“Good evening, Your Highness,” Aedan said, bowing to her.
“Good night, you mean,’ she said. “It is almost the midnight hour.”
111 had just come up to get some air and think awhile,” Aedan said.
“However, I shall not intrude on your privacy.”
“Nonsense. it is I who am intruding on yours, she said. “Stay, Aedan.
I would be grateful for the company.
As you wish, Your Highness.”
“Must you be so formal?” she asked. “We have known each another since we were children, yet you have never called me by my name.”
What, Aedan wondered, was this peculiar penchant in the children of the royal family to want to be acknowledged by their names? It was as if being addressed by their proper titles, as was their rightful due, somehow failed to acknowledge their individual existence. And even as the thought occurred to him, he realized that perhaps, from their viewpoint, that was precisely what the protocol of court accomplished: they forced people through law and custom and tradition to acknowledge what they were rather than who they were. No one had ever acknowledged their individuality, only their positions. it had to make them feel rather lonely.
“Well, since we are alone, I will call you Laera, if you will allow me the rare privilege,” he said.
“I do allow it,” she replied with a smile. “It would be nice if you could see me as a woman and not only
as a princess of the royal house.”
It was difficult not to see her as a woman, Aedan thought, with her dark hair hanging loose and billowing in the breeze, which also plastered the thin material of her nightgown against her body. She looked altogether too much like a woman and not enough like a princess.
Selfconsciously, and reluctantly, Aedan averted his gaze and looked out to sea.
“A storm is coming,” he said uneasily. She came up beside him and rested her arms on the parapet wall. “I love summer storms,- she said.
“The way the sheet lightning lights up the whole sky, the way the thunder rolls, as if the gods were playing at ninepins, the way the rain comes down so hard and fast and leaves everything smelling so fresh and clean. I love walking in the rain, don’t you?”
He glanced at her. The wind was blowing her long, raven tresses back from her face as she inhaled deeply, taking in the moisture-laden sea air. Aedan could not help noticing the way her chest rose and fell with her breaths. She was leaning forward against the wall, and her posture accentuated her breasts, which threatened to tumble out of her lowcut nightgown. She glanced at him, and he quickly looked away. Had she caught him staring? Aedan felt himself blushing and turned his head so she wouldn’t see.
It wasn’t all that long ago that Laera was a gangly, coltish little girl, proud and haughty, with legs too long for her torso, but since she turned fifteen, she had begun to blossom and seemed to become more beautiful with each passing year. Her once reed-thin figure now possessed lush curves, of which Aedan
was all too uncomfortably aware with her standing so close, barefoot and wearing nothing but a sheer white nightgown.
It struck him that they really shouldn’t be alone like this, especially with her being dressed the way she was. Or barely dressed, he thought.
She was promised to Lord Arwyn, after all, and if someone saw the two of them together in such circumstances, it could easily be misinterpreted.
It wasn’t right.
“Well … I think perhaps I should be going,” he said, rather awkwardly.
“No, stay awhile,” she said, reaching out and putting her hand on his arm. Her touch lingered.
“We never have a chance to talk anymore. Why is that?”
Aedan’s lips felt very dry. He moistened them.
Did she feel completely unselfconscious standing before him in her nightclothes? “I suppose we never talk because I am usually kept busy with Prince Michael, and you are kept busy with…” He actually had no idea how she spent her days. “. . . whatever it is a princess does,”
he finished lamely.
“Learning courtly graces, sewing and embroidering, dancing, riding, lessons on the lute … all those things meant to prepare a girl to be a noble’s wife. I am sure you would find it all quite boring. I know I do.”
“We could trade,” Aedan offered with a smile.
“Then I could learn to sew and play the lute while you could spend the day reenacting the Battle of Mount Deismaar with Prince Michael and his little friends.”
“No, thank you, very much,” she said, making a face. “I concede you have the worse of it. I cannot
imagine how you stand it. Michael is an absolutely horrid child. It must be awfully trying for you.”
“Oh, it’s not really so bad,” said Aedan, though privately, he could not agree with her more. “It is good training for my future role as royal chamberlain. It teaches discipline and patience.”
“It must,” said Laera. “I don’t know how you can put up with him. He may be my brother, but he is an insufferable little monster. When I heard that Corwin knocked him senseless, I thought it was just what he deserved. To tell the truth, I wish I’d done it myself.”
“That was entirely my fault,” Aedan said. “I should have prevented it, but I fear I was not quick enough.”
Laera smiled. “Yes, I heard that Lady Ariel slowed you down a bit.”
Aedan blushed again. Damn that Ariel. The story must be all over the castle by now and everyone was probably having a good laugh at his expense. “Yes, well, that was my fault, too. I
