“So Uncle Angbard has been messing you around?”

“ ‘Uncle’—” he shook his head. “He’s much more your uncle than mine. You know how the family braids work? There are several deaths and remarriages in the tree.”

Miriam stood up. Don’t let him get distracted now. This is the point of no return, she realized. Do I want to go through with this? Well, the answer that came to mind wasn’t “no.” She screwed up her courage and walked over to him. “Olga would lock you in and throw away the key.”

“She’d—no, not deliberately. But the effect would be the same.” He didn’t seem to notice her standing a few inches in front of him, close enough to feel her breath on his cheek. Is he completely blind—or just too distracted to notice what his eyeballs are seeing? Miriam wondered, half-turning to face him and pushing her chest up as far as she could without being blatant about it—which was difficult, given what she was wearing. “He wants to tie me in with children, a family. I’d have to protect them.”

On second thoughts… he was looking her in the eyes, now, and he’d noticed her, all right. “That’s not the only option,” she murmured. “You don’t have to surrender to Angbard.”

“I don’t—” He trailed off.

She leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his waist. “What you said earlier,” she tried to explain. “You offered to help.” She looked up at him, still maintaining eye contact. “How serious are you?” she asked, her voice a whisper.

He blinked slowly, his expression thoughtful, then she saw him focusing on her properly, and it did something odd to her. She felt suddenly embarrassed, as if she’d made some horrible faux pas in public. “It wouldn’t be sensible,” he said slowly. Then he embraced her, hugging her tightly. “Are you sure it’s what you want?”

And now she really felt something, and it wasn’t what she’d expected when the idea of compromising Angbard’s plans for Olga stole into her mind. “The door’s locked. Who’s going to know? A serving girl goes in, a serving girl goes out, I’m in my bedroom working, it’s all deniable.” She pressed her chin into his shoulder. “I want you to pick me up, carry me into your bedroom, and take my clothes off—slowly,” she whispered into his ear.

“Okay,” he said.

She turned her head and laid her lips alongside his. He’d shaved. After a moment she felt his jaws loosen, exploration begin. Her whole weight fell against him and he lifted her, then put her down on her feet.

“Over here,” he said, arm dropping to her waist, half-leading her.

The bedroom furnishings were different. A big oak four-poster with a red—and gold-tapestried canopy dominated the room, and the secondary items were different. She pulled him toward the bed, then paused in front of it. “Kiss me,” she said.

He leaned over her and she sank into him, reaching down to his trousers with one hand to fumble at unfamiliar catches. He groaned softly as she caressed him. Then his jacket was on the floor, his bow tie dangling, his trousers loose. A shocking sense of urgency filled her.

Hours passed. They were both naked now: She lay with her back to Roland, his arms curled protectively around her.  This is unexpected, she thought dizzily. A little tremor surged through her. Wow. Well, her plan had worked: pull him into bed and annoy the hell out of Angbard by being a loose cannon. Except that wasn’t how it had turned out. She liked Roland a lot, and that wasn’t in the script.

“This is so wrong,” he mumbled into her hair.

She tensed. “What is?” she asked.

“Your uncle. He’ll kill me if he suspects.”

“He’ll—” Her blood ran cold for a moment. “You’re sure?”

“You’re immune,” he said in a tone of forced calm. “You’ve got huge leverage, and he doesn’t have specific plans for you. I’m meant to marry Olga, though, and that’s an end of it. Open defiance is bad. He’s probably been planning the marriage for years.”

“Surely I’m an, uh, acceptable substitute?” she asked, surprising herself. It hadn’t been in the plan when she came upstairs, unless her subconscious had been working overtime on strategies for spiking Angbard’s plans.

“That’s not the point. It’s not just about producing offspring with the ability, you know? You’re about the most unsuitable replacement for Olga it’s possible to imagine. Making me marry Olga would buy Angbard influence with her father’s braid and tie me down with a family. But an alliance with you wouldn’t do that—in fact, he’d risk losing influence over both of us, to no gain for himself.” He paused for breath. “Aside from marrying out, one of the council’s worst fears is fragmentation—world-walkers leaving and setting up as rivals. We’re both classic fragmentation risks, disaffected rebellious adults with independent backgrounds. My plans … reform has to come from within or it’s seen as a threat. That’s why I was hoping he might still be listening to me. There’s nothing personal about Clan alliances, Miriam. Even if Angbard the kindly uncle wanted to let you and me stay together, Angbard the duke would be seen as weak by the council, which would open him up to challenge … he can’t take that risk, he’d have to split us up.”

“I didn’t know about the competition angle,” she murmured. “What a mess.” I don’t want to think about it.

“This is a—it isn’t a … a one-night stand?” he asked.

“I hope not.” She nuzzled back deeper into his arms. “What about you? What do you want?”

“What I want seldom has anything to do with what I get,” he said, a trifle bitterly. “Although—” he stroked her flank silently.

“We have a problem,” Miriam whispered. “Tomorrow they’re going to put me in a stagecoach with Olga and send us both to the royal court. Herself to pay respects to the king, me to be exhibited like some kind of prize cow. You’re going to be staying here, under his eye. That right?”

She felt his nod: It sent a shiver through her spine. “It’s a test,” he murmured. “He’s testing you to see what you’re made of—also to see if your presence lures certain disaffected elements into the open.”

“We can try for a different outcome. Olga can be taken out of the picture by, well, anything.”

He tensed. “Do you mean what I think—”

“No.” She felt him relax. “I’m not going to start murdering women in order to steal their husbands.” She stifled a laugh—if it came out, it would have been more than slightly hysterical. “But we’ve got a couple of months, the whole of winter if I understand it, before anything happens. She doesn’t need to know anything. I bought a prepaid phone, right under your nose. I’ll leave you the number and try to arrange to talk to you when we’re both on the other side. Hell, the horse might even learn to sing.”

“Huh?”

“There might be a plague of smallpox. Or the crown prince might fall truly, madly, deeply in love with a shallow eighteen-year-old ditz whose one redeeming feature is that she plays the violin, getting you off the hook.”

“Right.” He sounded more certain. “I need that number.”

“Or my uncle might fall down a staircase,” she added.

“Right.” He paused.

“A thought?” she asked.

“Only this.” She felt lips touch the top of her spine. “You’d better be sneaking back to your apartment soon, because it’s three in the morning and we can’t afford to be compromised—either of us. But I want you to know one thing. Something I kept meaning to tell Janice, but never got a chance to—and now it’s too late.”

“What’s that?” she asked sleepily.

“I know this is crazy and dangerous, but I think I’m falling in love with you.”

Somehow Miriam made it back to her rooms without attracting any notice—possibly the sight of dishevelled and half-drunk maids stumbling out of an earl’s rooms and through the corridors at night was not one to arouse undue interest. She undressed and folded her clothing carelessly, stuffing cheap theatrical maid’s costume and designer gown alike into her suitcase. She freshened up in the bathroom, as much as she could without making the plumbing gurgle. Then, completely naked, she sat down in front of her laptop. Better check it before bed, she thought muzzily. Clicking on the photo utility, she spooled back through the day’s footage, back to her own exit—neatly packaged in a gray suit—en route to her appointment with the duke.