Page 23 of The Wicked Prince

Sneaking away to watch her train and watching her desperately try to figure him out at dinner were the only things getting him through the day. Robin was a wonderful distraction and the perfect subject for his sketchbook.

He just needed to figure out how to get that smile again so he could capture it on paper. Apparently having captured Robin wasn’t enough for him. Now he wanted to see hersmile.

Chapter9

Robin had resolved to figure out what Prince John’s game was, but so far she seemed to be the only one driven up the walls.

John was a snake.

She didn’t believe for a single minute all his little innocuous questions at dinner and his mysterious absence from his room were coincidences. Every morning Robin hovered by the door connecting their rooms, carefully avoiding triggering her own tripwire, pressing her ear to the wood and listening for any sign of life on the other side. Every night Robin did the same. She marked the time he left his room in the morning and marked the time he returned. He left earlier than she’d expected, given his reputation, and returned later than she’d imagined either.

As regent he had to put up a façade of doing his duties, but where was he otherwise?

Robin wasn’t stupid enough to play her hand and ask. Besides, he’d probably lie to her. No, she wasn’t going to figure it out sitting at the other end of a banquet table—one that felt somewhat shorter than it had the first time she’d sat down at it, but it had to be her imagination. She needed to go into the monster’s den.

Fortunately, he didn’t go to his room immediately after dinner. That was the perfect time.

Robin unlocked the door, stepped over her tripwire, and into Prince John’s room.

For a brief moment, Robin considered that maybe this was the trap. She’d fallen for John’s traps twice now.

But the other option was to sit there and wait. If Robin had been made to sit around, she never would have become a criminal in the first place. So snooping it was.

It was as opulent as she expected. It was Prince John. At least she was right about something.

It was very purple and gold and elegant. It was the same level of quality and was clearly modeled to the tastes of the person who had chosen the pieces in her room with the same clear care and coordination.

Which meant Prince John had personally picked every single thing that was in her room. She opened his wardrobe and while she’d seen his ridiculous clothing on him, seeing them all together meant she could also not deny he had clearly handpicked every single article of clothing in her own wardrobe as opposed to simply instructing someone in the generalities. Like saying ‘no tunics and breeches.’ Or saying ‘make sure they’re all hard to do anything more than a brisk walk in.’

It made her skin crawl.

It had to be part of his manipulation; Robin just couldn’t see what he was trying to manipulate her into this time. He got the marriage. What more did he want from her?

Robin shut the wardrobe doors, looking over her shoulder at the bed, feeling the eerie similarity to when she’d snuck into his guest room in Ferren to claim her prize.

She’d won that arrow fair and square, and while they had made off with the tax money, an arrow of pure gold was enough to feed a large village for a year and then some.

There was no way she believed Prince John about the money all going to the war effort when he was willing to offer a gold arrow as a prize for an archery competition. He was clearly mismanaging it and overindulging himself while shafting King Richard and the brave soldiers fighting for their country, which only served to drag out the conflict that kept Prince John as regent.

Everyone knew that.

Robin was disappointed to see there wasn’t a desk. All the good stuff was kept in a desk. Whatever his plans were, they had to be in a desk.

But of course there wasn’t a desk because Prince John didn’twork.

He schemed.

And she wanted his schemes.

Robin put her hands on her hips and turned to face the rest of the room. Curious.

There was a plush armchair pulled up to the window with the curtain half drawn back. Prince John liked a view, apparently.

There was also a small sitting table with a sofa that matched the plush chair.

There were a couple of pieces of parchment on the table, but they weren’t documents of any sort. They just had a few lines of charcoal and were then scribbled over. Whatever they were supposed to be was completely indistinguishable.

Not helpful.

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