Lady in Training (I'm No Princess Book 2)

by Elizabeth Stevens

  Not entirely sure what that meant, I’m sure it showed. “In Australia I spent time with friends, went shopping, saw movies, read books. If that’s living life to the full, then yes.”

  “What do you have to say about the claims that you drank a lot and had numerous…boyfriends?”

  Was that not treading a fine line? No one had prepared me for this sufficiently. “The drinking age in Australia is eighteen, a full two years after Gallyr. So any drinking I did was legal and, given I had exams to study for, very rare.” Which wasn’t a total lie.

  “And your promiscuity?”

  I was close to uttering an entirely inappropriate expletive. “I dated. I’m quite sure that’s allowed no matter how high on the hierarchy you are. And while I’m not sure what your idea of promiscuous is, by most standards I wasn’t promiscuous.”

  “Because you knew you’d be coming home to marry a prince?”

  There it was. I can’t say I was expecting it to be so blatant. “No.”

  “You confirm then that you’re not home to marry a prince?”

  I paused, knowing I needed a moment to calm down before I told them to go and do something inadvisable and somewhat biologically impossible. “I’m here for no other reason than to spend time with my father and in the country of my ancestors. I’m going to the Gallyrian National University at the beginning of the next academic year and I look forward to being able to say I’m a Gallyrian through more than just birth.”

  “Does this mean that you have discounted the possibility of romance while you’re here?”

  “What? No. I mean…” Oh, should have thought about that one before I opened my mouth. Those annoying pauses Kostin in particular was so fond of were making more and more sense. “If romance happens then it happens. At the moment I’m just spending time with my family and the family of my father’s good friend.”

  “With the princes?”

  I breathed in. “With the princesses at school, they are the only ones besides their majesties who are around, yes.”

  “And particularly with Prince Dominic?”

  Forget the Circle of Life. This was the Circle of Questioning? “Prince Dominic helped me with the requirements of my presentation ball as he was to escort me. Naturally we found ourselves spending more time together than we might have otherwise.”

  “And the snow ball fight?”

  How did they know about that? “What exactly about it?”

  “Was it the moment you realised how you felt about him?”

  If I looked like a deer caught in headlights, it was because I felt like one. Thankfully, I remembered to think before I spoke. “Prince Dominic and I have only known each other a couple of weeks. We’re just friends.”

  “So the future could hold more between you?”

  How did I get out of this one then? “As I said, we’re just friends.”

  And it didn’t get better from there. For another forty minutes it didn’t get better. Alaina did what she could to keep questions away from anything involving me and the princes when it had gone on too long. But they kept coming back to it.

  Chapter Two

  Three hours later, I was still worked up and pacing back and forth.

  “It could have been worse, Tati,” Lia said.

  “How?” I cried. “I paused in all the wrong places and it sounded like I had a tonne of things to hide.”

  “So what? You didn’t actually say the wrong thing, kiddo.”

  “No,” Lia added teasingly. “You just implied all the wrong things.”

  “Lia!” I snapped, even though I knew she was only trying to rile me up. “It’s all well and good for you, little miss perfect.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I’ll bet you never did a press conference and basically told everyone you were shagging all three of them at once!”

  “Anya,” Dad said in his cool, calm, quiet, chastising voice. It was the one where he didn’t have to yell because the disappointment and sheer command in it made you pay attention.

  “What?” I whirled on him and had the misfortune of realising that Dmitri was paused on the other side of the hall.

  Yes, I was having a meltdown in plain view of just about everyone.

  And now Dmitri was witnessing it.

  I watched him say something to the maids who’d just entered and they hurried back out quick smart with some awkward bowing.

  “Yes,” I grumbled. “Best not let too many people witness Lady Tatiana’s tantrum.”

  “Anya. You care about the way you conducted yourself. That counts for a lot,” Dad said. “The fact you’re not thinking about that as you conduct yourself poorly indeed now also counts for a lot. Of a different sort.”

  I sighed and flailed my arms in annoyance. Finally I hugged my head and sighed, “I did so badly.”

  “You did not. You could have done much worse.”

  “I don’t think I could have done any worse damage, though.”

  “Max,” Dmitri called, then said something to Dad in Gallyrian.

  Weirdly, it was Lia who answered and she didn’t sound particularly happy with whatever Dmitri had said. Dad joined in, but he sounded concerned. When there was no sign of anger or yelling or condescension on Dmitri’s part, I dropped my arms and looked at them.

  Dmitri was looking at Dad, but I noticed his eyes stray to me occasionally.

  My eyes slid to Nikolai to try to get some sort of idea what was going on. I’m not sure why I kept doing that because he was still being unhelpful and giving away nothing. I decided that if we were going to be stuck together then I was going to have to lay down some rules about where his loyalty lay. But that was going to have to be a later conversation.

  “Lia, come with me,” Dad said finally and I looked back to him to find him waving at my sister while keeping an eye on Dmitri. “Behave,” was his only parting word and I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or the crown prince. Knowing us, it was both.

  “Would you perhaps join me on a walk outside, Lady Tatiana?” Dmitri asked, sounding every bit the unimpressed royal pain in the arse I’d come to know.

