x
The library was empty when I returned from dropping the dishes off at the kitchens. I swept the crumbs off the sofa, an area that didn’t get my attention while Prince Nokto was sitting on it, and set about sweeping the rug. Four thirty, the clock said. I’d spent nearly the entire day with at least one prince, and at one point, all of them. It wasn’t as stressful today as it had been before, probably because I was getting to know them better.
I had no business getting to know a prince at all.
That was the annoying bit. I was a maid, and it was frustrating how they all knew that, acknowledged it, and then proceeded to flirt and talk with me, anyway. They were used to getting their way. I understood that, and it explained the flirting. If they felt like bedding a maid, they did. I was lucky they took no for an answer. But that didn’t explain the way they talked to me. A conquest didn’t need to know anything about their backgrounds or their tangled, complicated relationships with each other. I didn’t need to know that.
Really, this was all Mother’s fault.
I looked just like her. She taught me everything I knew, including how to stand up for myself. It was her illness that drove me to look for a job with consistent hours and pay, and it was her illness that forced me to stay when I’d rather drop everything and run. She had to be the reason they were all opening up to me, too.
Well, most of them.
I sighed and moved on from the rug to sweeping the hardwood floor. There wasn’t enough time left for me to start anything else. I kept glancing at the book on the window seat across the room. Was I taking it home, or wasn’t I?
Yes, I was. It would make Mother happy, and if that meant I had to endure more teasing from her, so be it. Maybe I could get away with reading to her tonight instead of talking about my day. I didn’t know what I should and shouldn’t tell her. She was too optimistic, too hopeful, and I couldn’t risk following her train of thought. Better to stay firmly rooted in reality than get my hopes up.
The only escape I allowed myself was the escape into a good book, a place where there were no rules and anything could happen, which was why I asked Prince Chevalier if I could read one of his books. The main library was full of books, but most of them were dull, official tomes. Politics, geography, economics, facts, figures; all books that were important, especially to those in positions of authority. I wasn’t in a position of authority, and I wanted to read something fun. Prince Chevalier’s private collection was fun. Mostly fiction spanning all genres, with a smattering of nonfiction and poetry. Foreign books featured heavily, with enough in my language so that I didn’t feel limited for choice. Not that I would be here long enough to worry about running out of books to read. It took me so long to read Midnight Cinderella, thanks to limited time and plentiful interruptions.
I sighed and glanced at the clock again. Five minutes to five o’clock. I propped the broom and dustpan up next to the main door and headed back to Prince Chevalier’s library, unsure of what to expect from him. The last time I saw him, he wore a teasing smirk that meant trouble. But that was a couple of hours ago, and he might be irritable after listening to his brothers all afternoon. And then, of course, I had to consider that he’d been missing all day, and before that, he’d expressed concern about me and my mother. There was no knowing what I was getting into, but whatever it was, I just wanted to get it over with and get home.
He didn’t answer my knock, of course, and I didn’t wait for a response before I let myself in. I walked to the end table next to him to collect his dishes. He didn’t even look up from his book to acknowledge my presence.
“Is there anything else you need from me before I go, Prince Chevalier?” I asked, picking up his empty teacup and…
His plate was not empty. One bite of chocolate cake remained.
He looked up from his book, his icy blue eyes meeting mine, and the corner of his lip turned up just slightly.
Oh, no.
“Yes,” he said simply.
I wished I didn’t blush so easily. And I wished he didn’t have that mischievous sparkle in his eyes. I’d been fending off teasing and flirting from his brothers all day, and I didn’t have the energy for this.
“What is it, your highness?” I asked nervously, hoping against hope that I was wrong.
He stood up and took the plate from me. I backed away, biting my lip and turning twenty shades of pink. I was not wrong.
“Prince Chevalier, please…”
“I didn’t realize you were so sensitive to a little teasing,” he mused, loading the fork.
“A little teasing? That’s all you and your brothers do!”
