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The next day was better. Back to normal. My normal was a dull ache in my chest whenever I thought of Mother. I didn’t know if that would ever go away, and I was afraid it would become a horrible, stabbing pain again when the anniversary of her death arrived, but I decided not to think or talk about it. It was easier to ignore the problem than it was to address it, and Chevalier seemed to think the same.
A lot had happened at last year’s gala, and not all of it was bad. He’d kissed me for the first time that week. He’d told me he loved me, and I’d told him I felt the same.
Mother had died between the kiss and the confession. Flandre abducted and tortured me within an inch of my life after.
Any distraction was welcome, and Jin and Theresa certainly provided that.
Jin had taken Theresa out for dinner following Clavis’ prank, and then they’d ended up in his room that night, and they’d missed breakfast the next day. The two had since become inseparable, and the unsolicited accounts of Theresa’s love life returned to my life, along with far more details about Jin than I ever wanted to know.
It was cute. At first.
But when Jin began appearing at my door while Theresa was supposed to be working, distracting her with sensual banter I didn’t want to hear and giving her simple greeting kisses that turned into passionate scenes I didn’t want to see, it wasn’t cute anymore.
I was happy for them, but it was clearly time for me to find a new maid. Preferably before Chevalier ran the new couple through with his sword while they were making out in our doorway. And he threatened to do that on multiple occasions.
Leon’s new relationship was less explicit and more tolerable. I didn’t think it would last, but he was having fun, and after all of his recent trouble, that was all that mattered.
The gala was upon us before I knew it, but several major announcements came in quick succession to further distract me.
Gilbert arrived with extra fanfare as the new emperor of Obsidian.
Luke and Arianna announced the date of their engagement ceremony.
And Jin proposed to Theresa.
That was a surprise. It seemed fast, except they’d known each other for years, and they’d been pretending not to like each other most of that time. Their relationship was long overdue, I thought, so maybe the proposal wasn’t rushing things as much as it first appeared. I decided to smile and congratulate her instead of questioning it, and I was doing just that when a shout interrupted us.
“Excuse me, Queen Ivetta!”
A maid was running toward us, and dread settled into my stomach at the sight. Children ran. Clavis ran, and people fleeing him ran. Otherwise, running was improper and not done.
She came to a stop in front of me, face flushed, gasping for breath. “We’re having some difficulty with Lord Harrison.”
I stifled a groan. Lord Harrison was a rude, unreasonable, unpleasant man whose father had been a friend of the last king, and he thought that connection entitled him to bad behavior.
“What kind of difficulty?”
“He’s giving Melanie a hard time.”
I frowned. Melanie was the newest addition to the palace staff and a girl of only sixteen years old. She was a hard worker and very competent, but she was also painfully shy. I hadn’t assigned her to Lord Harrison.
I left Theresa and steeled myself for an ugly scene.
It wasn’t hard to find. Lord Harrison was keeping up a steady stream of insults shouted at the top of his lungs. He was red-faced, towering over Melanie, spittle flying from his lips as she cowered against the wall, and my blood was already boiling. I’d wanted an opportunity to teach him a lesson, but not this way. Maintaining my composure would not be easy in this situation.
“What seems to be the trouble?” I asked in a pleasant voice.
“This maid is incompetent!”
I turned slightly away from him, a purposeful dismissal, and I addressed Melanie. She was trembling, her eyes fixed on the floor.
“Melanie?”
“H-he is displeased about his lunch order.”
“Displeased? She ruined it!” he roared, and then he listed everything that was wrong with it. When he’d run out of things to complain about, he moved on to the state of his room.
I finally interrupted him with a resigned sigh and a wave of my hand for Melanie. “I think I get the picture. Melanie, you may go.”
She ran away without regard for propriety, and I had to remind myself to remain calm. I needed the high ground.
“I demand she be disciplined!”
“Lord Harrison,” I began, holding my smile through a Herculean effort, “if you had taken the time to notice, she is not your maid. From what you have told me, it would seem everything was done to your specifications, but nothing is good enough. Am I correct?”
His face twisted. “I should have expected this from a maid playing dress-up!”
Julius stepped forward, his hand on the hilt of his sword. I held out a hand to stop him.
