Lois Greiman (17 page)

He bowed. “We are finished for this day, Your Majesty.”

“I fear our Lord Newburn has forgotten the glory of being worthless,” said Lord Riven. He was young and handsome and fully aware of both, even when inebriated, which seemed to be his usual state.

“Not at all,” Nicol countered. “I am just as fond of worthlessness as the next peer of the realm.” He took a draught of his wine. “Which, judging by the present company, is quite fond indeed.”

The assemblage laughed, adding witticisms and jests and thinking they were much more amusing than they actually were. It was the way with the upper class, of course, Megan
thought. Still, they seemed a harmless lot. Almost sad in their ineffectiveness, their need to outshine the next.

“Your Majesty…” Nicol inclined his head. “I was wondering if you might join me in the sword room for a game of chess.”

“Ahh, so the rivalry between brawn and beauty continues,” said Kendall. “There has been none here to challenge our bonny princess since you’ve been gone, Newburn.”

“Then it’s time,” Nicol said and held out his hand. “Will you do me the honor?”

“Of course,” she said, and rose serenely to her feet.

To her surprise, only her ladies-in-waiting followed her into the chamber where weapons hung like trophies on the walls. Once again, the maids wandered off to the side, finding their own diversions as their mistress took a seat across the table from the viscount. A stately chessboard resided there, its onyx-and-ivory pieces rising regally above a board crafted of the same materials.

He moved a pawn and nodded for her to do the same.

“I hope the duke’s chambers have been decorated without mishap,” Nicol said.

“It was a bit uncertain for a moment or two, but I think we shall win the day,” she countered, and slid a pawn forward. “Tell me, my lord, is your Anna always so well occupied.”

His gaze sparkled on her. “Remember, she has been princess only since her uncle’s death some months ago.”

She concentrated hard on the board before moving a scowling bishop. “Paqual must have some power if he could manage to put a girl on the throne.”

“And more power still when he chooses her husband.”

Pieces shuffled thoughtfully across the board. “So you would choose him instead.”

He paused with his fingers on a black knight astride a rearing charger. “Do you think me hungry for power, lass?”

She managed to stifle a shrug even though she was fairly certain her ladies did not watch her. “I do not assume to know where your appetites lie, my lord.”

“Don’t you?” he asked, and took her pawn.

She glared at the board, refusing to acknowledge any odd nuances in his tone. “The princess is young and inexperienced, completely unprepared to rule this country.”

“Have you learned so much already, lass?”

She did shrug now and took his pawn at the same time. “Lord Riven knows that much,” she said.

“Perhaps Lord Riven doesn’t know Her Majesty so well as he might,” he said, and caught her gaze.

“And you do?” she asked, and though she tried to keep her tone level, she feared she might have failed, for his lips quirked. The table was littered with her purloined pieces and his fingers were on his queen as he leaned closer.

“Are you asking if Anna and I have been intimate?”

She felt the heat of her blush and dropped her gaze to the board. “I would neither have any business nor any interest in asking such a thing,” she assured him.

“Check,” he said, then, “Anna doesn’t blush.”

She examined the board, not daring to look up, lest he see the emotions in her eyes. “Perhaps she has forgotten how.”

She hadn’t meant to say such a thing and was just about to retract her words when he laughed.

“Might it be…” He paused, but she refused to look up. Instead, she hustled her knight into place and kept her eyes on her queen. “Tell me, lass, are you jealous of her?”

She didn’t answer, and the heat of his gaze on her face seemed to burn into her very soul. “’Tis your move,” she said.

He remained as he was.

“Do you wish to make them suspicious?” she asked.

He barely glanced at his pieces, before sliding his knight
diagonally and returning his gaze to her face. “Are you?” he asked.

“She is the princess. Who would not be jealous?”

“The lass I met in Portshaven.”

“How lucky for her.” She moved. He moved. “Did you, perchance, catch her name?”

“No. But I caught the edge of a wine bottle across the side of my skull.”

She moved her queen, then nodded his attention toward the board. He glanced, made a move, and caught her gaze again.

“That girl was jealous of no one. She made her own world. Her own luck.”

“Unlike your Anna, who is ruled by people she neither likes nor respects?”

“She has a quick mind and a kind heart. She but needs some room in order to rule her own country.”

“And so you would find her a husband to help her do so.”

“Yes.”

