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Slipping my legs out from under the covers, I grabbed my robe from the hook on the wall and padded to the door. I peeked through the peep hole and saw the back of one of Maksim’s guards. His armored helmet almost completely obstructed my view.
Pacing a small circle around my room, I considered my best course of action. I knew the guards on my door changed three times each day, once at noon, again around dusk and then at midnight. That last shift, I guessed, was the most vulnerable. It was the longest, least interesting and most inconvenient. All things that I could use to my advantage.
I placed my hand on the knob and steeled myself with a steadying breath, and then opened the door. The guard met me with an icy stare.
I grimaced and placed my hand to my belly, down low, where I often got cramps before my time of the month. Fortunately, I wasn’t in any pain at the moment. But the guard couldn’t know that.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, making myself remember the bone-chilling pain of my worst cramps, “but I need to get to my mother’s chambers. I need medicine. Quickly.”
The guard got that look on his face that men always do when “women’s issues” are mentioned. Half-scared, half-confused, entirely over his head.
“Oh,” he said, clearly unsure where to put his eyes. He cleared his throat, putting one armored fist to his mouth.
“Please,” I begged, doubling over. “Please.”
He blew out a sigh and glanced around the empty corridor. “I’m under orders, Princess.”
“I know,” I said, wincing and now adding a second hand to compress my belly, “but I’m in terrible pain. Perhaps you could go to my mother’s room to find me what I need. I’ll need several yards of thick cotton gauze for when my flow strengthens, and I’ll also need…”
That did it. His eyes went wide like a stunned deer. “I’ll accompany you. But don’t you dare try to run.”
“I couldn’t even if I wanted to,” I said, wincing again. Then I looped my arm over his and let him help me to my mother’s chambers.
Once there, I got all that I had mentioned and more. I had enough cotton pads, buckwheat compresses, and clean towels to see to three women for three months. I placed it all into a basket that my mother kept in her dressing chambers. And then, when the guard turned his back in embarrassment, I grabbed what I was really after. A small blue glass bottle of valerian root tincture that my mother used for sleepless nights. I nestled it in the cotton gauze to hide it and rejoined the guard, who escorted me back to my room.
* * *
At a little after midnight that night, the guards had not appeared to watch my door. Maria and I kept checking the peep hole to be sure, but every minute that passed told us the plan had worked.
“We did it,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around Maria.
With the help of Nicolette, who was able to move through the kitchens without raising suspicion, Maria ensured the plan went off without a hitch. The guards assigned to my door that night enjoyed a special pot of lamb stew before their watch. Apparently, they’d said it was the best they’d ever tasted…before they passed out cold.
There was no time to waste now. I rummaged through my things and found a set of boy britches and a tunic. Maria paced anxiously behind me and I watched her in my looking glass as I drew up my hair beneath my cap.
I knew her well enough to almost know her thoughts before she had them. And I had thought this part through as well.
“I’ll send word to you as soon as I can. But you can’t come with me. Not tonight. I can’t have you being punished for my actions,” I told her as I turned to face her. I’d planned it all out to protect her. “I had Nicolette bring some stew to your quarters as well. They’ll think I drugged you as well.”
A look of relief mixed with anguish filled her eyes, confirming a suspicion I’d had for some time.
“Aidan, right?”
Maria’s eyes went wide. “How did you…?”
“You think I don’t have eyes?”
She smiled, blushing, but I was happy for her. She had fallen in love and deeply so. Maksim’s head guard, Aidan, was, I guessed, simply working up the courage to ask her to marry him. He was big, protective, and so sweet on Maria that he could barely speak when he was near her. Now was not the time for her to leave. And I wouldn’t have put her in that position anyway.
“When I’m settled,” I said, placing a hairpin to secure the rogue curls that always peeked out from the bottom of my cap. “Then I’ll send word for you. Maybe for you and Aidan both.”
