Chapter 79
AN UNEXPECTED MEETING, A ROGUE SCHEME, AND DIRK IS SWORN TO SILENCE
With nothing left to do for the rest of the day except become true tourists and holidayers, Millie and Bradley headed for the beach. The townsfolk would hear nothing about their paying customers assisting in the beach clean-up efforts and shooed them away.
“I suppose we could just promenade,” Bradley suggested, gesturing to the others doing the same.
“Are you sure? We could always stop in at Midge’s and see if she has something that could help you.”
“Like what? The third eye of a three-eyed goat or a giant rabbit’s lucky left foot? Pfft.”
“I did see a jar full of eyes on one of her shelves in there.”
Bradley stopped, swiveled a newfound look of respect and horror at the moss-covered establishment. “Really?”
She swatted his arm. “Of course not. She’s a respectable swamp witch.” The princess kept walking. “That jar’s probably hidden under the counter with the rest of her freaky wares.”
“A promenade it is, then.”
A large part of him protested this decision—he should be spending every waking moment devoted to lifting his curse—but the smaller, stronger part of him insisted on a break. A clearing of the mind. A precious moment where he could just be again.
Coming aside her, Bradley gave the brim of Millie’s hat a playful flick. “Is this enough to protect you from freckling? Should we return to The Dreary Pelican for your parasol?”
“Whatever for?” She swept the auburn curls over her shoulder. “You said my freckles enhanced my beauty.”
Bradley flushed. “I did say that, didn’t I?”
“You are free to compliment me at any time, Bradley Donmarin. Or kiss me.”
The apprentice tripped on nothing at all, caught himself, and smoothed down the front of his robe.
Despite the vulnerability of yesterday, he still found the princess’s lack of subtlety in this matter pitching him off-balance.
He’d been taught a man pursued a woman, not the other way around.
Like birds. The male tern danced and flew prettily and offered his female fish after fish to prove his worthiness and his ability to provide.
Bradley didn’t consider himself worthy yet, so he would keep his feathers to himself.
She rescued them from the awkwardness growing between them by declaring, “Now give me your arm. My feet are absolutely ruined for these pointy shoes and I will not be seen wobbling.”
Millie slipped her gloved hand into the crook of his elbow, but he didn’t protest the touch. He tightened his arm against his ribs to keep her closer. Secure. Safe.
When he chanced a glance down at her to make sure she was comfortable with this more intimate connection, pink had bloomed upon her cheeks like carnations. For all her boldness about kisses and compliments, she was still a woman who yearned to be wooed.
“I say,” she exclaimed softly, freezing to a halt. “Is that Lord Robert Matcha?”
Bradley followed her gaze to a couple dressed as smartly as the princess herself not a stone’s throw further down the boardwalk.
The young woman shaded herself from the sun with a parasol the same lavender as her dress, and the lord in question, resplendent in mint green with coral accents, was as young as they were.
And staring at Millie as if she were a unicorn, that is to say, a rare, magnificent creature whose pearly horn gave the viewer pause.
“Matcha?” The surname rang an alarm bell in Bradley’s head, and he attempted to pull the princess back. “Isn’t that the family who rules Evertea? Amberly’s sworn enemy? That has to be Duke Evertea’s son!”
“It is,” she squealed with delight. “And only our parents are sworn enemies.” Millie flung up a gloved hand and waved. “Oh, Bobby! How are you? And congratulations on your appointment to Warden of the Tea Road.”
The apprentice grunted as the princess hauled him forward. They stopped just an arm’s length away from the couple, the lord still blinking in astonishment and the woman accompanying him trying to mask her nervousness with a pleasant smile.
“Princess Mildred,” he sputtered, finally remembering to bow. “Th-thank you. The position has been very fulfilling. But what are you doing here? Last I heard you were locked up away in a dragon’s tower!”
“Dirk the Dangerous is a very progressive captor. He believes in a good cup of tea and a princess with a healthy constitution, hence this promenade in the salt air. And what are you doing here? Last I heard, Evertea was preparing for war with Silverwald.”
The young lord gave an elegant snort. “We’ve been ‘almost at war’ with the elves for nearly a decade. And you know the threat of war doesn’t deter nobles from taking an obscene amount of holidays. Your time in that tower has clearly addled your brain.”
“Not nearly as much as this sun has addled yours. Whoever told you mint green was your color was obviously in dire need of offloading his inventory.”
The pair grinned at each other like old friends.
“Oh, and this is Mr. Donmarin, sorcerer apprentice and my chaperone,” Millie introduced. “And you must be Miss Coletta Lavender.” She smiled warmly at the young woman in the dress whose color matched her surname.
“I am, Your Highness.” The blonde bobbed a pretty curtsy and tightened her fingers where they rested on Lord Matcha’s arm.
“Millie,” she insisted.
“Oh!” Coletta glanced up to Lord Matcha as if for guidance on how to proceed or even in disbelief. “Thank you, Your— Millie.” She curtsied again with a crinkle of lavender taffeta.
“We’re not fifteen anymore,” the young lord chastised Millie quietly, glancing around, “and you are a princess, Your Highness. ‘Millie’ and ‘Bobby’ were fine when we were children, but I have a mustache now—”
“And it has filled in wonderfully. You must be very proud.”
“Thank you, I am. And you have a woman’s birthing hips.”
