His eyes gleam with humor. “Goals!”
The amusement is tempered slightly by the barest hint of empathy in their warm golden-brown depths. Then I curse myself for noticing any emotion in those pretty gold-flecked eyes in the first place. Or that they’re pretty at all. In fact, they looked like gold-flecked mud. Mud-flecked mud, even.
Yes, that’s much better.
My gaze drifts down the rest of his face, taking in the untidy sable scruff on his hard jaw, a slightly hooked nose, and the lushest lips I’ve ever seen on a man. It’s just my luck that this nosy palace worker is more attractive than any of the men in Coban. Unfairly so.
“The queen doesn’t like you,” he says idly.
“Thank you for enlightening me,” I lash out. “Don’t you have work to do? A tree to trim or something?”
“Don’t worry,” he says with a crooked smile. “She doesn’t like anyone.”
“Not even you?”
“Especially me.”
I frown at the strange answer. “Why?”
“I expect because I’m not very good with my tree-trimming duties.”
Maybe it’s his sardonic answer or the hint of a smirk on his lips, but I get the sudden sense that I’m the butt of some unspecified joke that amuses him greatly. My simmering anger finds an easy target. “Then perhaps you should focus on doing your job instead of pretending to fall off walls and ogling people.”
“Is that so?” he says, lips parting into a fuller smile and drawing my attention to his slightly crooked white front teeth. I ignore the fact that I find the imperfection appealing, as well as the appearanceof a deep dimple in his left cheek that gives him a boyish look, though he’s older than me for sure. Maybe late twenties. “What if Ilikeogling people?” he says, eyes sparkling with mirth, most certainly at my expense.
“There are better ways to entertain yourself.”
“I don’t know about that. I like to imagine things about the people I see.”
Unable to resist, I point to one of the women who had laughed at me earlier. “What do you imagine about her?”
An obscenely thick fringe of sooty eyelashes sweeps down as he squints in her direction, and I have a moment of pure envy, wishing mine were half as long. “House of Regulus. She’s the daughter of a powerful alderman and a doctor. She, too, has an aptitude for medicine, but wants more than the life of her parents. She dreams of running away and being rescued by a handsome prince.”
“That’s original.” I wrinkle my nose. “You know, not every woman wants to be rescued by some prince. Perhaps she’ll rescue herself.”
The gardener nods, clasping his hands behind his back as if we’re having a scintillating debate. “I thought every girl dreamed of being rescued by a prince.”
“Maybe when they’re five. As they get older, they learn that men—gardeners and princes alike—are arrogant, self-absorbed, and overrated.”
His eyes settle on me, an enigmatic expression flicking across that stupidly handsome face. “Good to know.”
“And what do you imagine when you look at me?” The question falls from my lips before I can stop it, and I immediately want to kick myself.
The gardener studies me with such obvious relish at the opening I’ve given him that I almost groan. He strokes his scruffy chin with his thumb and forefinger. “I see someone who has never left her home before.” My mouth tightens, a biting retort at the ready, but theman continues, his mischievous gaze sliding to my gloveless fingers. Intrigue flares in his eyes for a brief moment, and I turn my wrist to hide the small burn scars from my kiln, the freshest of them still raised and red. “The daughter of a blacksmith or a weapons maker. I see a strong spirit and liking for honest hard work. You wear your heart on your sleeve and you don’t trust easily. You aim to please, but I also see fire and an impetuous will.”
Taken aback, I can’t decide whether he means to be insulting. The corner of his mouth tips up, and I gather that he’s baiting me. I arch an eyebrow and keep my tone even. “You seeallthat from looking at me?”
“You asked. So, was I right?”
“You couldn’t be further from the truth. My father owns an inn in Coban—the finest inn in all of Coban, in fact. My heart is in my body where it belongs, I don’t trust strangers, and I aspire only to please myself.” I frown, oddly irritated at the succinct and too-close-to-home summary. “You should stick to tree trimming. People don’t like being stared at. Or judged.”
“Including you?”
“Especially me,” I say, mocking his previous words.
At that, the humor leaches from his eyes. “You should get used to it. Many people, including our esteemed crown prince, will be staring at you. You are, after all, only here for his viewing pleasure.”
Outraged at his deprecating tone, I open my mouth and shut it just as quickly. I don’t want to give the crowd in the courtyard any more reason to notice me and think me a fool, and arguing with this stranger of no importance is the perfect way to do that. I spin on my heel and make my way back toward the palace entrance, where veiled handmaidens wait to greet the arriving guests.
