Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
The group disbanded, Xavier half wishing he’d been sent to arrange things with the guild instead of facing his mother’s luncheon. But at least Alina would be there. Hopefully she wouldn’t use Lilah and Benji as an excuse to avoid him at the event.
He needn’t have worried. When he arrived at the luncheon, which was being held in the castle’s extensive rose gardens, his eyes found Alina immediately, and she was alone.
She wore a simple gown, her hair pulled back into its usual braid, and her figure unadorned by a single piece of jewelry.
Surrounded by young women in aggressively elaborate headpieces, expensive dresses, and excessive jewelry, she stood out in the best way.
Xavier approached her, his progress hampered by a number of hopeful young women. He replied to them all lightly, not rebuffing, but not entering into the flirtation they clearly wanted. He could feel the disappointment that trailed after him. And apparently Alina could, too.
“Goodness, you leave an actual trail of broken hearts behind you, don’t you?” she said by way of greeting when he finally reached her. Her eyes drifted back the way he’d come.
“Disappointed plans, maybe,” he said. “Broken hearts, no.”
“I suspect you’re right,” she said, taking a sip of the drink in her hand. “Although that’s not what that girl from earlier—Lady Liesl, is it? That’s not what she was saying just now.”
Xavier let out a low groan. “I doubt I want to know.”
“She said,” Alina continued helpfully, “that her heart felt dead while you were away, and that seeing you safely returned felt like coming back to life again.”
“That’s…revolting,” Xavier said.
“To be fair,” Alina went on conversationally, “one of her friends then told her that her heart hadn’t seemed dead when she was dancing with Lord Thorburn, and then she got very cross.”
Xavier let out a laugh that was loud enough to draw attention from some nearby attendees of the luncheon.
“Will you fight this Lord Thorburn?” Alina asked innocently, swirling her drink in her glass. “Since you’re the deadliest fighter in the land, it doesn’t seem like you have anything to lose.”
“That’s enough from you,” Xavier said sternly, well aware she could see the twinkle in his eyes. He glanced around. “Where are Benji and Lilah? Weren’t you all invited?”
“We were,” Alina said. “But the invitation came too late for them to hear it. They’d already departed for the Craftsman’s Guild. I don’t know how long they’ll be gone, but I imagine a while.”
“Why are they going to the guild?” Xavier asked.
Alina took another sip, looking innocent. “Well, since we’re here anyway, Benji thought he might as well try applying for a scholarship to train with the guild. He’s very skilled with magic, after all.”
Xavier laughed aloud as he finally understood. “That’s the whole reason you insisted on their inclusion, isn’t it? You and your careful questions about who would pay for the journey and the accommodation. You’re a sneak, Alina. And a miserly one at that.”
Alina’s grin was unrepentant. “It pays to be resourceful.”
“Sponging off the crown, more like,” Xavier said, still smiling.
He felt buoyant, more cheerful than he had all morning.
Alina hadn’t brought her friends to be a buffer that helped her avoid him.
Her reasons had nothing to do with him. “I wish Benji luck. It would be a very good thing for both him and Lilah if he could get a place at the guild.”
Alina nodded her agreement. “It really would. We’ve all been saving toward that end for two years. But then,” she flashed him a wicked grin, “a strong, handsome prince, deadly with a blade, you know the type, swooped in and started throwing coins about, and next thing you know, here we are.”
“Is that so?” Xavier shifted closer, a glint entering his eyes.
He forgot for a moment how watched he would be in such a public setting, and the fact that he wasn’t supposed to be flirting with Alina for fear she’d think him a joke.
The force of habit was too strong—both the habit of enjoying rather than avoiding public censure, and the habit of taking any opportunity to flirt with a pretty girl.
And no girl had ever made him more inclined to flirt than Alina.
She’d been having that effect on him since they were fourteen.
He leaned in a little, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword, and one eyebrow quirked, in a posture he knew women found hard to resist.
“You think I’m handsome, do you?”
“All princes are handsome,” Alina told him solemnly. “Whether they are or not.”
He narrowed his eyes, not averse to a challenge. “Is that why you were ogling me when my laces were too loose at the inn in Alton?”
The accusation surprised a gasp out of Alina, and he smirked to himself. Success.
“I have never ogled you in my life,” she protested.
“Are you sure? Because I seem to remember one time, at a gala at Baron Runsky’s manor, when—”
“Things from back then don’t count,” she said, flustered.
