Strike at Midnight(37)

We walked through the kitchen and I left my glass slipper on the side before I took a left into Marcel’s living quarters. Lemonade Guy would just have to wait there while I caught up with Sir Raymond in the bar.

“Good evening, Rella, my dear,” Sir Raymond said from Marcel’s couch with a glass of wine in his hand. Marcel was sitting on a chair next to him.

“Melody finished her set,” Marcel said with a quick explanation. “I thought it best he wait for you back here.”

“Don’t you have a bar to tend to?” I snapped, pissed off that I hadn’t been able to bring in Lemonade Guy without an audience.

“Melody is tending bar for me while I tend to your friend,” he said, giving me a look. “Rem is crashing in my room for now, and I’ll take the couch tonight. Good person that I am.”

“Fine,” I said, needing to get Lemonade Guy away from them before anyone recognized him as not belonging here. I would just have to update Sir Raymond in the bar, and Marcel could come with me while Lemonade guy waited back here.

“Who is your friend?” Marcel asked with a smug look on his face, and I could have killed him. I went to tell him to piss off, but then over-friendly Lemonade Guy decided it was time for an introduction. He stepped up beside me, removed his cap, and gave them a bow. All my efforts for a disguise were wasted.

“Good lord!” Sir Raymond said, and he got up extremely fast for a guy of his age. “Your Highness.” He bowed at Lemonade Guy and I laughed at the address. Sir Raymond had obviously had too much to drink.

“Sir Raymond,” Lemonade Guy said. “It’s good to see you this evening.”

Sir Raymond straightened up and looked at me like I had lost my head or something. “My dear Rella. You should have told us you were bringing Prince Andrew to see us.” He was trying to give me a look of reprimand or warning—I wasn’t sure which. But my head wasn’t registering. Prince Andrew? The Prince of Carena? Prince Charming?

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“What the hell?” I tried to shout, but it came out like a hoarse whisper. I turned on Lemonade Guy. Or the prince. Or whoever the hell he was.

It had to be a mistake, a joke surely. But then why wasn’t he telling them that he wasn’t the prince? Why wasn’t he laughing and saying Sir Raymond was mistaken?

Holy shit. All the pieces came flying together and hit me like a tankard to a drunkard’s skull.

“I’m Prince Andrew,” he said with a sudden look of concern on his face. “I thought you knew?”

“B-But h-how?” I stammered, and I could see Marcel trying not to burst out in laughter from the chair he was still sitting on—a chair that was going to be kicked out from beneath him if he dared to let out a murmur. “You never said!”

“Of course I did,” he replied, obviously certain of the fact. “When we were introduced at the ball?”

My mind tried to recall when that was and a memory of the overzealous couple on the dance floor came to mind.

“I got knocked into your arms at that point,” I said, my breathing heavy as if I was about to have a panic attack. My head was still reeling. “I didn’t hear your name. Didn’t you get that?”

“I thought you had heard. I am extremely—”

“Don’t say sorry,” I shouted, and I heard Sir Raymond gasp. Even Marcel’s smile dropped from his face.

“Rella,” Sir Raymond said, coming up to me. “This is the prince, remember?”

His words didn’t register, and I reached out to the prince once more.

“I asked you to fetch me a drink at the ball,” I said, feeling more embarrassment that I ever thought possible. “Twice.”

“Of course you did,” he said, and his uniform smile returned. “I was more than happy to.”

“The prince doesn’t fetch people drinks,” I said weakly. Or chase ladies outside. But then again, I wasn’t a lady.

My legs directed me across to the couch where I could fall down and be saved from a bruised ass. My head hurt. My stupid, stupid head hurt. Why hadn’t I put the pieces together before now?

“I thought you were someone of the nobility,” I babbled out. “Of course I did. But not the prince. The prince.” I let my head drop into my hands. I had told a prince that I wasn’t available for marriage or for a toss in the hay that I had actually been considering since that kiss. “Oh shit, I’m going to jail.”

“You’re not going to jail,” Prince Andrew said, and he came forward to kneel before me. I cringed all the more. “I’m still the same person you’ve been conversing with.”

I didn’t answer, and he put a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Rella?”

“You got kidnapped because of me,” I whispered, and his face crumpled at my distress. I was ready to crumple at it too.

If I’d had any thought of him and me getting together after our heartwarming conversation on the way here, then it had now been smashed to pieces. It had seemed impossible when I had thought him to be a nobleman, but there was absolutely no chance of anything happening now he was revealed to be a prince. I must have had a big bowl of irony for breakfast without knowing.

“I got kidnapped because of my own silliness,” he said, and Sir Raymond stepped forward.