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It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t good, but it wasn’t bad.
The starlit sky faded to gray and then to blue while Clavis and I ate and talked, sharing stories from my weeks of strict bedrest at the border. I never thought I’d look back on that time fondly, but Clavis’ escapades had often been the highlight of my day. I had as much fun talking about it now as I had experiencing it then. A simple banana peel trap waiting in my doorway for Yves; a full orchestra playing music in the garden below my window; fireworks at night, pranks by day—I’d always wondered if he spent all his time at the palace just planning new ways to keep me entertained.
Before I knew it, we’d cleaned our plates, and I was just thinking I needed to get up and get ready for the day when my door suddenly flew open with such force it hit the wall.
“Spring?” Silvio demanded, his sharp sea-blue eyes narrowed to a point as he stormed into the room. Keith was right behind him, wearing an apologetic smile. I stared at them in shock.
“What are you—”
“Spring?” Silvio repeated, interrupting me before I could finish my question. “The wedding isn’t until spring?” He paused and trained his eyes on Clavis. “What are you doing here?”
“Having breakfast,” Clavis said, a smirk in his voice. “What does it look like?”
“I’m really sorry, Ivetta,” Keith interjected. “I tried to—”
“Shut it,” Silvio snapped at him. “Chevalier rushed everything else, but now the wedding ain’t happening until spring?”
“What are you doing in my room?” I asked, still stuck on that important detail, uncomfortably aware that I was still in bed, still wearing a dressing gown, and suddenly in a room full of men with my door wide open to the hallway for whoever else wanted to wander in and further humiliate me. Modesty wasn’t the issue. Privacy was the issue. And I had none.
“Well, to be fair, you have been rather evasive when asked about the wedding, Ivetta,” Clavis pointed out. “Is that the reason you’ve started drinking?”
That got my attention off of the intruders. I turned to frown at him, and yes, he was smirking. “You really need to stop saying that. Somebody might believe you.”
“You were all over Chevalier after the engagement ceremony,” Silvio continued. “What happened? He do something stupid?”
“N-no,” I stammered, whipping my head around to look at Silvio again. The headache I’d forgotten about made its presence known with a throbbing complaint.
“If I need to straighten him out—”
“No! It’s not—”
“Actually, they were all over each other this morning, too,” Clavis volunteered. “When I found her in his room.”
I hadn’t thought it could get any more embarrassing than Clavis bursting in on Chevalier and me, but I was wrong. This was it, though, right? It couldn’t possibly get worse than this.
“You spent the night with him?” Keith asked, his golden eyes widening in disbelief.
Silvio smirked. “Told ya. Pay up.”
Keith pulled a coin purse from his jacket and dropped it reluctantly into Silvio’s waiting hand, proving it could get worse.
“You’re betting on…on Chevalier and me…”
“It’s what everybody’s talking about,” Clavis explained. “Will they? Won’t they? Have they? Are they? These are the important, gripping questions everyone wants answered.”
I wanted to die.
“Well, if they’re sleeping together, there’s probably nothing wrong between them,” Keith reasoned.
And now they were discussing the details of an intimate relationship Chevalier and I didn’t even have right in front of me. Why weren’t my guards kicking them out? What was the point in having armed guards around if they wouldn’t even draw their swords on these idiots to save me from total mortification?
“Hm, maybe,” Silvio muttered, frowning. “Or there was something, but they made up last night.”
A flash of red curls appeared briefly in the doorway, and I suddenly knew exactly why the guards weren’t doing anything. They were busy laughing with Theresa. The realization made my blood boil.
“Enough!” I shouted. All three princes turned to me, eyebrows raised. “Theresa, I know you’re out there. Get in here and close the door.”
She stepped around the corner to comply, a wide smile on her face, her green eyes dancing with mirth.
“First of all, not that it’s any of your business, we haven’t,” I said coolly.
A small smile formed on Keith’s lips as he held out his hand. Silvio, grumbling under his breath, returned the coin purse and shot a glare at a grinning Clavis.
