few pieces of furniture in the room.
    Annie swallowed and tossed a small log onto the fire. “It’s a good thing there was some wood on hand,” she said, in a voice that was too bright and too brittle.
    Rafael had joined her before the fireplace, and she was alarmed to realize that she felt more heat coming from him than from the blaze she’d just kindled. “There’s always wood,” he replied matter-of-factly. “I come here sometimes to think.”
    She rose slowly, looking around the cottage for the first time since she’d sprung through the door. Apparently, there was only one room, though there was a loft with a ladder on the side opposite the fireplace. A bed, a wooden table with two chairs, and a cookstove comprised the furnishings.
    This was the second time in her life that Annie had been alone in the same room with a man and a bed. She wondered if it was significant that on both occasions that man had been Rafael St. James.
    “You’d better take off some of those clothes,” he said, in the same practical tone he’d used to announce that there was always wood in the cottage. “Ironic if you survived the incident on the parapet only to catch your death after being caught in a rainstorm.”
    Annie removed her riding jacket, as a concession, avoiding his gaze the whole time. Pneumonia or no pneumonia, that was the one and only garment she was willing to shed in his presence. It wasn’t him she was afraid of, though. It was herself, for where this man was concerned, she had no sense whatever and very few inhibitions.
    “I’m sure I’ll be quite all right,” she told him stiffly.
    “Look at me, Annie,” the prince commanded.
    It was difficult to obey. His chest was bare, after all, and Annie had never seen a man in any degree of nakedness before, let alone stripped to the waist. She knew she was blushing as she raised her eyes to meet his.
    “You are safe with me,” he said plainly. “I have no intention of ravishing you.”
    Annie was relieved and, if she were to be entirely honest with herself, somewhat disappointed as well. “You did kiss me yesterday.”
    He smiled, a bit rakishly, Annie thought, at the memory. “Yes,” he said. “I did, didn’t I?” He took a step toward her and she stood as if spellbound, unable, or perhaps unwilling, to move.
    “I imagine one of Mr. Barren’s men will come looking for us, when the mare returns to the stables without me,” Annie said, as a way of reminding the prince, lest he should change his mind about ravishing her, that there was little time.
    A curious expression had come over Rafael’s face—he looked unscrupulously handsome even with his dripping hair—one of bewilderment. “I will be damned,” he whispered, using the reverent tones of one offering a sacred vow and standing very near by then. He reached around to pull the pins from her hair, so that Annie’s own sopping tresses tumbled down her back and over her bodice. “I most surely will.”
    Something had happened, something indefinable had changed, for both of them. Annie was filled with the same ecstatic terror she’d felt while standing on the parapet of the south tower.
    She willed herself to step back, out of Rafael’s reach, but she couldn’t move. Her heart was hammering