Page 9 of Crowned In Sin

Would he be willing to show me what I want?

“But how would I find a man like that?” I ask, when I have caught my breath. I find the courage to turn and look into the shadows, but they are empty. The man is gone.

Chapter 4

Cora

Over the next week, I look for the man from the shadows everywhere I go, but I do not see him. My mind plays tricks on me and I start to think I’ve imagined him.

I think I might see him in the great hall each evening at dinner, but then the person turns around and it is a barmaid or another member of the court, and it can’t be him. After three days, I sneak out of my rooms at night and roam the halls, looking for him.

There are few stewards and guards about at this late hour, so I mostly do not have to explain myself. If I am questioned—and I am usually not questioned—I tell them that I couldn’t sleep, so I am taking a walk to settle my mind.

When there is not a ball being held, the ballroom is dark aside from a few sconces burning by the windows. The chandeliers remain unlit. I do not cross the dance floor. Instead, I make loops of the balcony above, then pace aimlessly through the connected rooms.

I look for him on the outer balcony and do not find him. Although his masculine scent seems to drift toward me. Quickly I turn, hope and an ounce of fear blooming in my chest that he is close, but I find the space empty. His broad shoulders cloaked in shadows are nowhere to be found. It makes no sense that my mind should linger on the man, given he refused to even speak to me. And yet, my imagination runs away with me nearly every night when I dream of him touching me…taking advantage in ways no one has ever dared before.

I should be enraged by the disrespect he showed by not responding to a princess…and yet, the things I dream of are more than disrespectful. They’re downright sinful.

Sullied with thoughts I should not have, I go back to my rooms with my mind unsettled with desire. I find myself alone once again when I shut the heavy door behind me. Alice and Blanche have long since gone to bed.

Even so, I check to see that my rooms are empty. I lock the door from the inside.

Then I strip my nightgown over my head. I carry it with me to the bed, lay it across the blankets, then take off my undergarments, too.

Naked, I blow out the candle on the table by my bed and slide beneath the covers. They’re cool to the touch from how long I have been gone. Goosebumps slip along my skin as I shiver, waiting to be warmed from the covers.

And still, so many days later, I think of him. Of all the worries that plague me, my mind wanders to the man in the shadows.

Why would he wait for me on that balcony if he was going to disappear?

Why can I still feel his presence in the castle when he won’t show himself?

I smelled him. I know I did. That was his scent in the air, as if he had been standing there for quite some time, waiting for me, only to leave as soon as I arrived.

Or perhaps he left because I was about to arrive. Perhaps he does not want to show me who he is. Perhaps he knows I thought of going to him, and that’s why he slipped away while I was in thought. I let my mind wander as a soft pleasure pulses within me.

Maybe he is no prince but yet, he craves me. Maybe he felt he could not control himself. That at any moment his restraint would snap and he would cross the space between us and embrace me. If he covered my mouth—with his hand or with kisses—no one would hear me cry out.

No one would hear any sounds I made. Perhaps even sounds of pleasure.

And perhaps he thought afterward, that he had made a mistake. Perhaps he went to wherever he was staying—in the castle or in the village—and regretted putting such distance between us.

Perhaps he has been thinking of it ever since that night, with regret burning in him, until finally he can no longer stand it.

Perhaps then, he might do something reckless. The very idea is intoxicating. Warmth dances along my skin…along every inch.

It is nothing but a fantasy, but I allow myself to indulge.

I imagine him moving through the shadows so that no one notices him coming and going. His footsteps make no noise, and he knows the castle so well that there are many entrances for him to choose from. No guard notices or stops him. No servant sees him or questions him.

There’s nothing to stop him coming to the door of my rooms and opening it.

There would be some sound. A soft creak of the hinge and a groan from the wooden doorway. I close my eyes and imagine that I have just heard that sound—the movement of air and then an even quieter noise as he shuts the door.

I must pretend to be sleeping. What this man wants cannot be anything he would have asked for on the balcony. Anything he might have asked then might not have been polite, but he would not have dared to take much more of a risk. Not when it would have been so easy for me to flee back to the ballroom and the safety of all my father’s guests, not to mention the guards that would come running at the first sign of trouble.

No—what he wants now is something uncontrollable and forbidden. That’s why he had to sneak through the shadows and into the castle and into my bedchamber.