I needed to process this.
Nobles strolled in their fancy getups. Yards of velvet, leather, and tapestry swept the floor. A copper fox dashed across the packed crowd, musicians blew on panpipes, and candles glowed from the windows. It was one of those fine moody nights when the kingdom smelled of damp soil and gingerbread.
Because I violated the formal dress code, a few wardrobe snobs cast my plain hood a disapproving look. I put on a show, sashaying as if the mantle had been custom tailored from satin until they bustled past.
Never mind them. The markings across my skin were pretty, if not painless, and I didn’t hide them for my sake. No, I hid them for Mama’s sanity.
As for the cloak not coming off when she wasn’t around like now, what could I say? When you got used to something, you stopped recognizing who you were without it. Habits like that stuck.
“Miss Aspen,” a nobleman gushed, strolling to my side.
I skidded in place. “Oh, um—”
“It’s a pleasure running into you again.”
Again. Fuck.
I recalled the dimples and square jaw, but it took a moment for his name to crop into my head. Samuel Something. Friendly chap, excellent kisser, inventive in bed, but not much of a conversationalist.
My polite smile widened into an exaggerated one as two other men flanked me. An off-duty valet and the court’s elite stonemason, who’d been appointed based on skill instead of birthright, unlike how it used to be with the Masters. Bows and greetings commenced, each of these competitors flashing one another cutthroat scowls. Apparently, I wasn’t supposed to notice.
“You’re looking enchanting tonight,” the stonemason complimented. “Such a fine, er, hood.”
“Heard you fought well today,” the valet added, shouldering his way in front of the others.
An eclectic group. Then again, I had acquired eclectic taste.
Normally, I partook and compared notes later with Cadence, Posy, and Vale. Speaking of whom, Briar’s ladies noticed the men surrounding me like a prayer circle and promptly made a show of fanning themselves.
I withheld a snort. These blokes were nice, but with a laundry list of dilemmas to resolve, I wasn’t in the mood to cherry pick my flings tonight. Not even if the picking involved Rhun, who knew best how to scratch my itch.
Eyebrows waggling, Briar’s ladies jerked their chins, indicating something. My eyes swerved to a pair of scorching blue irises. From his front-row vantage point, Aire watched the men broadcast themselves, the knight’s pupils incinerating each contender on the spot.
Seasons knew Aire wasn’t a rake. Probably, his genteel sensibilities didn’t care for their forwardness. As if I didn’t have enough memories of admirers gluing themselves to his muscles to fill a scrapbook. I’d spent a solid portion of my existence watching him court females before his deployment, my heart in tatters whenever he promenaded with a woman hooked to his arm, my ribs compressing each sickening time he disappeared with a lady into his chamber.
Tonight, history repeated itself in reverse. But whatever grief he had with these males, it wasn’t my problem. Excusing myself, I took refuge near a hedge of cattails.
Minutes later, the scents of amber and vetiver teased my nostrils. It didn’t take a member of the peerage to know that aroma cost money. Lots of it.
I inhaled the sexy essence before its owner murmured, “He’s jealous.”
My head whipped sideways so fast, I nearly cracked a vertebra. Poet leaned one toned shoulder against the castle’s brick facade. In the eventide murk, those naughty irises glittered, a dripping black spade decorating one eye. If any man detected the underlying signs of desire, it was this devil. The jester was the walking, talking, breathing embodiment of lust. Ask anyone how much they would sacrifice to fuck this man, and the offer would incite a bidding war. I’d wager some people would donate a kidney for the privilege of getting the Court Jester naked.
Not that Poet cared. He only had eternal eyes for Briar, which made him my favorite male specimen.
But for the first time, I doubted his judgment. “You’ve been watching?”
“Sweeting, everyone’s been watching,” Poet replied, his sexy tenor capable of melting steel. “His eyes have been following you all night, ’tis a wonder he didn’t cremate each member of the Swoon Brigade to ash.” To clarify, the jester indicated the dissatisfied suitors I’d left behind. “Even before then, my epic wife and I beheld your combat foreplay from a window whilst enroute to the meeting.”
“Before or after you pulled Briar into a dark corner for a quickie?”
His sinful lips curled. “Who said it was quick?”
Shameless. I would have teased, but I needed to make one thing clear. “I’m not trying to make Aire jealous.”
Poet gave me a pointed look. “You don’t have to try.”
“Whether or not that’s true, it means the behemoth took his jealousy out on me today. That’s not Aire’s style. And it’s a dealbreaker on my end.”
