Claiming His Princess: Duty at What Cost? / A Throne for the Taking / Princess in the Iron Mask. Kate Walker
up and startled the cat, who promptly jumped down and crossed to Ava. She reached down, her movements as graceful as the animal she scooped into her arms to cuddle.
‘I’ll need to see your itinerary for the next few days,’ he said gruffly.
She didn’t look up. ‘I’ll have Lucy forward it to you tomorrow morning.’
Wolfe moved to the picture window and stared out at the acres of grass that ringed the palace to the sprawling mountains beyond. Incredibly, he was thinking how happy he was that she’d never slept with Gilles.
Hell.
If he was going to protect her he had to stay on task. He had to stop thinking of her as a person. As a desirable woman. And he especially had to stop thinking of her marrying some stupid fool her father was planning to choose for her.
AVA WASN’T SURE how she was supposed to find a husband when she compared every man she came across to Wolfe. Not that she had taken her father’s oppressive statement seriously. She had no intention of letting herself be bullied into a convenient marriage just to suit his wishes. Not on something this important.
Fortunately she was getting a reprieve from having to pretend to go along with it in the arms of her debonair cousin Baden.
‘Quite the soirée your papa has put on for you, cuz.’
‘Yes,’ Ava agreed flatly, glancing around the gilt-edged ballroom filled to the gills with beautifully attired guests. Alcohol consumption had lifted the mood considerably since the beginning of the night, and even though she hated being here she had to admire her father’s opportunistic streak.
He was a man who didn’t stop until he got what he wanted. And he wanted her married, it seemed. In a hurry. Of course the supreme and lately suppressed romantic in her knew that there was every possibility she would meet someone tonight and fall in love at first sight. After all it had happened to Anne and Gilles. But…Her eyes drifted to Wolfe, standing nonchalantly towards the back of the room.
There was her problem, right there.
He was supposed to look like one of the guests. Undercover. What he looked like was a man who could kill with his bare hands and not put a crease in his bespoke tuxedo. But perhaps that was only because she knew it was true. Perhaps to the other women watching him so closely he just looked like a sexy, rakish male who was good in bed. Something else she knew to be true…
As if sensing her appraisal, he meshed his eyes with hers. Ava felt the impact of his stare from across the room. She couldn’t fathom the effect he still had on her. It was instantaneous and totally consuming. She sensed that he felt it, too, but he had much more control over it than she did. Or the attraction just wasn’t as strong for him as it was for her. Given that he was only here because her father was paying him, she put more weight on the latter.
And at night dreamt of shedding him of the former…
‘Who is he?’
‘Who?’ Ava gripped Baden’s hand and swung him so that Baden had his back to Wolfe.
‘The cowboy leaning against the wall who hasn’t taken his eyes off you all night.’
Ava glanced over Baden’s shoulder as if she was searching for whoever he was talking about. ‘I don’t see anyone special, but then Father has every single man on the planet in attendance tonight. How are you enjoying the evening?’
Baden scoffed. ‘It’s a little soon after Freddie’s death, but…You’re trying to change the subject, dear cousin. There’s a story here you don’t want me to know about. Come on.’ He tickled her ribs as he’d used to do when they were children. ‘Tell Cousin Baden.’
‘Arrête, Baden. This is hardly the place.’ Ava hadn’t meant to snap, but Baden wasn’t the most socially savvy individual at the best of times. ‘You’re letting that wild imagination of yours run away with you again.’
‘I don’t like him.’
‘I don’t either,’ she grumbled, knowing that it wasn’t dislike she felt for James Wolfe, but something else entirely.
If only he wasn’t so arrogant. So self-assured. So lethally male. Ava sighed. Who was she trying to kid? She loved those aspects of Wolfe’s nature. Colyn had never been so overcome with passion that he had dragged her from a dance floor and kissed her senseless the way Wolfe had.
‘You slept with him, didn’t you?’ Baden mused. ‘I can see it in your eyes.’
Pressing her fingers to her forehead, Ava wondered if it was possible for a headache to materialise out of thin air. ‘Please, Baden…’ There was no way she was going to confirm anything to her blabber-mouth cousin. ‘Keep your voice down.’
‘You don’t want your papa to find out?’
‘He’s…’ Ava struggled to come up with some plausible reason as to why Baden might see Wolfe around the palace over the next little while without informing him as to why he was really here. ‘He’s trying out for a staffing position, I believe.’
‘You slept with the hired help. You naughty girl.’ Baden laughed. ‘Not that I can’t see the attraction. All that hard muscle!’
Ava cringed as she realised that Wolfe had moved to within hearing distance. ‘Would you please keep your voice down?’ she pleaded.
‘What position is he going for?’
‘I don’t know and I don’t care. Ask Father.’ Ava knew that he wouldn’t, because he had never had an easy relationship with her father.
Baden sipped his wine. ‘How is the old tyrant bearing up?’
Relieved to be talking about anything other than Wolfe, Ava latched on to the change in topic. ‘You never know with Father. But honestly I think he’s in denial. Hence the party tonight.’ She swept the lavish ballroom with a rueful glance.
‘And you? How do you feel about being Anders’ first Queen?’
Baden knew her life at the palace had never been easy. It had always been something that had bonded them together since he had lost his own father, her father’s twin brother, when he was five. Then his mother had deserted him, taking his baby sister with her, and he hadn’t seen either of them since.
‘Oh, I’m definitely in denial.’ She gave a dismissive shrug, not wanting to dwell on the future when she still had no answers about how to handle it. ‘Can you excuse me? I need the powder room. Why don’t you ask the lovely Countess over there to dance?’
Baden followed her gaze and raised an eyebrow. ‘Because she’s ugly.’
‘Baden!’ Ava rebuked him again. ‘That’s a terrible thing to say.’
‘If you don’t like the truth, don’t get in the way of it.’
Ava gave him a look that told him exactly what she thought of his tasteless comment, and then kept her gaze down as she wound her way purposefully through the throng of guests. She didn’t have a specific destination in mind but somewhere quiet and—
‘I told you not to go outside.’
The sound of Wolfe’s deep voice directly behind her shimmered down her spine.
Ava looked up and realised she had been so preoccupied with Baden’s horrible comment that she had walked outside the glass doors leading to her mother’s rose garden. A golden moon hung like an enormous balloon on the horizon, and fairy lights twinkled strategically from various trees and bushes, giving the summer evening an ambient glow.
‘I needed some air.’
‘Is it any wonder?’
She