He didn’t reply.
I froze. “You are Prince Adahm, right?” Shit. If I just snapped at the wrong prince…
“Yes,” he replied, still smiling. “May I come in?”
My eyebrows furrowed together. Since when did princes have to ask permission for anything? Before I could even answer him, he was pushing from the wall and sidestepping me until he was in my small expanse of my room.
I huffed and closed the door. When I turned, he was standing in the center of the room, hands clasped behind his back and looking around. I felt myself suddenly flush. My room was a meager place. I was a servant, after all. There was nothing special about it; it was a room meant for sleeping.
There was a bed with a simple nightstand at the side, a small fireplace to keep me warm during the winter months, and the small table with two chairs I had found myself working on. The dress was splayed across the surface.
The Prince pressed the tips of his fingers against the material of the dress for a split second before pulling them away and turning to look at me. We stared at each other for a moment. It seemed rather rude of me to not offer him a seat, but I was afraid he would get the wrong idea. It was bad enough he was in here in the dead of night… I was a servant, and the others would talk about this.
I pressed my hands against my hips and glared. “What do you want? Don’t you think you caused enough damage already?”
His smile faded into a frown, and I startled. Something about his features… “That’s why I’ve come,” he began softly. “I am here to apologize.”
“You already did that. Now get out.”
He turned, so obviously ignoring my commands as he looked down at the dress once again, fingering the material. “Are you done fixing it?” he asked.
“No. I guess I have you to thank for that, don’t I?” I walked over and took my earlier seat. Just because he was in my room didn’t mean I could waste my time standing around doing nothing. I had pearls to finish sewing on. He could very well show himself out.
I picked up the needle and started to work.
But the prince did not move.
I sighed and put the needle down. “Is there something I can help you with?” I asked with annoyance. Like show him the door?
“I was just about to ask you the same thing.” He smiled, and my head whirled. He was very pretty, but very infuriating.
“Like I said before, you’ve helped enough, prince. Now, goodbye.”
He seemed to live to piss me off. Instead of leaving, as he’d so graciously done earlier in the day, he pulled out a chair and sat in it, right across from me. I froze and watched as he picked up the needle and thread, and the pearl I was about to bind it through. His hands looked massive compared to the tiny materials and a sudden, silly part of me wanted to thread my fingers through them, if only to compare sizes. I shook that notion off as ridiculous, though.
“The least I could do is clean up the mess I made…” He dropped the pearl through the string, as if he had done it a million times before. It was so natural, his movements, that I narrowed my eyes with suspicion. He looked up at me, and features softened. His body was so close, as if the space between us knew nothing about the meaning of distance. His body was an encompassing presence, commanding, like he’d swallow the room whole with the intensity in his gaze. “I want to help you, Maudey.” He said my name with all the secrecy of a caress.
I felt suddenly overwhelmed. The size of the room, the size of him, big arms on the table, fingers holding sewing materials so delicately in their grasp, his bright eyes set on mine…
“Fine,” I grumbled, if a little breathlessly.
The smile he gave afterwards was strange, but I didn’t ponder too much on it because he began asking for instructions on needle and thread, leaning across the space, hands grazing my own. It was like he was purposefully trying to distract me. Purposefully trying to make my head reel.
Or purposefully trying to get me not to question why there was something different about his smile.
Chapter Four
Alastair
I hadn’t lied when I called Maudey beautiful. She was. All of her. She always had a tendency to walk around the castle so tight laced. Her hair was always wrapped behind a dull head scarf, and she was always clad in boring colors of brown cotton, an apron tied to her waist.
Tonight, though, everything about her was different.
Here, in the confines of her room, she was free to do as she wished, to let that rigid part of her go, the part that she reserved for the outside. In here, her hair was unbound, blonde and ruffled, a few strands curling against plump cheeks.
Her plain cotton nightdress was nearly see through, though it hugged her every plump curve. She was not rail thin; she had a figure, a figure I admired, even as I tried concentrating on her instructions, on how to thread the needle to sew the pearl back on.
I had to admit, my reasons for challenging my brothers had been purely selfish. We’d all known Maudey a long, long time. Though she was older than us by a meager two years, we had practically grown up together. We’d tried so many times to get under her skin. I knew since we’d set our sights on her that it was bound to happen. That the closer I got, the closer I observed, I’d be the one to fall in love.
I’d never spoken to her as myself. As just Alastair Ferguson. Not when I was always pretending to be Aidan and Adahm. Even now, she thought me to be someone I wasn’t, though by the slip of a tongue, my words were all my own.
“I didn’t know how damn hard this was going to be,” I confessed shyly.
“Maybe next time you’ll think twice about stealing pearls for a marble game,” she commented sternly.
Damn Adahm and his stupidity.
I studied her from across the small expanse of space that separated us. It was strange, to see her this way. Something about it breathed a quiet intimacy that I was sure she didn’t bestow upon everyone. Usually she was always so very quiet around us, gifting us only with discreet glares if we did things she didn’t approve of. Which, I had to admit, was often.
