“So, you believe that you’re the Lion of the Dark Wood? The born leader of this nation? Fated to rule and any potential competition removed?”
“I believe nothing of the kind. I believe that if you’re drunk and a fool and you go running into the woods where your older brother previously disappeared, and where you know there are packs of hungry wolves, you are perhaps taking your chances.”
“That’s a disrespectful way to speak of the dead.”
“The dead got themselves eaten by wolves. The dead must be strong enough to cope with the fact that unflattering things will be said about them.”
She frowned deeply. “The dead is not here to defend himself.”
“If he were, do you think he would defend himself? No. He would smile, and he would take another drink. For all that I find him frustrating, I cannot hate him. For he is entirely who he is. At least, he was.”
“It’s what I liked about him,” she said softly. “There was a freedom to him that I admired. And I tried to carry it forward in my life. I did. I tried to be... I tried to be someone he would have liked.”
“He was young. And I do not believe he knew quite what he liked, or what he would have liked had he been able to grow more. I think eventually, he would have liked you quite a lot.” Those last few words were rough in his throat. Painful.
Their food arrived at that moment, wheeled in on carts by members of his staff. And as her plate was set out before her, he continued. “In any case, I’ve taken you on.”
“Wonderful,” she snapped. “So, I’ve gone from prospective Princess to charity case. Unless of course you want to make my mother’s hopes and dreams come true and make me your Queen?”
She was being provocative on purpose. And she didn’t think he’d rise to meet her.
“And if I did?”
His words were like a gauntlet thrown down between them and their eyes clashed for a moment and something...electric passed through the air.
Down his spine.
He resented it. The tightness in his chest, his gut. That she should have the power to change the air around him. That the air would change without his permission.
“No thank you,” she said.
He was nearly disappointed that she backed down.
She looked down at her plate.
Then she looked back up at him, delight suddenly shining from those green eyes.
He felt that delight pour through him like melted gold. Hot and precious and dangerous. Something strange that went off low in his stomach. Like a bomb bursting.
The food. The food had made her light up like a switch had been turned on and there was something inescapably compelling about her simple joy.
No.
She was in love with his dead brother.
He was the King.
She would never be his Queen.
“Dinner looks amazing,” she said. “Is that puff pastry?”
She poked at the top of the meat pie sitting on her plate. Poked at it.
He said nothing.
“It’s lovely,” she said, cutting through the top of it, and closing her eyes when the crust made a sound. “Amazing.” She hummed as she took a bite.
There was something to the excitement in her. The warmth. This castle was ancient, a stack of stones that had come from a cold earth. And she infused them with...her. He could feel her. Surrounding him. How long had it been since he’d seen someone take pleasure in such a simple thing?
There was a purity in her that ran through his veins and twisted. Turned from that bright innocence of a woman enjoying the flavor of her dinner, into something dark and tortured in him.
She looked up at him. “What?”
“Absolutely nothing,” he said.
He looked away. Perhaps it had been too long since he’d had a woman. He had been focused on the practicalities of striking a deal with Nadia. The two of them had no connection, physical or otherwise, and she had been out of the country for the entirety of the negotiations. Given that he was in the process of negotiating a marriage agreement, he had not thought it prudent to take a lover. But perhaps in this case a discreet lover would be the better part of valor.
He could not endure this. This proximity to her.
It was a sickness that should have died the night his brother did.
But here it endured.
“Next week. Next week we will have a ball, and we will invite all of the eligible men in the higher echelons of society, from all nations friendly to Liri. And there, we will find you a husband.”
“That makes me a bit like Prince Charming, doesn’t it?”
“If any of the men arrive in a pumpkin I’ll be sure to let you know.”
“You know, I would quite like that. Because not only would he come with a pumpkin, he would come with a couple of fat rats. And I assume his suit would be tailored by birds.”
“That’s absurd.”
“It’s been said, on more than one occasion, that I myself am slightly absurd. So, that bothers me less than you think it might.”
“Your cat would eat them,” he pointed out.
“We can’t have that. Though, he has not eaten the hedgehogs or the ferret yet.”
“A relief to all involved.”
“You know,” she said, and impish expression taking over her face. “If it happens now, I’m going to blame the change of venue.”
“The death of your rodents will weigh heavily upon my conscience.”
And he realized that perhaps it was a poor choice of words, considering there were two deaths that did weigh upon his conscience. Deaths that the passage of time would never ease the wounds of. Deaths that had caused deep and abiding division in his country. Between the people who supported him still, and the people who thought him a murderer.
Division that he was having to work now to ease.
“End of the week,” he said. “There will be a ball. You will behave. You will comply.”
“What if I didn’t?”
The question was asked so simply, the expression on her face not angry or inflammatory in any way. Rather it simply was. A sort of innocent wonderment that he had only ever witnessed in Tinley.
“I would throw you in the dungeon.”
“You could just marry me and save us the trouble.”
“In the end,” he said, his stomach going tight. “Dungeon or marriage to me. Is there a difference?”
She shook her head slowly. “No. There isn’t.”