With a glance over her shoulder to make certain no one else lurked about, Grier moved to the door of the room where the voices originated. Pressing her ear close, she listened.

“Listen carefully to me, Hannah, you’ll delay as long as possible. Do you understand?”

“But Lady Libbie, your papa will beat me when he discovers I’ve been lying to him. Please take me with you.”

Lady Libbie? Where was the earl’s daughter going?

“I need you to stall anyone from finding out I’ve snuck away. Allow no one into my room. Tell them I’m exhausted.”

At this, someone started sobbing—Hannah presumably. Lady Libbie sounded resolute and calculating, quite above tears.

“Oh, come now, Hannah. Cease your weeping.”

“Oh, my lady, I’m sorry. I’m a selfish, wretched creature, I am! I should be thinking of you—so happy that you’ve found your prince at last! Ever since you were a girl you dreamed of this . . .” The rest of the maid’s words faded away.

Your prince . A prickly sensation washed over her skin. Lady Libbie and Sevastian . . .

Grier felt ill. She pressed a hand to her suddenly roiling stomach. She shook her head, told herself to walk away. Everyone knew he was here to court Lady Libbie. This shouldn’t come as a shock. It shouldn’t matter that he’d kissed her. It didn’t matter.

“Oh, very well.” A sigh of exasperation drifted through the door. “You may come with us. I suppose you might serve some use. Your presence may help to still the wagging tongues when they learn of the elopement. At least I can claim to have had you as a chaperone, although I must confess I was looking forward to being alone with my love on the journey. Now I must contend with you. I do hope you won’t complain the entire time.”

My love . Grier rolled her eyes. She hardly knew the prince. Did anyone truly know the man? He held himself as aloof as a Grecian statute.

Of course, Grier had thought she might have had a glimpse of him, of the real man beneath the façade. Evidently she was just as foolish as Lady Libbie. The girl actually thought the presence of a maid would lessen the gossip surrounding an elopement? Fool girl. Did she think that would matter? One need only look at the virile prince to be assured that Lady Libbie did not reach the altar with her virtue intact.

As she stood there, with her ear pressed to the door and her palms flat against the polished wood, the utter awfulness of the moment sank deep. Lady Libbie was running away. To marry Prince Sevastian.

The man was a cad! Grier had begun to read something more into their exchanges. Something beyond a prince trifling with a woman of lower rank. She’d begun to think he felt something genuine for her. Clearly she’d been naught but a distraction until he and Lady Libbie made their escape.

She stepped back from the door, her hands knotting at her sides as cold fury swept over her. He was quite the seducer. When had he even wooed Lady Libbie? She scarcely saw them together. She hadn’t imagined he spoke to any female at the house party as much as he spoke to her.

She was filled with a sudden vision of him sneaking into the young lady’s bedchamber, kissing away her qualms and charming her from her night rail as he lowered her to the great bed.

Feeling like a total and utter dupe, she strode from the door as quickly as her feet would carry her. How dare he flirt with her— kiss her—while planning to elope with another woman?

Somehow this was different—worse—than knowing he was here to court Lady Libbie. She knew that he’d eventually wed the lovely girl or some other such acceptable female. He did not hide the fact that he was on the hunt for a bride. Just as she did not hide the fact that she was here to find a husband.

But learning that he was strategizing an elopement in the same hour that he flirted with her—it was abominable. Were all men so duplicitous? Were they all as wretched as Trevis?

It only made her feel all the smarter for choosing to wed for practicality. Security, respectability. She required nothing more than that.

And yet her indignation burned hot to know that while he toyed with her he already had a secret understanding with Lady Libbie. The wretch.

And why was he so anxious that he must elope with the lady? Did he lack all patience? Or was there another reason? Did he fear the earl would refuse his proposal?

Well, whatever the scenario, she wouldn’t let him get away with it. She was not the spoiled and naïve Lady Libbie, believing him to be a romantic hero—the prince of her girlhood fantasies.

No, Grier knew him for what he was. An arrogant brute whose kisses singed one’s soul, whose kisses could trick a young girl with less experience into believing he was the stuff of girlish fantasies.

For a moment she had forgotten who she was. She had permitted him to tempt her, even letting his whispered words weave a seductive fog inside her head to such a degree that she had begun to ask herself what would be so very wrong with engaging in a brief liaison.

She’d created quite a convincing argument. She was no green girl. Sentiment would not be involved. She would receive carnal satisfaction. Perhaps that was right, justified, given that she was preparing to enter a union that promised none of that.

Her stride increased, every step quick and agitated. It only took secret whispers in a corridor to jerk her back to reality.

Hardening her heart, she slipped inside her bedchamber to plan exactly how she might thwart the prince from stealing away into the night. She rationalized that a man so arrogant, so deceptive, so amoral, should not get what he wanted. At the very least, she intended to give His Bloody Highness a piece of her mind.

He may very well abscond into the night with his wealthy and eligible bride, but not before she let him know what she thought of him, and that she was not someone he could toy with and then so easily forget.

