The Trouble With Princesses by Tracy Anne Warren Read Free Book Online

Lord Twyford,” Emma continued, “his mother arranges most things in his life. But he’s a nice boy for all that.”
    “Boy?” Ariadne laughed. “He’s older than either of us.”
    “Perhaps so, but I suspect his mother doesn’t plan to let him grow up anytime before his fiftieth birthday, and maybe not even then.”
    Considering, Ariadne feared her friend was right.
    Mentally, she marked off another prospect and concealed a sigh in her tea.
    •   •   •
    Two days later, Rupert descended the staircase of Lyndhurst House. Voluble noise burst from the main-floor drawing room, laughter and voices—deep male voices—punctuated by a single lilting feminine strain.
    Ariadne was receiving callers again.
    He hadn’t seen much of her since the night of the ball—actually no more than a glimpse as she came and went from the town house. He could have sought her out, but what was there to say? He thought he’d made his point pretty clear. More than clear, actually.
    What had he been thinking, taking hold of her like that? Kissing her the way he had? He’d meant to shock her, shake her out of her foolish complacency and make her see how ridiculous she was being.
    Take a lover, indeed.
    He’d never heard of anything so idiotic and foolhardy in his life. She was inexperienced and idealistic and had no idea that it wasn’t just her reputation she was putting at risk but herself as well.
    As for her “kissing trials,” he’d never heard the like. He was well aware that on occasion young unmarried men and women stole a chaste kiss or two behind a garden bush, but to deliberately court the attentions of random men in order to find out how well or ill they kissed . . .
    His hands turned to fists at his sides at the very thought.
    Not that he was jealous, not in the least, he assured himself. As he’d told her, she was his sister’s friend and he didn’t want to see her hurt. That and that alone was the extent of his interest.
    Obviously, he’d always known that Ariadne was headstrong and impulsive, but he’d never thought her lacking in basic common sense. When he’d heard her ludicrous plan, he really had thought she was jesting. He could only imagine how his face must have looked when he’d realized she was not.
    When he’d grabbed hold of her, he really had meant to do nothing more than teach her a well-deserved lesson. So how had it ended up going so wrong?
    Or perhaps the correct term was so right ?
    At some point not long after he’d started kissing her, he’d forgotten all about teaching lessons and lost himself in their kiss.
    Unlike Ariadne, he couldn’t use inexperience as an excuse. He’d been kissing women since he was a boy of fourteen, when one of the royal housemaids decided he needed more than the sheets on his bed tended to. Not that he’d ever minded. He enjoyed women, found them soft and inviting and pleasurable to be with both in bed and out.
    But Princess Ariadne?
    She’d always been his young sister’s friend, a bit of an annoyance but easily enough dismissed. Lovely as she might be, he’d never really seen her in a sexual light before.
    With one kiss, all that had changed.
    In fact, since that night he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind. He’d even dreamed about her, awakening with an arousal as strong as the one she’d left him with when she’d fled the study. To his consternation, he’d had to stay behind in that blasted study for an additional fifteen minutes before he’d felt presentable enough to return to the festivities.
    Yet whatever may have happened between them two nights ago, it made no difference. They would continue on as before, their indiscretion forgotten and buried in the past where it belonged.
    All that remained now was to hope that Ariadne had actually learned something from their encounter and had decided to put an end to her ill-conceived scheme to take a lover.
    Yet here she was, entertaining again.
    Perhaps they were just ordinary