The Trouble With Princesses by Tracy Anne Warren

to his feet.
    “Your Highness,” Selkirk said to Ariadne. “Your Royal Highness,” he added to Rupert.
    Rupert lifted a brow and drank more beer.
    Bartsby made a pair of darting bows, then followed the other man from the room.
    Sudden quiet descended.
    Ariadne glanced over at the lady’s maid, who sat with her head bent inconspicuously over her sewing. “Jones,” she said.
    The woman looked up.
    “I believe it is past time for your tea. Why do you not go ahead and take it now while you have no pressing duties?”
    The lady’s maid hesitated briefly, then secured her needle into her sewing. “Yes, Your Highness. As you wish.” She cast a quick glance between Ariadne and Rupert, then gathered her belongings and left the room.
    The moment they were alone, Ariadne rounded on him. “What exactly do you think you’re about, coming in here like that?”
    “Like what?”
    “Oh, don’t act so innocent. You know exactly what. You deliberately decided to disrupt my afternoon.”
    “That is an awful lot of d ’s for one sentence. Perhaps you ought to rephrase.”
    Her green eyes flashed fire. “Don’t be flippant. You came in here specifically to chase away my gentlemen callers and you know it.”
    “Is that what I was doing?” he drawled. “As I recollect, I stopped in for a sandwich. They’re quite good, by the way. Would you care for one?”
    Her lips grew tight. “No, I would not care for one. Ooh , you can be insufferable sometimes. I don’t know how Emma abides you.”
    “She’s my sister. She doesn’t have a choice.”
    Ariadne glared at him and he gazed steadily back. Abruptly, she blew out a breath and rolled her eyes skyward, her lips twitching ever so slightly, as if she were fighting the urge to laugh.
    He remembered how they’d felt, those lips, and wondered what she would do if he leaned over and kissed her now. But such passion, however pleasurable, was not to be repeated, he reminded himself. There would be no more lessons of that sort, since hopefully she had learned hers that night in the study. As for himself . . .
    Far more dispirited by the realization than he had any right to be, he consoled himself in his beer.
    “In regard to your accusation that I came to shoo away your gentlemen callers,” he continued, “I would remind you that if said gentlemen possessed any steel in their spines, they would not have been so easily scattered.”
    “Mayhap not, but then, you are unfairly intimidating when you wish to be. You are a future king, you know.”
    “True.” He took another swallow of beer, then set the glass aside. “So why is it that my supposed powers of intimidation never seem to work on you?”
    A little smile played at the corners of her mouth. “Ah well, that comes from my being of royal blood and knowing that underneath that formidable exterior of yours you are still just a man. An extraordinary one, but a man just the same.”
    “Extraordinary, hmm ?” Leaning back, he played his fingers slowly over the silk on the back of the sofa. “I believe that is the first compliment I have ever had from you.”
    Her eyes turned intensely green; then she looked away, busying herself with the tea tray. “Yes, well, do not get used to it. You have already made your opinion clear on the subject of my private life. I will thank you not to interfere in it any further.”
    So she didn’t like his interference, did she? Well, he would stop when he decided he was done and not a minute before. “I would have no cause to intercede in your affairs were it not for the lack of wisdom you have so recently displayed.”
    “Lack of wisdom?” She held up a hand. “We are finished with this conversation, Your Royal Highness. You may leave.”
    He chuckled and reached for another sandwich; the chicken and watercress was especially delicious.
    “Fine,” she declared after a moment. “ I shall depart.”
    “Sit,” he commanded. Reaching over, he caught hold of her wrist to keep her where