“Whatever you may think of me personally, Lord Harrison, I am your queen, and you will treat me with respect.”
“You will never be the queen in my eyes! You’re nothing but a cheap whore who seduced the only member of the royal family worth his salt!”
The man was digging his own grave. He was lucky Chevalier wasn’t here, or he’d be headless already.
“Stand down, Julius,” I said, reining him in again. “Lord Harrison is airing his grievances against the royal family.”
“The royal family? Ha! They’re nothing but a bunch of commoners, slaves, and traitors, and they’re going to bring Rhodolite to ruin!”
Obviously. Peace and prosperity were terrible for the kingdom. But there was no use in trying to reason with him, and he had just given me everything I needed to put him in his place.
“Are you finished, Mr. Harrison?”
“Lord Harrison,” he said through clenched teeth.
“No, I don’t think so. You have just insulted the entire royal family, and while I don’t know to whose jurisdiction you belong, I know you will not be allowed to keep your title after this.”
“Why, you—don’t you know who my father is?”
“You have two choices, Mr. Harrison,” I continued speaking over him. “You may leave of your own volition, or my guards will escort you out of the palace.”
He was seething, his eyes bugging out of his red face. He took a menacing step toward me, and Julius had the tip of his sword at the man’s throat in a flash.
“How interesting. You have chosen a third option, which is to spend some time in our dungeons. Take him away, Julius.”
“With pleasure, my Queen.”
He grabbed Harrison by the back of his collar and dragged him down the hallway, and I turned away, fuming inside as the shouted insults continued behind me. But I had to maintain my calm façade. Something like this was sure to attract attention, and we had indeed gathered an audience. Servants, guards, nobility, probably a prince or two, but the only face I cared to see was Chevalier.
And there he was, pushing through the crowd.
I wanted nothing more than to collapse into his arms and let him handle it from here, but that would have undermined my position, so I turned to my remaining guard. “Mark, please assist Julius.”
“Gladly, your highness.”
“Edith, please prepare Mr. Harrison’s room for another guest,” I ordered the nearest maid.
She dipped into a deep curtsey. “Yes, your highness. What of his belongings?”
That was a good question. Burning them wasn’t appropriate, especially since I was demonstrating I was the better person.
“Take them to Sariel’s office. Wendy, please go check on Melanie. Tell her she has the rest of the day off. I’ll speak with her tomorrow.”
“Yes, your highness.”
They were looking at me. Everybody was looking at me, not at Chevalier, although the awe and fear I saw in their eyes was what he normally received. This would boost my credibility significantly.
And I wanted it over.
“The rest of you will have to excuse us.” I took Chevalier’s arm and lowered my voice to ask, “Could we get some fresh air?”
Though he, too, wore his mask of cool collectedness, I saw the same look of pride in his eyes he wore after my first meeting with a diplomatic delegation. My heart swelled in my chest, but he didn’t say a word, and neither did I, until we reached the gardens. Then I let out a heavy sigh.
“What a mess.”
“You handled it well.”
“I did, didn’t I?” I smiled up at him. “There’s something very satisfying about being in a position of power over somebody like that. I’m used to being in the poor maid’s shoes, just having to stand there and take it.” I sighed again and leaned against his arm. “But I’m glad it’s over.”
We continued in silence to the gazebo furthest from the palace, and as we walked, I noticed an odd thing happening. The muscles in Chevalier’s arm were tensing. I looked up at him, noting the set of his jaw, the distant look in his narrowed blue eyes, and I knew something other than Harrison was bothering him. I couldn’t fathom what, though.
“Chevalier? Is something wrong?” I finally asked when we stepped into the gazebo’s shade.
He pulled free from me and walked a few steps away, keeping his back to me. “I don’t understand you.”
I bit my lip and fidgeted with my skirt. “Um… What don’t you understand?”
“You know what day it is.”
I had to think about it for a moment, and then I realized. This was the fourth day of the gala. The anniversary of my mother’s death was last night, but I hadn’t even thought about it because Theresa had tackled me in the hallway, squealing about Jin’s proposal. And I hadn’t thought about it at all today, either.
“Why doesn’t it bother you?” Chevalier asked, turning to look at me with piercing blue eyes.
