A Dove's Tale

Chapter 141

Clavis wasn't the only prince having problems with women, as I soon discovered. Every congratulations I received for my engagement turned into a convenient segway for eager young noblewomen and their parents to launch into a barrage of subtle and not-so-subtle questions about the Rhodolitian princes. In retrospect, it shouldn't have surprised me. Marriage among royalty and nobility was political, so everybody understood why none of the princes had been in a rush to marry before they knew which of them would become king. The choice of a queen was too important to risk marrying the wrong woman in advance. But now that Chevalier was king, and he'd chosen his queen, the assumption was that his brothers were now on the market in a big way. And since I'd succeeded in capturing the Brutal Beast's heart, I held all the answers for anyone wanting to bag one of the less vicious noble beasts.

At least, that's what everybody seemed to think.

I didn't have the heart to tell the hopeful young women coming to me for answers that I never thought I'd be in a relationship at all, and I'd put no effort into starting one with Chevalier. I already knew from Theresa's lamentations that such a revelation stung for a woman who'd put in the work and seen no results. And I certainly couldn't tell anybody to do what I did. For one thing, the circumstances just didn't apply. Chevalier and I only met because I'd been in a very difficult situation, and a job at the palace met my needs, even though his bad behavior alone would have been more than enough to make me quit any other job after the first day, and his brothers weren't much better. I only stayed out of desperation.

It was a good thing I had plenty of experience in dodging questions and providing vague, evasive answers, because I didn't know what to tell these women. But by late afternoon, when I found myself suddenly alone in the hallway with nobody but my guards to bother me, the thought that there was still more than an hour until dinnertime made my shoulders slump in exhaustion.

"Psst, Ivetta."

I jumped, startled, and scanned the hallway again. That was Clavis' voice, I was sure of it, but I couldn't see him anywhere.

"In here," he hissed. A tapestry covering an otherwise innocuous-looking section of the wall fluttered suspiciously.

Normally, I would have run in the opposite direction, but the prospect of shady, secretive dealings with Clavis in a hidden room was much more attractive than staying out in the open, waiting for the next swarm of man-hungry women to jump me. I checked all directions again, dismissed my guards, and darted behind the tapestry.

"Thank you," I said to Clavis as he stepped back and allowed me to slip inside.

A handful of candles lit the otherwise darkened room, shedding light on a lounge at nearly full occupancy. Jin and Silvio were sitting on opposing sofas in front of a stone fireplace, bent over a game of chess on the coffee table between them; Leon was sitting beside Jin, a glass in his hand as he watched the game; Yves, Licht, and Keith were reclining in armchairs off to the side, drinking tea; and Nokto was standing by the covered window, lifting the drapes to peek outside.

"Don't do that!" Leon scolded him.

Nokto dropped the curtains and raised his hands defensively. "I was just looking."

I smiled and shook my head. "This is pathetic," I observed. "Eight grown men hiding in the dark from a bunch of women."

"More like wolves," Leon commented. "Come on, take a load off. You want something to drink?"

"Just tea," Clavis answered for me, slinging his arm around my shoulders and guiding me to the sofa next to Silvio. "She's trying to kick the habit."

I rolled my eyes and shrugged Clavis' arm off, scooting over to put some distance between us. "Tea is fine."