“Like your observatory?” she says bluntly.
“Shh.”
“Why can’t people know?”
Because. It’s. Mine.
“I’ll explain later.” I place my hand low on her back to steer her where I want her to go. If only I could steer her away from this subject of conversation just as easily.
“Are we going to the library?”
“No. I want to show you where you’ll be living. With me. We’ll take a shortcut past the barracks if you’re comfortable with that. We can lose Stacia there.”
“Lead on,” she says with enthusiasm at the idea of losing her stepsister’s company.
I guide her through a winding rear entrance, up a set of stairs through the more workaday areas of the castle. We pass a training arena full of knights sparring. I quicken my steps. “No need to linger.”
Elinor laughs. “I’m not going to leave you for one of your knights, silly. I was only curious. They train very hard, don’t they?”
“I have a track record of losing brides to my knights,” I say, unable to keep a hint of bitterness from creeping into my tone. “I won’t take chances with you.”
“There is no danger of that happening,” she says, tucking her hand into my elbow. I adjust my stride to match hers. “I am going to live here at the castle. I’m sure I’ll get used to the sight of guards quickly. I’ve been stuck in a crumbling estate with three people who despised me for most of my life, Alistair. I only want to see what the world is like beyond the cage I’ve been trapped in.”
That gives me pause. I never want her to feel like this is merely a gilded prison where she isn’t able to be herself. I want it to feel like her home.
I halt abruptly and pull her in for a kiss, right there in the middle of the servants’ hall. She melts against me and opens to me greedily. Artlessly.
“You can be my wings, and together we’ll soar,” she says.
“My princess poet.” A soft chuckle rumbles in my chest. Her lips are kiss-swollen. A sigh of contentment escapes me as I trace her lips with the pad of my thumb. I drop a kiss onto her forehead. She rises on tiptoes to kiss me properly. “My impatient princess.”
“I’m not a princess.”
“You will be as soon as I put a ring on this finger.” She had better get used to it. How wondrous to have a queen who would marry me without the title. I cannot lose this precious gem of a woman. I press my lips to the place where a band of gold will soon sit. Not soon enough. “Come. I’ll show you the shortcut.”
17
ALISTAIR
Elinor’s silkskirt whispers along the stone as I show her the way through the winding servants’ passageway to my rooms. The sound is a pleasant scrape at the edges of my senses. Her clean light floral scent teases my nose. Her hand, cold in mine. I make a mental note to get her a nice shawl. Stone castles are perpetually chilly.
We arrive at a landing too small for the both of us. There’s a catch at foot-level. I trip it with my boot’s toe and the narrow door opens silently into my bedchamber.
Elinor’s eyes go wide.
There can be no doubt in her mind why I brought her here. I cannot wait one more day to be with her. Part of me is frantic at the thought of losing her. I can’t fathom how it could possibly happen. We’re to be married tomorrow. No one will care if we anticipate our wedding vows by a day—and I am not a patient man.
“This chamber is fit for a king,” she says, awed.
“It should be. I will become one any day now.”
She turns to me with a mix of outrage and laughter dancing in her eyes. “You’re awful.”
“My father has been dying for nearly a year now. For all I know he’ll last another five years. He is an incredibly stubborn man.”
“You aren’t close with him.” She says this as a statement, not a question. Elinor’s hips sway as she explores my bedroom, taking in the enormous four-poster with its heavy brocade curtain and piles of soft pillows. I imagine her hair fanned out across those pillows as she screams my name, her tits bouncing with each forceful thrust…
“No,” I belatedly remember to answer. “Not at all.”