I opened my mouth to answer, closed it, and opened it again. Then I gave him a helpless shrug. “I… I don’t know.”
He walked up to me, grabbing my arms and holding my eyes captive with an intense gaze. “How do I know when that will happen again? How do I stop it from happening, Ivetta?”
There was something pleading in his voice, a desperation I wasn’t sure I’d heard before. It tugged at my heart, and I stepped forward, hugging him tightly.
“I don’t know, Chevalier. I didn’t know it would happen before. Maybe it won’t happen again. I don’t know.”
He returned the hug with a crushing embrace, as if he were holding me together, or…
Or maybe as if he were afraid to let me go. Afraid to lose me.
Was there more to this?
“Chevalier?” I hesitated, and then I asked, “Are you worried about the next few days?”
He nuzzled into my hair. “Why would I be?”
“I just thought… maybe you were thinking about… about when Flandre abducted me.”
He stiffened, and I knew that was it.
I squeezed him tighter. “I’m not going anywhere, Chevalier.”
“No, you’re not.” He scooped me up and carried me to the bench at the back of the gazebo, and when he sat down with me on his lap, the look in his eyes made a million butterflies take flight in my stomach. “You’re staying right here.”
His kiss was passionate and possessive. I kissed him back, knowing he needed reassurance, knowing the best way to give him that wasn’t with words. It didn’t matter that we were outside. We were in a private area, and he needed this.
I pulled up my skirt, shifting to straddle his lap and wrap my arms around his neck as his heated lips met mine again and again. He ran his hands up my sides, pressed them into my back, slid them down to my hips, as if to confirm I was still here with him, still in one piece. One hand went down to my knee and up under my skirt, and I tangled my fingers in his blonde hair, my knees tightening around his thighs as a shiver ran through my entire body.
When he stopped to take a breath, I pushed back on his shoulders, panting for air. “Maybe we should tone this down a bit.”
He smirked. “Is that what you want, little dove?”
His hands hooked around my thighs, and he leaned back against the bench, taunting me with those smoldering blue eyes, the cocky smirk on those delicious lips, the fingers digging into my skin. The way his eyes roamed across me made me breathless with anticipation.
I pushed myself up on my knees and leaned over him, cupping his face in my hands, and then our tongues were dancing together again, our gasped breaths filling the rose-scented air. His hands came up to my waist, supporting me when I had to stop to catch my breath so he could keep going, leaving a trail of wet kisses down my chin to my throat. I tilted my head back and clutched at his shirt, lost in the sensations. A low moan escaped me when his lips reached my collarbone.
He chuckled. “Melting already?”
“Chevalier…”
He pulled me down and brought his lips to my ear, his hot breath warming my flushed skin even more, his low purr thrumming through my entire body. “I don’t want you out of my sight, Ivetta.”
I felt his fingers untying the top lace of my dress, and I attempted one feeble protest. “Chevalier—”
He pulled my collar aside to expose one shoulder. “Not until the gala is over.”
Then his lips descended again, covering me in kisses, his teeth nibbling at my skin and sending tremors up and down my spine, and I had no resistance left.
“Oh, Chevalier…”
Voices drifted to us on the breeze, indistinct and far away. I gripped his shoulders, too far gone to try stopping his magic. His touch was forceful yet gentle, his kisses honey and spice, and that voice—when he used that voice on me, everything in the world disappeared. I moaned again, dizzy from a kiss that captured my mouth and demanded surrender, arching into a caress that teased me with the promise of so much more, and then he pushed me back, groaning in frustration.
“We’re going inside.”
I stared at him, still in a fog, as he grabbed my collar and straightened it. He tied the lace at the back of my dress, his eyes struggling to avoid looking at my heaving chest, and all I could see were those swollen lips, lips I wanted to taste again. When he stood, he had to hold me steady for a moment until my legs remembered how to work. He was breathing as hard as I was.
His arm looped around my waist, his hand settled on my hip, and I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t speak to him during that fevered walk back to the palace. Not until we were back in our room and his lips were on me again.
“Chevalier… mm… I’m yours, and… I’m not… going… anywhere…”
“Say it again.”
“Mm, Chevalier…"18Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM6K17Lgufc
