As Rosslyn was smiling to herself, the coachman smiled in return. It may have been an unconscious change of expression, but she remembered then what a merry person Lewis was. There was a flash of something from her childhood in there—a fragment of memory from a day when he had driven her and her mother to another concert—but he spoke, and the memory disappeared.

“Your Highness, if your party leaves lunch after an hour or so, you can make the afternoon show,” the driver said, bowing. “Would you care for a reminder when the time comes?”

“No, thank you, Lewis,” Rosslyn said. “If we make it, we make it. If not, we will return to the palace and go to the evening show as originally planned. I hate to rush our guests.”

She returned to the group, and all four took their seats in the carriage again. Lewis took them to a discreet cafe where the guests were separated from each other by both space and physical partitions—a place made for privacy, where royalty and nobility could eat in the same building as well off commoners without either group knowing whether the other was present.

Lunch was smalltalk, grilled pressed sandwiches, a few goblets of wine—and Rosslyn trying to keep Elspeth from feeling too uncomfortable as the chaperone, the only servant sitting at a table with nobles and the Princess.

When Elspeth got up to use the ladies’ room, the conversation shifted immediately. It became considerably more real.

“I confess, I was surprised when you brought us to the museum,” Frederick said.

“What was so surprising?” Rosslyn asked.

“Given your situation, we expected that you would be more focused on military matters,” he replied. “May I speak bluntly?”

“I expect nothing less,” she replied.

“It feels almost like an attempt to distract us from the fact that you—or rather, Claustria—is a besieged fortress—if I was willing to insult a Princess with such a claim, which I am not,” Frederick said.

That was close, she thought sarcastically. He was almost willing to insult me by accusing me of throwing up a smokescreen to conceal our situation.

“I can only imagine that you had more innocent intentions in mind,” Frederick continued. “As if the culture of your charming land could take our attention away from the issue of its defense—which will be difficult and expensive in the event that the Empire attacks—for even one minute.”

It is true that I did not plan the full itinerary myself, Rosslyn thought. She had made suggestions to her father when she found out the brothers were coming, but then she simply followed the schedule she was given. She did not know who devised it. A part of her wondered if someone among her father’s councilors might actually have intended the result Frederick described.

But to admit that such an idea was plausible would suggest that their national position was far weaker than they could ever publicly admit. It would also be throwing her father’s government under the bus.

So, the conversation proceeded back and forth, Frederick mildly accusing and Rosslyn gently denying and parrying accusations. A very polite disagreement, as best as she could keep it.

William said little. He seemed to be paying Rosslyn a lot of attention, almost staring at times. She felt his eyes like hot lights traveling up and down her face and body—but he did not accuse her of anything, as Frederick had. William instead kept his expression carefully blank, as if he was simply listening to his brother and Rosslyn disagree from a neutral standpoint, carefully weighing what each said.

When Elspeth returned, Rosslyn quickly scanned the plates on the table and saw that everyone was finished.

“Perhaps we should move on to our next destination,” she said as lightly as she could. Hopefully the topic of conversation would shift with a change in venue.

They all loaded into the carriage again and headed out, this time for the orchestra.

The ride there was almost completely silent. Frederick seemed inclined to continue the topic of discussion he had introduced earlier, but William gave him a cold look, and the younger brother seemingly decided to leave well enough alone.

When they arrived, the party entered the building through a special entrance reserved for nobility. They climbed a winding staircase until they found themselves outside the Royal Box.

There was perhaps a quarter of an hour of waiting once they got into their seats, but Frederick could not resume his prior topic of conversation if he had wanted to, because William had taken the central seat next to Rosslyn, separating the two.

Instead, William now set the agenda. He discussed military matters with Rosslyn—a focus of conversation that always interested her, albeit less so now that she was beginning to suspect that it was all the two brothers were interested in.

Was Dessia a hyper-militarized country when I visited there? Rosslyn wondered as they spoke. She had been much younger when she last made that trip, but she now suspected that Dessia had been. This might just be the local culture.

Elspeth, to Rosslyn’s other side, remained largely silent—doing nothing to participate in the conversation, only occasionally looking at William and Rosslyn to make certain that the young lord was taking no liberties with the Princess in the darkened space of the box.

