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hers and hers on his. Not with the secrets he was keeping from her.
    “Mer—Your Royal Highness.” His jaw was aching again. Hell. Every part of him ached.
    “Would you mind?” She leaned back, swaying a little. Making him wonder, all of a sudden, just how much champagne she’d consumed. “My shoes. They’re so tight.”
    A moment later, she was several inches shorter. Obviously, she’d stepped out of her high heels. And she’d kicked them with her foot until they tumbled against each other, stopped only by the wall.
    It wasn’t his shoes that were tight, he thought with grim humor as she linked her hands behind his neck and nestled against him. “That’s better,” she sighed, sounding tired. “You dance well, Colonel.”
    He was doing little other than holding her against him. “You should go to bed.”
    Her lashes lifted, and she looked at him. He wished there were more illumination so he could tell if her eyes were glazed with champagne or drowsy with desire. Either was inappropriate to take advantage of, and he knew it.
    “I don’t think I’m the spoiled brat I was at ten. Or seventeen,” she said, lucidly enough, “who needs to be sent to bed.”
    At seventeen, she’d been a burgeoning young woman, just beginning to grasp the feminine powershe could wield over others. A power that was now in full bloom.
    Apparently, though he was nearly at a standstill, she, without her too-tight shoes, felt rather more like dancing. Swaying hypnotically. He clamped his hands on her waist. Her hips. She was tormenting him, and she probably didn’t even know it. Despite his torment, he knew there were guests inside the ballroom who were dancing far more closely, far more uninhibitedly.
    “You weren’t a brat,” he said.
    “But I was spoiled.”
    “You’re the beloved first child of our ruler.”
    “Spoken very properly.” She tossed back her head and watched him from beneath her lashes. “Do you ever lose your composure, Colonel Prescott?”
    Only with you. Her lips looked impossibly soft. Inviting. “Rarely,” he said. “Do you ever fail to get what you want?”
    “Rarely. So, if I’m not the spoiled brat, then why do you feel compelled to send me off to bed as if I were?”
    Holding Meredith against him while speaking about bed hadn’t been particularly wise of him. His imagination was running riot. “Simple concern for your welfare, Your Royal Highness. You’ve had a long day. And plenty of champagne, I think.”
    She smiled beautifully, telling him more surely than ever that she had imbibed more than was usual. As far as Pierce knew, Meredith never drank to excess. She never did a single thing to cause her family worry.
    “Haven’t you had a long day, as well? Weren’tyou up before dawn for your run in the hills around the base? Or in your old age have you given up your three morning miles?”
    Old age? There were times when thirty-five felt old. There were times, like now, with a beautiful woman against him that were something else entirely. “Five miles. At the park near my place in Sterling.”
    “That’s right.” She nodded thoughtfully. “I’d heard you’d taken a flat there. A few years ago.” She shot him another one of those veiled looks. “What brought that about, anyway? No, wait. A woman, I’ll wager.”
    “Yes.”
    Her eyebrows rose a little. “And that’s all you have to say about it, I suppose.”
    “Yes.”
    “Closemouthed as always, Colonel Prescott. Intelligence really is right up your alley.”
    “I took the flat because I was driving my men and women crazy being on base twenty-four seven.” He’d be hanged if he’d admit to Meredith that she was the reason he’d chosen Sterling. It was a large city. Larger than Marlestone. And it was far enough away from Marlestone that he’d be unlikely to run into Meredith.
    “Thinking only of others, as usual,” Meredith murmured, then quickly hid a yawn behind her hand. “Heavens. Please excuse me.”
    “I’m