Wicked in Your Arms (Forgotten Princesses #1)(46)

“Leave him be,” the earl snarled. “He needs to be schooled on what happens when he falls short on his duties.”

Grier lifted her gaze. “You’re vile. He’s just a boy.”

“And you need to mind to your affairs, woman, and guard your tongue when addressing me. You’re lucky to even be a guest here.”

A low growl emanated from Sev. “Have a care when addressing Miss Hadley.”

The boy’s face flushed with both pain and embarrassment as he struggled to sit up. He leveled suspiciously wet eyes on his attacker. “You’re just angry because your daughter ran away with a groom!”

The earl’s eyes bulged. “You insolent little whelp!” He lunged for the boy, his arm pulled back to deliver a backhand slap.

She moved in and shielded the lad. “You’ll not harm him again.”

The earl wagged a sausagelike finger in her face. “I warned you to—”

Before he could even finish his sentence, Sev stepped in and knocked the earl off his feet with a deft punch to the face. The crack of bone on bone rang out in the stable.

The earl landed with a solid thud on his backside.

Grier gaped, certain she had just not watched Sev strike a gentleman in defense of a servant.

“What’d you do that for?” the earl cried in muffled tones, clutching his afflicted nose where blood trickled thickly between his fingers.

Sev shrugged. “Never been partial to men who bully children and women.”

“Well, you can forget ever marrying my daughter!”

Sev chuckled. “Were I even still interested in marrying your daughter, she’s presumably on the way to Gretna to marry your groom.”

“I’ll have it annulled!” he cried.

Sev shrugged again as he moved to take Grier’s elbow. “I don’t really care what you do—so long as I never see you strike another servant in my presence or speak to Miss Hadley with such disrespect again.”

Grier’s head reeled. Why should he care how others addressed her?

“Will you be all right, lad?” Sev asked the boy, who stared up at him with adulation.

He nodded his coppery head. “Thank you, milord.”

Sev ruffled the lad’s hair. “Off with you.”

Still astonished over all that had just transpired, Grier watched in bemusement as the boy scampered away on his twig-thin legs.

“Come.” Sev grasped her elbow, his touch light but nonetheless searing. She felt the imprint of each finger through the fabric of her gown.

She spared a glance over her shoulder for the earl as Sev led her away. He still lay sprawled on the ground, a hand pressed to his bleeding nose, staring after them in total bewilderment.

“Why’d you do that?” she whispered as they strode from the stables.

“No one should treat another person like that. I don’t care who they are, servant or king. No one is so privileged they can simply beat another person when the whim seizes them.”

She slid her gaze up at him, studying his fixed, resolute expression. Something loosened inside her chest and a very real panic stole over her as she realized he was nothing she had thought him to be. She liked him in that moment. Even admired him.

Once inside the house, she pulled her arm free of him, the desperate need to escape him stronger than ever as a sudden terrible realization seized her.

Her face flashed hot and cold.

She just might be drawn to the prince for more than his delicious good looks and mesmerizing voice. She might in fact be—

The pulse at her neck hammered. “I-I have to go. My sister . . . is waiting.”

He released her and crossed his arms over his broad chest, watching her in that probing, intent way of his.

She backed away, wringing her hands anxiously as her slippered feet slid over the slick marbled foyer.

“We made . . . plans,” she continued lamely.

Still, he said nothing, simply continued to stare at her with his gold, devouring eyes—seeming to see right through her, past her fabrication to the truth.

With a muttered parting, she lifted her skirts and whirled around. Her slippers pounded up the steps, but she refused to look back at him again.





Chapter Seventeen

Sev watched Grier hurry up the stairs in a flurry of skirts and knew she was fleeing him. His brow furrowed as he watched her depart.

Something had changed.

She had stared at him with almost fear in her eyes. Before there had always been mockery, even scorn when she gazed at him. At least when he wasn’t kissing her and her eyes weren’t clouded with desire.

But he’d seen none of those things just now.

He’d read only finely-honed panic in the liquid dark of her eyes—as if she had just come face-to-face with a deadly predator that might unleash itself on her any moment. She studied him as though he was that something dangerous to her.

And perhaps he was.

He knew only one thing for certain: he would not be leaving England until they settled this thing between them. Until he had Grier Hadley in his bed.

Only then, he rationalized, would he be able to exorcise her from where she had taken up residence inside him—in his very blood. Only then could he follow through and do what he came here to do.

“Ah, cousin. There you are! Been looking all over for you!”