Wicked in Your Arms (Forgotten Princesses #1)(16)

Arms linked, Grier and her sister advanced up the steps side-by-side.

“It will be a small group,” Cleo voiced, and Grier wasn’t certain who she was trying to reassure—herself or Grier. “No mad crush of another holiday ball or soiree.”

“There is that,” Grier agreed.

“And we’ll be away from Town for an entire week.”

A smile curled her lips all the way up to her bedchamber. The thought of fresh air and trees and unfettered winds lifted her spirits. She wouldn’t have to visit Hyde Park for a ride on one of her father’s placid mares. The next time she climbed atop a horse she would race the wind. The breeze would tear at her eyes. She’d feel the pins tug loose in her hair.

A sleepy-looking maid arrived and helped her from her gown into her night rail. When the girl offered to help her with her hair, Grier waved her away, unaccustomed to being waited on hand and foot.

Sitting at her dressing table, she removed each pin, one by one, until the mass of auburn hair fell past her shoulders. Several curling wisps that refused to grow as long as the rest of her hair framed her face. She ran her fingers through the thick strands, massaging her tired scalp.

Picking up her brush, she tackled her hair until it crackled and gleamed in the low glow of firelight. She paused, staring at her reflection. Even in the dim light, the brown freckles spattering her nose stood out clear as day.

“I’m not that brown,” she muttered to her reflection, her tone defensive, as if she addressed one of the gossiping biddies from tonight who’d called her dusky. It was simply that all the ladies in the ton preferred a paleness usually reserved for the dead. Grier liked color in her skin.

“And I’m not old.” She set her brush down with a clack and climbed into bed, sinking deep in the center of the soft mattress and wondering why thoughts of a certain prince still plagued her. Her cheeks washed hot and cold at the memory of him. The stolen moments in the wardrobe played so vividly in her head.

It was almost as if he were there, beside her, whispering his taunts, touching her with hands that were far too bold, too callused to belong to a blueblooded prince.

She’d never reacted to Trevis this way. Rolling onto her side, she allowed herself to think about her former employer, careful that she did not collide into any of the humiliation that usually accompanied thoughts of him.

He’d been her best friend since childhood, comfortable and constant—he even stood up to those who would bully her. She thought they would spend the rest of their lives together. His kisses had been nice . . . but apparently that hadn’t been desire. Not true desire. She recognized that now. She knew.

After what she felt tonight in that armoire, she knew she’d been wrong. Rather appalling when she considered the prince had not even truly kissed her. Her belly had never filled with butterflies before tonight, her lungs had never felt so tight she couldn’t draw breath.

Her cheeks warmed as she imagined what an actual kiss from Prince Sevastian would feel like. She curled into a small ball, drawing her legs tightly to her chest, and let her imagination take over.

She closed her eyes, visualizing his face as close as it had been earlier. Only in her mind his mouth closed over hers, his lips moved, caressed . . .

Her eyes flew open with a gasp. She had no business entertaining such fantasies. Certainly not for a wicked man who thought her beneath his regard—save for a quick tryst. Eyes wide, she stared out at her bedchamber. Suddenly the night loomed endlessly.

Snow started to fall in fat wet flakes, licking at the windowpanes. She rearranged the pillows behind her head and settled back. Slipping a hand beneath her cheek, she watched the flurries of white outside her window, letting the sight block out everything, everyone, especially her fleeting glimpse of Prince Sevastian’s smile.





Chapter Six

The dowager duchess’s country seat sat nestled amid manicured lawns. A great lake stretched before the massive gray-stone edifice like an inviting carpet of velvet blue. She could almost imagine the geese floating across the lake’s glassy surface in the spring.

Grier held her breath as they were ushered up several steps into a cathedrallike foyer and tried not to feel like a total impostor. The butler led them to the drawing room. Discordant music erupted from a pianoforte within, escaping through the tall, cracked double doors. The butler pushed the doors open and guided them to the gathered group.

Apparently they were the last to arrive. Several other guests took their tea, the dowager included. She sat in a great throne of a chair before the fire, reigning like a pasha over the assembly. Following the butler’s stiffly delivered introductions, the grande dame waved them to chairs with plump, beringed fingers.

Jack forged ahead like a blustery wind, greeting the dowager in jarring tones, heedless of the soft tones everyone else used as a young lady painfully banged her way on the pianoforte.

Grier and Cleo exchanged glances at the smirks her father earned from the half-dozen guests lounging in chaises and sofas about the room. Wealthy or not, invited or not, they were objects of disdain for the dowager’s guests.

Grier pasted a polite smile on her face and tried not to feel like a mongrel who snuck inside to escape the storm. She belonged here just as much as anybody else. She was an invited guest.

For some reason the image of Prince Sevastian’s face swam in her mind just then. He, of course, would disagree. He thought she was common and beneath such elevated company. The realization stung as it shouldn’t. She bit back a groan of frustration that he’d found a way into her head again.