“You agreed,” Clavis said gleefully. “A favor of my choosing.”
“You already knew,” Silvio accused him.
Clavis shrugged. “Yes, I did, but you didn’t ask me that when we made our wager. I believe your exact words were—”
“Second,” I interrupted loudly, not wanting to hear anything spoken during that conversation, “in case you’ve all forgotten, I didn’t even have a last name five months ago, let alone a title. Going from having nothing to being a princess engaged to the king has been a huge adjustment. Chevalier rushed everything so there wouldn’t be any opposition to my staying here, and now that things are settled, I need some time to get used to all of this before we get married.”
“That seems fair,” Keith said, nodding.
“And third,” I said as Silvio opened his mouth, “get out of my room.”
He snapped his mouth shut into a scowl and crossed his arms over his chest. “Is that any way to say goodbye? I got a carriage holding up traffic in the courtyard right now ‘cause I couldn’t leave if Chevalier was being an idiot.”
These rude, rotten, obnoxiously kind princes.
“You’re right,” I conceded. “I have better manners than some who seem to think kicking a lady’s door down and interrogating her while she’s still in bed is an appropriate way to say good morning. So, goodbye, safe travels, get out.”
Theresa covered her mouth to stifle her laughter. Clavis was snickering, too, and Keith was fighting a smile.
“Guess you got a point,” Silvio relented, dropping his arms to his sides and shrugging. “But I’m serious. Chevalier steps out of line, let me know. I’ll take care of him.”
Only if Gilbert, all of his brothers, and probably my guards didn’t take care of him first. I sighed and shook my head. “Thank you, but I really don’t think that will be necessary.”
“Um, before we go, could I ask one question?” Keith ventured.
I was never getting out of bed today. “Sure, what is it?” I asked wearily, signaling Theresa to come get the breakfast trays.
“Is that your mother?”
I followed his eyes to the portrait, which I hadn’t really looked at yet this morning thanks to all the surprise interruptions. The sight of that face, so familiar and yet so foreign as a part of that happy couple, brought a painful warmth to my chest. “Yes, it is.”
Silvio cast a disparaging glance around the room as he turned to look at the painting, too. “Well, at least you got something good in all this junk. Doesn’t anybody know how to give a decent present?”
I rolled my eyes. His inner spoiled tyrant was showing again. “May I remind you I used to live in a shack with a dirt floor? This ‘junk’ is all finery I never thought I’d see, let alone own, and I don’t even need any of it.”
“I keep telling you, you don’t have to need—hey, watch it!” he complained, interrupting himself when Theresa bumped into him.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said sweetly, casting a sidelong glance and a wink at me. “There just doesn’t seem to be enough room in here for some reason.”
“We really should be going,” Keith said, thankfully taking the hint. “Sorry again for the intrusion, Ivetta.”
They left as suddenly as they came, following Theresa and her stack of trays and dirty dishes with a chorus of goodbyes. I bid them farewell and climbed out of bed, wondering if my head would keep pounding like this for the rest of the day.
“Something wrong?”
I jumped and spun around. “Clavis! Why are you still here?”
“Well, you didn’t tell me to leave,” he reasoned. “Now, about that portrait. Do you really look that much like your mother, or did an artist just catch you cheating on Chev?”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, I really look that much like her, and unless you have something for a headache, I’d appreciate it if you left, too.”
“Hm.” He reached into his jacket and rummaged around in his pocket. “Nope, but that reminds me, I need to take my medicine.”
I frowned as he produced a small packet. “Your medicine? Why do you need medicine?”
“I get sick if I stay up too late,” he said casually.
“Shouldn’t you see a doctor about that?” I asked, watching with concern as he upended the packet over his mouth and swallowed the entire contents. “And stop staying up late?”
He shrugged. “I’ve had this since I was a child. The fever will go away in a few minutes.”
