Page 72 of Love & Letter Charms
Yet somehow, mere hours ago, she’d allowed him to convince her otherwise.
She’d been in the Sun Salon, surrounded by lists and confection samples and an alarming number of decisions for her upcoming tea. Though the event was still ten days hence, the weight of it had been crushing her beneath its expectations. Her music had betrayed her anxiety, high tremulous notes fluttering about like distressed songbirds, despite her improved control these days.
Thimble and Spark had been attempting to help, though their anxiety only added to her own.Are you absolutely CERTAIN this is the direction you’d like to take your event?Spark had asked multiple times.I don’t believe any other lady is approaching hers in quite the same fashion.
That was when Prince Ryden had appeared in the doorway, taking in the scene with those keen ink-blue eyes that missednothing. “Lady Aurelise, you appear to be under siege by your own preparations.”
“Everything must be perfect,” she’d said, hearing the edge of panic in her own voice. “Because if not, then?—”
“The world shall cease its turning?” He’d strolled into the room with that casual confidence that both irritated and oddly soothed her. “The seas shall boil? The stars shall tumble from the skies?”
“No, because I—I am attempting something that is somewhat …daring, and I fear that if every other element is not perfect, then this singledaringelement will not be well received.”
He had looked utterly intrigued at her mention of a ‘daring’ element—something she had not breathed a word of to anyone else. Leaning against the back of an armchair, he had tilted his head in that infuriatingly attentive way of his.
“Daring?” he’d echoed. “Do tell me more.”
But at that, her music had risen in a flurry of anxious notes, and her composure had splintered. She’d pressed her hands to her face, trying to steady her breath, whispering silent reassurances that she could manage this. It was only a small event. It was surely not as overwhelming as it seemed.
Surely not as overwhelming as R declaring, in his last letter, that she had already stolen everything there was of him to steal—a confession she still had not found the courage to answer.
Perhaps the prince realized how close she was to unraveling, because he’d straightened from the chair and taken a careful step closer. “This calls for desperate measures. I know precisely what you require.”
She’d lowered her hands, taken a deep breath, and regarded him with deep suspicion. “If you’re about to suggest another midnight adventure?—”
“Of course.” That wicked grin had appeared, the one that inevitably preceded trouble. “With the express intent ofsampling a small remedy for overwrought nerves. And,” he’d added, eyes glinting with amusement, “it will conveniently allow you to cross another item from that list of yours.”
Now, lying beside him under the stars, Aurelise had to admit his ‘remedy’ had been remarkably effective. The crushing weight of anxiety had dissolved into something soft and manageable, like clouds she could shape with her fingers.
At least for this particular dare she’d maintained enough presence of mind to dress properly. After Marta had retired for the evening, Aurelise had donned a walking dress of deep burgundy silk, complete with gloves and sturdy slippers. Not that proper attire would save her reputation if they were discovered. A lady alone with a gentleman, unchaperoned, partaking of driftshade leaf? The scandal would destroy her family’s standing entirely. She would become the cautionary tale mothers whispered to their daughters.
Yet somehow, with the gentle haze wrapped around her thoughts like silk, she could not summon the appropriate alarm.
The night sang around them—whisperwings weaving their rhythmic chorus through the dark, the lake murmuring softly against the shore, a few garden pixies giggling in the branches above. Even the air felt different, charged with possibilities she normally would not allow herself to consider.
“What else could I possibly have been after,” Prince Ryden asked, “beyond the simple satisfaction of watching you complete another dare?”
“I suspect,” she said, rolling onto her side again to face him properly, “that your true intention was to render me thoroughly insensible, whereupon you would take advantage of my compromised state like the notorious scoundrel everyone knows you to be.”
He laughed, a startled sound that seemed to surprise him as much as her. “Scoundrel, am I?”
“Mmm.” She nodded sagely, though the effect was somewhat ruined by her inability to stop smiling. “Everyone speaks of it. Your reputation quite precedes you.”
The playfulness vanished from his expression as he pushed himself up on one elbow, looking down at her with sudden intensity. “I hope you know I would never do such a thing. I would never take advantage of you, not in any state.”
For a few quiet moments, she merely stared up at him, sensing the weight of his sincerity. When she spoke, her words were soft: “Your reputation suggests otherwise.”
“My reputation,” he said simply, “is largely fabrication.”
Some of the haze cleared from her mind. “Truly?”
“Well.” That familiar grin tugged at his lips again. “Not entirely fabrication, I’ll grant you. There exists more than a little truth within the stories.” The smile gentled, became something more vulnerable. “But I would never do anything you did not wish me to do.”
The implication hung between them, unspoken but clear in the way he held her gaze, and a strange, breath-stealing warmth unfurled low within her. Hewoulddo something … if she wished it.
But she did not wish anything of the sort. Certainly not. It was merely the driftshade muddling her thoughts, making her notice how the moonlight played across his features, how his shirt had come slightly undone at the top, revealing a triangle of skin that she very definitely needed to look away from now.
She rolled onto her back again, needing distance from that intense gaze. He followed suit, stretching out beside her once more.