  I could have done with him not being dressed in his usual perfectly pressed suit, his perfectly neat hair, his perfectly chiselled jaw clean shaven, and his perfectly dreamy eyes seemingly unsure if they wanted to look at me or not.

  Still I was nothing if not polite when I was in a terrible mood. So I nodded. “Sure. But don’t blame me when I fall in these shoes.”

  “Would you like to change?”

  I started for the door, muttering, “And forgo a potential chance for you to ridicule me? Never.”

  He followed me. “I would never intentionally ridicule you, Tatiana,” he said quietly as the door was held open for us.

  As the chill wind blew through me, I considered regretting not going to change. But I was honestly hoping to use it as an excuse to get out of this walk or talk or whatever sooner than I might have otherwise. I wrapped my arms around myself and carefully made my way down the steps.

  “I assume your…agitation means that your press conference did not go as well as you would have liked?” Dmitri asked carefully. I just wasn’t sure if he was trying not to insult me or was unsure of his assumption.

  I scoffed as we walked along the garden path. “Expect reports that I’m…” I looked at him quickly.

  “Shagging, I presume?” he asked and there was a definite tilt to the corner of his lips that made his eyes sparkle and gave me a warm flutter in my chest as well as slightly further south.

  I cleared my throat and looked down, as much a reason to keep an eye on my feet as to not look at him being all stupidly sexy and whatnot. I was taking the most stupid, little steps but I was as yet not in danger of falling over. “I was going to go with boning today, but yes.”

  “And who are you…boning in these reports?”

  “You and both your brothers.”

>   He said nothing to that, so I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. He was nodding thoughtfully, not paying me any direct attention and I took the moment to perve on him for a bit. There was something about the way his hair swept to the side, the way his shirt collar sat against his neck as he stretched it, something about the way that he held himself with no indication that he even felt the cold that… To say it called to me would be a serious cliché. But everything about the way I reacted to Dmitri seemed to be a cliché.

  I didn’t understand it and I knew it couldn’t happen – hell, I didn’t want it to happen – but it seemed it was happening anyway.

  To take my mind off it so I wouldn’t be any weirder than usual, I watched the gardeners who were starting to put up the Christmas decorations throughout the gardens. Apparently Rex had wanted to wait until after my presentation ball to allow the halls to be fully decked, and I already felt like I’d let Christmas down because of it.

  “Lady Malmont has suffered through many rumoured reports since her arrival. It is to be expected that you would face the same,” Dmitri said, taking my mind off the fact that Father Christmas was probably not paying me a visit.

  “Uh, yeah. Only difference is that Lia has never been accused of boning anyone,” I chuckled, for a moment half-forgetting who I was talking to while I commiserated my Christmas loss.

  “Your sister is nothing if not genteel.”

  It didn’t matter who I was talking to, that made me laugh. “That and she’s a little bit of a prude.”

  “You are in danger of sounding very judgemental there, Lady Tatiana.” There was a hint of a smile in his voice but I didn’t want to look to check in case I ruined it. Instead I smiled at the gardeners who bowed to us as we passed.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” I told him. “Nothing wrong with that at all. Not my thing, but so very much nothing wrong with it. I just meant that, genteel or not, Lia’s not the kind of person to elicit scandal. She’s…perfect.” It was annoying but true and I loved her no less for it. I envied her, but I still loved her.

  “Perfection manifests in many ways. Lady Malmont has her strengths, as do you.”

  I looked at him, trying very hard not to laugh in his face. “Really? Other than the ability to trip on a flat surface, what strengths do I have?”

  Dmitri ran his hand over his jaw like he needed the time to think. That or he was in danger of smiling. “Much of what I could say to you now, I believe I told you last week.”

  I nodded. “If I remember rightly, it was questionable just how complimentary that was.”

  “You certainly seemed to think so.”

  “You disagree?” I asked as one of the gardeners dropped the end of the string of fairy lights from up on his ladder. As I hurried over to pick it up for him and pass it up, I continued, “Because last I checked, maddening is not a compliment, your highness.”

  “Thank you, my lady,” the gardener said, bowing as best he could while still up the ladder.

  “Di nanda,” I replied with a smile as I walked back to Dmitri who was looking at me weirdly. “What?”

  “Merely one example of your strengths, Tati,” he said softly as he offered me his elbow.

  Since I’d been doing so well I didn’t think I needed it, but I was more than happy to take it anyway. I noticed he kept his gait short and slow so I didn’t have to change mine. “You mean an example of my common upbringing?”

  “I do not. I was brought up to expect everyone around me would cater to my every whim. Why is this fair?”

  “Um, because they’re all being paid for it?” I legitimately thought that was a decent reason.

  Dmitri nodded. “Ja. They are. But what does it hurt me to be thoughtful and kind? Konstantin is the most thoughtful, polite one of us. Yet even he would not have saved that man from getting down and climbing back up the ladder.”

  “There are different rules for your world…” I stopped myself. “Our world, I guess.”

  “Ah yes. Rules,” Dmitri mused. “My siblings do not like the rules.”

