“Tell him I didn’t cheat and that I won’t kiss him. I’m going back to sleep,” I whisper.
She frowns. “I’m under instruction to report back. If you don’t come with me, he’s going to come here himself.”
I groan and push myself up and out of bed, determined to end this business with him once and for all.
She leads me across the dark of Kensington Park, through the sunken garden, and into the orangery, a cavernous greenhouse of blooming citrus trees. The smell of orange blossoms hits me like a wall, and in the dark, the trees stretch toward the ceiling like spindly skeletons.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
She turns back to me, the moonlight streaking across her face. She’s got a tidy sort of face, her brown hair pulled back into a bun. I wonder if she’s another of Emmett’s girls.
“Charlotte Milbank, but everyone calls me Lottie.”
Lottie’s steps are quick and confident, like this is a route she knows well. She stops in front of the largest orange tree, one whose leaves brush the glass ceiling, and pushes it aside to reveal a nondescript door.
“I have no lantern. You must stay very close.”
I reach my arms out and feel cool, rough stone around me on all sides.
We’re in a tunnel.
My ragged breathing and the scraping of our shoes against the earth floor are the only sounds as we wind through the serpentine tunnels.
Before I can ask where we are, Lottie presses on a seam in the wall, and it swings open to reveal a room.
Suddenly there is a rush of fresh air and a strong hand in mine, helping me over the threshold. The room we’ve entered is warm, homey even, with teetering stacks of books and walls covered in tapestries. “Good evening,” Emmett says with an infuriating smile, like he never doubted I’d come.
Against the wall opposite the fireplace is a four-poster bed covered in a forest green quilt.We’re in his bedroom.
I’m too anxious to sit, and I don’t want to give Emmett the impression that I intend to stay, so I position myself near the fireplace, next to the door.
Something rustles in the sheets, and I jump with a shriek. “What isthat?”
Emmett shoves both hands into the quilt and scoops up a tiny, wriggling creature with scraggly wire hair and eyes bulging a little too far out of its skull.
“Thisnoble beastis Pig.”
Emmett tucks the little dog against his chest and gives it a kiss on top of its fuzzy head. “Bram has his hunting dogs. I have Pig. My dad gave him to me for my fifth birthday. As the story goes, I burst right into tears and asked why he’d given me a piglet, and the name stuck. He stays mostly in my room. Doesn’t seem to like the smell of the queen.”
His father, the queen’s husband. “You must be close, you and your father,” I say.
He turns suddenly to rearrange a nearby stack of books. “Something like that,” he says tightly.
When he turns around again, the bravado is firmly back in place. “You told me to find you somewhere more private. Never let it be said that I do things by halves.”
“I was speaking hypothetically. I didn’t expect to be kidnapped by your henchman.”
Lottie laughs. “This henchman is off to bed, good luck you two!”
“No, take me with you!” I protest.
Lottie doesn’t listen; she shuts the hidden door behind her, leaving Emmett and me alone.
I stare him down, though I don’t cut a very intimidating figure in my lace-trimmed nightdress.
Emmett furrows his brow as he sinks down onto the edge of his bed. “Why do you dislike me so much?”
“I—”
