“How?” I whispered.
“Because there’s only one of you and two of us.” With that, Caiman ducked beneath the bridge and left me all alone.
7
CAIMAN
I pulledon my leather gloves, hurrying across my room to the door. My father’s advisors had gathered to discuss the burgeoning conflict in the south. More enemy ships. More unveiled threats. More worries. More problems.
Only today, my father wouldn’t be the one dealing with them. These issues, along with countless others, would fall to my brother’s whims.
Alrec wasn’t ready for this responsibility. Not because he was ill prepared but because his selfish arrogance wouldn’t allow him to get out of his own way.
That’s where I came in. Today was the day I would request an assignment as emissary. With my father’s time drawing to an end, it wouldn’t be long before I would be free of this castle. Of this utter torment wreaking havoc on my heart.
The moment Roisin had arrived at the pond, I should’ve gotten up and left. Instead, I’d stayed like some lovesick fool. And for what? To learn that she’d not only appreciated my pathetic attempt to keep herself and her Lady safe in the city but that she’d also gone out of her way to help a maid. As if I needed another reason to care when all I wanted was to hate her as thoroughly as she hated me.
I yanked open my door to find Roisin’s friend on the other side. Lady Lowri hadn’t stopped yammering all through dinner last night and had insisted on accompanying me to the drawing room afterward for a night cap, thanking me over and over for my “heroic display.”
“If you’re looking for Kerrington, his rooms are at the other end of the castle,” I said, trying and failing to move past as she blocked my path.
She wrapped her cool, slender fingers around my wrist. To be so forward with a member of the royal family was unheard of. I tried not to recoil at her touch. “I was hoping to see you, actually.”
“Why?”
“To thank you again. For what happened in the city.”
“Think nothing of it.”
Instead of moving or letting me go, she started blinking rapidly as she stared up at me.
“Do you have something in your eye?”
For some reason, that made her frown. “No.”
Nothing more. Just “no” and more blinking.
And now a smile. Not a full smile but one that played on her mouth like she wasn’t sure whether or not to use it.
“Right. Well, if that’s all, I’m late for a meeting.”
“It’s not all, actually.” She finally loosened her hold only to move closer, pinning me between herself and the door. I fumbled for the handle.
“I was wondering,” she drawled, “if you’d like to accompany me to dinner this evening?”
“Why?”
The giggling woman smacked my arm, said she’d meet me in the hallway at half seven, and left before I could turn her down.
Women. If only they came with some sort of handbook.
Nothing they did made any bloomin’ sense.
Roisin, for example. From the way she treated me, I’d been convinced she was as heartless as my brother. Then she not only put herself at risk to speak to that maid but also gave her money.
Roisin had a heart . . . and she’d given it to the worst person I knew.
I hurried a suspiciously empty hall, rounding the corner and coming to a skidding halt.