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She avoids my eyes, her cheeks turning pink. “How’d you know that?”
“Please, everyone knew. It was so obvious. I saw you slip notes into his locker.” He rolls his eyes. “Anonymous notes.”
I poke Hans’s shoulder. “You never told me who put those in there!”
“It was more fun to watch you wonder.”
Eva looks around nervously. “Shouldn’t we go somewhere a little less likely to get us thrown in a dungeon?”
Lina fans herself. “I wouldn’t mind meeting some of those hot guards.”
Hans clutches his chest dramatically. “Really? Right in front of me?”
I bat the back of Hans’s head again, then jerk my chin at the end of the hall. “Let’s get out of here.”
At the end of the hall, I push Hans toward the closed door. “Check to see if the coast is clear.”
“Moi? You’re the big-wig prince. I don’t want to get carted off in chains while Lina drools over my captors.”
Eva smiles softly. “I think Teo is more likely to suffer that fate right now. The chains part, not the drooling.”
“Ooh, what happened?” Lina turns big eyes on me.
“I’ll tell you later.” I pull the door open a few inches, standing behind it where I won’t be seen in the hallway. “Lina can go. She’s completely innocuous.”
Lina puts her hands on her hips. “I don’t think I appreciate that particular adjective. It sounds?—”
Eva pushes her toward the door. “Just look. Please.”
Ignoring my warning hiss, Lina shoves the door wide and flounces through. “No one out here!” she sings, loud enough to be heard in the Altstadt.
Not that I’m actually worried. The Grand Duchess is angry, but she’s not going to send her family to the dungeons. For one thing, it would be illegal. And for another, there is no dungeon. But more importantly, she’s still wary of her little sister. And Mutti would do anything for me.
But since they’re having fun with it, I rise onto the balls of my feet and tiptoe into the foyer like I’m playing an elf in a Christmas drama.
Chapter Thirty-Four
EVA
I follow Teo as he sneaks into the foyer, although I don’t ham it up as much as he does. Or at all. I’m already tiptoeing in these stilettos. By the time we reach the center of the room, he’s dropped to a normal walk. He pauses for me to catch up, then holds out his hand.
I put my cold fingers in his warm ones and wonder why I waited so long to kiss him. Lina, Andi, even Nica told me I should just make a move, and now I’ve wasted our whole term together here in Europe. If I’d planted one on him when he rescued me from the airport police, we could have spent the whole autumn together.
Of course, we did spend most of the season together. But not together, together, if you know what I mean. Still, back then I wasn’t sure of my feelings for him, so maybe it wouldn’t have worked out. I need to live in the moment. I squeeze his hand, and when he turns to look, I smile. The expression in his eyes warms my heart all the way to my toes.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the problem children.” Eduard’s voice echoes through the foyer, bringing all four of us around to stare. He’s strolling down the wide steps from the ballroom, hands in his pockets and a gloating smile on his face.
“We’re leaving, Eduard.” Teo sketches a mocking bow at his cousin, then turns away.
“You certainly put on a good show.” He stops a few steps from the bottom and looks down his nose at us. Those extra steps are the only way he can look down at Teo who has a couple of inches on him.
“It wasn’t a show. I’m not going to marry some woman for the good of the country. I’d like to think the monarchy has evolved beyond that.” Teo sighs, as if he’s tired of dealing with all this pomp and smugness. I certainly am, and I’ve only been here a few months. He’s lived with it his whole life.
“You don’t have to marry her!” Eduard throws out his hands. “You just had to dance with her and let people think you were going to marry her.”
“Including her? Selina obviously thought it was a done deal.”
“Wait.” Lina slides closer to me. “Is he saying the Grand Duchess was trying to force Teo to marry one of those girls?”