“And spoil your own chance of happiness?”

Surprise or something like it crossed his dark features. “You still believe I am in love with her?”

She settled back in her chair and carefully linked her fingers on her lap. They only shook a little. “I never thought you the type to lie about something as mundane as love,” she said.

“Perhaps I do love her,” he agreed, and although his tone was casual, his gaze was sharp on her face. “Or perhaps I only love what she could be.”

She dragged her gaze from his and made her final move. “Either way,” she said. “The princess will marry, and you shall be alone.” Rising to her feet, she strode from the room, leaving Nicol to stare after her.

He scowled after her until she was well out of sight, then dropped his gaze to the board.

Damn, he mused, and, propping his elbows on the table, steeped his fingers and almost laughed.

She’d won the game and taken his queen. Again.

T
he palace was quiet. Nicol could hear the guards’ conversation drift up from the bottom of the steps. But other than that the world seemed entirely silent.

The princess’s chambers were just down the hall. Anna always slept alone. She would abide no one to accompany her at night. Indeed, she would not even allow another at her door. There were guards surrounding the palace, guards at the stairs, and guards following her every minute of the day, she said—surely that was enough. And none gainsaid her. Perhaps because none would suspect her of immorality. She was too cool for passion—unlike her counterpart, who shone with life, who burst with vitality. Nicol could remember how she felt in his arms, like a living sunbeam against his skin. Like—

He shut his mind down and frowned into the darkness. It was then that he heard a noise, a tiny snick of sound. Hurrying around the corner, he glanced toward her door, and there, at the far end of the hall, he thought he saw a shadow disappear into shadow. Perhaps he was only imagining, but worry
niggled at him. Hurrying up to the girl’s door, he set a hand to the latch, paused for a moment, then stepped inside. Once there, he scanned the darkened room. Nothing. He must have imagined the noise. Upon the mattress, he could see the small shape of the pretend princess. Her slim form barely made a crease in the blankets. But suddenly he realized he had thought that before. And he had been tricked. His heart jerked with anticipation.

Closing the door silently behind him, he strode across the floor. Upon the pillows, he could see a wild cascade of hair, but was it her hair? Hurrying around the foot of the bed, he gazed down and now the firelight told the truth. She had not left. Had not escaped into the night. Had not lied.

There was no fire in the grate tonight, but a bevy of tapers in a brass candelabra cast the room in a rosy glow, and by their light, the girl’s gamine face looked peaceful, neither as cool as the princess’s nor as intense as the thief’s. But as beautiful as both. God help him. She thought him in love with Tatiana. An icicle of pain shivered through his heart. She would laugh if she knew the truth, for she was not a person who would understand weakness. Not like him. Now for instance. He knew he should leave. Knew he should return to his own sleepless chamber, and yet he lowered himself onto her mattress and watched her slumber.

It was odd, he thought. He was a viscount, wealthy and secure. Yet he could not manage a full night’s rest. She was a thief, barely surviving. Yet she slept like a babe.

Or like an angel. He almost laughed at his own sentimentality. She was here because she had robbed and molested him. She was here because she had no other choice. But she looked so right beneath the pristine sheets. So perfect.

Reaching out, he touched her cheek. She sighed, snuggled deeper into her pillow, and raised her hand to his.

He knew the moment she awoke, though it took her a second to open her eyes. When she did, they shone brightly in the flickering light.

He drew back slowly.

“My apologies,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

She sat up with a scowl and blinked at him, her hair disheveled and her wide mouth disapproving. “Then you shouldn’t sneak into me room in the middle of the night.”

There was something about her newly returned accent that made him smile. Which seemed illogical, considering how hard he had worked to be rid of it. “I hope I am the only one who will,” he said, and felt his stomach twist at the thought of another being here, of another watching her sleep or touching her skin.

Her scowl deepened, and he caught himself.

“Your language,” he said, “has lost a bit of polish.”

“Oh.” She drew a soft breath and pushed a tangle of sable hair out of her face. “My apologies, my—” But she stopped herself. “What the devil are y’ doing in here?”

He grinned. She was no longer afraid or apologetic, if either of those elements had ever truly existed in her, and he hadn’t realized he had missed her. The real her.

“I thought I heard a noise,” he said.

“Noise?” She cocked her head and again the tiniest scowl bent her eyebrows into an intriguing quirk.

