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Chapter Sixteen
The Old Queen
My heart was pounding through me and I didn’t know what to say or do.
Balduin pushed me from the room and closed the door behind him. Then he glanced at me, from head to toe.
“Go and lie down on my bed,” he instructed.
I swallowed hard as he walked up to me. “I thought…”
“Do you disregard an order from the prince?” His eyes travelled up my body again. He stood close to me, and I felt his hand on my hip as it trailed down my stomach to the juncture between my thighs, delving between the folds of my dress. Owing to the state I’d been in with Nicolo, I wore nothing beneath the dress. Balduin touched me and then slid his fingers to my rear, probing between my cheeks.
“There are ways and means that would still leave youvirgo intactoand Nicolo would never need to know I was inside you. The Great God designed women with more than one entrance.”
My mind raced for excuses, but all I could come up with was, “Is it a risk worth taking, Highness?”
I could feel his hardness pressing against me, and it was strange how the sensation that aroused me so much when it was Nicolo could make me gag when it was Balduin.
Before he could respond, there was a knock at the door.
“Who dares bother me?” Balduin yelled as he pulled away from me and faced the door. I was quick to put my gown back in place and tried to quell the hurried beating of my heart—panic would do me no good.
“It’s Nicolo,” came the answer and I couldn’t help the crest of relief that flowed through me.
Balduin faced me with a smile. “It seems you have him quite wherewewant him.”
“Enter,” Balduin called and Nicolo walked through the door, his eyes immediately finding me.
“I apologize, Highness,” he started and I could see there was trepidation in his eyes.
“Why are you interrupting us? Unless you’ve come to share in my plunder?”
Nicolo breathed in deeply. “I’ve come to ask you to rethink this.”
“Rethink the girl?” Balduin asked, motioning to me with a flick of his wrist. “How are you sure I haven’t already deflowered her?”
Nicolo’s concerned gaze found mine. “I am… not sure.”
Balduin chuckled as he shook his head. “I have not, I’ll admit.” Then he brought the liquid to his mouth and downed the contents of the glass. “And, truth be told, she tires me. I don’t know what you see in her.”
Nicolo breathed in deeply and I was fairly sure it was relief that appeared in his eyes. “Then may I return her to her bedchamber?”
Balduin studied him with interest. “Not toyourbedchamber?”
Nicolo shook his head and breathed in deeply. “I believe she’s had enough surprises for one night.”
Balduin paused for a moment or two before nodding. “Get her gone from here then.”
It took intense self-control not to run out the door.
***
It felt to me as if I held my breath all the way down from Balduin’s Chambers to the place where the Heir’s Tower converged with the Prince’s Tower. I could swear the fetid stink of that little room was still in my nostrils, and every time I closed my eyes, I saw that poor little boy, a prisoner simply because of his abilities to keep the prince alive. And so the prince’s extreme jealousy of his old friend could be slaked without, in turn, harming himself.
Learning who I was working for ought to have changed nothing—the job remained the same. But it felt as if it had changed everything.
“Are you okay?” Nicolo asked as he walked me back to my room.
