In Defiance of Duty by Caitlin Crews Read Free Book Online Page B

before—but then she smiled. He was already smiling back before he realized that her eyes were darker than they ought to have been.
    “I’m glad you’re here,” he said.
    He moved over to the chaise and dropped to sit at the opposite end. The terrace was alive with blooms, bright blossoms by day and the sweet scent of jasmine now that night had fallen. Up above, the stars began to come out. And for a moment, he thought, they could be anyone. Just a woman and a man and the whole night stretched out before them.
    He did not allow himself to examine how much he wished that could be true—that they could fall back into that world of pretend they’d lived in all these years.
    Hidden in, even.
    Kiara shifted position against the back of the chaise, and Azrin took the opportunity to arrange her how he wanted her—draping her legs over his lap so he could hold the slender shape of them in his palms. She wore something airy and insubstantial, not quite a dress and not one of her silk wrappers, and her narrow feet were bare. Her hair tumbled around her shoulders, damp from a recent shower, and her face was scrubbed clean of cosmetics.
    She was beautiful, and he couldn’t understand why she felt so far away when she was right here. When he was touching her.
    “How were your meetings?” she asked. Her voice was neutral. Entirely too neutral. He was instantly on guard.
    “Much too long,” he said. Carefully.
    He thought of the bickering ministers, the arguments, the usual pointless intractability from the usual suspects—one of them, sadly, his father. He thought of the inevitable pandering, the concessions, the headaches that were soon to be his alone to deal with. It already felt thankless and dangerous, this relentless push toward progress that he sometimes thought only he supported, and yet there was no stopping it. He had given his word to his people when he was a brash and idealistic twenty-two. He couldn’t take it back now, simply because it was harder than he’d anticipated—and happening so much sooner than he’d planned.
    And on top of all that was Kiara, with that odd note in her voice and that remote look in her gaze, as if he’d done something to her when all he’d wanted was to talk all of this out. To hear her perspective—to have someone else on his side. He told himself that he was not disappointed, that she had only just arrived. That there was time enough for the kind of conversations he envisioned. That there was no reason to feel so alone.
    “Long and complicated,” he added, his voice more curt than it should have been.
    “Your aide filled me in on your expectations when I arrived,” she replied, her voice noticeably less neutral. “At length. And then your sisters took up where he left off.” Something flashed in her dark eyes then, and she moved her legs against him, as if restless. “You think I need lessons in etiquette, Azrin? From a battalion of your sisters? Have I humiliated you in the eyes of all the world and you failed to mention it until now?” He felt as if he had suddenly found himself standing in the middle of a loaded minefield, a sensation he did not care for at all. He’d thought she would appreciate the advice his sisters could give her on how to comport herself like a Khatanian noble. He fought to keep his temper—too close to the surface, after having been sorely tested all day long—at bay.
    “You have no formal training in diplomacy,” he said, forcing his tone into something reasonable. He’d been practicing this very same tone of voice all day long, hadn’t he? It should have been as familiar to him as a second skin by now. “My sisters are renowned for their impeccable manners. They are the obvious choice to help you.”
    He searched her face, looking for the Kiara he knew, always so clever and amused, and seeing only those too-dark eyes looking back at him. Waiting for an explanation of his decision to send his sisters to her that should, he thought with