Page 21 of Stolen Princess's Secret

‘I’m disappointed in you. At least call it a battle of wits.’

‘No.’

‘Robust courting?’

‘Wrong again. You made me a lord. On a whim.’

‘It wasn’t a whim. It was a carefully considered reward for your service to falconry, a savvy political move on Cas’s part, and an act of utmost faith in your character.’

He stared at her for what seemed like an eternity.

‘And I’m not giving up on you.’ Might as well get that out in the open too.

‘Oh, for the—

‘For the what?’

At least he was talking again.

‘Show me the blasted map room!’

He wasn’t capitulating. Just because he was walking down a long, empty corridor in a section of the palace he’d never been in before, with the terror that was Claudia leading the way, didn’t mean that he thought any of this was right and good, or that he deserved to be called anyone’s lord.

He was doing this because public showdowns had never been his style and he and Claudia had been heading straight for one.

He was following her lead because he’d needed to get away from prying eyes and fawning courtiers and she’d offered him a way to do so that afforded him minimal contact with others.

That was what he told himself and he mostly believed it.

Right up until they entered the map room with its vaulted ceilings and wooden tables and feature lamps illuminating priceless parchment. A fire crackled merrily in the enormous stone hearth, and supper had been laid out on a sideboard.

Claudia smiled her approval and let out a little sigh as if she too had found the ceremonial events taxing. ‘Make yourself at home,’ she said, and proceeded to remove one earring and then its pair. ‘You have no idea how heavy old jewellery is. It was my mother’s and I’m supposed to have some sort of mystical emotional connection to it, but I don’t. It feels like a noose.’ Her hands went to the clasp of her necklace and she moved closer and turned her back on him. ‘Would you mind? There’s a clasp disguised as a flower with a little pearl in the middle and you have to push on the pearl and then—oh, okay, you’ve done this before.’ The clasp came apart and she caught the necklace before it could fall. ‘Thanks.’

The fact that she looked so put-out by his apparent expertise put him in a better mood than he’d been in all day. He didn’t bother to say ‘No problem’, figuring his smirk spoke for him.

Non-verbal cues were his strength, after all.

She slid him a sideways glance as she placed the jewels on a nearby table and started tugging on her gloves, one fabric finger at a time until she’d taken those off too.

‘Feel free to take off your coat,’ she murmured, knowing full well that he couldn’t do so without her help.

‘I won’t be here long enough to settle in.’

She made that small hmm she was so fond of. The one that never failed to make his manhood stand up and take notice. ‘There are ledgers here too. Stocking rates and harvest figures courtesy of the last Baron of Aergoveny back in 1672. Are you sure you don’t want to at least undo all those buttons on your coat?’

‘Positive.’ He was one hundred percent sure she was downright evil, knowing as she did that he’d left doing those buttons up until the last possible minute. But he needed to be in control of something, even something as insignificant as when he undressed. ‘You’re bossy.’

‘I prefer to call it having leadership skills.’ Now she was the one with the smirk, and it was infuriating.

‘Not quite the same thing.’

‘Hmm.’ She headed for one of the far tables and turned on a lamp to illuminate the map placed upon it. It had the ripples that came of being rolled up for a long time, and someone had placed strips of lead around the edges to keep it flat. He wanted to remain unmoved, but the weight of history and continuity wore him down. Even so...

‘How can this be owned by anyone?’

‘It can’t,’ she said simply. ‘We just pretend. But you can be a steward, with protection your goal.’

‘I never asked for this.’

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