“It was desperation more than heroics.” Lorne gave a huff of a laugh, but his smile remained.
“I still found it heroic.” She smiled up at him, his face only inches from hers. Perhaps it was the fading shock of the assassination attempt, but looking at him stirred something within her. She had thestrange urge to erase the distance and press her mouth to his.
His head dipped lower to hers, their breaths hot in the space between them. “Adeline…”
All she could manage was a slight nod. She couldn’t even get her tangled tongue to whisper his name.
He closed the last of the distance and kissed her, slowly, gently, a careful exploration rather than pushing her too far, too fast.
She fumbled to kiss him back, the tension melting away into a heat flooding her. It was new and thrilling and as much as she wanted to embrace it, she dreaded it too.
Rather than deepening the kiss, he pulled back a heartbeat later, letting the kiss remain soft and gentle.
“Why did you stop?” She murmured the words, still in a haze.
“There’s no reason to rush.” He held her just as gently as he’d kissed her.
Perhaps she should have been disappointed, but a relief just as sweet as the kiss filled her instead. She wasn’t ready for more. After all, she’d only known Lorne for about a month. Hardly enough time to work up to anything more than a few exploratory kisses.
“It was nice.” She rested her head on his shoulder again.
“Only nice?” His light chuckle reverberated in his chest beneath her ear. “That’s a blow to my ego.”
“I liked nice.” Adeline finally let herself relax. Perhaps she might even fallback to sleep.
How was it possible that this man—this enemy lord—could make her feel so safe when she’d never felt this way with any of the other marriage prospects she’d considered?
But Lorne made her dare to hope. Not just for mere safety, but for security for her heart as well.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Lorne stood in the shadows by the front wall of the council room, his gaze skipping over the various lords assembled in the rows before the dais. Burchard and Godwin stood on either side of him, both poised for trouble.
Who in that room before him sent the assassin? Lorne searched for any sign of guilt. A shift to the feet or a flick of the eyes.
Perhaps he should be looking for someone who appeared too confident. If one of these lords was plotting to kill his queen, he likely didn’t feel any guilt about it. He would be convinced he was doing what was best for his kingdom. Or at the very least, what was best for himself.
Adeline sat in her throne-like chair on the dais in front of him as a discussion raged across the room. Something about the taxes needed to support the army, and if food that was destined for the armyanyway should be taxed or should be considered the tax on farmers in and of itself.
The ebb and flow of the debate was so familiar that Lorne had to work hard to suppress his smile. He’d sat through many a similar debate among the Lalsacian nobility, although Lalsacia allowed women to inherit noble titles so the council room back home had far more women than the room before him did.
At their heart, Kelverny and Lalsacia weren’t all that different. If only they could end this war, perhaps the two kingdoms could figure out a way to be neighbors instead of warring nations.
Once the discussion finally wound down, Adeline stood. After giving a few comments on how she would take their input under advisement, she swept the room with a hard glance.
Lorne had to work to suppress his smile once again. With her back ramrod straight and her expression regal, she was the picture of a queen rather than the trembling, fearful person she’d been the night before after the attack. She would pull this off because she was far stronger than the lords realized.
“As some of you might have heard, last night an assassin broke into my rooms and attempted to kill me and my husband.” Adeline’s posture didn’t shift, her voice didn’t waver. “As you can see, we are uninjured. The assassin was apprehended and is being held in the dungeon. My guards expect that he will tell the name of the one who hired him shortly.”
Lorne scoured the faces before him once again,looking for a flicker to betray the man who’d hired the assassin.
While that lord would have known last night that his plan had failed, he would’ve had no way of knowing whether the assassin had been killed or captured. The guards on duty had been ones loyal to Adeline, and Thaddeus had quickly realized the news of the assassin’s death should be kept quiet. They’d come up with this ruse to flush out the lord who orchestrated the assassination attempt.
Lorne couldn’t see any betrayal on the faces of the lords before him. There was plenty of shifting and murmuring, and the surprise of finding out their queen had nearly been killed was indistinguishable from the surprise of finding out the assassin had been captured.
Would the lord behind this take the bait? Or would he realize this was a trap?
Likely, he wouldn’t go to the dungeon himself to try to kill the assassin. He’d send someone. Probably bribe a guard.
