Page 1 of Sonnets and Serpents (Casters and Crowns #2)

Princess Eliza’s first words to Lord Henry Wycliff were practiced.

Not that she’d anticipated meeting him at the ball for her seventeenth birthday, but all her life, she’d anticipated meeting someone.

She’d read romantic adventures and poetic promises at every opportunity, waiting seventeen impatient years to come of courting age and finally lock eyes with true love.

When Henry approached from across the ballroom, bowed, and met her brown eyes with his stunning hazel ones, Eliza said, “Fate is surely kind, arranging for us to meet tonight.”

The specific greeting was essential. After all, if he was her true love, then she would spend all her days reciting the story of their first meeting, and such a thing deserved an opening more profound than, “Enjoying the ball?” or “Pleasure to meet you.”

It was also a test, because Eliza had tried her romantic opening on other young men, and so far, she’d been met with blank stares, confused blinks, or stammers of small talk.

Henry grinned. He tossed his head, shifting his brown hair off his shoulders, and he shrugged, the casualness charming amid the formality of court. He held himself as straight-backed as a hero, yet he wore his shirt untucked.

“Is it fate?” he asked with clear teasing. “I thought it was a party invitation.”

Trying to hold back her smile, Eliza adopted mock horror. “You dare diminish fate?”

“Not if it led me to you.”

All her words fled, and her cheeks flushed with a pleasant warmth. The ballroom seemed to widen around her, like her heart filling her chest. She bit her lip.

Finally, she said, “I like your confidence.”

In response, he ducked his head. “I’m only confident on tournament grounds, Highness. This is just hopeful.”

“What exactly are you hoping for?”

“A dance?” He offered his arm.

When Eliza took it, her heart began the dance before she did, and she prayed this was the beginning of much more than a turn around the ballroom.

Her hopes were quickly realized. Henry brought her flowers and whispered promises of courtship to come.

When he competed in a tournament at the castle, he wore a token of her favor, and he even snuck into the castle early to see her.

He left her with a tingling kiss on her cheek and a swoon in her step.

Eliza had found the dream she’d longed for. She’d found it in a knight with swirling hazel eyes and a smile that melted her soul. She’d found it in Henry Wycliff.

Until her father banished him.