Page 36 of Bride of the Midnight Prince

“I already have,” he replies, getting to his feet and shrugging. “I’m sure I’ll do it again.”

I scramble up after him. Apparently, our conversation is over—which is both relieving and frustrating. I was just racking my brain over how to prod for information on the Star City, and now I’ve lost my chance. How am I to know when I’ll get another?

“May I take your dishes, Master?” I ask as the prince strides past me toward the clothes laid out on the freshly made bed, taking his shirtless self mercifully out of my vision.

“Please.”

I’m almost out of the door, his breakfast tray gripped tightly in my hands, when his voice arrests my movements.

“Tell Edvear to inquire after one of the city’s tailors,” he says with just enough wryness in his tone that I glance back at him. “Apparently I have need of one.”

I flush. “Yes, my lord.”

Thatnight,myfeetdrag with exhaustion as I carry the prince’s empty supper dishes from his study to the kitchen. I nearly drop the dishes at the sight of a familiar smile beaming at me.

“Look at you—so grown up in your uniform and working hard,” Mary teases with a rare smile.

I’m so relieved to see her I could laugh. Catching myself, I glare at her instead while Charity Finch chuckles and the other servants look on in amusement.

“I had to come visit and see how you were getting along at your first job. I’m told you nearly got dismissed on your first day.”

Mrs. Banks, who stands severely in one corner, arches a brow as the other servants laugh. My cheeks burn with embarrassment. “I didn’t spill the milk on purpose.”

She laughs and ruffles my hair.

“You should have come work for us instead of the boy,” says Mrs. Banks. “We’d pay you more than what you make at Vandermore Manor.”

“Tempting,” says Mary with a wink.

She’s so at ease here, among these people. The men in the room all seem to lean a little closer to her sparkle. I blink to clear my vision. I’m so used to Mary in the context of home. She is the bossy but loving sister-friend whose job is to worry about the things I neglect to. Here, however? Now I can see her infectious energy and the shine in her perfectly tidy red hair. Why has she never married? Whyhasshe stayed at our estate, even after she was demoted from my companion to my servant?

Me.

I set the dishes down with a clatter.

“Mrs. Banks, could I steal him for a few moments?” asks Mary. “The evening sunshine is so lovely, and I hate to let it go to waste.”

“Just so long as he’s finished his duties.”

All eyes turn to me. I nod quickly. “Master dismissed me after he ate, saying he had business to attend to in his study.”

“Very well then.”

Mary and I step out of the darkness of the kitchen into the glow of late evening. From this side of the estate, the manicured walking paths among the hedges are visible, but so is the forested edge of the creek and the lush field where Missy grazes in her corral and chickens scratch and peck.

“Look casual,” Mary orders, her smile turning tense. “I bet they’re going to watch us through the window.”

I take up toeing a pebble in the grass, trying to look like the distracted schoolboy. She crosses her arms and eyes me—the perfect older sister.

“How’s it going?”

“The fae is Prince Rahk of the Nothril Court.”

Mary’s face turns white. She may not know the prince by name, but she’s heard my tales of the horrors of the Nothril Court. She hides her shock in a few blinks. “Do we need to get you out?”

“Is there some other place I can work?”

She shakes her head. “Not without a recommendation from this situation. Which, it sounds like,youhaven’t earned yet—even if you could on such short employment.”

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