Page 21 of Maid for the Alien Prince

She pulled back and beamed at me with a toothy grin framed by fuzzy strawberry-blonde hair. She slid her arm through mine and led me through the open doors.

“After I heard you were coming, I insisted I should be the one to welcome you! I’m so glad you’re here! It’ll be just like the old days!”

I pointed toward my luggage. “My bags…”

“The guards will take care of those,” she said with a dismissive wave. “I haven’t seen you since the accident. And now…” She gasped. “You’re walking completely fine! I guess the surgery must have worked wonders, huh?”

I hadn’t spoken to her in ten years and yet she knew everything about me. It was how all small towns worked.

Five years my junior, Emma had always been small for her age. We used to play in the palace—me as the manager’s daughter and her as the housekeeper’s cousin. She’d always been wide-eyed and fascinated by the splendor of the palace, the sheer riches that adorned every wall and ceiling—a far and distant cry from the everyday homes we lived in.

She’d been cute as a button and hyper-friendly. I could see she had not lost any of those traits as she’d aged.

“What’s it like here now that my father is no longer in charge?” I asked.

Emma’s face fell but she quickly recovered. “Different. It’s very… different.”

“Different how?”

“Ges… He’s much more… hands on.”

Hands on? I thought. My dad ruled with an iron grip when he’d been Head of the Household. I wondered how much stricter Ges could be…

For some reason, Emma’s cheeks burned red and she quickly looked away from me.

“Where is he now?” I asked. “Usually it’s the manager that welcomes new servants.”

“He’s never up before noon.”

I frowned. How did that make him hands on? I wondered.

“We don’t follow your dad’s old rules anymore. The new rules are a little more… relaxed.”

A pair of chef’s assistants marched past us armed with boxes of ingredients. They gossiped between themselves as they headed down the hallway toward the kitchens.

I didn’t recognize either of them. Strange, I thought, considering I thought I knew every member of the household. It made me wonder. How many people, besides my father, had been fired?

“Are there many servants from before?” I asked.

Emma shook her head. “No. Ges had a real ax to grind. He was never a popular member of the staff when he was a guard. After he fired a bunch of the old servants he didn’t like, he realized a lot of the work wasn’t getting done. So, he had to hire them back again. Then, after he found replacements, he fired them again.”

“That sounds terrible,” I said.

“It is. But they’re lucky. They only lost their jobs. There are others on the Prince’s estate that are losing their homes.”

I blinked at that. “What? What do you mean?”

Emma checked over my shoulders before continuing: “The new Prince has doubled their rent. The farmers barely even get by as it is, but by doubling their rent…”

They would become homeless.

“Then what happens to the farms?” I said. “Who runs them?”

Emma shrugged. “Some think the new Prince will hire more workers, pay them a pittance, and skim the profits off the top. By running the farms directly, he can make more money. I’m not sure the extra amount is worth all the effort. But what do I know?”

Things really had changed at the palace. I recalled the media articles about the new Prince’s plans for the palace and surrounding estate. He promised to make it a haven for the locals and farmers to grow and prosper.

So much for promises.

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