Page 162 of Twisted Royals

"Miss Susanna," she had said in her thick French accent. "Go and kneel on the little step."

Trembling but still as defiant as I could be, I had obeyed.

"Watch closely, all of you," Madame had said, as I looked back over my shoulder at her, suddenly afraid of things unknown, and then she had pushed on my back and bent me over, and fastened my wrists to the sides of the horse, and put the waist belt across my back.

"In the old days," she had said as she buckled it, securing me to the horse, "a girl or boy would have their bottom bared for their punishment on this discipline horse."

"Susanna!" my grandfather said. "Are you listening to me?"

CHAPTER 2

The Crown Prince of Forthia sent me to bed without supper, more or less, because he couldn't have his butler whip me with my panties down, the world having come so far since his ancient school days.

“House arrest,” grandfather actually called it, right before he spelled out the terribly sensible terms: “When you are ready to present me with a concrete plan for your rehabilitation — and I mean the rehabilitation not just of your reputation but of you, my darling favorite grandchild — we will discuss how and when you will be allowed to leave the palace.”

Supper wasn’t mentioned, but I definitely didn’t feel like eating, so I had no problem blaming His Serenity for depriving me of sustenance.

Nor did I have any qualm about beginning to scheme about how to make His Serenity sorry as soon as I got back to my suite — my prison, rather, as far as my grandfather was concerned.

I couldn’t actually think of anything. The fact that that very night I did manage to get into a sort of trouble that made not the crown prince but me sorrier than I had ever imagined I could be — and also, in the end, happier — didn’t have as much to do with me as it did with my three bears. I only decided to take a walk in the palace wood. And, I guess, to do a little harmless breaking and entering.

The wood of Forthia Palace has been there for a long time. You can't really call it woods, plural, because what's left of the ancient forest of Forthia only extends three or four kilometers out from the palace gardens. It's enough to feel like you're lost in the woods, though, if you purposely don't pay attention to which path you're following. As kids my cousins and I did a lot of pretending about knights and princesses and dragons and things, within a hundred meters of the edge of the wood, and even there I always felt like I'd gone deep enough into the forest to forget all about the modern world.

I thought about those times as I headed along what we'd always called the secret path because it opened behind a belvedere on the shore of the West Pond in a spot that didn't look like anything at all. Those school days had probably come to mind because of the way my grandfather's horrid words had stirred the even worse memory of Madame Grévy and the discipline horse.

My parents (currently away on a humanitarian tour of… God, I couldn't even remember) had insisted on raising me in as gender neutral a way as a girl who bore the title princess could be educated. I wondered suddenly why I had nevertheless always insisted on playing as the princess caught by the dragon or the pirates or the black knight. Really not even one of your assertive, let alone self-actuated and independent, princesses, either, except I supposed that I would demand that the cousin rescuing me address me as Your Royal Highness — which my parents of course never did and which they refused to let the servants do either.

Walking deeper into the wood, I realized, than I ever had, I started to come dangerously close to honest self-reflection. Never having had the slightest taste for that kind of navel-gazing, however, another part of my brain began to look actively for something else to do, to take my mind off all the bullshit. Above all, my grandfather's bullshit about rehabilitation.

So when I came upon the house in the wood, I guess I was in some kind of a mood. I don't think that mood necessarily involved doing something naughty and stupid, but it definitely didn't exclude that sort of thing, either.

My first reaction — surprise bordering on astonishment that I had never known the palace wood contained what looked like a sizable home — made me feel even more dislocated from myself than the last couple hours had. I was the fucking princess of this palace and of this country, as tiny as the country might look on a map. How could I not know about a fucking house in my fucking wood.

I strode up to the door. I owned this house. Well, my family did, anyway.

It seemed very old, but also very well maintained, at least recently. Like, an old huntsman's cottage, maybe, fully updated. Single floor, maybe two or three rooms originally, though I could see that sometime in probably the last fifty years an annex had been added on the side and probably in back as well, the architectural style perfectly integrated into the original, probably medieval design.

The perfection of the little house made me even more indignant that I'd never known about it. The No Trespassing sign definitely didn't apply to me, Her Royal Highness the princess, but it did make me angrier. The biometric lock on the door gave me pause, sure. I knew that kind of tech didn't come cheaply, and it seemed to mean that something about the cottage probably had to do with stuff I wasn't supposed to mess with.

It opened to my face scan, though, as I had suspected it would. My face was in the system, just like my grandfather's. I walked into the little entryway.

Living room to the right, kitchen to the left. They had definitely kept the original layout of the cottage. They, whoever they were, also must be around, too, I realized with a start. I could immediately smell something in the kitchen — something absolutely wonderful, that made my stomach not just rumble but quake.

Onions. Cheese. Meat.

Food. Really great food.

"Hello?" I called out, tentatively, turning my head from side to side and stretching out my neck a little towards the kitchen and then the living room, as if I could somehow peer around corners that way. I expected someone, in an apron maybe, to appear from an unseen part of the kitchen, but no response came to my greeting.

Slowly, and as quietly as I could, I walked into the kitchen.

"I was just…" I started, in case someone were there, maybe listening to music on a headset or something. I had no idea what I meant to say after that, but at least it represented a reasonable starting point. They would recognize me, of course, and I wouldn't even have to finish the thought. Then we could get to the part where I persuaded them not to tell my grandfather.

Maybe with the help of sexual favors? Something about the day had got me into a physical and psychological condition I recognized as what people called horniness, though despite my promiscuity I hadn't really experienced it to this degree. I definitely didn't know what else to call the way my nipples had just tingled at the idea of offering to go down on some unknown, unsuspecting kitchen servant I had walked in on in the middle of cooking… what?

My senses seemed preternaturally sharp, every step further into the kitchen seeming to send an electric thrill from the ball of my foot up my leg, and every centimeter I covered bringing the mouthwatering scent to a new level of intensity.

I could see the source of the aroma, now. Three bowls on the kitchen table, steam literally rising off them. A glass of red wine sat next to each bowl.

---