**A/N: Spice alert...this one gets a bit steamy towards the end, but nothing too questionable!**

As the sun rose in earnest, I found myself reluctant to return to the palace. Instead, I took a seat on a shaded bench in the central square, watching as the nobles emerged in their carriages and on horseback, noting who went where and with whom. Most of the callers today were female, with brightly coloured parasols in their open-air landaus.

My eyes were on the barrio Delminas, keen to see if Callum Winters dared show his face again, when a landau creaked to a halt in front of me.

"Good day, your Highness," a woman said, tilting her parasol to block the blinding sun from my eyes so I could see her. The Duquesa Delbosque smiled, the laugh lines crinkling at the corners of her eyes. Three others shared the open carriage with her. A young girl peered at me intently, half her face hidden by her fan as she leaned away, underneath the protective arm of another, this one around my age and clearly the younger girl's sister if their resemblance to the duquesa was any indication. Beside the duquesa, the final young woman inspected me from beneath her parasol, a pair of rings glittering on her fourth finger.

"Good day, your Grace. I do not believe I've had the pleasure of meeting your family," I said, standing so I could bow to the Carvalho ladies.

"This is Eliana, my son's wife," the duquesa said, gesturing to the young woman with the rings. Eliana inclined her head, that guarded look still on her face. "And these are my daughters, Adelina and Valentina."

"Enchanted to meet you, your Highness," the older sister, Adelina said. When I inclined my head, she returned her gaze cautiously to her mother.

"My husband is looking forward to continuing your conversation," the duquesa continued. "Perhaps I could convince you to join us as we return home?"

I'd opened my mouth to answer when yet another open-top carriage jangled past down the opposite side of the square, indistinguishable from the others save for the quicker clip at which it travelled.

Indistinguishable, except for its royal occupant.

"I'm afraid I have a prior commitment. Send the duque my apologies, your Grace. Enjoy your ride," I said, offering them a parting bow before hurrying off after Dulciana's carriage.

I didn't recognize any of the women with the princess, though I was far enough away that I couldn't be sure that none of them were her sisters. Probably her ladies-in-waiting, I thought, as I hurried as fast as the heat and my feet would allow.

The carriage took a sharp turn towards the barrio Delminas, very nearly trampling a pair of passing servants, but it didn't slow. As I broke into a jog, I wondered if she'd taken an open-air landau so a closed top carriage wouldn't stand out from the crowd, curious as to why she was in such a rush.

When I finally turned the corner towards the Duque Delminas' palacio, I stopped to lean against a tree, catching my breath and loosening my collar. The landau was empty, stopped beside a carriage block, but the ladies-in-waiting were assuming seats on the shaded portico where a bevy of other young women had gathered. Fans batted as a card game was dealt out on a table, servants weaving through with sweating glasses of cool drinks.

Dulciana was nowhere to be seen.

Interesting, I thought. Especially interesting that she had brought her ladies-in-waiting rather than her sisters.

Before anyone could notice me lurking across the street, I turned back the way I'd come, my shirt slick with sweat and sticking to my back from my rush to follow the carriage. I was tempted to go call on the Duque Delbosque, but by the time I'd reached the main square, the sun had reached its apex, heat shimmering off the street. The mere thought of traipsing all the way across High Relizia to the duque's house had me exhausted. Instead, I sauntered back toward the palace, desperate to peel off my sweat-logged clothes and savour the breeze on my balcony.

***

I declined my invitation to dinner that night, preferring instead to eat what Giles had fetched me from the marketplace in Lower Relizia. The spread of crusty bread, cured meats and soft cheeses had already been sampled, but I didn't dare ask who Giles had enlisted to test the food before I ate it.

I spent my evening as I'd spent my afternoon, contemplating my next move. Try as I might, there didn't seem to be any way for me to ally myself with Prince Frederico without marrying Dulciana. The only plan I could dream up involved kidnapping the eldest princess and holding her hostage overseas until her brother assumed the throne or some other unlucky man accepted to marry her.

But the chances of that plan succeeding with Dulciana as my adversary were null, especially since I doubted that the king would agree to anything less than a marriage before he allowed his daughter to leave the country. With a man like Callum Winters stirring up his court, I'm sure he knew how dangerous it could be to allow Dulciana to leave again, unwed, especially when she could easily find an ally in the Germanian king, Leopold, who held no love for anyone in Pretania or Ardalone.

Frustrated, I rose to write a letter to Andrew, asking for my brother's advice, when the suite door creaked open behind me.

"I'm afraid you brought far too much food," I said to Giles, my back turned as I riffled through the writing desk. "Don't let it go to waste though."

When the valet didn't answer, looked back at him over my shoulder.

Only it wasn't him at all.

Ana-Cristina was leaning back against the door, her hand slipping over to slide the lock closed.

