A Dove's Tale

Chapter 68

It was hard to get lost in my thoughts when Prince Clavis was around. Not impossible, but hard. He prattled on constantly about this or that as the morning went on, and I tried to focus on him and my work, not on the clock and the library door. No word from Jason was a good thing, I reminded myself. He would have gone for the doctor right after I left, and if something was seriously wrong, he would have come to the palace right away. I didn’t need to worry. At noon, I’d go home, and I’d find out what was going on. Until then, I didn’t need to worry.

Unless he came, and Marge said she’d tell me, but she didn’t because she didn’t like me and I’d embarrassed her yesterday…

I nearly jumped out of my skin when the library door opened.

“Ivetta, calm down!” Prince Clavis interrupted himself, laughing from his position on a sofa with a clear view of the door. Not that he needed a clear view to know who the intruder was. The jangling and clanking of jewelry gave Prince Silvio away. I felt my shoulders slump with a mixture of disappointment and relief.

My head was a mess.

“Lady, I got a bone to pick with you,” Prince Silvio said, his sharp sea-blue eyes locking on me as soon as he stepped into the library.

“Hello to you, too,” Prince Clavis said dryly.

“Shut it,” Prince Silvio snapped at him, striding across the room toward me. “How is dealing with him any better than dealing with me?” he asked me, jabbing an index finger at Prince Clavis and a thumb at himself in quick succession.

“Prince Chevalier forced you out of your room this morning, didn’t he, your highness?” I guessed meekly. That would upset anybody, even if they weren’t a spoiled tyrant.

Prince Clavis burst out laughing.

“I thought I told you to shut it,” Prince Silvio snapped at him again, coming to a stop in front of me. “Yeah, he did, and I want an explanation.”

“Sorry, your highness. I had a rough morning, but I didn’t know he’d do that,” I said, dropping my gaze to the floor.

“You had a rough morning?” he asked, grabbing my chin and forcing me to meet his flashing blue eyes. “Did anybody grab you by the collar and drag you out of bed?”

My heart started pounding a warning, taking over the silence left hanging in the air when Prince Clavis’ laughter came to an abrupt stop.

“Sil, that’s enough,” he said, his voice hardening.

“No, I wanna hear her excuse,” Prince Silvio shot back at Prince Clavis. “So, what is it? What’s so important, Chevalier threw me out of my room to make his little maid happy?”

What was I supposed to say? I knew why Prince Silvio was mad, and I knew why Prince Chevalier kicked him out of his room, but I didn’t want to tell Prince Silvio about any of it. I bit my lip, staring up at his steely glare, and then Prince Clavis was suddenly right beside me, grabbing Prince Silvio’s wrist and ripping his hand away from me.

“You really don’t know the first thing about being a gentleman, do you?” he asked pleasantly, though his golden eyes were hard. I took a quick step back from Prince Silvio, grateful for Prince Clavis’ intervention but still unsure about my standing in this situation.

“What is with all of you?” Prince Silvio complained, yanking his wrist free from Prince Clavis. “Nobody goes to all this trouble for a maid.”

Prince Clavis reached back to throw his arm around my shoulder and pull me up to his side. “We’re going to have to tell him, Ivetta,” he said conspiratorially.

Because what would make me feel better than spilling my life story to Prince Silvio?

“Prince Clavis, I don’t-”

“We’re madly in love with each other,” Prince Clavis proclaimed, smirking. “She told Chev this morning, and he went ballistic because he’s insanely jealous. There, now you know.”

Fear and confusion evaporated in an instant. I rolled my eyes and shoved Prince Clavis away. “In your dreams.”

Prince Silvio laughed. I picked up my forgotten dust rag and turned my back on both of them.

“Isn’t it adorable how shy she is about it?” Prince Clavis asked. “You don’t have to keep pretending, Ivetta. Everybody already knows.”

“Finally, some entertainment,” Prince Silvio said, the whoomp of a cushion signifying him dropping heavily onto a sofa. “I got nothing to do until Jin gets back from giving Arianna a tour of Rhodolite.”

“Arianna is Sil’s cousin,” Prince Clavis explained to me.

“And a pain,” Prince Silvio added. “Ain’t no way Chevalier’s marrying her.”

