Page 73 of A Lady’s Guide to Fae Kings

“We’ll come back to it,” he said. “But I knew you had it in you, wisp,” he added. “Well done.”

“Yes, well, that is damning praise from the professor who made a goblin cry. That is considerably difficult to do.”

“I didn’t make him cry,” he snorted. “He was already weeping when he came to my office. It was…messy.”

She pointed at him. “I think you encourage your reputation.”

“I might.”

“Why?” she asked, curious.

“I might not have always been a king, but I was always a Fae prince. And with that comes incessant attention, along with a sort of…power over humans.”

“Fae glamour,” she said.

“Nearly as tempting as fairy fruit,” he said drily, glancing at the bough already growing from the ceiling, heavy with peaches as golden as the sun. “And being a professor hardly helped. They may as well be kings in Hallow.”

“And so you let them think you eviscerate both students and terrifying monsters alike.”

“I would, should they need eviscerating.”

“You would not,” she scoffed.

“Oh, Pippa, you have no idea what I would do.”

She had always chosen to hide her jagged edges, her sharp points. But Lachlan had never had that particular option. He was too magnetic, even without the added burden of his birthright. “Is that why you never married before now?”

Now why had she gone and asked that? She turned back to the shelf so he would not see her flushing. There was a long, considering silence in which she contemplated if she could toss herself out of the window from where she was perched on the ladder.

“I never had the inclination.” He pushed away from the wall. “What about you, Pippa?”

“What about me?”

“You never married either.”

“True,” she agreed, coming back down to the floor for another stack of books.

“And you never cared to?”

Why were they talking about this? She could refuse to answer. But the soft shadows, the scent of warm tea and dusty books, the quiet, stolen moment were all too delicious. Too rare. There was something delicate stretching between them, like one of Lachlan’s red ribbons.

“No one proposed in all these years?” he pushed. “No village boy? Or some professor?” Why did his voice sound so odd? “I find that exceedingly difficult to believe.”

“I have had proposals,” she admitted.

“How many?” When she looked away, he gripped her chin lightly. “How many, Pippa?” he repeated, amused.

“Seventeen,” she mumbled. Ought she be embarrassed about that? She had never been able to decide. It was hardly an accomplishment.

He whistled low. “Seventeen?”

“They liked my face.”

“I must confess, I like your face too.”

She refused to blush. “But mostly they were scholars or professors who wanted a personal Librarian at their service. And the others retracted their offers rather hastily when they discovered I could not reliably control my fire.”

“I see.” That lash of cold in his tone again. Frost bloomed under his boots.