Minerva batted her eyelashes at me and pushed her shoulders back. "Do I look lonely?" she said.
She looked like someone I wanted to push onto her back right then and there. Like someone I wanted to kiss until we were both dizzy. But there were things you didn't say to a princess, not when your station was so far below hers.
***
On her first day working as a maid, Eve finds the king dead on his throne. His murder kicks off a cascade of intrigue, and as the plots of the nobility come crashing down around her, Eve is torn between hungry princes, the ever-watching eyes of the royal court, and a mad princess who seems to know far more than she lets on. Complicating everything further is the Imperative, a magical curse through which the Andan nobles have bent the world to their whims. If she is to survive, Eve must learn what it means to find strength in the face of overwhelming power.
The Maid and the Monarch is created by EOK Gifford-Smith, an EGlobal Creative Publishing signed author.

The Maid and the Monarch

The rest of my night passed thankfully without interruption, and I woke the next morning feeling clear-headed. Chava was ready with breakfast--enough for both of us, I noticed--and we ate in happy, companionable silence. Eventually it was broken by the necessities of the day-to-day.


"What will you need today, Lady Eve?" Chava asked me.


I thought about it. Clothes certainly, but there were other pressing issues as well. I needed to know more about my duties as a knight, and the resources that accompanied them. A stream of income from the crown treasury would be exceptionally useful in every future I could imagine.


The thought of money started the old fires in my mind burning again. I was Eve of Whispers, and I had been silent for nearly a month. Some of my contacts in the kingdom's underworld would need to be reached out to, old supply lines would need attention.


Chapter 40: Alone with My Thoughts