Page 41 of Grand Romantic Delusions and the Madness of Mirth, Part One

T he good thing about being a princess in the midst of her own ball, surrounded by her own protective family, and in her own fucking castle, is that no one has the right to follow me off the dance floor after I formally dismiss my dance partner.

Yes, my father announced that delightful tidbit about our environs changing hands over dinner, as if him having placed Lake Thun Castle into my name might make bonding with me more palatable.

As for how my evening progressed after dinner, it would be easier to list who I haven’t danced with tonight rather than who I have.

On a minor note, I literally can’t recall my last three partners.

Much more importantly, I’m tired of being touched by people I don’t know, who I don’t want to know.

My face hurts from all the false smiles.

My feet ache from the heels. And while the skirt is truly a joy to wear, the beaded bustier is cutting into my armpits— and no matter how tiny they are, the sides of my breasts.

I slip through the gold velvet curtains that have been drawn over the garden-level doors of the ballroom.

Apparently, the moonlight clashes with the decor.

Plus the curtains have been essence-enhanced to hold in the heat.

Stepping out into the sporadically lit gardens, I’m instantly aware that I won’t be able to stay out in the chilled evening for long.

I honestly don’t know the more public sections of the castle all that well, so it takes a minute for me to orient myself.

The lake spreads out to my right. The evening is quiet enough that I can hear the water quietly lapping against the shore, along with some muted laughter from other guests taking their own break from the dancing.

I don’t get more than three steps along the nearest path before my heel twists in the dressed gravel, which is packed down but not enough.

A huge shadow detaches from the side of the castle, moving toward me so quickly that I’m suddenly aware of a massive hand hovering just under my elbow before I can otherwise react.

Pain shoots through my ankle, but I only stumble slightly, startled and staring up at a looming, golden-hazel eyed, light-brown-skinned shifter.

“Christoph,” I say with a gasp, pressing a hand to my chest and inadvertently uttering his first name without permission. There are very few people who can stand in any proximity to me without my sensing them. Especially not someone as large as he is, in both mass and energy.

His gaze drops to my hand still pressed to my chest. He doesn’t close his fingers on my elbow. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“I didn’t mean to intrude on … you …” I say, rather lamely.

He flashes me a quiet, quick grin. “Can you intrude on a guest in your own home?”

His accent is different than I expected.

Not as smoothed or diluted as mine. Most of us who attend a branch of the Phrontistery Academy for the bulk of our early lives lose our regional accents.

But his carries a touch of North American, from the United States specifically, I think.

He was obviously raised away from his family estate in Vienna.

Christoph drops his hand to his side, taking a step back. Wary of my silence, perhaps. I’ve just been staring at him.

I open my mouth to voice yet another inane nicety. But instead, because no one other than him has held my gaze for any length of time tonight and that’s seriously irking me, I ask, “Do my eyes bother you?”

Christoph blinks. His own golden-hazel eyes are seemingly lit from within. He must be calling on his beast a little, maybe to see better in moonlight and shadow?

I’ve wanted to ask that question a dozen or more times this evening.

Dance after dance of polite, stilted conversation, with all the attention directed toward me.

I’m no longer safely tucked in the comfort of Armin’s shadow.

Armin who didn’t care if anyone found his eyes off-putting or uncomfortable.

I shiver.

Christoph has his jacket — a deep-navy-blue tuxedo — unbuttoned and sliding off his shoulders before I manage to protest.

He sweeps it around my shoulders, and … it’s just so warm. I eagerly push my arms through the sleeves and sink into the blissfulness of his heat for a moment, swaying slightly.

I barely manage to swallow another of those weird, needy moans. What is wrong with me? I’ve forgotten how to behave properly.

“My mother was awry,” Christoph says quietly. His voice rumbles through his chest, as if the information he seems to so easily impart is actually coming from his very depths .

And yes, I’m way too close to him if I can hear that.

My gaze snaps up to his. His own gaze remains on the buttons of the suit jacket as he fastens the last of the four. Below my belly button. I’m not at all a small person, but the jacket is comically large on me.

I wonder if he’ll let me keep it.

Now that’s a ridiculous thought.

“You didn’t know?” he asks, tilting his head in that thoughtful shifter way. Listening for something in my next words? The truth, maybe?