Except it was different when he did it. He mocked, he insulted, but he didn’t tease. I’d been here long enough to know that. Nobody else got to see this side of him, and that knowledge put me at risk of thinking I actually meant something to him. It made my heart race and my face burn. Telling myself that it was all due to simple attraction and forced proximity didn’t help. I knew immediately he wanted to do this earlier, but he didn’t want his brothers to see the effect he had on me. An effect he knew he was having. An effect that I didn’t want him to have.
“Does this bother you so much?” he asked, holding the fork in front of my mouth.
“Yes, it does,” I replied, frustration building. “It would be a lot easier if you just ignored me or insulted me like everybody else.”
His entire expression changed in an instant. Mischief vanished as his eyes narrowed, and the cake dropped away from my face.
“What are you talking about?” he snapped.
I hadn’t meant to say that. I just wanted him to stop, to put distance between us, to prevent this from going any further, and now he had the same look of anger and frustration I saw the day he dealt with Jack, and that made my heart hurt even more.
“For somebody who accuses me of being naïve all the time, you can be pretty clueless, Prince Chevalier.”
“Explain.”
I shouldn’t have to explain. We shouldn’t be in this position. He shouldn’t be standing this close to me, and I shouldn’t be thinking that I should have just gone along with his teasing and eaten the cake. He was a prince, and I was a maid, and that was as far as it could ever go.
“Think about it. I have no father, no family name, no money, and I’m supposedly the bastard child of a prostitute. You’ve said before that the perceptions of others are inconsequential, but perception is everything. Truth is irrelevant. I am nothing to nobody, and I shouldn’t even be talking to you about this.”
He stared at me for a moment, his cold blue eyes narrowed, a slight furrow between his brows.
“And yet, here we are,” he finally said quietly.
Here we were. In his library, with me trapped against a bookcase, him towering over me, only a plate separating us, and the light but tantalizing smell of roses telling me to throw caution to the wind and let whatever this was happen.
“Yes, well, at least you’re consistent,” I said bitterly. “You never make any sense, and you have a way of making and breaking rules as you see fit. May I go now?”
He didn’t move. I looked away from his intense blue eyes, toward the door, biting my lip nervously and wishing he would just say something. It had to be past five o’clock now, and I still had to put my cleaning supplies away, drop his dishes off at the kitchens, get my coat from the laundry…
“Open your mouth.”
My eyes snapped back to his face, to his flashing blue eyes daring me to try refusing that stupid piece of cake again. I didn’t want to eat it, and I didn’t want him to keep pushing this. I wanted him to dismiss me and let me get out of this room, away from him, back to reality and a world where everything was hard and everything hurt. A world he didn’t know, and he didn’t understand.
I closed my eyes and sighed. Fine. If this would get him to leave me alone, fine.
I opened my eyes and my mouth. He slid the forkful of cake between my lips, and I closed my teeth over the fork, hating how I loved the way his eyes dropped to my mouth as he pulled it free. The chocolate was much more bitter than it had been earlier, or maybe that was just me. He held the plate out to me, and I took it, but his hand didn’t release it.
“You disobeyed my direct order.”
“What order?” I asked wearily, thinking it was a good thing I was taking a carriage, because I’d be very late otherwise.
“I told you to stop talking about yourself like that.”
Right. When I chewed him out two days ago and included self-directed insults to drive the hurt in deeper. But nothing I said just now was a lie, even if he didn’t want to hear it.
“It won’t happen again, your highness,” I said formally, hoping that would satisfy him.
“There will be consequences if it does,” he said coolly, releasing the plate and turning back to his chair.
“Yes, your highness. Goodbye.”
I didn’t stop to ponder that. Carriage or not, it was past five o’clock, and I needed to go home. I grabbed my cleaning supplies on my way out of the library without even thinking, busy running through my options for dinner tonight. The pantry was getting bare. I probably should have asked Jason to do some grocery shopping for me, too. But, then again, he wouldn’t know how to best stretch the money I had to buy the staples I needed. Mrs. Stotts would be the better option for that.
I put my cleaning supplies away, dropped the dishes off at the kitchens, and was darting through the rain to the carriage when I realized I forgot to get my coat. Oh, well. I wasn’t going back for it now. The rain wasn’t hard enough to drench me before I hopped into the carriage and pulled the door shut, and I could use Mother’s coat later when I took that bucket outside to clean it.
