Chp.36: Trust

Regina had her questions.

She was confused about the things happening so vaguely without any pattern but she decided to go along with the flow.

"Thank you so much your majesty." He said with a wide and bright smile. Duncan had seen something like that smile for first time. He felt fresh air wrap around him. He knew he wasn't capable of loving anyone, but he can definitely admire someone.

Poetry doesn't always need life, a broken soul is enough to breath life in the words.

"This is just temporary after all. I must perform my best here." Regina thought to herself.

"This is just temporary. I will soon be leaving anyway." Duncan thought to himself.

They both were having something they were hiding, something they were responsible for. But for now they just decided to play a simple role of a husband and a wife.

That morning passed away in a blink of an eye. Regina left the palace as soon as the early morning tea session with Duncan was done.

"Hmm, Is there something I am forgetting?" Duncan thought to himself.

"Your majesty..." the flow of his thoughts were once again disturbed by his dear secretary Hilton.

Duncan let out a sigh. But Hilton, as usual ignoring it went ahead to speak whatever it was that he wanted to say.

"Your majesty, I think that the preparations of the ball will be done by today evening itself. The invitations will also be send by tomorrow morning." Hilton narrated hia work flow.

"Huh?" Duncan was clueless. "That was very swift." He mumbled. "Yes indeed your majesty. Her majesty gave me all the necessary preparations list this morning itself." Hilton said as he shuffled through some documents standing there by his desk.

"That's impressive. Her work is truly admirable." Duncan thought to himself.

"These are the papers her majesty handed over to me this morning. " Hilton handed a bunch of stapled documents over to Duncan.

Keeping quite, Duncan skimmed through that thick bunch of documents. "She prepared this?" Duncan had a spontaneous questions.

"Sure. I don't think any of the maids or her lady-in-waiting is capable to create such an extravagant plan." Hilton made a statement as he shrugged his shoulder.

Duncan honestly wanted to appreciate the effort, but he can't stop the feeling. The feeling that ringed inside his gut, "This may not be her skill in total. It has to be Count D'Azure who made this." Duncan thought.

And that was the most resonably appropriate assumption. Since they only had a discussion about the Queen's ball only last night and Duncan was sure she must've slept till early morning.

"She could never prepare so much to give Hilton right away in the morning. That's close to impossible." He agreed to his assumptions.

On the other hand, Hilton could easily make a guess what Duncan was thinking. "It is indeed weird that she prepared all this in one night. It has to be someone else helping here. And that someone is definitely Count D'Azure." Hilton thought the same thing as well.

"Well anyways, I'll keep this with myself and ask the queen once I visit the eastern palace." Duncan said as he slipped the documents in one of the drawers of his desk.

"Thank your majesty." Hilton said making a bow, "Wait.." he suddenly realised. "You are visiting the Eastern palace?" He was shocked.

"What is so weird about me visiting my own wife?" Duncan asked Hilton raising his eyebrows and shrugging his shoulders.

"No...no nothing. Pardon my insolence." Hilton said as he made a deep bow.

Saying so he returned to his desk and started working on something else. Duncan was also working on his own documents, the railway line in the Asthana region was what had caught his attention recently.

And now Stanton was here in the palace as well.

"This is really hectic. What is the problem with Stantons?" Duncan thought as he massaged his temples.

It was almost afternoon and the lunch time was close. Duncan tried to distract himself but his mind was going back to the documents the queen gave to Hilton.

"We only discussed it last night... she should've atleast taken time to pretend that she wrote it. Why hand over the exact documents the Count gave?" Duncan was trying to make sense of the stupidity that Rachel D'Azure had shown.

And then he suddenly had an idea -

"Hilton?" He called.

Hilton who was sitting on the nearby desk only, looked up at Duncan.

"Yes you majesty?" He stood up from his seat.

"Arrange for my lunch in the Eastern palace." Duncan said.

"Yes your majesty." Hilton said and left the room.

"Let's see what the things are that the count wants to control making his daughter a puppet." Duncan smirked. "And more importantly, I have to also look into my brother's mischiefs that I halted that day." He thought. "He has been quite for too long. That's not a good sign." Duncan took out paper and started writing an Invitation to Desmond.

"My dear brother..." it began. There were just a few pleasantries and Duncan got straight to the point.

I invite you to have a lunch with me or dinner with me. I have something important to tell you.

Duncan finished writing that letter and slid it away along with the pen.

His eyes fell on the letter Regina left for him. "She is indeed very interesting woman. So is this what they call, right person and wrong timing?" Duncan thought.

The afternoon kept on progressing the grey outside and the cloudy rainy season made it a difficult to assume the timings. Hilton had returned with a successful news and now the king was going to have a lunch in the queen's palace.

The rain wasn't as strong and it was just drizzling. The carriage still took around fifteen minutes to reach from the Central palace to the Eastern palace.

Duncan and Hilton sat there quitely and Duncan sifted through the pages of the book. "Umm... so your majesty.." Hilton had something to say. "Have you invited Desmond over as well?" Hilton asked in a cautious tone.

"Yes. Yes I did." Duncan said without lifting his head from the book.

"But won't that be a problem?" Hilton asked.