Page 39 of A Problem Princess
He stared at her as if she were a witch who’d tried to cast his soul into the darkness.
“You need to go,” he told her.
When she reached for him, he stepped back and widened the distance between them.
He tugged his waistcoat into place and smoothed out the wrinkles. “The comtesse is going to come looking for you, if she hasn’t already, and the Duchess of Hampton won’t be able to stall her for long.”
She blinked in confusion from the sudden loss of his embrace. “But I don’t—”
“You have to go.” He cast a narrowed glance over her, not out of any kind of longing, she knew, but to assess her appearance and make certain no telltale signs lingered of what they’d just done. “If anyone sees you leave this box, tell them you didn’t want to bother the group by returning to the royal box in the middle of the aria and ducked inside here until it ended.”
Cold rejection replaced the warmth he’d stirred inside her with his kisses, although she knew their parting had to be this way, for her sake. Once again, he was protecting her. “And if they ask me about you?”
“I guarded the hall while you walked to the retiring room and back, and the last you saw of me, I was giving orders to the box attendants about refreshments. Understand?”
“But where will you truly be?”
“Right here. I’ll rejoin everyone in a few minutes.”
“They’ll expect you to—”
He gave her a hard look. “I am in no condition to follow you into that hallway.”
His words registered inside her kiss-fogged brain with a startled thump of her heart. Oh, she didn’t dare look down!
“Go,” he ordered.
She gave a jerking nod, not knowing whether she should laugh with happiness that such a dashing man had kissed her or break down in sobs that it had ended, and hurried to the door. She felt flushed and frustrated, and her lips still ached for his—
“Princess.”
She stopped with her hand on the door handle and looked back. “Yes?”
He bent down and scooped up her necklace from the floor. Wordlessly, he held it toward her. The pearl and diamond pendant dangled from its chain and shimmered in the dim light. As she stared at it, she knew—
Everything had changed again. She was once more only a princess in his eyes.
Her fingers trembled as she took back her necklace and hurried from the box.
Twelve
Clayton strode down the dark city street. He’d left Cordelia and her entourage in Marcus’s capable hands when the opera ended several hours ago to be safely returned to Buckingham House, then struck out into the night. He wanted to spend what little time he had hunting down more information about Scepter. So far, though…nothing. He suspected Scepter was hiding and holding its breath, but he feared they were holding their breath in preparation for a war cry.
He was also attempting to burn off his frustration over Cordelia. Kissing her like that—Damnation.He’d lost his bloody mind.
In the morning, the two of them would have a long talk about inappropriate behavior and how it could never happen again. No matter how much she asked him to kiss her, no matter how warm and soft her body or how deliciously sweet and inviting her lips…
He blew out a harsh breath. Averylong talk.
He shoved open the iron gate to the Armory’s outer yard. He didn’t care how much noise he made as he rattled it closed behind himself and loudly crunched the gravel beneath his boots as he walked toward the front doors. Two more teeth-jarring bangs of metal on metal went up as he walked through both doors, beneath the twin portcullises, and into the main room of the Armory.
Like the other men of the Armory, he’d often sought solace here since returning from the wars. Tonight would be no different.
He stopped beneath the metal-studded gas chandelier hanging from the center of the octagonal tower that rose three floors above him and surveyed the familiar space.
The old armory had started a second life two years ago as a place of sanctuary for soldiers returning from the wars who were having trouble adjusting to life back in England. Even then, though, when Marcus oversaw the renovations, he’d provided a training room full of weapons the men could use to hone their fighting skills. But since the execution of Scepter’s leader, the Marquess of Hawking, for treason, the training room with its large cache of weapons had barely been used, and the men spent more time lounging on sofas than lunging with swords.
Clayton should have been happy about that. The men were finally settling into their home lives, and the sanctuary the Armory had once provided had become unnecessary for most of them. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Alec Sinclair or Brandon Pearce here, and Nate Reed had permanently moved to the countryside with his new wife and her son.
