Page 11 of Stolen Princess's Secret

‘As you say, things are changing, and people are hopeful.’

He watched her cross to the picture board with the names of all the falcons on it. She’d been captivated by that earlier too. He usually asked new apprentices to memorise it within a week. Instinct told him it wouldn’t take her that long.

‘Do you still think we can’t be friends?’ she asked quietly.

‘You’re a princess, I’m a servant.’

‘Oh, c’mon,’ she scoffed. ‘We did away with that distinction twenty years ago.’

‘We certainly did not.’

‘In private we did.’ When had she become all angles and impossible beauty? So utterly compelling? He didn’t want to be her friend, that still hadn’t changed. But since when had he wanted lovers’ rights? A fully adult and possibly X-rated relationship? Had he come to that conclusion five minutes ago? Ten? Was the featherless parrot to blame?

Because he really wanted to blame something for his appalling lack of judgement.

‘If you want access to the royal aviaries, you have it.’ Time to get this briefing back on track. ‘If you let me know how many birds you want to bring in I’ll make space for them, even if we have to house them in the fortress proper—we’ve done that before and we can certainly do it for you. They’ll need vet checks and a clean bill of health before they arrive and I’ll send you an information questionnaire that needs to be filled out for each bird. If you can’t take them to the palace when you go there to be your brother’s political scapegoat—which I don’t agree with, by the way, he’s doing you no favours by letting you take point—I’ll put them in my personal flight rotation. I’ll even give you updates. Just don’t ask me to send pictures of them with little voice bubbles or videos with them dancing to music or wearing cowboy hats and neck ties, because I won’t do it. Is that a good enough extension of the hand of friendship?’

‘Well, when you put it like that,’ she said, golden eyes shining, holding out her hand for him to shake, and damn her for making his pulse spike again. ‘I’ll take it.’

Claudia spent the rest of the evening riding a wave of happiness. She had dinner with Silas and Lor in the big kitchen, with her wolfhounds at her feet and Sophia’s as well. Casimir had kept the wolfhound name traditions going. The heavily pregnant wolfhound stretched out in front of the huge stone hearth was Jelly Belly the eleventh. Or was she the twelfth?

Coming home had been harder than expected. She’d ridden in with a heart full of hope that she would be accepted and a deeply buried fear that she would prove useful to no one. Not the northerners, who expected so much from her bulldozer-style advocacy. Not her brother, whose rule had invariably become more complicated upon her return.

She needed to succeed in all her roles. She needed to be strong and powerful, politically invaluable, and above all confident. Make Cas look good. Take the extreme position if she had to so that he could swoop in with a more moderate stance and yet still make ample progress. That was the plan. Her only plan.

But Tomas had clocked it and criticised her actions and she too had underestimated just how much courage it would take to face suspicion and outright hostility from the select few politicians who, first and foremost, were still her father’s men. Cruel, powerful men with years of alliances and information to trade upon. Ugly business, the ruling of worlds. Corruption never far from the centre.

She hadn’t factored in how much energy it would take to keep her emotional armour permanently in place, and her reserves were wearing thin.

Tomas’s friendship, or whatever he wanted to call it, was a godsend.

Her mobile rang and she glanced at the screen for the name of the caller.

Cas.

‘Brother! You rang?’

‘I did. How did it go with Tomas?’

‘I like to think I wowed him with my poise, maturity and falcon-feeding skills and maybe even reclaimed the threads of an old and valuable friendship. The reality is probably a lot less rosy, but progress has been made, which makes me happy.’

She could almost see her brother picking over her words, analysing her good humour, and coming to conclusions.

‘I never realised how close you and Tomas were as children.’

‘He was safety,’ she offered simply.

‘How did I not know this?’

‘Secret safety.’

‘And now what is he?’

‘Who knows?’ A reluctant champion? Her latest late-night fantasy? Definitely the latter. ‘He’s incredibly hard to read. All that iron control, and I know he needs it for his birds, but it’s annoying. Cas, stop laughing. It’s not helpful.’

Her brother did stop laughing. Eventually. ‘He’s not an easy man to know, our master falconer. By all accounts, he’s a demanding but fair teacher. He’s not a fan of small talk. He could barely stand to be in the same room as Sophia when she first arrived. I believe it was because she reminded him so strongly of you. Now she tracks him down whenever she visits and his patience with her is a sight to behold.’

‘I refuse to feel jealous of my niece,’ she told him loftily. ‘Even if I am.’

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