Page 60 of Enchanted Kingdom
I shrugged. “I like the view by the window? I sit here a lot.”
He looked around my room. “So pull a chair over there?”
I again shrugged. “It’s not worth the effort of moving it back and forth.”
He squinted at me.
“I was about to yell for Easton for help,” I told him. “You are lucky I didn’t already scream.”
He snorted. “Some help he’d be. Considering I told him I was coming.”
“Oh.” Obviously, I’d had no idea.
I stood to approach him. This was different. We were alone. Completely alone. No guard, though there was one outside the door, but no watchful eyes. No one, not a soul, except us.
“May I?” he asked as he gestured toward the settee.
I nodded. “Of course.”
He sat, somehow eating up almost all of the settee that I could lay down on and still have enough room. “Care to join me?”
I sat next to him, facing him. “Why are you here, Your Grace?”
He took a deep breath. “Let me explain, okay?”
Explain what exactly?I gave him a nod.
Keir closed his eyes a moment. “I’m going to start to pull away from you.”
My eyebrows slammed together.He was going to send me home?
“Only in public!” he added, as if he could sense where my head had gone. “I am going to make it seem like I am no longer as interested in you.”
I considered that a moment.
“Krew was right, Jorah. You have Iron Will. Flaunting you in front of my father like that was reckless. And it ended up getting you hurt.” He turned sideways to better look at me. “I don’t wish to pull away from you. I don’t wish to play any sort of game with you. But to keep you safe, I fear I must.”
I cocked my head. “So you are going to be less interested in me and more interested in some of the others?”
He nodded. “Yes. Not that I have made any major decisions anyway, but let’s just say you are on a very short list of those I am seriously considering.”
I took a deep breath. That didn’t mean I was at the top, it just meant I was in the top ten. Maybe even five?
“So I will have to watch you flirt and schmooze the other women?” I asked.
He gave me a wince and a nod.
“What about once the balls start up? I suppose I won’t be invited to dinner often?”
He moved his head back and forth. “Yes and no. I can have informal lunches on my own with whomever I want. You might not get to go to the dinners with my father, but that’s probably best anyway.”
He was trying to protect me. I understood that, but I also knew he was going to have to make it seem like he was more interested in the others in order to do it. It was going to keep me safe, but also slowly stab away at me at the same time.
I let out a long sigh. “I don’t like it, but I don’t know what other option we have,” I told him honestly.
“We need a code. Something we do in person that lets us know the other is on our mind,” Keir stated. “So when I’m drowning in a sea of gowns and only thinking of you, I can let you know.”
I considered that. “Good idea. Like the tapping you did when you took my hand on the first night. Or like a wink or something even less obvious?”
