Bright sunshine flooding through the room woke me well before I wanted to wake up. I rolled away from it, pulling the blanket up over my face. Someone yanked it away.
“Ivetta!” Theresa shouted.
My eyes snapped open at her voice in my face. Her green eyes, inches from mine, startled me into jerking backwards and tumbling to the floor.
“Ow…” I moaned, sitting up and holding my pounding head.
“Oh, my gosh, did you hit your head?” she asked in a panic, scrambling over the edge of the bed to join me on the floor. “Wait. Why are you still dressed? Ivetta. You could have woken me up if you were having trouble with the laces,” she said, her tone immediately changing to one of gentle scolding. I looked down at my dress and blushed.
“Um…I guess I fell asleep, and Chevalier brought me back here,” I said sheepishly.
“He saw me asleep?” she shrieked. “A man was in my bedroom without me knowing about it?”
“It’s my bedroom, Theresa,” I reminded her, massaging my forehead. Her expression fell, and I dropped my hand to my lap, hastening to reassure her. “I didn’t hit my head. I just have a headache.”
“You’re hungover?” she asked, her eyes lighting up.
“No, I’m not hungover,” I told her, exasperated. “I always get a headache after I cry.”
Her face fell again. “Oh.” She sighed and stood up, offering me a hand to pull me to my feet. “Once, just once, I’d like to see you come back hungover and laid,” she muttered.
“Theresa!” I moaned, covering my blazing hot cheeks with my hands.
“What? Is it too much for me to wish for your happiness?” she asked, heading for my bureau. “What do you want to wear today?”
I shook my head and crossed the room to the glass doors. “I’ll figure it out later. Right now, I’m going back to bed.”
She looked back at me questioningly. “What about lessons?”
“Chevalier arranged for us to have the day off,” I replied, pulling the curtains closed.
“That’s probably a good idea. You were out really late last night, and you’ll be busy tomorrow. Here’s your nightgown. Let me get those buttons.”
“Thanks,” I said gratefully, dropping my hands to my side while she undid the buttons and laces at the back of my dress. “Do you mind if I tell you about last night later? After I get some sleep?”
“I take it you didn’t spend the entire night crying, then,” she said, mischief creeping into her voice.
“No, I didn’t,” I said, smiling to myself as I stepped out of the dress and pulled on the nightgown.
“Good. I’ll have something to look forward to while I’m washing the ceilings,” she said happily.
“Washing the ceilings?” I asked curiously, climbing into bed.
“Yes, washing the ceilings. Marge is going all out for the coronation ceremony. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime event, but I don’t think that’s the only reason she’s obsessing over every detail so much.”
“What else could there be?”
Theresa smirked. “You.”
“Me?” I asked, confused.
She nodded. “This is your debut, and she’s living in fear of the day you decide to take revenge on her.”
“But I wouldn’t do that.”
“I know. But it’s fun to watch her squirm,” Theresa said, her green eyes dancing even in the dim lighting. “When do you want me back?”
“Um, lunchtime, I guess.”
“Alright. Get some sleep, Ivetta.”
I don’t think it took me long to fall asleep again, even with the news that Marge was now scared of me, and I know I didn’t wake until Theresa returned at lunchtime. We debated my wardrobe and hair for a while before we settled on my normal princess attire and a fairly simple updo. It was my day off, but guests were also arriving for the coronation ceremony, and I wanted to look the part if anybody saw me with Chevalier. Spending the rest of the day with him was enough of a break on its own.
“Sorry you have to go back to washing ceilings,” I apologized to Theresa as we left my room.
“The ceilings are done,” she replied. “So is the rest of the cleaning. It turns out Marge was cracking the whip on everybody else yesterday while Sariel was cracking the whip on us. Now, all that’s left is decorating. So, what are you and Chevalier going to do for the rest of the day?”
“I don’t know,” I said, blushing at the implication in her sly grin. “Probably read, maybe go for a walk in the gardens. I wanted to go horseback riding, but he said I’d be too sore tomorrow if we went again today.”
“Horseback riding?” she asked, her green eyes dancing. “You went for a moonlit ride last night?”
I smiled shyly and nodded. “You’ll hear all about it tonight, I promise. Oh, and you can take a break until tonight, since I’ll be with Chevalier,” I told the silent guards behind us. Byron opened his mouth to reply, but an angry female shout interrupted him.
