Page 27 of The Dandelion Princess
My quest is interrupted byAmma, who waves me into a circle of neighbors and local business leaders. Her hair swirls high onher head and she wears a lavender cloak, brandishing a wand like a laser pointer.
The talk is of crop yields and zoning laws, but my gaze rakes the crowd for someone I can whip up a hormonal, adolescent reaction to. Anyone.
Literally anyone at all.
Ella laughs.
I tug at my rigid collar and feelAmma’seyes on me.
“Jinwohasu?” she whispers.
I nod. I’m fine. But the next time I hear the laugh, I turn. The sight gives me no joy. Ella is surrounded by a knot of worthlessadel, and I feel like I did on the Gravitron all those years ago—sick, disoriented. This is the price of soju on an empty stomach. She should know better. The men crowding around her, all titled and landed, know too much about how the monarchy works.
It’s easy to guess that they want something—an order from their art gallery or a photo with Ella, snapped by the photojournalist roving through the party. Men like these wouldn’t allow themselves to get serious about her. People who fly their dogs across international borders for pet grooming appointments don’t know how to make the kinds of sacrifices being the husband to a royal princess would demand.
She laughs again, and my eyes linger on her face, tracing the lines I know by heart. Ella hates crowds.
My mother nudges me. “Marc?”
“Excuse me,” I murmur, bowing slightly. I make my way across the room, cleaving a path through the guests.
“Ella,” I say. Even amid a mind-numbing techno set, she hears me.
She smiles and I clasp my hands behind my back, just to be safe. “I came fromAmma. She wants…” I trail off. I didn’t come with a plan.
“Of course.” She twists out of the tight circle and aristocratic fingers fall from her arm. When the fabric of her dress hitches on her curves, she smooths it. I frown.
“What does she want?” Ella asks.
“Who?”
“Ammasent you,” she laughs.
“Did she?” I scoop an arm around her waist, shielding her from an enormous paper mache lion headdress, and half carry her out of the party. What sent me to her side was a consuming desire to breakNeerheidKaas’s fingers, but I can’t say so.
I don’t stop until I cross the hall and push through another door. It’s a shock, going from the thumping intensity of the ballroom to the cozy warmth of the library. The floor is scattered with well-worn rugs, and it’s quiet here, save for the gentle crackle of the fire and the rain beating on the glass. Ella slips out of my grasp and wanders over to one of the Oppeger portraits of a young Renaissancevrouwheid, glowing under a gallery light. I watch her with an expression that runs the entire emotional gamut between ravenous and starving.
Stultes es.
She glances at me over her shoulder and my face shutters. “Thanks. It was getting crowded in there.”
Silence settles between us, a thread of attraction pulling the easy weave out of shape.
“It’s raining,” she says, crossing to the window. She steps out of her heels, hitches her dress—sequins sparkling in curious waves—and plants a knee on the cushioned bench, trying to winch the old casement open a few centimeters.
The window sticks and I brush her hands aside, forcing it open.
Her scent mixes with the smell of rain, and she sinks back, a smile playing on her mouth. There is no sign that she is trying to tempt me, but the way I feel doesn’t need an invitation.
“Were you getting bored of playing the lord of the manor?” she asks.
I settle on the end of the narrow window seat, braced against shelves holding all the ancient wisdom of my ancestors.
I glance down, the string of beads shifting against my heart. “Iamthe lord of this manor.”
She leans forward, peering under the rim of my hat with eyes that narrow in silent laughter. “And I am a princess of Sondmark. That’s not all we are. What happens to Han Heyden if you devote your life to Lindenholm?”
“I might hand the reins to someone else.” I watch her reaction.
