32. Nora
32
Nora
“ I ’m suddenly feeling quite heated. I feel so foolish, I think I may need to step away from judging eyes to collect myself. Is there some place I can use to take a moment?” When my pleading gaze met hers, she briskly nodded.
“Yes, of course, Miss. This way.”
I followed the server through the energetic room, and the armor studded guards by the door only briefly glanced my way. Having a uniformed staff member acting as my chaperone didn’t raise any suspicions. A couple lefts, followed by a right, led us to an alcove of archways open to the outdoors.
Thinking I could have studied the halls and room locations to recreate blueprints for Dee had been over-zealous. This building was massive. Even with all the guards stationed in and around the ballroom, they still littered this gods damned castle. Finding privacy so I could snoop was off the table.
The midday sun streamed through, reflecting off the posted guard’s armor.
“Miss has overheated in the packed ballroom. She requires a moment of fresh air.” Her rueful gaze ran over my purple, blotchy torso, an attempt to garner sympathy with the men.
The guards exchanged a glance before one nodded in approval.
“I shall leave you here, Miss. The gardens are enclosed, so you are safe from prying eyes. Go ahead and collect yourself. If you need, ask one of the servers for club soda upon your return. For the stain.” She gave a soft smile. With that, she curtsied and shuffled back down the hall.
Standing before the two guards, I offered a simple smile before bowing my head low as I demurely walked past them into the gardens. The afternoon sun beat down, and I took a moment to bask in the illuminating light, angling my face toward the cloudless sky.
I inhaled an invigorating breath. So far, so good. I’d gathered some information regarding the castle’s plans over the coming weeks, and if I played my cards right upon my return, I might be able to convince someone to show me where the next event will take place. Might be possible, seeing as I coerced a staffer to bring me to the lush castle gardens.
I should really get paid for this. I’m quite good.
Deciding I should enjoy the lovely castle gardens before risking getting thrown into the castle dungeons, I meandered around the stone pathways framed with newly sprouting shrubbery and flowers emerging from their winter slumber.
My former life of oppression had started melting, finally allowing me to grow like a seedling breaking ground. Though I feared the consequences, it would almost be worse to continue living the way I had been. At least this way, if I died, I got a chance to actually live the way a soul was meant to. Flourishing, blossoming, having hope, something to believe in.
“Lady Nora?”
I jumped from the startle, whipping around to have the dread in my soul validated when that smooth, lustrous, deep voice said my name. Prince Nicholas stood mere feet from me, dressed in material so fine it glimmered in the sun. I hadn’t even heard him approach, and I cursed myself for being too immersed in my thoughts. I’d had no chance to run or hide.
My pulse beat heavily in my ears, and I dropped into the clumsiest curtsy to have ever been curtsied. My ankles wobbled as I fumbled to spread my skirts to my side. “Sir prince,” I spat out.
Sir prince? The flame of embarrassment engulfed me, and I wondered if an actual flame would be less painful.
“Please, Nicholas, remember?” His steps scuffed along the stones until the tips of his shiny leather boots came into view. “Enough of that bowing,” he muttered.
I slowly raised myself, aware of each notch in my spine that straightened until I stood upright before him. What were the chances he’d be out here? I swallowed the hard lump in my throat. Why did I think I could pull something like this off and get away scot free?
“What are you doing here?” My curiosity couldn’t be reined.
“In my own gardens?” His eyes creased in that playful, charming way of his, and I think some of my internal ice melted. “I think that question is more appropriately pointed at you.” With his hands clasped behind his back, he exuded a casual grace, a strength that nearly eclipsed my confidence.
I feared I’d become a transparent vessel, and he could see my soul, all my plans and deceptions. “I-uh, came out for some air.” My mouth instantly became a desert. Gods, was the sun always this hot?
“I see you had a run in with some punch? I understand what that’s like. Awfully hostile beverage.”
I hadn’t noticed that when he smiled, a true, big smile, that his right cheek pulled into a dimple. My own lips started curling. His joy was a living thing that I breathed in, and in that moment, there was no castle. There was no ball, there was no plan to deliver retribution. My unbridled laughter surrounded both of us as I recalled how I’d ruined his suit with the same punch. How ironic.
“Maybe you should stop serving this.” I gestured to the darkening splotch atop my lavender dress.
“Oh, I don’t know.” He shifted on his feet, taking in the fresh air of spring. “Without it, I might miss out on scintillating conversation.” As if the sky were a work of art, he studied the expanse before returning his piercing, thoroughly molten gaze to mine.
