“Who are you?” she asked.
“Not who you expected to meet here?” he asked with mock surprise, the laughter in his voice setting off inner fires she didn’t know could burn.
The heat from her core made its way up her neck to merge with the bright blush spots on her cheeks until her normally cool, pale skin burned a bright red across her entire body.
“This is a private courtyard.”
He nodded. “I know.”
“What are you here for?”
He tilted his head in a chiding fashion that somehow reminded her of her mother, as if he knew she could do better. “To speak with you. Isn’t it rather obvious?”
“Normally, people who wish to speak with me approach from the front,” she observed.
He shrugged, the movement fluttering his jacket. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve come at things from a different angle.”
She laughed, unable to help herself in the face of his blasé attitude. “What did you want to talk about?”
A wicked spark came to his eyes as he took in her partially exposed body, beginning at her bare feet and traveling slowly up, lingering at her breasts, before his gaze locked on hers.
She felt the look like a caress, making her breathing go short and heavy.
“Many things—reunions, new unions...” he said, the words trailing off slow like honey.
“We’ve never met.” She spoke casually as she shifted her weight to the balls of her feet.
Something like pain flashed across his eyes, but was gone by the time his words came out, his voice entirely nonchalant as he said, “The two of us? No. But we’ve known each other our whole lives.”
His words were intriguing, a siren mystery tempting her to ponder his meaning instead of thinking through her next move, but she wasn’t going to bite. She couldn’t afford the time it would take. She’d only requested one day off, no matter how fascinating the stranger who dangled the lure.
With shocking speed, she pivoted on her heel and erupted into a sprint, wincing as she dashed barefoot through the shards of broken champagne glass along the way.
And it was her own fault. Her father always said her rashness would come home to roost.
Her would-be kidnapper was on her tail alarmingly quickly, but she had the advantages of a head start and greater familiarity with the terrain.
Running right at the statue, she leaped, her feet planting squarely on her father’s nose with an ominous crack as she used it to spring onto the tiled rooftop surrounding the courtyard. She landed hard, sliding slightly as she dislodged the tiles, sending some falling to crack on the marbled floor below.
Once she caught her balance, she scrambled toward the top bar of the roofs—the only place where running was actually feasible.
A loud thud behind her and a quick glance over her shoulder confirmed that her pursuer had not yet given up. That was fine. She hadn’t, either.
She ran across the roof, her bare feet finding easy purchase on the familiar old wood. She followed the same route she and her cousin had taken as young daredevils looking for a bit of fun and a chance to terrify their tutors.
With any luck, the old trick would work on the man behind her, because his long strides were rapidly closing the space between them.
In the distance, she could hear the tasteful music and muffled chatter of the party. There was still time to veer right and head in that direction. Moustafa and the king’s guard wouldn’t hesitate to provide backup. However, there was a chance that the man was actually coming after her in an effort to get near to the king and queen. In which case, protecting them meant keeping him away. Besides, she could just imagine the horror on her mother’s face when her daughter literally dropped into the middle of her party wearing nothing but a tattered evening gown.
But then again, maybe her mother wouldn’t mind. The party would certainly be talked about long afterward.
She had promised her mother that she would settle down, though, and—her profession notwithstanding—for the most part, she had.
After her father’s death, the need to tarnish the family name had lost its sense of urgency.
Her mother, her companion in the trenches, understood her motivation for upsetting the family wheelhouse and cared little for what gossip surrounded her daughter. Their relationship was close and open and far too strong to be shaken by rumor. But her behavior could still impact the way her mother was treated in society, whom she was allowed to see, what services she could solicit. Hel knew her mother would say it saved her from frequenting with fools, but hearing that her mother had been denied an appointment at her salon after Helene joined the royal guard had triggered the protective response that years of living with her father had developed in her. She wouldn’t do anything that might limit her mother’s hard-earned freedom.
So rather than seek backup, Hel stayed her course, nearly to the spot that she and her cousin had named The Leap of Death.