She certainly didn’t seem afraid to hold back her words now, and I wondered why that was. Her face was set into deep concentration, soft tones and shadows flickering across soft skin from the candle flame. She threaded the needle, then a pearl and began to sew. I watched her movements with rapt attention, pausing on my own. When she concentrated, the tip of her tongue stuck out, ever so slightly, from between straight teeth.
She was pressed tightly against the edge of the table, the material of her cotton nightdress pulling across the swells of her breasts. My gaze caught there for a moment, memorizing the shape of her, round and heavy.
I had to tear my gaze away before she noticed, though it took a lot in me to do so. My fingers trembled as I threaded a needle, a sudden very vivid image of her naked and pressed against me assaulting my mind.
“You’re always so quiet…” I practically gasped out, looking up at her.
She paused mid-action to raise her eyebrows at me. “So?”
I shrugged, making a feeble, pathetic attempt at conversation. If only to distract me from where my wandering thoughts had gone. “You don’t seem so quiet now.”
She looked at me, and I swore I could see her rounded cheeks flush before she looked back down at her work. “Are you looking for an apology for the way I spoke to you earlier, your Majesty?” she whispered.
I knew all about the words she’d said to Adahm earlier. He’d told us every little detail. I couldn’t fault her for what she’d said. The words were true, after all. “No,” I replied cautiously. “I’m just saying…” Damn it. I was royally messing this up without meaning to. I was supposed to pretend to be Adahm. I was supposed to prove I could get forgiveness out of her. I wasn’t supposed to be myself. I didn’t even know who myself was anymore. It had been so long since he’d shown his face to the outside world.
“I know what you mean, Majesty.” She began working on another pearl.
I frowned. “You don’t have to call me that.”
Shit. Would I rather have her call me by my brother’s name? No. I didn’t think I could take it.
She looked up, her brown eyes very intense. “Yes, I do. You are my prince and I am a servant.”
You’re more than that… The words were on the tip of my tongue, but I held them back. That was something we’d never say. “You’re breaking the boundaries of propriety right now,” I pointed out, perfect smirk falling into place. “What gives?”
Sighing, she set the needle and thread down and looked straight into my eyes. The look there was smoldering. “The truth?” she asked. I nodded. “The truth is, you infuriate me. That’s why I said what I did. I was furious, so much so that I couldn’t hold my tongue. I just despise that stupid, stupid grin…”
She put so much emphasis on the word ‘despise’, that I didn’t entirely believe she despised Adahm. In fact, I knew that where there was hate, passion could exist within that same space.
It hurt knowing that she felt so strongly for my brother. Here was the proof that she felt something for him, even if she hadn’t yet realized it for herself. I’d always wanted to keep a piece of me to myself. I believed there was always something one should keep private. I had hoped that Maudey would be that for me.
And maybe I couldn’t have all of her, for it was obvious in her eyes just what she felt for Adahm, but maybe my words could woo her. If only so I could have but a piece of her heart.
“You might despise me, Maudey, but I find myself liking everything about you.”
My words made her tense, heat crawling up her cheeks before she pierced me with a glare. “Don’t tease, your Majesty.”
Had she never been complimented before? Or could it be that she’d never been complimented by a prince before? “I’m not,” I assured her with a smile that was genuinely my own.
She groaned and turned her face away. “That’s the smile that I hate.”
Maybe my smile wasn’t my own after all. “I’m being serious, Maudey.
Her gaze snapped to me again. “Stop. Whether you like me or not is irrelevant. You’re here for one thing only, and that’s to help clean up the mess you made.” She picked up her tools again and started working feverishly, almost as if she meant to get rid of me.
I knew that this would be difficult, I just didn’t know how so. And right now, this wasn’t about showing up my brothers. It wasn’t about either of them at all. It was about this sudden urge I had to break the rules we’d established since we were children. It was about letting Maudey get to know the real me—whoever that was. It was about her differentiating me from my brothers.
I bent over the dress and began sewing on the pearl, just the way she showed me. The movement made our hands graze slightly and her hand jerked in the slightest of movements before settling again, freezing in place. I froze as well, just like that, skin on skin touching. I was almost sure she could feel the pulse in my system vibrating onto her. When I looked up, it was to find her staring at me, too.
Right there, gazes locked, I felt something deep stir within me. Something I hadn’t ever dared to feel before now, before this moment. The need for individuality. The need for her to see me, as I am, and not for who she thought me to be.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. For what we had done, for the pretending we were doing.
Then, she smiled, and the sight blew me away. If she was beautiful in drab cotton, in a nightgown, with furrowed brows...then she was absolutely stunning when she smiled. “I forgive you,” she whispered before bending back over her work and resuming.
I smiled, not the kind that I used for the public, but a new type of smile. A smile reserved for her, for this moment, for us. Then I got back to work, letting the steady silence and the shadows of flickering candlelight wash over us… and I forgot about my brothers completely.
Chapter Five
Aidan
“Well?” I asked once my brother stepped into the room.
