His Royal Secret Read Online Free

People usually adored him and hated her, though in recent years there had been impatience for James to break off his bad romance already. She’d been dubbed “Randy Sandy,” and a few tabloids proclaimed “Jamie’s Whipped!”
    But Lady Cassandra was only a beard. Ben felt almost certain of that now.
    Time to raise the stakes of the game.
    “We should have a price on the pieces,” Ben said, as if idly.
    “We can if you’d like. Shall we say fifty pence a piece?”
    “Big roller.”
    James arched one of his sharply angled eyebrows. Surely he knew how well that set off his green eyes. He had to know. It was indecent if he didn’t. “You really don’t want this game to get too rich for my blood.”
    The Crown received something along the lines of fifty million pounds a year from the government—staggering to imagine. But Ben didn’t let himself get distracted. “I was thinking of an entirely different sort of wager.”
    James hesitated. That one moment’s hesitation turned Ben’s doubt into certainty. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said, suddenly almost formal again. But he wasn’t backing down.
    There it was, that sensation Ben lived for: the knowledge that he’d seized the advantage. Whenever he encountered it, he savored it.
    He grinned at the Prince of Wales. “I mean secrets. You keep yours close; I keep mine. But I’ll trade a secret for a piece, if you will.”
    “Interesting.” James squared his shoulders, like a man preparing for a fight. “All right, you’re on.”
    He wanted Ben’s secrets, and he didn’t want to give up any of his own. Ben understood this because he felt precisely the same way.
    This was going to be a very good game of chess.
    They elected to ignore the pawns because a few of them had already been taken. That meant Ben had to play more aggressively than usual, which paid off within a few minutes, as he palmed one of the white bishops. As he took it in his hand, he said, “Where’s my prize?”
    “Hmm. A secret. Let’s see.” James smiled. “When I was a little boy meeting a new head of state for the first time—the King of Tonga, as it happened—I was so determined to do it well that I made myself nervous. Nerves worked their evil on my guts. So, at the key moment, as I took the king’s hand, I farted more loudly than you’ve ever heard in your life.”
    Ben laughed long and hard as James joined in. But when he could speak again, Ben said, “Oh, come on, now. A real secret.”
    “What do you mean? That was humiliating.”
    “But hardly secret, if you’ve described the decibel level accurately.”
    James shot him a look, though he was still grinning. “Hush.”
    “I’m beginning to think you aren’t taking this game seriously.” Was it too soon to lean forward across the board? Not if he leaned just a little, just enough to bring him closer than any casual acquaintance would usually come. James’s eyes widened slightly, but he didn’t move back. Interesting. “That was a pawn’s secret at best. Give me a secret worth your bishop.”
    “Can I rely on your discretion?”
    Ben smiled. “Best not to rely on me. Best to win more pieces. Get more on me than I get on you.”
    If he were going to scare James off, this would be the moment. But James only considered that for a long moment before saying, “You can’t hold back.”
    “I won’t.”
    Which was a mad thing to say. Ben had spent his life holding back. He’d learned his lessons young and never forgotten them. However, if it meant getting the prince to talk, he could manage. It wasn’t as though he’d ever see the man again.
    James returned to studying the chessboard, never looking up. “When they came to tell me my parents had been killed in the plane crash, I was drunk. Not ‘a couple of beers’ drunk—like, getting sick in the rubbish bin, hardly able to stand up. That kind of drunk. It was the first time I’d ever had that much, or anything like that much. University, first