Page 45 of The Royal Art of Revenge

“I’ll have you know that my dick has excellent taste.”

“You’re a virgin, Finn.”

I hold out my hands. “Precisely. I’m practically a thirty-year-old virgin. If my dick wants Harriet Sinclair, who am I to argue with it?”

Oscar shakes his head, looking at me as if I’ve lost my mind.

Perhaps I have.

“Let’s move on from your royal penis,” he drawls, sitting back in the sofa and sighing. “I suppose it’s not the worst idea in the world. She’s honest about why she wants to marry you, and it won’t exactly be a nightmare for you to have a wife like that. She’s fucking gorgeous.”

“Hey.” I frown. “Keep your eyes to yourself.”

“Whoa, settle down there. Until you accept her proposal, I can look, can’t I?”

He fucking could not.

“There’s no proposal to accept. She’s right—the engagement that was arranged was between me and her originally, even if the official agreement stated ‘a daughter of the Sinclairs.’ The wording was deliberately left up to interpretation in case something happened to either of us. We could carry the agreement forwards to another generation if need be.”

“That’s archaic as fuck.”

“Isn’t your betrothal a two-hundred-year-old pact?”

“We aren’t discussing that,” he grinds out. “Can you really just switch like that, though? Everyone thinks you’re going to marry Jasmine.”

“I don’t see why not. My mother would much rather I marry Harriet, and she’s already said that she won’t give Royal Assent to an engagement with Jasmine because of this whole situation. To be honest, I don’t care. It’s not as if I’m desperate to marry Jasmine. All things considered, she’s not a bad choice, but she isn’t one I’d make for myself. I also know her—I know how conniving and manipulative she can be, and even if I did care for her, I’m not sure I have the energy to doubt my wife’s sincerity every day.”

“On the other hand, they do say ‘better the devil you know’ and all that,” he muses. “What about Harriet?”

“Oscar, the woman just looked me in the eye and told me she doesn’t want to marry me, but she will just to stop her sister from doing so. It doesn’t matter if I know her. She’ll tell me exactly who she is every time she opens her mouth.”

He laughs. “That’s true. She’ll be a hoot at parties.”

The thought scares me a little, and I’m not one to scare easily.

“But Jasmine expects to be announced as your fiancée on your birthday. How will you handle the Sinclairs? It doesn’t seem like Harriet is going to want to announce anything quietly. You’ll likely have to keep it a secret until the banquet. That won’t be easy.”

“My mother will handle it. They can’t defy the queen,” I reply. “Besides, they should have told us she’d returned as soon as she did. They can’t blame us for doing it this way when they’ve been lying to us for two fucking years.”

“Why do you think they’ve hidden her? Other than to make sure Jasmine is the one who marries you, of course. From the outside, you get on well enough, and the woman has half our circle convinced you’re in love with her despite never being seen together.”

God only knows how she’s managed that. I’m no more in love with Jasmine Sinclair than I am the idiot sitting opposite me right now.

“Because that old git made an agreement with my mother a few years ago when she once again refused to accept that Harriet was dead. If Harriet didn’t return by my thirtieth birthday and I didn’t meet anyone else, we would make it official between me and Jasmine.”

“And two years is nothing in the grand scheme of things, really.”

“Exactly,” I say, nodding. “Not when you consider that the engagement was supposed to be announced on Harriet’s twenty-first birthday. They tried to push for it to happen on Jasmine’s, but my mother refused. She didn’t want to give up on the idea that Harriet was still alive, but this was all the time she could buy. Any longer and people would have started asking questions.”

“You’ve gotten away with it until now by using your work as an excuse.”

“Starting the foundation took eighteen months out of it, but I can’t use it anymore. People will start mentioning my age and why I don’t have a family or an heir soon enough. It’s none of their fucking business, but it’s hassle I can’t be bothered to deal with.” I run my fingers through my hair, glancing away. “The last thing I need is someone speculating about my sexuality and stalking me to find proof of a non-existent gay affair.”

“Hey, if you need someone to help you out with a gay affair, you can call me.” He motions to himself. “A fake one, that is. You’re handsome and all, but I’ve got enough on my plate without being your princess.”

I stare at him flatly. “Shame. You’d look lovely in a ball gown and tiara.”

“Ask my sister. She probably has pictures of my childhood trauma.” He shudders, then gives me a small smile. “You’re really going to do this, huh?”