“In the hallway by your door.”

“What time is—? What were you doing by me door?”

An excellent question, but not one he cared to answer or even one he wished to contemplate. “You took my queen again. I’d like the pieces back.”

Coherence was returning slowly to her eyes. She pulled her knees up under the blankets and hugged them. By the fickle light of the dancing flames, she looked indecently
young and breathlessly innocent. Maybe he had only hoped there was a noise, had only longed for a reason to enter her room.

“Why don’t you sleep?” she asked.

He watched her in silence. He had consumed two glasses of port not three hours before in an attempt to relax. He regretted them now, for he was not asleep, and yet he was not fully aware. What tiny idiosyncrasy might he notice about her if he were completely sober?

“Tell me, lass,” he said. “Do you think it a sin to be wealthy?”

“A sin?” She rested her chin on her knees and gazed at him. “I hope not, for I’ve no desire to sin. Gaining wealth, on the other hand…” She shrugged. Her nightrail slipped a bit, showing a greater patch of the pearlescent skin of her shoulder. He watched that piece of flesh, noticing the softness, the paleness, imagining kissing her just there.

“What are your thoughts on fornication?” he murmured.

“What?” Her tone was sharp with surprise, and he almost cursed aloud at his own foolishness, but he managed to bite his tongue and pull his gaze from her shoulder.

“Life at court,” he said, “is less than moral. How are you faring amongst the gentry?”

Her eyes were somewhat narrowed, but her lips looked more plump than ever, pursed as they were and shiny in the fickle light of the lively flames. “The princess seems to have managed to keep herself apart from the corruption. None approach me with improper suggestions.”

“No. They would not.”

She cocked her head, and he realized his tone had been strange, almost regretful.

“And that is good, of course,” he added, “but I fear…” Drawing a breath, he decided on the truth. After all, the girl was risking much. Surely she deserved to learn what she
could of the princess. “Her subjects do not find her particularly warm. But neither do they think her immoral. Perhaps it is impossible to have both.”

“And which do you have?”

She looked so much like Tatiana, and yet…she seemed distinctly different. Oddly touchable in the soft light.

“Neither,” he said. “While you—” He stopped himself by the barest of margins, drew a deep breath, and stood. “Tomorrow will be a long day. You’d best sleep.” He turned to leave, but in that instant she was out of bed and not an arm’s length away.

“What were you going to say?”

He kept his arms at his side, kept his hands strictly to himself, though he would have sworn he did not possess the strength. “Go to sleep, lass.”

“While I am what?”

“You are tired.”

“Did you sleep with her?” Her words were a whisper, her eyes huge, as though she had wondered a hundred times, had warned herself not to ask, but could no longer resist. And he was hopelessly flattered. There was nothing he could do to stop himself from reaching out. Nothing he could do but touch her. Beneath his fingers, her cheek felt as soft as a dream.

“Would you care, lass?” he asked.

Her lips trembled. “I would know,” she said, and against every sane judgment, he brushed his thumb across her mouth.

Emotion flared in his gut. “You have…” He tried to stop the words, but the touch of her skin tilted his world. “The most seductive mouth.”

Her lips parted beneath his thumb. Her tongue darted out, touching his flesh. Something yanked at his innards.

“My mouth,” she whispered, “is just like hers.”

He shook his head. “’Tis what I thought at first, but your lips are…” It was not too late to flee. He was not a fool after all. Too smart to be in the army, his comrades had said, and if that meant he was too intelligent to take orders unnecessarily from a titled colonel who would blithely send his men to their deaths and never himself face the horrors of battle, then it was true. He was known for his intellect, for his ability to survive, but she was so close and so clever and so damnably beautiful that he forgot his reasons for keeping his hands to himself. “Yours,” he said, “are extremely kissable.” He tried to draw his hand away, but despite his supposed lack of foolishness it did not work. “It may well prove to be a difficulty.”

“Difficulty?” The word was no more than a soft draft of air against his hand, and he was melting.

“Anna never had any trouble dissuading the suitors.” He steadied himself as thoughts of this angel hellion in another’s arms stormed through his head. “But you…You will have to use the utmost caution.”

“Caution?” she whispered, and her lips remained parted ever so slightly, teasing him, tempting him.

“Not to let them do this,” he said and curling his fingers toward his palm, skimmed the flat of his nails along her throat. “Or this.” Slipping his hand lower, he traced her collarbone, then caressed the outer curve of her breast.

