The Beggar Princess (Fairy Tale Heat Book 4) Read online

  “It goes beyond that,” he said. “What do you want, that you are denied, as a woman? You don’t even do much of anything. You don’t yearn to sword fight or captain a ship.”

  “I—I do things.” I clenched my cup.

  “You do, do you?” He looked at me carefully, in a way that made me nervous, and I was never nervous of Father! “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

  “N—no…”

  “Because all I see is a girl who wastes her time and doesn’t even like to mingle with the court. A girl who reads too much…or does it go beyond that?”

  I gritted my teeth. He paused.

  “You are going to marry one of these men,” he said. “That is an order.”

  “No!” He had cornered me. “Father, please! What have you heard?”

  “Irvin will not be in your service anymore,” he said.

  “He told you?” I felt as if I’d been struck.

  “You…write novels?” Father’s voice lowered to a hush. “Is it true?”

  “Yes. I’m—I’m Lady Whittenstone.”

  The conversation had abruptly turned to the most awkward of all exchanges between my father and me.

  “Irvin didn’t want to tell me,” Father said. “I heard that someone had seen him going to the print shop in town frequently. I worried he might be taking up with some enemies of the crown, distributing court gossip or something worse. I was relieved to hear it was only this, and yet…” He kneaded the bridge of his nose, pushing up his spectacles. “Writing novels is no occupation for a princess, and obviously you know it already. You have kept your secret well, I’ll give you that.”

  “Don’t punish Irvin,” I said, forcing my hands to be still. I was panicked. “He has done it at my insistence. I’ve taken every precaution. The printing shop doesn’t know who I am, and I want to keep it that way. But you see, I am not idle. Writing is all I really care about! And that’s why I don’t want to marry anyone. A husband would only get in the way.”

  “Look at these men I’ve gathered to vie for your hand. Don’t tell me you can’t find a single one suitable. Don’t tell me you would rather spend your days bent over a piece of paper?”

  “I would!”

  “Well, I don’t care!” He shouted back, drawing some glances even over the din of music and echoing conversation. He said nothing more, under the glare of attention, but I understood well enough.

  Still, he would never force me to marry. He wasn’t that kind of father. He never forced me to do anything.

  I huffed and moved to the opposite side of the room. Prince Ithrin smiled faintly at me, and I smiled faintly back. But he won’t win me either. None of them will.

  ”Princess?” King Brennus had snuck up on me from behind, and I whirled with some irritation. He took my hand and kissed it, holding it for a moment, regarding my fingers in a way that made me squirm. What was he looking for? I should have worn gloves. My hands were smudged with ink in several places.

  He met my eyes. “I haven’t gotten a chance to dance with you yet, lass.”

  “No rush. There are still six days of celebration to go.”

  “And you’ve already made your choice, have you?” He jutted his chin at Prince Ithrin.

  “No! I certainly have not.” I tried to pull my hand back.

  “High elves are cold. Everyone knows that.” Just the way he said it, I caught the unspoken connotation that he was going to be the opposite. The high elves and the wood elves had a (usually) friendly rivalry; the two clans could not be more different but they were close allies.

  “Yes,” I said. “That is true. But they are so well dressed.” I swept my eyes down over Brennus’ own outfit. Green coat, low-slung reddish-dyed trousers with a cloth sash instead of a proper belt. While other men had neatly tied cravats or high collars with lace, he had sort of a floppy bow that seemed an afterthought. His boots even had a little dirt on the soles.

  “Y’aren’t approving of my outfit, milady?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think a lass with such stormy eyes as yours would grow very bored in the court of Wyndyr.”

  “And what does your court have to offer? Some barbarian pile of rocks on the edge of the woods, with a whole pig turning over the hearth on a spit?”

  “Sounds about right, though less likely a whole pig, more likely a few fat fish.”

  “Fish for dinner? I thought you were rich in Mardoon.”

  “Very rich, aye. That has naught to do with it. The fish in Mardoon are good enough for kings.”

