“True.”
Tahra is keen to prove herself, and perhaps giving her the opportunity to do so will help matters.
“If she wants to stay, then Tahra is a good choice. The only thing I know about guarding and fighting is that I have no talent for it.”
“That’s why you have me.” Lorcan squeezed my shoulder.
We entered our living quarters and found Norah in our bedroom, putting away laundry.
“Shall I set out new clothes for you, Sir?” she called after him, watching as he stripped the dirty set off and over his head. Her eyes followed him into the bathing room, even if her body did not.
When she turned to me, I held her eye. Norah didn’t blink, didn’t look away. Instead, her mouth curved faintly upward at the corners before she said, “I shall leave fresh clothing on the bed for him. Your lunch is on the balcony. Is there anything further you require, Highness?”
“Dismissed,” I snapped. But Norah took her time leaving. Placing clean tunic and trousers on the bedspread. Running her hand down the center of the underwear she placed on top, where his cock would be when he put them on. I observed this silently, and noted the way she did not curtsey to me when she left.
I closed my eyes. Whether she meant to seduce him or already had didn’t matter; I only wanted this nightmare to end. Like Palla, I didn’t know how to wake up.
CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX
For the next several days, I tried not to see it. I didn’t want to. Yet there was no ignoring the way Norah’s gaze lingered on Lorcan every time she was in our quarters, which was hourly. She barged in on the thinnest of pretexts—trying to catch him alone, was my guess.
He didn’t respond the first time, nor the second, but as Norah became bolder and more flirtatious, I saw him meet her eye with wary unease.
He said nothing.
No reprimand. Lorcan simply ignored her, in silence.
I tried to do the same.
It didn’t work.
Then I walked in on Norah waiting outside the bathing chamber with a pile of fresh clothes. She knew when Lorcan came back to clean up for lunch after training all morning with the new royal guards. She knew that I spent the mornings in my study until he was free to escort me into The Walled City or on other errands, that the guards’ bed was always rumpled no matter how we tried to make it neat, and that I awoke alone in the double bed each morning because we always moved back to the main bed when Lorcan rose for training, so our foster daughter wouldn’t find herself alone.
So did the entire castle.
I couldn’t stop seeing the way Norah stroked Lorcan’s underwear. I know—I know—that it’s only a bit of fabric, that labor is not easy to find right now, and that to fire her would insult Ifran. That my mind needs to be focused on more important things. I need a castle manager to handle such matters, but until I have one, Norah knows the only one who can check her is me—and she has planted exactly the right rumors to prevent me from taking her to task.
If I speak up, I will look jealous, because I am. Weak, because I can be so easily manipulated. She’s been devious in how she goes about it, too. How would I explain firing her?
Norah handled his clothes inappropriately, I would say.
Inappropriately, how, Zosia? Handling clothes is what maids do, would be the response.
She comes into my rooms all the time.
Yes, Zosia, it’s her job to be in and out of our chambers. You of all people ought to know that.
When Lorcan came out a moment later and she still hadn’t left to give us privacy, as a proper maid would have done, I glared. She cast me a smug, sidelong glance before saying to Lorcan, “The blue brings out the color of your eyes, if I may say so, Sir.”
“Norah.”
“Highness?” She curtsied as though she hadn’t been attempting to flirt with my fiancé right under my nose.
“You are dismissed.”
Norah tossed a haughty little glance over her shoulder at Lorcan. He did nothing. After an uneasy look at her, then at me, as he tugged the hem down over his abdomen.
“Norah, you are dismissed from my service. Leave the castle and don’t return.”
