She was convinced he was part retriever.
“Why do you limp?” he asked as she pressed her back against the cold, rough stone and tried to edge around him within the narrow corridor. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” she snapped, her patience already fraying. She wished her flask weren’t empty. She wished she hadn’t shown Sir Tristan the tunnels cutting through the palace walls. “What do you want?”
His hand braced against the wall, barring her way forward with his arm. “I need to talk to you. And you’ve been avoiding me.”
Olivia breathed out a slow sigh through her nose and warned, “You have three seconds to move before I punch you in the throat.” He knew better than to try and call her bluff because she was never bluffing.
His arm disappeared.
“Good boy,” she taunted, placing a special emphasis on the wordboy. She knew he hated that—her reminding him that he was younger than she was. “And I’ve been busy,” she added, setting off down the passage at a brisk clip. Her feet knew the way.
Unfortunately, Sir Tristan followed.
“No, you’ve been avoiding me,” he insisted again.
She rolled her eyes. Did he truly think she had nothing better to do than wait around for him to pay her a social call? Their kingdom was at war. She was Elmoria’sSpymaster.
She. Was. Busy.
But when he asked, “Did you receive the latest flowers I sent?” she could bite her tongue no longer.
“I did,” she said through clenched teeth. “Even though I told you to stop sending them.”
She didn’t have time for this. She needed to find Seraphina and ensure her friend was all right before she returned to this pamphlet business. Irritation gnawed at her. She should have found the culprit by now.
She had suspicions, of course, but suspicions were nothing without proof.
“If there’s another gift you would prefer,” Sir Tristan whispered, irritatingly calm when all she wanted to do was snarl and stab something, “simply tell me, and I will send that instead.”
Olivia stopped mid-stride and braced herself for their inevitable collision. Lacking spatial awareness, the knight crashed into her back just as she knew he would, threatening her balance.
“I don’t want gifts, Dacre,” she snapped to the air directly in front of her rather than bothering to turn and face him again in the impenetrable darkness. “I want you to start acting like you did before the Crow bashed you over the head.”
A strange desperation clawed at the pit of her stomach as she recalled the way things had been between them before—awkward, but professional. It had been better that way. Easier.
Far easier.
“I can’t do that, and you know it.”
She hated the way he said those words. Soft enough to make her heart skip. Low enough to make her shiver. She scowled at her own idiocy and set off down the corridor, veering toward an even narrower passage to the left that began a gentle slope downward.
The walls pressed in on both sides, leaving her elbows scraping against the rough stones as Sir Tristan still followed close behindher. Close enough that his words ruffled against her hair when he murmured, “I’ve been thinking, you know.”
Without missing a beat, she said, “A dangerous pastime for a man like you.”
Finally, that got a rise out of him. “I know I’m not as clever as you are, Olivia,” he said, sounding wounded again. “Just as I know that I’m your junior.”
Happy to dig the sharp knife of reality that much deeper into Tristan Dacre’s heart, she reminded him, “You’re nearly ten years my junior—”
His hand caught hers and pulled her up short, twirling her around to face him. “But I’m not an idiot. And I’m not a boy. I’m twenty-seven.” The air shifted, and suddenly, she knew Sir Tristan was kneeling. His breath now hit lower, just above her knuckles.
Her heart hammered wildly against her ribs. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. “Stop—”
“Nearly dying makes a man consider many things about his life, including his future.”
“Tristan, I saidstop—”
