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Remy kept her eyes averted. She didn’t know how to respond to that. She should have simply thanked him, but she couldn’t, not after what Hale had admitted on that boat.

“What did the King say?” Remy changed the subject.

“I will wait until we are elsewhere to tell you the finer details, but it is not good.” Hale rubbed his hand down his face. Remy wanted him to continue but knew he wouldn’t. It seemed like the walls were listening in this castle. “Of course he did still find the time to scold me for my general behavior, drinking and partying too much, the usual.” Remy had seen little of that side of Hale at all. Only for one night in Saxbridge, and that had all been a strategic show. It wasn’t the first time she had heard of his bachelor lifestyle, though.

“Renwick seemed to think that sort of behavior is normal for you too,” Remy mused. “I presume you have slept with many women?” Remy couldn’t believe she had asked that out loud. She had wondered it, but perhaps that quick chug of wine had loosened her tongue.

“There have been some dalliances over the years, though not as many as everyone seems to think.” Hale chuckled.

“Have you ever slept with Carys?” Remy felt like she had leapt off a cliff. She had wanted to ask that question so many times, but she never had the courage.

“No.” Hale regarded her for a moment before he continued. “You should have seen Carys when I invited her to join my crew. She was so . . . brokenhearted. She found a purpose again during the battles at Falhampton, but . . .” He rubbed his thumb across his pointer finger. “I may have been partial to a bit of philandering once upon a time, but I would never toy with someone like that, and definitely not someone whose heart is already broken. Besides,” he said, turning those gray eyes to her, “she was never the one for me, anyway.”

Those dangerous eyes made Remy a fool. She wanted to bare her soul to them. She wanted to spill every secret to those eyes, not caring if it consumed her.

“I don’t think you should be out here with me,” Remy breathed, breaking that spell. “You don’t want the King to see us together.”

Hale looked at his hands, let down. That hint of sadness shredded her. She couldn’t do it anymore. She couldn’t shove him away.

Remy remembered what Belenus had said to her. Everything Hale touches ends in disappointment. Remy didn’t want to be another disappointment. She knew in that moment it was no longer a choice. Consequences be damned, she would follow him anywhere, even into hell itself. She rose onto her tiptoes and planted a soft kiss on Hale’s cheek. He turned to her with surprise.

“Remy!” Carys called from the doorway. “I’m here to save you from an evening of royal boredom. The King’s councillors want to speak with you, Hale.”

Hale’s shoulders slumped by Remy’s side as Carys hooked a thumb toward the staircase at the other end of the gardens. “Let’s get out of here.”

Remy turned to look at Hale.

“Go.” He chuckled. “Save yourself.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Your Highness,” Remy said in a teasing tone.

“Hale,” he said in a vacant voice. “Only ever Hale to you.”

“Hale,” Remy said in a soft, breathless voice.

She watched the way his name on her mouth made him go still as she stepped away from him.