He nodded. “Never saw one until I got here.”
I wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t seen one in the capital. The trees, with their shallow roots, were known to break through the ground, but I wondered what village he’d lived in that had farming and caverns but no weeping willows. “Ian and I used to play inside. No one could see us.”
“Play? Or do you mean hide?” he asked. “Because that’s what I would’ve done.”
I cracked a grin. “Well, yes. I would hide, and Ian would tag along like any good big brother.” I looked up at him. “Have you gone under it? There’re benches, but you can’t see them now.” I frowned. “Actually, anyone could be under there right now, and we wouldn’t know.”
“No one is under there.”
My brows lifted above the mask. “How can you be sure?”
“I just am. Come on.” He tugged on my hand as he strode forward. “Watch your step.”
I wondered if his certainty had to do with his excellent tracking skills. I easily navigated the low, stone wall, trailing behind him as we passed one of the lanterns. Hawke reached out with his free hand, brushing aside several of the leafy branches. I stepped inside and, within a handful of seconds, we were pitched into almost complete darkness as the branches drifted back into place. The moonlight couldn’t break through the heavy fall, and only the faintest glow from the nearby lanterns seeped into the willow.
I looked around, seeing only the outline of the trunk. “Gods, I forgot how dark it is in here at night.”
“It feels like you’re in a different world under here,” he commented. “As if we’ve stepped through a veil and into an enchanted world.”
I grinned, his words reminding me of Ian. “You should see it when it’s warmer. The leaves bloom—oh! Or when it snows, and at dusk. The flakes dust the leaves and the ground, but not a lot makes it inside here. Then it really is like a different world.”
“Maybe we’ll see it.”
“You think so?”
“Why not?” he asked, and I sensed his body angle toward mine. When he spoke next, I felt his breath against my forehead. “It will snow, will it not? We’ll sneak off just before dusk and come out here.”
Fully aware of how close he was standing now, I nervously dampened my lips. “But will we be here? The Queen could summon me to the capital before then,” I said, acknowledging something I had tried not to think of.
“Possibly. If so, then I guess we’ll have to find different adventures, won’t we?” he said. “Or should I call them misadventures?”
I laughed then. “I think it will be hard to sneak off anywhere in the capital, not with me…not with me being so close to the Ascension.”
“You need to have more faith in me if you think I can’t manage to find a way for us to sneak off. I can assure you that whatever I get us involved in won’t end with you on a ledge.” In the darkness, I thought I felt his fingertips caress my left cheek, but the touch was too soft and too brief to be sure. “We’re out here on the night of the Rite, hidden inside a weeping willow.”
“It didn’t seem all that difficult.”
“That’s only because I was leading the way.”
I laughed again. “Sure.”
“Your doubt wounds me.” His hand pulled on mine as he turned away. “You said there were benches in here? Wait. I see them.”
I stared at the shadowy form of what I assumed was the back of his head. “How in the world do you see those benches?”
“You can’t?”
“Uh, no.” I squinted into the gloom.
“Then I must have better eyesight than you.”
I rolled my eyes. “I think you’re just saying you can see them, and we’re probably a second away from tripping—”
“Here they are.” Hawke stopped. Unbelievably, he sat down as if he could perfectly see the seats.
I was left staring, my mouth hanging open. Then I realized that it was quite possible he could see me gaping like a dying fish, so I closed my mouth. Maybe his eyesight was better than mine.
Or my eyesight was poorer than I realized.
“Would you like to sit?” he asked.
“I would, but unlike you, I can’t see in the dark—” I gasped as he tugged on my hand, pulling me down. Before I knew it, I was sitting in his lap—his lap.
“Comfortable?” he asked, and he sounded like he was smiling.
I had no words. He was still holding my hand, and I was sitting in his lap, and all I could think about was that part in Willa Colyn’s journal, where she described being in a man’s lap. There had been less clothing—
“You can’t be comfortable.” One of his arms folded around my upper back, pulling my side against his chest. “There. That has to be much better.”
It was.
And it wasn’t.
“I don’t want you getting too cold,” he added, his breath warm against my temple. He was so much taller, even sitting as straight as I was, my head still didn’t reach his chin. “I feel like that’s an important part of my duty as your personal Royal Guard.”
“Is that what you’re doing right now? Protecting me from the cold by pulling me into your lap?”
“Exactly.” His hand was against my side, the weight like a brand.
I stared at what I thought might be his throat. “This is incredibly inappropriate.”
“More inappropriate than you reading a dirty journal?”
“Yes,” I insisted, heat creeping into my face.
“No.” His deep chuckle rumbled through me. “I can’t even lie. This is inappropriate.”
“Then why?”
“Why?” His chin grazed the top of my head. “Because I wanted to.”
I blinked once and then twice. “And what if I didn’t want to?”
Another chuckle sent an acute shiver through me. “Princess, I’m confident that if you didn’t want me to do something, I’d be lying flat on my back with a dagger at my throat before I even took my next breath. Even if you can’t see an inch in front of you.”
Well…
“You have your dagger on you, don’t you?”
I sighed. “I do.”
“Knew it.” He let go of my hand, and I let mine fall to my lap. “No one can see us. No one is even aware that we’re here. As far as anyone knows, you are in your room.”
“This is still reckless for a multitude of reasons. If someone comes in here—”
“I’d hear them before they did,” he said. Before I could voice that his hearing couldn’t be as special as his sight, he added, “And if someone did, they’d have no idea who we are.”
I drew my head back, putting space between my upper body and his. “Is this why you led me out here to this place?”
“What is this, Princess?”
“To be…inappropriate.”
“And why would I do that?” he asked, his voice dropping low as his hand touched my arm.
“Why? I think it’s pretty obvious, Hawke. I’m sitting in your lap. I doubt that’s how you normally hold innocent conversations with people.”
“Very rarely is anything I do innocent, Princess.”
“Shocker,” I muttered.
“So, you’re suggesting I led you out here, instead of toward a private room with a bed”—he dragged the tips of his fingers down my right arm—“to engage in a particular type of inappropriate behavior?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying, though my room would’ve been a better option.” My heart had already started pounding the moment my rear ended up in his lap. Now, it felt as if it were going to explode out of my chest.
“What if I said that isn’t true?”
“I…” My stomach fluttered as his fingers found their way to my hip. “I wouldn’t believe you.”
“Then what if I said it didn’t start off that way?” His thumb moved against my hip. “But then there was the moonlight and you, with your hair down, in this dress, and then the idea occurred to me that this would be the perfect location for some wildly inappropriate behavior.”
“Then I…I would say that’s more likely.”
His hand glided over the thin, gauzy material of the gown. “So, there you have it.”
“At least, you’re honest.” I bit down on my lip as the fluttering deepened. This was dangerous. Even if no one discovered us, it felt like tempting fate with the gods. A few stolen kisses—all right, a little more than a few stolen kisses—was possibly forgivable. But this?
Even those stolen kisses weren’t forgivable, at least according to the Duke and Duchess—and the Queen. Then again, if the gods were to intervene, wouldn’t they have done so already? I thought about what Tawny had once said about not being sure whether the rules imposed upon me were a decree from the gods.
And if I had interpreted what the Duchess had said about the first Maiden correctly, she’d done a lot of forbidden things.
She hadn’t been found unworthy.
“Tell you what. I’ll make you a deal.”
“A deal?”
“If I do anything you don’t like…” Hawke’s hand slid down my thigh, causing my breath to catch. Through the dress, his hand closed over the dagger. “I give you permission to stab me.”