"We missed you at dinner," she said, pouting with that trademark heat in her eyes.

I didn't bother to fight my frustrated sigh.

"You shouldn't be here," I said, folding my arms in an attempt to project as much disapproval as I could.

"I know," she said, a seductive smile spreading across her face. She shrugged, the gauzy sleeve of her dress slipping off her shoulder, exposing a swath of collarbone and flesh.

"I can't stop thinking about our kiss," she said, when I allowed the uncomfortable silence to stretch between us.

I bit back a sigh again. This was going to be tricky.

"I don't think it's wise for you to be in here," I said, holding my ground as she pushed off from the door, slinking toward me like a cat.

"I don't care if it's wise or not," she said, sliding a hand up the lapel of my jacket. I seized her hand, holding it in place. Her breath smelled of wine and her eyes were glassy, not clear as they usually were.

Someone had been drinking.

As I inspected her face, she bit her lip in a further attempt to be seductive, snaking her other hand around to the nape of my neck. The hint of rouge on her lips came away at the touch of her teeth, her lashes and brows darkened ever so slightly as well.

I kept the frown from my face, quickly assessing what I was up against. In all our time together at the palace, Ana-Cristina had only ever painted her face for grand balls. The quiet, family dinner she'd attended would not have called for rouge, which meant she'd likely donned it for my benefit.

She was not here by accident.

"Kiss me," she breathed. All I could smell was alcohol as the sleeve slipped off her other shoulder.

"No, Ana," I said, as firmly as I could, despite the mutiny raging in my head.

There was no mistaking that she was beautiful. There was no mistaking how utterly enticing she was. But everything about her presence, what she was attempting to lead me into, stank of a trap.

"Why are you all done up like this?" I asked, brushing a thumb against her lips and inspecting it as it came away pink.

In response, she bit the tip of my finger, her brown eyes smouldering.

So much for asking questions, I thought.

But as she stared up at me, her lips fastened around my thumb, it wasn't the same smoulder she had fixed me with before. There was something hardened and determined in her glassy gaze.

When she brazenly ran her tongue over the tip of my thumb, it hit me.

Alcohol for courage. War paint as armour. She'd escalated her attempts at seduction, throwing every little trick she knew my way.

I was finally witnessing the lengths to which she'd go for her sister's throne.

"This isn't right, Ana," I said firmly tearing my finger from her mouth to seize her shoulders and move her away. She simply laughed, running her fingers up my arms.

"You want me," she said, her teeth tinged purple as she smiled.

The knowledge that she'd had to drink quite a bit of wine to get here silenced the part of me that had wanted to play along with her attempts at seduction.

She didn't want to be here. If she had, she wouldn't have needed to drink. Of course, it was always a possibility that she'd drunk too much on her own, hatched some haphazard plan, and turned up here by herself. But if there was one thing I'd learned in Ardalone, it was that only one princess played the role of chessmaster, with the others as her pieces.

And that princess was certainly not the one attempting to kiss me.

It couldn't be a coincidence that the younger princess had shown up in my chambers, nearly naked and painted like an expensive whore mere hours after I'd declared my intention to keep pursuing Dulciana to Ambassador Wells. I'd missed dinner and had remained holed up in my suite all day. Dulciana had no other choice but to send her sister to my rooms if she wanted to keep throwing her into my path, especially after my confession to the ambassador.

"I want you to kiss me," Ana-Cristina pouted, tucking her chin down and her chest up in what she probably thought was a most enticing move.

It would have been, if it weren't for the stark veneer of clarity with which I now saw her.

Ana-Cristina was a pawn. A loyal, reckless little pawn who would compromise her own honour for the sake of her sister's quest for a crown. Whatever hesitation I'd once had at deceiving her, at making her believe that I had ever considered a future with her, vanished. She was not a likeable princess, not a kind-hearted and gentle soul, caught up in the tempest of her sister's actions. She was a viper in a skirt, her poison one of seduction rather than political maneuvering. All her pretty words and tinkling laughs had been to ensnare me, to enchant me, to attempt to blind me from her true purpose.

And now that I'd discovered that true purpose, I was done playing nice.

"You want me to kiss you?" I repeated, amused.

When she nodded, those almond eyes of hers holding mine, I laughed. My reaction had its desired effect, wiping the sultry look from her face as she searched my face. I unhanded her, crossing the room to sprawl myself across an armchair. Reaching for my half-finished wine goblet from dinner, I brazenly ran my eyes over her as she stood before me, still as a spooked deer. I watched her fight the urge to cross her arms and cover up the ample amount of cleavage spilling out of her pathetic excuse of a dress.

"What's so funny?" she asked, her tone clearly sharper than she'd intended since she added a smile at the end.

"What's so funny is you, turning up here like this," I said, gesturing to her dress, "I'm betrothed to your sister, you know."

