Chapter 9 #2
Her lip was twitching again, and she knew the prince saw it. She thought he’d make another quip, but his mood abruptly changed, his gaze becoming shrewd.
“Is that your philosophy for yourself?” he asked. “That you just have to be tough and not expect any softness from anyone?”
“Thankfully I don’t have to learn to fly,” she said lightly. “I do have to go to bed, though, or I’ll be dead on my feet and no use for the investigation tomorrow.”
“Well, we can’t have that,” Xavier said. “I’ll escort you to your room, of course.”
“That’s unnecessary, Your Highness,” Alina said reprovingly. “In fact, I would even say inappropriate.”
“I’m thinking only of your safety—my intentions are purely honorable,” the prince complained. He leaned down a little, just close enough that she felt his breath on her ear. “And then there you go again with the Your Highness business. Like I said, indecent.”
In spite of her best efforts, Alina felt herself coloring.
He was such a sneak. He’d been hinting that he wanted her to drop his title since the moment she joined the investigation, but she’d been holding out adamantly.
So he’d found a very neat—and very outrageous—way to discourage her from using it.
Deeming surrender to be the most dignified course, she allowed him to walk with her out of the dining room.
A couple of his guards trailed behind him as usual, making her suggestion of inappropriateness feel foolish.
They’d barely made it out of the room when a serving girl sidled up to them, a tray balanced on one hand.
She was in danger of bumping into something with the way her eyes were riveted to the prince, their expression hungry.
When he glanced at her, she immediately lowered her eyes, however, before looking up through her lashes in a way that made Alina feel vicarious embarrassment.
The sensation only increased as the girl tripped in a very obviously false way, forcing Xavier to reach out and catch her in order to avoid her falling bodily onto him.
“So clumsy of me,” the girl gasped unconvincingly. “My last task of the shift, and I go and do something so silly.” Her voice turned to a purr. “I’m very sorry, Your Highness.”
A grin split Xavier’s face at her final words, and Alina’s heart sank—along with her respect for the prince—until his eyes flew from the girl in his arms to Alina herself. There was such cocky victory in the expression, Alina couldn’t hold back her sigh.
“No harm done,” the prince told the serving girl, his attention not even slightly on her. She looked very put out as he stood her upright and failed to even watch her saunter away. Alina waited until the girl was out of sight before meeting Xavier’s eyes again.
“Well?” he demanded, still far too pleased with himself.
“All right.” Alina raised her hands in surrender. “You may have a point about the Your Highness business.”
“Ha!” His boyish excitement at the win made him seem so much like his teenage self, Alina couldn’t help laughing.
“You were cruel, you know,” she told him. “She found such a natural way to tell you that her shift is over, and she’s available, and you weren’t even listening.”
“Yes, very natural,” he said dryly. “Let’s go, before she comes back and finds an even more subtle way to tell me that now her shift really is over.”
Smiling to herself, and choosing not to examine why she felt so self-satisfied, Alina followed him up the stairs of the inn. Her thoughts were on the man ahead of her, confusing as he was. He was so inconsistent, it was hard to figure out what he actually wanted, what he actually liked.
“Can I ask you something?” She let the question slip out without considering too hard.
“Of course,” the prince said easily.
“Did you ever find my skill in magic…off-putting? Back when…when we knew each other?”
“Off-putting?” he repeated, surprised. “Of course not. Why would I?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I remember you being jealous that I was going to study at the guild. I thought it was all jokes, but even now, you don’t seem comfortable when it comes up. You gave Charles a very strange look when he complimented my magic skills.”
Xavier’s brow had been furrowed, but it smoothed out as he considered her last words. “You’re very astute,” he said. “But my reaction to Charles had nothing to do with your skill in magic.”
“What was it about, then?”
“It was his comment about it being a pity magic can’t be captured from movement and stored for later.”
They’d reached her door now, and she paused, looking up at him. Seeing she was waiting for more, Xavier glanced at his hovering guards.
“It’s probably a conversation for another time.”
In response to his threatening look, the two guards moved discreetly to the end of the hall, out of hearing range. Even so, Xavier didn’t explain himself further. His mind appeared to be on other matters.
“You do realize, don’t you, that there’s another, more obvious reason that I seem uneasy when people talk about your skill in magic? Namely that craftsmen are being snatched from the street.”
“That aspect of it worries me, too,” she assured him. “Of course I realize.”
“I wish we had more of a lead on whoever is behind all this,” Xavier said.
His earnest tone and furrowed brow were more attractive than any of his rakish charm, Alina acknowledged to herself.
“I don’t feel like we learned anything in today’s interviews,” the prince added.
“We learned one thing,” Alina said, feeling the need to lighten the mood. “The women of Alton find you even more irresistible than the ones back home.”