He spent so much time being everything for everyone else: a son, a prince, a hero.
“I should have protected him,” he whispered, drawing back. He looked so devastated. “I should have spent more time with him and been there when Patrick came. I thought the city needed me, but it was my family I’d neglected all along.”
“You were doing something good. Your father would have been proud if he’d known.” I bit my lip and met his eyes. “I didn’t get to know him well.”
“I know.”
“During the breakfast I shared with him, he only wanted to talk about you. His regrets. But I think he would have been proud that you’d taken the initiative to venture into the city, how you fought to help your people in a way most kings or princes would never dream. The night of his birthday ball, he said he hadn’t put his family first. It was always his kingdom that got his attention. That might be the price of ruling. That was a lesson you learned from him, and one you put into action when you put on your mask. So yes, I think he’d be proud of you for becoming the king he’d trained you to be.”
“Yet I still disappointed him. The last words we exchanged were in anger.”
I touched his face, my gloves ink against the parchment of his skin. “That would never stop him from loving you. You’re his son.”
He tilted his face so the curve of his cheek fit in the cup of my palm. His hair tangled around the tips of my fingers and his breath warmed a sliver of skin showing between my glove and sleeve. “You are a mystery, Wilhelmina. You won’t accept anything that even resembles assistance or comfort, but you offer both so freely.”
The mask hid my tired smile.
Cautiously, like I might run, he leaned forward and kissed me. Silk clung between our lips for a heartbeat, and he pulled back to search my eyes. Only the mask prevented more, and his expression was a question of hope and yearning.
My heart thundered as I shifted toward him, chin tilted upward.
His fingers slid beneath the mask, cool against my throat. Slowly, the silk slipped up and off my mouth and nose and eyes, then dropped to the bed as Tobiah moved close. There was a long, hesitating moment with fire surging through me. All the places we touched were bright and sharp and sensitive. More than anything, I wanted this part to linger—this aching and wanting, with his fingertips glancing off my jaw, when anything was possible. We might still make the right choice.
But what was one more mistake?
A soft groan escaped as I pushed toward him, and he pulled me in, and then I sat astride his lap, kissing him. Our mouths, touching. Our breaths, gasping. Our hands, grasping. The silk of his shirt slid across his skin where I caressed. His shoulders and arms were strong and toned, and the muscles flexed when he pulled the tie off the end of my braid and combed his fingers through my hair. His palm pressed flat against my spine and lit fires at the small of my back. His free hand rested on my hip, holding me in place.
He whispered my name between kisses, moving from my lips to my cheeks to my jaw to my throat. He made me feel alive.
This felt right. It felt like being back in the breezeway with the night around us, and our bodies pressed close together. When I’d explored his face with my fingers, not knowing his true identity. I’d never wanted someone like that. Loved someone like that.
Reluctantly, I pulled away, pieces of me at a time. My arms from around his shoulders. My chest from his chest. My legs from his lap.
“Wilhelmina.” His eyes were still closed. Time stretched like distance between us, and finally he looked at me. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s my fault, too.” My eyes cut to the balcony where I should have gone as soon as he’d declined to go out tonight. “And I’m sorry.”
He pushed up from his bed and took my mask. “I wish we didn’t have to say that.” He ran the mask between his fingers for a moment, expression unreadable when he looked at it. Then he handed it to me and nodded toward the frame. “Thank you for the letter.”
A strange sort of tension formed between us, palpable and ugly. Once, we’d known each other as enemies, and now I could still feel the shape of him in my arms. Now we were our own enemies. “I’d better go.”
On the balcony, wind picked at my loose hair, but I pulled on my mask and turned my eyes to the diamond-dark sky, listening for the cadence of patrol footfalls and voices.
Through the chilly night, I ran as far and fast from Tobiah as I could.
SEVENTEEN
THE FOLLOWING DAY, an invitation card arrived:
Princess Wilhelmina,
Please join me in the ladies’ solar at ten. I have been throughout the palace collecting donations for the poor, but I need assistance sorting. Bring your friends. All hands are helpful hands.
Very best,
Meredith Corcoran