“Take that back, Bobby. Right now, or I’ll prick you with my hairpin.”
He ignored her threat. “Propriety demands we—”
“Oh pish posh.” Millie waved that ridiculous notion away.
“Isn’t it reprehensible how a handful of years plucks us from the genuineness of youth and into the tethers of polite society where all candidness is strangled out of us by starched collars and corset strings?
Aren’t you tired of the restraints others have forced upon us, Bobby?
” Millie’s gaze flicked to the lowborn woman on his arm.
Lord Matcha’s hand moved to cover Miss Lavender’s, and a little spark kindled in his eyes. “Yes, I heard rumor you’d gone rogue again. Millie.”
She grinned. “Would you care to join me? Last time was so much fun.” She offered him her hand but looked to his companion.
“I won’t keep him but a minute, Miss Lavender.
My chaperone Mr. Donmarin’s sense of propriety is more rigid than the spines of the royal guard on inspection day.
You have nothing untoward to fear from him. ”
Before Bradley could even protest, much less process what in the hells was happening, Millie whisked Bobby further down the boardwalk with a rustle of her petticoats, leaving Miss Lavender and him standing awkwardly an arm’s length apart.
He was quick to collect himself and gave the pretty young blonde a nod in greeting. Then he offered her his arm. “Shall we follow at a discreet distance and keep them out of trouble, Miss Lavender?”
She took his arm. “Following would be wise, but let us not interfere should they wish to get into trouble. The last time they did that worked out very well.”
It was then Bradley noticed the large diamond engagement ring on Coletta’s finger. “He’s the suitor who was in love with another woman,” he realized aloud.
“Yes.” Coletta blushed. “Princess Mildred refused to marry him and end the feud between our countries because of me. No matter where our lives lead, I will always love her for that.”
And that princess was currently leading—dragging, actually—the duke’s son into a stationery shop. Bradley and Lavender waited outside, and when the minutes ticked by, Lavender left to fetch them some ice cream from the nearby parlor. Vanilla-and-orange swirl.
They were halfway through enjoying their sweet treat when the pair emerged from the stationery shop, both smiling.
“What did you do?” Bradley asked immediately.
“With a tone like that,” the young Lord Matcha said, “I daresay Mr. Donmarin is less your chaperone and more your friend. Familiar with Millie’s antics, are you?”
“More than I’d like.” He lowered his ice cream cone to the princess’s height. “Here, so you can stop staring at it like one of those gulls.”
“Thanks!” Instead of claiming a lick with dainty swirl of her tongue, Millie bit off a whole mouthful.
Without thinking, the apprentice thumbed the smudge of ice cream away from the corner of the princess’s mouth and brought it to his tongue. Lord Matcha flushed and Miss Lavender hid her smile behind a lace-gloved hand at the familiarity of the gesture, not to mention the sensuality. Bradley froze.
“Thief,” Mutineer Millie declared. “How do you know I wasn’t saving that for later?”
Their companions tittered, and Bradley felt his face lifting into a smile. If more nobles and royals behaved like Bobby and Millie, perhaps he would’ve had friends amongst his peers at the College.
After a brief stop at the marines post for more secretive business between the two nobles, the four spent the rest of their day together, promenading, shopping—“Oh, look! They have raffia purses here just like Pocket’s!
”—swimming, and Millie purchased an entire bouquet of pink tulips to adorn her hat and a baguette to rip into pieces for the gulls.
When the sun began to set, Lord Matcha and Miss Lavender invited the two to join them at Crystal-Upon-the-Sea for scallop ceviche, but they had to be on their way to collect Dirk from the library.
The little dragon emerged shortly after they rung the bell, looking worn. “Well, I got the answers I needed. Finally.”
Renaldo loomed in the doorway behind him.
“Remember, Master Dirk, what you learned cannot be shared outside the dragon community. We keep record of who reads such texts should information leak. If you violate this trust, you will be brought forward to the dragon queens. And they are not ladies you’d like to meet outside a solstice or equinox ball.
“And you.” His attention sharpened on Millie. “I would ask you to refrain from speaking about the subject as well, Your Highness.”
She placed her hands on her hips. “You can certainly ask.”
The Komodo’s emerald eyes slitted.
“Whatever I know will only be shared with Master Dirk’s Designated Sorcerer, how’s that?”
“Sufficient, I suppose.”
Bradley lifted his arms, encouraging the Mini Red closer. “What do you need, Dirk?”
Dirk came and coiled around his best friend’s shoulders. Bradley grunted under the weight.
“I need to go home,” the dragon said. “Right now.”
Millie nodded. There was no protest to see one more seaside sunset or grab another ice cream cone or bid one last farewell to Lord Matcha and Miss Coletta. She simply said, “Then away we go.”
The three bid Renaldo a very good evening and returned to The Dreary Pelican to collect their things.
When Mr. Jameson tried to tell them about the late check-out fee, the princess, in wildly profane terms, told him exactly where he could shove that fee.
Then they hurried with their luggage to the western end of the boardwalk where the cargo net was hidden, lest the wretch call the marines on them.
Within minutes, the Mini Red had become a Great Red and they were in the air and headed for Ashburnum.
“All things considered,” Millie sighed as the boardwalk thinned to a thread in the sand behind them, “this was a lovely holiday by the sea.”