Page 91 of Songs and Spun Gold
“Away from you!” he yelled back without turning.
She started to chase after him, but Otto grabbed her arm. “Stay here,” he murmured before striding after the prince. “Your Highness!”
“Stay with Katy, Otto.” Axel angled his head back but didn’t slow. “I don’t need a guard.”
“But—”
The prince whirled to face them. “That’s an order. If my father doesn’t like it, he can take it up with me.”
Then he turned again and disappeared into the crowd.
“That was exciting,” Tobias muttered, facing forward again and ignoring Katy. “Temperamental would-be actor.”
Katy looked at the wrinkled paper in her hand: the tickets Axel had purchased. The ones he had planned to use, up until two hours ago. That he’d been so excited to share with her.
“Clever of him to use your temper,” Otto whispered in her ear. “I think it was convincing enough.”
Looking up, she fought to focus on her cousin. “What? Oh,yes.” She dropped her gaze to the tickets again. Was that what that was? Their staged emergency? Did that mean Axel wasn’t really mad at her?
She’d seen him act angry when he was practicing for the stage. It had been convincing. But tonight…tonight had been different. The hurt in his eyes, the twist to his mouth – it had been real. He might have used her temper to provide his excuse to leave, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t meant what he said.
He’d been trying to make her happy with the situation they’d both been dealt, and her wavering had hurt him. Deeply, if their scene was anything to go by.
She knew trying to escape the wedding would hurt him, but she hadn’t meant to hurt him that much. Especially when she knew that it was futile.
Since she wasn’t willing to walk, maybe she should take her own advice, accept that she couldn’t change it, and make the best of it. Disastrous deal with a red-haired stranger and all.
“Kat, are you all right?”
She lifted her eyes to Otto’s concerned face and gave him a tremulous smile. “I hope to be.” Holding up the tickets, she asked, “Want to watch the show from the best seats in the house?”
CHAPTER 25
Katy
Axel was magnificent. He gave no indication that he had been yelling at his betrothed an hour before the performance. His acting was even better than when he practiced with her at the castle, the responsive audience feeding his character just as it had the previous time she had sat in this theater.
His eyes never sought her out. It might not mean he was upset with her. Maybe his character simply wouldn’t allow it.
Otto didn’t let her look for him after the show. It would ruin everything if someone realized the prince had returned to the theater. She hovered in the castle’s entrance hall for an hour after, but he never came in. When she asked, no one had seen him return.
Why hadn’t he come home yet?
It troubled her all night. If they hadn’t fought, or if she could convince herself that he had been acting, she wouldn’t worry. But his eyes...
He’d lost control.
The next morning found her pacing her sitting room, twisting her hands in front of her waist. She tried telling herself he had returned late and overslept; that was why he had not yet dragged her off to the music room. It was a plausible explanation.
He didn’t even make it to breakfast, an uncomfortableaffair with only herself and his parents. His mother alternated between sniffing at his empty chair and glaring at Katy as if she was the cause.
Based on the snippets of conversation that she caught before servants fell suspiciously silent at her approach, everyone in the castle believed she was.
Everyone, including herself.
~
“I thought I might find you here.”
