x
I was hoping Prince Nokto wouldn’t be in his room when I arrived, but he dashed that hope to the ground when he answered my reluctant knock at his door.
“I’m so glad you came,” he said, smiling seductively and drawing me in with a light touch on my arm.
He wore black nail polish on his thumb, middle finger, and ring finger. It was odd, and a small part of me wanted to ask about it, but a much larger part wanted to get in and out as soon as possible. Unfortunately, a single glance at his room was enough to tell me that wasn’t happening. The bed looked as though it had been through a tornado, clothes were all over the floor, and, overall, the scene was one of complete disaster.
“Sorry for the mess,” Prince Nokto said, his breath hot on the back of my neck. “I had an…eventful night.”
I stepped away from him quickly, refusing to look at him. “It’s alright, your highness. I came prepared.” I set the stack of bedding on the red and white cushioned sofa at the foot of the bed, trying to think of a way to get rid of him. “This may take me a while, and I believe Prince Chevalier wants to see you in his office, but I’m sure I can have everything tidy by lunchtime.”
It was probably a safe fib. Prince Nokto was part of Prince Chevalier’s faction, and it seemed likely that Prince Chevalier had work for him to do.
“You’re not trying to get rid of me, are you?” he asked, feigning injury.
Darn it.
“I’ve heard so much about you from my older brothers, and I thought we could take this time to get to know each other better,” he continued, leaning against the wall next to me as I got to work stripping the bed.
“There really isn’t much to know, Prince Nokto,” I replied casually, as if I weren’t fully aware of the hidden implication behind his words and desperately trying to come up with some way to escape this situation. “I’m just a maid.”
Laundry. I had to take the dirty bedding to the laundry, and that, plus the dirty clothes strewn about, meant I would have to take a few trips. Like now. Now would be the perfect time for one of those trips. I carried the bundle of dirty red and white bedding to the door, but just as my free hand touched the doorknob, Prince Nokto’s hand landed on the door to hold it firmly shut.
“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” he breathed from behind me, his other hand taking my shoulder and turning me to face him. “I think there’s much more hidden beneath the surface.”
His crimson eyes captured mine, smoldering and intense, and he traced a finger along my cheek and down to my chin. I had to admit he was good at what he did. It was difficult to ignore the way his light touch confused my feelings. But I thought of Prince Chevalier’s fingers on my chin, and the anger rose all over again.
I was sick of these princes touching me.
“Prince Nokto, while I find your attention flattering, I really have a lot of work to do,” I said, dropping the bedding and pushing his hand away. If he wouldn’t let me leave, I could at least get back to work, so I stepped around him and started making the bed.
“Such a shy little dove,” he said, chuckling with amusement. “Perhaps you’re new to the world of romance?”
I hated how easily I blushed.
“Ah, so that’s it. No wonder you turned my older brothers down. You need someone with a gentle touch to help you open up.”
And he needed someone with a firm slap to shut him up. But I did not want to get fired today, so I turned from the freshly made bed to find something else to do away from him. He had other plans, of course, and he stepped directly in front of me.
“You do good work,” he said, putting his hands on my shoulders and sliding them down my arms and around my waist in one smooth, fluid movement. Before I could react, he had pressed me up against him, and there was nowhere to go except those crimson eyes burning in front of me.
“You deserve a reward.”
His voice was soft and sultry, his face far too close for comfort. But when I looked up at him, I saw Prince Chevalier’s mocking, icy blue eyes and his degrading smirk.
“Enough!” I shouted, shoving him away. “I am a maid, not a prostitute, and I have better things to do than to play your little game.”
His crimson eyes widened with momentary surprise, but he recovered quickly and laughed. My angry glare turned into a confused stare. What about any of this did he think was so funny?
“Clavis was right,” he said, looking me up and down with an amused smirk on his annoyingly handsome face. “You are a handful.” He turned and walked back to the door. “There’s a lot more to you than you let on,” he said with a wink, and then he was gone.
