Lucky Charm (Reverse Fairytales Book 2)(72)

“And he knows that! You said yourself, he’ll have all the MDS looking for us. Nowhere is safe. We can’t even go to the press ourselves because we don’t know if they are members of the Magi Death Squad. You were right when you said there was nothing we could do.”

“I never said that at all,” he replied, referring to the meeting we’d had earlier in the day. “I said that we need to sit tight for a few days until we come up with a plan. You know we are going to fight this right?”

I nodded slowly, not sure what I knew anymore. We both silently sipped out milk, watching Luca shedding his crocodile tears on the TV.

“How unlucky can one person get. I’ve been engaged twice and both times, my fiancé has tried to murder me on my wedding day.” I began to giggle. There was nothing funny about the situation, but my nerves were so high that giggling was a nervous reaction.

“It won’t happen the next time,” he said, pulling me closer to him.

His arms tightened around me, shielding me from the world like a warm cocoon. He picked up the remote, and turned the TV off. I fell asleep with him stroking my head.

I woke up the next morning to a whole group of people making breakfast in the open plan kitchen. They were all tiptoeing around and whispering so as not to wake us, but there were so many of them, it was impossible to sleep through.

I yawned and sat up straight, waking Cynder with the motion.

“Good morning your highness,” said one of the women. She was about the same age as me but tiny and adorable. Her hair was in braids by her side like a little girl. Somehow it suited her.

“Call me Charm!” I said. “We are all in this together. There’s no point standing on ceremony.”

She curtsied and blushed. “Renaissance,” she said, curtsying again for good measure. “Renaissance Poad, but people call me Renee for short.”

“Nice to meet you Renee.” I had to let everyone know that they didn’t have to curtsy or bow to me anymore. We had a meeting scheduled after breakfast. I’d do it then.

Standing up, I made my way into the mess of people in the kitchen. There was someone cooking eggs and bacon, another person laying out bowls for cereal, a couple were counting mugs for coffee.

“Can I help?” I offered.

A collective round of “no’s” and “Just sit down, we’ll serve you’s” went up.

“You saved my life yesterday and you are keeping me here with great danger to yourselves. Here I’m not the queen. I’m just a person like the rest of you and I want to help.”

“Maybe they just think you can’t cook!” whispered Cynder playfully in my ear. I grinned and gave him a swipe which he dodged.

“You can make toast for everyone,” said the woman who’d been frying the eggs. She broke off to pass me a loaf of bread and a knife. With curly hair topping off a ruddy face, she was the quintessential grandmother type. Her half-moon glasses were steamed up, so she peered over the top of them.

“Thank you,” I replied, taking the bread from her and fetching the butter.

“We usually fend for ourselves round here,” She said, going back to the bacon and eggs, “but what with everything going on, we thought it would be nice to welcome you with a proper breakfast. There’s thirty of us altogether and we can’t fit around the kitchen table, so we’ll have to take it in turns.”

“Alanah,” said Cynder sidling up to her and stealing a piece of bacon right from the pan. “you know you’ll not stop cooking until we are all fed. You can’t help yourself.”

“Looks like you’ve to problem with helping yourself,” she said, hitting him playfully with the wooden spoon she was holding.

I sliced, toasted and buttered mountains of toast. Every time I put a slice down, someone would come and take it. After I’d gotten through three loaves, I finally took a couple of slices for myself and added an egg and bacon to my plate. Alanah was right, there was no space round the table, so I sat next to Cynder on the sofa. Someone had put the TV on again. I watched silently, eating my toast as my so called husband continued the charade.

His interview was one I’d not seen before. He’d probably filmed it this morning. He was wearing a smart suit with a purple flower in the lapel. Oh how I hated him for that!

The fake tears were still streaming down his face as he spoke. He really was quite the actor.

I chewed on a slice of toast as I listened to him.

“We had our whole lives in front of us,” he cried. “I’d been looking forward to our wedding for months and I still can’t understand why anyone would do this. Why would someone kidnap my beloved?”

“The public is in mourning today alongside you.” said a voice just off camera. I recognised it immediately as the voice of Frederick Pittser. So it didn’t take long for him to crawl out of the woodwork. Without Leo at the police station and with Luca in charge, Pittser had nothing to fear any more although I noticed he didn’t show his face.

“Yes,” replied Luca. “and I want to thank everyone for the overwhelming support they’ve shown at this horrible time. I will continue to support them back in the way Her Majesty would have wanted.”

I resisted the urge to throw my plate at the television.

“There is a slight possibility that the queen is still alive,” Pittser reminded him.