As did her confident stride and the sultry sway of her hips when she continued along the gallery. Anticipation tugged at his loins with her every step. From the shadows, he watched her approach the corridor leading to the king’s quarters. Two guards flanked the mouth of that corridor.
She spoke not a word, but her regal bearing and an imperiously arched eyebrow dared them to deny her entrance.
The guards darted a glance at Bane. In the years after the old king’s death, Bane had carefully replaced the palace guard with warriors loyal to himself, so that Tamas’s every movement was reported to him. Now they looked to Bane for guidance.
At Bane’s nod, they let her through.
Bane emerged from the shadows and joined the guards. Quietly he asked, “How many this night?”
“Three,” a guard murmured.
Farther down the corridor, the princess swept into the king’s chambers and closed the door behind her. Bane waited.
The chamber door was flung open. Three women scampered out, clutching scraps of lace and silk to their nude forms. They hesitated upon seeing Bane.
He waved them onward, then caught the guard eyeing him sidelong.
The man had likely never seen Bane without his beard. “Would you mistake me for Tamas?”
“If I didn’t know his majesty well,” the guard answered.
The princess didn’t. “Wait one hour,” Bane told him. “Then see that my brother and her parents have reason to visit the royal bedchamber.”
“It will be done, General Bane.”
Then he’d best do his own part. One hour wasn’t much time to complete a seduction. But he doubted the princess had come to the king’s quarters—in her nightgown—merely to have a conversation.
Though perhaps she’d come to see what she’d need to redecorate after her marriage. Tamas’s personal chambers were an ornate, gilded eyesore. What wasn’t gold was covered in white velvet that was so difficult to clean that Bane had once heard the chambermaids make a curse of his brother’s name.
The air smelled faintly of smoke, the familiar odor of candles recently snuffed. The princess must have wanted the room darkened.
The shadows suited his purpose, too. The dimmer the light, the less likely she would realize who he truly was. For although he and Tamas shared a face, Bane had known agony that had carved out hollows beneath his cheekbones and sharpened every edge. Battle had left him scarred and callused; his skin had been blasted by scorching sun and icy winds. In full light, no one would mistake him for his pampered twin.
But in the near dark, the princess would not likely see the difference.
Despite the shadows, Bane had no trouble finding her. In the king’s parlor, she waited in front of the fireplace, her hands demurely clasped at her waist.
“Forgive my intrusion, Your Majesty.” Her voice was as breathy and girlish as he remembered from dinner, her eyes as wide and her expression as insipid. His cock deflated as she shyly looked down at her hands. “I hoped that we might come to know each other better without my parents monitoring our every word.”
So she had come for conversation. But if everything had gone to his original plan, Bane would have said the same to the princess in her chambers. Only the location had changed.
“It is no intrusion, Princess.” Tamas would have greeted her with an easy smile. Bane tried the same but was glad her eyes were downcast, because his smile likely resembled a grimace. “I had the same wish.”
“Then I have saved you a journey to the guest wing.” Her lips curved slightly. “Though I do wonder at your security. It seems any woman at all might wander into these chambers.”
She quickly glanced up at him through her lashes, and Bane’s heart stuttered in his chest. That look hadn’t been insipid. Instead it was sharp and amused, a blade made of silent laughter.
Laughing at him. Or at Tamas…who would lie and reassure her. In truth, his brother would never give up his mistresses. “That will change when we are married.”
“I hope it will change sooner than that.”
“So it will,” he agreed. “It will change this night.”
Everything would change this night.
His answer seemed to please her. Though she demurely lowered her gaze again, he caught a hint of satisfaction and another faint curve of her mouth.
Before that curve could become a smile, her white teeth briefly trapped her full bottom lip. “They were…beautiful.”
“Who?” His brain seemed sluggish, still caught on that sharp, silent laugh. Trying to make sense of it. He’d watched her at dinner, and nothing he’d observed had suggested the fire and intelligence he’d seen in that quick glimpse.
Bane was good at sizing people up. Rarely did he take the wrong measure. But he had with her.
Was it a mask she wore? Or had he just imagined that sharp, amused glance?
For he could only see demure vapidity she whispered, “The women waiting for you.”