Xavier would have been delighted to pursue his advantage, but another of his admirers chose that moment to approach him, this one a fierce rival of Lady Liesl.
“Your Highness.” She held out her hand. “Welcome home.”
“Thank you,” Xavier said. He was reluctant to take the hand, but it would have been very pointed not to. He bent over it, murmuring some light compliment that was so practiced for his tongue, his mind barely registered what it was.
He did know, however, that her bashful response was overblown. Her little titter bore no resemblance to the laughter he so loved to elicit from Alina. He smiled mechanically at her coquettish words, responding in a very respectable way which clearly frustrated her expectations.
Xavier tried to turn back to Alina, but the other girl was persistent.
She claimed his attention again, her efforts to elicit flirtation from him becoming more determined.
Painfully aware of Alina’s proximity, Xavier did his best to resist while still maintaining politeness.
It was exhausting. To his great irritation, by the time the girl gave up, Alina had slipped away.
Standing alone, he was swamped very quickly by others, and it was some time before he could extricate himself.
Eventually, he saw Miriam by a large, ornamental hedge pruned in the shape of a horse. He was delighted to use his sister as an excuse to escape.
“Xavier.” She welcomed him with a smile. “Have you missed your own little court? They’ve certainly missed you.”
“Don’t start,” Xavier grumbled. Her words conjured an image of him as king, surrounded by simpering courtiers’ daughters instead of useful advisors like his father had, and it didn’t feel good. “I haven’t missed a single one of them for so much as a moment.”
“Heartless.” Mim spoke the words impassively, popping a candied almond into her mouth.
A servant came past carrying a large tray with several pitchers of iced tea, and they shifted closer to the hedge to allow him to more easily pass.
The motion brought them near enough to hear the conversation of a clump of girls Xavier hadn’t even realized were gathered on the far side of the hedge.
“She looks like a pauper.” Grating little titters followed the words, and Xavier frowned. He could guess who they were talking about. “Why is she at a royal luncheon?”
“She’s some kind of charity case, I think,” another of the girls said nastily.
Xavier felt Miriam’s hand on his arm and looked down, surprised. He hadn’t realized that his muscles had tensed, or his weight had shifted forward, ready to move around the hedge.
“Leave it,” the princess said quietly. “Trust me.”
“That’s right,” one of the girls was saying enthusiastically. “Leonie said she heard the prince call her a sneak and a miser. He said she was sponging off the crown.”
The gasps of shock that followed this pronouncement were positively gleeful. Xavier clenched his teeth. He shouldn’t have joked so freely with Alina where others might hear.
“Not very successfully,” giggled another girl. “Look at her dress. Look at her hair! Only a braid, and it’s not even straight.”
“You know what that means,” another said. “She doesn’t even have a girl to do her hair. She’s braided it herself.”
The words were greeted with another round of giggles. It was cut off abruptly, and looking up, Xavier realized with alarm that Alina herself was approaching the girls, on her way past toward the refreshments table.
“Here she comes! Off to sponge some more.”
Everyone made a show of choking down their laughter, but only one girl was bold enough to hail Alina.
“Excuse me, miss, so sorry.” Her voice was so sweet, it was cloying. “But I thought I should let you know that your braid is a little crooked.”
Xavier winced at the memory of how he’d said exactly that to Alina, too obtuse to realize it was a sign of her decline into poverty.
She’d been annoyed at the time and, he realized now, maybe a little embarrassed.
He was just thinking he should ignore Mim’s advice and intervene when Alina surprised him.
“Thank you.” Her voice was cheerful. “So helpful to have my peers looking out for me.”
“I wouldn’t say peers,” sniffed another of the girls. “You’re not on our level, my dear.”
“True,” Alina said gravely. “But don’t be discouraged. If you work hard, I’m sure you can achieve the same level of skill! I can teach you. Braiding hair really isn’t as difficult as you think.”
Miriam snorted into her iced tea, and a slow smile spread over Xavier’s face. He should have known better than to doubt Alina. She’d already moved on to the refreshments, leaving a group of outraged noblewomen behind.
“How dare she?” one of them gasped. “Who does she think she is to speak to us like that?”
“Isn’t it obvious who she is?” one of the others said nastily. “She must be the prince’s latest plaything. She’s some village wench from up north, and from what I hear, she’s been all over him for the whole investigation.”