Page 116 of The Discount Damsel

The apprentice guided her to arm’s length at the same time Millie straightened, unsure of what she would do if that hand touched her with the gentleness it promised.

“Sorry about that,” she chirped, frazzled and desperate for composure. “Slipped. So, um, that lesson?”

“Yeah.” Bradley shoved his hand through his hair, mussing his curls like he was trying to dispel a phantom residue left behind by her hand. “Let’s make it quick. I’ve got studying to finish.”

He hadn’t stayed long enough to inspect her work, but that was entirely her fault. She’d slipped into Madame Palferoi’s popular tavern song to dispel her nerves, forgetting its lewd lyrics would chase the bashful apprentice from the room, which they had.

That night, Millie had clung to the edge of the mattress on her side of the bed like it was a life raft. Her whole body had thrummed with anticipation, but anticipation of what, she didn’t know or want to think about.

In the morning, after a very fitful sleep, Bradley was gone. And that was it. Their last real conversation for the next seven days. He’d even gone out of his way to avoid her on the stairwell, turning around and feigning he forgot something somewhere. He rarely looked her in the eye, either. It was frustrating, infuriating, and Millie couldn’t seem to think about anything else.

Not her nautical lessons with Sir Beauregard, not her climbing lessons with Jax—Dirk had found and attached a rope to the underside of the workroom—she certainly had no head for numbers or Duncan’s negotiation tactics, and clearly she’d been wool-gathering with Sir Roger when she should’ve been worried about that broadsword coming for her head.

The apprentice was ruining everything. She was going to be a pirate, dammit! She was going to secure her kingdom’s future through unorthodox means, and she couldn’t do that if Bradley wasn’t being Bradley. She needed the grump, the one she could terrorize and ignore. Not whoever this tall, dark, and handsome man was with the blue eyes that shone like stars and made heat bloom in unfamiliar but tantalizing places.

These feelings were fantasies, they had to be. Just figments from an emotionally charged moment. She couldn’t trust them, especially since they stemmed from the contrary apprentice, and doubly especially since they would do nothing but hold her back from reaching her full potential. Mutineer Millie hadn’t escaped one cage just to dive straight into another.

With a shout, the pirate aspirant swung hard with her cutlass. The blade buried itself into the edge of the table, slicing off a wedge. Panting, she used two hands to rip the sword free. Her shoulders slumped.

“Feel better?” Sir Roger asked, not unkindly.

“I need the water, old man.”

“Sure.” He handed it to her when she neared, watched her drink and wipe her mouth with the back of her wrist. “You’re getting good, miss. I think you could be great one day. You’ve got the grit and the determination, and not a little talent to boot.”

The One in Ten. “So long as I stay focused.”

He nodded once. “Aye, that. Talent only takes you so far.”

She took another swallow, corked the waterskin. She sheathed her cutlass and unbuckled it from her waist. “I can’t hold that sword up anymore.”

“I figured.”

Mutineer Millie flashed him a smile. “So teach me how to throw daggers, old man.”

Sir Roger grinned.

CHAPTER 50

ARCHMASTER, LEAKY MAGIC, BRADLEY IS SNEAKING AROUND

Pinching pins between his lips, Bradley carefully reattached the white lace fringe to the sleeve of a lemon-colored dress. It was finer work than mending nets, but his father had insisted his son learn the basics so he could give his poor mother a break and upkeep his own clothes. He sat on a stool with his back propped up against the door, when he wasn’t hunched over his work, with a pile of the princess’s looted clothes at his feet. Every other stitch, he flicked his eyes to the men cleaning the suite.

They’d been at it for the last seven days, ever since that fight had broken out in the dungeons. In the mornings, after the princess was safely occupied with Sir Roger, with or without the luck dragon, as Dirk was maintaining his own schedule these days, he spirited the tutors out of their cells to help him clean and furnish the princess’s new living quarters.

The Heroes had grumbled at first, of course, as this was servant work, but it did give them the chance to move around and stretch their muscles. And every once in a while when they looted a room in search of the appropriate furnishings, they got a little jolt to their heart rate, including Bradley.

While Jax got attacked by a roosting bat (which Fink valiantly fought off), and Duncan ran away from a scorpion the size of a bread plate (which Sir Beauregard tried to stomp on), Bradley discovered another magical artifact beyond the safety of the workroom—a glass slipper buried under spools of thread and fabric swatches in a sewing box. The apprentice had quickly secured the glass slipper in the workroom, taking care not to touch it lest it irrevocably alter his physical appearance as this particular artifact was wont to do. Bradley wasn’t necessarily vain, but he also didn’t want a beard down to his ankles or a fox tail sprouting from his rump.

Now the sewing box sat open at his feet, ready to assist him with whatever needed mending or altering. On the dresser, Prince Henri des Marais serenaded them all from his golden cage. The mundane was always far more tolerable when paired with music.

For their labor, Bradley rewarded the workers with a treat from the kitchen—usually lemonade with nutty oatcakes sweetened with brown sugar and cinnamon, sometimes a scone if the princess hadn’t eaten them all. Henri and Fink each received a small hermit crab, but they had to return the shell, intact, to be upcycled by the other crabs.

The evening after the princess’s disaster with the lye soap, Bradley had forgone his studies in search of the princess’s suite. You make time for the things that matter. Well, what mattered to him was lifting that curse and keeping his magic, obviously. Certainly not the feel of her hand on his, nor that wisp of teasing, nor any little threads of connection that might’ve formed between them as a result. Because they weren’t even threads! They were inklings of threads at best.

And yet they had eased something tight within him.

Whatever they were, Bradley needed to clear his head, and he couldn’t do that with the tula all up in his business. He was going to find that princess an acceptable suite, clean it, furnish it, and make her move out. She was right, too, about how unnecessary it was for him to chaperone her any longer. She truly had proven to him that she would not reveal Dirk’s identity, nor sabotage their stay in the tower. She was whole-heartedly committed to becoming a pirate (the foolish woman) and even if that meant a little more cleaning up on his part, her dedication meant she was out of his hair. He could finally turn his full attention back to his own endeavors.