My heart skipped a beat, and I scrambled to steady my breathing, lest it communicated something I didn’t want known. Why did that all too alluring smile make my knees feel wobbly?
“Though I must say, I am a bit jealous,” he added, and my eyebrows contorted into a confused expression. “You do wear it better than I.”
Sizzling. My skin was sizzling under the fiery stare that crowned his white smile. There was no hoping my cheeks remained their usual ivory after that. Desperate to change the subject, I blurted out, “You remembered my name.”
“Does that surprise you?” An unbothered, cool question.
“It’s quite an impressive skill for a prince to remember all the names and faces of hundreds of attendees from his closest cities and towns.”
His lips quirked to the side, and he leaned in ever so slightly to say, “Only the memorable ones, but don’t tell my counselor. He’ll make me memorize hundreds of portraits.” When he shifted back, his height felt ensconcing.
“Besides, not many chaperones indulge me in honest conversation, and I must admit, it was one of the best I’ve had in the castle in a while.” Stress skirted across his brow so quickly I almost doubted seeing it before he yielded to his former convivial air.
“Would you settle for an honest conversation from an attendee today, Your Highness?”
His eyes flashed bright. “Attendee today?” He shifted, partly angling himself away, and it made me question if he thought my change in status might spur me to bite him or something.
“I am.” My gaze dropped to the stony ground between us before raising it back up from underneath my lashes. Was this….was I flirting with him? My stomach danced in rhythm with the orchestra’s bass that thudded through the castle halls.
This is dangerous, Nora. You shouldn’t be engaging with him like this. Do you want to be tossed into the castle dungeon?!
He straightened before me, then bent at the waist in a cordial bow. I panicked and fumbled into another curtsy. The decadence of his laugh satisfied me in a way no amount of sweets in that hall could as he reached out his hands between us. “I am honored you accepted my personal invitation. Please, no more of that. That’s an order from your prince.” There was a mischievous twinkle in his eye.
That statement should have filled me with an unquenchable rage. Instead, gravity loosed its tether on me, and it felt like I was floating.
“Don’t expect a similar order from me. I actually like you bowing to me.” My smile faltered, fearing I’d gone too far. Damn it, Nora.
“Then I shall do it more often.”
An unidentifiable type of tension settled between us as we held each other’s stare. I cleared my throat, breaking the silence. “Shouldn’t the host be attending his ball?” I tossed my glance over his shoulder toward the ballroom.
He twisted his torso, following my direction before facing me once more. “Up for that honest conversation?”
Present me information on a silver platter? Yes, please. “Of course.” My lips twitched into an encouraging smirk.
He sighed and began strolling along the cobbled stone path. Stopping at my side, he extended his arm. Bewilderment squeezed my chest as I watched mine link with his, hardly believing as I wrapped around his powerfully built yet inviting arm. Even through the fabric of his finely made suit jacket, his arm was laden with muscle. We began a leisurely stroll, no apparent destination or timeline.
“Affairs like this…” He made a sweeping motion with his hand back toward the castle now growing further behind us with each step into the gardens. “I don’t relish in.”
Of all the things I thought he might say, something charming to make me swoon again, or something resembling disappointment that it wasn’t grander, his admission struck me as odd. “Why not?”
Rays of sun continued to fall upon us, negating the near lifted chill in the air. Our feet scuffed against the stone, the only sound besides birds perched in some of the surrounding trees. The music faded from earshot, the reminder becoming louder that I shouldn’t be out here, drawing attention to myself from the one person who had the power to destroy me with the snap of his fingers. My hip suddenly felt too light, missing the weight of my dagger and the protection it offered.
“There are a lot of things I should be doing with my time,” he said. “I have goals and desires that require concentrated efforts. Events such as this, they’re a requirement for my position. While they are pleasing to the eye, I see the work and the resources it requires to put something like this together and I can’t help but feel burdened by it, instead of grateful.”
“Burdened? By a glamorous party and beautiful women throwing themselves at your feet?”
He chuckled. “Yes, I suppose it sounds pitiful. I just…of all the things I wish to accomplish during my reign, I would rather change the lives of others than indulge my own.”
A boulder formed in my gut that had me wanting to burst at the seams. Help others? Was this man serious? After all the opportunities to help the people in my village, the resources he withheld, and the audacity to sink funds into parties for a queen, he still somehow made it about himself. The rising anger screamed so loudly in my head it drowned out the little voice telling me to play the part. I slid my arm out from under his, unable to stomach touching him for a moment longer.
“Yet there is still a ball happening inside.” I did my best to put a lid on the building tempest inside me, and every muscle in my body strained to contain it.
