The instant the docent is out of sight, Lizzy’s face crumples, and another soft Rindish curse puffs into the quiet air.
“I’m sorry.” I rub a hand up and down her back, torn between wanting to comfort her and the sneaking suspicion that she did this on purpose. After all, if she’s injured, she can’t very well sew a traditional hat pattern, now can she. “Is that the word that means ‘your father sleeps with sheep?’” I ask, hoping to lighten the moment for both of us.
She glances up, surprise flickering in her eyes. “You know Rindish?”
“Just the curse words. When we were teenagers, my brothers and I collected profanity from across the globe.”
Her lips twitch into a grin, but the pain lingers in her eyes. “Yes, it literally means ‘your father violates sheep,’ but we use it the way the English use ‘hell’ or ‘damn.’ Words like that.” She shakes her head as she gingerly lifts her arm, studying her wrist, which already looks more swollen than it did before, making me feel awful for thinking the worst of her.
If she faked a fall to avoid sewing, she wouldn’t have actually hurt herself.
Would she?
How far is this woman willing to go to keep me from finding out the truth? And what in the devil am I going to do now that my last-ditch plan to out her has gone up in flames?
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, her brows furrowing. “Have I ruined our field trip? I don’t think I’ll be able to sew anything for at least a few days.”
“Not at all.” I wrap an arm around her shoulders and hug her close, marveling that she can feel so right in my arms when nothing about this engagement is going as planned. “We can still take in the exhibits. As long as you feel up to it, of course. If not, we can head back to the castle. Or to the hospital, if you think it might be fractured. There’s a secret entrance for members of the royal family.”
She shakes her head. “No, I don’t need to go to the hospital. I’m almost positive it’s just a sprain. I’ve hurt this wrist before. I can be such a klutz sometimes. I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing,” I insist. “I’m just glad you’re all right.”
“Thank you,” she whispers, “and Andrew, I just want you to know—”
She’s cut off by Thalia’s forcibly cheery voice shouting, “I found an ice pack and an ACE bandage! We’ll have you patched up in no time, Princess.”
By the time we’ve iced Lizzy’s sprain for fifteen minutes while enjoying a private tour of the ancient Greek funerary exhibit narrated by the knowledgeable Thalia, wrapped Lizzy’s arm, and bid our guide goodbye to show ourselves around the rest of the museum, my fiancée has forgotten whatever it was she wanted me to know.
When I ask her about it, she blushes and bobs a shoulder, “I’m sorry, I don’t remember. But if I do, I’ll let you know.”
“Please do,” I murmur, pretending to be absorbed in the contemplation of an impressionist painting of a floating man and woman kissing against a field of blue and pink flowers.
But the only thing I’m truly contemplating is what to do with Lizzy/Sabrina, this woman whose company I enjoy so much, even as she continues to thwart me at every turn.
Chapter Eighteen
Sabrina
My wrist throbs, and my stomach aches with hunger, but I refuse all of Andrew’s offers to hit the café or leave the museum early.
Despite my physical discomfort and the fearful voice whispering at the back of my thoughts, insisting Andrew is on to the sister switch—why else would he have sprung that sewing project on me and then watched me like a hawk waiting to snatch me up in his claws—I’m having a wonderful time with this impossible man.
He really is impossible.
Impossibly beautiful and impossibly magnetic and impossibly stubborn, a fact he proves when we finally take a break to have food delivered to the private, members-only lounge. He reaches for his spoon, driving it into his oatmeal with his usual gusto, clearly prepared to make a mess all over both of us, the innocent table and chairs, and the lovely blue carpet, all for the sake of sticking to his damned guns.
Before I can stop myself, I reach for his hand with my uninjured one, stilling his spoon before he can fling the first assault.
He glances up in surprise, sending a hum of awareness sizzling through the air as our eyes connect. “Yes, Elizabeth? Would you like a bite?”
His tone is innocent, but I would swear he’s biting back a smile, and the heat in his gaze makes me think of biting things a lot more fun than oatmeal.
I hate that my sister’s fiancé makes me feel these things, but I can’t seem to help myself. Andrew is a roaring fire on a freezing winter’s day, and I’m a woman who’s been out in the cold for far too long.