I stood still for a moment, my fists balled at my sides and trembling with anger, but he didn’t return.
“Breathe, Ivetta,” I whispered to myself.
He had been playing with me, just like Prince Chevalier, and apparently, I had passed some sort of sick test. Deplorable as it all had been, he was gone now, and his room really was a mess. I took a few more deep breaths, and I got back to work.
It really was a lovely room, underneath it all. There was plenty of lighting from a crystalline chandelier above and a single large window stretching from floor to ceiling beside the bed, framed by red and white drapes. The bed was more ornate than Prince Chevalier’s, with deep red cushions padding the tall headboard. On the opposite side of the bed from the window, I found a sky blue lounge chair underneath a pile of clothes, and a rich wooden coffee table between the chair and the sofa bore a small stack of books. A pair of matching wooden end tables bearing bronze candelabras flanked either side of the bed, and three paintings above the head of the bed decorated the floral green wallpaper: an abstract, a landscape, and a woman - fully clothed, to my surprise. The floor, once I uncovered it, was a highly polished, highly reflective marble, and then I moved on to the bathroom. That I won’t describe, as I have tried to block it from my memory. Suffice it to say that the transformation was amazing when I finished.
It was almost noon when I finally knocked on Prince Chevalier’s office door. I was wearing my good little maid mask again, and I intended to keep it on until the day was done. But Prince Nokto opened the door to test my resolve, his attire still as messy as ever and his gaze just as sinful as before.
“Hello again,” he said with that sly grin.
The urge to slap him was strong, but I resisted and smiled instead. “I finished in your room, your highness. I hope everything is to your liking.”
His crimson eyes locked on mine, and I hated the way a single look from those dark, sultry eyes made my entire body feel warm.
“I’m sure it is,” he said, standing aside so I could enter. “King Highness, the maid you requested is here.”
Prince Chevalier sat at his desk, quill poised above blank parchment. His cold blue eyes watched Prince Nokto and me dispassionately. “You are dismissed, Clown.”
“Thank you, King Highness,” Prince Nokto said with a bow. As he slipped past me, his fingers grazed my arm and he leaned in to whisper in my ear, “Another time, little dove.”
I had to work really hard to maintain my mask and keep my hands safely at my side. The door closed behind me, and I stood still and silent, waiting for Prince Chevalier to speak. He sat back in his chair, turning the full force of his icy glare on me, and smiled.
“That was remarkably clever of you, sending the Clown here.”
I looked at him in confusion. There was nothing subtle or veiled about it. That was an actual compliment. It suddenly occurred to me that he may have riled me up on purpose before sending me to Prince Nokto’s room.
He wasn’t concerned about me, was he?
“Prince Nokto was interfering with my work, your highness,” I explained quietly, careful not to let my thoughts show.
“I’m sure.” He looked back down at the parchment on his desk. “After lunch, return here.”
“Yes, your highness.”
His quill was already in motion when I left.
I tried to lose myself in a book in the little alcove, but my mind was still racing from the morning’s events. Why was I getting so much attention from the princes? It wasn’t like I was the only good-looking maid in the palace. Maybe it was just because I was a new face, a new toy for them to play with. Surely things would settle down after the initial curiosity wore off, right? I just hoped my reputation wouldn’t be permanently tarnished by then. I wasn’t doing anything wrong, but the truth rarely made for a juicy story. And, as I knew all too well, rumors and misperceptions could follow me around for a very long time.
I barely read two pages the entire hour.
When I opened the library door to leave, I ran right into a silver-haired man with crimson eyes. My heart dropped into my stomach and I stepped back quickly, but this was not Prince Nokto. Physically, the appearance was remarkably similar, but this man’s dress, carriage, and expression were all completely different. Two small moles just under his left eye drew my attention to his cold, empty eyes, and I took another step back. He stood stiff and straight, buttoned and laced tightly shut from his dark blue boots to the collar of his gray shirt.