“No kingdom is ever truly run by one person. There are advisors and military leaders and allyship with other kingdoms that all play a factor. Though I may wish it different, the final decisions are made based on what is best for the kingdom as a whole. When there are lives at stake…”
For the first time since I’d met him, he struggled with what to say. I braced for the carefully calculated words that would probably tip me over the edge. Lives were at stake every day. More than once this past winter, a frozen body greeted the morning market goers. With each passing hour, starvation threatened to claim another innocent life. If it weren’t for Chol, they would have continued to suffer needlessly.
That was a man who truly cared to make a difference.
“The wrong decisions made by expensively dressed men tucked behind the safety of tall stone walls means that people suffer.” He threw a cutting glare toward the towering white structure that reached toward the sky, and his knuckles whitened from his balled fists.
Resentment encompassed his words, surrounding us in a blanket of shared bitterness. My raging tempest dulled, and for the first time, I considered he may in fact be telling the truth. That glimmer in his eye, I recognized it well. It was the flicker of desperation, sparked to life under the weight of being bound.
“Is there anything you need from me?” His attention swung back to me, glaring with an urgent intensity, as if he’d lift the castle from its foundations if I requested so.
It nearly forced me to take a step back. My tongue became too thick and dry to form appropriate words. “W-what, pardon?”
“Surely there are things you’re in need of, and I have far more than any man needs. Tell me.” It was like he’d already decided there was an answer, and he just had to uncover it.
My stomach chose that very moment to grumble, and even the guards stationed atop the garden path probably heard. His gaze burned with something like anger as his eyes dropped to my midsection, then back.
Things once so clear were now murky. How did I let myself end up here? If I asked him for ten of his finest horses, I was convinced he’d give them to me. I could ask for anything.
My mind envisioned a morning in our kitchen, stocked with food, and milk, and sugar for my coffee. A bowl of fruits piled high every morning, with sweet treats wrapped around the base. I nearly salivated at the thought. A couple of words in this moment could make that happen.
But the sweetness of those goodies would lose their flavor, knowing it came from him. The prince of this land who sits in a pool of his own inaction, then complains about being wet. The man who didn’t care enough to keep tabs on the families that littered the market streets enough to think an increase in the funds was needed, whether he knew of an issue with the payments or not.
No, I wouldn’t accept anything from him, because if I did, I would lose sight of what mattered. A better ruler. Before letting my resolve twist into something bitter, I fell into the role I came here for.
Preparing my voice to pour out sweetly like honey, I said, “All I really need, Nicholas, is some of those lovely pastries that are no doubt being gobbled up as we speak.” Using his name, without recognition of title, did exactly what I hoped it would.
Broke his concentration.
The tight muscles along his sharp jaw relaxed, and he dipped his head in an ever so royal fashion.
“Very well, Miss Nora. Allow me to escort you to them.” He offered his luxury wrapped arm, and it took all my restraint to not shred it with my fingernails. Instead, I plastered on a debutante’s smile as we strolled back through the gardens.
“Cousin! I should have expected you’d be sneaking out of that suffocating ballroom.” A finely dressed man waltzed into the gardens, sauntering with all the swagger of entitlement that told me he held rank. Royalty.
The greeting replayed in my mind—a cousin. He wore garb similar to Nicholas, a pristine cream jacket donned with red epaulets, while Nicholas sported Highcrest blue with silver accents. His skin held a deeper tan complexion, something earned from time in the sun. That also explained his nearly white, sun-bleached short hair. His voice lilted in a way that let me know he didn’t hail from here, or one of the surrounding kingdoms.
“Nothing gets past you, does it?” Was that a slight hint of annoyance I detected in Nicholas’s response? That deep cadence called to something familiar that I couldn’t place, but I kept my focus on the interaction unfolding before me. Did Dee know another royal had come into town? This afternoon kept getting juicier.
Regardless, the cousin only laughed. “Ricks sent me to retrieve you. It’s your time to shine .” He held an imaginary dance partner and spun before splaying his hands wide toward us. “Although, seems you’ve already found your first dance partner?”
Insinuation that the prince and I held any sort of preferential connection in his bidding for a queen sent a rapid blush to my cheeks. “No, no,” I spat out, trying to toss the attention thrown at me away as quickly as it came. “I was just getting some fresh air, which I actually think I’ve had my fill of. If you’ll excuse me.” Nearly stumbling on two jerky curtsies toward the men, my panicked feet tread quickly over the stones while I rushed inside, desperately seeking the shadows of the ballroom.