Tainted | Maven Calore

Chapter 004.

The next day was blurry and unfocused. Adelaide found herself drifting off in the middle of the job, thoughts directing themselves to him as she ran her fingers over her bandages. She thought they were pretty. The way they snaked around her arm, curling and coiling around it, without an end or a beginning, hidden under wraps and wraps of itself. It was enchanting to her. More than once she caught herself studying them, observing, instead of doing the work she was assigned to do. As morbid as her fascination with them was, she can't help but associate them with something good: her meeting with the prince.

Still, she could understand the alarm that it would cause to other people.

"What happened to your arm?" Theo, the same person who volunteered to put away the plates, as Adelaide now knew, looked down at the bandages on her arm in shock.

"She burned herself with the tea yesterday, that's what I heard," Nolan, said, heaving a box full of washed dinner plates off the counter. As the three of them walked together to the left side of the kitchen, she lightly bumped Adelaide's shoulder. "You okay, Addie? The head maid was yelling about it yesterday, and it was ugly."

"Yes," Adelaide said, trying to wave it off as nothing with a nervous laugh and a shake of her head, "the prince, he helped me—or, well, he took care of it himself, for the most part."

"Oh, Addie," Nolan said, smiling mischievously, "Addie, Addie, Addie."

"Nolan!" Adelaide said, looking scandalized, "Nolan, no, it's not like that."

In turn, Theo bumped Nolan's shoulder, trying to hide his own smile as he reprimanded one of his friends, "You shouldn't be thinking like that, you know, or we could get in serious trouble with the head maid."

"But we won't," Nolan said, lifting the box in her hands for emphasis, "because we're actually working,"

"It's idle chatter, Nolan, and she doesn't approve of it."

"Shut it, Addie, Theo's thinking it too. I can see it in his eyes."

"Don't listen to her Adelaide, I'm not, trust me."

"You so do!" Nolan exclaimed, reaching up to place a cup in one of the higher cupboards, "You're hiding a smile, I just know it!"

"Nolan, you make everything difficult," Theo teased, reaching over her frame to move the cup to a more secure location. Turning to Adelaide, he added, "Don't listen to her Adelaide. I really am not thinking about it."

"Lies!" Nolan cried out, turning around to gently push Theo off of her person.

Adelaide, who had been putting away the cutlery as she watched the exchange, rolled her eyes. "I still think you would make a good couple."

"Addie."

At the dangerous tone of her voice, Adelaide sighed. "I know, Nolan, I know. You and Theo think of each other as siblings."

Before Nolan could respond, a cheeky grin on her face as she opened her mouth to speak, the head maid marched into the room, wearing her signature look of irritability as she pointed to Adelaide. "You there!"

"Me...?" Adelaide had started at the sudden sound, the booming voice of the head maid resonating in the room. She pointed to herself and laughed nervously, eyes darting around the room to see if she wasn't the one to receive the head maid's wrath.

"Yes you, girl, is there anyone else behind you?" The head maid said, taking a look around the room. She suddenly caught sight of Nolan and Theo, stunned into silence and in close proximity of each other. "And you two! Stop fooling around and get back to work."