Sins of a Wicked Princess by Anna Randol Read Free Book Online Page A

plagued with dreams of a handsome spy watching her undress, but then he’d done far more than watch her. He’d reached out and—
    She cleared her throat. “I will get to you shortly.” She used her most regal tone.
    Both servants regarded her hopefully.
    “Later. I have some things I must attend to. Alone,” she added for emphasis.
    They bowed and backed from the room.
    After a quick glance about, she opened her drawer. She just needed a little break. Something to take her mind off of the mess she’d gotten herself into with the spy. And her meeting with the Spanish ambassador. And the fact that her seventy-year-old aunt could flirt better than she could.
    She pulled out the hat.
    She was half done attaching the new trim. Periwinkle.
    Her one secret. She made her own bonnets, and her aunts were none the wiser. Ha!
    Yes, she was rebellious to the core.
    But the small stitches soothed her. This new bonnet would mean a few pounds that could go to her subjects and not into her wardrobe. And someone had complimented the flowers on her coal scoop bonnet last week. Of course, it had been a rather foolish young lord who had called Leucretia’s lips rubious . But Juliana would take what support she could get.
    A knock sounded at her door.
    She jammed the hat back into the drawer. “Come.”
    No one entered.
    She was sure she hadn’t imagined it. “Come in.”
    When no one responded, she stood and walked to the door. She peered out into the corridor. No one was there.
    Juliana returned to her desk.
    She blinked.
    There was a red rose in the center of it. A card was attached to the rose. She glanced around the room. “Where are you?”
    But her spy was no longer there.
    Her spy? Why was he hers? She didn’t even want him for anything but this one task.
    Yet when she picked up the card, her fingers were weak and unsteady. It contained only one line.
    Counting the minutes?

Chapter Nine
    “W hat precisely are you wearing?” Juliana’s spy asked from where he’d suddenly appeared in her doorway.
    She glared at him, looking up from the hat she was working on. She’d been rather proud that she’d managed to find a pair of trousers with no one the wiser. And she’d managed to secure it between seven different audiences. Tea with the prime minister. And a dinner meant to honor Lenoria’s annual grain harvest.
    “Were you planning to scale the outside of the building? Swing in through the window?” he asked.
    Perhaps. But now that he said it in that tone, she rather suspected that wasn’t what he had in mind.
    “Sorry, Jules, there’s no way you could master that in a week. Can you even manage to climb to the top of your canopy bed?”
    Insufferable man. “I could climb to the top of the bed.”
    “Oh really? Do it.”
    Why had she allowed herself to be baited?
    “Take hold of the bar holding your curtain and pull yourself up. I’ll even let you start with your feet on the bed,” he said.
    She climbed up on the bed, surprised at how unstable it was. She’d never stood on one before, but she doubted he would value that excuse.
    She gripped the iron with both hands and pulled.
    Her feet didn’t leave the coverlet.
    “Perhaps if you jump?”
    She gracefully lowered herself off the bed. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
    His gaze slowly traveled down her body. “Yes, I rather think I would.”
    It had seemed like a good idea to leave her stays off when she dressed for this. Now she crossed her arms. “What is your name?”
    “So you can write my execution orders?”
    “No, so I can call you something other than a smug buffoon!” She placed her hand over her mouth. Had she truly just called him that aloud?
    He looked more bemused than offended. “Most call me Wraith.”
    “Is that your name?”
    “It is what I am called.”
    “Well then, Wraith. Let’s see you do it.”
    “Do what?”
    “Climb to the top of my—”
    He jumped from the floor, grabbed the bar, swung his body up and around it, and