“So,” the girl said quietly. “You have come to spy on me.”
Kamran heard the distinct rustling of fabric, and he closed his eyes. He was a gentleman of honor. He would not imagine her undressing.
He would not.
“Yes,” he said.
More fabric swishing; something hitting the ground with a dull thud. “If that is indeed true,” she said, “I wonder why you would dare admit it.”
“And I wonder why you would doubt me,” he said with impressive calm. “You told me you would slit my throat if I failed to give you an honest answer.”
“Then you, of all people, should understand my suspicion. Certainly it will not surprise you to hear that none before you have ever accepted my terms.”
“None before me?” He smiled to himself. “Do you often find yourself in a position of negotiation with spies and cutthroats?”
“A great deal too often, in fact. Why—did you think yourself the first to find me a subject of interest?” A pause. “You may turn around now.”
He did.
She’d pinned her hair back, buttoned a clean dress up to her throat. It had not helped. The modest frock had done nothing to diminish her beauty. He felt bewitched as he drank her in, lingering too long on her arresting eyes, the delicate curve of her lips.
“No,” he said softly. “I daresay I’m not the first.”
She stared at him then, surprise rendering her, for a moment, inhumanly still. Kamran watched with some amazement as a faint blush burned across her cheeks. She turned away, clasped her hands together.
Had he made her nervous?
“I gave you my word,” she said quietly, “that I would leave you unharmed in exchange for your honesty. I meant what I said, and I will not now go against myself. But you must leave at once.”
“Forgive me, but I will not.”
She looked up sharply. “I beg your pardon?”
“You asked for a confession in exchange for my life, which I readily offered. But I never once promised to forfeit my task. I will understand, of course, if you’d rather not stay while I rifle through your things—and I suspect you are anxious to return to work. Shall I wait to begin until you are gone?”
The girl’s lips parted in shock, her eyes widening with disbelief. “Are you as mad as you sound, sir?”
“That is twice now that you have called me sir,” he said, a slight smile on his lips. “I can’t say I care for it.”
“Pray, what is it you would prefer I call you? Do tell menow and I’ll make a note to forget in future, as there is little chance our paths will cross again.”
“I should be very sorry if that were the case.”
“You say this even as you kick me out of my own room so that you might surveil it? Do you jest,sire?”
Kamran nearly laughed. “I see now that you do know who I am.”
“Yes, we are both well informed. I know your legacy as surely as you know mine.”
Kamran’s smile faded altogether.
“Did you think me a simpleton?” she asked angrily. “Why else would the prince of Ardunia be sent to spy on me? It was you who sent those men to kill me last night, was it not?” She turned away. “More fool me. I should have listened to the devil.”
“You are mistaken,” Kamran said with some heat.
“On what point? Do you mean to say you are not responsible for the attempt on my life?”
“I am not.”
