Chapter 5
Dinner, Dara thought, was one of the few things still behaving correctly.
Not politics. Not destiny. Not monarchy. Certainly not men who turned out to be Crown Princes halfway through what should have been a perfectly manageable acquaintance.
But dinner—dinner still understood its purpose.
It had arrived on time, been properly hot, and involved enough texture and flavor to briefly remind her that life was not entirely a conspiracy against comfort.
The roast had been tender, the vegetables aggressively competent, and the dessert—some honeyed cream thing with citrus she had not asked the name of because she did not trust herself not to grow attached—had gone a considerable distance toward restoring her will to continue existing.
Not enough to make the day good.
That would have been impossible.
But enough that by the time the trays were cleared and the evening deepened toward true night, Dara found herself restless rather than ruined.
Which, at present, counted as progress.
So after dinner she asked for a shawl, ignored Grace’s subtle concern, and announced that she wanted air.
Pipette, having apparently decided that near-death entitled no one to privacy ever again, rose at once and trotted after her in tiny determined steps. Dara glanced down at the little cream-and-brown menace, sighed, and did not object.
“My lady should not be out long,” Grace said at once.
Dara looked at her over one shoulder as the maid settled the shawl around her shoulders.
“I am walking in my own garden, not fleeing into bandit country.”
Grace, entirely unconvinced, fastened the ends neatly at Dara’s throat. “Yes, my lady.”
That was the tone Grace used when she absolutely did not agree but had accepted that resistance would only make Dara more determined.
Smart woman.
The night air outside was cool and soft, carrying the faint fragrance of damp earth, clipped hedges, and flowers opening more fully in the evening hush.
Lanterns had already been lit along the nearer paths, their warm glow catching at pale blossoms, polished stone borders, and the dark shine of leaves stirred by the lightest breeze.
The estate gardens were beautiful at night in the composed, settled way of old things that had long ago learned exactly what they were.
Grace followed at a proper distance, close enough to intervene in the event of disaster, far enough not to make Dara feel actively supervised. Which was a thoughtful compromise, even if Dara remained mildly offended by the entire concept of needing supervision at all.
She walked slowly, not because she wanted to appear delicate but because she was still recovering and her body had not yet resumed full negotiations on favorable terms. The gravel path gave softly beneath her slippers.
Somewhere beyond the trees she could hear the distant rhythm of guards changing position at the outer perimeter.
That, unfortunately, remained annoying.
Still.
The garden helped.
The night softened things. Not problems, exactly. But edges.
For a little while she let herself walk without thinking too hard—past the low stone border near the herb beds, around the lantern-lit curve of the path, toward one of the quieter benches near the lower terrace where the evening flowers gave off their strongest fragrance after dusk.
She sat with a long exhale and folded her hands in her lap.
The bench was cool. The air was good. The night smelled expensive.
This, she thought, was at least a partial victory.
She had survived kidnapping, monarchy, political exposure, and the worst identity reveal of her second life.
She deserved a bench.
Pipette circled once beneath the bench and settled at Dara’s feet with the proprietary satisfaction of a chaperone too small to be taken seriously.
A few moments passed in silence.
Then footsteps sounded lightly on the gravel behind her.
Not hurried. Not heavy either.
Measured.
Dara did not turn immediately.
There were, unfortunately, only two likely possibilities: one, Grace had decided she had given Dara enough privacy and was now closing in again, or two—
“My lady.”
Ah.
Disaster in good tailoring.
Dara turned.
Prince Valerius stood a short distance away beneath the wash of lantern light, dark coat neat even at this hour, expression composed in that infuriating way that made him look as though the entire day had not contained a single socially ruinous revelation.
Grace, behind him and farther off, had very sensibly drifted another few paces away and was now studying a rose trellis with the dedicated neutrality of a professional chaperone pretending not to chaperone.
Excellent. Wonderful. Perfectly survivable.
“Your Highness,” Dara said.
There it was again—precise, proper, and sharpened just enough to count.
Valerius noticed, of course.
He always noticed.
He did not comment on it.
Instead he asked, “May I join you?”
Dara considered saying no.
Not because she wanted him gone. That would have been too easy, and she no longer trusted easy things around him.
But because her life had become materially worse every time she gave him permission to be near her.
Still.