  No, they certainly didn’t. Three weeks had been plenty to get a feel for this ‘behind closed doors’ business I’d been hearing about. When it was just members of the royal family and the Penroses, then Rex, Hilde and the children were (almost) like any other family. At the very least, they were far more relaxed than they were when other people were around and most of them were following protocol and etiquette to the letter of the law. But I guessed that everyday protocol and etiquette weren’t the only rules the ruling family lived by.

  “I’d hazard a guess and say you don’t like them either,” I told him.

  “Is that so?” His tone was that of wary surprise and I felt him tense slightly. I almost felt like I was close to uncovering something about him I wasn’t supposed to. Or that was how he felt anyway.

  “It is.”

  “What about me makes you think I also don’t like them?”

  “I would normally say nothing. Since I got here you’ve been a stickler for the rules.” I probably should have stopped while I was ahead. I didn’t. “But I also know those rules took you away from active service. And I know you don’t like that.”

  “Your father should know when to keep his mouth shut.” His voice was cold once more.

  “You should learn to recognise the toll you take on the people who care about you.” Mine wasn’t much better.

  He pulled up short and we both turned to face each other. “The toll I take?” he practically spat.

  And I thought I’d been done with putting my foot in it for the day. Seems I put it in further even than I’d expected this time. “Yes,” I snapped back. “Dad cares, Dmitri–”

  “We follow protocol and etiquette for a reason, Lady Tatiana,” he said stiltedly. “We are expected to purport ourselves with a higher level of decorum than the rest of the world. We hold with tradition. It has been tradition that has brought us this far and tradition that will see us through, regardless of what my siblings believe. You live in our world now and the same rules that govern our lives now govern yours.”

  “Your brothers seem keen to change those rules.” They weren’t the only ones.

  Dmitri was looking down on me in more ways than one and it unfortunately didn’t stop him being incredibly sexy. “If you think that Dominic has any motivation other than to impress you, you have a lot to learn about our family.”

  “At least he’s trying to get along with me.”

  “Make no mistake, Lady Tatiana. Dominic wants one thing from you and you have done nothing to dispel in anyone’s mind that you are giving it to him.”

  I felt my cheeks heat, but it was more anger than anything else. “Seriously? Now a girl can’t be friends with a guy?”

  “You are the one who admitted how poorly you did in the press conference. With what impression did they leave of you and my brother?” Dmitri sounded like he had the exact same impression.

  I huffed. “Nico and I are friends, Dmitri. Something I think you could do with learning a little bit about.”

  “Men like Dominic do not have female friends. At least none who did not need to sign a non-disclosure.” His tone held enough insinuation I didn’t need to ask what he meant by that.

  I watched a hand strike Dmitri’s cheek, whipping it sideways, then realised it had been my hand. And I had to say, I wasn’t terribly sorry about it. Even the look of utter fury smouldering in the depths of those gorgeous brown eyes didn’t make me sorry about it. Dmitri was worse than that Katy Perry song that Masterchef Australia used for their theme song. Just when I thought we were possibly going to get along, we were fighting again.

  “Insult me again and see how much I care where your self-entitled arse is destined to sit, Dmitri,” I said scathingly. “Because this uncouth commoner is going to have no problem telling you just what she thinks of you and she can get a whole lot more maddening.”

  There went that muscle in his jaw like
he had to physically restrain himself from saying something to me. We just stared at each other for a few moments, anger simmering off the both of us. But at least that served to make me temporarily forget I quite liked the alignment of his features.

  “Cat got your tongue, your highness?” I asked him, sugary sweet as I took a step towards him.

  He mirrored my step, getting unnecessarily close to me. “Do not start something you cannot finish, Tatiana,” he warned me. His voice was low and deep and those shivers shot up my spine.

  “I think you’ll find I don’t let anything keep me from seeing anything through, Dmitri.”

  “I thought you weren’t interested in games?”

  “I’m not. But there is a difference between a game and a battle, Dmitri.”

  “I am the most decorated soldier in His Majesty’s army for the last one hundred years–”

  “Modest too, huh?”

  Again with the jaw muscle twitch. “I mean only to warn you against whom you are choosing to fight.”

  “Your will is strong, I’ll give you that. But you’ve barely seen what I’m capable of.” That wasn’t supposed to have come out a bit like a purr, but it really did.

  Somehow we were practically chest to chest, him looking down at me and me staring up at him. The last time we’d been that close, we’d almost kissed. And while there was a blaze of heat in his eyes, I doubted it was lust or desire. It was probably all just annoyance and anger. Which is what I’d keep telling myself was all I felt for him.

  Something else sparked in him as he looked me over and I warmed from the insides out. “I look forward to it…my lady.”

  “There you are!” came an excitable voice and it took Dmitri and I a moment to take our eyes off each other.

  When we finally did, I stepped away from him slowly, almost deliberately so like that was going to send some sort of message. I looked around and saw Faith and Lina walking over to us.

  “We’ve been looking for you for ages!” Faith said with a smile.

  Both girls were huddled in coats and the cold of the air suddenly hit me through my sweater. I had no idea why I hadn’t felt it earlier, but it made me look at Dmitri and I saw him still watching me carefully.