Chapter Six: It Tastes as Good as it Looks
The lock clicked open, and Aya’s eyes snapped open with it. Her stiletto knife was nestled right beneath her pillow, but she restrained herself from whipping it out. She would not allow her enemies to see it before she drove it into their flesh. Still, there would be no stabbing just yet. It was already fully light out, and Carnen had not come to her door alone, or with some garish entourage of his men wanting to watch some crude spectacle. He was instead being shadowed by a pair of maids, richly dressed women who had to be ladies in waiting, the regular grooming attendants to the queen herself. “Good morning, dearest. My, but you do present well even all mussed up from sleep.”
He was leering at her again, and she told herself she was blushing solely because that was how Charlotte would react. Though Aya for her part had to keep fighting off the instinctive glare that paired with her own natural version of embarrassment. She had to keep reminding herself to show fear at the expected moments and react to all this prick of a prince’s insufferable blusters the way Charlotte would: with insecurity, not rage.
“I think your chest is your best feature in this outfit, and your hair is much more kempt than that of the other women I’ve woken up beside.” He had probably paid for those companions, and there were probably dozens of them. “Still, I have brought these fine servants to further tame that tangle of golden locks and get you dressed in something suitable for our breakfast.”
He planted his imperious arse in the chair at the side of the room, and Aya’s eyes widened in shock. “You are not staying to watch me change!” she snapped.
He arched an eyebrow. “Why ever not?” He traced his finger over her outline, all the way down her body. “I will own all that anyway in three days time.”
Not the time for stabbing yet, not the time for stabbing. She had to keep repeating the silent mantra. Not the time for-- Wait. “Three days? You cannot organize a proper marriage ceremony in as little as three days.”
“Of course we can. My father has already sent word to your country’s arch daises. He will be here to pronounce us man and wife this Sunday. The invited host of Stalis lords have the three days before that to receive their invitations and travel to the capital, and those who do not make it here in time will be punished.” What unfair savagery! “Now isn’t that wonderful? I know you cannot bear to wait for even that long, my soon-to-be wife. And I know you must have been ever so lonely last night, left here alone in our chambers.”
“Our chambers?” she demanded in outrage.
“Yes, your bedroom is my bedroom. I just had work and other pleasures keeping me away last night.” He gave a wink to one of the maids and she gave a little shake of her head, blushing in embarrassment. How disgusting and unethical that this brute would exploit his staff in such a manner. “Still I will be back here tonight to service you.”
“You are not to touch me until the wedding,” she repeated for the thousandth time. The wedding that would happen in only three days time. She had only three days to kill him and escape this place with Clara.
Carnen raised his hands. “Oh, I will do nothing that you do not request. I thought I made that clear. Do stop making me repeat myself. It is ever so tiring.”
“I am the one who has been repeating myself. Now get out of my bedroom!” she ordered, with all demeanor of Charlotte once again consumed by indignant rage. “We are not man and wife. You are a morally bankrupt scoundrel intruding into a lady’s private space!”
“It is my father’s castle, and I am intruding nowhere since it is my bedroom.” He threw up his hands. “And I am once again repeating myself. Exhausting.” He shoved his way out of his seat and headed back for the door. “But I will graciously accommodate your request, my lady, as there are surely countless insecurities you are covering up beneath that shift as opposed to my own most statuesque physique.”
“Are you expecting me to challenge that and ask you to take your shirt off?” she filled in dryly, and sure enough the shirt came off in an instant and he tossed it right at her face.
“I suppose. I too have not yet fully dressed for the day. You request I do it here?”
“No! I request you leave!” Because damn it, that chest and those abs were indeed absolutely perfect, shockingly defined, every line of it. Even the scars only added to his appeal, those little white lines not deep enough to inflict true deformity. They were simply proud badges of war, just like the one at his brow. Her cheeks felt hot again, and those cursed thoughts were returning. She stabbed at them savagely with the fiercest of her willpower until they were fully deflated and turned her eyes to the maids.
Both girls were staring at Carnen with clear infatuation, and the one he had slept with had an awful glow of leering appetite to her gaze. “You are also both dismissed,” Aya ordered, snapping them out of it. “I can dress myself.”
“How barbaric,” Carnen chided. “Everyone knows a man dresses himself and a lady gets stripped down and tended to by other ladies.”