“You can’t do this to me!”
We all turned our attention to an ugly scene developing further down the hall, where a noblewoman stood in front of Nokto. His back was to us, but his posture was as relaxed as always. She looked like she was on the verge of tears.
“I thought you loved me!”
“Mm, I don’t recall ever saying that,” he said smoothly.
“Are you saying none of it meant anything to you?” she asked, desperation creeping into her voice as she looked up at him imploringly.
“Now you’re catching on.”
The sound of her slap echoed down the hallway. He didn’t move or speak. She burst into tears and ran away from him.
“Theresa, could you go check on her?” I asked.
She nodded and hurried after the distraught noblewoman. I steeled myself and walked up to Nokto.
“Nokto, if I could have a word with you.”
He gave me a sly smile. “Are you going to scold me for my unacceptable behavior?”
“I want to talk to you, and I don’t want to do it in the middle of a busy hallway,” I said firmly.
He shrugged lazily. “Fine.”
We weren’t far from the library, so I led the way there, sorting through my thoughts. I hadn’t spoken with him since he kissed me, and it wasn’t my place to interfere in his love life, but something about that scene really bothered me - beyond his obvious mistreatment of that poor noblewoman. He was wearing his mask again. I knew it before I saw his face, and when he looked at me, when I saw that sly grin and those dark crimson eyes, composed in exactly the same apparently carefree but actually guarded expression he used to wear when I first met him, it turned my stomach.
It might have nothing to do with me. But if it did, if I was even partially responsible for him withdrawing into himself again, I needed to say something.
I wasn’t sure what, though.
“If you’re going to lecture me, I can save you the trouble right now,” he said lightly as the library door closed behind us, crossing his arms and leaning casually against it. “I’ve heard it all before.”
“I’m sorry.”
Something flickered in the darkness of his eyes, but the mask remained, along with an angry red mark on his cheek.
“I’ve been avoiding you since the…dance lesson, because I didn’t know what to say, and I still don’t, but I just want you to know that I really didn’t know how you…how you felt about me, and if I did anything-”
He stopped my jumbled flow of words with a finger on my lips.
“You didn’t,” he said, in the same casual tone as before. “And you weren’t supposed to know. I made a mistake.” His finger left my lips, and he shrugged again. “I am the court jester, after all.”
“Why do you call yourself that?” I asked, more unsettled than ever. He was completely closed off to me, as if we’d never talked and laughed with any sort of familiarity. As if we’d never been friends.
“Because it’s what I am. Everybody else can get on fine without me, including you. So, on that note-”
I grabbed his sleeve as he turned away. “That’s not true.”
“Careful. You don’t want to give me the wrong idea,” he said, the sly smirk that used to frustrate me so much playing across his lips.
“Don’t do that,” I snapped at him.
“Do what?” he asked, tilting his head to the side.
“Don’t pretend with me. I know this is how you push people away when they’re getting too close. Maybe I can’t return your feelings for me, but I care about you, and I’d like to continue being your friend, if you’ll let me.”
His expression didn’t change. I released his sleeve and stepped back, shaking my head.
“Nevermind. I wanted to make this better, but I made it worse. Just forget I ever said anything. I’m sorry for bothering you.”
He caught my wrist when I turned away. I looked back at him questioningly.
“Friends,” he said simply, something churning in the darkness of his eyes.
I nodded. “If that’s okay.”
He hadn’t looked tense before, but he visibly relaxed and nodded. A pent-up breath I hadn’t realized I was holding escaped in a single whoosh.
“But I’m not giving you any more dance lessons,” he said, releasing my wrist and flashing me a genuine smile.
“No, of course not,” I said, smiling back at him. “You should put something cold on that. It looks like it might bruise.”
“She was wearing a ring,” he said, rubbing his red cheek. “I usually check for those before I break it off with somebody.”
“Well, I can’t say you didn’t deserve it, because you did.”
“Yeah, I know.” He turned for the door, and then he glanced back at me. “A word of advice. Stay out of sight. The guests are already looking for Chevalier's mysterious new princess.”
I blushed. “They’re not actually calling me that, are they?”
Nokto smirked and opened the door. “He’s in the back room.”