So, that was it? We were just going to talk as if that never happened?

“Is she the Benitoitian princess Prince Nokto was telling me about, your highness?” I asked, deciding it was better to go with the flow than to question it.

“Why would Nokto tell you about her?” Prince Silvio asked.

I shrugged. “She came up in conversation, your highness,” I replied.

“Yeah. Conversation. Right,” Prince Silvio said dubiously.

I blushed automatically, but Prince Clavis was already talking before I could respond.

“Nokto and Ivetta spend a lot of time talking,” Prince Clavis said smoothly. “It’s the best he can get, since he keeps striking out with her. Because she only has eyes for me, of course.”

I shook my head. “You have a very active imagination, Prince Clavis.”

That was how the rest of the morning went. Prince Silvio and Prince Clavis did most of the talking, and whenever Prince Silvio made a comment or question that strayed into an area I didn’t want to discuss, Prince Clavis redirected the conversation with a joke about our imaginary relationship. It was an effective distraction mechanism. I quickly realized that while Prince Silvio was a brat, he wasn’t purposefully mean. He was blunt and said what he thought, without regard for how others perceived his words, because that’s how he’d always talked. Just like the Rhodolitian princes with their own bad habits. Their positions of authority had created an atmosphere where people were afraid to correct them.

Until I came along. A sassy maid who wouldn’t put up with their bad behavior. And, apparently, they liked that.

“It’s almost noon, Prince Clavis,” I interrupted the princes after a quick glance at the clock.

“So?” Prince Silvio asked from his position sprawled across a sofa, similar to yesterday morning, but without the obvious pain and discomfort of a hangover.

“So, we’ll be abandoning you to your own devices soon,” Prince Clavis replied, sitting on a sofa across from Prince Silvio with his feet propped up on the coffee table between them. “Unless you want him tagging along,” he added to me.

I shook my head. The thought of Prince Clavis coming to my house made me uncomfortable enough, and I didn’t want to hear Prince Silvio’s assessment of my living arrangements.

“Sorry, Prince Silvio.”

“Sorry for what?” he asked, annoyed. “Where are you going?”

It wouldn’t hurt to give him a brief explanation. Although I didn’t want him knowing anything about my personal life.

“I go home on my lunch break, your highness,” I said reluctantly.

“With Clavis?” he asked accusingly.

“Not…normally, your highness,” I said hesitantly.

“But since we officially declared our love today, she can’t bear the thought of going anywhere without me,” Prince Clavis interjected.

Prince Silvio rolled his eyes for me this time. “What’s the real reason?”

The library door opened at just the right moment. We all looked toward it to see Prince Licht standing there, his face impassive and his dark crimson eyes on me.

“Let’s go,” he said simply.

“Sorry, Prince Clavis, but I’ll be back by one o’clock,” I said quickly, already heading for the door and my escape from Prince Silvio’s questions.

“What the heck is going on?” he asked Prince Clavis as the door closed behind me.

I let out a sigh of relief and smiled up at Prince Licht. “Thank you, Prince Licht.”

“Were they giving you trouble?”

I shook my head and started toward the servant’s entrance and the front gate, knowing he would fall in step with me. “No, but Prince Silvio just kept asking questions, and Prince Clavis can be overbearing,” I replied. “Did you get to sleep in this morning?”

Prince Licht glanced down at me. “Did you?”

“I work in the morning.”

“So do I.”

I frowned but kept silent. If he didn’t want to sleep in after a late night, that was his business, not mine. Maybe he had something already scheduled for this morning that he couldn’t postpone.

Or maybe Prince Chevalier woke him up to post guards at my house. Prince Licht was in charge of law enforcement, after all, and he’d already doubled the guards along my route to and from the palace. It would make sense for Prince Chevalier to delegate my security outside of the palace to Prince Licht.

But he probably wouldn’t say if I asked him.

When we got to the front gate, he boarded the carriage first, which struck me as odd until I realized he was checking to see that it was safe. He turned and offered me his hand, and I swallowed down the sudden nerves clogging my throat and took it, letting him pull me into the otherwise empty carriage. We sat across from each other, I looked steadfastly out the window instead of at him, and the carriage began to move.

“It won’t happen again,” he said quietly.