  “Well, around here, fish are for peasants.” I had the vague sense that he was teasing me, and I didn’t like it. “But then, you dress like a bandit and you speak like a man who sells hot buns on the street.”

  He gave me an appraising look. “Then, dance with Prince Ithrin, gods bless him. He’ll need it if you’re to choose him, won’t he?”

  “Are you insulting me?” I snapped, as he turned to go.

  He spun back around on his heel and stopped. His eyes—green, slightly curved at the edges—gave me a look that was surprisingly disarming. I saw something in him that was not quite dark—but complex and disorienting, like tasting wine for the very first time. He made a fool of me, somehow, in just one blink.

  “Aye, little princess,” he said. “But don’t take it to heart. It’s the game you wanted to play, isn’t it? Or…” He tilted his head. “Has no one ever given back as good as you’ve given them? Maybe not. The rest of the country wants to marry you so badly they will flatter you to the ends of the earth.”

  “And you don’t? You’re here.”

  “Oh, I do,” he said. “But barbarians and bandits don’t flatter, do they? They take what they want. If I should decide I want you, you’ll come home with me. But as it stands now, I’m still deciding. I have money enough already. You have a pretty head, but I wonder what’s in it besides barbs and slights?”

  I’d had enough. “I will never come home with you.” I swept back toward the dance floor, and dutifully danced with one of the boring princes. Better a boring prince than a man like King Brennus, who didn’t know how to treat a lady.

  Chapter Four

  Brennus

  She was the one.

  The Princess herself was the girl I’d been hoping to find.

  She had ink on her fingers. I could tell she had tried to scrub it off, but it lingered around the edges of her nails, and even more telling was the shiny, almost calloused spot where the quill pressed against her finger for hours at a time as she wrote.

  Oh, one might say she just wrote a lot of letters, but from what I’d heard around the castle, the princess didn’t have a lot of friends and was not known for her letter writing.

  She was a storyteller.

  I’d wondered about the author of The Duke and the Phantom and The Storms of Castle Greykeep from the start. I knew the Lady Whittenstone had to be of the court; those details were always correct, even as she made a disaster of geography and her characterization of peasants was decidedly generous as to their living conditions. I had narrowed down the kingdom by making a list of some of the peculiarities of the work, like the “raisin stones” for breakfast, which were a dense biscuit of this region, and a few bits of dialect. I sent a man to inquire at every printer in the realm, and with a bribe, got them to agree to deliver a letter.

  Lady Whittenstone had not made herself an easy woman to find, that was certain. I had hoped she might be a lady of noble birth, one I might woo.

  If I had to marry, and alas, I did, I wanted a lass who could keep up with me, mind and body alike. My cousins said it was mad to expect that Lady Whittenstone would be anything like her heroines, but anything worth having is worth taking a risk. I accepted King Gregory’s invitation with the hopes of finding her. And there she was, the very princess herself.

  She was everything I hoped, as well. Her small, fair form was deceiving. In her eyes, I saw a girl who had been given everything she wanted—except
the things a girl dared not ask for.

  The things written between the lines of those wicked little tales of hers.

  And that sharp tongue of hers only made the prospect more appealing. I preferred a challenge.

  The princess, for her part, was trying her best to turn away every man her father had summoned.

  We had a week of dances and feasts. I knew she wouldn’t care for me if I betrayed an inch of interest in her. She was the sort of girl who would be most intrigued by distance. Deep down, I thought, she was attracted to me already. She had a gleam in her eye for the high elven prince, but I knew he wouldn’t make her happy. All that protest over my appearance was a show. When I did get the opportunity to dance with her, I caught her body drawing closer to mine.

  That tongue didn’t soften its edge one bit. She had an insult for everyone. She asked King Damian if he had been taught to dance by a puppy dog, and she dubbed Lord Banavich “Lord Boredavich” when he was not quite out of earshot.

  Her father was fuming.

