Page 84 of The Discount Damsel

The apprentice’s cheeks ignited.

It was so easy to tease him. And tease him she must, because he made her life nearly intolerable every morning with his training. Not that she’d ever admit that either.

“I am g-going. To swim.”

The smirk vanished from her lips. Half the color drained from her face, too, lightening the tomato-like splotches of her overheated cheeks to dusky rose.

H-he was joining her in the spring?

Up until this very moment, Millie had been successful at forgetting that fiasco in the bathtub. Now those memories returned in a rush, particularly that one where he’d spun her around and trapped her against his chest. She felt the wiry strength of his arms and the heat of his breath against her ear all over again, the hard press of his thighs against her backside.

In hindsight, it was scandalously titillating, but the apprentice’s sour personality destroyed whatever inklings of arousal his handsome features inspired. Especially in the face of what truly had transpired between them.

Millie had been entirely at his mercy. It wasn’t a fact she was remotely comfortable with, yet it served as a reminder of what other, more dishonorable men were willing to do to Amberly if she did not learn to hold her own. Become the One in Ten.

She would not be swayed off course. Propriety and Bradley’s preferences could go suck a pound of peach pits.

Millie lifted her chin. “Despite being raised a princess, I know how to share.”

“Jubilations,” Dirk cried. “Group swim!”

The apprentice didn’t move.

“One side, Mr. Donmarin, or I’ll be twisting your nipple again.”

That got him jerking out of the way, arm clamping protectively across his chest.

As she began her second descent of the stairs that day, she realized that the Millie of seven days ago would’ve asked Dirk to steady her with a wind. Now, the guide rope was enough.

Mutineer Millie grinned. She was getting stronger.

CHAPTER 38

RIDICULOUS FAINTING SPELLS AND SEA MONSTER DESENSITIZATION 101

Bradley resembled a sulking orc as he traipsed after the princess: shoulders bowed, bottom lip jutting, brow so furrowed it halved his sight.

How dare she insinuate he couldn’t keep his hand off her? Did she think that because she was royal and he more common than grass that he couldn’t be trusted to keep his hands to himself? His parents had raised a gentleman, and one with standards, thank you very much. He only put his foot on her backside so it’d stop popping up during her planks, and he only gripped her waist to help her with pull-ups.

The ire of his outrage challenged the heat brought on by the sandstorm and roiled off him so intensely, even Dirk avoided him.

The luck dragon busied himself conversing with the princess, thick as thieves. Just as they were at their lessons. Just as they were at every waking hour of the day.

The princess and Dirk. Dirk and the princess. They were social butterflies, both easily excitable and chatty and wholly engrossed with discussing all the new things they were learning. Bradley was their exact opposite, quiet and reserved even before he’d been cursed with a stutter. It wasn’t hard to feel ignored, dismissed to the background.

It’s how Viscount Saltreave treated his village on the Cut. It was how his fellow students had treated him at the College. Why not here, too, in what was supposed to be a sanctuary?

At the bottom of the tower, Bradley stripped off his robe with a vicious yank. He took greater care folding it, setting his spectacles on top. Then he dove head-first into the spring as far away from the world as he could get.

Millie craned over the side of the stone wall, watching the apprentice disappear with effortless kicks of his long legs. Maybe there was a channel down there that led to an underground cave. With or without an air pocket. She could do with some time without his looming and blazing blue eyes.

“He’ll be down there a while,” Dirk told her, practicing his undulations in a circle around the spring. “You can sneak in a swim before he comes back if you’re nervous about him seeing you naked or something. I can close my eyes. I’ve flown in the dark loads of times.”

“The only one nervous about getting naked is him. He sees one glimpse of my ankle or a peek of my shoulder and the man almost faints. Ridiculous.”

She shooed a few hermit crabs aside and perched on top of the stone wall. Carefully, she lowered her legs into the water. A moan escaped her. But caution overrode desire.

“I’m not a very good swimmer, though. It’s why it’s on the chalkboard. And I’m definitely not asking him for lessons.”