Chapter Twenty-Six

“Well, that went better than expected,” Freddie said, wiping some dirt off his hands.

His beautiful gray slacks were brown at the knees and a smudge of dirt lay swiped across the bridge of his nose.

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Seriously?”

He leaned over and wiped some dirt off my cheek. “We made it, didn't we?”

He motioned to the forest just past the small meadow we were currently walking through. I dusted my hands together, trying to get the mud off. I'd managed to keep most of the dirt from my dress, but I wasn't much cleaner than Freddie.

Behind us, trapped in the cultivated gardens of the castle, music still played. A tug of guilt found my middle, but I pushed it away. I didn't want to be at the party. I didn't want everyone looking at me and whispering.

I wanted to be out here.

Instead of a proper moat, the castle had carefully manicured lawns. Freddie and I had crossed those easily. The neat grass was held close to the castle by a waist-high rock wall. We'd scrambled over it, g