Chapter 3

"What do we have here?"

The voice was deep and utterly masculine, and it drew me up out of unconsciousness, but it was the touch of hands upon my skin, shoving the dress to one side and then plucking at my corset ties that had my eyes flicking open. I was finally able to draw in a full breath, the air tasting sweeter than summer wine, and then I lifted my eyes to meet those of my saviour.

"Oh!"

Not ‘thank you, good sir, but why are you manhandling the Princess Royal?' Not ‘a pleasure to meet you; I'm Princess Jessalyn.' After that one expression of surprise, my mouth formed a perfect ‘O' as I just stared up at him, speechless.

I could breathe easily now. My lungs filled with air, but some part of me was sure my ability to do so would be constrained again. I couldn't help but splay my hands over my chest, where my underdress still covered me. My corset was slipping free, but I was barely aware of it as I continued to stare at the man leaning over me.

He must have removed my veil—a sensible thing given the state he'd found me in—but I was sure he had no idea what that signified to me. I had been veiled in front of almost all men since the moment I became a woman, hidden from their eyes and unable to look upon them. That was one reason for me to blink as I took him in, but it wasn't the sudden sight of a man I didn't know that had me gaping.

Were all men this beautiful?

Was this why unmarried women were forced to wear veils? Because I was sure that if we were allowed to walk bareheaded, our eyes would roll around in their sockets trying to soak in such masculine beauty. I couldn't work out which part of his face to focus on as my eyes took in the severe slope of his sculpted face, captured every tiny little freckle that dusted the top of those angular cheeks, then dwelt on his eyes that were a blue so bright they rivalled the sapphire at my breast and were now utterly focused on me. Full lips quirked up at the corners, as though he wanted to smile but for some reason was stifling that impulse.

"Are you well, milady?" he asked, and for a moment, it was like his voice was a warm bath I could sink into. That comforting sensation didn't last long, for once I was breathing properly, I came back to myself and recalled all my training on propriety and my role as a princess.

I couldn't let a man see my face before I was married. I couldn't talk to a man, or permit him to place his hands on me, like this man's were now, clasping my shoulders to keep me upright. I certainly couldn't allow myself to feel the heat of his palms through the thin cotton of my underdress.

My… underdress?

With some regret, I dragged my eyes away from the stranger and took in the damage I'd done.

The dress…

Tears filled my eyes again. This time they fell freely, dotting the satin that I still clutched to me as I drew in slow, sobbing breaths.

"Hey…" he said. "Hey there… Now, lass…"

He used the slow, gentle words men used with horses, and perhaps he thought to gentle me too, drawing me closer and into his arms. And so, I wept against the shoulder of a man whose name I didn't know. I cried for my beautiful dress, now turned to scraps of fabric and scattered beads. I cried for the bright future I'd thought would come with it and the dark one I faced instead. I cried because I knew I'd catch hell for running away from my mother, for disobeying my father, for ruining Rachael's hard work.

And yet…

There were no members of my family sweeping around the corner of the corridor and exclaiming at the state I was in. No one was there at all to watch me fall apart, no one but this man. And so, no one saw me slide my arms around his broad back, the size of him somehow all the more comforting. True, he'd saved me from expiring from lack of air, but there was more to it than that. I felt as though my whole world was swirling, not just my head, and I couldn't seem to stop from clinging to him as if that would prevent me from being swept away, no matter how disgraceful my behaviour might be.

Even as I knew that I had to pull away from him.

"Thank you…" My voice came out in a terrible croak, and I was forced to cough to clear it. "Thank you, good sir. I apologise for this unseemly display."

"Seems like you didn't have a choice about it." Gods, I hadn't imagined it. I blinked, looking up at him for he was just as dazzling when he pulled back and smiled down at me. His hair was the colour of a freshly minted gold coin, and the sun streaming through the windows turned it into a bright halo, making him look not like a man but an angel. "I found you passed out, milady…?"

He looked at me expectantly, obviously wanting a name to go with the fainting woman he'd rescued. I couldn't tell him who I was. If he was one of my father's men, he'd pull back as if stung the moment I announced I was the Princess Royal, and if he was a visiting merchant… I took in the set of his well-made clothes. All in unrelieved black, the ornamentation was subtle, discreet, indicating he was a man of means. I blinked then, my frantic mind coming up with a plan.

"Pearl," I said, offering him my hand. "Lady Pearl."

