Suspicions

She opened her mouth but no words came out. Her brows furrowed slightly reflecting her genuine confusion.

There was an awkward silence as neither party spoke, until Gideon came and whispered a few words to Lenard.

Then he took a step back and straightened his clothes returning to the distinguished and gentle crown prince, with no trace of the earlier spite and anger in his eyes.

He peered at her calmly, taking in her appearance from heat to toe before settling his intense gaze on her breathtakingly beautiful blue eyes.

"We'll continue this conversation another time, I won't let you off so easily"

With that he turned and walked away, leaving the innocent and bewildered Leila to herself.

'what is wrong with everyone in this palace '

She thought exasperatedly.

The only reason she was here in the first place was because Mister John didn't give her the specific location of her work.

Leaving her to make a guess, based on the fact that the main palace building where the king resided was off limits to every other maid except the specially selected ones to serve.

So she came to the Val palace where the crown prince resided, thinking it would be the one that needed more maids in it.

Either that or one of the guest palaces.

Actually the Main palace of the King and every other palaces of the princes and princesses were connected, but they had different entrances and a boundary that couldn't be crossed, especially by servants. So only the main entrances could be used, and each palaces had their own names, have different weights and significance, but it was just one giant castle all together.

Thinking that coming here was a bad choice, she decided to go find Mister John again and if she failed to find him she would go to one of the guest palaces, those weren't joined together, they were beautiful and magnificent but not as large as the main palace and the palace of the princesses and princes.

She made her way down the beautiful large spiral staircase. Her feet making no sound on the soft velvet carpet placed on the stairs, her pace a little rushed. Trying to avoid any other unprecedented confrontations.

She made her way to the back entrance and down another narrower stone staircase that led back to the servant quarters after crossing a distance.

After looking for a while, thankfully she found Mister John in the foyer of the servants' house

She approached him, her eyes batraying no emotion, bowing respectfully

"Mister John,I've been looking for you, You didn't tell me where in the upper floors I should attend to".

Mister John raised a brow

"Oh, maybe it skipped my mind, I thought you already left to the crown princes palace"

She felt like something was off but couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was, she brushed it off. "Yes I did, but it seems they don't need any help over there"

She purposely kept the part about being confronted by the prince to herself because she just felt no need to divulge that information.

Mister John had a little thoughtful expression on his face before he slowly asked. "Did anything peculiar happen there? Or did you meet anyone?"

Okay now she was sure something was up.

She pondered her response for a while, though not letting it show, she carefully responded.

"I met the crown prince by accident because I was lost, but nothing peculiar happened, he was quite upset to see me there, probably because I looked unpleasant ".

"Hmm I see" he responded. "Okay go on the the guest palace at the west of the palace the one accomodating the guests from the Kingdom of Kardin".

She bowed and watched him leave.

'why did he expect something to happen?'

She wondered, if there's something she was very good at, it was reading people.

And though he didn't show it much, she could tell that he expected something to happen.

Well, maybe she was just overthinking and it wasn't about her.

She left for the west side of the large palace terrain.

She walked for 15 minutes before reaching there because it was a little further away from the servant quarters.

When she arrived she asked a maid she saw about the person in charge here, and he led her to the a room down the hallway downstairs.

She used the back entrance, the guest buildings were different, it was like any normal mansion and everything didn't start from the upper floors, instead the foyer and sitting room were downstairs while the bedrooms and other rooms were upstairs.

She met a middle aged woman with short brown hair tied back into a low ponytail.

She stood near the entrance overlooking some maids cleaning the room inside.

She felt someone coming and turned around to see a dark skinned maid with a covered face.

"Are you here to help, if you are go upstairs and dust the windows and clean the torch stands, chop chop we don't have much more time"

She went straight to the point clapping her hands in an attempt to rush her and the she returned to what she was doing.

Leila didn't waste time either, quickly making her way to the large staircase with golden hand rails and a deep brown soft rug adorning the large stairs.

She kept her head down like any other maid rushing to do her assigned work, until she saw a pair of brown polished and exquisite shoes directly in front of her.

She paused and slowly looked up