Chapter Fourteen

Sev retired early. He’d never located Lady Libbie as he’d set out to do, so he felt little desire to indulge in cards and drink with the gentlemen in the library. He would start fresh on the morrow and begin wooing Lady Libbie in earnest—and stay as far as possible from a certain female whose every breath, every look, managed to entice him.

As he passed the library, he took heed of the viscount with his jacket removed and sleeves rolled up to his elbows at the card table.

Sev had noticed the dowager’s grandson had a particular affinity for faro and was quite willing to lay down a considerable wager. His horse, his curricle in Town . . . even his ruby cuff links. Fleetingly, he wondered if Miss Hadley knew of his proclivity and then he told himself it was none of his concern. Grier Hadley’s future was none of his concern. Whom she might or might not choose to marry was none of his concern.

In his chamber, he gently shook Ilian awake from the chair in the corner. Sev dismissed the old fellow for the night with a fond pat on his bent back. It didn’t matter how many times he told Ilian not to wait up for him, the old man faithfully did so.

He was tugging his cravat loose when a slight knock at his balcony door made him pause.

Cocking his head, he stared hard at the draperies shielding the glass door, certain he had misheard. Someone could not be knocking out there. He was three stories from the ground—and it was practically midnight.

The tapping came again, this time louder. His every nerve snapped into alert with familiar tension. The same tension he’d lived with for too many years to count. He’d survived both assassins and countless battlefields over the last dozen years only because he’d learned to be alert, constantly vigilant.

He moved to the balcony door carefully, on the balls of his feet—and pulled back the drapes.

There, with her arms crossed and standing in a belligerent pose, stood Miss Grier Hadley, snow falling gently around her.

With a curse, he yanked the door open.

“What in the hell—”

“I’d like a word with you,” she demanded frostily, her lashes blinking with powdery flakes.

He looked her slowly up and down. She wore men’s trousers tailored for her. They fit like a glove to her lean limbs. He swallowed a suddenly dry throat, quite certain he had never seen a lady’s parts quite so shapely.

Stepping out onto the balcony, he looked down, confirming she had used no ladder to reach his balcony. “How did you get here?”

She waved a hand as if that were a trivial matter. “I simply jumped a few balconies until I reached yours.”

“You jumped?” He shook his head. “Which bedchamber is yours?”

She looked to her right. “Three over.”

He followed her gaze. At least eight feet separated the multiple balconies attached to each room. He looked down at the snow-covered ground. She was fortunate she did not lie below in a pile of broken limbs. He closed his eyes in a long blink before lifting his face to stare at her again.

“It was easy.” She shrugged one shoulder.

“Are you mad?” he barked.

She waved a hand before her lips. “Sssh. Keep your voice down. Do you want to wake the entire house?”

“Why didn’t you simply knock on my bedchamber door?”

She sniffed. “That would be most unseemly. I have a reputation to preserve.”

“And this is not improper?”

“I could have been seen at the door to your room.” She looked annoyed at his suggestion.

His lips quirked. He cast a quick glance to the balconies surrounding them. Arching his brow, he said, “Hate to say it, but your reputation is still in peril, sweetheart. Anyone could look out their balcony and spot you here.”

Even in the thin light of the moon, he could see the blush staining her cheeks. “Don’t say that,” she snapped.

“What? It’s true. Anyone could crave a bit of fresh air and see you—”

“Not that ! Don’t call me sweetheart ,” she clarified.

“Ah.” He smiled now, forgetting his anger in his enjoyment of seeing her so discomfited. “Well. We’re hardly strangers anymore. We’ve shared intimacies—”

“Intimacies? You make it sound as though we’re . . . as though we’ve . . .” She stopped and shook her head doggedly. “I think not.”

“What would you call kissing on multiple occasions? And in no way would I describe those kisses as chaste.” His gaze raked her knowingly, recalling the way she felt against him . . . the way she tasted.

“I would call it a mistake. A brief lapse in judgment. Allow me to disabuse you of the notion that we’ve been intimate in any manner.”

His anger returned in a hot surge. “Deny it all you wish. It doesn’t change what we did. Or that you want me.”

” I want you ?” She propped a hand on her waist.

“Yes,” he growled.

She tossed back her head and released a harsh crack of laughter. “Oh, you arrogant pig. You’re delusional.”

“I speak only the truth. It’s in your eyes . . . the way they follow me about whatever room we occupy.” The color rode high in her cheeks and he knew he hit a nerve. “Yes, I’m aware of your stares.”

“Then you must be staring, too,” she accused, jabbing him sharply in the chest with one finger.

He ignored her and the jab of her finger, concentrating on proving that she wanted him. “How can I not stare? I do believe it was you who first kissed me. In a most passionate display, I must say.”

Her eyes spit fire at him. She was shaking now, trembling from head to foot, and he didn’t doubt she wished to strike him. “What about you, Your Royal Highness ? When we were locked in that armoire, your actions were far from noble. Are you suggesting that you’re merely the helpless victim of my unwanted attentions? Because that’s indeed laughable.”

He stepped close, his arm stealing around her and pulling her flush against him when she backed up dangerously near the railing. “Oh, I want you. I burn for you.”