Brit when they thought themselves alone. Right now, the girl hovered in the open doorway to Liv’s own room.
‘‘What?’’ Liv demanded in a distinctly crabby tone.
The pale, pointy face seemed to get paler and pointier still. ‘‘Highness, forgive me. Just tidying up—are you all right, Highness?’’
‘‘Never better,’’ Liv lied with a sneer.
The maid dipped a quick curtsy and escaped toward the drawing room. Liv watched her scurry off. Once she was sure the girl was gone, Liv swayed toward the door frame. For a moment she just sagged there, disgusted with everything, herself most of all.
She needed to lie down. To lie down and go to sleep and not wake up until her head had stopped hurting and her stomach quit churning.
But instead of turning for her own room, she pushed open Brit’s door and tiptoed in. After the trouble she’d gotten herself into, she wanted to be sure that Brit was all right.
The room was dim, all the heavy curtains drawn. The centuries-old rug—wine-red, with a golden wheellike pattern spinning out from the center of it—was wonderfully soft beneath her sore feet. The fine old mahogany bed, its four posters broad as tree trunks and intricately carved with dragons and vines and fairylike women with long, twining hair, loomed in the center of the room, the soft, old linens in disarray. Liv could see a slim tanned hand and arm hanging over one side.
Quietly Liv moved closer. At first, she smiled at the sight that greeted her when she got close enough to see that her sister was, indeed, in bed sound asleep.
Brit had always been a bed hog. When they were children and for one reason or another had to share a bed, Liv and Elli would whine and moan and complain that that they couldn’t sleep with Brit. Brit was always squirming around and sometimes she talked to herself in her sleep—plus, she stole the covers.
Now Brit managed to sprawl spread-eagled, face-down, wide enough that she took up the entire bed. Liv watched her slim back moving—slow, shallow breaths. Her face was turned Liv’s way and covered by a tangled mop of straight blond hair much like Liv’s own.
She looked so…utterly relaxed. So totally unconcerned, lying there in her usual bed-hogging sprawl.
Liv felt the tender smile leave her lips. Brit was the ‘‘wild’’ one of the three sisters, the one more likely to have done the kind of thing that Liv did last night.
But Brit hadn’t done it—though she’d danced with Finn Danelaw herself more than once, though she’d flirted and laughed and had herself a grand time. At some point, Brit had had sense enough to climb the stairs to her own bed, where she was now sleeping peacefully. When she woke, she’d have nothing to regret. She’d down her usual three or four cups of strong black coffee and she’d be ready to face the new day.
For the first time in her life, Liv wished she’d followed her baby sister’s example. She should be in her own room, safe in her own bed. Not dressed in last night’s wrinkled, clammy clothes, sick to her stomach with a pounding head, wishing she could turn back time and do it all differently.
And speaking of her stomach…
Liv dropped her underwear on the thick wine-red rug, clapped a hand to her mouth and whirled for Brit’s bathroom.
She got over the commode just in time.
It seemed like forever that she leaned there, until everything had come up and there was nothing left—and still, her stomach kept trying to get rid of more.
Somewhere in the middle of the unpleasantness, her sister’s bare feet appeared on the soft rug beside her.
‘‘Oh, Livvy. What have you been up to?’’ Brit’s voice was sympathetic, her question rhetorical. She turned on the shower and then knelt beside Liv and held her tenderly as she finished.
‘‘Come on,’’ she coaxed, when it looked like the heaving had stopped at last. ‘‘Into the shower… you’ll feel better.’’
After the shower, Brit produced a tall glass of bubbling headache remedy. Liv made herself drink the whole thing. Then, gentle as a loving mother, Brit led Liv to bed.
Out in the clearing where Finn Danelaw lay, the morning mist slowly faded away. The day grew brighter. An eagle soared overhead, broad wings strong enough to carry him far to the north, to a craggy aerie somewhere high in the snow-crested peaks of the Black Mountains.
Finn woke to the eagle’s long, hollow cry. He opened his eyes and found himself looking at a swathe of thick green grass. On the grass lay his shirt and a shoe. Beyond the two articles of clothing, fat-trunked oaks stood close together, their branches so thickly intermingled it was impossible to say where the crown of one tree ended and the next began.
Finn’s head pounded dully, though not unbearably. It had been quite a night. A night certainly worth the price of a mild headache. He smiled to himself and rolled over to reach for the law student, his king’s daughter, Princess Liv.
She was gone.
With a soft groan, Finn sat up and raked his hair back out of his eyes. A quick scan of the clearing showed him the rest of his clothing but none of hers. The only proof that she’d spent the night in his arms was her scent on his skin—so sweet now, bound to fade too soon.
He leaned back with a long sigh and his fingers touched something silky. Her underlisse. What did they call them in America? Ah. Her panties.
The small triangle of dark blue satin had been pressed into the grass beneath his hip. He snagged it on a finger and twirled it. So. A proof beyond the enticing scent of her that she had been here, that he’d kissed all the most secret parts of her, that he’d pressed her down into the moist grass and buried himself to the hilt within her.
Was he surprised she’d left him there asleep? Not in the least. Finn understood women as well as any mere man might. She didn’t see herself as the kind who could ever become involved in a wild moonlit tryst with a man she hardly knew.
He closed the panties in his fist. On awaking, she would have been shocked at what she’d done so willingly the night before. The most natural response would be to flee before he woke and possibly did something to compound her distress—like reach for her and try to make love to her again.
A pity. He would have thoroughly enjoyed one last time with her. It aroused him even now to imagine staring down into her face by morning light as her pleasure crested.
Finn dropped the satin triangle to the grass. Sadly, such a moment was not to be. In fact, the night before was more than he should have dared to take. Were he a man prone to shock, he would be shocked right now. Shocked that he did take it, though last night was Midsummer’s Eve and Gullandrian tradition held that no man—or woman—could be called to account for amorous indiscretions on Midsummer’s Eve.
Tradition aside, if the king found out, he would not be pleased. And when a man displeased his king, disagreeable things were far too likely to happen to him. And more important than the possible danger inherent in crossing His Majesty, Finn didn’t want to displease Osrik Thorson. His king happened to be someone Finn Danelaw admired and respected.
Finn pushed himself to his feet and began gathering up his clothes.
As
