A princess on the run, Briar Aldrich has no choice but to take on the role of scullery maid when Lord Sterling Huntington stumbles upon her in the woods and doesn't recognize her. But how safe is she actually in his home? And how safe is her heart?
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Briar sat soundlessly as Mrs. Woods scrubbed her skin raw in an effort to eradicate the dirt and grime that she had accumulated upon her person from her night's romp through the woods. She had been shepherded from the stables directly to the servant's bath house. Mrs. Woods had filled a basin with lukewarm water and sat her down into it, going to work at scouring away the muck from her evening's adventures. She sat in silence, staring straight ahead as the woman worked. There was no privacy here. Other female servants came and went as she washed, offering only tentative smiles and inquisitive glances in her direction. Briar had to resist the urge to cover herself every time someone unfamiliar entered the room. She was unaccustomed to being put on display in such a vulnerable state but she had known that the commoners bathed in front of each other all the time, as was the customary experience of someone who could not afford a private bath in their own home as she had in the palace. Nor did they have servants who would manage the water's temperature or encounter her with a silk robe when she emerged.
Mrs. Woods chattered as she worked. She educated Briar about her bunk mate, a girl named Elsie, and how the two of them would be sharing a modest room with two beds and not much more. She spoke about her duties, that she would be assigned a room or two in the house to keep clean, that she would help cook every meal and service the lord's sister and her guests during their morning ladies' tea. She concluded her diminutive speech with a firm reminder that Briar would be required to make herself fully available to the noble household, be at their beck and call night and day, and, above all else, never to question a command from the lord of the estate. There was nothing sinister in the way that Mrs. Woods gave such instructions, nothing to indicate that her time here would be anything short of pleasant, but still she felt as if a proverbial door was closing on her soul, locking her true identity behind that impenetrable barrier. She could not be Princess Briar Aldrich here in this country estate ruled by a lord with unknown loyalties. For the preservation of her own life and the line of succession, she would become someone else if only for a time. She had already concocted the story. She simply needed a name.
Briar said nothing in response to Mrs. Woods' discourse. She only sat quietly, considering the situation she now found herself in and focusing on the arduous task of keeping her hands from shaking as she had since the moment that she had chanced upon the lord and his men in the woods. Perhaps she should have been shaking. Perhaps she should have been a sniveling, trembling mess for them. That was how a typical common girl would have reacted if the story she had told had been true. That sort of display would have undoubtedly had a marked effect on the rapidity with which she would have been able to gain their confidence. But somehow, whether due to some sort of inner strength that she had unknowingly drawn upon in this time of great turmoil or perhaps as a consequence of her training, she hadn't found it quite possible to show weakness in front of those men.
She regarded the water that she was sitting in and found it red with the blood that had caked her skin. She had stabbed a man, she remembered, had taken the knife from a dead soldier's body and slit a boy's throat. The event felt as though it had taken place years ago, as if the knowledge of that action had settled itself already into some cold, forgotten portion of her soul, as if she had somehow already decided not to dwell upon it. You did what you had to. That was what Lord Huntington had said when he had understood what she had to do. But was he right? She could have potentially avoided the bloodshed. She may have been able to dodge both him and the short man. She could have gotten away without killing him. Or perhaps she wouldn't have. The harsh certainty of her new reality was that she would encounter situations in which she would have to choose between her own life and the life of another, between her country and her morality. It was a choice that only soldiers and sovereigns were faced with. Even now, as certain as she was that she had made the right choice and done what was necessary for her survival, she felt ill thinking of it. She clutched her knees tighter to her chest and shivered. She tried to close her eyes but only saw his face.
