Since it was still very dark, Melina depended on the torch that had been lit in the room for support. Her gaze was pleading as she barely had any idea what this prince wanted to do to her now.
So her suspicion that someone had indeed brought the uniform for her was not wrong? Who could the someone be if it wasn't the prince?
Melina struggled to think of any powerful person who would have thought to even go to such lengths to get back her uniform for her. Not to talk of from the prince's chamber.
It couldn't be Cinna. She didn't even know her back then and she was sure no servants would dare do that.
Could it have been the princess she met that day? But the woman shouldn't have known about it right? Even if she did, she doubted a princess would...
Oh, Lord! A realization hit her and she struggled to know if what she was thinking was the truth.
Had it been Berlin?! The weird maid that gave off a strange vibe and suddenly disappeared? Could it have been the girl who sneaked into the prince's chambers to do something like that? It had to be her!
That was the only creepy person she had met who would dare do something like that, right? Maybe that explains why the girl had disappeared.
"Speak," Leon told her when he saw the look of realization on her face.
"What...I don't know anything, Your Highness!" she immediately said to not give him the wrong idea.
Though he didn't believe her, he was also caught up in his mess as he tried to relive what happened that day now that he could tell it hadn't been Melina.
The maid he had given Melina's gown to that day... The creepy lady who had been strolling the corridors suspectingly whom he had decided to give a task by making her wash Melina's clothes. Perhaps the girl had recognized it to be her fellow maid's own and had formed a means to steal it so she could give it back to her? He wondered as he stared into space, drifting away.
It had to be that because the girl did not seem normal that day, especially because of the way she had been acting. Now that he thought of it, she should have been up to something, right? She had to be!
How did he miss that?
Melina saw the change in the behaviour of the prince and wanted to ask if he also figured out something but didn't dare with the way he seemed to be fuming with rage over a memory.
Suddenly, the air around them turned tense as the prince had just understood something and he said to her,
"You can leave."
What? Wait? So suddenly? Did he know who she was thinking about as well? Did he perhaps see her, unlike the other servants who claimed they had no idea who Berlin was?
"Did you not hear me or do you want to spend the night with me?" Leon asked the girl before him.
She should know that the way she looked currently was no less than a courtesan seeking a man's attention. The only difference with her right now was that she was unknowingly doing it.
Her clothes showed everything a man needed to be turned on and if he was no gentleman right now, he would have made his way with her. But he didn't. He had no intention to even until she came here like an innocent prey to a lion's den.
His words were enough to make Melina turn around and hold the doorknob only to be halted with his next words.
"And tell Carlos to get a seamstress to fix your uniform right to your body proportion," he added and Melina immediately nodded before she bolted out of the room, finally able to breathe without hindrance.
She could feel the intense gazes of the guards who were cautious as they looked at her to not provoke the prince, especially after they found he had beat up an elite that attempted to touch her.
However, that didn't hide the lust in their eyes as she passed them with her red hair dangling against the breeze from the surroundings as she left the room back to her quarters.
Jordyn had come out of her room in the guest quarters and had merely been strolling around the castle in boredom. After she had been embarrassed by the prince today and couldn't sleep, she didn't dare go to his quarters as she always did to pester or disturb him.
Nevertheless, that didn't stop her from walking around his new quarters now that had been painted and decorated unlike how it looked when his father was alive.
As she rounded the place again, she saw a young maid walk out of his quarters oblivious to her presence. Shocked, she gazed at the pretty girl with red hair who didn't see her and recognized her to be the maid who had attended to her that day in the guest room.
There was no way she could forget that smooth and delicate skin of a servant who had bathed her that night.
What was she doing in the King's quarter? There was no way a servant or anyone else could get in there when they hadn't been sent or summoned by the king and from the look of things, the maid didn't seem like she had been called for to carry out a task.
It looked like...
Jordyn's eyes widened in realization as she stared at how exposed the girl's body was under the uniform.
So shameless, she couldn't wear her dress properly after she had done something so disgusting with the prince? And why would Leon sleep with a maid when he had never allowed her to enter his room? Wasn't she his betrothed one?
She walked to the front of the quarters where the maid came from only to be blocked by the guards.
"Out of my way!" she warned, wanting to confront Leon to be sure that it wasn't what she was thinking that he had done.
"The prince has warned, My Lady. No one except his advisor should step foot into his quarters without his consent." the guard who had stood at the front spoke in an intimidating and Jordyn didn't dare question him.
In defeat, she asked, "Then why was a mere maid just coming out of his quarters so casually?" she wanted to know the truth and her heart stopped for a bit in anticipation of what the guard would want to say.
The guard seemed confused for a moment before he spoke to answer the obvious, "It was because the prince had requested her presence, my Lady."
"And why did the prince request for a maid's presence? What did he want from her?" she questioned him and even without him saying it, she could see the disapproval in his eyes at her question.
"Whatever reason the prince had sent for her, concerns me not as it is none of my business and only between the prince and the maid." he deadpanned as he stared straight into Jordyn's eyes.
Jordyn could not believe such disrespect coming from a servant and if it had been before, she would have slapped him for him to taste his blood. But with the way the prince was pushing her away and showing no regard to her, she was sure that it was the reason why this guard was looking down at her.
Seeing he was of no use, her attention now turned back to the maid but she didn't follow the girl.
She was much better than going after a mere servant with no reputation when she had one to keep.
She harrumphed as she decided to retire back to her room.
She was Leon's betrothed regardless so if he decided to have some fun with a useless maid, then it didn't matter right?
Still, she could feel the sting of hurt in her gut as she entered her room to rest.