Wicked in Your Arms (Forgotten Princesses #1)(26)

Just the same, she snatched the fabric from his hands, careful not to brush those blunt-tipped fingers. She turned and dabbed at her eyes.

After a moment, she peered over her shoulder, tensing, waiting, dreading for him to ask why she was upset. The last thing she wanted to do was unburden herself to him. As if he would care.

She dropped her gaze to the soft patch of linen in her hands and looked back at him curiously. Well. Perhaps he cared a little. At least enough to extend her the courtesy of his handkerchief. A fact which did not mesh with the opinion she’d formed of him.

Frowning, she motioned back toward the doors. “Any number of individuals would gladly grovel at your feet. You are wasting your exalted company on me.” She offered him back his handkerchief.

He shrugged, and accepted it, replying with an idleness that set her teeth on edge, “One can only abide so much groveling.”

“So you seek someone who will not pander to your ego, is that it? Is that why you’ve followed me? You wish to consort with someone who will denounce you for what you are?”

“And what am I?” His gold cat eyes danced with something dangerously akin to merriment as he stopped before her. Close. Too bloody close. “Do enlightenment me.”

She could smell him. He smelled like no man she’d ever smelled. Not that she went about sniffing men, but she’d stood close to a few. He smelled clean and crisp and . . . and manly. Was that a scent? A faint whiff of brandy teased her nose. Was this what a prince smelled like, then?

She swallowed, suddenly unable to speak. His nearness rattled her. Her tongue struggled to form the words.

“Come now, you claim to possess the courage to denounce me.” His gaze looked her up and down.

His seductive, rolling accents stroked like velvet against her skin. His voice was an aphrodisiac, impossible to resist. She took a hasty step back. She must. Otherwise she would be just what he judged her. Not a lady at all—no better than a light-skirt.

“I do!” she retorted. “You’re a bounder—and a snob!” She lifted her chin a notch. Not such a simple task when he stood so much taller than she. “You’ll not see me making a ninny of myself simply because you were born with a golden spoon in your mouth.”

Wrong, perhaps, but he became the perfect target for her ire—for the despondency that had filled her the moment she stepped within this room. He never knew what it felt like to be lost or lonely . . . or rejected for the circumstances of his birth. Indeed not. The circumstances of his birth afforded him great advantages.

“And why is that, Miss Hadley? Why are you so opposed to showing me the due reverence everyone else does?” he prompted, his keen eyes fixed on her in that ever unnerving way.

“Aside from the boorish things I overheard you say about me upon our first encounter?” For some reason she couldn’t make herself bring up the reminder of his proposition. Just the two of them, alone in a room no one would likely enter . . . it seemed a bad idea. As though she perhaps wanted him to remember. Wanted him to recall that he’d found her attractive and put his hands on her . . .

“Why should you take my words so personally? You are illegitimate. Daughter to a man with a most unsavory reputation.” Even as he spoke, his expression remained cool and impassive . . . as though he were not being the least insulting. “Fortune withstanding, you are exceedingly unsuitable.”

“And what are you?” she shot back, her temper simmering at a dangerous degree. She inhaled a deep, angry breath that lifted her chest high. “You’re nothing more than a penniless prince with a country drowning in debt!”

His mild expression dissolved. A steeliness entered his eyes, but still she pushed on. “Oh, indeed! I’ve heard the tales. Gossip flows both ways. Just as you’ve heard the rumors about me, I’ve heard the whispers about you. Your ego and arrogance are certainly without justification given your dire straits, and yet you still act the haughty prince—”

“I am a prince—with all the responsibilities and duties that accompany the title,” he countered. “It’s not an act, Miss Hadley.”

The tightness of his formal address should have alerted her to his sudden turn of mood, but still she could not hold her tongue.

Abruptly, he became the cause of it all—everything that was wrong in her world.

“A prince of a lost kingdom,” she shot back. She knew she was being unkind, but he had not been particularly kind to her. “I heard you lost half the men in your country to your war.”

His expression altered. The carved mask of stone cracked, and she knew she had pushed too far.

He grasped her arm and yanked her close, thrusting his face near hers. “It was never my war. I didn’t start it. I was scarcely a man when it began, but I had to face the hard reality of it. I sure as hell didn’t want it, but I ended it. Take heed, you know nothing of which you speak,” he hissed.

She glared down at where he gripped her arm. “Perhaps ladies in your country find primeval manhandling charming, perhaps even the delightful Lady Libbie would enjoy such treatment. Why don’t you seek her out and unhand me?”

He said nothing. Simply stared—clung to her arm with hard fingers.

Grier inhaled raggedly, her chest rising and falling with deep breaths. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so angry. And truth be told, it wasn’t all entirely at him. She found herself frustrated with this whole wretched scenario. Finding a husband . . . a man who only wanted to marry her for her sudden fortune . . . It was becoming quite the distasteful task, contrary to the hope she had felt when she started this whole endeavor.