Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 96695 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96695 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
“Have a certain prince on your mind?” Dorian continued.
“No,” Hugo snapped. He marched around to the front of the house, Dorian trailing behind him.
“Funny enough, that actually sounded like a yes to me.” He sped up to get in Hugo’s path and made a show of shaking one ear as if to clear it. “Could you try saying that again for me?”
Hugo glared at his younger brother. Dorian was usually the right amount of nosy and helpful. He just didn’t feel like Dorian could be helpful this time.
“Where’s Augustine?”
“Bathing, thank the gods. He caught some nice trout for dinner, but he returned smelling like the lake. Mother is cleaning the fish and working on dinner. Now talk.”
Hugo wandered over to a small bench under a large oak tree and sat with a sigh. The branches swayed in the breeze and golden light filtered through the leaves, creating a magical dappling effect that left Hugo feeling wistful. “I guess Prince Everand is on my mind, but not how you are thinking. I’m…disappointed.”
“How? Was he not as handsome as everyone says?”
“More! He was gorgeous. His smile. I think it stopped my heart more than once.” Hugo pressed his hand to his chest as if to check that it was still beating even now. “His face is perfect, and his physique. I think he was only an inch or two taller than me, but his shoulders and chest were so broad. I can’t even imagine how many hours he must spend fencing. He even boxes, I’ve heard.”
“But…”
Hugo opened his mouth, but for a moment the words couldn’t come out. How could he say these things about the prince? Well, he needed to get them out if he was to overcome his frustration.
“He was a complete ass!” Hugo threw his hands up in the air as the anger burst out of him. “We’ve all heard for years how charming, pleasant, and erudite the prince is, but he was an uncouth boor. Rude, disrespectful, and self-centered. I understand that the luncheon wasn’t his idea and that he didn’t want to share a meal with me, who he thought was yet another prospective match his mother had set up for him, but he could have at least been a tiny bit polite. He barely ate and left in the middle. Yes, I’m a nobody, a commoner, the son of a baker, but he could have pretended for a little while. Wouldn’t that have been the polite, well-bred thing to do?”
Dorian dropped onto the bench beside Hugo, a frown digging deep lines into his narrow face. “You’re not a nobody. Please don’t say that.”
“Yes, but I’m not royalty or a noble.”
“That doesn’t matter. It still doesn’t make you a nobody.”
The angry knot of frustration that had pulsed in Hugo’s gut unwound itself, allowing him to feel better. “I guess I’m just…”
“Disappointed?”
“Yes. Like we’ve all been lied to. I saw a hint of what might be a delightful sense of humor, but everything else seemed to overwhelm that bit of goodness.”
“I’m sorry, Hugo.” Dorian placed his hand on Hugo’s slumped shoulder and squeezed. “At least it’s not like you were actually hoping to marry him. It would be worse if you discovered you were betrothed to an ass like that.”
Hugo huffed a laugh. “True. What makes it even worse is that it turns out the man I saved the other day from the runaway carriage was Prince Everand.”
“What? No!” Dorian gasped.
“Yes, and he didn’t even remember me.”
“Are you kidding me?” Dorian launched to his feet, his pale cheeks instantly flushing. His dark-brown eyes sparkled, and his nostrils flared. “You saved his life and got splashed from head to toe with mud, and he didn’t remember you? That bastard! I am going to march right to the castle and bash him over the head with a book!”
Dorian spun on the ball of his right foot and took two steps as if he were really going to the palace to have it out with the prince. Hugo choked on a laugh and lunged after his brother, catching him by the elbow and pulling him back down on the bench. Dorian’s outrage washed the last of the anger from Hugo’s system.
“You wouldn’t dare hit him with a book. You wouldn’t risk hurting the book,” Hugo reasoned.
“That’s true. Where’s the hammer? I’ll hit him with that.”
Hugo laughed harder, leaning against Dorian as they sat together under the tree. “You’re not hitting the prince with a hammer. You’d never get through the front gate.”
“It doesn’t matter. Now I’m very glad you’ll never see him again. He’s obviously not worth a tenth of you. And I hope the queen arranges for him to marry someone equally boorish and ugly. Plus, I hope they smell and have never read a single book.”
Hugo coughed, choking on another laugh. That was the worst insult Dorian could think of—someone who didn’t read. “No, that’s not nice,” Hugo chided.