My ears twitched, latching onto a sound I hadn’t heard since the night in the ballroom.
Footsteps.
Soft and deliberately quiet as if someone was well used to stalking.
I had two choices.
Sit up and meet my end awake or...play dead and hope it didn’t hurt too much.
I hated my lack of courage as I forced my body to completely relax, sprawling on the grass like I didn’t have a care in the world. Softening my face and keeping my eyes closed, I focused on keeping my breathing low as a shadow fell over me.
Not a cloud.
Not a bird.
A shadow as tall and as cold as the Grim Reaper himself.
Something wet touched my hand, followed by the needling brushes of whiskers.
It took every trick to stay ‘asleep’ and not cower away from the quiet chuffing of the panther as it sniffed its way up my arm. Its huge paws caught in my long hair that I’d fanned above my head, the gentle tugging on my scalp sending a wash of goosebumps down my spine.
“Sleeping?” Lucien hissed, his voice barely above a pissed off whisper. “How the hell is shesleeping? Why isn’t she whimpering or plotting my demise like the others?”
The panther huffed as if replying, the heavy thuds of its paws circling me to return to the shadow’s side.
My heart pounded as the air changed, turning sharp and potent the longer Lucien stood over me. With a quiet curse, he padded toward my commandeered pavilion.
I sighed heavily as I had a short reprieve while he investigated whatever he’d come to see.
“She’s even eaten most of the food and drank the wine,” he muttered, his shadow returning to block my sun. The panther grumbled as if commiserating with my oddness, only for Lucien to add, “How does she even have an appetite?” He toed my ankle, our bare skin prickling with connection.
He must be barefoot again.
No wonder I’d barely heard him arrive.
“Where did they find such a useless spy?”
Spy?
There were spies now? Seducers and assassins and now spies?
Anyone with eyes could tell I didn’t fit into any of those categories.
My stomach tightened at how I must seem to him: a mentally unstable woman who’d made herself quite at home, stuffing her face, drinking her fill, and lounging about in a negligee.
I’d found clothes in the wardrobe—beautiful gowns and skirts, blouses and trousers, but when my system was this strung out, anything tight or restricting only added to my misery. So I’d opted for a cream satin nightgown with long flowing sleeves and a hem long enough to trail on the floor. Its matching robe had embroidered peonies on the front. It covered a lot, yet wasundeniably feminine and offered no protection whatsoever if he wanted to hurt me.
“She’s drunk,” he spat. “She drank so much, she’s passed out in a stupor.”
The panther grunted and sniffed my foot.
“You’d think they’d get sick of this after twenty years. I won’t fall for their tricks, and they can’t kill me. Yet they keep fucking trying.”
It took all my effort to keep my eyes closed and continue faking sleep, especially as curiosity scratched to know more. Tolookat him. To see why his tone held both exhaustion and fury, despair and wrath.
His shadow suddenly dropped beside me, shading half my face and leaving the other growing warm with sunshine. I did my best not to react, even as his fingertips landed on my brow, ran down my nose, and traced my bottom lip.
“She looks so weak,” he breathed as if he truly believed I’d passed out from too much alcohol. “So useless.”
