“You’re my brother, Theo. I know you better than my own reflection, don’t try to tell me everything is fine with you when I can see plain as day you’re in the middle of some crisis.”
A servant rounded the corner ahead, eyes wide with interest as she bobbed a quick curtsy before moving past them. Theo puta hand to his head, wishing it would settle for a moment so he could think.
“Come to my suite,” he told his brother. “We can talk privately there.”
Xavier fell into step beside him, saying nothing further until they reached the sitting room of Theo’s guest suite.
“All right, out with it,” the older prince said, as soon as the door was closed. “What in the Peninsula is happening to you, Theo?”
“I’m not well, I think,” Theo acknowledged. He sank into an armchair. “Nothing serious, but my head feels like it’s on an anvil this morning.”
“All right,” Xavier said slowly. “You have my sympathy, but are you really trying to tell me that an aching head has stripped you of the ability to recognize when I’m teasing you? You just about took my head off back there, Theo, surely you knew I was joking?”
“Yes, of course I knew,” Theo said wearily, leaning his head back and closing his eyes.
“Well, I didn’t think you usually cared about that kind of thing.”
“I don’t,” said Theo shortly. “I’m just a bit short on patience this morning, that’s all.”
“Oh, that’s all, is it?” Xavier said shrewdly. “Nothing to do with having a weak spot for a certain golden-haired goddess with eyes any man would gladly drown himself in and features more delicate than a woodland sprite’s?”
Theo didn’t lift his head as he grunted. “You’ve always had a talent for speaking pretty nonsense, Xavier.”
“Only it’s not nonsense this time, is it?” Xavier asked, his tone more earnest than Theo had anticipated. “All those things really are true of your princess.”
“I suppose they are,” Theo said softly. “But I would never have thought those words, or said them even if I did.”
He looked his brother over, from the carelessly dashing way his hair swept over his forehead to the jaunty line of his jaw. Xavier was—always had been—the kind of man women lost their heads over. Theo had never imagined he would envy that. But then he’d never imagined any woman would have the effect Elowen had on him. Try as he might, he couldn’t keep the edge of bitterness from his voice.
“I’m about as prettily spoken as a swamp troll. You were right, she is deserving of pity for being tied to the dull brother. I have no doubt she’d prefer you if she’d been given the choice. You’d know just how to give her what her heart craves.”
“Whatever my reputation, I’ll restrain myself from seducing your betrothed,” Xavier said, with the self-deprecating humor that made him so popular among their set back home. “Theo, old boy, this isn’t like you. Dare I say it, you’re mooning! Are things really going so poorly with your princess?”
“She’s not my princess,” Theo said softly, his elbows on his knees now and his eyes on the rug beneath his feet. “I mean, I suppose she is my princess, or will be. Butshe’snot mine. I can’t win her, Xavier.”
Xavier sat down in the chair next to him, searching his face in a way Theo could feel without looking up.
“What’s going on, Theo? She seemed friendly enough toward you just now. Why are you convinced that you can’t win her over?”
Theo closed his eyes for a moment, willing his head to settle down. A fire was burning strongly in the hearth of the sitting room, but it still felt so unseasonably cold.
“She wants me to want her,” he said softly. The words felt dangerous, reckless, something he shouldn’t say even to Xavier. But he seemed to have very little control of his words thatmorning, and they slipped out into the stillness of the private moment. “But I can’t, Xavier.”
“Whyever not?” Xavier demanded, his voice not hushed like Theo’s had been. “Don’t eat me for saying it, Theo, but she’s just about the most delicious morsel I’ve ever seen.”
Irritation flared in Theo, but after one look at Xavier’s rakishly raised eyebrow, it was replaced by weary resignation. “You know I hate when you talk like that, Xavier,” he said. “Don’t waste your act on me, you don’t fool me as much as you think you do.”
He saw surprise flash across Xavier’s face. For a moment his brother looked cornered, struggling for what to say. Apparently no roguish quip came to mind this time, because he quickly changed the topic.
“Enough riddles, Theo. What’s amiss between you and your betrothed? Is her intellect dull under all that dazzling beauty? Or is she unprincipled? Do you worry she won’t be faithful?”
“Don’t talk about her like that,” Theo snapped. “She’s perfect. There’s nothing wrong with her, it’s me.”
“So why don’t you want her, then?” Xavier demanded.
“Not want her?” Theo groaned again. He buried his face in his hands, his voice coming out muffled. “It’s ripping me apart how much I want her. She’s all I can think about, it’s going to consume me, and her, too.”
“Why would that be a bad thing?” Xavier protested, incredulous at this display from his stoic brother.
