“As future queen, it would be inadvisable to seek companionship with anyone other than your intendeds. But you’re a grown woman, Charlotte.” There’s a small drop of my blood staining the corner of his smirk. He holds my gaze as he thumbs it across his plush lower lip, then pushes it into his mouth. “You can do whatever you want.”
Whatever or whomever? All I manage in response is a soft, “Hmm.”
The last time I ignored propriety and did whom I wanted, I ended up tossed out like yesterday’s kitchen scraps.
Lachlan casually places a hand on the knob to his bedchamber door. “Do you require anything else of me before you retire?”
I choke on a laugh. Lachlan is the chief knight of my most ardent suitor. The suitor who Lachlan himself wants upon the throne. Which makes the tenveryspecific answers that spring to mind highly inappropriate. I’ll probably sketch a few of them as soon as I?—
Drat. I’ve got nothing to draw with. I sigh, “No, thank you.”
He bows, hand on his chest, his deep blue eyes latched to mine. “Right next door. Anything at all.” He angles his broad shoulders through the door and slips into his room.
I trail my fingertips along the edge of the bandage, the sting of his bite a disappointingly distant memory as I stare at the space he occupied for far longer than could be considered normal behavior.
Crossing into my own room, I search the armoire for something to sleep in and decide on a doll-sized pair of silk pajamas. I have no earthly idea how I’m expected to fit into?—
They expand as soon as they catch the moonlight. Marvelous. I undress and slip on the top and pants, finding they fit betterthan anything I’ve ever worn. Aside from the traveling clothes I just shucked off.
I climb into bed, twisting around the sharp branches, and fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.
When I wake the next morning, awaiting me on the vanity in the bathing chamber is a sketchbook bound in soft pink leather and a case of pencils.
Chapter
Sixteen
“Bastard left Tír na Lune yesterday to gogamblingin Farlock’s Edge.”
Aowen’s shout precedes her into the parlor the next morning. She slams her bedroom door behind her, Vesper clinging to her shoulder against the rush of air.
“Careful, Wen. Ears everywhere, even if you can’t see them,” Lachlan mutters from the seat next to me at the dining table, where he’s been working on some kind of wood carving all morning.
He’s abandoned his armour today, instead choosing a close-cut grey jacket that’s doing the most wonderful things for his thick arms. And, to my utter delight, he’s wearing a pair of reading glasses. The sight of them perched on the end of his nose is so charming that I wouldn’t dare ask about them for fear of their removal.
When I emerged from my bedchamber this morning, I thanked him for the drawing supplies, and he waved me off likeit was nothing before his attention snagged on the bodice of my lilac linen gown. Neither Aowen nor Vesper was around to help me dress, and I couldn’t lace the stays on my own. Part of me does not miss the binding, while another part feels a bit naked. I am keenly aware of every bounce of my breasts. So is Lachlan, it seems, as his eyes slide to me every time I shift in my seat.
And I may or may not be doing a lot of unnecessary shifting.
“Where did you go this morning?” he asks Aowen, after prying his attention off me for what feels like the hundredth time and re-focusing on his carving knife. I hope he doesn’t nick himself. I smile against the back of my hand.
“This morning?” Aowen laughs, plopping down into the chair across the table. “I haven’t been back here since last night.”
Vesper chirps a greeting, her beetle-black eyes crawling over my frizzy hair. I haven’t done a thing with it since I woke. She smiles at me, that terrifying one full of razor-sharp teeth where I can’t tell if she’s pleased or about to nibble my flesh. “Food. Fresh food.”
Lachlan shaves a long sliver off the wood. “Bedpost notching or intelligence gathering?”
Aowen coaxes a bit of sunshine through the balcony doors, then flicks her wrist. A tray filled with fruit, coddled eggs, cold ham, and a basket of those cherry scones I love so much appears in the center of the table. She reaches for a shiny red apple and sinks her teeth into it. “Little of both.” She smiles at me as she chews.
“Didn’t know you had so many friends here in Tír na Lune,” Lachlan murmurs.
“Almost as many as you.”
Something passes between them. It looks like a challenge, but neither elaborates. She raises her brows and flicks her chin toward breakfast, encouraging me to eat. It’s the only invitationI need to pull a cherry scone onto my plate and slather it with clotted cream.
“Anyway, he wasn’t a friend. Just an amusing way to pass the time, with lips as loose as his regard for Duke Áine’s secrets.Anddumb as a bag of rocks. Just how I like them.”
Lachlan’s smile is exasperated, yet fond. He seems as close with Aowen as he is with Desmond. “What did we learn?”