I wasn’t looking forward to that.
The carriage jolted forward. I slipped my shoes off and pulled my legs onto the seat, tucking my skirt around my feet for warmth. Outside the window was a world of gray. Gray sky, gray rain, gray stone walls, gray cobblestone bumping under the carriage wheels. I leaned my cheek against the carriage wall and closed my eyes. Midnight Cinderella lay forgotten on the window seat in the library, I realized. Well, I probably wouldn’t have time to read to Mother tonight, anyway.
The carriage jostled to a stop. I opened my eyes and looked back at the door as a familiar head of shaggy silver hair came into view.
“You don’t mind if I join you, do you, Ivetta?” Prince Nokto asked, his sly grin out in full force as he sat across from me and pulled the carriage door shut.
Yes, I minded very much, but it wasn’t my place to say that, and the carriage was already moving again, so my opinion was irrelevant.
“Not at all, your highness,” I said sweetly. “Are you going somewhere in the city?”
He leaned back against the wall across the narrow aisle from me, crossing his arms over his chest and stretching his long legs across the seat. They were almost too long to fit.
“No, just along for the ride,” he said casually. “This is comfortable, but it rules out cuddling. Unless you were to sit on my lap.”
“I’m fine over here, your highness,” I said coolly, looking away from his dark crimson eyes to the dull gray scenery passing us by.
He chuckled. “You would love nothing better than for all of us to leave you alone, wouldn’t you?”
“I’m glad somebody finally understands, your highness.”
“The problem is Chevalier,” he continued. “He actually likes you, and you can actually handle him. That makes you uniquely interesting.”
There was nothing I could say to that, although it explained a lot.
“It’s too bad, really,” he mused.
I looked over at him. His silver hair brushed across his near shoulder as he grinned at me with glittering crimson eyes.
“What is too bad, your highness?”
“That you’re caught between Chevalier and Clavis. It was bound to happen, of course. Clavis has been trying to best Chevalier since they were children, but there’s no competing with a genius. Chevalier’s always been physically stronger than Clavis, too. There is no contest.”
“Well, that’s not very fair, your highness,” I said immediately. “They’re completely different people.”
Prince Nokto chuckled again. “Don’t tell me you’re defending Clavis after he drugged you?”
“Of course not, your highness, but I just don’t understand why we’re even comparing them.”
He shrugged. “It’s a good question. Probably because they were the only two princes for a while. Jin didn’t come to the palace until after Yves was born, and Leon was too sick to leave his room until he was six or seven years old. And then, of course, Clavis’ mother worked for the queen, so they grew up as close as Licht and I did. But all eyes have been on Chevalier from the start. Nobody even noticed Clavis unless he was pulling a prank of some kind. Which is why I feel sorry for you.”
His crimson eyes slid across me, head to toe and back again, and there was something very dark about his smirk when his eyes came back to mine.
“Clavis’ creations range from benign to deadly. You’re lucky it was just a sleeping potion,” he said, his voice low and ominous. “And he associates with a very dangerous crowd. Chevalier is their target, and Clavis may not want you dead, but his friends probably won’t care if you get caught in the crossfire.”
A cold chill settled in my stomach and spread into my bones, and I looked back out the window. The gray gloom served as a perfect backdrop for this information, this reminder that the palace wasn’t safe, and the brothers eating, drinking, laughing, and talking in the library were potentially dangerous men who weren’t always on the best of terms with each other. It made my heart hurt again, because I did like them. They were annoying, overbearing, impulsive, spoiled, and nice. Underneath it all, they were nice to me. I didn’t want to see anything happen to any of them.
“Why are you telling me this, Prince Nokto?” I asked quietly.
He sighed. “Where is your coat?”
“What?” I asked, startled into looking back at him.
“Your coat. It’s raining.”
I bit my lip under his intense gaze and looked back at the window. “I forgot it, your highness.”
There was a rustling of fabric, and he tossed his coat over at me.
“You don’t look out for yourself,” he muttered, settling back against the carriage wall as I hugged his coat around me.
The rest of the carriage ride passed in silence.
ns 15.158.61.12da2
