“I thought I heard that, but to be honest, it’s such a rarity I couldn’t be entirely sure,” James said. He’d just walked into the room.
“Very funny.” Eden was not amused. “The point is, he has a lovely voice. And he and Samantha would make a wonderful pair up here. If he won’t sing with her, then he should let her at least throw knives at him.”
“I have already been shot because of her. I have no wish to be stabbed also.” It had been meant as a joke and one said in extremely poor taste, and as she walked in the exact minute he said the words, he could do nothing to take them back.
“Samantha,” he called to her, but she simply turned and walked out the door.
“That wasn’t very nice, brother, even if it was said in jest,” Somer snapped.
“If you hadn’t been provoking me, I would not have retaliated!” He leapt off the stage and ran after her, ignoring his family.
She wasn’t outside the door, or in the hallway. Pulling out his earplugs, he went left.
The Raven townhouse was huge. She could be anywhere. He’d listened for her footsteps. The sound of running feet up ahead told him which direction she was heading. Warwick followed.
She was going upstairs, and his guess was to her room. He’d need to move fast because he knew she had a lock on her door. Reaching the top, he ran down the hall and saw her skirts before she turned the corner.
“Samantha, stop!”
She didn’t, of course. Just like his sisters, she did what she wanted and never followed orders. He reached her room before she slammed the door and jammed his foot in it.
“Get out, Warwick!”
Pushing it open, he entered and shut it behind him. She’d been avoiding him, and when he saw her, she was ruthlessly polite. It was stopping, now, today.
“This is my bedroom. It is highly inappropriate of you to be in here.”
“I’ve been in this room as many times as my own.”
She had a sitting room that was very Samantha. Pastel furniture, a fireplace, and a large bookshelf. Patterned rugs and soft cream walls. Her bedroom was the same and through the only other door in here.
“Leave at once!” Her arms were folded now. Closed off to him. She looked like an angry fairy. Her hair was in a messy bun with plenty of loose tendrils, her dress pale blue and smeared with paint. James had forbidden her from painting in here, so he’d given her a room for that. She looked as she always did. Disturbingly beautiful.
“I said those words because my sister was provoking me. I’m sorry you heard them, Samantha. That was never my intention.”
“Because they are the truth.”
“They are not the truth. I was shot by a man who wanted to blackmail you and your family. It could have happened to any of us.”
“But it happened to you.”
He sighed. “Why are you behaving like this? You’ve avoided me and seem to have lost your sense of humor. In fact, Dorrie said you are like a different version of the Samantha we all know and l-love.” Why had he stumbled over that word?
“I have lost my sense of humor,” she said slowly, through her teeth, “because I’ve been abducted twice and then there was the small matter of my father being a traitor to the King!”
He winced at her shriek.
“Plus, the man I c— who is my friend, was shot and could easily have died.”
“But I did not, as Hannah and Lilly saved me.”
Had she been about to say she cared? Something was changing between them, and both of them knew it.
“The point is, Warwick, I have reason for my sense of humor to be off. Now you need to leave, as clearly, I need time alone with my attitude.”
“You are also never dramatic. The twins, yes, but not you. You’re happy, sweet, and too friendly to everyone.”
“Too friendly?” The words came out coated in ice.