“No,” I say. “I should have.”

He nods, gazing over my head. “I like that the water is close here. Near the woods. And there’s snow just a little farther up on the mountainside.”

Blinking at the change of subject, I turn to take in the view, though I still can’t see what he can.

Night vision is not something that comes with my own latent essence gifts.

The gardens are a little well groomed for my tastes, especially when surrounded by all the natural beauty.

Lots of statuary within the trees, and bushes trimmed into unnatural shapes.

I stuff my hands into the pockets of Christoph’s jacket, hunching my shoulders a little, because facing the chill is different than having it behind me. He closes the space between us, not touching but definitely warming my back.

“My mother was a seer.” His tone is still quiet. Not stilted, but more as if he’s somehow not accustomed to speaking. “Her visions were intermittent, but they made her … worthy, I suppose. Of my father’s protection.”

“She took him as her chosen?” I ask, confused by his wording. For the most part, gossip doesn’t filter through to me, so I don’t know much of substance about the previous Duke of Habsburg .

“No,” Christoph says, no obvious emotion threaded through his words. “He was already married, under law.”

Taking a chosen versus being legally married by the laws of country or faith is a still oft-debated— and oft-contested— subject, even well into the third decade of the twenty-first century.

Even with all our understanding of how essence flows through us, and how multiple chosen can strengthen each other, harnessing, sharpening, and shaping that flow.

“He already had his heir and spare,” Christoph adds. “Plus one more for safety. Not counting the female children.”

“You weren’t raised … on his estate.”

“No. Packed off to New York at school age until my mother’s illness.”

That explains the unique accent. Maybe early childhood Austrian layered over with a distinctive New York flavoring? Well, distinct after he identified it at least.

“Your mother died?” I murmur. “Recently?”

“Five years.” Christoph falls so quiet that the other sounds of the night-shrouded garden filter in.

I wonder how he does that. Becoming so still.

As if freed by that silence, that stillness, my own grief uncurls in my chest — having been stuffed there under a sense of duty, then underpinned by false smiles and inane chatter for the bulk of the evening.

“It still hurts,” Christoph murmurs so quietly that I nearly miss it. “Sometimes so much that I can’t breathe.”

I’m not sure why I do it. Though it’s more for my comfort than his, I sway back into him, leaning lightly against his broad chest. Very, very slowly, he lifts his arm and lays it across my shoulders, across my collarbone, as he steps closer.

Cloaking me in his warmth from behind, holding me to him so, so gently .

It’s far too intimate a pose for two people who’ve just met over dinner. Christoph is on the short list of guests that I didn’t share a dance with as well.

“A seer,” I say, keeping the conversation on track as I try to not just sink into his loose embrace. I have an overwhelming sense that he would never let me fall … and also that I’d like to test that theory, perhaps in a completely uncharacteristically bratty way. “Backsight or foresight?”

That’s yet another intimate question. But when he readily answers, I receive the gift of feeling his words rumble against my back. “Prognostication. Financially focused.”

His mother being deemed valuable enough to be granted his father’s protection makes a different kind of sense now.

“Didn’t stop him from spending every cent she made him,” he adds. “Or my half-brothers continuing to do so after his death.”

“I see how it wouldn’t. How the blessings from her sight could become expected by others. Even … an entitlement.”

Silence falls between us for long enough that it becomes apparent that some of the other couples and groupings currently using the gardens are expanding their evening stroll into more intimate territory.

Soft sighs and murmurs of pleasure filter through to us.

But though Christoph’s hearing is far sharper than my own, he doesn’t tighten his grip. Or pull away.

“And you, little awry?” he finally asks. “What do the purple eyes that you think should scare me mean for you?”

I don’t answer for long enough that I get chilly everywhere he isn’t currently touching. And it’s not because of what he’s called me. Oddly, unlike Bolan’s patronizing ‘baby girl,’ it doesn’t bother me at all. I am indeed little in this shifter’s arms .

When I don’t answer at once, Christoph doesn’t press. He doesn’t try to change the subject.

The murmurs of pleasure filtering through to us increase in volume, then are suddenly muffled— likely by a palm hastily pressed over the mouth of the audibly enthusiastic lover.