Rogue’s Kiss

Chapter Five - The Prince

Lilia had the letters Grace had sent, short updates about her activities in the city and around court. Something between the two had gotten her killed. But love? Her brows drew together and Lilia shook her head. Surely Grace would have written something so important in her letters? Or maybe not, not if she expected the correspondence to be intercepted as it often was between the court and the distant borders of the country.

‘Love?’ Lilia managed to keep her voice low as she lent forward, closing the distance between herself and Sastra. She had so many questions, but first the inevitable; ‘with who?’

‘Prince Ronin,’ Sastra’s lips were pressed into a thin line. She nodded towards the man in question as he walked past with barely a nod in their direction.

Things between the cousins seemed frosty. Whenever Lilia had attended court before, she had thought Sastra and the four princes had gotten along well. She’d been the sister they’d never had. Apparently not.  What had changed since the death of Sastra’s father earlier in the year? The Kings brother was a loss to court life, he had been followed by a series of scandals but never failed to be kind to the people around him. 

Prince Ronin, like his brothers, had pale golden hair and a jaw covered in stubble. Like all his brothers, he had striking bright blue eyes and was taller than most of the other men in the room. Ronin moved with an easy grace across the room to Thade. Lilia watched as the men greeted each other, Thade collecting a drink for the Prince. She frowned, Prince Ronin didn’t seem like Grace’s type. Although, before tonight Lilia wouldn’t have considered Grace as having a type.

‘Was,‘ her frown deepened as she looked back at Sastra, ‘was there anything to it?’

Sastra grimaced, ‘he destroyed her, poor Grace.’

‘Do you think that he returned the feeling?’ Lilia was mystified, why hadn’t Grace mentioned anything in her letters?

‘It looked to the entire court that they were becoming very…close indeed.’

Close enough to have an affair, Lilia wondered, or close enough to marry? Grace’s family would have been delighted. ‘What happened?’ Something must have, to destroy Grace. Had it led to her death though? Lilia watched the two men across the room, though if she was honest with herself her gaze lingered more on George Thade than the Prince. There was something in the way he moved that captivated her attention. 

Sastra held her hands palm up as she shrugged, ‘he found an alternative amusement,’ her eyes narrowed as she too glance across the room.

So the Prince had moved onto someone else. Lilia felt deflated on behalf of her friend. Had she been embarrassed? Had everyone been talking about it? Lilia could only imagine the kind of horror that came with being at the centre of attention at court. A living nightmare.

‘Grace was hurt? Destroyed?’ Lilia felt her heart aching for her friend as she turned back to Sastra.

‘Utterly devastated…’ Sastra looked up then at the returning collection of ladies maids. ‘I hope, perhaps Lady Liliana, that we could be friends?’ She suggested as she stood.

Lilia nodded, standing in order to curtsey. ‘I would like that, your Grace. Very much.’

‘The day after tomorrow, join me for tea and we will remember our dear friend.’

‘The day after tomorrow…’ Lilia agreed and watched as Sastra was whisked away by her ladies to the dancefloor. A line of eager suitors awaited.

Lilia stood and made her own away around the edges of the room to the single door to the outside.

Grace involved with anyone, let alone a Prince didn’t make any sense. Ronin in particular always seemed so flippant, so eager to dance and drink and Grace…Grace had been champion of the ‘let’s hide in the shadows, or by the sweets trays society’, membership of two. Or one. 

Stepping into the autumn air, Lilia turned her face to the stars. It was a cloudless night, the sound of the musicians muffled behind glass and thick draped curtains. She could hear leaves rustling in the light breeze as she stepped lightly across a short patio area to a low stone wall. Beyond the wall was a sheer drop to the ornamental gardens below. Rows of perfectly trimmed hedges and empty rose bushes vanished into the darkness. 

Lilia let out the breath she’d been holding and set her hands on the wall.

‘I feel I know you from somewhere…’ George Thades voice whispered past her right ear.