“Because I want to see it.”
“I’ll show you to where you will sleep.”
“Oh, you’ve a guest room? Lovely.”
“No. I do not have a guest room.”It’s a cave, he added in his head.
“Right. Of course. Lead the way.”
Chapter Eight
Ryan was lying when she said she wasn’t trying to manage him.
Manage himwas exactly what she was trying to do. He was caustic and evasive andlying to her—which, he lived in a cave (a very tidy cave, but still a cave); of course he would pretend not to know her. She could allow for some dancing about the truth from a man who’d been born in a castle and now lived in...this. But the situation wanted some productive way toevolve. There wasn’t time to evade and lie forever. And his one-sentence utterances must stop. There was so much to be said—years of history and explanations andstrategizingfrom both of them. He would simply have to find a way to be more forthcoming.
Ryan was adept at managing many things—household staff, the weekly budget for the market, her father, her sisters, sick tenants, gossiping villagers, just to name a few—but she had less of an idea how to manage a man. That is, she knew absolutely nothing about seduction.
No—that wasn’t true. She knew enough about seduction to identify this man’s keen interest in human contact. That is, human contactwithher.
Gabriel’s regard for her and the regard of other men was the difference between memorizing a book and glancing at the title. And wasn’t this an interesting development? It hadn’t happened in the forest—in the forest, she was a parcel to be borne about. But in the hour since he’d returned to the cottage, he’d stared at her like she was a cool stream and he’d not had water for a week.
And perhaps it was a bold leap—to go fromhisstare toherseduction—but she was not a child. She was inexperienced and had no idea what she was doing, but when he’d caught her up by the cupboard and held her against him, she realized the advantage.
In the end, seduction—even an amateur one—was an easy risk for Ryan to take, because Prince Gabriel was so very much more... spectacular (was there any other word?) than what she’d imagined. It would not be a difficult chore to seduce him—or toendeavorto seduce him.
She’d prepared herself to find a frail man; a degenerate man; a man who lived beneath a bridge and subsisted on grubs and raw fish. Despite these predictions, she’d come for him because almost anything was preferrable to the imposter prince.
But the real Prince Gabriel was the opposite of frail, and if he was degenerate, he was very slow to reveal it. He was virile, and robust—a horseman who could carry her over muddy hillsides. He was a man who hadn’t welcomed her snooping but also hadn’t thrown her out. At least not yet.
And he’d clutched her against him like he was fighting an invisible force that was trying to peel her away.
And her letters. He’d kept the letters she’d written to him.
And now who was being seduced?
Ryan licked her lips, watching him. He said nothing, and she raised her eyebrows, inviting him to begin the tour he so clearly did not want.
“Kitchen,” he said, gesturing to the tiny room.
“I do believe I’ve seen the kitchen.”
“Fire,” he said, pointing to the chair beside the fire.
A passage extended into darkness between the kitchen and the fireplace, and he took up a candle and stalked through the murk. Ryan followed, marveling at the uneven rock that formed the walls of this corridor. She skimmed a hand down the cold, hard surface, her fingertips snagging here and there on rough spots. It really was a cave. Gabriel d’Orleans, Prince of the Blood, resided in a cave. She thought back to his visits to Winscombe. How incredibly showy and overprovisioned they’d been. His family had arrived with a line of gleaming carriages they’d ferried from France. They’d worn what had seemed (even to her young eyes) unnecessary layers of formal clothes in metallic fabrics that reflected the sun. His parents brought so many servants Winscombe’s basement couldn’t house them all, and they’d been posted at the inn in the village.
And now he lived alone in a cave and referred to himself as Mr. Rein.
Ahead of them, Ryan heard the distinctive sound of falling water splashing against a hard surface. Was there a crag somewhere that allowed rainwater in? An underground river? They’d not walked three yards when the narrow blackness opened up into broader, higher blackness. She followed the light of the candle drawing a yellow line across the void. One by one, he lit sconces and a chamber came into view.
“Bedroom,” he said.
Ryan blinked into the newly illuminated space. Itwasa room, of sorts. There was a low ceiling formed of solid rock. It just missed the top of Gabriel’s head. There were walls, but they weren’t straight or flat. These were also rock, cut away by whatever natural force formed caves. There was no timber embedded here; they were in the belly of the hill.
In the lowest, tightest corner, he’d situated a bed, the mattress neatly covered with a quilt and fluffy pillows. There was a chair, a wardrobe, another desk, a basin. A mirror hung from a stake driven into the rock. The floor was wooden and a rug stretched beside the bed.
Ryan considered all of it, keeping her face pleasant. The room was modest but not uncomfortable—a little cold, but not suffocating. She stepped to the bed and fingered the coverlet and dug a bare toe into the rug.
“Have you seen it?” he asked, stepping behind her.
