“Have you heard the news, Moonflower?”
Moonflower glanced up from her bowl of rice to gaze at her friend, the head gardener. He had taken a liking to her when she’d been brought to the palace. Secreted away due to her flaw. Still, the gardens had called to her. She had taken to visiting them in the dark of night when no one would notice her.
But her third night wandering down a path in the dark, she had bumped into Haji. And he had taken her hand and invited her out to smell the moonflowers. He had begun to teach her all he knew of plants then. And she had been unable to resist returning each night to the garden to put her newfound knowledge to work. She had always loved helping the plants to grow.
“What news?”
“The King was scarred in a sword fight last night.”
“What? Hmm. I guess that is always a possibility. How bad is it?”
“It’s quite grotesque. It barely missed his eye. But it left a long laceration down his forehead that continued down his cheek below his right eye.”
She stilled. Under her fingertips, Moonflower could still feel the indentation the rake had made when it had split his skin open. She could still sense the slickness of the blood that had flowed. But it wasn’t the memory that shocked her. It was the news that she had been speaking to the king last night. That she had ministered to the king’s skin. That she had sat in the king’s lap. And felt the king’s breath whispering over her skin. And kissed the king’s lips by accident.
He was the king.
Her heart ached. It throbbed suddenly. She could never have him. He hadn’t been a palace official. Or a servant boy. He had been the king. And, of course, she would never be good enough for the king.
Even if he wanted her, she could only ever be his concubine. She felt a tear flooding her eye. She thought too highly of her own worth to be a man’s mistress. Even a king’s. Oh, but for the first time in her life, such a thought was tempting. For she had been so drawn to him. And no one else would ever want her.
Surely, he didn’t either! He must have been toying with her. Of course! That’s why he’d invited her to sit on his lap. To see what he could get away with. To fool around with a servant girl and…
But he hadn’t. He’d been respectful. He hadn’t even kissed her. She had accidentally run into his mouth with her lips. But he hadn’t even said anything about it. And his hands hadn’t roamed where they didn’t belong either.
Oh, why had he been so nice to her? Was he trying to make her fall in love with him? Had he thought it funny to befriend a flawed girl? Was he just amusing himself?
While he was bleeding out on the way back to the garden shed? While he was wincing from pain as she wiped alcohol across his raw skin? He had probably been in too much agony to fool around last night. He had been only too ready to let the lowly servant girl mend his wounds for him. He’d taken comfort in her touch. But it hadn’t meant anything else to him.
Or had it? Was it possible that he was as sweet as he’d seemed last night?
And if he was, what did it matter? He was the king. She would probably never see him again.
