AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Fine.” She helped me into my coat, then together we shuffled down the staff corridors, passing the second kitchens and laundry, toward the bathhouse.
As we approached the echoing baths, voices rang from inside, rolling toward us on warm, damp air. My stride faltered. “Ellyn, I can’t be seen.” The scars, the bruises… “Not in this light.”
“Don’t be silly. It will be fine.” She laughed it off. “They won’t mind. It’s late in the morning, the palace guests are all occupied with lunch. It’ll just be a few lords—”
Panic fluttered my heart, making my lungs ache. “No, you don’t understand. I cannot be seen like this.”
“Lark—”
I dug my heels into the polished tiled floor. “No.”
How could I tell her that my power came from the fantasy, the act, the lies. If people saw me broken and battered, I’d lose my luster, my desire. They didn’t want to see their fool limping, broken, in need of sympathy. If they saw that, they’d know I was just a man. And a weak one, at that. I didn’t exist in that world. My world, and the world I spun for them, must always be a desirable dream.
Ellyn must have seen something close to panic on my face. “Very well.” She glanced around us and spotted a side room. “In there.”
The door opened into a small, enclosed pool room with mosaic-tiled steps leading down into deep, steaming turquoise water. “Get comfortable. I’ll be right back with supplies.” She was gone before I could protest.
The sooner I got this over with, the sooner Ellyn would patch me up and leave me alone to stew in self-pity.
I tugged off the coat, laid it over the bench, propped myself on a stool, and plucked off my trousers. Then, slowly, deliberately, I stepped into warm water. The baths were fed from hot springs. The hot, lapping water felt divine around my legs, and when submerged, the heat drew the aches from my muscles. I draped both arms along the cool sides of the pool and rested my head back.
Dripping water and my own steady heartbeat lulled my frayed, feverish mind. Ellyn had been right. I’d needed this. A little pennywort might take the edge of the pain. Some pain, I liked, but bruises were tiresome.
“Do not be alarmed.”
I jolted against the side of the pool and looked up. Alarmed was an understatement.
A strange little smirk tugged at Prince Arin’s lips, one I hadn’t seen from him before. He plucked his white cloak from his neck and hung it on the rack of hooks above the bench.
“I met the serving girl you are known to be familiar with and asked after your whereabouts,” he explained.
My thoughts raced, my chest heaved, and heart thumped so loudly he surely heard it. “Your Highness.”
“Ah, now the fool is respectful. It only took a beating to bring it out of you.”
He was alone. Why was he alone? And he was here. Searching for me? Hadn’t he already punished me enough?
What was this?
His fingers pried at his jacket buttons next, flicking each one open. Surely, he did not intend to bathe alongside me? There were perfectly good baths near his chambers, salted and fragranced for the royals. Unless his punishment wasn’t over. I’d play his games, but I was in no condition to do so now.
“I can leave, if you wish.” The rumble in my voice echoed around the tiled walls, sounding gruffer than I’d intended.
“Didn’t I just say I was looking for you?” He pulled off his fine white jacket and gold doublet beneath, then unlaced the undershirt.
This was a trap. It had to be. Alone, he might accuse me of anything. He’d already tried to have me hanged for murdering his mother. I had to leave. Yet… How many chances would I get to bathe with Prince Arin? And why now, what did he want?
He tugged his laces loose, crossed his arms, and pulled his shirt off, over his head, revealing a stunning torso, with enough muscle that he’d outwrestle me, if it came to it. Flawless skin gleamed golden with a hint of his father’s desert-touched tone, but most of him was pale, like his mother. The way the light played over his chest reminded me of honey falling from a spoon, and how I might lap it up with my tongue.
I turned my face away and swallowed a rising knot of panic. It wasn’t often I lost my voice, or my wits, but Arin had stolen both. The clever thing to do would be to climb from the water, throw on my clothes, and leave. But if I left the water, he’d see the scars, and the bruises he’d dealt me. At least, with my shoulders beneath the surface, he couldn’t see the marks he’d made.
Whatever he was here for, it was unlikely to be friendly. I’d dealt with worse than him, but few had caught me so unawares. Or vulnerable.
“You implied, the other day, how I might be watching you,” he continued. Where my voice had grated in the quiet, his flowed with a lyrical quality.
I kept my gaze fixed on the patterned tiles across the room and not on the prince who had by now removed his trousers, because he was already descending step by step into the water. I didn’t need to see him naked, or close to it. Of course, there was nothing unusual about men sharing baths. Unless one of them happened to be a prince, and the other his pet jester. Not least because of the rumors.
He’d been so careful not to be seen, and now he was everywhere.
