“So I hear. Your father, King Markus, invited me to visit his cottage on Leewater.”

“The cottage is lovely in summer,” Liam said. “Though it can seem crowded when all three wives are in residence.”

Raisa couldn’t help wondering if he’d mentioned them on purpose.

“I prefer summers in the city, where we sleep during the heat of the day and stay up all night. Soon it will be autumn, when the nights grow cool and lovely, and the rains revive the flowers. We call it the wooing season.” He closed his hand over hers.

Tread carefully, Raisa said to herself. This is the princeling Missy Hakkam fell head over petticoats for. Raisa tended to use Missy Hakkam as a kind of trail marker to warn herself away from foolish behavior.

“Are you here on your father’s behalf, or do you represent yourself?” Raisa asked.

Liam laughed, but there was a bitter edge to it. “My father does not need my help in matchmaking,” he said. “I am here on my own.”

“Well, then, what’s your position on multiple wives? If you have two or three, can your wife have multiple husbands?”

Liam was taking a drink of wine as she asked that, and he very nearly splattered it all over the table. “P-Princess Raisa,” he spluttered. “I think any man who marries you will find he has more than enough to handle without complicating things.”

Raisa laughed also, but noted that he’d not really answered her question. He was looking at her, though, as if he found her absolutely fascinating. His gaze traveled from her mouth to her eyes and back again.

He leaned closer, resting his hands on her bare shoulders, raising gooseflesh there. “At this point, I would usually suggest a walk in the garden, but it’s still raining buckets, from the sound of it. Perhaps…there’s somewhere else we could go to talk, away from the ears of the court.”

It occurred to Raisa that maybe Liam was the danger she’d anticipated. But an interesting kind of danger, after all.

Just then Raisa heard a step behind her, and Liam looked up over her shoulder and frowned.

“Your Highness.” Raisa knew before she turned around who it was.

“Your Highness, the queen requests your attendance in her privy chamber,” Micah Bayar said. “She asked me to fetch you.”

Raisa eyed him with distrust. Why would her mother send Micah to fetch her, after all that had happened already? She looked around for Amon, but didn’t see him, nor any others of her guardsmen. She wondered if he’d already gone up to the garden.

Micah turned to Liam. “Sorry, Your Highness, but you will have to excuse Princess Raisa. It is growing late.”