Page 86 of A Wayward Movement

“Is that so?” Xavier shifted closer, a glint entering his eyes.

He forgot for a moment how watched he would be in such a public setting, and the fact that he wasn’t supposed to be flirting with Alina for fear she’d think him a joke. The force of habit was too strong—both the habit of enjoying rather than avoiding public censure, and the habit of taking any opportunity to flirt with a pretty girl. And no girl had ever made him more inclined to flirt than Alina. She’d been having that effect on him since they were fourteen.

He leaned in a little, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword, and one eyebrow quirked, in a posture he knew women found hard to resist.

“You think I’m handsome, do you?”

“All princes are handsome,” Alina told him solemnly. “Whether they are or not.”

He narrowed his eyes, not averse to a challenge. “Is that why you were ogling me when my laces were too loose at the inn in Alton?”

The accusation surprised a gasp out of Alina, and he smirked to himself. Success.

“I have never ogled you in my life,” she protested.

“Are you sure? Because I seem to remember one time, at a gala at Baron Runsky’s manor, when—”

“Things from back then don’t count,” she said, flustered.

Xavier would have been delighted to pursue his advantage, but another of his admirers chose that moment to approach him, this one a fierce rival of Lady Liesl.

“Your Highness.” She held out her hand. “Welcome home.”

“Thank you,” Xavier said. He was reluctant to take the hand, but it would have been very pointed not to. He bent over it, murmuring some light compliment that was so practiced for his tongue, his mind barely registered what it was.

He did know, however, that her bashful response was overblown. Her little titter bore no resemblance to the laughter he so loved to elicit from Alina. He smiled mechanically at her coquettish words, responding in a very respectable way which clearly frustrated her expectations.

Xavier tried to turn back to Alina, but the other girl was persistent. She claimed his attention again, her efforts to elicit flirtation from him becoming more determined. Painfully aware of Alina’s proximity, Xavier did his best to resist while still maintaining politeness. It was exhausting. To his great irritation, by the time the girl gave up, Alina had slipped away. Standing alone, he was swamped very quickly by others, and it was some time before he could extricate himself.

Eventually, he saw Miriam by a large, ornamental hedge pruned in the shape of a horse. He was delighted to use his sister as an excuse to escape.

“Xavier.” She welcomed him with a smile. “Have you missed your own little court? They’ve certainly missed you.”

“Don’t start,” Xavier grumbled. Her words conjured an image of him as king, surrounded by simpering courtiers’ daughters instead of useful advisors like his father had, and it didn’t feel good. “I haven’t missed a single one of them for so much as a moment.”

“Heartless.” Mim spoke the words impassively, popping a candied almond into her mouth.

A servant came past carrying a large tray with several pitchers of iced tea, and they shifted closer to the hedge to allow him to more easily pass. The motion brought them near enough to hear the conversation of a clump of girls Xavier hadn’t even realized were gathered on the far side of the hedge.

“She looks like a pauper.” Grating little titters followed the words, and Xavier frowned. He could guess who they were talking about. “Why is she at a royal luncheon?”

“She’s some kind of charity case, I think,” another of the girls said nastily.

Xavier felt Miriam’s hand on his arm and looked down, surprised. He hadn’t realized that his muscles had tensed, or his weight had shifted forward, ready to move around the hedge.

“Leave it,” the princess said quietly. “Trust me.”

“That’s right,” one of the girls was saying enthusiastically. “Leonie said she heard the prince call her a sneak and a miser. He said she was sponging off the crown.”

The gasps of shock that followed this pronouncement were positively gleeful. Xavier clenched his teeth. He shouldn’t have joked so freely with Alina where others might hear.

“Not very successfully,” giggled another girl. “Look at her dress. Look at her hair! Only a braid, and it’s not even straight.”

“You know what that means,” another said. “She doesn’t even have a girl to do her hair. She’s braided it herself.”

The words were greeted with another round of giggles. It was cut off abruptly, and looking up, Xavier realized with alarm that Alina herself was approaching the girls, on her way past toward the refreshments table.

“Here she comes! Off to sponge some more.”