“Stop talking filth and put your bloody shirt back on!” She hurled the garment right back at him, and he snatched it out of the air with a cocky smile.
“If you insist, my lady. We’ll save all the dazzling sights for a dark room of more intimate setting, as you wish.”
He gave another knowing look to Aya’s maid and then gently closed the door.
“Did he pin you down and insist you were enjoying it?” she asked the girl numbly, eyes filled with genuine sickened concern.
“Lady Charlotte!” she squeaked. “Of course not! What an awful implication!” She leaned right in, pitching her voice to a murmur. “Though he tastes just as good as he looks, truly.”
Aya’s head went reeling, but she silenced her initial response, that this girl no more than nineteen had the lurid confidence of a professional courtesan. She kept silent that observation and embedded herself firmly in the character of the true and kind hearted Charlotte, as she offered, “I will think no less of you for pursuing such activities with a royal lady’s groom, but kindly keep contained all word of it, good madam, or I fear you will be in danger of being forcibly silenced.” And that was an outright threat. Damn, being Charlotte was much more difficult than it seemed. It simply did not come naturally to Aya, even though it was her purpose.
The maid flushed, stammering, “I did not know he was getting married! I’m just saying you’re lucky, and I will speak no more of it of course. I apologize.”
She scurried out of the room without even awaiting a formal dismissal, and the other lady in waiting just shook her head. “Well she’s not going to last long.”
Aya’s eyes narrowed at the word choice. “How long has she worked here in the castle?”
“It’s her first day, milady.”
“So where exactly did she work before this?”
The woman shrugged, but Aya had a few theories of her own. Carnen had hired his whore to be her lady in waiting, his actual whore. He paid for it, exactly as she suspected. “Well I’ll have to taunt him about this mercilessly.” She smiled, then caught a flicker of disdain in her maid’s expression. “What is it?”
“What is what?”
“I saw that look.”
“Then I apologize. I would never dare to criticize, milady.”
“Speak candidly and I swear I will not punish you for it. Just what is there to criticize?”
“You will have a most unhappy marriage, if you do not forgive and play at understanding. Tormenting the boy who carries on with his staff is the easy choice. Just fire the girl and lay the matter to rest, save both of you the disgrace and scandal.”
Aya would not have a marriage at all of course, but maybe this woman was right and tormenting Carnen was still a waste of her time and energies. “What’s your name?”
“Arianna, milady.”
“Well thank you for your sage advice, Arianna. Were you waiting on the queen herself before this?”
The inconspicuous interrogation continued, as Arianna laced up her dress and put her hair up in braids. Before long, Aya learned that Queen Clara spent most of her day in the castle’s secluded rose gardens. No other noble, and not even the gardeners were allowed in the gardens during that time, no one save the barbarian king himself. “Though he does not often deign to join her,” Arianna concluded. “All the better, if you ask me. The man is a fearful brute, far worse than his son.”
“I find that hard to even envision,” Aya noted.
“Prince Carnen is a fine man, despite the ways of his people,” Arianna disagreed. “He has done nothing impolite to the staff that I have seen. He did not even beat the man who delivered him cold tea last week, and that was most surprising. He has called for no one to be executed, as his father and younger brother most frequently do, and I am in fact shocked that he would act improperly toward a maid. He has never done so before this. Though that woman is not a proper maid, yes, and that must also be considered.”
“Please do stop singing his praises,” Aya muttered. “You are speaking to an unwilling bride who was literally carried out from her father’s home after those men broke down our door and torched the businesses of our friends.”
“I apologize. Do you wish me to cease speaking candidly?”
“No, Arianna, I want you to honestly admit the Prince Carnen is a disgusting misogynist.”
“A most brutal judgment. And I am honestly warning you, Lady Charlotte, that the rest of the men in this castle are worse. You belong to their prince and that keeps them at bay, so be grateful for the shield of this marriage.” She held her eyes solemnly. “Stay out of the sightline of his father. You are far too fair. You must try never to find yourself alone with that man, because by your manner of speech and the way you conduct yourself, I do not think it would turn out at all pleasant.”
“I will keep that in mind, Arianna.” She would avoid the evil king until the moment she killed him. She could only pray for Clara and work to liberate her from this awful place as quick as she could manage.