Adrian by Heather Grothaus

Author:Heather Grothaus [Grothaus, Heather]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2015-09-23T16:00:00+00:00

Maisie ate the midday meal alone, begging off even kind Reid’s offer of company. She felt like a fool, an idiot, for trying to reach Adrian Hailsworth. Why not just let him search, let him be, leave him to his own stubborn closed-mindedness?

Because of the way his skin felt beneath your hands, a voice whispered in her mind. The way he looks at you, talks to you, like you have a mind inside your head and are not simply the king’s sister. The way he argues with you, pushes you for answers, like you are not the queen.

Because he is the Painted Man . . .

She shook her head and looked down at her wooden bowl, where she had done little but push the bits of fish around with her knife tip. He had had enough time to himself now, and Maisie wanted to see what he had found.

She was certainly not seeking him because she longed for the sound of his voice in her ears once more.

She wiped the blade on the small cloth beneath her place and returned it to its sheath before standing from the table and leaving her deserted hall for the west wing. Adrian had likely started there, as far from the eastern tower—and her—as he could think to get.

She roamed the corridors and stairwells for over an hour, only passing one pair of servant girls along the northern walkway. They were a full head shorter than Maisie, although grown women by Wyldonna’s measure, and she couldn’t help but glance enviously at their delicate, pointed ears and the feminine slant to their eyes as they bobbed their heads to the queen. They belonged. Their tribe was healthy and vibrant and would inhabit Wyldonna for generations to come.

Maisie told herself she was only imagining the whispered twitters that trailed behind them in the corridor, but her face heated all the same.

She began walking faster, her brows drawing closer together with each empty chamber, each deserted corridor. Perhaps they were merely missing each other. She entered the stairs of the southwest tower and began to climb, pushing the door of the turret open and glancing inside.

Empty.

Maisie sighed and was about to close the door and head back down the stairs when she felt the sudden urge to see if anyone was about the grounds. She crossed the small diameter of wooden floor to the window and leaned her elbows upon the sill to raise up on her toes and peer out of the glassless opening.

There they all were, far below her—the people who were once her friends. Going about their business without so much as a thought for Maisie, unless it was a wish of misfortune. The baser creatures, especially. Naught would please them more than to see her destroyed, because she had betrayed the mighty, saintly Malcolm.

Maisie snorted. Aye, the man who would have them all fight to the death to preserve a wooden farthing he’d nowhere to spend.

Her eyes roamed away from the cluster of

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