Their Hidden Princess novel · Chapter 15 of 32

Chapter 15: Blackmail

I kept smiling for the windows.

So did she.

"Good bout," she said loudly, and patted my shoulder.

Then, under the noise: "Walk me to the gate. Or I start talking here."

We walked across the yard together.

At the gate arch she stopped in the shadow where nobody could see our mouths.

"Only the royal guard salutes like that," she said. "Blade to the brow. My uncle's officers learned it from them."

"Lots of people learn it."

"Not hedge-knights' daughters." She brushed sand off her sleeve. "And the whole court heard the story. Two summers ago the princess split her eyebrow open in the practice yard. The King nearly had the guard flogged."

My hand wanted to go to my scar.

I kept it at my side.

"You swayed on the sand," she said. "I was two feet away. And somebody stole a draught from Ingleby's room, and he's been looking at you like a dog at a butcher's window."

"You stole that draught."

She smiled. "Prove it."

"Then tell him," I said. "Go on. Your uncle's in his tower."

"Why would I do that?"

That stopped me.

"Think, Princess. The day he has you, he has a crown. And a niece is just a niece." She tilted her head. "Right now I've got something nobody else has."

"What do you want?"

"Ingleby. Without you hanging off his arm." She ticked it off on her gloved fingers. "You stop seeing him. You stop seeing Dunstan too, while you're at it. You let Lysander ride home and marry me, and you keep your pretty mouth shut."

"And if I don't?"

"Then I take things from you. Small things, first." She looked past me, across the yard, at Maudie laughing at the rail. "Then you."

← Chapter 14 · All chapters · Chapter 16 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend