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Lying in bed all the time was really boring.
Everybody tried to make it tolerable. The doctor, chatting away as he tended to me, coaxing me into doing exercises that my body told me it didn’t want to do. Theresa, regaling me with tales of her love life as she ran through the male servants on the estate like water. The princes, alternating who came to visit me and who stayed at the palace. Belle, coming for another visit to catch up and talk about the princes as the time drew nearer for the day when she had to decide who would be the next king.
And Prince Chevalier, of course. Who still gave me butterflies with a single look. His kisses were still gentle and infrequent, which was well enough, because he somehow surprised me every time. A single touch of his hand could still wipe every thought from my mind. I wasn’t even close to getting over what Theresa dubbed the shy, innocent stage, and it didn’t help that he spent nearly all his spare time with me when he was at the estate. Other than the morning following his night ride, he slept in his own room, but if he was awake and done with his work, he was in my room, keeping me company. Talking, reading the books he brought from the palace for me, surprising me with little gifts that just made me smile - he spoiled me when he was there, and he ensured his brothers spoiled me when he was gone, too.
It was all wonderful.
Except I was still stuck in bed, still very limited in my movements, and when everybody left, still unable to do more than lie there and think.
My thoughts weren’t always good company.
I tried to keep them positive, but the littlest thing could trigger the darkest memories. The Stotts’ latest letter, for example. Rachel penned a few lines herself in an adorable, childish hand marked by backward letters and misspelled words, saying she missed me and if I saw her Prince Charming, would I tell him to visit her? It was cute when Prince Chevalier read it to me, but later, when I was alone, it bothered me. Prince Licht was the only one of Prince Chevalier’s brothers who hadn’t come to visit me yet, and I suspected that was due to him blaming himself for what happened to me, the same way he blamed himself for any misfortune that happened around him. I remembered the bloody dagger in his room, the bandages around his arms, and suddenly, I was back in the dungeon, screaming until my throat was raw as another bloody dagger cut my arms open.
Alone was an awful place to be.
“Ready to go?” Prince Nokto asked, strolling into my room one morning after I finished breakfast.
“Go?”
I was just starting the fourth week of my recovery, and as much as I wanted a change of scenery, the doctor had given no indication I was ready for travel. Neither had Prince Chevalier, who left a few days ago.
“Prince Nokto, I think it would be best to wait until after she’s rested a while,” the doctor interjected, gathering my breakfast tray.
But apparently, they’d all been talking about it without my input. Not that I was upset.
“We’re leaving?” I asked excitedly.
Prince Nokto shrugged and flopped down on the sofa. “When your keeper gives his permission,” he said dryly.
“But I can rest in the carriage, can’t I?”
The doctor’s mustache twitched. “You’re not ready for one long trip,” he said sternly. “Especially on bumpy roads.”
“Which is why Chevalier has had Leon fixing the roads for the past two weeks, and why he left a few days ago to ensure all the residences he selected along the route are prepared for our arrival whenever you decide she needs to stop,” Prince Nokto said lazily, picking up a letter from the stack on the end table and sliding it out of its envelope. “Fifteen minutes, an hour, two hours - wherever we end up, there’s a bed, supplies, and enough guards to hold off a sizable army until reinforcements arrive.”
“So, there’s nothing to worry about, and we can go,” I said hopefully. Prince Nokto’s crimson eyes flicked up from the letter to me, and he smirked, glancing over at the doctor, who was doing his best to look grumpy.
“We’re not going anywhere until you’re packed,” he said firmly.
“Ah yes, about that,” Prince Nokto said, sliding the letter back into its envelope and dropping it on the sofa as he stood up. “That would require luggage, wouldn’t it? And a bodyguard to escort you. I’m handy with a sword, but I’d rather battle it out with my wits any day. You’d probably be more comfortable with someone whose training borders on the obsessive,” he mused, walking casually to the door and opening it up.
“Took you long enough,” Prince Licht muttered, carrying a large wooden storage trunk into the room.
“Prince Licht!” I exclaimed.
His crimson eyes met mine briefly and then skittered away. I felt my smile fading as I watched him set the trunk on the floor, not looking at me, not speaking to me. We were back to the way things were before he started letting his guard down around me. I looked away from him to the trunk, disappointed, and then I realized the trunk looked familiar. It was the same size and shape as the trunk at my old house - but, then again, that was probably a standard size for a storage trunk. The highly polished wood of this trunk shone like new, too. It couldn’t be the same trunk that sat at the foot of the bed in my old house, faded and scuffed from years of wear and tear.
The floral engravings on its sides were so similar, though…
“Is that…”
“Yours? Yes, it is,” Prince Nokto said, flipping the lid open and grabbing Prince Licht’s arm as he retreated towards the door. “Where are you going? We still need to pack her things.”
Prince Licht yanked his arm free. “Fine,” he muttered. “The books should go at the bottom.”
“My thoughts exactly, which means - oh, look at this.”
Prince Nokto pulled out the dress Prince Chevalier had given me. I stared at it in shock. The last time I saw that dress was where I left it folded neatly atop the storage trunk in my house, ready for me to wear the next day when I moved into the palace. That dress came from my house, which meant that the trunk came from my house, too. It wasn’t just mine, because Prince Chevalier bought it for me. It was mine. My mother’s trunk.
“Oh, but maybe you’d rather wear this?” Prince Nokto interrupted my spiraling thoughts, smiling as he held another dress up. It was exactly the same as the first, but with a green skirt instead of a red skirt.
“I…that’s mine, too?” I asked in disbelief.
The doctor chuckled and took both dresses from Prince Nokto. “We can hardly have you going out in your nightgown, can we?”
“Well, no, but-”
“Now this explains a lot,” Prince Nokto continued, reaching into the trunk to pull out my mother’s Bible. “Tell me the truth. If it weren’t for this, you would have taken me up on my offer,” he said, his crimson eyes narrowed and teasing. Heat rushed to my cheeks, and I didn’t have any bruises left to hide my blush. It didn’t matter which ‘offer’ he was talking about. They were all salacious propositions, and I couldn’t believe he'd just asked me that question in front of the doctor and Prince Licht.
“Hey!” Prince Nokto exclaimed, jerking his hand back just before Prince Licht dropped a stack of books in the trunk.
“They were getting heavy,” Prince Licht said flatly, turning his back on his brother’s glare and heading back to the stacks piled up next to the sofa.
Prince Nokto shook his head and reached back into the trunk. “Are we bothering with these?” he asked, pulling out my undergarments. “She’ll just be in the carriage-”
“Give me those,” the doctor said, snatching them from Prince Nokto’s hand while I wished I could disappear.
“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” he said, his smirk back in place. “Although I’ll have to talk to Chevalier about getting you an upgrade. There’s a shop in the city I recommend highly-”
The door burst open, freezing Prince Licht in place with another stack of books poised above his brother’s head. Theresa stood in the doorway, seething, her normally bright green eyes as fiery as her messy red curls.
“I hate men!” she announced. Her eyes swept the room, and she snapped, “What are all these men doing here?”
Suddenly, everybody except me was cringing under her withering glare, and the weight of my mortification didn’t seem so heavy anymore.
“We’re getting ready to leave,” I explained hesitantly.
“Good. I don’t want to stay here another minute,” she said, storming up to the doctor and grabbing my clothes from him. “You’re all alike,” she accused him before she disappeared into the bathroom.
Prince Nokto relaxed as soon as she was out of sight. “Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Or in the wrong bed.”
“Are you coming?” she shouted from the bathroom, making him flinch and tense up again.
“I’m sure she’ll calm down soon,” I reassured everybody as the doctor picked me up.
“If she doesn’t, she’s riding with the luggage,” he muttered.
