Page 79 of Seducing the Knave

There was a flicker in his eyes, but his tone remained weighted as he said, “That wretch deserved what he got.”

Elle knew he wasn’t talking about Jasper anymore, and after a moment, she nodded. She believed him. And then, because she needed so badly to know, she asked, “What do you do, Max, when you leave me here every day? Where do you go?” Looking into eyes that had gone cold and flinty, she asked, “What’s beyond this room?”

The corner of his eyebrow lifted as he inhaled through his nose. For a second, she actually thought he might tell her. Then his lips curled into a smirk. “A world ye don’t belong in, princess.”

Elle had never hated that nickname as much as she did then as he shoved to his feet and crossed the room to start dressing. She sat tensely in her chair, watching him intently while he barely spared her another glance before heading for the door. Pausing in the threshold, he didn’t even bother to turn back to her as he said, “Don’t pass through these doors again.”

Then he left.

Chapter Twenty-two

Elle was tempted to dwell on the fact that even after the very promising start to the morning, Max had still left her with that cold reminder of where she did and didn’t belong in his life. Clearly, despite the new and wonderous intimacy between them, nothing had really changed. It was enough to make her heart feel like it was being squeezed in a tight fist while something threateningly close to tears clogged her throat.

With a firm shake of her head, she forced the disturbing emotions away to focus on the news she’d just received.

Jasper was no longer a threat.

It seemed too good to be true, and though she wanted to believe it, she couldn’t ignore how persistent Jasper had proven to be so far. It was possible her cousin’s extreme arrogance might motivate him to ignore whatever warning Max had given.

A strange certainty rippled through her.

If Jasper did make such a mistake, she had no doubts at all that Max would handle it. She didn’t trust Jasper the slightest bit, but she trusted Max.

More and more every day.

Standing at the window as she’d done so frequently in the last few days, she gazed down at the people of St. Giles going about their business. Beyond the glass, the world outside continued without rest or hesitation. Carts and wagons rolled by as they did every day. She’d taken to spending a couple hours of each day at these windows, watching from a safe and separate distance as people of all sorts came and went from her view.

Like a princess in a tower.

Disquiet tugged through her core.

Though her life had once resembled a fairy tale, that illusion was long gone. She wasn’t a princess. She was as far from her old life as one could imagine and there was nothing holding her to those lost expectations of who and what she was supposed to be.

If not a princess, then what? If she was no longer Lady Elvina Fowler, then who exactly was she? And now that she had left the beauty and security of a home no longer hers, where did she belong? Here, in this safe but silent room? Or there? On the streets below?

What was to stop her from finding out? She could go wherever she pleased. Well, almost wherever she pleased, she corrected with a quick scowl at the forbidden double doors.

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