Page 4 of The Discount Damsel

“Such as a diabolical level of patience?” the tutor erupted. “You deceived me!”

“Well, yes, I had to.” Millie set her cup down for a slice of shortbread. “If you hadn’t convinced Mother and Father that I was ‘the epitome of regal grace,’ they never would’ve allowed another bunch of suitors in here. And then I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to dismiss them and once and for all convince my parents that piracy truly is the life for me.”

She had learned, long ago, that the rest of the kingdoms weren’t as progressive as Amberly, with a queen’s voice equal in authority to that of a king. If her voice was to be heard amongst her peers, it had to be projected from the end of an unscrupulous blade.

“‘Dismiss them?’” Miss Sicily shrilled. “What you did was nothing short of an act of war! With seven fiefdoms, one viscounty, and two kingdoms. And what’s worse, you’ve made yourself entirely unmarriagable!”

“Unmarriagable.” Millie snapped off another bite of shortbread and chewed thoughtfully. “Is that even a word?”

Heat rose from Sicily’s neck and stained her cheeks a spotty fuchsia. The princess was indeed correct, and while Sicily simply adored the legendary logophiles Merriam and Webster, she cursed them today for omitting the negative of marriageable in their lexicon.

“It is today,” she shrilled.

The princess rubbed the crumbs from her fingers and retrieved her teacup. “Lovely. Job well done to me, then. Besides, who’s ever heard of a married pirate? It is the unfettered life for me.”

“Who’s ever heard of a lady pirate?” Sicily shot back. “Raiding and debauchery are solely men’s work, everyone knows that!”

Millie smirked over the rim of her teacup. “It was.”

“I want to be you when I grow up, Sissy,” Rosamund giggled.

“No you do not,” Sicily snapped.

“And you will not speak to the princess in that manner, as you are no longer a member of my staff.” The king stood and gestured to the parlor exit.

“Your Majesty.” Sicily caught herself wringing her hands in supplication and dropped them to her sides. She would be poised, dammit. “I had no idea your daughter was capable of such deception. If I had known⁠—”

“But you should have, summa cum laude graduate of the Esteemed School of the Gentle Arts. I thought Intellectual Manipulation and Mental Warfare were required courses there?”

“Th-they are, but⁠—”

“Olabeus, bring my wife around, would you? The coward.” He passed an affectionate hand over his wife’s hair, planted a kiss on the top of her head. “Now, Miss Sicily, this way. Do not make me call the guard.”

Tears sprang to the tutor’s eyes, but they didn’t fall. She would be the embodiment of grace under pressure, even if she’d just been humiliated and her entire reputation destroyed in one afternoon by a nineteen-year-old girl. Still, she cast one beleaguered look from the king to the princess and back again and found no sympathy.

Sicily startled when Rosamund pressed a slightly squashed petit four into her hand. This one had lemon curd filling that oozed into the seam between her fingers.

“Calumbria’s a bit far,” the kind-hearted bimbo said. “You’ll need a snack.”

Dazed, the tutor let the king grip her elbow and escort her from the greenhouse. In the foyer, she found all her travel trunks already packed and the footmen carrying them out to a stagecoach.

“Wh-what?” she sputtered. Even after all those years spent at school learning the art of eloquent conversation, that was the best she could come up with.

The king sighed. “You are the thirteenth in a long line of etiquette tutors. It would’ve been foolish of me to think that you could succeed when so many others had failed. Though, I had hoped⁠—”

Sicily plucked her elbow from the king’s grip. “You knew this would happen?”

“I suspected.” He linked his hands behind his back, shoulders squaring. “And it is far easier and more politically savvy to blame you for this afternoon than my daughter, though she seems to have really done it this time. If the suitors think it was your ineptitude in her education, they won’t return to their homes and draft missives of war. Seven fiefdoms, one viscounty, and two kingdoms, you know.”

“But you’ve made it so I’ll never find work as an etiquette tutor again!”

His expression softened but was hardly yielding. “You can’t say the writing wasn’t on the wall for this assignment. And I wasn’t exaggerating when I told you at the start that this job might cost you more than your sanity. Still, I appreciate that you truly tried, and so, a severance package.”

The king withdrew a thick envelope from his doublet and handed it to her. She thumbed it open and discovered freshly cut gold marks. It was a small fortune, easily twice a year’s salary. A bribe. A payoff.

Royals really thought they could get away with everything, didn’t they?

“But my repu⁠—”