Page 23

James drew in a ragged breath as he closed the door behind him, trying to find some measure of calm despite the lingering sensation of her fingers on his wrist burning like a brand. No delicate touch, but strong and demanding, and he couldn’t help but wonder what it would feel like to have those hands on other parts of his body.

A cough jerked him back into the moment, and he lifted his head to see Georgie and Bronwyn leaning against the walls opposite each other, seemingly in some sort of standoff.

“She’s awake,” he said to Bronwyn, then coughed to clear both his throat and his head. “We will select eight of our best to aid you in the princess’s protection.” As her lips parted to argue, he added, “Of those eight, you may choose which four you prefer.”

Bronwyn’s teeth clicked shut. “Fine.” Then she leveled a finger at Georgie. “But not this pretentious prick.”

Georgie chuckled as Bronwyn disappeared into Ahnna’s room. “I like her.”

“Banish the thought,” James muttered. “Else you’re likely to end up with your cock shoved down your own throat.”

“You’re testy.” Georgie straightened his coat. “Lack of sleep or something else?”

“Both. Why are you here?”

“Because you were attacked, too, Jamie. You might have been killed. Your father is concerned for your welfare, as well as how personally you’re taking this incident.”

“I take everything personally.” And he’d also spent the entire night thinking about how hard the assassin had tried not to kill him.

“True, but you’ve been sitting in the princess’s room for eighteen hours. You must need to piss like a goddamned racehorse.”

James started down the hall, Georgie hurrying to keep up with his long strides. “Half of those on guard last night were apparently drunk, the other half not paying attention. I want a list of everyone on duty, for there are to be consequences for this failure. But prior to that, I want you to choose eight of our most reliable men. Ensure they are individuals who will keep their commentary, and their hands, to themselves.”

“Understood.”

“And where are the assassins’ corpses? I need to have a look at them.”

“The one you stabbed is in the kitchen cold room. The other…” Georgie gave a half shrug. “I assume they scraped him off the rocks with a shovel, so likely in a bucket somewhere. What do you need to see? There was nothing on them.”

“I want to see if I recognize them,” James muttered. “Get those guardsmen to Bronwyn to inspect.”

Leaving Georgie in his wake, he went down the servant stairs, taking them two at a time. Servants bowed and curtsied as he passed, but other than tight nods, James paid them no mind. The kitchens were as busy as always, the cooks pausing in their shouts as he strode through their ranks, reaching the cold room where meat was stored. A guard stood outside, saluting him and then stepping aside as James plucked up a lamp and opened the door.

A large naked man was laid out on the butcher-block table, his clothing and weapons next to him. James crossed the room, taking in the knife wound at the base of the assassin’s throat, then scanning his face. Perhaps forty years of age, the man was bald and clean-shaven, his skin marred by scars that suggested a run-in with the pox in his youth. But he was unfamiliar. Picking up the clothes and weapons, James examined them closely for anything that spoke to identity, including nationality, and when he found nothing, he moved on to the corpse. He checked the body from head to toe for tattoos or distinctive scars, the man’s limbs stiff with rigor.

Nothing.

Which was as he expected. Moving to the assassin’s head, James drew in a steadying breath, then peeled the man’s eyelids back to look at the color.

Brown.

Exhaling the breath he’d been holding, James left the room. “Arrange for burial,” he told the guard, then exited the kitchen and headed to his own rooms.

Where his manservant, Thomas, waited with a steaming bath before a roaring fire. “His lordship informed me that the princess awoke and that you were in need of a wash.”

“I’m not—” James broke off, seeing his reflection in a mirror. His face was splattered with blood, his coat and the cuffs of his shirt marked with the same. “Fine.”

“Will you be desiring a shave, sir?”

“No.”

“Very good, sir.” Thomas, well aware of James’s habits, abandoned the room.

Flipping the latch on the door, James pulled off his boots and clothing, then stepped into the bath, only to hiss at the heat as he lowered himself down. Glasses of both water and wine waited on a table next to the bath, and he downed the first and then the second before sinking beneath the water.

All sound went muted, the world falling away, leaving James alone with himself.

Except he could still feel Ahnna’s fingers on his wrist.

Visions of her filled his mind’s eye. That brazen grin she always gave him when she was about to say something she shouldn’t. Those muscled legs that went on for ages, scandalous in silken trousers, the fabric clinging to the hard curve of her ass. The way she walked like a cat stalking through the jungle. The softness of her lips beneath his, the feel of her tongue in his mouth. His cock stiffened even as his lungs demanded air, and James broke the surface of the bathwater, gasping for breath and sanity.

“Stop it,” he growled at himself, snatching up a bar of soap. “She’s not for you for more reasons than you can count.”

Not the least of which was that Ahnna would hate him if she learned why he was trying so hard to convince her to go home. Or that if he failed in his attempts, she would be his brother’s wife.

William might hate her, but he’d still do his duty. So would Ahnna. And the thought of them together made his fingers curl into fists, vicious jealousy turning his blood molten. Not the first time he’d felt that way because of his brother, but never in his life had he felt the feeling so intensely.

“She is not yours,” James repeated. “She never was yours and never will be yours.”

Yet as James scrubbed away blood and sweat with the soap, he could not banish visions of Ahnna from his mind.

William can’t handle a woman like her, envy whispered in his thoughts. He’ll destroy everything that makes her perfect. She deserves better.

Like you? The half-Cardiffian bastard who has social standing only on the whim of his father? You are worth nothing, whereas she is the jewel of Ithicana.

James threw the soap at the far end of the tub, resting his elbows on his knees as he tried to will the blood out of his cock and back into his brain so that he might think clearly.

But he wanted her. Wanted that wild, irreverent woman to be his, not to tame, but because she ignited the parts of him that he worked so hard to suppress.

“She is an obstacle,” he said under his breath. “A problem with the capacity to ruin everything you’ve worked for. Think about that instead of her tits, you piece of shit.”

Ahnna was a problem.

Yet instead of her face vanishing from his mind, his thoughts showed her with naked fear in her eyes at the thought of returning to Ithicana. Fear she refused to confess the source of, and James could not help but remember the obvious conflict between Ahnna and her brother. And his father’s suggestion that if Harendell did not keep her, Ahnna’s fate would be very dark indeed. Whatever she feared had to be horrible, because he’d seen her face down man-eaters, assassins, and storms, but the thought of going back to Ithicana seemed to almost break her.

And here he was, trying to push her toward it.

Needing to push her toward it, because Ahnna choosing to remain in Harendell wouldn’t ruin her. It would be the death of her.

James’s eyes went to the clock, the hour late afternoon. The next meeting was not for another week, but that didn’t much matter.

Because if his suspicions were true, he and his uncle needed to have a very difficult conversation.