The flare of her nostrils was the only sign of her temper that surfaced through the veneer she'd taken so long to craft.

"I don't want you to marry her," she said, approaching me once again. I didn't bother to fight the laugh that rose to my lips as she did her best to crawl atop me.

"And this is your method of convincing me?" I asked, testing her determination as I ran a hand down her waist. She tensed, pausing to swallow before that catlike smile returned.

"I'm very good at convincing," she said, reaching for my shirt collar as she pressed her lips to mine.

I let her kiss me, calmly waiting for her to stop. She pressed her face to mine, opening and closing her mouth as she waited for me to respond, resorting to mashing her chest against mine when her lips had no effect. I laughed against her mouth again as she grew more earnest about undoing my shirt.

"I think that's enough for tonight," I said, gently pushing her away. Anger flashed through her brown eyes before she pouted, once again jutting out her chest.

"Nobody needs to know, you know," she said, trailing a fingernail down the exposed V of flesh between the lapels of my half-unbuttoned shirt.

This time I did fight my grin, because she had no idea what she'd just said.

Normally, Ana-Cristina's reputation would be the one at risk after such an encounter. If anyone should be doing the reassuring, it was me, but here she was, assuring me that she wouldn't tell anyone. It didn't take a fool to know that the words had sprung into her head as she was trying to figure out why I was refusing, which meant that she knew of some reason I should be refusing that involved other people knowing about this.

Obviously if I still intended to marry Dulciana, I wouldn't want her finding out, but now that I suspected the eldest princess had been the one to put Ana up to this, there had to be some other reason. I didn't dare distract myself with thinking about Ardalonian law with a desperate, nearly naked princess in my suite, but there had to be some reason. Perhaps if I went ahead with what she was attempting to start, there was some law that would force me to marry her. Dulciana thought I was an idiot, which meant that Ana probably did as well. After our kiss, the pair of them likely thought they could trap me with the wiles of an attractive woman.

Nice try, I thought.

"You should go back to your room now," I said, forcing a yawn, "I'm not interested."

The words had their desired effect, slapping her back to her senses. Somewhere behind the seductress' mask was the prideful princess I'd gotten to know over the past few weeks, the one who believed, without a doubt, that everyone liked her. If my assumptions were correct, she wouldn't take kindly to rejection.

"But you..." she started, her brows crashing together in a frown. I grinned, ice and condescension in my eyes, and her words died.

Gotcha, princess.

"I what?" I demanded, slipping on my favourite arrogant grin, "I made you think I was?"

She was glaring at me now, snapping her mouth shut when she couldn't think of anything to say. With a huff, she hiked the sleeves of her dress up as she stood.

"You're a cad," she spat. I laughed once again as I lifted my glass to her.

"Cheers to that," I said, "But I daresay that's a little bit pot-and-kettle, no?"

She clearly hadn't gotten my joke, but she was upset enough to storm away, furiously unlocking the suite door.

"I hope your death comes slowly," she muttered in Ardal, spitting on the floor before leaving the room. I forced myself to keep laughing even as her words hit me like a stone.

Your death.

I swallowed my wine as the door rattled in the frame from the sheer force with which she'd slammed it, dread blooming in my stomach.

"I must commend your restraint," Giles said, appearing from my bedchamber. I nearly fell off the chair in surprise as my valet commenced tidying the room as if he hadn't played witness to the whole debacle.

"How long were you-?" I began.

"Long enough that I would have stopped you from making a mistake," he said, pursing his lips. "Though you certainly did not earn yourself an ally with your treatment of her. You do understand what she said, yes?"

"You know Ardal?" I demanded. At that, Giles fixed me with an unimpressed look.

"Did you really think I picked up nothing from all my years with the late Lord Amberly?" he demanded. "She said, and I quote, I-"

"I hope your death comes slowly," I said, at the same time as he did. Giles paused in collecting my dinner dishes.

"I suppose I'll have to make a habit of fetching your dinner from somewhere outside the palace," he said.

"That would be wise. And send word to Prince Frederico that I'd like to have a chat with him tomorrow morning," I said, squinting down at my empty wine goblet before Giles snatched it away.

If I'd ever needed my own personal cache of panacea, now was the time.

Though I didn't doubt that I'd be forced to pay dearly for it.

**A/N: Okay, you caught me. This one was a giant 2800+ words compared to my usual 2000ish words. But I've always had such trouble with the middle of stories and with this one, I just can't wait to get to what's next! (And I had to re-write this author's note twice because of unintentional spoilers...oops! haha).

What do you think Dulciana was doing at the Duque Delminas' house? Do you think Ana-Cristina came on her own or because Dulciana told her? What about Thomas' reaction, do you think he should've been so mean? So many questions!

As always, if you enjoyed it, please don't forget to vote and comment!**