Page 39 of I Destroyed the Elf Prince's Harem

“Are we not the only ones dining?” I demanded.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

I opened my eyes to find Brimsey had taken a couple of steps toward me, his face twisted in confusion. “Then I want you seated directly on my left. I don’t want to spend the meal straining to hear you or shouting to be heard. Do you understand? I don’t have time for all this useless pomp and circumstance.”

The words had barely finished leaving my lips when several servants scrambled to move the governor’s specific plates and silverware to the seat I’d indicated while the one servant following me rushed to pull out my chair for me to flop into.

As course after course was brought out, I peppered Brimsey with endless questions about Riverhold from inner criminal threats to outer threats from orcs to ogres to the elves of Wolfrest. I demanded to know about commerce, population, health, and every little thing I could think to ask about. I hoped that if I could keep him talking, he wouldn’t have a chance to ask me a damn thing. Of course, that led me to the bigger problem of how to ask about Gushan and the royal family without tipping him off that I wasn’t Victor.

We’d reached the end of the meal, and I still hadn’t figured out how to get dirt out of him on the royal family, and he wasn’t giving me any hints as to whether he sided with Rufus or Victor. It was safer not to chance it. If I could escape the mansion with my life intact, I’d call it a win. The important thing was getting out of Riverhold and into Ulmenor.

“Look, as lovely as this was, I can’t waste any more time here. I have private business to attend to,” I snapped. The legs of my chair scraped loudly across the floor, making me wince.

Gods, if this was convincing, Victor Montcroix was the world’s biggest ass.

“You’re right. We shouldn’t waste any more time.” The cold, stiff words from Samuel stopped my heart. Until this moment, he’d been nothing but ingratiating and polite. He stood as well and turned to the servants. “Leave us.”

The second the door closed behind the last servant in plain black livery, the governor pulled a long stiletto from a sheath hidden at his back. I stumbled away, knocking my chair over to keep the sharp point from plunging into my throat.

“Who the hell are you?” he snarled, marching toward me with every step I retreated around the table. “You are not Prince Victor Montcroix. And what are you doing traveling with Prince Xeran?”

Shit! Here I thought I’d been damned convincing. I’d acted to match Nylian’s description. Or was it Nylian’s presence that had given me away?

My brain raced for a solution. Did I attempt to brazen it out? Or did I admit I wasn’t him? If my best performance wasn’t good enough, what was the point of trying to keep pretending?

I stopped retreating, said a quick prayer to the powers that had zapped me here in the first place, and shrugged. “Fuck it. I’m not Victor Montcroix, and I’m happy to tell you what happened, but I guarantee you won’t believe me.”

Samuel stopped and blinked pale-brown eyes at me. That didn’t look like the answer he had expected. The point of his knife even lowered a touch. “But…” he exhaled.

“Holy shit! Were you bluffing?” I threw up my hands and paced a couple of steps away from him before turning. “That’s on me. A bluff is way more convincing when you’re holding someone at knife point. Lesson learned.”

“You’re not the prince,” Samuel whispered, each word trembling. Yep, the asshole had been bluffing me and I’d fallen for it. “Who are you? Where is he?”

I braced my hands on my hips and frowned at the man, who looked considerably paler now. “Seriously, Governor Brimsey, you won’t believe me.”

“Can you at least tell me, is he dead?”

Wincing, I took a small step back, preparing to make a mad dash for the closest door. “I’m not sure, but yeah…probably.”

The governor fell to his knees with a loud thud as his forehead dropped into his empty hand. “Oh, thank the gods,” tumbled breathlessly from his lips.

Again, not the reaction I’d been expecting, but I had to roll with it. I jumped toward him and wrapped my hands around one arm, hauling him to his feet. If a servant poked their head into the room, this wasn’t the best sight for them to see.

“Up we go,” I groaned as I lifted the heavy older man. “Let’s sit in a chair and talk for a bit.” As we staggered to the head of the table, I dropped him into his previous seat and poured him a fresh glass of water. For this conversation, wine would have been better or some good old-fashioned whiskey, but it was still morning.

“First, what gave me away?” I inquired as I dropped into my seat.

“Barnaby reported to me yesterday, saying that you were acting strange.” He paused and took a deep drink of water. I nearly asked who he was talking about, but I remembered the squirrely old man we’d caught following me as I shopped. “He said you wanted to know how to draft funds to pay for a mercenary escort. Normally, that’s something you…er…rather, the prince would have ordered him to handle. He would never have bothered or even cared to handle it himself. He also stated that you were traveling with exiled Prince Xeran Elrich.” The governor stopped and gave me a very pointed stare.

I waved him off. “We’ll get to that later. I promise.”

With a grunt, he continued. “That was enough to summon you here, but I wasn’t convinced until you thanked a servant.”

“I did?” I sat up in my seat only to flop down again. It was hard being an asshole. Don’t get me wrong? I was great at being an asshole without trying, but someone like Victor Montcroix took extra effort, and that was difficult to sustain for extended periods of time.

“Now tell me the truth. Who are you? Why do you look and sound just like the prince?”

What the hell? I had warned him ahead of time. So I told him. Everything. All of it. Writing the book, finding the magic coin, falling off the bridge, waking up in Victor’s body, running into Nylian. Every fucking thing. I even showed him the coin, which freaked him out, the same as that useless wizard.

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