He was the Crown Prince. He was already here. And saying no would only create a scene for Grace, the guards, and the flowers to witness.
So Dara said, “You appear to have reached the bench already.”
A pause.
Then, very slightly, the corner of his mouth threatened amusement. “May I sit?”
She looked pointedly at the empty space beside her. “If you insist.”
Valerius sat.
Not too close. Not improperly.
Which was almost worse.
Because it left enough room for choice.
The silence that settled between them was not awkward exactly.
Too aware for that. Too full.
The garden shifted softly around them—lantern light, the low movement of leaves, the scent of night-blooming flowers, Grace at a tactful distance, the world narrowed to one bench and two people with far too much to think about.
Dara kept her eyes on the path ahead.
After a moment, Valerius said quietly, “Are you truly angry with me?”
There it was.
Of course he would ask directly.
Dara looked at him then.
In the dark, the calmness of him became more dangerous somehow. Less political. Less armored by the day. She could still see the prince in him now that she knew, but tonight there was also simply the man she had spent the last several weeks trying to understand.
“That depends,” she said. “Would you prefer the diplomatic answer or the truthful one?”
“The truthful one.”
She narrowed her eyes a little. “That was a suspiciously immediate choice.”
“I have found diplomacy less reliable with you.”
“That is because diplomacy is often cowardice dressed in silk.”
Valerius’s gaze stayed on her.
And there it was again—that faint, impossible amusement, softer tonight than before.
Dara looked away first.
Annoying man.
“I understand why you concealed it,” she said at last. “You were investigating. Announcing yourself from the start would have defeated the point.”
“Yes.”
“That does not mean I enjoyed discovering it in my own receiving room like some kind of personal curse.”
A pause.
“That is fair.”
Dara exhaled slowly through her nose.
The truth sat larger beneath the cleaner parts of it.
She could say she understood. She did understand. But understanding did not erase the strange rawness of it.
“You changed the shape of everything,” she said more quietly. “All at once.”
Valerius did not answer immediately.
When he did, his voice had lowered by half a degree. “I know.”
That simple agreement made something in her chest tighten.
Because there was no defense in it. No excuse. Just recognition.
Dara folded her hands more tightly together. “I thought…” she began, then stopped.
The rest of the sentence waited between them.
Valerius watched her carefully. Not pressing. Not rescuing her from it either.
Dara’s mouth flattened. “I thought you were just…” She made a vague motion, irritated by her own lack of phrasing. “You.”
He was quiet for a moment and then, very gently, said, “I was.”
Dara looked at him sharply.
That answer was unfair.
It was also, worse luck, exactly the right one.
He went on before she could object. “My title was concealed. My purpose in Ambervale was concealed.” His gaze held hers steadily. “My regard for you was not.”
The garden went very still.
Even the distant sounds of the estate—the guards, the lamps, the low hush of evening—seemed suddenly farther away.
Dara sat motionless.
Her first instinct was to become sarcastic. Her second was to flee. Her third, which she resented most, was to believe him.
Because that was the trouble.
If everything else had changed shape, that part had not. Not really.
The roads, the gardens, the constant attention, the infuriating patience, the hand at her bedside, and the look on his face when she woke.
No. That had all been real.
Which was a deeply rude thing for reality to do to her.
She looked down at her own hands. “I still think you should have told me sooner.”
“Perhaps.”
Her head came up again. “Perhaps?”
“I do not know that there was a sooner that would not have cost us something.”
The answer was too thoughtful. Too honest. Too impossible to dismiss cleanly.
Dara frowned toward the hedge line instead. “Now you sound like a poem.”
“I would prefer not to.”
“Then stop saying difficult things well.”
Valerius’s expression softened by a degree she almost missed. “I can try.”
“That sounds unlikely.”
“It probably is.”
That pulled a reluctant breath of laughter out of her before she could stop it.
Tiny. Soft. Gone almost immediately.
But there.
Valerius noticed. Of course he did.
Dara hated that he noticed everything.
Or perhaps not everything.
Just all the things she would have preferred to keep to herself.
The quiet stretched between them again, gentler this time.
The bench no longer felt like a battlefield. That was the dangerous part.
She became aware of Grace again somewhere behind them, still at proper distance and giving them exactly the amount of privacy noble decorum could survive without fainting.