Page 51 of Ties of Dust

For the next couple of days after the training yard incident, Flora avoided private conversation with Prince Cassius. It wasn’t difficult, given the prince was clearly doing the same. She could see even from twenty feet away that Prince Cassius was getting nowhere with his father, meaning that the alliance—and their liberation—remained out of reach.

Prince Cassius spent a lot of time in his suite or in his study, both locations that allowed Flora to wait at leisure in an adjoining room. She wasn’t sorry for the rest. She’d downplayed it when the prince asked, but the pain of the sparring matches—particularly the setback to her injured shoulder—had been significant.

Of course she accompanied the prince to all meals, and during any meetings he had, she wasn’t far away. It was unnerving on these occasions to note how often Sir Keavling was watching her. He seemed very fixated on her presence.

He wasn’t the only one, and being an oddity was starting to wear on her. She’d thought her role conspicuousin Sindon. It seemed the idea of a female guard was even more shocking in Crandell. And she wasn’t behaving like a normal guard. She was always with the prince, never off duty except when sleeping, consulting with him alone in his rooms…none of it was normal.

The attention wasn’t all negative, which was a challenge in itself. The guard whom she’d bested in the training yard often hung around, starry-eyed, as if hoping to catch her when she came off duty. He was out of luck, because she never came off duty. Once she could have sworn the prince noticed him on the way to lunch, then lingered over his meal for an inordinately long time. Flora had to stay with him in the large dining hall rather than standing alone outside his study door, as she would have done had he followed his usual routine.

Not that she minded. She was very happy to avoid her admirer, and any other curious onlookers from the general castle guard. She couldn’t avoid the other members of the prince’s personal guard, but she was growing used to their snide remarks and cold shoulders. She barely noticed the pointed looks they exchanged anytime the prince took her into a room with him when his guards would normally stand outside the door. The speculation was exactly what she’d expected, and she’d decided from the start not to let it bother her.

If she’d wanted to avoid controversy and spend her life courting the respect of people she had no respect for, she would have stayed home, not run away to school and certainly not become a female guard to Siqual’s princess.

No, the guards she could handle. It was the ire of the domestic staff that threw her off balance. She quickly realized that she was deeply resented by most of the maids who tended to the prince’s suite. By her observation, PrinceCassius didn’t even notice them coming and going, but they certainly noticed him. None of them went so far as to make advances, but she could see at a glance that the serious, handsome heir to the throne was the object not so much of admiration as of obsession for most of the girls who worked in the castle.

She could understand why. She was no stranger to handsome princes, and she could say with authority that not all of them had Cassius’s air. He was confident without being cocky, masterful without being domineering. And she had reason to know that he felt more concern for those under his care than many royals would.

He had perhaps a touch too much pride—for example her life would be easier if he hadn’t felt the need to hide the tether from his father and the court. But she had sympathy for his position. He was clearly born to lead, and she could sense his frustration as his father increasingly treated him like an inconvenient interruption rather than a true heir. To admit to the tangle he’d fallen into would hardly gain him more respect. Flora guessed that he hadn’t been sidelined so much before Sir Keavling came along and started saying exactly what the king wanted to hear, thereby forcing Cassius to be the unpopular voice of reason. Even Lord Armand, who at first had seemed such a promising support, had been lying low, trying to avoid notice in a way that Flora was sure was uncharacteristic. She wasn’t sorry not to have to interact with him, but it meant that all the strain of trying to steer the king away from a bad course fell on the prince.

Cassius handled it with grace, but Flora had the luxury of much more insight into his private moments than anyone else in the castle. She could see the mortification he tried to hide when his father turned awayfrom him at meals, or spoke over his very reasonable comments. She respected him for his restraint, even while she vicariously felt the awkward sting of his embarrassment. Sometimes it was almost as though she was literally feeling his emotions, so potently could she discern them.

Somehow, she doubted these complexities of Cassius’s personality featured in the assessment of the maids. They simply basked in how close their roles brought them to the prince. And they resented her for sailing in and inserting herself even closer. And given guards and servants were in a similar class, they felt free to express their displeasure to her face, albeit in subtle ways.

It was something she’d never faced in her previous role. The maids didn’t care if she was close to Princess Miriam. In fact, she and the princess’s chief maid had been very friendly.

Her solitary attempt to be friendly to a Carrackian maid was disastrous enough to bring down the ire of the castle’s housekeeper.

It was three days after the training yard incident, and it all began when Flora encountered a familiar maid cleaning her own room. The girl was using a feather duster on the mantel, and Flora paused to greet her.

“Stirring up quite a lot of Dust there,” she said, giving her friendliest grin. “Impressive. And handy.”

The girl stared—or rather, glared—back. The silence stretched on for an uncomfortably long time before the maid gathered her duster and moved into the next room.

“Mim’s maid loved that joke,” she murmured to no one in particular as she moved out into the corridor.

Flora had forgotten all about the encounter when, three hours later, she was standing outside the prince’s door while he endured another visit from his mother. Flora hadbeen privy to some previous ones. At first, she’d been encouraged that Queen Horatia seemed supportive of the alliance, but she quickly realized the queen was mainly interested in the lavish betrothal ball she would be called upon to host. She’d been bitterly disappointed when her son had returned without a bride.

If Flora hadn’t known better, she would have thought the queen frivolous and foolish. But she was too familiar with the intricacies of castle life to be deceived by appearances. She quickly grasped that while Queen Horatia intentionally kept out of matters of state, she ran the social aspects of the royal family’s life with absolute control. Her frustration at the cancelation of the ball wasn’t about missing the chance for revelry. It was about the impact on various nuanced social situations tied to the ball. Perhaps she’d promised a hopeful matron that she would orchestrate her daughter opening the dancing with a wealthy, single duke, or perhaps she intended to use the highly public event to corner someone into agreeing to something they wouldn’t in private.

Flora had seen it all before, and although she had little interest in that world, she understood how a certain type of royal might live and die by these events.

Queen Horatia had adapted quickly to the change in circumstances and had somehow convinced the king that the safe return of their son was cause enough for a gala. The queen was fully occupied in its preparation, and Flora was soon as thoroughly bored of hearing about it as she could tell Cassius was. She was glad to wait out the current interview in the hallway, although she heard occasional catches. The queen hadn’t succeeded in pushing the door all the way closed behind her. Not that it mattered—the interview was tedious, not sensitive. She could almostfeelCassius’s impatience and frustration through the mostly closed door.

About an hour after Queen Horatia disappeared into her son’s suite, a formidable woman approached the door. Flora had only seen her once or twice before, but the castle’s housekeeper was an important enough person to be instantly recognizable. The middle-aged woman ignored the other guard, her sharp gaze focused on Flora.

“You are the prince’s new female guard, I assume?” The woman’s greeting wasn’t friendly.

“That’s right,” said Flora cautiously.

The housekeeper lifted her head and studied Flora down her nose. “And I understand that you have a complaint regarding the cleanliness of your rooms?”

“What?” Flora frowned in confusion. “No, not at all.”

“If your accommodations are not sufficiently grand for your needs, young lady, you can easily be moved elsewhere. There are many available rooms in the servants’ wing.” She cast a look at Flora’s companion. “Or with the guards—no place for a respectable young lady, but I daresay you would manage.”

Flora disregarded the insult, too bewildered by the housekeeper’s attack. Naturally the servants were resentful that a guard had been given a lavish guest suite. But for the housekeeper herself to come and make an issue of it, Flora must have really gotten under everyone’s skin.

“I can assure you, I never dreamed of complaining about my accommodations,” Flora said firmly.

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