I felt lighter as I crossed the library to the familiar door at the very back of the room. The situation with Nokto had weighed heavily on the back of my mind for the past week, and although I knew a handful of words weren’t enough to solve everything, they were a start. And that was one less thing I had to worry about tomorrow. It would have been awkward to avoid him in the ballroom.
But I didn’t want to think about any of that right now. I only wanted to see Chevalier.
The feeling was mutual.
One moment, I was opening the door. The next moment, Chevalier grabbed my arm and yanked me forward, slamming the door shut behind me and crushing me between it and him as he silenced my surprised squeak with a passionate kiss. My hands automatically went to his chest to push him away, but my traitorous fingers listened to the flurry of butterflies in my stomach and clutched at his jacket instead. A part of me whispered I shouldn’t let him get away with this - a very, very small part that hadn’t yet succumbed to the urge to melt into a puddle. Then his arm circled my waist and his bare hand cradled the back of my head, and that was it for me. There was something about this forceful affection, these glimpses of a fiery passion tempered by a gentle touch, that rendered me putty in his hands. And if he took his gloves off, too, there was really no hope for me.
But he had to breathe eventually, which gave me the opportunity to remember how to speak.
“You won’t do that tomorrow, will you?” I panted. He smirked, and I swatted his chest playfully. “Let me rephrase. You won’t do that tomorrow.”
He chuckled. “I won’t. You resolved matters with Nokto?”
“Yes, I did,” I said, not even surprised that he knew. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long.”
“And what if you did?”
This was an opportunity, I realized. He wanted me to kiss him, but I didn’t get to tease him very often, and this was a chance I couldn’t pass up. If I played it right, maybe I could get him to let loose a little, too.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and stood up on tiptoe to place a light peck on his lips.
“Does that help?” I asked coyly, leaning back against his arm and sliding my hands down to his chest. His crystal blue eyes met mine evenly, studying me with interest, but they dropped to my mouth immediately when I bit my lower lip. I smiled wider and licked my lips, rolling them together and watching the warmth in his eyes smolder with heat. His eyes flicked back to mine, and he smirked.
“You’re playing a dangerous game, little dove.”
“Am I?” I asked, tilting my head to the side and smiling innocently up at him.
He seized my chin in his hand. “You are.”
And then he kissed me with an intensity that made his first kiss seem tame. I wrapped my arms around his neck, holding on for dear life as he kept up a barrage of kisses that stole my breath and made my head spin. His fingers dug into my waist, and his other hand slid around my neck to the back of my head, then down to my upper back, pressing me into him until I couldn’t distinguish the pounding of my heart from his. The smell of roses was intoxicating. A quick gasp between kisses was all he allowed me before he was wrecking me again, igniting a fire inside me with the heat of his lips. His teeth scraped across my lower lip, drawing a moan from my throat and a chuckle from his, and then his lips left mine, moving down my chin to my neck while I panted for breath. I tilted my head back to give him more room to work, digging my fingers into his cloak when he nipped at my collarbone and my knees gave out.
“Chevalier…”
He answered by scooping me up and carrying me back to his chair, placing me on his lap and holding me there with one hand hooked around my waist while he continued his onslaught, starting back at my lips. His hand cupped my cheek, and then slid around to the back of my head, down my neck, across my shoulder to my arm, down to my hand and then across my thigh, leaving a trail of sparks in its wake. I moved my hands to the sides of his neck and jaws, splaying my fingers across his skin and into his soft blonde hair. He smiled against my lips, digging his fingers into the outside of my thigh. I shifted my head to the side and nuzzled into his neck as his kisses wandered across my cheek to my ear. The sensation of his teeth on my earlobe drew another moan from my lips.
“I warned you,” he murmured, kissing my ear gently.
“I know,” I said breathlessly, letting my hands drop to his chest. “But you’re always holding back, and you were so sweet last night that I wanted to do something for you for a change.”
He sucked in a breath. I pulled back from his shoulder enough to smile up at his wide blue eyes.
“Surprised?”
His eyes narrowed again, and he smiled and kissed my cheek. “Yes.”
I nuzzled happily into his shoulder again. “The rest of the day is yours, too. We can stay here and cuddle, or read, or go for a walk, whatever you want. But, just so you’re aware, Nokto said the guests are looking for me.”
“They can look all they want,” he replied softly, caressing my cheek. “I’m not sharing."
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