14. Briar
Ihold my breath, bracing for Killian’s reaction. His flinty stare bores into me.
Good. He might despise me for reasons I don’t entirely understand, but he isn’t immune to me.
It didn’t take much prodding to coax the seamstresses into playing their parts. Castle life hasn’t changed much in the past century. A little casual gossip, a few leading questions, and they were happy to stop using me as a human pincushion and start giggling about Sir Ironheart.
All I had to do was tamp down my envy and wait for him to show up. Now comes the part where I throw down a metaphorical glove and see if he snatches up the challenge.
I hold my breath as the seamstress holds a scrap of silk to my chest.
“What do you think, Sir Ironheart? Should the bodice stop here, or here?” She unfolds it so the fabric is high on my bosom, then lowers it an inch.
“Or…is this better?”
Daringly, she tucks it down much further, settling the silk between the undersides of my breasts. Cool air kisses the twin rises of my exposed flesh. I hold Killian’s eye and wait.
Break, damn you.
He doesn’t so much as bend. Although his gray eyes flash with enraged helplessness, he tears them away from my bosom and drags them back to my face.
“The first option,” he snarls, and turns his back.
I sag like a marionette whose strings have been cut. My gambit didn’t work.
“Don’t take it personally, Your Highness.” The seamstress adjusts the bodice to the mid-level, which we’d already agreed upon. “Plenty of women have tried to win his favor. All have failed.” She leans in closer to whisper, “There’s a betting pool amongst the ladies of the castle. It started as a jest between Lady Loraine and Lady Jennings, and it has grown to epic proportions. Many thousands-worth. No woman has ever won his heart, and the pot has gone unclaimed for years. He’s called Ironheart for a reason.”
“Ironheart isn’t his true name?”
She focuses on a delicate task, frowning, and shakes her head. “He had no surname when Prince Alistair dragged him in off the streets. He earned his moniker when he was made a squire and started dallying with any court ladies who wanted him. More than a few women have ruined their reputations by chasing after him in hopes of marriage. One spurned lover declared he had a heart of iron. The name stuck.”
I’m just one more lady in a long line of women drawn to Killian’s brooding presence. How deflating.
If Killian wanted my bodice lowered to my navel, I’d have agreed without hesitation. Instead, he wanted my gown to be so modest I might as well consign myself to a nunnery.
“Make it lower.”
“Your Highness?” The seamstress blinks, scandalized.
“I said, make the bodice lower.”
She folds the fabric down a half-inch.
“Lower.”
“With all due respect, my lady, you wouldn’t want to appear a common trollop on your wedding day.”
Teasing the knight was fun and games, but actually cutting it that low is a step too far, apparently.
“Here.”
I point to a place between my breasts that’s just shy of scandalous. It will display my bosom in all its glory. That’s the way to send a message, whether the person I want to hear it is receptive or not.
These could be yours, if you dared.
If Killian doesn’t dare, then Prince Alistair can reprimand me about the gown for the rest of our lives after the vows are spoken.
I take my time getting dressed, leaving the extravagant presentation gown with the seamstresses and choosing a simple blue frock over a plain white chemise. The ladies won’t allow me to pull my own laces taut, which is ridiculous, considering I’ve been dressing myself since I was still small enough to crawl into my parents’ bed sobbing from night terrors.
The longer I let them fuss over my appearance, however, the longer Killian is forced to stew. A slight smile curves my lips.
My first attempt to tempt him might not have worked, but it wasn’t as if he could kiss me in front of the seamstresses. That tense, electric stare-down proved he’s not immune to me. I’ll simply have to test his resolve again.
“Tighter, please.”
“My lady, you have a tiny enough waist. There is no need to lace so tightly.”
There is, though. My first attempt at seducing Sir Ironheart was merely an opening broadside in a longer campaign strategy. I have two more days to tap into the well of dark need I sensed in him at the castle, and then when he clutched me in the throes of his illness.
He might not yet remember. He will. I intend to remind him at the first opportunity.
Killian
Briar’s beauty always stuns me into slack-jawed silence. The simple blue gown she’s wearing when she finally comes out from the dressing area makes my mouth go dry.
Her golden hair hangs in long waves, held away from her face by two small braids. The skirt bells out from her hips and ends above her ankles, a style that even I, a man whose attention to women’s clothing starts and ends with whether or not it’s on or off, recognize as a century out of date.
The laces ladder down her back, tied in a neat bow above that swell of a skirt. I want to tear that innocent little bow with my teeth. Pristine white linen sleeves puff out from the bodice. She looks like pure innocence, but there’s a gleam in her eye that makes the hunter in me howl.
Go ahead and play the demure maiden, Briar. I’m not fooled. We both know what you are.
A beauty with the heart of a beast.
“Where to, Princess?”
She tips her chin and casts me a sidelong glance. To the seamstresses watching our every move with bated breath, it looks like she’s thinking. But I know better. She’s eyeing my stupid uniform.
Thinking about what’s beneath.
I’ve seen that look on many a noblewoman over the years. It usually leads to torn gowns and hard fucks against cold, unyielding surfaces, followed by weeks of guilty avoidance. Or, worse, months of pursuit followed by tears, which is why I stopped messing around with aristocratic women.
It was a thrill to defile them at first. My dirty guttersnipe hands on their plush, rich tits. Word got around. Until I grew tired of the games and gave up playing them.
My refusals only whetted their appetites. Briar doesn’t know that I have long experience with turning away women’s flirtations.
Let her play her games.
I can resist.
If I can’t, gods help us both.