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“I know I have struggled for everything in my life—had things stolen from me by your kind.”
“What?”
“My father, for one. His destiny. His legacy. He was killed by one of your own.”
Her jaw dropped with a slight gasp. A second passed and then she shook the shiver from her spine. “I am sorry for your loss.”
“It was long ago.” Rune picked up his fork, his look going back down to his food.
That was it? That was all he had to say?
Elle stared at him as he ate. Even foxed as she was, her mind was straight enough to know his logic lacked merit—to lump everyone with a title under the same umbrella dripping with contempt. “I am still sorry, no matter how distant in the past. But your father’s death and how it happened has nothing to do with me.”
His head gave a slight shake, his copper-green eyes hardening as he looked at her. “It has everything to do with your kind. It has everything to do with entitlement. You expect to get everything that you want. And you do.”
The hairs on the back of her neck spiked and she jabbed a piece of meat, shoving it into her mouth before she said something she’d regret. Her niece was always saving her from unleashing her barbed tongue, but Jules was now fifty miles away.
She clearly had to become accustomed to biting back her own words as she was stuck with this man—at least until they discovered what secrets the ancient Roman baths held about the Box of Draupnir’s origins—whether she liked it or not.
Whereas earlier in the day, she’d thought she’d have a hard time not daydreaming about Rune’s too-perfect jaw and his unique copper-green eyes, she was quickly seeing evidence of the ugly beneath the handsome veneer.
And she needed to avoid the ugly. She’d been fooled by a pretty veneer before.
She’d just have to set in place her most placating smile and handle the sour disposition of Rune to the best of her ability. And if her ability wavered on occasion, well, the man had it coming.
Elle forced a tight smile as she chewed, channeling everything Jules had ever explained to her about swallowing rage and moving onward with life. Her niece was a champion at the sport. Elle was not.
Rune shoved several bites of food into his mouth, eating so quickly she’d only gotten three bites down before his plate was cleared. Almost as if he was afraid she was going to start picking food off his plate.
It was at that moment she couldn’t hold her sham smile any longer and she broke. “You’re quite odious, I must say. First tossing me onto a horse I still have bruises from and now this. I’ve never met someone so judgmental about someone he knew nothing of. You haven’t even spent five minutes with me conversing and you think you know exactly what I am. You’re the worst kind of a ridiculous prig.”
Jules would not be proud of her.
Rune’s fork clattered to his empty plate and his gaze shot up to her, his eyebrows cocked. “You want questions?”
The severity of his voice set her on instant guard. Why had she even bothered to open her mouth?
Her shoulders lifted. “If you plan on judging a person, at least judge them on the truth of who they are. An actual conversation does help with that.” Her teeth clamped down hard on the piece of meat on her fork.
He nodded slowly, even though every muscle in his body had tightened to the contrary, and he leaned back in his chair as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Fine. What were you doing today on the floor of the carriage? Clamped up in a ball? Mute? Lost to the world around you?”
A gasp whipped into her mouth, sending the chunk of meat deep into her throat. A fit of coughing overtook her until it dislodged, and with her eyes watering, she grabbed her wine and swallowed far too much for how tipsy she already was.
Elle dared a glance at him.
He sat in the same position, his eyes trained on her, not even inclined to lean forward and reach across the table to give her a helpful pat on the back. Waiting. Waiting for the answer to his question.
Another sip of her wine and she inhaled a deep breath, trying to calm the instant heavy ball rolling about in her gut. “I—I don’t know what happened to me in the carriage. It is hard to explain.”
“Try.”
“Why?”
His fingers flicked out from his crossed arms. “I can’t protect you if you turn into a turtle. If I tell you to move, I need you to move. It’s really quite simple.”
“I’m not a turtle.” The heat from earlier on her neck exploded. First she was a sack of potatoes, now she was a turtle. Beyond the pale. She pulled out her most wicked glare, the one that had sent more than one dandy of thetonscurrying into the nearest smoking room.
“You were today. A turtle hiding in its shell.”
