Playing Dirty(124)

In fact, my presence seemed to be drawing more glances than I would have usually anticipated. I enjoyed riding and wasn’t an unfamiliar face at the stables, so why should it be a surprise? But there was no doubt that the stable staff were looking at me and then looking hastily the other way when I tried to meet their gaze. They all had a look on their faces that I’d seen once already this morning on the face of Margo as she left my bedroom. Rightly or wrongly, and with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I began to mentally connect this curious behavior with Keira’s absence.

I headed for the servant’s notice board. I hadn’t wanted to be so blatant about this, at least not before I’d had a chance to talk to Keira herself, but this seemed like the only way to find her. But yet another disappointment was awaiting me, and this one came edged with shock.

Keira’s name had been removed from the board.

I stood staring for a moment, allowing the horrible possibilities to crowd in upon me. Had our relationship gotten her fired? But then surely she would have called me. Did she blame me? Or perhaps I had misread the whole situation; perhaps she’d never really liked me as much as I liked her, and now that we’d started to become closer, she’d decided to leave me.

I had to know, and I hurried back outside, hastily fumbling my phone from my pocket as I went. My call got no answer and my texts were likewise ignored. Of course, if she was at work somewhere else, then she might not have time to answer, but the whole affair was leaving me in a deep morass of uncertainty. I was now sure that something was wrong, that something had happened, but I had no idea what.

I tried to get a handle on myself enough to think clearly and realized that there was one person who might be able to clear this up.

“I’m afraid that I cannot help you,” said Rogers as we sat in his neat little office ten minutes later.

“One day she worked here, the next she’s gone,” I replied. “You’re in charge of the staff here, you must know why!”

Rogers said nothing, nor even moved his head, but his acknowledgement of this fact was none the less clear.

“Has she been fired?”

“No.” That much, Rogers was apparently willing to say.

“Then she quit?”

A flicker of tension passed across Rogers’ impassive features—he was the ideal of his profession, the most dedicated and devoted of servants, and to not answer a direct question from one of his royal masters was painful to him. But he was also responsible for the wellbeing of his staff and he wouldn’t betray their trust either.

“I could order you to tell me,” I said with steel in my voice.

“Yes,” Rogers replied. “You could, your Highness.”

I gritted my teeth. The man was not going to make this easy for me. “And if I did?”

“Then I would very much regret my inability to give you the information you are requesting,” said Rogers.

“Inability or unwillingness?”

“In this case, I feel the two go hand in hand.”

“You mean, you know something but you can’t tell me.”

Rogers said nothing.

“I don’t see why you have to take this attitude,” I said. “It’s perfectly obvious that everyone around here knows what’s going on—knows where Keira has gone and why. I’m the only one who doesn’t! I could order any one of them to tell me!”

“I would prefer it if you didn’t do that,” said Rogers.

I slumped back in my chair, the bluster gone out of me. I didn’t want to be an asshole who made everyone uncomfortable, so I’d have to find out what was going on another way. “I won’t,” I finally said.

“Thank you, your Highness.”

“And I won’t order you to tell me either.”

“I appreciate that very much, your Highness. There are times when this sort of thing is necessary, but it goes very much against the grain in me to refuse the wishes of the family.”

I said nothing for a long while, my mind racing and yet going nowhere. Finally I spoke again. “You may not believe this, Rogers, but I care about her very much. And if there’s something that I’ve done to hurt or upset her, then I wish she’d spoken to me about it. But perhaps the fact that she didn’t means something in itself. Perhaps it means that I’ve misread the whole situation between her and me. Perhaps she never cared for me at all and that’s what you are shielding me from. I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I feel like my guts have been ripped out. I don’t know why it’s happened—except that it seems to be my fault—I don’t know how to fix it, or if it’s fixable, or where to find her if it is and I could. And I can’t talk to anyone about it because no one is supposed to know.”