Page 6 of The Princess Tied

“Oh. I think I see it now. Ew.” Her throat moved under his knife blade. “What was it you wanted?”

“You will come with me. I can use you as trade when I catch my brother’s kidnappers.”

“Hmmm. Not enough. Me as trade sounds rather iffy. Kill me and you die. My guards will hear my scream, and I will do so. Stalemate. Go now, without me.”

Such a firm voice. He actually doubted himself, for a second.

“Then…” He reached up and took hold of his spectacles. “This. I have been to Hell and back.” He removed the glasses, meaning he could not, temporarily, see her face in good focus, but she would not realize this. He growled the last words. “Fear me.”

CHAPTER TWO

“ Well. Why didn’t you say?” Fire eyes. Cool.

Which was a strange reaction to have. She should not be thinking that when he could slit her throat. Except, he was Xander’s brother, and it seemed unlikely. There was fear but a toned-down version of fear.

This was almost exciting.

“What’s your name again?”

“John…” He cleared his throat. “…the Wickerman.”

Not of Guerre? The change of his surname added to his mystique. However, her forgetting he was called John, that was terrible and Diplomatic Error #23 in her Handbook of Diplomacy and Spycraft. Names were her weakness. She could recall Pi to one thousand digits but most people’s names, no, unless they were close friends or officials she met daily.

Names withered in her memory into random stacks of letters.

Xander was a great guy, someone for whom she had indeed felt what she was almost certain was love. Love was foreign territory for her, so she always felt unsure, as someone might the first time they saw a penguin. This! This is a bird? Love was like that for her. Her father had been kind, generous, good at teaching her how to run the kingdom, but bad at hugging and love.

She’d wanted, somewhat desperately, to find out what had happened to Xander, but there were constraints. She could not agree to everything, no matter what people thought. The royal advisors had advised her of the perils of interfering further. There was also her vow to Xander.

Her advisors had even suggested John might have murdered his brother to get closer to her.

With this daring deed, John had ripped up that piece of logic as well as her need for restraint.

John was eminently dangerous and thus exciting. Who else did she know who’d been to Hell and back? Who else had eyes that burned?

Who else would dare accost her at midnight in her bedroom, with his knife at her throat and his weight making her bed dip—reminding her of the weight of men and the presence of muscles under their clothes?

Hmm.

It only took her a second to run through her options.

He wanted her to come with him.

Staying meant he might murder her. That was a negative.

Going with him meant abduction and an unsure destination. They’d be chasing the trail of Xander’s kidnappers across rough roads, over mountains, rivers. She might get to sail a boat and actually do something apart from study how to rule, look fabulous in a gown, and tell servants to serve her.

It meant she might find Xander while also having an adventure. It meant circumventing the vow she’d made to him without blame falling on her. Neither of them could have predicted this. Plus, her heart wanted her to go.

Statistically speaking, she would never get the chance to do anything a princess should not do, except for now, today, at the hands of her fiancée’s brother.

It would be dangerous. She bit her lip, released it. “Let’s go, then.”

With his hand on her arm, he allowed her to rise. “Pack a small bag of underthings and a change of clothes. Dress in clothes that will withstand the travails of the open road.”

Underthings. She blushed lightly at the thought of him watching her do that. Her servants, such as Nurse Withers, were all female. “I… don’t think I have any of those sorts of clothes.”

“Oh. Damn.”