Rogers listened in stony-faced silence, perhaps appraising my sincerity, or perhaps just waiting for me to finish so he could return to his own duties. It was impossible to tell with his face.
“I was going to tell her that I loved her.”
The words were out of my mouth before I had a chance to stop them. I wasn’t sure I even would’ve stopped them if I could. It wasn’t the sort of thing that a prince was supposed to share with the help, but there was no one else, and besides, I’d known Rogers all my life. I trusted him and knew that anything I said to the man in confidence was as safe as if it was locked in the Tower of London. “I was going to tell her, and then my mother. And then there probably would’ve been some unpleasantness, and some more of the usual media rubbish, but I would’ve weathered it all for her. Do you believe me, Rogers?”
“Yes, your Highness.” His expression did not change and his voice remained flat, but perhaps, somewhere in those grey eyes, there was a flicker of compassion.
I stood up and cleared my throat. “Probably wouldn’t have worked out anyway,” I said, although I didn’t mean a single word of it.
“Almost certainly not, your Highness,” said Rogers. “These things seldom do.”
“Do you think we put too much importance on class in this country, Rogers?”
Rogers’ left eyebrow flicked up a half inch. “No, your Highness. Perhaps at one point we did, but these days I rather think that we have reached a point where we respect it, but do not consider it the measure of a man. A man may be nobly born and yet devoid of humanity and worth, or he may be born without a penny to his name and yet filled with decency and honor. And, of course vice versa.”
I nodded, wondering just how much more intelligent than me Rogers was. I turned to leave.
“Your Highness?”
I turned back.
Rogers was silent for a final beat of consideration before speaking. “Valencia was not dismissed, but nor did she quit.”
“But that must mean that she’s still here, and she’s not on the board.”
“I fear you must make the last step on your own,” he replied.
I left the office and headed for my room, wracking my brain. She hadn’t been fired, she hadn’t quit, and yet she wasn’t here. Then where the hell was she? She couldn’t have been reassigned. She’d been reassigned once before but her name remained on the board, as with all the staff in this house…wait. That was it! In this house.
My direction changed and I sped up. There were times when I truly despaired of my own lack of intelligence, but at least I got there in the end.
***
It was a long drive from Richmond to Wellington Castle, but to me, it seemed an interminable one. I’d decided to drive myself because it invited fewer questions, but I soon found that this had been a mistake. My natural instinct was to put the pedal to the metal to get me to my destination as fast as possible, and I was then forced to rein myself in as I realized that one thing guaranteed to make a bad situation worse was a bunch of headlines about the reckless prince getting a speeding ticket. That would hardly put my mother in the right frame of mind for me dropping other bombshells on her.
There was also the problem that I found it hard to focus on driving because my mind kept going to other places. Once I’d realized that Keira had been reassigned to one of the other royal houses, it’d taken only a few quick phone calls to find out which and my problem seemed to have been solved. But the question remained: why had she asked for this reassignment? The long drive was made longer by the possibilities that kept digging knife-like into my brain.
Arriving at the Castle, much to the terror of its staff, who hadn’t expected a royal visit today, I quickly set about finding Keira, and I discovered her making beds on the third floor.
“Hi.”
Keira started a little at the voice from behind her and then nearly jumped out of her skin as she saw who it belonged to.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“Well,” I said with a shrug, “I do actually live here, you know. As well. And other places too. I know it’s confusing—and I guess a little extravagant—but there it is.”
“How did you find me?” she asked.
Shit, she really didn’t seem pleased to see me.
“I figured it out.”
“That doesn’t seem at all likely.”
“Hey, I’m smarter than you give me credit for.”
“Are you?” she asked, her voice filled with unmasked disdain.
“Well, maybe not book smart. But street smart.”
A half-smile flickered across Keira’s face at that, though she tried hard to suppress it. “You really aren’t street smart.”