Page 23 of Her Royal Houseguest

She pointed to her sketches. ‘Boring.’ Then to a pile of embroidery. ‘Tedious.’ Then to her books on anatomy. ‘Useless.’

‘The body is useless?’

‘My study of it is. Phoebe adores learning about medicines for the body. I…’ She shook her head. ‘I cannot understand the things she grasps quickly. That, perhaps, I abandoned because it was hard.’

‘Or it is not your passion.’

She arched a brow at him. ‘Ladies are not supposed to have passions.’

‘Then your ladies are dull indeed.’

She laughed and mimicked his words. ‘Some of them are. Yes, very.’

She went quiet as she looked around. Was she really this shallow? Unable to stick to anything for more than a few months?

‘These are games to you,’ he said. ‘Games do not satisfy. You need a purpose.’

She shrugged. ‘Or maybe I’m deficient.’ Or backwards. Her mother had labelled her cursed from a very early age. But that was not something she would confess to the prince.

‘Why don’t you have children at your feet? They are an endless source of variety.’

Perhaps.

‘One has to be married for that.’

‘Do English ladies wait until advanced age to marry? The high born women of Siam marry as young as eleven.’

Eleven! Those were children, not women.

‘Many of my friends are already married. Most have children.’

‘But you do not.’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

Because she was cursed. She was built backwards and her mother was scrupulously honest with any suitor. Every potential husband was warned that his children might carry her taint. No respectable man wanted that.

So she was unwed and unwanted, except by her parents who had to tolerate her difficulty. And who also benefitted from her lacklustre abilities to manage the household. Mediocre in that respect was good enough for Mama so long as she didn’t have to do it herself.

Sudden awareness struck Anna and she grimaced. ‘I am an ungrateful wretch,’ she confessed. ‘Because I do hate my life. Or perhaps I hate being very bad at it.’

His brows shot up. ‘You are bad at life?’

‘Oh yes. Terrible at it.’ She closed her eyes, unwilling to face how much she’d revealed. Then she shook it off. ‘Never mind that, Prince Deva. You came in here for a reason. How may I help you tonight?’

His brows narrowed at her abrupt shift in tone but he didn’t pursue it. Instead, he pulled a book out of his voluminous pants. ‘I came to return this to you. I found it hidden behind a shelf.’

She took hold of the tome. ‘Oh that.’ Sermons for Unwed Ladies. ‘No doubt you think this is an appropriate topic for me.’

She didn’t wait for his answer. Instead, she tossed it onto the cold fire grate. ‘Let me assure you. No one needs to study that.’

‘Why did you have it if you hate the topic?’

‘It was a gift from my grandfather before he died.’ She snorted. ‘I was sixteen and he assumed I would never marry. Apparently, he knew more than I did.’

He leaned forwards. ‘You have stopped the search for a husband?’