Ari took the rag and the lemon oil and stepped away from the desk. “I’m sorry. I started in the back parlor and thought I’d dust the entire main level, one room at a time. The door opened for me, so I thought it would be all right.”
“Empty your pockets.”
Ari blinked. “I’m wearing a dress. I don’t have pockets.”
She just had her chemise and a desperate hope that Maarit wouldn’t think to check it.
Maarit went toward her—the woman could move quickly when she was angry—and said, “You were told never to come in here uninvited.”
“I was?” Ari tried for her best I-am-so-confused expression. Maarit didn’t look convinced.
“Your first morning here. I told you the rules. I was very clear.” Anger lent strength to her papery voice.
Thank the stars Maarit had given Ari the lecture about off-limits areas after she’d nearly knocked her unconscious with the magic fae tea. It was the only scenario that would lend credibility to the princess’s story now.
Ari shook her head, her pulse pounding. “All I remember is drinking that tea and everything getting hazy, and then I fell asleep. When did you tell me any rules?”
Maarit stared at her for a long moment and then mumbled, “After you drank the tea.”
Ari bit her lip. “I’m sorry if I wasn’t supposed to come in here. It won’t happen again. Do you want me to finish dusting since I already started?”
The older woman glared. “I want you to get out.”
Ari complied, and Maarit locked the door behind them.
“Are you going to tell Teague?” the princess asked, her voice trembling.
“Why shouldn’t I?” Maarit snapped as she brushed past the princess. The faint scent of overgrown forests and sun-warmed soil followed her.
Ari had a sudden, sickening fear that Maarit was fae too. Either that or the woman needed a drink of magic fae tea now and then just to keep her (seriously old) self alive.
Choosing her next words with care, Ari said, “Because I’d like to tell him myself. I have nothing to hide, but I have plenty to lose. I want a chance to explain myself before he decides to just end my life over a misguided attempt to help you with housework.”
Maarit shrugged and walked away. “Dust if you want to. Come bake a cake if you want to. Might as well do it now since you’ll most likely be dead before morning.”
“That’s not very reassuring,” Ari muttered.
Whatever reply Maarit might have made was cut off by the sound of someone pounding on the villa’s front door.
Maarit stiffened, and Ari glanced out the nearest window as if that would tell her why, after five days of absolutely no one but Teague, Maarit, and the villa guards coming and going from the house, someone would be on the porch.
“Where are the guards?” Maarit whispered, flexing her wrinkled hands as though she could somehow stop someone from getting into the villa.
“Are we expecting someone?” Ari asked, as wild hope tangled with fear within her.
Maybe Sebastian had finally found her.
Maybe it was an enemy of Teague’s.
Maybe it was—
“No, we aren’t.” Maarit’s voice shook as whoever was on the other side of the door pounded on it again. “Curse this body. I can’t fight, but—”
“Stay here,” Ari said as she pushed in front of the housekeeper and ran down the long hallway. “Or better yet, hide.”
“Don’t open that! No one was invited. We wait until the boss returns, and then—”
Boom, boom, boom. The pounding reverberated throughout the main level.
Sebastian would be subtle. Careful.
That meant whomever was at the door wasn’t a friend to Ari and wasn’t a friend to Teague.
The irony of having to defend the home of the monster she wanted to kill wasn’t lost on Ari.
“I’m not going to open it.” Ari rushed down the hall and skidded around a doorway into the library. “I’m getting a weapon. We have to assume the guards are out of commission. We also have to assume that whoever wants in badly enough to batter down the door won’t hesitate to rip off a shutter and come through a window.”
“What are you going to do with a weapon?” Maarit demanded as Ari snatched up a thin, delicately wrought sword that rested in a dusty glass box.
“I’m going to use it.” Ari met the older woman’s eyes. “Go hide, Maarit. I’ll do what I can to protect you until Teague gets home.”
The housekeeper glared. “Why would you protect me? I don’t like you.”
“Because it’s the right thing to do. And I don’t like you either. Now go hide.”
Without waiting to see if Maarit was going to comply, Ari crept back down the hall and into the front parlor. Rain still fell in thick, misty sheets. It was impossible to see anything out of the parlor windows except indistinct blurs.
Would the person on the other side of the door try to come in through the parlor windows? Or the sitting room on the other side of the entrance?
Maybe she should just shut the doors to both and shove a heavy piece of furniture in front of the doorways to block them. She glanced around for anything that could make that plan work—the claw-footed chair with the ugly floral fabric? She doubted she could wrestle it through the doorway in time to use it from the outside of the room.
She’d have to go into the entrance hall and find something there.
Creeping out of the parlor, Ari scanned the entrance. There was an umbrella stand, a coatrack, and lanterns hanging from brackets on the wall.
“Teague!” someone yelled on the other side of the door, and Ari’s breath caught in utter surprise.
She knew that voice. She’d thought when he came for her that he’d be subtle. Careful. Never in her wildest dreams did she imagine she’d hear Sebastian pounding down Teague’s door.
The sword clattered to the marble floor as she ran for the door. Her shaking fingers fumbled with the lock twice before she managed to unbolt it. She threw open the door.
Sebastian stood on the porch, his hair plastered to his head, his clothes dripping wet. There were bruises and cuts on his face. His dark eyes found hers and held.
For a heartbeat or two, they stared at each other, and then he said quietly, “Princess Arianna.”
She launched herself against his chest and wrapped her arms around him. Damp from his clothing soaked the front of her dress as she clung to him, her body trembling from head to toe.
His arms slowly came around her, and he gathered her so close that she could feel the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath her ear. She wanted to tell him that she’d missed him. That she was so grateful to not be alone any longer. But there were no words to describe the way the hollow loneliness within her filled with warmth at his touch. She held on to him with desperate strength and cried.
He rested his cheek on the crown of her head and said softly, “I told you I’d find you.”
She gulped for breath and pulled back to look into his eyes. “How did you do it?”
“I followed Teague’s carriage the night you were taken.” He was staring at her as if he was trying to memorize her face even as he let his arms drop to his sides.
“That was five days ago.”
He looked miserable. “I had to do some things before I could come here.”