Chapter 6.

Charlotte did not know how long she had been standing where the king had left her. She was pulled out of her trance when she heard footsteps behind her. She turned around to find a palace maid walking towards her. 

The maid stopped in front of her and bowed. Charlotte stared at her.

"My name is, Anna, at your service, your…" she trailed off, unsure how to address her.

"Charlotte, please just address me by my name."

"As you wish Miss Charlotte, I have orders from the chief maid, Miss Beatrice, to escort you to your chambers and prepare you for dinner. Miss Beatrice has sent maids to your quarters to bring your belongings to the palace." Anna said sweetly.

Charlotte stared at her. The maid's words did not register in her brain.

She continued to stand there, dumbly, staring at the maid. She was not used to being waited upon. Anna looked at her uncomfortably, obviously losing her patience.

Her impatient and almost patronizing gaze reminded Charlotte of her father, bringing her back to reality.

Charlotte took her in. Anna was a small woman, younger than herself, with fair skin and long dark hair. Her almond eyes were lined with thick eyelashes and eyebags probably from inadequate sleep.

She looked up at Charlotte with an air of feigned innocence and Charlotte felt her dislike for the maid grow. She hated pretenders, anything that seemed to be one thing but turned out to be another.

"Later please," she said.

Anna shuffled, unsure what to do.

"What the hell are you waiting for? I said later!" Charlotte exclaimed, her tone sharp, and her blood pumping hard against her ears.

She was so tired. She just wanted some time alone. Was that too much to ask?

The maid must have seen something in Charlotte's eyes for she suddenly bowed, her eyes filled with fear.

"I apologize, Lady Charlotte, I will… wait for you at the… entrance to the garden as you have instructed." she stumbled about with her words, and turned, walking so fast she almost tripped on a vine and fell.

Charlotte sighed. She had not meant to be cruel. She knew her anger was something she needed to control, but she was too tired to care now.

Too much had happened since she woke up, she hardly knew how to feel.

She settled on the bench beside the flower bed and held the flowers in her hands in front of her. Such pretty flowers, under different circumstances, she might have taken them back home and found a vase for them.

But now, she plucked each petal and let the wind blow them away, imagining they were her worries floating away.

'See you at diner' The king had said.

'I am to escort you to your chambers,' the maid had said. 'Miss Beatrice has sent maids to bring your belongings to the palace.'

Charlotte dropped the stalks of the now naked flowers, and held her head in her hands, rocking back and forth in an attempt to soothe herself to relaxation. Her head throbbed so painfully, she was sure it would explode.

She wanted to cry, but her eyes were dry. She wanted to scream, but her mouth wouldn't open. Her throat was too dry. She wished she would wake up and find that it was all a dream, but her reality remained a nightmare.

It didn't take a genius to realize that she was now a prisoner. She only wished to speak to her father, he would tell her what to do. He was the only one who could bring sense to this madness.

What was she going to do?

A throat cleared behind her. She turned around to find the knight from the war room standing behind her bench, watching her.

His helmet was now off. He still wore his armor and she noticed now that he was quite young to be a knight, let alone be a knight conversing with the king about battle strategies. He seemed only a year or two her senior.

His dark skin was washed almost golden by the setting sun, giving him an aesthetic beauty no powder or cream could give.

"What did you do to the maid?" he asked, an eyebrow raised and an amused smile on his face. "She stands at the entrance shaking like a leaf, the fear of god in her eyes." He chuckled.

Charlotte looked away. "Where did you come from, I thought there was only one entrance into the gardens," she asked, sitting back on the bench comfortably.

The knight walked around the bench and settled on the other end. "Oh, I'd say a bit of observation skills help, which you obviously lack, I've been watching you for a while." He smirked, bending to pick up the flowers she had dropped. Charlotte ignored him.

"I wonder what these flowers did to you for you to mutilate them like this. I would hate to make you angry!"

Charlotte remained silent. Uninterested in whatever he was saying, too preoccupied with her thoughts. She figured he would get bored and proceed to wherever he had been going.

"You are quiet today. I've heard that you're not usually so."

