His Princess (A Royal Romance) by Abigail Graham Page A

and fork down and leans back in the chair, cocked to one side.
    “Say I give you what you want. I step down right now, this instant. I go out and say, ‘You are all free,’ and then I leave. Then what?”
    I shrug.
    “Anarchy, that’s what. I am as locked into my role as my people are into theirs. You speak as if it is some easy thing, freedom. It comes with a heavy price. There are no easy choices in this world. I have made mine, as did my father and his father before him, stretching back to the time when my ancestors first came to this land.”
    “That’s a very poetic way of dressing up your fear.”
    He looks up. “What?”
    “That’s why I’m here, right? I amuse you. You can’t find anybody in your little empire who will give it to you straight. Do you know how beatification works?”
    He blinks. “The process of sainthood?”
    “Yes, that’s right. When the process starts, the church calls in a guy to speak against the person’s qualifications as a saint. To argue that their miracles are not genuine, that they are not worthy, that God would not choose them to sit at his right hand.”
    The prince sits up, eyeing me.
    “That person is the devil’s advocate. It’s not just a figure of speech, it’s an actual position within the church. That’s what you brought me here for, isn’t it? You want to hear from somebody who isn’t afraid to lose a limb if you don’t like what they have to say.”
    “You’re not afraid of me,” he observes.
    “No, I’m not. You don’t scare me. I’ve met plenty of bullies in my time. I know one when I see one. You might have an army backing you up and you might have that suit you had on last night, but I’m not scared of you.”
    “Why, because you’re an American citizen?”
    “No, because bullies act out of a sense of weakness, not power. You don’t force the world to fit your warped expectations because you feel powerful. You force it to be the way you want because it scares you if it doesn’t bend to your will.”
    The prince eyes me. “Finish your meat. Unless you wish to plead with me for the cow it came from.”
    I look down and finish eating without saying anything else. I clean my plate, and I guess I’m a good girl because I get dessert, a tiny scoop of ricotta cheese drizzled with honey and served with tiny little anise cookies coated with dark chocolate.
    “This is good,” I mutter, forgetting myself.
    I flinch, expecting the prince to lay into me for speaking without his leave, but he just smiles. He’s skipping dessert.
    When I finish eating, the food is carried away. I take a taste of the strange pale wine I’m offered and jerk back when it touches my tongue. It’s sweet as sugar water.
    “That’s mead,” he says with a little shrug. “I take it you’ve never tasted it. Is it to your liking?”
    “Yes. What is it?”
    “Honey wine.”
    “I like it.”
    “I’m surprised you’re not castigating me for oppressing the bees and appropriating the fruits of their labor.”
    I stare at him for a moment.
    Then he laughs, softly, as if the act is unfamiliar to him.
    “You’re mocking me, now.”
    “Yes. I am. I didn’t think you so thin of skin.”
    “I’m not.”
    I take a sip of honey wine and shift in my seat. I don’t want to get drunk around this man. God, what I might say. It goes straight to my head, though.
    “I must attend to matters of state this afternoon. The car will take you back to the castle.”
    “You’re not coming?”
    As he reads the disappointment in my voice, his eyebrow twitches.
    “Don’t get any ideas. I just get bored of sitting in that room with nothing to do and no one to talk to. We humans are social creatures.”
    “I understand.”
    He dabs at his lips with a napkin. “Let’s make a deal.”
    “I want to hear it before I agree to anything.”
    “I’ll give you freedom of the castle. You will not go beyond the grounds without my leave, but you will be allowed to move freely within the