Chapter Text
“You seem happy,” said Benny. “Happy for real, I mean.”
“I’m about to seal the deal, Benny,” said Charlotte, fixing her makeup in her compact. “I can taste it.”
“You meeting with Lord Leo again tonight?” Benny said.
“We’ve been practically joined at the hip lately,” she said. “People are already starting to talk.” Charlotte snapped her compact shut with a wicked grin. “And tonight, he invited me to his private quarters.”
“Congratulations.”
“Too early for that,” she chided. “I’m not one for counting chickens. And if all goes according to plan tonight, I’ll never have to. Rich people don’t have to do math.”
“That’s not true,” said Benny. “I bet Lord Leo does math all the time. He seems like the type who’d enjoy it.”
“Benny sweetheart, it was a joke.”
“Oh,” said Benny. “I guess I couldn’t tell because it wasn’t very funny.”
Charlotte scowled, but there was a playful light in her eyes. “Watch your step, friend,” she said, tucking her compact between her cleavage. “We’ll see who’s not funny when I’m laughing all the way to bank.” Without another word, she blew a kiss over the threshold and was on her way.
“Good luck, Charlotte,” Benny called after her.
---
Charlotte knocked a sprightly rhythm on Lord Leo’s chamber door.
“Enter,” bid an even voice from within.
Charlotte put on her most winning smile as she swung open the heavy oak door as if it was a plank of plywood, but despite herself, her face fell perceptively when she beheld the room.
The prince was seated behind a large desk of glossy ebony, exuding an air of distant professional courtesy. Leaning against the wall at his right hand stood that retainer of his with the nasty mouth. Niles, she thought his name was. Charlotte had never seen the man look so uneasy. He turned his head to avoid her gaze and fiddled absently with a loose thread on his sleeve with uncharacteristic restlessness.
In any case, Charlotte did her best to contain her disappointment. She didn’t quite know what was going on, but whatever it was, she had clearly misunderstood Lord Leo’s intentions.
“You summoned me, milord?” she said, letting the door fall closed behind her with a heavy rush of air.
“Yes, thank you. Please have a seat,” he said, indicating a chair facing the desk on the rug in front of him.
She did as she was told, and Niles silently made a move to the door, locking it twice from a heavy ring of keys and barring up the chain.
Instinctively, Charlotte began calculating the respective strength of herself and the two men, but shook the thought from her head. It was preposterous, she knew. She had nothing to fear from Lord Leo. Still, she knew more than most, you never really knew with men.
They were trouble.
“So…” she began, shifting against the velvet of the chair as her eyes followed Niles back to his place against the wall beside his liege, “I trust you have been well, milord?”
“Yes, quite.” He cleared his throat. “I apologize for the…” He gestured vaguely at nothing in particular. “Cloak and dagger,” he finished. “I don’t mean to frighten you, but we must take these precautions, you understand. And speaking of, I’m sure you are dying of curiosity as to why I’ve organized this little… social gathering.” He was twiddling his thumbs on the surface of the desk.
He seemed to be choosing his words with particular care, and his expression was unreadable. Charlotte demurely placed her hands one over the other in her lap, but with her thumb hidden beneath her palm she silently cracked the knuckles of her right pinky finger. “I’m sure you have a very good reason, milord,” she said.
“Right,” he said. He slid an important looking bit of parchment over the desk towards her. “Now before we begin, could you please review this document?”
She scanned it with puzzled eyes. “This… is this…”
“A nondisclosure agreement,” he said. “Now the choice is yours, Charlotte. If you so choose, you can leave my office right now, without signing any contracts, or learning any secrets, and we can go about our business just as we did before. I assure you, you will not be disciplined should you choose to decline.”
Charlotte felt alarm creep slowly back into her blood. “With all due respect,” she said, her voice even as the beaten earth, “I don’t think I understand.”
“With all due respect,” said Niles, “you’re not really meant to.”
Charlotte started. It was the first time the man had said a word. She waited for Lord Leo to chastise him for speaking out of turn but no such rebuke was spoken. No wonder Niles was so free with his tongue, she thought. His liege was woefully lax in terms of discipline, to allow him to behave as if they were equals.
But Charlotte never betrayed the bite of her thoughts. Behind closed lips her teeth sunk into her tongue. She wore her mask like skin.
“Forgive me milord,” she said, “but it presents a bit of a quandary. Am I not to know what it is I must agree to, until after I’ve already agreed?”
“Indeed not,” he said. “Please understand, the only word you are bound to will be secrecy. Yet, I must add, whatever should you choose beyond that, there are certain potentialities wherein the rewards will be…” His gaze faded into the distance, as if distracted. He rapped his knuckles against the wood of his desk absently as he trailed off. Charlotte resisted the urge to spare a darting glance at the man in the corner, if only to gauge his reaction. “Significant,” Lord Leo finished finally, whatever thought having diverted him banished from his eyes. “Yes, I suppose they will be significant.”
Jackpot.
“In that case, I would do whatever you asked of me, milord,” she said, perhaps a little too eagerly. Her words rang sour and false in her ears. She cracked the knuckle of her ring finger with her thumb and steeled her nerves.
Charlotte detected a note of bitterness in Lord Leo’s smile. “There’s no need for that,” he said. “After all, I’m pledging you my honesty as well.”
Charlotte grinned sheepishly. “That’s fair,” she said. “May I borrow a pen?”
She signed the contract with a flourish and handed it over to the prince. It was Niles, however, who snatched it from her hands.
“Aw, would you look at that,” he said, leaning over the desk. “You make your Os into little hearts. Positively darling.”
Charlotte ignored him. “So milord,” she said. “Am I to know why I was summoned?”
Niles handed the contract to Lord Leo as he reviewed it with his far away eyes. “Of course,” he said. He set the document down on the desk and took a deep breath.
“Charlotte,” he said. “I’ve summoned you here today to ask you to be my wife.”