“Excuse me, your highness,” I stammered. His eyes held my gaze just for a moment, and then he looked away and walked past me without a word or a trace of emotion, leaving me staring at the back of his dark gray coattails, the white ruff of fur over his right hip, and the sheathed sword over his left hip. I swallowed hard and left, reminding myself to put my mask back on.
Prince Chevalier was still writing when I returned to his office, and he didn’t acknowledge my return. I took that as a sign and set about tidying up as I saw necessary. We worked quietly at our different tasks for an hour and a half with no interruptions until he finally set his quill down and rose from his desk.
“Come,” he said, heading for the door.
I followed him out, careful to stay beside but slightly behind him as we walked. He was heading for the library, and I wondered if he’d eaten lunch. Maybe he was like me - grabbing a quick bite and then getting back to work. It wasn’t like he needed to take a long break at midday, anyway. He would have the rest of the day off from this point on. I split away from him to head to the kitchens for his tea, taking his silence at my departure as approval.
“We meet again,” Theresa said, smiling as our paths crossed in the controlled chaos of the kitchens.
“So it seems. Do you need my help with anything?” I asked. I felt like I owed her for her help with the boxes.
“Not at the moment. I’ve got to say, I’m impressed you’re still here. How do you do it?”
I smiled at her. Prince Chevalier scared her as much as he did everybody else. Oddly enough, he was the least of my problems right now.
“It’s like I told you, I need the job.”
Prince Chevalier was already reading when I entered his library. I set his tea on the table next to him and stepped back. “Do you need anything else, your highness?”
He looked up at me, his piercing gaze considering as he took a sip of tea. “You speak well, for a commoner. Did your mother teach you to talk this way?”
“Yes, your highness,” I said, trying to hide my surprise at the random question. “Proper language and etiquette are very important to her.”
He took another sip. “And your father?”
“He passed away before I was born, your highness.”
Why this sudden interest in my background?
“I see.” He set the teacup down, his lips curving up into that hint of a smile. “And that is why you are so sensitive to certain implications, correct?”
“My mother was not a prostitute, your highness,” I said firmly. It was bad enough for my name to be dragged through the mud, but she didn’t need to go through it all again, too.
“I didn’t say she was.”
His cold blue eyes held mine, and I felt my stomach twist uncomfortably. What did he want from me?
“I heard a lot of talk as a child, if that’s what you’re asking, but I really don’t want to discuss this any further, Prince Chevalier.” My private life was none of his business, even if I had become his personal attendant.
He gave me an amused smirk. “You forget your place again.”
I sighed, frustrated. “I’m not ending the conversation, your highness, merely requesting we change the subject.”
Why did he have to make everything so difficult? And why did he want to talk to me, anyway?
“You amuse me,” he said, answering my unspoken question.
I frowned at him. “It’s really unnerving when you do that, your highness.”
He chuckled. “Naturally.” His cold blue eyes finally left me and returned to his book. “You’re dismissed.”
It was a relief to get out of there. He seemed to like me now, but I couldn’t forget who and what he was. After all, it was only yesterday that he and Prince Leon had argued about his purge. I’d heard bits and pieces of gossip in the kitchens about it. Prince Chevalier took a very offensive stance when managing Rhodolite’s relations with its neighbors. There was a new political faction on the rise in response to his actions, the anti-war faction, and while the group wasn’t illegal, there were members who crossed the line into rebellion. Some of them had taken control of a fort and village near the border we shared with Obsidian, and Prince Chevalier had hit the area hard, stating the losses were justified to ensure our border was secure.
Yesterday, I had no problem seeing Prince Chevalier as the Brutal Beast. But today, it was hard to reconcile the two. The way he smiled and teased me did not line up with his threats and cold refusal to acknowledge the value of a human life. But then, maybe he was just playing a game, like the other princes. And I didn’t really need to make sense of it, anyway. I was only here to work, after all.
ns 15.158.61.54da2