It was late, and Adahm and I had been waiting up for him for hours. I’d gotten so bored with the wait, that I’d pulled my ukelele out from the chest we kept hidden in our room and began strumming it softly.
Our chest held our most secretive, prized possessions. Instruments, art supplies, and books. Everything we loved that we had to keep hidden was in there, only to be taken out within the confines of our own room.
Though I very much enjoyed the game we’d been playing for most of our lives, it was nice to have something for myself. A hobby that my brothers didn’t share with me. I had tried to teach them on numerous occasions. They hadn’t been the least bit interested.
Beside me, Adahm was scribbling with charcoal on paper. I hadn’t asked what he was drawing, and he hadn’t shown me. Like I hadn’t shown him the songs I’d written. There were some things I knew they wouldn't be willing to share or see.
“Well?” Alastair asked as he closed the door softly behind him. His expression, though trying to remain impassive, kept failing. His lips twitched upwards as the smile kept invading. He walked over to his own bed and threw himself on it, letting out the softest of sighs.
That couldn’t be good.
I set my instrument down and threw a pillow at him.
He just pushed it aside.
“Spill!” I demanded. “Did Maudey forgive you or not?”
He turned and smiled. “She did.”
“I’ll be damned…” I sat back in my seat just as Adahm dropped his charcoal and sat up.
“She forgave you?” he asked incredulously. “Just like that?”
Alastair smiled and nodded, turning his attention to the ceiling above.
Adahm and I shared a look before Adahm pushed his paper aside. “Well, how? Why? Why were you gone so long?” There was suspicion, laced with something acute to jealousy in his voice. I disregarded that last bit. Maybe it was just because Alastair had been able to do something he could not. It was always that way with us.
Alastair gave another sigh, but this time in exasperation. “I told you, brother, you have to woo women into an apology. Maudey is tough, so it took some time.”
“What’d you say?” Adahm asked eagerly. “What did you do?”
Alastair lifted his arms straight up and splayed his fingers out, staring at them with that same, odd smile on his face. The tips of his fingers were bandaged with white tape. My eyes narrowed on them.
“Do you know how hard it is to sew pearls onto a dress?” he asked, almost absently. Then he turned to pierce Adahm with a glare. “Of course you don’t. If you did, you wouldn’t have pulled them off in the first place.”
Adahm’s face flushed bright red, a color that matched our hair quite nicely. He grumbled something incoherent before grabbing his materials again and sitting back against his bed and ferociously drawing.
I smiled. Already, a mischievous idea was forming in my mind. Of all my brothers, I loved to tease the most. They teased, of course, but only because it was a requirement, part of the deal we had made so long ago.
We would never do anything, or go anywhere without the others knowing every exact detail. We would adopt the same personality and keep the game going, so that no one could possibly know who we were.
It was a game crafted by me, in order to save us all from things we didn’t want to do. It was a game I was sure we would keep up with until the day we all died. I loved my brothers, and wanted to share everything with them.
Including this.
“Now it’s my turn…” I felt the smile pull at my lips.
They both froze and turned to look at me. We were all just mirrors of each other. Looking at me, would be looking into their own faces. We’d worked hard for there to be not a difference among us at all. Though, that was just genetics.
“What are you talking about, Aidan?” Adahm asked with annoyance.
“I mean, little brother, that it’s my turn to have a go with Maudey.”
“Have a go?” he sputtered, pushing as
ide his art things to the floor. Anger flared in his face. “Do you plan on seducing her or something?”
I waved off his confusing, misplaced anger with a flicker of my fingers. “Of course not. But I do believe it’s time that I got involved in some mischief as well.”
Alastair finally sat up and pierced me with a glare of his own. “What kind of mischief?” he asked cautiously.
I observed them both. They were entirely too tense, shoulders bunching up, corded muscles marking faintly against the material of their shirts. They looked like they could reach across the space that separated us and drive their meaty fists into my face. How odd.
“Well, Adahm already destroyed a dress with her. Alastair got her to forgive him. Now it’s my turn to do something, don’t you think?”
“No,” Adahm said. “We don’t think.”
“Let’s not take this too far, Aidan…” Alastair added, much more calmly.
I waved them off. “I won’t take it too far, I promise.”
They looked at each other with uncertainty, but I was done with their questioning. Since when had they started questioning me? I dropped back to my bed, pulling my ukulele to my chest and began strumming away, ignoring the obvious disapproval they were both gifting me with.
It was only later when they settled back into their own beds to brood, did I begin to wonder if perhaps, they both felt something they shouldn’t for our mother’s lady's maid.
And if that was the case, they needn’t worry.
I could make her hate us all over again.
Chapter Six
Maude
The next morning started off without a hitch. I turned the dress in to the queen, perfect and shining as if new and went about my chores. At first, I was simply too busy to think about anything other than my duties. After a while, when I finally had room to breathe and sit down in the kitchens with the other servants, I thought back to the night before. To Prince Adahm and the way his hands had grazed mine, ever so slightly.
Hers From The Start: A Collection of First In Series Reverse Harem Page 66