“I can’t do that either. If the king were to find out…” He trails off, but I can feel him starting to soften, and I go in for the kill.
“Please.Please.” My eyes beseech him, my throat thick as my eyes burn with unshed tears. My grip tightens on the bars. “He doesn’t belong in there. Let me take him home. Truly, I’m not here to cause a problem. I just want to take my dad home so I know he’s safe and cared for.”
After what feels like an eternity and another long, excruciatingly silent exchange with the guard next to him, he finally says, “Okay. Come with me.” The heavy gate opens, and I’m allowed in. “Stay close. I’m breaking all the rules.” His eyes meet mine, and his expression softens. “My grandfather had dementia like that, so I understand.”
“Thank you.”
Gratefully, I follow the guard along the long gravel path that leads to the entrance of the palace. Stepping over the threshold, I immediately get swept up in its history. Tapestries and ancient-looking rugs and walls adorned with oil paintings in massive frames and tall marble statues and gilded furnishings are everywhere I look. I can’t help but take it all in.
“Wait here, and don’t move or touch anything,” he warns. “I have to go and speak with the guard who found him, but I can’t take you down there.”
“Okay. I understand. I won’t move,” I promise.
With a mollified nod, he walks off, and I find myselfstanding alone in a long, sweeping room. I have no clue what it’s used for. It’s the most formal space I’ve ever seen, almost like a museum.
An oil painting of the current king and his family including the queen before her death catches my attention from where it sits high up on a mantle over a large fireplace. It’s of them in this very room, standing beside the Messalinian flag, their daughters tucked between them, Prince Zayer, a tiny baby in this, held in his mother’s arms.
The children are lovely, and the queen is gorgeous as I already knew, but there is something about the king that I can’t drag my eyes away from. Where the rest of his family is smiling, even the baby, the king’s expression is stoic and stately. Intimidating almost. As if he doesn’t have the luxury of time to waste on something as trivial as smiling for portraits.
Dark hair cropped closer on the sides and a bit longer on top, he’s all angled features with a sharp, square jaw, and his crystalline blue-gray eyes appear almost colorless in the painting. There is no doubt that he’s intensely handsome, but there’s something else about him. Something that I can’t quite put my finger on.
Maybe it’s that he’s faced more sorrow in his life than any person should ever face. What a heartache it must be to lose all that he’s lost and then lose his wife on top of that. They say he’s distant. Cruel and cold. He hardly ever makes public appearances now.
After all he’s endured and survived, I understand, even if I can’t relate.
Life has knocked me sideways and still, all I want is to go after it. I want adventure. I want love and passion and life to be what knocks me sideways next. I want to see and feel and explore all this world can offer.
But he’s a king, whereas I’m merely a woman. Hisresponsibilities are to his family and his kingdom. Mine are simply to myself and my father.
A noise startles me, and my head whips about, only to discover that I’m still alone. “Hello?” I call out tentatively, the sound hollow and cold in the vast, empty room. A sweep of uneasiness slithers through me, making me tense and a little edgy. I shouldn’t be here at all, and I wish the guard had left me outside instead of bringing me in here.
Reflexively, I take a step back and knock into a stand behind me. I feel it start to topple over, and I spin around, desperate to catch whatever it is before it crashes to the ground.
Only it’s not simply a stand. It’s a marble post holding a bust of a head on it. A heavy motherfucker made of stone that sways, rocking from side to side with the momentum of the teetering post before it all starts to tumble.
“Shit,” I screech, shooting out and practically diving for it. I manage with one hand to stop the stand from going over, only I’m no match for the bust. It crashes to the ground with a loud, resonatingbangthat reverberates off the high ceilings and hard surfaces. “Double shit. Oh my God.” Hysteria sweeps through me, and I fall to my knees, scooching inch by inch over to it, my heart thrashing in my chest and my hands clammy.
They’ll detain me, too.
I search left and right, and miraculously, I’m still alone. With any luck, I can pick this thing up and put it back without anyone being the wiser. Only the moment I lift it and twist the face around, I cringe and sag back onto my haunches as panic seizes me.
“Fuck.” This is bad. This is very, very bad.
3
BELLAMY
“You swore.” A voice comes from the side and my head whips around to find two girls standing by the far entrance of the room. The princesses, Phaedra and Sabrina. If I hadn’t just seen their likenesses in that painting even though they’re a few years older now, I’d know them anyway since I’ve read every piece of literature on this country. I’ve got a thing for history, and their family is full of it.
“I know,” I say breathlessly, startled that they’re here speaking to me. “I’m sorry. That was very rude of me to curse, but I broke this, and I was upset about it.” Because when it fell, the nose of the face cracked off. His freaking nose. Not some small, undetectable piece of him.
“That was our great-grandfather,” the older one, Phaedra, says in perfect English.
She comes my way, her steps filled with confidence, not the least bit wary about approaching a complete stranger sitting on the floor of her palace. Which, considering the guard just told me I’m not allowed near the royal family, is immensely disconcerting. I half want to get up and run from her, but I also can’t help but be curious about these princesses.
Phaedra’s not any older than six, but for someone so young, she exudes poise few can pull off. Her sweet face, all bright green eyes framed by blonde hair both girls clearly got from their mother, hovers over me before she kneels beside me.
“What are you doing in here? You don’t work in our palace.”
