Page 9 of His Princess Brat
It isn’t the girl’s fault, I mentally chided. Dance first, murder second.
I offered the graceful young lady my hand before my pained reluctance could become awkwardly noticeable. “Would you care to dance?”
She took it, and shooting Mazi regicidal eyeball daggers, I led her out on the dance floor.
Chapter Four
Pita
Cousin Mazi had a nice place, but I still didn’t want to be here and that made being cheerful about meeting the staff here painfully difficult. However, I did my best to suffer through it. I didn’t want to be a bitch on my first night here. None of this was anyone’s fault, except maybe my mother’s. Possibly my brother’s for dying, but just thinking that made me feel guilty and even more bitchy than before.
I might have taken some of that frustration out on the line of servants who were waiting to take my luggage and attend to my needs and, in particular, on the king’s extremely proper assistant who greeted me the moment I stepped from the back of the limo to stand at the bottom of the palace steps.
“Highness,” he said, with a bare nod of a bow. “Welcome to Osei. His Highness the king wishes to express his apologies for not being here in person to greet you, but he was called away.”
“By what?” I didn’t mean to say that half as annoyed as it came out sounding, but I was tired. Travel always made me a bit snippy. And if he wasn’t here to meet me now, then that only meant I’d have to make myself available to meet with him later, and I just wanted to get this all over with.
Back in Bahar, my inappropriate snit would have been ignored. Jax apparently had never been to Bahar. He gave me a slow blink and icily replied, “By matters most important, Princess.”
Snapping his fingers twice, he sent the other servants to get my baggage. Not knowing how long getting a husband might take me, I’d packed relatively light—seven suitcases and one trunk for fancy dresses, and twelve for my horse.
Jax noticed the trailer as it came driving up the driveway behind me. “What,” he asked with a look of weary disgust, “is that?”
“My stallion.” It had been a long day for me, and no doubt an even longer day for Adofo. I was eager to see him comfortably situated in his new albeit temporary home. “Where shall I tell the driver to take him?”
“Back home?” The look he gave me said clearly he wasn’t kidding. “I was not informed that there would be additional equine.”
“If there is no room for him in the stable, he can sleep with me.” And why not? My mother already thought I smelled like a barn.
I also had my mother’s infamous stubborn streak. Jax might not have been to Bahar, but he must have seen it because he backed down.
Sending a missive to the driver of Adofo’s trailer, he sent them around the grounds to the stable and then led me inside.
The palace was crawling with courtiers and servants bustling in and out of the ballroom, obviously in the throes of preparations for some grand event.
“What’s going on?” I asked, following Jax up the grand staircase.
