"Lady Alicia." Derrick pasted an annoyed smile on his handsome features. There had to be some way to get across that he did not want to spend all his waking hours with her.
"My prince." She extended a heavily-ringed hand, which Derrick reluctantly knelt to and kissed.
He gritted his teeth. "May I ask why m'lady is gracing this castle with her presence at... 7:32 in the morning?"
"Oh, Derry, I simply couldn't wait another minute to see you, darling! Plus, I heard that someone is making a royal pronouncement..." Her long, stately fingers tickled him under his chin.
"You have heard right. I am officially engaged to Lady Dylan Rae Marvil." He smiled adoringly. After all, who wouldn't?
"Prince?"
"I am joking, Lady Alicia. Have you not heard of a joke?"
"I have very much heard of a joke. However, that did not seem to be quite humorous."
"It was to me," he muttered under his breath. "Anyway, it is good you are here. The court photographer has been requesting you arrive so he can take pictures of us."
"Fabulous." She gripped his arm, her talon-like nails sinking into his delicate flesh.
Everybody they passed murmured the same thing: "What a beautiful couple!"
"What is she here for again?" Claire scoffed as she wrung out a dishcloth. "Honestly!"
Massie sighed, watching as Prince Derrick escorted Lady Alicia into a small room and out of her sight. "I have no idea." Her heart panged wildly.
She was not in love with the prince.
Claire sighed too, but in rapture. "Isn't he delightful?" Dirty water was now sopping onto the floor.
In response, Massie retied her too-small apron and shrugged. "He's taken."
"Oh, but I love him so! And you do too! You told me! When you first came here!" Blissed-out in her daydream (of Derrick swooping in on her at the ball and twirling her magnificently, so her beautiful cornflower-blue ballgown spun around her nonexsistent hips), she didn't even take notice when the head maid, Maria, stomped on her feet as she passed by.
"There is no point in loving a prince," Massie advised wisely. "Flighty things." She scrubbed her last dish: a porcelain plate rimmed with gold.
"My heart does not follow my mind sometimes," Claire admitted. "I do not wish to love him, but I do!" She danced a few steps around the basin.
Massie shook her head affectionately. "He will never take an interest in either of us."
"Certainly not me," Claire giggled. "But you? You have royalty in your blood. I can tell."
This was the first time Massie had been dispatched on her own to serve the prince. Claire was working in the dungeons, serving the prisoners their daily ration of unseasoned bread and water, and the other two maids, Olivia and Layne, who were a little older, had received permission to baby-sit the young Princess Samantha as she ventured into town to watch the Ladies of the village dance.
Massie curtsied to the floor. "How may I help you, Prince?"
"Where is Claire?" he inquired immediately.
Royalty in her blood. How did Claire know? How?
"She has been sent to the dungeons today."
"Dungeons? Claire?"
"No, no," she assured him. "Just to clean and serve food."
"I see. Molly, meet Lady Alicia Rivera."
She curtsied even more deeply, biting the insides of her cheeks. She used to spend hours with Alicia, whittling away the time with needlepoint and singing lessons. Alicia would be her final obstacle. Would she recognize Massie?
"Yes, yes, hello, Molly." She turned distractedly away.
Thank goodness.
Massie flipped her hair over her shoulder with a practiced swish as she folded Prince Derrick's nightwear, trying her hardest not to eavesdrop on his conversation with Lady Alicia.
But she gave up when she heard her name. Not the veil she was hiding behind, but her name.
"Has Princess Massie Block been found?" Derrick inquired.
"Not yet," Alicia replied, batting her eyelashes. "Why? Do you love her?"
"Of course not." But she saw the pain in his face, and she at once knew the truth.
He'd been smitten from Day 1.
"Excuse me." Smoothly, Derrick stood and made his way out the door.
"I know who you are," a voice hissed from above Massie.
Startled, she dropped the cloth she was holding and scrambled to her feet, face-to-face with Alicia. "Pardon?"
"I know who you are," she reiterated. "Princess Massie Elizabeth Block. I knew the second I laid eyes on you. He is in love with you, do you know that?"
"I do," she stammered.
"That's what I thought." She smirked. "But he is mine. Mine. He will marry me, and I will bear his children. And you will not make problems. Is that clear?"
"I am not your maid." She stood taller and straighter, making eye contact with the girl who used to be her best friend. "I am Princess Massie Elizabeth Block."
"You don't look like it," she snickered, taking in Massie's outfit of a calf-length mint-green skirt, stained from the oil she'd spilled earlier, an old white beater that had been handed down probably through generations, a black cap, a black apron, and a lime-green crest stating, 'Harrington Castle.' "Why'd you leave anyway? Do you know your mother is beside herself? She came to my father yesterday, asking if I knew of your whereabouts. Of course I didn't. Not until now."
"Don't tell him. Please." She leaned closer pleadingly. "I never thought this day would come, Alicia Rivera. I am of higher status than you. I still am. My title is still Princess, and I suggest you use it. I could return to my previous station in a heartbeat, do you know that? And I can have you turned into the kingdom whore, but you would love that, wouldn't you? I can have you whipped. I can have you executed."
Alicia just laughed. "I dare you."