Page 61 of Desperately Yours

It was all my fault, really. When I thought about it, I couldn’t get around that singular fact. My mother’s snippy words kept prancing about my head.‘No good deed goes unpunished, Bishop. So why start trying now?’

She was right, as always. I never should have come to Nolcovia. I had a lovely vacation site in Tuscany that would have helped me brave the cold months, or I could have stayed in the South of France. Lady Hilldeboard never minded if I spent weeks or even months at her villa, so long as I spent some of those months sunning myself near the pool for her ancient eyes to take in the view. But no, I gave up my cushy life to rescue my daft cousin from himself.

A lot of good that had done me. Originally, I’d been looking forward to the ball, mostly because I planned to charm a princess of a foreign country or aged aunt of a wealthy diplomat to see if I could garner a little favor with them before things became too serious. After all, commitment… no, thank you. Perks? Yes, indeed.

I’d tried commitment once and the entire thing had gone pear-shaped in record time by my count. I took it as a sign that I was simply not created for that type of lifestyle. Better to get what I wanted, leave them smiling, and move on.

Dempsey.

It wasn’t my mother’s voice in my head this go round, but rather an old flame rekindling in full force for a moment. Her dark hair that felt like satin, her bewitching eyes, her long fingersand the way they would curve around the back of my head as she leaned in to—

“All clear,” Kabir told me as he stepped free of yet another room. Curse the palace for having so many. This was taking forever. And to what end? If someone took Michaela, would they really be foolish enough to stash her in the same building where she’d been snatched?

“We’ll check up here.” I nodded to the next door. “I’ll help this time. It’ll go faster.”

“No,” Kabir corrected me quickly, “stay in the hall. We don’t want to miss something out here while one of us is in there.”

I frowned, annoyed I’d been relegated to menial tasks. Once more, I felt the guilt of it in my bones. I never stepped up so of course no one felt the need to ask me for more. Not from the guy who did his best not to do it.

“We’ll prop the door open,” I offered. “That way we can keep an eye on the hall but move twice as fast.”

Kabir’s eyes narrowed as if he hated the idea. Maybe he didn’t like being questioned. Slowly, he nodded in agreement. “Very well.” He disappeared into the room and returned hardly a moment later with a chair to keep the door from closing. “You take west, I’ll go east.”

And me without my compass…

Who talks like that?

I waited for him to walk, and I chose the opposite direction. I didn’t suspect we would find anything in these rooms. Countless as they were, no one in their right mind would hide their stolen goods, human or otherwise, in the palace. There was no room that could be held back from the royal guard. No lock that couldn’t be opened. No door that could be barred. They simply had access to everything. In fact, I snickered internally at the thought, if anyone was going to abduct and stash Michaela it would be…

I shook it off. That was crazy. Kabir had been nothing but supportive of Leo’s choice.

“Clear,” Kabir called from his side of the room. “What about you?”

“Clear,” I agreed, enjoying this little commando act I got to put on. I’d resisted the urge to start making hand signals and doing dive rolls in the halls, but just barely. It wasn’t often I got to play the part of macho man. I was more likely to be pretty boy than anything else. Not that I was complaining about my type casting. If the hat fit, after all…

I fell in line with Kabir as we exited and moved to the next room. With hundreds of rooms in the palace, the task felt insurmountable. But we had no choice other than to keep trying.

“You know what baffles me,” I started voicing my internal thoughts, “how did this bloke manage to not only overtake Michaela, who I know from experience is stronger than you’d expect, but also managed to take her through the halls undetected to some secret rendezvous?”

Kabir saluted at yet another pair of officers as they passed us, confirming my concerns over traveling beyond detection. It simply wasn’t possible. Any average bloke carrying a screaming, wailing banshee of a woman, like I knew Michaela would be, couldn’t possibly evade suspicion from a palace full of guards. Even if they knocked her out, everyone knew her face. She’d been plastered on screen and ads for weeks. After the earthquake, she became a national celebrity. There was no way anyone could move her through the palace undetected, conscious or not.

Kabir drew in a calculated breath before he took the next corner. “There are rumors of hidden passages in the palace walls.”

I scoffed. “News to me. They don’t tell those things to the problem child, you see. They’re more likely to disappear, leaveme holding the bag, and say,blimey, at least the bloodline is protected.” I laughed to myself so I wouldn’t feel the pain of the truth. As much as Leonidas claimed he would abdicate before taking the throne without his precious Coco, I knew he wouldn’t. “But you’re security, shouldn’t you know?”

“You must not know your history.” His palm pushed the door open in one swing, acting as though he might catch someone in the act. Much to my disappointment, the room was empty. Frowning, Kabir finally answered me. “In the early years of the kingdom, there was unrest. King Drysden had married Nolcola, and because she’d saved the kingdom, many loved her.”

“But not everyone?”

“No,” Kabir confirmed. “Specifically, the security of the king. They were made up of those soldiers who’d fought with him in the war, and though her acts of bravery had saved them, she hadn’t been able to save their families from the bloodshed Sagure ordered. They blamed her, saw her as an outsider, and there were multiple attempts on her life, until King Drysden ordered the lot of them executed for treason.”

My stomach churned for a moment. The king’s own security turned against him? I considered the years I’d been employing bodyguards, and I was of little importance to the world. Yet, I trusted them with my life. More than once, they’d saved it, but only because I was willing to follow commands blindly and without wavering. They had my trust, and yet, what if I had given that trust to the wrong person?

What if my foes all looked like friends?

“Strange,” I tried to smother the feeling of unease, “I’ve never heard any of this lore before.”

“Yes, well, it’s not the sort of bedtime story royals tell small children. They need you to listen and follow orders to keep you safe. If you thought for a moment that your security team could mean you harm…” I didn’t love the way his voice trailed off.“But it’s standard in training our officers.” He pushed back the curtains, checking behind them, but for a moment he became bewitched by the night. He stared through the window, peering into the onyx darkness. “People want to hide the past, afraid of the effect it would have. But the truth is, history matters. It has a way of repeating itself.”

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