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his mother perfectly. Combined with the waggle of eyebrows and a forbidding glower lurking behind the sparkle in his blue eyes, his mimicry put her at ease.
    “So,” he said, leaning his elbows on the footboard and clasping his hands. “My mother and I have decided you will not be working for Lord Piss-On but…”
    “Who?” Chas asked, her eyebrows rose.
    “Pierceson Hurlburt,” Ruan informed her. “He’s nothing more than a cock with legs. You’d be compromised within half an hour of being in the same room with him.”
    “But I need a job,” Chas protested. “I…”
    “I need a personal secretary,” the handsome prince interrupted.
    She stared at him. “Don’t you already have a personal secretary?”
    He shrugged. “Alistair is more nag than secretary and besides, he hates the title. Too effeminate, he says. He’d much rather be training troops than attending me.”
    Chas looked down at her hands. “But you know nothing of me or my abilities, Your Grace.” She looked up. “I might be a terrible secretary.”
    He cocked a brow. “Can you write?”
    “Aye.”
    “Cipher?”
    “Aye, Your Grace, but…”
    “Then you’re hired.” He pushed back from the footboard. “You can start as soon as my mother decrees you able enough to leave that bed.”
    Chas watched Ruan walked to the door and she tucked her bottom lip between her teeth. Her sources had told her he was a brooding, no-nonsense man with a thick chip upon his broad shoulder. So far, she had not seen that side of him, but there was something in the purposeful way he walked that bespoke not only authority but also arrogant power. Ruan turned around at the door. “Any questions?”
    She shook her head. “No, Your Grace, I don’t think so.”
    “Good, then if the sergeant-major allows it, you can accompany me to Viridian tomorrow. I have business there. I’m sure she will see to having a portmanteau packed for you.”
    “The sergeant-major?” she questioned.
    Ruan snorted. “My interfering mother who has decided you are to be the next wench she’s going to throw at me. If royalty fails, look for a gently bred commoner whom she can train to be a noble.”
    With that said, he ambled from the room.
    * * * * *
    Ruan tossed and turned in his lonely bed, his thoughts on the beautiful woman two floors below his chamber. He kicked at the covers, pulled them over him, sat up and punched his pillow, dropped his head to it and then kicked the covers entirely from the bed. Next to be flung to the floor was the pillow, followed closely by another. Finally sitting up, the prince ran his hands through his hair and tugged viciously.
    “Argh!” he snarled and swung his legs from the bed and sat there on the edge, glaring at the carpet.
    The trouble was Chastain, he thought. Aye, that was who was causing his sleeplessness .
    While it was true he had never seen a more beautiful woman, he knew this one had somehow gotten under his skin. That his mother had given her sanction of some sort bothered him, but then again, the old woman only had his best interests at heart.
    Chastain.
    Even the name filled his soul with vibrant images—blonde hair—long and silky, and curling to just above shapely hips that flared out at a perfect angle from a tiny waist and flat belly. Beautiful green eyes, the color of the early corn shoots in the late spring. Lush breasts that caused a man’s eyes to go to them like an arrow to a bull’s-eye. Long legs that curved sweetly to a nicely turned rump, slender arms, swanlike neck. And her face?
    Ruan sucked in his breath as he raised his head and stared unseeingly at the wall before him.
    Such a face she had , he thought. Smooth forehead framed by lustrous golden hair, a slight tilt to those glorious eyes, a pert upturned nose, lush lips that invited a man to taste their sweetness, a cute little chin graced with a seductive dimple.
    Ruan shuddered and stood up. Padding barefoot to the window, he shoved the draperies aside and