He turned on the bench to face her, their knees almost touching and making Charlotte aware of her bare knees. Charlotte moved further away on the bench, almost falling off the bench, and folded her arms on her chest defensively.

The knight chuckled.

His chuckle a deep rumble in his chest, and so contagious Charlotte almost smiled despite herself. Still, she did not respond.

"I hear also that you are to marry the prince... I suppose that's the reason you sit here brooding in silence."

Charlotte sighed, it seemed like everyone already knew. She had hoped she could pretend for a while longer, pretend her world had not just turned inside out.

"You are a strong woman, you don't have to do anything you don't wish to do..." The knight said suggestively.

Charlotte turned to look at him so fast, she almost broke her neck. What in God's name was he suggesting? Did he not know the king?

She looked into his clear dark eyes, he had beautiful eyes, his eyelashes thicker and longer than hers. God had taken his time on this specimen of a human being.

With high cheekbones, thick, full lips, and a jawline as sharp as a sword, the knight was even impossible to ignore up close.

In his eyes, she saw no joke. He was serious. 'Then he must be mad.' Charlotte concluded. 'Or perhaps a little stupid.' But one did not converse one-on-one with the king while being stupid.

Charlotte smiled bitterly, he was surely making fun of her. There was no way around the king's order. She looked away from him, strangely sad that he had turned out to be cruel.

"I'm serious." He said noticing her anger at him and moving even closer to her, forcing her to look into his sincere eyes.

Charlotte scoffed. "Sure, go on, make fun of me, you might end up like that flower." She was not joking.

He laughed. This time a loud hearty laugh that brought a smile to Charlotte's face. She wanted to make him laugh like that again. It didn't matter that he was probably a dimwit anymore.

''I don't doubt that, '' he said smiling. Then getting serious, he added. ''I overheard your conversation with the king.''

Charlotte's heart hardened. She had hoped that her weakness and powerlessness over her future had been witnessed by the king only. She hated that someone had seen her weak.

The knight noticed her starting to fold into herself.

"I don't mean to undermine you, Charlotte. I only suggest that perhaps if you could give the king what he wants, you could get your life back."

"And what is it that the king wants? My father's head on a platter?" Charlotte fired back, her voice cold.

"Justice. The king wants to catch whoever it is that killed his son."

"It wasn't my father."

"It doesn't matter, it happened under his watch. If you want to save yourself and your father, then find out who did it."

"There are more qualified people working on it already, what makes you think I would succeed where they couldn't?" She was considering his suggestion.

"Well, they don't have my impeccable attention to detail..."He said winking at her.

Charlotte was suspicious. Sensing a play, she asked, "And what do you want in return?"

"Nothing. You could call it a personal interest."

"In what?"

"For now, the king's favor."

"You already have the king's favor,'' Charlotte said, a matter of fact.

"I also happen to have ambition."

Charlotte did not trust him. But his idea was appealing and practical. She would speak to her father about it.

"You said, for now, you want the king's favor. Later?"

The knight smiled a toothy mischievous smile, a promise of danger and pure evil. Charlotte's heart skipped a beat, her breath growing shallow for reasons beyond her control.

He looked right into her eyes as he said. "Later? Later, I'd like to win your heart."

Blood rushed to her face and the tip of her ears, this time from excitement rather than fear. Perhaps a combination of both.

She reciprocated his evil smirk. "I'm to be married to the prince. You will get on the wrong side of the king's anger."

"That has not stopped me before." He answered. Looking intensely into her eyes.

Charlotte's heart danced with delight.

"The king's anger or an engagement?" She asked, teasingly.

"Both," he answered.

Charlotte shivered. The cold had nothing to do with it. She was afraid of the coldness with which he had made the statement.

Somehow, she was sure he was not lying. She wanted to know more. She wanted to know everything. She wished he would teach her to be as free as he seemed to be.

She was a wild creature. She loved being this close to a burning furnace. She loved feeding the fire. The thrill of the unknown, she believed, was what made life worth living. She did not mind getting burnt for a little thrill.

She forgot that feeding a fire only made it stronger, and larger to the point where it would consume everything.

She would be too intoxicated by the smell of fire to notice she was burning everything around her.