Instead, he felt something like...outgunned.
“I would not call it spying,” he replied, after a moment, but the words didn’t seem to fit right in his mouth. “I told you. There were security concerns.”
“Yes,” she said, lifting up that chin of hers again. “I write a column. It’s silly, really. There are lots of people who go through life without having to suffer through a finishing school. After all, its only real purpose is to make a person—and let’s not kid ourselves, it’s always a female person—so scrupulously well mannered that she could be a queen, if necessary.”
Something powerful seemed to roar between them at that.
But Ares refused to acknowledge it. And Pia’s cheeks only got redder.
“Hypothetically speaking, of course,” she hurried to say. She looked away then, and Ares wondered if he was reddening, too, deep inside. “There’s that story of the Queen of England at some dinner party. They’d set out finger bowls and the guest of honor picked his up and drank from it, which ought to have humiliated him. And would have, if he’d known. Everyone froze, not sure what to do in the face of such a breach of etiquette. But what did the queen do? She reached over, picked up her own finger bowl, and downed it like a shot. I don’t know if that’s true, but I like to think it is.”
“Because you like to advise your readers to drink the contents of the finger bowls they encounter?” Ares asked. Darkly.
He felt...not himself, already. But even more so when Pia only gazed at him so calmly that he felt as if he’d turned into some kind of beast where he stood, misshapen and overlarge.
“Figuratively speaking,” she replied. “I pretend to talk about good manners in my column. But really what I’m talking about is how to be kind.”
“Kindness is overrated,” Ares heard himself growl.
But Pia only shook her head. “No. It’s really not.”
“I admire these lofty sentiments, I do,” Ares said in that same dark tone, all beast and very little prince. “But if you know that I have been monitoring what you do on that laptop, you must also know that I’m aware you monetize those columns of yours.”
If he expected that to get to her, he was disappointed when all she did was smile. Patiently. In a manner that made him want to...break things.
Or get his hands on all that round, tempting lushness.
“No one knows it’s me, do they?” That smile of hers was so bland it bordered on offensive. “I can assure you, no one wants to hear from poor little rich girl Pia Combe about how to be a better person.”
“You have been writing this column for years. Since your second year of university, if my math is correct.” He knew that it was.
“Well, there’s only so much finishing a girl can do,” Pia said lightly. Airily. She didn’t actually wave her hand through the air dismissively, but it felt as if she had. “I thought it was a more reasonable outlet than some of the other ones my friends took up. Unsuitable men, for example. Or tempting scandal and often fate itself in all sorts of disreputable nightclubs. Unfortunate substances. A little column I never expected anyone to read seemed rather tame in comparison, but then, I have always been the little brown sparrow in a family of nothing but brightly plumed parrots. It felt very me.”
Ares scowled at her. “I have absolutely no idea why you are suddenly talking about birds. Much less plumage.”
“I know who I am. That’s all I’m saying.”
“You certainly don’t need the money,” Ares said, as if he’d caught her involved in some kind of con.
“I don’t keep the money,” she said, making a face as if he was the one drinking out of finger bowls at formal banquets. “It’s not a lot, or not by the standards I imagine you’re used to, but I give it away. There are always needy people trying to raise money for various causes, and I like to give where I can. Without any strings.”
“You could do that with the interest off a single month of your trust fund, one assumes.”
“I could. But I was raised by Eddie Combe, who liked to rant and rave about the value of an honest day’s work. I’m not pretending to work in any mines, but there’s something to be said about earning my own money and spending it how I like.” Her gaze searched his. “In fairness, I suppose crown princes aren’t generally encouraged to do such things.”
“There are some kingdoms that exult in the sight of their royals getting dirty with the common folk, but Atilia is not one of them,” Ares said. “My mother spent time in the Royal Hospital, but ministering to the ill was about as far as the country was willing to let her go.”