Her eyes were wide-open. “What else?” she whispered.

And he kissed her. Her lips tasted like heaven beneath his, like exotic, succulent fruit that he could never resist. And she kissed him back, not with the sweet innocence of youth, but with wild, yearning abandon, grasping his shirt and leaning into the embrace.

Still, he had not completely lost his mind and managed just barely to retreat. Her lips remained parted, her teeth pearlescent in the firelight, her breasts rising and falling dramatically beneath her frail nightgown.

He cleared his throat and tried to do the same with his head. “I…” he began, but lost his train of thought when she licked her lips. He watched the quick swipe of her tongue and felt it tug at something low in his gut. And though he tried, he could not quite let go of her arm, could not quite release her.

“You didn’t answer me question.” Her fingers were tangled in his sleeves, but whether she meant to keep him at bay or pull him close was impossible to say. There was something about the dichotomy of her that drew him, the soft feminine scent of lavender set against the strength of her narrow hands. The pristine white of the gown against her husky accent. Her thighs pressed intimately against his while her lovely breasts bent away. The wild sweep of her hair. The erotic curve of her cheek. Damn!

He leaned closer, but she stepped back and pressed her fingers against his lips. The feel of them was hopelessly alluring. He kissed them and watched her mouth move.

“Did you lie with her?”

Dear God, she was stunning. “Who?” he asked.

She scowled as she drew her hand away. “The princess.”

He remembered Tatiana with a hard yank of guilt. That was why this lass was here. That was why she risked her life. Indeed, the same could be said of him. Perhaps some would think he had come to Malkan Palace to atone for the sin of becoming what he was never meant to be, to pay for the crime of taking a title others had died for. But he knew better. He had come to court because he could. Because he was a viscount. But if the girl’s true identity was discovered, he could very well lose more than his title. Dropping his hands, he backed stiffly away.

“My apologies,” he said, and gave her a sharp bow. “It will not happen again.” Gritting his teeth, he prepared to turn away, but she caught his shirtfront in a hard grip.

He looked at her fist. It was tiny, a row of sharp knuckles
set in ivory skin. She drew a deep breath, causing his gaze to shift to her chest. Through the fragile white gown he could see the delectable thrust of her nipples.

“You have bullied me and threatened me and questioned me,” she said. “But now you will answer a question of me own.” He managed to lift his gaze back to her face. Her eyes were as hard as flashing emeralds, but her lips were still damnably soft. “Were you lovers?”

He was the master of concentration, and yet it was difficult to focus on her words, for her lips kept moving, teasing and quirking and begging for a kiss.

“Nicol!” She actually shook him, and with that, he put his hand on hers and carefully released it from his shirt.

“Tatiana is not that kind,” he said.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “And what kind is that, my lord?”

The kissable kind, the touchable kind, the kind that drove him past all good sense and into this hard-edged yearning. “She is a lady,” he said. “Gently reared and carefully polished.”

“And so, of course, she is innocent.”

He nodded.

“And what of me?” she asked. The precision had returned to her tone. She dropped her fist from his shirt and paced the room, paralleling the bed where she had lain only moments before. “I was neither gently reared nor precisely polished. What does that make me?”

Beautiful and tough and achingly desirable. He clamped his jaw and watched her pace. With the golden candlelight behind her, he could see the silhouette of her body through her gown. Again! God’s bones, didn’t she ever stand in the full light of day where he could see her defects—catalog her flaws?

“You are the opposite side of the coin,” he murmured. “The perfect woman to take her place for a time.”

“Perfect,” she said. Her tone was clipped, and she stopped her pacing to face him. “To threaten and use and discard.”

She was a sleek, slim hourglass through the mist of her gown.

“Is that it?” she asked and stepped close. Anger snapped in her eyes.

“I may have threatened,” he said. “But you are the one who has actually struck. And as for using you…” He shrugged, trying to relax, trying to remember his mission. He had failed as Sedonia’s soldier, but he would not fail the princess. His renewed determination did no good, however, for every muscle was cranked tight, waiting to be set loose. “’Tis you who will gain a small fortune from this encounter. Not to mention a bevy of mismatched socks and buttons.”

She drew herself up. “I am no whore.”

He felt surprise raise his brows. “I didn’t say you were.”