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance, milady Pearl," he said, bowing over my hand to kiss it, as was proper, though the way his eyes sparkled as he stared at me was not. Good. A proper and decent man was not what I needed right now. "Now that you seem recovered, is there somewhere I can escort you?"

"Yes." I couldn't believe my boldness, but needs must. "I was on my way to the marketplace when I fell into a swoon." I forced myself to smile. "My maid tied my corset entirely too tightly this morning."

"Well, she won't be doing so again," the man said, ruefully looking down at the remains of my corset splayed out across the carpet. "And I apologise for that, milady."

"Well, if it's a choice between me breathing and the corset surviving, I will choose breathing every time," I said brightly, taking in a deep breath and then letting it out gratefully for affect. "But if I could know the name of my saviour?"

I fluttered my eyelashes then, like every coquettish maid I'd ever seen talking about the man she fancied.

"Arik," he said with a bright smile.

"Well, Master Arik, if I could presume on your kind offer to be my escort, would a trip to the marketplace be too much to ask?"

"The marketplace?" His eyes slid down to the ruins of my dress, my discarded veil. "Of course, milady, it would be my honour, but…"

I got to my feet then, shimmying out of my petticoats before twitching the folds of my underdress and straightening it. That was not proper behaviour, nor was what I was about to suggest, but proper behaviour had resulted in me being married off to a despotic king who would be sure to kill me before I even had a chance to birth him an heir. And as it was, while I called what I had worn beneath my wedding gown an underdress, the cotton garment was as finely made, if not better than anything that other women of noble birth wore in the castle. Once I was satisfied with the way the dress looked, I cast a glance at my veil, momentarily considering putting it back on, but then stepped free of it. Instead, I bent low to pick up the tiara that had held it in place and shoved it into one of the voluminous pockets at my side.

"Do you possess a belt knife, Master Arik?" I asked, holding out my hand.

"Yes, of course, but…"

I took the leather sheath as he handed it to me and pulled the knife free. The feel of such a weapon in my hand stopped me cold for just a moment. Oh, to be armed, deadly, and able to enforce my will with the strength of my arm. The idea was dizzying. I bent again, this time to neatly cut away some of the heavy strings of pearls still attached to the bodice of my destroyed dress, shoving each one into my pockets.

"Forgive me for asking, milady, but are you in some sort of trouble?" Arik asked, but not with any air of reproval. Rather, he crouched down beside me, taking the knife back to cut another strand of pearls free and hold them out to me.

"Yes, and you can keep these for your trouble," I said, closing his fingers around the pearls. "If you help me, the less said about the situation, the better it will be for you." Something in his eyes flared to life at my touch. I'd been told that men were fools for women, which was why we needed to go to such lengths to remove temptation from them. "Plausible deniability, if you understand my meaning."

"Beautiful and canny…" I knew I had Arik under my spell by the way his eyes became heavily lidded for a moment as he barely breathed the words to himself. Then with a determined look, he nodded sharply. "I'll help you, lass. So, what do you need?"

"To turn these jewels into coin, and as quickly as possible." I felt a small pang of sorrow as I undid the clasp behind my neck and pulled the sapphire necklace free, for the piece had been passed from princess royal to princess royal through the generations. Then I reflected that perhaps it wasn't such a terrible thing for it to be lost if it might spare the next princess the indignity of being collared and then sent to the marriage mart to be sold off like a prize heifer. "Please, Master Arik."

He shook his head sharply, making me worry that I made a mistake in trusting him.

"If quick money is what you're after, I can't take you to the marketplace." He gazed at the pearls in his palm speculatively before pressing them into my hand. "But I know some people in the city who might be able to help. They're not fine, upstanding men, mind, but neither is the place I must go to make that trade."

"Where we must go," I said, putting a hand on his forearm. Did he see, as I did, the contrast between us: between his very thick, very muscular arm versus my much more slender one?

"It's not a place for fine ladies," he warned me, but those lips were already quirking with amusement. "You need to be aware of that."

"I'm not sure if I will have the luxury of being a fine lady after this, Master Arik, so if you would be so kind as to lead the way…?"

I offered him my hand, my heart beating rapidly in my chest—not for the first time today, but hopefully for the last. This stranger had freed me from the suffocating embrace of my corset, and now I needed him to help get me out of the cage I found myself in. A dimple appeared in his cheek as he smiled down at me in earnest while clasping my hand and pulling me closer, which simply served to make me aware of just how much bigger and taller he was.

"It'd be my pleasure, Pearl."