The Royal Cleaner Box Set by L C Mawson

Author:L C Mawson [Mawson, L C]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: L.C. Mawson
Published: 2019-04-12T03:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Mina

Mina groaned as she woke up, stretching out over her otherwise empty bed.

Waking up without Caroline still wasn’t pleasant.

But at least Mina had seen Caroline in her dreams. It might not have been ‘real’, but she had held her and talked to her, and that felt real enough for her.

She sat up and looked at her alarm clock to see that it was actually a reasonable hour for once. Not late enough for her to worry about being short on time, but she also felt more well rested than she had in weeks.

She got dressed more quickly than usual, arriving downstairs before she usually did.

Gregor was already up, but he had only just put the kettle on and was grabbing some milk from the fridge.

He smiled as he saw her. “Good morning. You look...”

She returned his smile. “Not dead?”

“I was looking for a politer way to say it.”

“I used the dream stone. You were right, it did help. Thanks for pushing me to use it.”

He shrugged. “It’s no problem. I’m just glad that it helped.”

He got two mugs from the cupboard as the kettle finished boiling, making two cups of coffee before handing one to Mina. “Do you want some toast if I make some?”

Mina nodded, feeling more than a little sheepish. “Thank you. For this, and for... Well, everything. Sorry, helping out around here is probably eating into your personal life...”

Gregor snorted. “That would have required me to have a personal life,” he figured. “I’ve been living in the Underworld for the past few years, remember? Most of my friendships there are... superfluous at best. I cannot be sure who is loyal to my brother, and even if I am sure that they are not... Everyone is out to gain political advantage. And I have a secret they could use against me.”

“It’s awful that the Underworld is like that... That you and Caroline have to hide.”

He shrugged. “It’s not so bad. And I wasn’t going to hide. I think if my parents had lived, they wouldn’t have made me. They had Uther to continue the house, and Persephone to marry for political connections. I joined the Kingsguard, which was an honour itself, and Edric wouldn’t have kicked me out so there would have only been my reputation to think about. And as I said, it’s not actually that bad in the Underworld. The hit to my reputation isn’t that they would think badly of me being gay, it’s that I wouldn’t be able to marry for politics. Just as Caroline’s problem isn’t being pan...”

Mina sighed. “It’s that she married me instead of an appropriate noble.”

Gregor nodded. “My parents died when I was just a kid. Uther ‘looked after’ me after that, and I put my head down and focused on my training. Once I realised that ‘appropriate’ marriage prospects weren’t what I was interested in, I told my brother in the hopes that he would agree that I didn’t need a wife.”

“And he didn’t take that well?”

“Not at all.

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