The Truth About Princesses and Dukes
-- EXCERPT: “You should not be here.” The princess raised her upturned nose and sniffed. Rupert may as well have been an unpleasant scent wafting from a cow-filled pasture. “And you should not be murdered.” She fixed her eyes on him. Unlike her demeanor, which was cold, as if she’d been raised by glaciers and polar bears, her eyes were a warm honey color. Something in Rupert’s heart clenched, but he shook the emotion away. In her letters, she’d been warm and playful, but now when he was speaking with her, her demeanor was frosty. His very presence repulsed her, and his throat tightened. He was not going to muse about her undeniable beauty. He was absolutely not going to ponder her golden skin, her large dark eyes or her upturned nose. He was not going to think about her curly dark hair, and he certainly was not going to ponder the glossiness of her strands. He had the definite sense that touching her hair would be wonderful indeed. But Rupert was not going to think about that. She was a princess, a duchess, and worse—his cousin’s wife. It didn’t matter how curved her waist was, how alluring her long delicate neck was, how intriguing her collarbone and sloped shoulders. He forced himself not to gaze at the ruby pendant that hung from her neck. Thinking about her ruby pendant might draw his attention to her beautiful face, or worse, it might draw his attention to her deliciously curved bosom. That generous slope was most intriguing. But Rupert wasn’t going to think of her breasts, and he wasn’t going to ponder their shape, and he certainly wasn’t going to muse about what they might feel like in his hands. He wasn’t going to imagine trailing kisses to her waist, and he wasn’t going to imagine stroking her flat belly. He absolutely was not going to imagine any of her lower region, even though her legs were long, and even though they might feel quite good wrapped around him. No, Rupert wasn’t going to think of those things, no matter how much his heart hammered, and no matter how appealing her jasmine and violet scent was. He was going to stop her from being murdered. “Look,” Rupert said hastily, “I know this sounds mad.” “Mad?” She huffed. “Even asylum dwellers would find it challenging to say something of equal absurdity.” “I know,” Rupert said. “I know. But it’s—er—true. Absolutely true.” For a moment the princess hesitated. She had to believe him. She’d spent the day married to his cousin—that might be sufficient reason to believe. “Why are you saying this?” she asked finally. “I don’t want to see you get hurt.” He glanced at the window. “Or more accurately, I don’t want to see you get flung from the balcony, and I don’t want to hear my cousin tell others that you slipped in an unfamiliar environment.” Her face paled. “He wouldn’t do that.” “He said he would do that this very afternoon.”
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