The Raven Prince (Princes #1)(9)

The dog kept his own counsel.

Anna finished the bread and started on the apple under the beast’s watchful eyes. Surely if it was dangerous, it would not be allowed to roam freely in the Abbey? She saved the cheese for last. She inhaled as she unwrapped it and savored the pungent aroma. Cheese was rather a luxury at the moment. She licked her lips.

The dog took that moment to stretch out his neck and sniff.

Anna paused with the lump of cheese halfway to her mouth. She looked first at it and then back to the dog. His eyes were liquid brown. He placed a heavy paw on her lap.

She sighed. “Some cheese, milord?” She broke off a piece and held it out.

The cheese disappeared in one gulp, leaving a trail of canine saliva in its former place on her palm. The dog’s thick tail brushed the carpet. He looked at her expectantly.

Anna raised her eyebrows sternly. “You, sir, are a sham.”

She fed the monster the rest of her cheese. Only then did he deign to let her fondle his ears. She was stroking his broad head and telling him what a handsome, proud fellow he was when she heard the sound of booted footsteps in the hallway. She looked up and saw the Earl of Swartingham standing in the doorway, his hot obsidian eyes upon her.

Chapter Three

A powerful prince, a man who feared neither God nor mortal, ruled the lands to the east of the duke. This prince was a cruel man and a covetous one as well. He envied the duke the bounty of his lands and the happiness of his people. One day, the prince gathered a force of men and swept down upon the little dukedom, pillaging the land and its people until his army stood outside the walls of the duke’s castle.

The old duke climbed to the top of his battlements and beheld a sea of warriors that stretched from the stones of his castle all the way to the horizon. How could he defeat such a powerful army? He wept for his people and for his daughters, who surely would be ravished and slain. But as he stood thus in his despair, he heard a croaking voice. “Weep not, duke. All is not yet lost….”

—from The Raven Prince

Edward halted in the act of entering his library. He blinked. A woman sat at his secretary’s desk.

He repressed the instinctive urge to back out a step and double-check the door. Instead he narrowed his eyes, inspecting the intruder. She was a small morsel dressed in brown, her hair hidden by a god-awful frilled cap. She held her back so straight, it didn’t touch the chair. She looked like every other lady of good quality but depressed means, except that she was petting—petting for God’s sake—his great brute of a dog. The animal’s head lolled, tongue hanging out the side of his jaw like a besotted idiot, eyes half shut in ecstasy.

Edward scowled at him. “Who’re you?” he asked her, more gruffly than he’d meant to.

The woman’s mouth thinned primly, drawing his eyes to it. She had the most erotic mouth he’d ever seen on a woman. It was wide, the upper lip fuller than the lower, and one corner tilted. “I am Anna Wren, my lord. What is your dog’s name?”

“I don’t know.” He stalked into the room, taking care not to move suddenly.

“But”—the woman knit her brow—“isn’t it your dog?”

He glanced at the dog and was momentarily mesmerized. Her elegant fingers were stroking through the dog’s fur.

“He follows me and sleeps by my bed.” Edward shrugged. “But he has no name that I know of.”

He stopped in front of the rosewood desk. She’d have to move past him in order to escape the room.

Anna Wren’s brows lowered disapprovingly. “But he must have a name. How do you call him?”

“I don’t, mostly.”

The woman was plain. She had a long, thin nose, brown eyes, and brown hair—what he could see of it. Nothing about her was out of the ordinary. Except that mouth.

The tip of her tongue moistened that corner.

Edward felt his cock jump and harden; he hoped to hell she wouldn’t notice and be shocked out of her maidenly mind. He was aroused by a frumpy woman he didn’t even know.

The dog must’ve grown tired of the conversation. He slipped from beneath Anna Wren’s hand and lay down with a sigh by the fireplace.

“You name him if you must.” Edward shrugged again and rested the fingertips of his right hand on the desk.

The assessing stare she leveled at him stirred a memory. His eyes narrowed. “You’re the woman who made my horse shy on the high road the other day.”

“Yes.” She gave him a look of suspicious sweetness. “I am so sorry you fell off your horse.”

Impertinent. “I did not fall off. I was unseated.”

“Indeed?”

He almost contested that one word, but she held out a sheaf of papers to him. “Would you care to see what I’ve transcribed today?”

“Hmm,” he rumbled noncommittally.

He withdrew his spectacles from a pocket and settled them on his nose. It took a moment to concentrate on the page in his hand, but when he did, Edward recognized the handwriting of his new secretary. He’d read over the transcribed pages the night before, and while he’d approved of the neatness of the script, he’d wondered about the effeminacy of it.

He looked at little Anna Wren over his spectacles and snorted. Not effeminate. Feminine. Which explained Hopple’s evasiveness.

He read a few sentences more before another thought struck him. Edward darted a sharp glance at the woman’s hand and saw she wore no rings. Ha. All the men hereabouts were probably afraid to court her.