Page 45 of Royal Icing

A poorly disguised Princess Ruby stumbled across the threshold, laughing with a bunch of kids who looked older than her.

Emma narrowed her eyes. Something wasn’t right here.

Ruby slid into a stool, and one of the boys in the group stood behind her, arm over the back of her chair.

“Move, Paul,” Ruby said. “My elbows need space.”

He glowered but retreated a couple inches. Emma’s hackles rose. She watched and waited. She didn’t want to embarrass the princess if she was just out having fun with some of her friends. But judging by the cloud of vodka wafting over from them, they had been doing some day drinking.

Did Leo know? Ruby was seventeen. She didn’t even know what the legal drinking age was here.

Ruby hopped off her barstool and tottered off to the toilets. Her leather miniskirt and tights were not at all suitable for a winter storm.

“Are you gonna hit that?” one of the boys muttered to Paul.

Ohhellno. Emma’s fingers wrapped around her fork. She was going to end up in prison for stabbing a teenager in the neck.

Paul laughed. “I’ve always wanted to hook up with a princess. She doesn’t seem into it, though.”

Probably because Ruby was a woman of taste.

Talk turned to football, and Ruby made her way back from the bathroom. She stumbled over a chair leg and nearly went sprawling onto the floor, but Paul caught her.

“Thank you. You can let me go.”

A couple seconds passed, but Paul didn’t relinquish his grip. “Come on, Ruby. How about we go somewhere a little quieter?”

Ruby’s eyes narrowed. “I said?—”

Emma jumped up from her booth and stormed over. She jabbed a finger in his face. “Let her go, or so help me, I will pluck all of your nipple hairs out individually and make you eat them.”

Paul was probably a foot taller than her. He looked down at her like she was an ant he was about to crush under a boot.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked.

“I don’t give a fuck who you are,” Emma said. “All I know is that you’re harassing a member of the royal family, and I have her big brother on speed dial. So if you’d like to keep your organs inside your body, I suggest you let her go.”

She held her phone up, and Paul let go of Ruby. Emma grabbed her arm and pulled the girl behind her.

“Don’teverlet me catch you treating a woman like that again,” she said with a jab of her finger. Pontificated fuck. The second that she got back to the castle, she was going to raise the alarm about him.

Emma threw some money on the table and yanked Ruby out of the pub.

“What the hell were you doing? And what are you wearing? Are you not aware that it’s December and there’s an apocalyptic snowstorm brewing?”

Ruby straightened indignantly. “I was just hanging out with some friends.”

“Your friends suck. Come on, we’re going home. Where’s your jacket?”

“I didn’t bring one.”

Emma looked up at the sky and took a deep breath—or as Leo would say, a dinosaur breath. She had once been a drunk, foolish, scantily clad seventeen-year-old. And she hadn’t grown up in the sterile environment of a castle where everyone was watching her at all times. She couldn’t judge Ruby too harshly.

Emma shrugged her coat off and stuffed Ruby’s arms into it despite her protests.

Ruby harrumphed but followed her up the winding road toward the castle.

Emma pulled her phone out with half a mind to call Leo. But she didn’t want to stir up any drama for the princess. They could handle this alone.