I bit my lip, dropped my gaze to my hands wringing in my lap, and finally looked up at Prince Licht. “He was there last night.”

Prince Licht nodded. “Chevalier told me.”

“I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t been there,” I said in a small voice, dropping my eyes to my lap again.

“Nothing happened, and nothing will happen. I have two guards on your house and more patrolling the surrounding area. He’s not getting to you without a fight.”

I exhaled deeply and looked up at him again. “Thanks, Prince Licht.”

He shrugged. “It’s my job.”

Was it, though?

I shifted my gaze to the scenery outside the windows. The familiar view of the green grass blending into the city streets was soothing in the face of my head full of questions. I hadn’t looked out the windows once this morning during that miserable carriage ride with Prince Gilbert, too consumed with fear to even notice the sun in the sky. It had felt like an eternity, trapped in this small space with him, but it occurred to me now that the carriage ride was a lot shorter than usual.

“Is Charlie still the coachman?” I asked, looking back at Prince Licht.

“Yes.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Good. I need to thank him.”

“For what?” Prince Licht asked, his eyes narrowing slightly.

“He drove the horses really fast this morning. I didn’t notice it then, but now that I’m thinking about it, we got here more quickly than normal.”

“Then he was telling the truth,” Prince Licht muttered.

“He told you? Or Prince Chevalier?”

Prince Licht nodded. “He said Gilbert told him to drive slower, but he drove faster to get you to the palace as soon as possible.”

I sat back against the cushions, not quite able to relax, but feeling some tension leave me. “I’m glad he did.”

The rest of the carriage ride passed in silence. City faded into green grass again, and then the little wood and stone shops and houses that made up the village broke the open green fields into small sections between buildings. The rhythm of hoofbeats on packed dirt came to a stop, and the carriage jostled forward before settling on its wheels. Prince Licht opened the carriage door.

“Lunch is ready!” Mrs. Stotts cried, and then the clanging of a wooden spoon on a metal pot rang through the air.

“Be careful,” I warned Prince Licht, giving him a quick smile before I darted out of the carriage and into my house. I glimpsed a pair of guards on either side of my door, but the stampede of hollering children was already approaching. Lingering in the road wasn’t a good idea. I pulled the door shut behind me and looked across the room at the bed, where Mother’s green eyes were watching me.

“Sorry for scaring you this morning,” she said.

“Mother!” I hurried across the room to give her a hug. “You’re okay!”

“Not really, but I’m still alive,” she replied, weakly returning my hug.

“Well, you’re awake, and that’s enough to make me happy. I’ll take care of this and be right back.”

I picked up the bucket and went to the door, waiting a moment for the pounding footsteps to pass before I opened it. Prince Licht was still in the doorway to the carriage, and the two guards seemed rather shaken. Next door, Mrs. Stotts was masterfully directing her brood of children to clean up before she let them inside. I headed toward the outhouse, listening to her authoritative voice.

“Single file line, oldest to youngest. Ron, get behind Henry. Greg, I saw that.”

“I’m not Greg. I’m Fred.”

“Whoever you are, don't pull your brother’s hair. Jason, when you’re done, take over here so I can check the oven.”

The outhouse door muffled her voice, and I held my breath while I dumped the bucket. She shrieked when I stepped back into the sunshine.

“Henry, that toad is not coming into the house. Get rid of it!”

“But, Mom-”

“And where’s Rachel?”

“I thought she was with Jason.”

“I thought she was with Ron.”

“She wanted to see Henry’s toad.”

“She was scared of Henry’s toad.”

“Enough!” Mrs. Stotts shouted. “Henry, get rid of that toad and find your sister. Ron, you’re not done. I can see that dirt from here. Ivetta, I want to talk to you before you leave.”

I lifted my hand in a wave of acknowledgement before the side of the house obscured her from view. The smile on my face didn’t fade, even when I picked up the soap and scrub brush behind my house and headed down to the river. Mother was awake, Mrs. Stotts’ kids were as lively as ever, and I felt lighter than I had all morning. The guards outside my door didn’t even bother me. Although they probably bothered Mrs. Stotts, which was why she wanted to talk to me, I was sure. But they were a small price to pay for peace of mind.