As the performance began, the conversation petered out.

Rosslyn was gratified to see that the brothers seemed to genuinely enjoy the first performance, a war-like song called “The Cavalry Arrives” that had originated as music accompanying a play about a great battle victory.

For the next quarter of an hour, they seemed to get into the mood of listening to the orchestra. The martial music that the musicians had begun with was the sort that ignites passion and puts one in a bold frame of mind. Both brothers moved to the music, almost dancing in their seats. Rosslyn was pleasantly reminded of how much they had all loved music when they were children and the happy minutes they had passed listening to her mother play on the pianoforte.

She was only slightly surprised when William grabbed her hand in the midst of rocking to the beat. Rosslyn suspected that he had taken some liquid courage with the wine at lunch. He had definitely drunk more than her this time. She gave him a sideways look and saw that he was grinning at her, waiting to see how she would react.

Rosslyn held hands with him until the song was over, then gently pulled away. She was neither pushing him away nor giving in to any advances, as she saw it. She was allowing herself to react to the situation, in the moment. Holding hands for a song meant nothing.

William looked slightly surprised when her hand left his, then put on a cocky smirk—the sort of look that says, I know you are more interested than you are letting on.

Rosslyn simply raised an eyebrow.

She could not deny that holding his hand had elevated her pulse a little. Did that mean she was interested? Attracted?

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She honestly could not be certain. Rosslyn was simply not in the habit of holding men’s hands. And it was a long time since she had been in the company of someone who had felt at ease enough to simply take that liberty with her—since childhood, in fact.

William is here to court me, but how do I feel about that? It was a question she had hardly allowed herself to think about. Devoting any mental energy to it had been pointless before the brothers arrived; they were just a faded childhood memory before they appeared in the flesh. Once they were there in person, she had been distracted with welcoming them, talking to them at dinner, and then talking to Adon after. Then she had trained until she had nothing left in her body to think with.

She felt strangely conflicted when she remembered the conversation with Adon—like there was something she had done wrong or was doing wrong.

I have behaved properly, she told herself. I am behaving properly.

Next to her, William had continued moving to the music, oblivious to her thought processes despite her pensive expression. He tried to grab her hand again as the music approached a crescendo, but she smoothly avoided his grasp this time.

She would not let William fake his way to an unearned intimacy. Physical touch, as it had been explained by one of her tutors, was one of the tools that a person could use to seduce another. That made sense to her. Two sweaty palms touching in a darkened space—there was something erotic about it. But she would not be seduced—not right now, not as things stood.

William just shook his head. He retained the confident air he had shown earlier. She knew he would try something else that afternoon. She did not know exactly what that would be.

The mood in the box changed when the music shifted—moving from martial music glorifying victory in war to mellow music that attempted to capture the feeling of sailing on the sea.

This was an original composition by Alfons Gorecki, the conductor—one of Rosslyn’s favorite composers.

But the brothers did not seem to share her point of view.

They stopped moving to the music and became listless.

Subsequent movements of the same music only worsened the shift.

William’s eyelids began to droop. She thought she saw Frederick stifle a yawn.

After twenty minutes of this, Rosslyn did not want to sit through any more. The clear lack of enjoyment by her guests made it difficult for her to appreciate the music.

“If my lords are not enjoying the concert, perhaps we should go,” Rosslyn said quietly, trying to keep her expression neutral.

“Yes, that seems in order,” Frederick said quickly.

William turned to look at his brother. Rosslyn could not see his expression, as he was facing away from her, but she saw the tension in William’s neck and on Frederick’s face.

“Very well,” William said finally, shifting to look back at Rosslyn. “I apologize for our boorishness this evening. I suppose my brother and I are not great fans of the arts. I hope leaving so early is not too unpleasant for you.” He looked into her eyes with what felt like great sincerity, and Rosslyn felt her disappointment fade a little.

“It is all right,” she said after a moment. “I have heard most of Gorecki’s music so often that I can play it myself, without sheet music—without even needing to practice. If I want to hear it again, I will just ask for our pianoforte to be brought in, and I can serenade myself.”

