Page 68 of Her Royal Houseguest

But there was nothing he could do to moderate his brother’s behaviour. The man would do what he thought was best. Which left Deva alone with Lady Anna. That, of course, was exactly what he’d wanted but she was obviously not in the mood he’d expected.

‘I did not wish to give you more work,’ he said softly.

‘Yet you made a point of doing just that.’

He did. He had. But not for that reason. But he couldn’t expose his real desire. He wanted her in his arms again. He wanted to taste her in, to kiss her and to do things that were not appropriate between them.

So he had taken the torturous route. The one where he forced her to stay in his presence but kept her angry at him so they could not do what he wanted. Buddha forgive him. He was a fool.

But he had begun this path. He had to see it through.

‘Please, Lady Anna, will you sit?’

She didn’t want to. That shocked him. Was she that angry? But a moment later, she wiped the frustration from her expression and sat with all the poise of a queen. And that, of course, was even worse.

He did not want her to treat him with icy politeness. It would add fury to his guilt and that was never a good combination. Therefore, he had to do something drastic to break her out of her mood. He would take hot anger over cold servitude. From her, he would demand it.

And so, in perhaps the most foolish action of his life, he proceeded to purposely infuriate the lady.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Anna felt tired and numb. Her father had railed at everyone, herself included. He’d sacked half the servants, called herself and her mother vile names, and then stormed off to his club in a fit of righteous indignation.

Honesty forced her to admit this would end up being a good change. Both Stanier and Barker had been difficult people. They still saw her as a damaged child and had never respected her authority. Backwards or not, she would start on better footing with any new hires. That was a good thing.

But, oh, the work involved in getting new staff while right in the middle of the Season! Butlers didn’t grow on trees, certainly not ducal butlers. Same with housekeepers. And the one footman—Clarke—who might have been able to step in as butler, was waiting hand and foot on the monks. She didn’t know how she was going to accomplish everything and it was all his fault! He’d created this disaster on purpose.

At least there were no fears that she’d been sent to the country. There was too much work for her to do anything but stay here and train new servants.

‘Lady Anna,’ he began, his smile expansive as he spread his arms. ‘Surely you see that it is better this way. I have solved your problem. The difficult servants are gone.’

She ground her teeth together. Trust him to think he’d done her a favour! ‘Oh yes,’ she drawled. ‘Thank you, Prince Deva. Whatever would I have done without you?’

‘You would have continued as you were to disastrous results. Indeed, I cannot understand how you managed so far.’

Badly. With a massive, daily struggle. But there was a timing to change that he clearly didn’t understand.

‘You are correct. Disastrous results.’ Her tone was becoming monotonous. He wasn’t hearing her sarcasm. Why bother with anything but lip service?

‘Look at me when I speak to you!’

She lifted her gaze and faced him. Her expression wasn’t bland. It showed both exhaustion and boredom. She’d used it on her father several times just to see if he noticed. He did. After another few minutes of railing at her, he called her backwards and stormed away.

All in all, it was a good way to end the confrontation. Except Deva didn’t react as her father did. He stared at her with a frown on his face. In time, his expression softened to confusion.

‘You aren’t getting angry.’

She arched a brow at his odd statement. ‘Why should I?’

‘I have insulted you.’

If that’s what he called an insult, then he had a very different measure for rudeness than she did. But she hadn’t the energy to argue that, so she shrugged. ‘I’m built backwards, remember? Perhaps that is why I don’t get angry.’

‘Or perhaps you have learned to ignore insults because you get so many of them.’ He sighed as he dropped his hands on his hips. ‘Why do you tolerate it?’

This time she did gape at the man. And when she was too aggravated to speak, he arched a single brow at her. She matched his pose, standing with spread legs and hands on her hips. Her voice dropped to imitate his, lower and full of ignorance.

‘Why do you not snap your fingers and have people obey you? Footman, come!’ she said, snapping her fingers. ‘Why do you allow your father to yell at you? He never speaks so to me! You must be lazy or stupid. Life is so easy! Everything comes whenever I do this.’ Snap. Snap.