Wicked in Your Arms (Forgotten Princesses #1)(14)

She turned for the door, determined that this time, he would not stop her.

And he didn’t. He didn’t utter a word as she fled the room.

And why should he? As she hurried down the corridor, she grasped her skirts in two clenched hands, chasing her repeating shadow and reminding herself that she was nothing to him. Nothing. Just as he was nothing to her.





Chapter Five

Sev stared at the closed door that Miss Grier Hadley had departed through as if the hounds of hell chased her heels. He scratched his jaw in bemusement.

Grier, Grier. Grier.

He let the name roll around his head. What kind of name was that anyway? He could visualize his grandfather grimacing at the sound of it. So very . . . common. Not like Elizabeth. Or Catherine. Those were queenly names. Names all of former Maldanian queens.

He caught his blurry reflection in a mirror and grimaced. Why was he even thinking about her name?

He stared at the door again, imagining the swish of her skirts as she fled the room. And why wouldn’t she flee him? He’d been his most boorish toward her. But there was no help for it. She was an exceedingly unsuitable female, no matter how interesting he found her. The best thing to do was send her running.

He rose from the bed and strolled aimlessly about the chamber to give her several more moments to find her way back to the ballroom before following. It would not do to be spotted too closely in her wake.

What he’d said was true. Wagging tongues wouldn’t harm him, but what he hadn’t said was that he did not wish for her to become fodder for the gossip mill. He imagined with her shady pedigree she already endured a fair share of censure.

Contrary to what he’d shown of himself, he did possess a heart. Even if only a small, charred bit of one. That was the only thing left to him after the last ten years of war . . . years of watching his family and comrades die all around him, his country dwindle and wither like something rotting on the vine.

He needed to make a good match. Simple as that. It wasn’t a matter of want . . . this needed to be done.

Unbidden, the image of Miss Hadley rose in his mind once again. He saw her flushed cheeks when she’d stumbled from the armoire, and a smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. She was quite correct in her accusations. He had not needed to touch her so intimately. He hadn’t needed to, but he had. He’d been unable to stop himself.

She smelled of brisk, wild winds and verdant hills. She’d reminded him of home. The hills and mountains of Maldania. And her skin had been as soft as silk. His fingers twitched at his side in memory.

The smile slipped from his mouth as he carried that memory further. She’d rebuffed him. True, he’d not been his most charming, but his crown alone usually had women throwing themselves at him.

He shook his head as if to clear it of thoughts of her. This was frustrated desire, nothing more. She must plague him because his tryst with Lady Kirkendale had been interrupted. He simply suffered from unfulfilled lust. Nothing more.

There was nothing about her that would normally attract him. She was not at all his sort of woman. Not her sun-browned skin, not her waspish tongue, especially not the unfortunate circumstances of her birth. All combined to make her a female beneath his notice. At least she should be far from his consideration. Some English nobleman in need of funds might deem her acceptable, but not a future king of Maldania.

And yet she had his full notice.

She was precisely the sort he’d put up as his mistress and keep in one of the family’s seaside estates, a safe distance from court. If he were here to find a mistress. If she would entertain such an offer.

He knew his duty. He would not fail. He’d find the perfect bride. One to fill his coffers and the nursery. A female who would breathe life back into his country. The needs of his heart or body did not bear consideration.

“Well, let’s hear it. How was your evening? Anything interesting to report?”

Grier covered her yawn with her hand and stared bleary-eyed at her father, a man she had only recently come to know.

The faint tinge of dawn painted the air that crept in through the carriage curtains. Now she understood why the echelons of Society slept the day away. They didn’t fall into bed until sunrise.

Jack didn’t look the least tired as he gazed at her with bright, expectant eyes. No, in fact he looked invigorated after a night spent with the aristocrats among whose ranks he so badly wanted to be counted. She grimaced. Enough so that he suddenly decided his illegitimate offspring were worth acknowledging.

Grier glanced at her half sister. If either of them could gain him access to that glittering world through marriage, then they were suddenly worth something in his eyes.

Grier was no fool. She didn’t look to the older man seated across from her and anticipate he would harbor a soft spot for her. Essentially he bought her presence in his life. He hadn’t been struck with sudden tender feelings for the daughters he never knew. She accepted that. She, in turn, would never hold a warm place for him in her heart, either. His love was not something she had spent her life missing. She’d had a father. The man her mother married after Jack Hadley tossed her aside. The man she had called Papa. He’d comforted her and shielded her as best he could from the cruel world that would punish a child for being illegitimate.

Her mother’s husband had taught her to ride and fish and shoot. He’d never treated her like another man’s daughter. He’d treated her like his own.