Page 9 of Upon the Riven Throne

He went still.

“I suppose they are like our queen’s apartments back home. Meant for your bride. So you might—” She made a little walking gesture with her fingers, indicating how a prince might make his way to his wife’s room. “I wonder who might have stayed before me.”

“Good evening, Your Highness.”

“Mireille,” she reminded him.

His jaw tensed. “Mireille.”

“You said I may go wherever I like.”

“You may. I suggest you learn to like your suite.” He inclined his head shortly, then turned back the way they had come.

Mireille followed.

Hand on the lever of a door dark with age, the prince stopped to look down at her. Mireille was not a small woman but he managed to tower over her anyway. There was no possible way that he believed she’d misunderstood his dismissals. “This is my study.”

“Oh,” she said. “So,anywhere, but not”—she pointed toward the door—“there. Would you call the study forbidden, then?”

His gaze narrowed. She smiled sweetly.

After a moment, he unlatched the door, then held it open as he gestured her past.

She stopped in the center of the dimly lit space. It was exquisitely decorated in rich hues and dark finishes and smelled faintly of something warm and sweet. It was a very personal, intimate sort of space. She was surprised he’d let her in.

His low voice seemed to brush over her skin from where he waited behind her. “I’ll remind you that you will not be able to repeat anything you’ve seen here. Investigations into my rooms will do you no good.”

She did not turn to look at him. “I’ll remind you that I am not a spy. I’m only interested in becoming acquainted with Rivenwilde.” She did not say,And youare Rivenwilde, after all, because she had been, in fact, spying when she’d overhead the comment.

The prince walked past her toward his desk and she moved to peruse a wall of books. It was clear that he was endeavoring to stay within the bounds of courtesy and those of the laws of hospitality—he must, given that she was princess and equal to his station—but there was no question he found the entire situation trying.

What was less clear, was why he needed a princess that he did not seem to want.

“Is this your full collection? Or is there a library located elsewhere?”

Head down, hand spread over a document he appeared to read, he said, “I believe I was to pretend you were not here.”

She could not help the smile that tugged at her lips. Reaching toward a book on the shelf, she glanced at him over her shoulder. “May I?”

He watched her face, not the finger hovering over a title. “You may take all the privileges due to a guest.”

She dropped her hand. “I do not wish to take privileges. I would rather they were granted freely.”

His eyes returned to the document. “Read any title you like. You will find no secrets on those shelves. I have nothing to hide that you might find there, nor on any shelf in this palace or its library.”

She wandered close to his desk, her gaze tracing the lines of the fine script on the page. “No secrets, then. But I wonder if the tales are true.” She leaned nearer to watch as the line of words grew beneath his pen. “Can you lie?”

The nib caught on the page for just an instant before resuming its path. “What is a lie but intent?”

She hummed. “And what is glamour if not a lie?”

The quill stilled. The prince looked up at her. “You have seen through our glamour from the start.”

She reached forward, carefully brushing a finger over the edge of his brow where a small scar hid beneath that glamour, invisible to the eye but plain beneath her touch. “Then why does it remain between us?”

His reply was barely above a whisper. “That is not for you.”

She drew her hand back, uncertain whether he meant the glamour or the touch. “How thoughtless of me. Of course not everything is meant for me.”

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