Theresa’s back was to us when we entered the bathroom. She had my clothes draped over the edge of the bathtub, and she spun to face us, gesturing wildly at the garments.
“What is this nonsense?” she fumed. “Prince Chevalier can buy you a nice dress, but he can’t buy you proper underwear?”
“Well, he’s never seen my underwear,” I protested, back to wishing I could disappear as my cooling cheeks flared with heat all over again.
“Don’t rub it in,” she spat. “We’re throwing these away.”
“But-”
“Practicality is more important than modesty in this instance,” the doctor interrupted my protest. “More layers means more time and effort getting dressed and undressed, and traveling will test your body enough.”
“Hmph.” Theresa shot the doctor a glare while he helped me out of my nightgown. “I guess you’re fine now, but you were probably a wolf in your day, too.”
“My wife of forty years died last summer,” the doctor replied, his voice icier than I’d ever heard it.
Theresa groaned and collapsed on the floor, putting her face in her hands. “And she was probably the only woman you ever dated, wasn’t she? Ugh, why can’t I find these men, Ivetta?”
“Things didn’t go well with…Jeffrey?” I asked, hoping I had the name right.
“It’s Caleb, and I just found him in a broom closet with another woman, so you tell me,” she grumbled.
“Which dress do you want to wear?” the doctor asked me in his usual kind tone, all iciness gone.
“Oh, um, I don’t know. I didn’t even know he got me the one with the green skirt, and I only wore the red one once, the day before…”
“He bought them at the same time,” Theresa said, dropping her hands from her face and standing up. “Here. Wear this one. Save the green one until we get to the palace. He had to special order that one for you, so you’d better be wearing it when he sees you.”
“How do you know that?” I gasped.
“Because I got the delivery from the dress shop while he was here sleeping on the sofa, waiting for you to wake up,” Theresa explained. “It’s almost sickening how much he loves you.”
I stared numbly at the dress with the green skirt while the doctor helped me into the one with the red skirt. Prince Chevalier had given me gifts before, but somehow, this seemed different. He had that dress specially made for me. And he had it delivered to me in my mother’s trunk, refinished to look as good as new. I didn’t know how to handle that. Part of me wanted to burst into tears, another part wanted to jump up and down, and another part couldn’t move.
That last part was winning.
“You’ll find the right person eventually,” the doctor was saying to Theresa.
“Does that mean you have a son?” she asked, perking up.
He chuckled. “Afraid not.”
She sighed heavily. “Maybe I should ask Prince Licht out. I know I won’t find him in any broom closet. How do you want your hair done, Ivetta?”
“What?” I asked, startled out of my stupor.
“Your hair,” she repeated. “How do you want it done?”
“I…what do you mean?”
She smiled and shook her head. “I’m your maid. That’s something maids do for their mistresses,” she explained patiently.
“Why can’t we just leave it down?”
She laughed. “If that’s what you want, Ivetta, we’ll leave it down. Let’s go to the bedroom. I’ll brush your hair while the men pack whatever you need from the bathroom.”
I nodded. The doctor scooped me up and carried me out to the bedroom, where Prince Nokto lay sprawled across the sofa and Prince Licht stood leaning against the wall next to the window, looking out at the flowers blooming in the window box. The stacks of books next to the sofa and the pile of letters on the end table were gone, as were the assorted knick knacks that had appeared over the past few weeks to decorate the furniture and walls.
“Ready?” Prince Nokto asked.
“Go pack the bathroom,” Theresa ordered him.
“You’re the maid,” he threw back at her.
She took a single menacing step toward him, brandishing my hairbrush like a weapon, and he leapt to his feet.
“Is she always like this?” he asked Prince Licht as they hurried into the bathroom. The doctor set me on the bed and followed at a quick pace.
Theresa giggled and came over to me, twirling the hairbrush between her fingers. “How long do you think I can keep this up before somebody fires me?"
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