Page 31 of Regally Binding

Liss offered a wincing smile. As she flew out of the car, her departing wave suggested she’d broken her wrist rather thanresembling regal pizzazz, but the driver’s grin was pure delight. She barely had time to return it before bolting for the pub.

Her life was changing already. She couldn’t run a pub anymore as a princess, but the DNA test wasn’t in. Her grandma was adamant that Liss was the King’s granddaughter, but she could’ve lied. She wasn’t a massive fan of the truth, and Liss’s mum hadn’t known. Surely, if her mum were the King’s daughter, Nana would have told the King when she was ill?

The pub was rammed with people, but it was a Monday.

“Ewan,” she shouted over the crowd.

Faces turned her way, and people pointed at her.

“Alright, Boss? I didn’t expect to see you. Did you get hold of Isla?” Ewan asked, pulling a pint.

“She hasn’t replied to my message. Is this chaos why Steve messaged me? Where did all these people come from?” she stuttered, pressing her hands by her sides to stop shaking.

Ewan shrugged. “We’ve got this covered. I called in extra staff. You’re a local celeb, and everyone wants to drink at your pub. In the nicest way, we don’t need you.” This could be the making of Ewan. He managed two sentences without swiping his phone. “We wouldn’t let anything happen to your baby while you’re gone.”

The pub was important to her, but she wouldn’t call it her baby, although she’d called it her family. Without the pub in her life, she didn’t have anything. That wasn’t healthy, and it was even more reason to embrace the princess thing if the DNA test came back positive. Liss froze until several strangers held up their phones to take photos of her. A group of ladies looked her up and down and whispered behind their hands before giggling.

Liss’s shoulders slumped forward as if she could hide her worn vest and leggings before pushing through the crowds to the bar, slipping behind it. “So why did Steve message saying I needed to come in urgently?”

“You’d best ask him. He’s in the cellar sorting out the barrels.” Ewan pointed at the back but was quickly distracted by a new line of customers. “Yes, sir. What can I get for you?”

Liss stormed out to deal with Steve and escape everyone’s stares. She shivered from the sensation of eyes following her as she walked into the back corridor of the pub. With a glance behind, she confirmed she was alone, but the feeling refused to leave her.

“Steve,” she hollered as she continued walking.

The Bell’s corridors were a rabbit warren, but that was nothing compared to the hidden passages beneath the bar area. Most days, Liss ignored the rumours that they were haunted. In the past, rebels used them to escape from the castle, but they were a tourist attraction now that the pub’s owner occasionally opened up for tours. An unexpected chill descended as she shuffled along the misshapen stones that made up the floors of the rebel hideouts. The musty smell that always accompanied her on her walks to replace barrels seemed stronger this evening.

As dizziness hit, she touched the wall, the stone cold beneath her fingertips. Her stomach rumbled. Hunger, when in the pub, wasn’t unusual for her because she was usually too busy to eat, and even now, it was comforting. It was as if nothing changed, and she was still a fraught pub manager with no worries other than what film she and Isla would watch at the cinema if they could both get time away from work.

Her belly’s grunts and grumbles echoed through the low-ceiling corridors. Many companies asked to run ghost hunts in the pub late at night, but Hugo drew a line there, much to Liss’s relief. She didn’t want them to find any truth in the haunted rumours as she was often the last to leave at night.

“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” she mumbled.

A murmured voice swam through the passage, bouncing off the walls. Was Steve talking to himself while sorting out barrels?She’d had a fondness for him since he’d started working in the pub and pushed himself into her friendship group with Isla.

Murmurs reverberated around her.

“Steve,” she called out. At that moment, the corridor plunged into darkness. The only light switches were at the beginning and end of the passage.

“For fucks sake, Steve,” she shouted, but the response was her echoing expletive followed by an indecipherable whisper. “Is someone there?”

The voice came again, but she couldn’t distinguish the words. Her teeth chattered as she bellowed, “Steve, this isn’t funny. Stop playing one of your dumbass pranks. I can’t see.”

Her breath rasped as she recalled the time school bullies locked her in the toilets at the end of the day. She was ten years old and supposed to get herself home, but to avoid the bullies who waited for her at the gate, she hid in the toilet. No one was home because her mum worked two jobs with only an hour between them. The neighbours usually kept an eye on her, but they were on holiday, and she was her grandma’s responsibility.

“Can someone please turn on the lights?” Her panic echoed around the passageway.

Liss shortened her steps as she felt her way along the wall. She was close to the cellar. As she reached the switch and the edge of the cellar stairs, a hand shoved at her back. She grasped for anything to stop her fall, but her hands swam in the air as she lost her footing and tumbled down the stairs into the inky black depths of the pub.

Chapter Sixteen

Loud voices fought to infiltrate the darkness around her.

“Where the fuck is she?” Bear shouted. He should be working and not at the pub. “Ewan, mate, if you don’t tell me where she is, then I will rip your fucking hands off and beat you to death with them. Are we clear?”

A squeak sounded.

Liss opened one eye and then another. She lay at the bottom of the stairs of the cellar. Big barrels surrounded her.

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