Page 65 of Of Bargains & Betrayal

“Help her with that, will you?” Malva flashed me a pleading smile. “I’ll run a bit of water.”

“As opposed to all of that not helping I’m doing, of course.” I took her place, supporting the mug while Enora gulped back its contents and leaned most of her weight against me.

Malva had the audacity to curtsy quickly before she hurried off into the bathroom. How I’d found myself surrounded by so many people who used my position as a point of humor more than anything else was beyond me.

“You’re going to need to breathe at some point,” I commented quietly to Enora, whose fingers tightened around the mug as I tried to tip it away. Stubborn as a damned mule.

Finally, a moment later, she pushed the mug at me as she sucked in a sudden lungful of air, followed by a few shorter bursts and a rather contented sigh.

An amusing mule, at that.

I set the mug down precariously on the closest surface—the arm of a chair by the fire—and steered Enora into a series of uneasy steps toward the bathroom. “Malva will help you wash up and change, alright? Then, I think we’ll get you straight into bed.”

She gave that a considerate hum. “I don’t feel like washing my hair. It’s so much work.”

My lips quirked, a match to Malva’s entertained face as she leaned against the doorway. “Then that can wait until tomorrow,” Malva said. “Come now. Let’s get you a little less grubby at least.”

Enora mumbled something I certainly didn’t catch, and I didn’t think Malva did either, but she gave no protest as I shuffled her over, and they disappeared into the bathroom. The door shut, one of them giggled from behind it, and I took that as good enough.

Honest to the goddess below, I hadn’t intended to snoop.

Despite Enora technically being my prisoner, for lack of any better term, I wanted her to feel like she had some measure of privacy, that her quarters were somewhere she didn’t have to worry about having her things rifled through or scrutinized. But, I also hadn’t expected to be presented with a journal laid out on top of the dressing table as soon as I turned from the door, or to be struck by such a sudden memory of how often my mother had once sat there, writing notes of her own while the drawing desk went unoccupied.

The urge to drown that memory had to be what drove me to pick up the small book—an agenda, I realized quickly—and skim over the open page.

The most recent entries weren’t filled with much, other than the dates being crossed out or initium being spelled incorrectly but still marked down in Enora’s neat but hurried handwriting. My ever-confusing curiosity had me flipping forward first, finding holidays and an astounding number of birthdays marked down in the months to come.

The princess was a good friend, and a far more organized creature than I.

When I flipped back through the pages from weeks that had come and gone many times over, I found much of the same. Little reminders to herself of celebrations, of people she was seeing, of plans she had made. Details of her work, on posts and assignments.

It all thinned substantially in the weeks that led to her departure from Odessa, and I could only assume that had something to do with her brother. The princess certainly didn’t seem like the apathetic type.

But perhaps what caught me the most by surprise was not the plethora of activities that Enora had once filled her busy life with, admirability aside. It was how often she spent time with someone named Theo. Their name came up again and again, plenty often with other names, but even more frequently alone. That the princess likely had a paramour shouldn’t have come as any surprise, but it did little to help the sympathy I felt for the poor woman. I couldn’t help but stare at the bargain mark on my palm and sigh.

“Maksym?” came Malva’s rasp, and I went utterly stiff, turning to find her head poking out from the bathroom door.

I lowered the journal back down as casually as I could. “Hm?”

“I left some clothes there, on the bed. Do you mind?” There came another one of those pleading smiles.

I fetched the neat stack of soft layers and passed them through the cracked-open door. Malva pulled it back shut so quickly, I almost lost the tips of my damned fingers in the process. A few more feminine laughs carried out from behind the door, and a set of curses belonging to both women, until they emerged just a few moments later.

Enora was already looking so much better than when I’d carried her out from the caves, though her exhaustion was wholly palpable. She took both mine and Malva’s help over to her bed without an ounce of resistance, settling onto the surface with a groan of relief. The princess may have very well been a doll for how she yielded to Malva’s fussing, letting her stuff pillows behind her back and a small rolled blanket beneath her knees before being draped with the sheets and duvet.

“There. Now, she’ll be proper comfortable for a nice, long sleep.” Malva gave all the layers another smoothing down, clearly pleased with her work. “You need anything else right now, miss?”

Enora shook her head, her eyes fighting the pull of sleep, but that didn’t stop a small smile from gracing her exhausted face. “I’m okay. But…Maksym?”

There went my plan of slipping away unnoticed. I took Malva’s place at her bedside as Enora fought her hand out from under the blankets that had just been so carefully tucked around her. She extended her fingers towards me, brushing the back of my hand, and I yielded to her non-verbal ask.

“Thank you,” she whispered, squeezing my fingers as I curled them around hers.

Curse my petty heart for the small flutter it gave. “You’re very welcome, Miss Wynn.” What drove me to bend and press my lips to her forehead, I couldn’t fathom. “Get some rest.”

Her eyes were already closed when I straightened, but that smile hadn’t left her face. She did let go of my hand, however, and I took full advantage of it to escape before I could dwell on the sight of her any longer. Mercifully, I didn’t receive any goading from Malva on our way out.

“I’ll check on her soon.” She pulled the door shut gently behind us. “Eilir will be back in the morning? She’ll need plenty of rest before they’re blabbering her poor ear off.”