  The other high-born men were none too happy with her either.

  “My father would be pleased if I brought her home, for the sake of alliances,” Prince Ithrin told me over breakfast. “She is beautiful enough for the Palace of Waterfalls.”

  “You can’t stand her, can ye?” As the two elves present, we stuck together despite that we were otherwise as different as crystal and iron.

  “She’s quick with an insult. Her laugh is screechy.” He paused.

  “She doesn’t screech,” I said. “She’s loud, but she has a fine voice. A roaring wild cat.”

  Prince Ithrin looked at me dourly as he stirred his tea. “‘Roaring wild cat’ is not a quality high elves should look for in a maiden.”

  “Well, you and I are very different, and that’s all right. Someone has to live in the coldest climates, someone has to fight the fiercest monsters, and some of us have to put up with the girls no one else can bear.”

  Ithrin smiled.

  “What kind of girl would you have?” I asked him. “Some statue of a thing you can drape a gown on and move around the dance floor?” I mimicked picking up a statue by the waist and putting it to the side.

  “No. Not that. Someone warm and soft. A sense of humor would not go amiss. I’m not quite as boring as you think I am.”

  “Tell me when you get married, and I’ll be the judge. Humor? I pity the poor lass who tries to bring humor to Wyndyr.”

  “If you’re volunteering to take Princess Bethany, I think her father will be overjoyed. She’s thoroughly offended every man with a decent title in ten kingdoms. What now? The darklings won’t have her. She’ll have to take a goblin; maybe they can handle her.”

  “I would volunteer, but I can’t. She can’t think I've begged for her hand. Not even the slightest bit. I know it. Still, when the week is done, she’ll choose me.”

  The next day I made sure to place myself in the library, just when I saw the princess getting restless. I had seen her slip into the library to breathe on the first night. I predicted it would happen again.

  Sure enough. There she was; you could set your clock to it. She had danced herself short of breath. She ducked in, clutching her stomach, breasts heaving. Then she noticed me and looked cross enough to spit.

  I lowered the book I had been strategically holding. The Realm of the Unicorn; poetic sagas. Ladies always loved them.

  “You aren’t reading that,” she said.

  “I’m illiterate now? You really don’t think much of me.”

  “Not illiterate, just—” She narrowed her eyes. “I mean, what are you really doing in here?”

  “I like to be alone.”

  “Really.”

  “Aye. Doesn’t every king like to be alone? It’s rare enough. I would’ve made a fine hermit.”

  “Oh, people say that, but no one means it,” she said. “Then again, perhaps it would suit you. Dressed in tatters. Begging for coin. Living in caves.”

  “I am a great admirer of caves,” I said. “There’s a fine one in the north. Underground lakes full of glowfish. But you’re right. I wouldn’t like to live in a cave alone. Now, if I had a wife, perhaps…the things I would do. It is much more interesting when one is alone.” I shamelessly lifted a line from one of her stories. The things I would do if we were alone, Lady Celeste…

  She flushed and her heartbeat quickened. I could see it in the way she breathed, and I could practically taste how sweet her kisses would be. She was lovely, my little wild cat, even as she said in a tense voice, “I had better return to the dance.”

  She was lovely, and she was mine.

  And yet, a man hedges his bets. I gave a coin to one of her youngest maids and asked the girl if the princess had made her choice. She gave up information so readily that I knew she had little love for the princess herself.

  “The princess insists that she isn’t going to marry anyone.”

  “Impossible.”

  “She’s always said so. And she’s holding to it. Maybe the king will force her, but in that case, it will be his choice, I suppose, and she’ll protest loud enough that they’ll hear it across the sea.”

  The king, for his part, looked older and more disgruntled every night that passed, especially when one of the princes left in a huff, gathered up his men and rode off into the night.

  When I want something, I have never left it to chance. No, the princess would never see me ask her father for her hand. She could not know I desired her. She would lose respect for me, then. But I was going to claim her all the same.

