Whether or not I had any sort of feelings for Keira, I was largely unable to say for the simple reason that I’d never had them, or anything like them, for any other woman, and so I had no idea what it actually felt like. For all I knew, I’d picked up some rare disease in New York, for which the symptoms included sweaty palms, dry throat, butterflies in the stomach, constant day-dreaming and of course, acting like a total bloody prat. What the hell had made me think I could treat Keira in the way I had to make her respond with anything other than contempt? If I had ‘feelings’, then clearly they weren’t contagious, or if they were then they could be cured by someone practically waving his morning wood at you.
Again, why the hell had I done that to her?
With no other options left and a whole bunch of sappy, romantic literature confirming my symptoms, I had to confess that, in all likelihood, I had feelings for Keira. But why her? We barely knew each other from a bar of soap. I guess it was just because. Because she was Keira Valencia. Because she was special. And what made her special? The fact that she was Keira Valencia.
Jesus, I sounded like the ultimate pussy right now, and I sounded completely illogical as well.
So the question now became: what the hell was I going to do about it? By my ridiculous behavior, I’d made things supremely difficult for myself, and if she never forgave me, then all I could do was applaud her good judgement. But I had one hope; the hope that the feeling was mutual. Perhaps I was being wildly optimistic, perhaps it was all in my head, but I felt sure that I’d felt some spark between us, some tug, something that drew us together in a way I couldn’t put into words. Love forgives all.
Dammit. Now I’d gone and used the ‘L’ word as well, which was utterly ridiculous. I didn’t love her…love at first sight was a bullshit invention of fairytales that little kids grew up believing in before being slapped in the face by the cold, hard hand of reality and adulthood.
As the sun set, the car drew up outside Richmond Palace, and I came to a decision. “Just take me round the servants’ entrance, would you, Perkins?” I asked the driver.
“Of course, your Highness.”
“Thank you.”
Though he was too well-trained to ask, Perkins was bound to wonder why, but I had no head-space to worry about that. Right now my primary concern was getting to speak to Keira without anyone noticing. I certainly didn’t need anyone in my family thinking that I was sleeping with the staff, and that would certainly be the conclusion to which they would jump. And, however close-lipped the servants were when dealing with the press, they were terrible gossips amongst themselves, and any meeting between me and Keira was sure to make its way back to the Queen somehow.
Fortunately, it was now late enough in the day that the house was operating on its skeleton overnight staff. Most of the maids, footmen, grooms, under-butlers and so on had either retired to their rooms in the house’s upper floors, and those who lived off-site had headed home for the night. It was therefore quiet when I sneaked in, trying not to look too sneaky since Perkins was still watching. I didn’t venture into the servants’ corridors often, but as a child I’d spent a great deal of time down here, playing hide and seek with Michael and our cousins. It was a great place to play hide and seek. The memories flooded back now as I sought to get my bearings. I missed those days; things had been so much simpler then. Royal or not, a child is a child, and all that mattered back then was having fun. Perhaps I’d tried to cling to that credo too long into adulthood. My determination to have fun hadn’t changed, while my definition of ‘fun’ had changed radically—if all I wanted to do was play hide and seek, then my behavior would probably not represent such a problem, and I wouldn’t be plastered all over the gossip columns every five seconds.
Once I’d worked out where I was and which doors were which, I proceeded along the corridor. I wasn’t sure if Keira lived in or out—her early morning start argued live-in, but the fact that she was new staff suggested out—and either way she would be hard to find. She might have already gone home if she lived out, and if she lived in then she was most likely up in her room, and there was no chance of me seeing her there without being seen by a score of others. In fact, now that I stopped to think about it, I had to admit that the chances of finding her down here were extremely slim, and this had been a pretty dumb idea.
I seemed to be having a lot of pretty dumb ideas since meeting Keira…another symptom of the ‘feelings’ no doubt.
But just as I was about to give up and leave this quest for another day, a noise caught my attention. It was the sound of someone crying.