Her Royal Secret

Chapter 3: Part 3

I was on edge the entire next day after meeting Robert, not quite sure how to handle my feelings. The only person I could really talk about it, Jasper, was shadowing my brother and I couldn't just pull him away to talk about my feelings.

I wanted to though, desperately. The secret was eating away at me and I felt horribly guilty for not telling Liam. I knew that Robert and I had similar reasons for not telling him the truth. We wanted to protect him at all costs but the more lies I spoke, the further apart I felt from my twin. It was such a change from the past few months, where we'd found ourselves to have become closer than ever.

"He's been asking about you, you know." Jasper told him as he found me that night out in the Palace gardens.

"Liam?" I asked as I allowed the chill of the night to soothe me. I shivered but reveled in the cold and pushed aside Jasper as he tried to drape his jacket over me. I needed this, need the cold to sink into my skin and stop me from bursting at the seams in light of our new discovery.

"He wanted to know where it was that you'd go off to, without informing James."

I smiled at that, I wasn't the only one clearly surprised by how well I got on with my new bodyguard. But he'd been unhappy yesterday when he found out just how long I had been out for and with whom. So this morning I'd allowed him to trail after me without giving him too much trouble. I thought by now he'd be appeased.

"What did you say?" I turned to him and he gave me a rueful smile.

"I told him, I would love nothing more than for you to share each and every single detail of your life with me. Sadly, that won't be happening any time soon."

"Cute," I smiled for the first time that day. "But he must know that you were with me yesterday."

He shrugged, "I told him I cornered you, tried to push you into spending some time with me."

"You don't think he suspects any more than that?"

"If he does he didn't let it on. Don't worry, he won't find out until you want him to."

And that was what I was worried about. What would happen when Robert came back? What would the fallout be like? Would we be ready? But it didn't matter because whether or not we were prepared, there was about to be quite the upheaval.