In a series of sinuous movements that were far more graceful than she would have anticipated from a man of his size, the king seated himself opposite Tansy. The effect was almost comical—the armchair could scarcely contain him. He stretched his long legs before him, crossing them at the ankle, looking comfortable and quite at home, as if he expected to remain there for an indeterminate span of time.
How she hoped and prayed Princess Anastasia would climb through the window soon, and for more reasons than merely her concern for her friend’s safety. The king was still far too near. She shifted on her seat, her discomfort growing, her cheeks warming beneath his steady regard.
“Will the guards not wonder at how much time you have spent within the princess’s chamber?” she asked, plucking at her skirt to occupy her restless fingers and mind both.
He drummed his own long fingers on the stuffed armrests of his chair. “It’s none of their concern.”
“But the princess is unwell,” she quietly reminded him of their carefully crafted lie. “Surely it is unusual for you to linger in the sickroom for so long. It will be remarked upon.”
And her unspoken fear was that any remarks that went back to King Gustavson in Boritania would fall upon all their heads with the weight of a hundred boulders. Every bit as deadly too. Tansy had seen, firsthand, the death and destruction the king was capable of. He was systematically killing the St. George line. She feared the princess was next, despite Gustavson having arranged the match with King Maximilian and agreeing to send her to London for the pomp and circumstance of a formal betrothal announcement.
But King Maximilian did not seem to be afflicted by the worries that had been plaguing Tansy ever since the marriage decree had been given by Gustavson several months ago in Boritania.
He shrugged indolently. “I am the King of Varros. Let them remark.”
“Word could reach King Gustavson,” she tried again, unable to shake the misgiving haunting her, for it was her duty to protect the princess as well as serve her. “The damage of scandal and gossip would not taint you. It would, however, affect Princess Anastasia.”
“I very much doubt that word will reach him of anything that occurs here in London.” A small, lethal smile curved his lips, as if he found the notion amusing. “My reputation precedes me.”
His reputation was terrifying. It was said that he had gouged out his enemy’s eyes with his own bare fingers. Difficult to comprehend when her gaze flitted again to those tapered fingers now, their blunt-tipped nails clean and neatly cut. It was also said that he had smeared the blood of enemy soldiers on his face to terrify his opponents on the battlefield. He had won Varros from a cousin with dubious claims to the throne, but the war had raged on for many years before he had finally done so. Tansy had ceased reading accounts of the king and his misdeeds after a point, too sick to her stomach to continue.
She swallowed hard against a rising surge of disquiet, wondering how it was possible for a man to be so beautifully formed, so handsome and debonair, and yet harbor the soul of a merciless monster beneath his façade.
“Of course, Your Majesty,” she managed.
“Of course,” he repeated, a new sharpness entering his voice, though he spoke quietly to keep his voice from carrying. “You say that a great deal, my lady. I suspect it is to keep yourself from voicing your true opinion on matters.”
His observation sank its teeth into her like the fangs of a serpent, unexpected and deadly. Worse, he was not wrong. As a lady-in-waiting, she was accustomed to being overlooked in the royal court. She was on the periphery. A gilded adornment to the princess, there for her in every way necessary. No one noticed her.
Not until this man.
She offered him a tight smile. “I haven’t an opinion on matters. It is not my place to do so.”
He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his well-muscled thighs, his expression intent. “What lies you spin, Lady Tansy. Do you think me a fool?”
Tansy’s shoulders tensed. “Of—” She paused, inhaling swiftly as she realized she had been about to sayof courseyet again. “I do not, Your Majesty,” she corrected.
“But you must, or else you would not…what is the word…patronizeme.”
They were conducting their conversation in English, for it was as familiar to Tansy as Boritanian, a language that was commonly used at court. She spoke no Varrosian. King Maximilian, however, possessed a fluency in all three languages. And there was something about the way he uttered that lone word,patronize, rolling ther, that slid over her like warmhoney. Like the wicked promise of more when she knew she could not trust it.
“I would never patronize Your Majesty,” she reassured him, inwardly issuing yet another fervent prayer that Princess Anastasia would return imminently.
In the next second, preferably.
But a glance at the window proved that her request had gone unanswered.
“You would, and you have.”
His insistence had her jerking her gaze back to him, finding him studying her as if she were a mystery he intended to solve. His dark eyes glittered as they clashed with hers. She wished she could read the emotion in their brown-black depths, and yet she could not any more than she could understand him. The king was an enigma.
A dangerous, fearsome, tremendous, vexinglyhandsomeenigma.
“I must beg Your Majesty’s forgiveness for any slight I have paid,” she managed past the myriad of emotions threatening to clog her throat and steal her voice.
“How will you beg it?” he asked, raising a brow as if in challenge.
For a moment, she had no answer. But then she clung to her sangfroid, which had stood her in good stead through King Gustavson’s court of vipers.
