Chapter Forty-Four: Welcome Home
1416 Words
The Imperial Palace
“Apples?” Leeroy stared down at the dark-haired and green-eyed maid crouched over behind the stack of hay.
For a few minutes, she had rambled on, on the benefits of apples and baby horses, although she had used the term filly.
“..and so if you give, the uh…filly…some delicious snacks, and you know that snacks for horses are different from ours, I mean we…we binge on biscuits and the sugar…I mean, technically the..the fruits have sugar but, you..you know apples are just natural, you know? There..there is no-,”
“Miss.” Leeroy interrupted, “I did not question you on the benefits of fruits or types of sugars. I asked why you were eavesdropping on a private conversation.”
“Have…Have I not technically answered that question already?” The maid replied as she stood from her squatting position, bumping her head on the dried hay tower that hunched over dangerously.
As though confirming his worries, the stack began to sway.
Before the stack could entirely topple over the young maid, Leeroy pulled her into the safety of his arms, and with a thud and more dust than he had anticipated, the tower fell over the spot where mere seconds ago the maid had stood.
“Oh…oh dear me, thank you..” The maid breathed stiffly in his arms, but as seconds ticked by, rather than pull away despite his social cue of loosening his arms, she pressed herself closer and…smelled him?
“Miss?”
“I- I mean, thank…thank you!” the maid replied as she slipped out of his arms hastily, her cheeks a bright shade of pink that made him remember the summer peaches back in Dru, “My hero...I mean..not, not that the hay would have killed me b-but-,”
“I mean, it is not that I am downplaying your effort in rescuing me from minor discomfort. It is-,” the maid halted her sentence.
Perhaps because she had finally noticed the press of his lips between his teeth that prevented the bubbling laughter from his core from spilling and spoiling the atmosphere.
“You find my nervousness amusing?”
“Certainly not, but I pegged you for a church mouse, not..this?”
“This…” the maid flushed, “Oh no, and I think I murdered the woman’s knight!”
“What?”
“The terrifying woman you were speaking to? I killed her knight!” she confessed, “I mean, I did not mean to eavesdrop, truthfully. It is that I had taken some apples from the banquet hall that I had planned on using to treat myself to some well-deserved animal therapy, but when I heard noises outside, rather than reveal myself, I hid.”
“But why did you hide? That makes you more-,”
“Suspicious?” she completed the sentence for him. “Well, I honestly did not expect what…uh, what was said to be said.”
“I thought it would be a simple exchange, and if I left the stables, then I would have to excuse myself before both of you then greet the noble. I mean, I am not complaining, but these formalities are very… tiresome…and it is my day off, so...”
That was more so the reason he had expected from her, well minus the apple-theft part, greeting nobility is tiresome, so most staff prefer being around commoners.
Still, why had he pressed her for a reason? Because finding her hunched over by the haystacks had been amusing?
Because, today, he had seen her face dressed in more expressions than during the three months he had been working in the palace?
There wasn’t an answer to any of his questions. Rather, there was none he was ready and or willing to admit, so calling an end to their association needed to be his next step.
“Miss Bridgette, is it?” Leeroy asked, “ I will trust you to keep the contents of my conversation with the noblewoman a-,”
“Bridge-? No, I am Katelyn…Katelyn Seale?”
“Really, I thought the red-haired maid was Katelyn and you, Bridgette?”
“What no? why would you ever assume that?”
“Well..because she introduced herself to me as…Katelyn..?”
The look of horror dancing on the maid’s face informed him that the conversation neared drama territory, so he did what came naturally.
“I hope that you will keep my affairs secret. The noblewoman that I was conversing with earlier is very selfish. She may harm you should she discover your identity, so do take care.” he placed the supplies that he had come to the stables in hopes of returning on the floor, “ I should call it quits for today and head to the staff dorm-,”
Before he had even finished his fleeing excuse, the maid before him dug her fingers into her neatly tied bun then pulled its band such that it snapped under pressure. She then inserted her fingers into the beautifully exotic and rich deep brown curls tumbling around her visage haphazardly. Then…in an odd turn of events, the maid before him took a lock of hair from the right side of her head and placed it over her mouth, an act that enabled her to both chew the lock and twirl it absentmindedly around her left forefinger.
“THAT BALD-HEADED, MAN-STEALING, MEAN LITTLE b***h!!!”
-Huh…?-
The plain-looking and easily overlooked woman spat angrily. Well, technically, at the moment, formerly plain-looking maid, Leeroy realised.
“I- I SHOULD FILL WAX IN HER TOILET OR…OR...OR PUT BLEACH IN HER BATHWATER!!”
“I MEAN WHO…WHO DOES THAT LITTLE MINX THINK SHE IS??? FROM BLATANTLY STEALING MY ENTRUSTED TASKS, TO TAKING LIBERTIES WITH AN ENGAGED MAN, TO STEALING MY NAME!!”
“MY ENTIRE BLOODY IDENTITY!!”
“AND…AND I AM NOT EVEN DEAD YET? DON’T PEOPLE WHO STEAL IDENTITIES WAIT FOR THE PERSON THEY ARE STEALING FROM TO DIE OR AT LEAST MIGRATE!!?”
Leeroy’s hurry to leave was being slowly replaced by gnawing curiosity. From the moment her band had snapped, he had been entranced.
She was beautiful in the plainest of ways. However, Leeroy realised, it had not been her boringly plain fashion decisions or her lack of initiatives that dulled her…but her mechanized mode of conduct.
Her hair swayed with her tantrum, transforming her into the most magnificent beast he had ever in his life seen, and though it was not his intention, Leeroy wished to be the only one in the entire world ever to view her in this light.
“I AM SO…SO…FURIOUS!!” the maid announced, then stomped her foot as his younger sister used to, back when she was still a toddler throwing tantrums at the oddest incidences.
The maid had stated her mood so clearly and loudly as though he could have mistaken her curses for bewilderment.
A deep chuckle rose from his throat, and before he could halt himself, uncontrollable laughter pooled out of him.
“WHAT? WHAT IS SO FUNNY?” Katelyn turned her fury onto him. However, that did not stop his bubbling laughter.
The maid’s light hands found their way to his stomach as she attempted to assault him into silence, but all her action did was make him wish to tease her more.
“Umm..hello?” a voice called from outside the stables, halting them both in their activity.
“Probably an actual lost noble.” Leeroy dismissed.
“I don’t want to go, you go…I'll hide, it is my day off?”
“Have you learned nothing from killing that knight?”
The maid’s face turned stunned, as though she could not believe that he had said that, and he, despite himself, liked it.
“Hello?”
The nearness of the voice caused him to tear his gaze away from the maid’s to peer to the nearing silhouette of…the head maid?
“Oh, Gods? Hilda?” the maid no longer offered him her attention as she rushed wholeheartedly to the limping maid with a cast on her arm.
- Writer