William seemed to think that Rosslyn was not quite satisfied—or there was some other emotion lurking behind his eyes. He was not easy to read. She found herself wishing she had Telepathy.

“I must go and let the coachman know that we will be leaving,” said Elspeth.

“Thank you,” Rosslyn said, nodding. She glanced in the brothers’ direction and saw that William’s face had shifted. He wore a slightly mischievous expression. Almost as soon as their eyes met, Rosslyn felt the need to look away. She did not want to encourage any improper intention that William might be forming.

“While you let the coachman go, I will go and touch up my powder,” Rosslyn added.

This was the polite way of saying she would find a restroom. She did not actually carry anything to maintain her makeup on her person, but fortunately, the brothers had no way of knowing that. And Elspeth was already stepping out of the box, barely listening, mind on her next task.

Rosslyn quickly rose, as did the brothers in response. Then she left the immediate area and found the restroom.

She waited there for a few minutes, listening to Gorecki’s music as it came through the walls, carried in the pipes. It was almost like being in the room, and she felt a sense of loss. She did not really want to leave.

If I married William, I suppose I would attend concerts alone, she thought. And visit the museum alone, watch performances alone…

She eventually shook her head and left the restroom. She thought enough time had passed that Elspeth might have returned.

When she came back, William stood in the entry to their box, blocking the way in.

“Excuse me, William,” she said.

She waited for him to move back into the box, but he simply edged slightly to the side, creating a small opening—trying to force her to squeeze by him to get in, she recognized.

He is persistent.

She stepped into the space, tried to slip by him—and he leaned in, lips parted, trying to kiss her. Rosslyn shifted backward, out of the space, and dodged him by the span of a few inches. If not for the alcohol in his bloodstream, she thought he would have been a little quicker—and perhaps kissed her ear or her hair.

“Rosslyn, come closer,” William said in a low voice, almost whispering.

She looked up and down the dark, narrow, candlelit hallway—they were completely alone—before quickly turning back to him and responding.

“I know what you were trying to do,” she said, feeling strangely inarticulate.

“Yes, you do, I think,” he agreed, donning the mischievous grin from before.

Rosslyn tried appealing to William’s sense of chivalry—his ingrained understanding of the rules of propriety. She could not say exactly what she meant, so she spoke in vague terms.

“You would not want a woman to form attachments to suitors with whom she had not entered into any understanding, would you?” she asked. “These physical displays of affection always create a risk of attachment that I am given to understand can be disappointing if the relationship does not blossom beyond that moment.”

“I would have you become very attached to me,” William replied.

He stepped in close to her, and Rosslyn forced herself to remain in place. She was annoyed at her own instincts, which called on her to retreat. She thought that if she did, he might laugh at her.

William leaned in close to her and tried again.

Rosslyn raised a hand and placed it between them, and his lips caressed her palm instead of her mouth.

“Why are you stopping me?” he asked.

Because I did not decide that I wanted this, was her first thought.

Aloud, she gave the rational explanation, which she knew by rote.

“We have no understanding. No words have been exchanged that would change the character of our relationship from friendship.”

You are moving much too fast, William.

“Would you agree that the relations between our families run deeper than ordinary friendship?” William asked.

“It is a most long-standing friendship,” Rosslyn said. “A special relationship.” She did not know what else to say. Certainly, her and William’s fathers were close, but that would not alter her stance.

“We should bind it closer together,” William said.

He hovered close to her again, and she could smell the alcohol on his breath, thick and sour.

“We should discuss this another time,” Rosslyn said.

Perhaps when you are sober. If this was his idea of a proposal, it was far from romantic—or formal, or proper.

She darted backward, finding the top of the staircase with her feet by sheer muscle memory.

As Rosslyn descended, she almost collided with Elspeth.

“Your Highness, my apologies!” said the maid.

“It is not your fault, Elspeth,” Rosslyn said. “I have decided to wait for the young lords down with you and the carriage.”

The maid seemed to recognize that something was slightly wrong, but she asked no questions. The two women descended to the carriage together and waited until the brothers joined them and they could leave.