“To anyone with a tongue capable of tasting,” he quipped.
“I find tea to be delicious,” she argued with him, allowing herself to be nettled over his customary arrogance.
Perhaps if she clung to that, she wouldn’t be thinking about how she would soon be an ocean away from him.
“We shall have to agree to disagree on the matter,” Princess Anastasia intervened brightly.
“It’s fortuitous that you’re here, Princess,” Maxim said. “There’s a delicate matter I need to discuss with you.”
Tansy’s heart plummeted. Did he truly intend to speak privately with his betrothed before her?
“Can it not wait?” she asked desperately. “I cannot think such a discussion appropriate for me to intrude upon.”
Maxim gave her a look that smoldered with intensity, a look of such blatant tenderness and—dare she think it—adoration that she swayed, feeling as if she were back on the ship that had brought them to Varros.
“There’s no intrusion,” he said quietly. “Indeed, it’s a conversation best held with the two of you at once.”
She couldn’t fathom what manner of conversation that was.
“Please, Your Majesty,” she said weakly, “do not force me to participate.”
“I’ll not force you, but as the discussion very much concerns you and your future, you may wish to join us,” he drawled.
They hadn’t spoken of the future since she’d been wounded. Instead, their every interaction had been almost insufferably polite. Maxim inquired after her health, her strength, the pain in her arm. He hadn’t talked about the inevitability that she would leave Varros, leave him. And this time, she wouldn’t be returning.
“I’ve already told you I won’t remain here in the capacity you request of me,” she reminded him tightly, unwilling to say the wordmistressbefore Princess Anastasia, for it was too uncomfortable.
“That’s just as well,” he said, a faint smile curving his lips. “Because there is only one capacity in which I want you to stay here in Varros.”
Confusion washed over her.
Surely he didn’t mean what her fragile, foolish heart dared to hope he meant. Did he?
“Princess Anastasia,” he said, turning to her friend, who was watching the two of them bemusedly, as if seeing them both for the first time. “You are in love with another. Are you not?”
The princess nodded. “You know it’s so.”
“We find ourselves in a similar predicament,” he continued. “I propose a solution.”
Every part of her caught on those three words. A similar predicament. Was Maxim saying…
Surely not.
It couldn’t be that he was saying…that he loved her.
Could it?
Tansy couldn’t seem to speak, but fortunately, the princess found her tongue first.
“And what is your solution?” she asked Maxim warily.
“I propose that we both marry the people we love,” he said simply.
“But the betrothal bargain,” Princess Anastasia said. “You promised me you would aid in Theodoric claiming the throne in return for marrying me.”
Maxim nodded, his countenance going stern. “I’ve spoken with your brother. He knows that Varros will proudly support him with men and resources and help him to dethrone the usurper king. I’ve also told him that we haven’t any desire to marry each other, and that there’s only one woman I want to make my queen.”
Tansy’s heart pounded hard.
