♥️ Royal Flush
First Draft Created: 2024-02-12 19:30
Last Updated: 1 month, 3 weeks ago
"Where is my new maid?” The queen thundered at the guards, who were still frozen in their place like startled mice.
They were staring partly at her, partly at the wide-flung bedroom door, which, smarting from its hasty meeting with the stone wall, still shuddered and reverberated, juddering painfully on its hinges.
Nobody dared reach a hand out to stop the door's shuddering. Nobody wanted to become the next door.
“The impudent girl was not even here to introduce…”
“Here! Just here, Your Majesty!”
The girl came running daintily around the corner and up the long passageway in tiny yet quick steps on toes like a ballerina, quickly tying the waist strings of her apron behind her back as she ran, and somehow ending her run by dropping seamlessly into a remarkably smooth curtsey at the queen's feet.
It was well-known that she would not tolerate clumsiness, and she had insisted that her next maid have grace and poise.
Still, her majesty had never seen such grace from someone so flustered - or perhaps ever - and she begrudgingly had to admit that she approved.
Certainly, she would not have thought that running could be so ladylike and still becoming. It was actually endearing. A sign that her tastes were well-placed in the instructions she had given to find such a girl of grace.
She resisted the urge to help the girl up from her low curtsey lest she sink right through the floor.
“Get in here!” she snarled, her hand now on the doorknob, widening the door and jerking her head, to hide the sudden familiar flutter in her breast.
The girl darted nimbly up and scuttled past alongside her, murmuring more apologies and flattening her back against the door frame to avoid brushing her majesty before the queen slammed the bedroom door behind them.
“Your majesty… I’m s-s-so s-s-sorry…”
“Enough!”
The queen inspected the new girl's appearance, sizing her up.
She was certainly… better equipped than the last maid. The widow, old Mrs Griswell, had to be retired when she could no longer perform her duties without her hands shaking and her back aching, but this girl…
Well, she was - the queen swallowed - strong enough. Yet still feminine. Her skin was delicate and seemed almost fair as a princess’. It was clear that she could certainly pass as one in the right dress. But a girl who was no maid could easily be a spy sent to gain her trust, or even an assassin!
She felt the tension rise in her bosom, despite the knowledge that her own spies had already carefully vetted this girl, who had also come well-recommended by the trusted Lady Mary.
There was one tell that she was indeed a maid though - as the Queen's gaze settled suspiciously on the new girl’s hands, nervously wringing in front of her, then relaxed at the reassurance.
Short fingernails. Very practical. Very, very important. This was something the women at court never could fathom, not that their everyday activities required them to think of such things, but still… despite her elegance, her majesty prided herself on practicality, and a woman having short nails was certainly practical. This girl with her practical-length fingernails hopefully wouldn't disappoint.
And this common girl, without make-up, could rival many of those ladies.
Take that, Lady Alice! She thought with satisfaction, imagining the mortification that intolerable young upstart would feel if the queen were to call for this girl in the middle of a ball, when she saw that the queen could find a more beautiful woman than her, to serve her as her very maid. How she would relish that scenario!
Other, lesser noblewomen might have felt threatened by the presence of such beautiful women around them, let alone their own servants, lest they be compared, but the queen relished in surrounding herself with beautiful women, and would take pride in parading them before those chits who had slighted her with their insolence. Let them see whom the queen kept around her, and how easy it was to replace one beautiful woman with another, servant or noblewoman!
Still, she was surprised a girl this beautiful and yet healthily strong hadn't been chosen for a wife yet.
Someone with her appeal could easily attract the attentions of a highborn… a noble. Or possibly even…
She couldn't help it. She was somehow still taking in the girl's appearance, looking her up and down again, taking in the body that was young, strong, up to even the most … she swallowed again … strenuous of tasks. The queen’s gaze lingered. The girl dared to look up at her face, and seemed privy to her thoughts, for she blushed with a modest smile as she looked away.
“I am here to serve Your Majesty. Whatever your majesty pleases.” She said, resolutely meeting the queen’s gaze again, and this time, holding it, as the smile remained on her lips.
The queen, ignoring the sudden thump in her chest, wondered if she detected an air of something else, or if more than her gaze, she herself had been detected. For, if she were not her imagination, it seemed as if the girl’s timid demeanour had subtly been replaced by something a little more worldly.
Or even a royal, she thought.
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