“Fever?” I exclaimed. I put a hand to his forehead, and it was indeed hot to the touch. “Clavis! You need to go to bed!”
The slow smirk spreading across his face made my stomach drop.
“You’re right. I should go to bed,” he said. And then he took a step past me, sat down on the edge of my bed, and proceeded to unbuckle his sword belt.
“Not my bed! Your—” I stopped myself when he looked up at me with a sly grin, realizing the flaw in my wording.
“I don’t have a bed,” he reminded me.
“Well, you should get one,” I said vehemently. “And you have a comfortable sofa, so—”
“But a bed would be much better for an ailing patient, wouldn’t it?”
“I—you—” I groaned in frustration. “Why have I become everybody’s nursemaid? We have an excellent doctor right here in the palace, and—”
“You have a better bedside manner.” Clavis’ boots, cloak, and jacket joined his sword in a pile on the floor, and he snuggled under the covers, inhaling deeply. “Ooh, it even smells like you. I think I’ll feel a lot better after a nap, don’t you?”
I pursed my lips, knowing unless I was willing to physically drag him out of my bed, he'd won. “Not if Chevalier finds you here, so you’d better be gone before he gets up,” I muttered, spinning away from him and heading toward my bureau.
“Could you close the curtains?”
I spun back, grabbed his jacket, and tossed it over his face. Then I went to the curtains and pulled them shut just as Theresa walked into the room. She looked from me to the chuckling Clavis in my bed and back again, a single eyebrow raised in question.
“I’m getting ready in the bathroom,” I said shortly.
She didn’t speak a word, not even after she’d closed the door behind us and I’d given her a brief explanation. I knew she had something on her mind, but my headache was steadily getting worse, and I didn’t feel like talking, either. She helped me change, did my hair, and finally broke the silence with a heavy sigh.
“He likes you.”
“Well, of course he likes me,” I replied flatly. “We’re friends.”
“No, I mean, he likes you,” she said, adding emphasis to the phrase.
I sighed and shook my head. “No, he doesn’t.”
“Then why was he holding your hand when you got here?” she asked in an accusatory tone.
“That doesn’t mean anything,” I insisted. “He just does that so I can’t get away when he’s up to something.”
“It didn’t look like you were trying to get away.”
“Well, I was at first.”
“Then why didn’t he let go when you stopped trying to get away?”
“Because—we’re just close friends, Theresa. That’s all. He’s been doing that since I was a maid, and—”
“Wasn’t he asking you out all the time when you were a maid?”
I glared at her. “Things are different now.”
She returned my glare and crossed her arms over her chest. “How?”
“Well, he’s like a brother to me.”
“A brother who holds your hand and makes you breakfast in bed.”
“Brothers can do that. Jason holds Rachel’s hand all the time.”
“Rachel is five and will run off with anybody who smiles at her,” Theresa pointed out.
“So, now I’m a five-year-old,” I said, crossing my arms, too.
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, in this area, you kind of are.”
I shook my head and pushed past her for the door. “I don’t have time for this.”
“Ivetta,” she said, grabbing my arm. “Listen. I’m not trying to insult you, and I’m not saying you’re doing anything wrong, but this is my area of expertise, not yours. You never see this stuff coming. I mean, you didn’t even know Chevalier liked you until he made it really obvious. Just…be careful, okay?”
I wanted to tell her she was wrong. I wanted to tell her Clavis was just a touchy-feely guy, that he was like this with everybody, but I knew it wasn’t true. He’d always treated me differently. He’d always flirted and teased, and he’d only stopped making jokes about us having a secret relationship after Chevalier proposed to me. I still had to shrug his arm off when he threw it around my shoulders, or step away from him when he got uncomfortably close to me. And the man was in my bed.
My head was killing me.
“I have to go.”
“Ivetta.”
“Thank you for your concern, but I have lessons, and I need to go.”
Theresa let go of my arm, and I left without casting a backward glance at her in the bathroom or Clavis in my bed.20Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4TkgjAWjs9