  The morning of the final day of feasting, I went to the king myself.

  “This has been a very grand week,” I said. “Very expensive, aye?”

  “Hmph. To say the least. Should you be unfortunate enough to lose a beloved wife and gain a beloved daughter, resist the urge to spoil her.” He looked at me with a gleam of interest, one wealthy king to another. I was more his equal than any man here. Most of the other men were princes, anticipating their rule rather than putting it into practice. “What did you want to speak to me about?”

  “I’ve heard that your daughter plans to refuse us down to the last man,” I said. “And if that happens…”

  “Holy god, but she’ll throw a fit if I choose for her.”

  “I imagine so. But that might not be a bad thing. It’s not too late to tame the girl. She’s a quick one. She’d be a delightful queen if she could manage to climb down from that pedestal she’s on.”

  The king scoffed. “Yes, yes. And who could convince her to climb down from that pedestal?”

  “I have a proposal for you,” I said. “But she must never know we have spoken.”

  On the final day, we gathered in the hall. Princess Bethany and King Gregory entered the room, the king still looking a bit apprehensive, proposal or no. I knew he didn’t want to cause her pain, even for her own good. I shot him the briefest look of assurance. I had already sworn to him that I would love his daughter until my last breath, if he’d give me this chance. Fathers like to hear something like that, especially when it rings true, and it did. I already knew the princess through her books. I already knew how much I wanted her.

  Princess Bethany was wearing a resplendent gown of cream and purple; the skirt swept the floor with yard upon yard of expensive silk, and foamy waves of lace rose just below her ripe little breasts. She wore a ribbon choker with a carved bit of jade at her throat. Her pink cheeks and pale skin were utter perfection, so very human, so—fussy and untouched by sunshine. Her thick dark hair was drawn up and secured with some pearl-encrusted combs.

  I think it was the most beautiful she had looked the entire week, which was already saying something.

  What a tease, a vixen of a girl. She wanted us all to go home dreaming of that slender neck, that ribbon at her throat, those luscious breasts and lips, those appraising blue eyes. She’d done it on purpose, and she knew it. It only increased my anticipation.

  “Who will you choos
e, daughter?” The king, poor man, already knew it as well.

  “Hmm.” The eyes swept coldly. “Certainly not Lord Boredavich. And you, Prince Pockmarks, the sooner I don’t have to look at your face, the better. King Damian—King Dalmatian, more like, wagging your tail whenever I agree to a dance.”

  Faces twisted in anger or crumpled in shame as she went down the line.

  Prince Adam was not having a bit of it. “And I hope the faeries curse your tongue, my lady.”

  At Prince Ithrin, she hesitated, and said nothing. He glanced at the ceiling. “No insult for me?” he said dryly.

  “You are…as cold as they say of the high elves,” she said. “But I’m glad. A friend once told me I was mistaken to think so.” And then she came to me. “King Thrushbeard.”

  “Thrushbeard?”

  “Yes. Maybe the ladies like your beard in Mardoon, but I think it looks like the beak of a silly little thrush bird.”

  “You do, eh?”

  She looked very pleased with herself. “Aye,” she said, mocking my accent.

  The lass had no idea what fate would await her. What plans I had for her. We had never been known for our patience in Mardoon, and this would be the longest morning of my life, while I let them unfold.

  Chapter Five

  Princess Bethany

  A week of this charade, and I was glad it was over. It had only deepened my resolve not to marry. None of these men loved me, and I certainly didn’t love them. Once they were gone, I could get back to my paper and quill. Father would grumble for a few weeks, and then we would forget this ever happened.

  Just once, my gaze flickered across them all, and caught the eyes of King Brennus. He had the faintest smile when everyone else looked disgruntled.

  Brennus was the worst of all. He didn’t act like a king and he didn’t treat me like a princess, and even now, he dared to seem amused. I had wasted a week of his life, and the journey besides. He ought to be angry.

  I don’t know why, but I wanted him to be angry at me.