Page 18 of The Duchess Curse

He studied her, too. She sat behind a large, dark oak desk, free of everything but for a little golden cage, open, and the bird inside it, black of wing and sharp of eye. She’d acquired a pet.

Two years since she’d left their marriage. She looked good, better than before—her curves more pronounced, her face pinker, her eyes glittering with a merry purpose he’d never seen there before.

Fucking Jupiter, she was gorgeous.

“Thank you, Mercy,” she said, “that will be all.”

The maid, Mercy, left, shutting the doors behind her.

“Mistake number one,” Bran said, allowing himself the use of his natural accent and slipping his hand between his body and greatcoat, reaching for the blade behind his back.

“Mistake?” Her eye twitched. “I make plenty of those, but if you are one, I will be sure not to make you.”

“You shut yourself alone in a room with a man you do not know.”

Her gaze flicked to the doors behind him. “Ah. I see.”

He prowled closer to her desk, and she did not shrink from his approach. “Second mistake.”

She folded her arms atop the desk and leaned across it. “Do tell.”

“You are not wary of me.”

“Oh, I am. I am merely choosing not to show it.”

Hiding fear could confuse a predator, turn the tables. “Good.”

“Are there any other mistakes I should be aware of?”

“Not hiring me.” A mistake for her. And a sorrow for him. His Shadow training still fit him perfectly, felt damn good to be a soldier instead of a duke. Felt good to use his own fucking voice and body for once. Felt right. And damn it, if his wife got to do as she pleased, so should he.

“You are confident, aren’t you?”

“I’ve earned confidence. Now… Mistake three.”

“Two, actually, because the second was no mistake at all. Remember?”

He slipped the knife from its holster and threw it. It landed point first in her desk with a thunk, handle vibrating.

She gasped and jolted backward, the legs of her chair screeching across the wood floor. “I… I didn’t even see you move.”

“There are those trying to kill you, I hear.” His initial reason for plotting this mad scheme. Someone had to make sure his wife didn’t die. And the fool bodyguards she’d been hiring kept getting themselves killed or running off with their tails between their legs.

“Are you one of them?” Her voice didn’t waver, not even a little.

“No.”

“You’re from Scotland. But you sound educated, too… Who are you?”

“Your new bodyguard. You can call me Bran. But what should I call you?” Wife.

“What everyone calls me now. Lady Guinevere.”

He found Ned and Grant outside, one guarding the front entrance of the building, the other the back. Bran gave Grant orders then left him to carry them out. The queen trusted him, so Bran would, too.

Ned he lingered with. The big man had been Bran’s right hand before the fire. A friend. Or as close as Bran ever came to it.

They stood side by side at the entrance, both lounging in the late afternoon shadows as if they meant to have a casual chat. They looked everywhere but at each other—the faces of passersby, the faint twitch of shadows in corners, the sweep of curtains in a window. Ned hadn’t forgotten his lessons.