Reborn as the Villainess's Bodyguard, I Refused to Stop at Bodyguard novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Window

Seraphine owns every real thing she did, Haruka brings her a proper meal and a window, and the bread tastes of bitter almonds.

By morning Haruka had learned three things about her new body.

It could sleep sitting up against a stone wall.

It was hungry in a way that made the whole tower smell like bread.

And its owner, Captain Eleonora Delamere, had a lieutenant who looked at her.

"You want the prisoner's breakfast from the guards' mess," Corwin Braithwaite said slowly. "Not from the palace kitchens."

"Yes."

"The palace sends a tray every morning. By order of the Prince."

"I know," Haruka said. "From now on I carry the tray myself, and she eats what we eat."

Corwin scratched his red-brown beard.

He had served under Eleonora for six years, and in all that time she had never once said so many words before breakfast.

"Is this a test, Captain?"

"It's an order."

"Then it's a very good order," he said, and went to fetch the porridge.

Seraphine ate it in small, careful bites, sitting cross-legged on the cot with the bowl in both chained hands.

Haruka stood by the door pretending not to count how thin her wrists were.

After four spoonfuls Seraphine stopped.

"You're staring, Captain."

"You're underweight."

"I'm condemned. It's the fashion."

"Eat the rest," Haruka said. "I'll bring eggs at noon."

Seraphine looked up, and for one second the contempt slipped and something young came out from under it.

Then she put the contempt back and finished the bowl.

Afterward she set it down on the floor and folded her hands in her lap.

"Since you intend to keep me alive for two weeks, you may as well know whom you are keeping," she said. "Do you know what I did?"

"I know what the court says you did."

"That is not the same thing." Seraphine's chin lifted. "I did not poison the Saint's cup. I will say that once, and you may believe it or not."

"I believe it."

Seraphine blinked.

"That was fast."

"You'd lie better if you were lying."

A tiny sound escaped Seraphine, almost a laugh.

"I did other things," she said. "Let me say those too, so you aren't guarding a saint. I slapped Marguerite Lowe in the east gallery in front of half the court, because she was kind to the Prince and I was jealous."

"Okay."

"I paid two men to cut the wheel pins on her coach, and she broke her wrist. I told her to her face that a commoner did not belong at court. I tore her dress at the spring ball and called it an accident."

She said every one of them evenly.

"I am not misunderstood, Captain. I was cruel to someone who had done nothing to me. If you are going to be sorry for me, be sorry for the right reasons."

Haruka had read all of it in the novel, scattered across forty chapters.

Hearing it said aloud in the cell, by the person who had done it, was something else.

She had expected the villainess to excuse herself.

She had not expected the villainess to hand her a list.

"Thank you for telling me," Haruka said.

"That's all? No sermon?"

"I don't give sermons. I'm a trainer." The word meant nothing here, so she changed it. "I mean I'm a soldier. I work on what's next."

"And what's next?"

"You didn't do the poison. Somebody did, and someone will say you did it again if they can. So you don't eat anything I haven't tasted."

Seraphine stared at her.

"You'd taste my food?"

"Every meal."

"That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard," Seraphine said, and her voice was not quite steady.

At noon Corwin brought two trays up the stairs.

One was Haruka's eggs.

The other had a white cloth over it and a wax seal stamped with a small gold crown.

"This came from the palace," he said. "The Prince's page said you were to deliver it personally. It's the Lady's midday bread, with the Prince's regard."

Haruka lifted the cloth.

The loaf was warm and golden, with a split top and a dusting of flour.

It smelled of almonds.

Not sweet almonds.

Bitter ones, sharp enough to sting the back of her nose, the smell she remembered from a chemistry lesson at sixteen.

She set the cloth down very gently.

"Corwin. Is there a mouse in the guardroom?"

"There's always a mouse."

"Bring me one. Alive. Don't ask."

He brought it in a cap, and she let it have a crumb of the crust.

The mouse sniffed it, ate it and sat up.

Then its feet slid out from under it.

It lay on its side on the stone, breathing hard, shivering once, and then it did not breathe.

Haruka looked at it for a long time.

Behind her, Seraphine had come to the bars and gone very still.

"That's not for me," Seraphine said. "That is for the Captain who tastes."

"No," Haruka said. "It's for you. They just didn't think anyone would check."

She lifted the whole loaf and the cloth and the seal and dropped them out of the window into the moat.

Then she turned around.

Seraphine had both hands pressed to her mouth.

"Twelve days early," Seraphine said, through her fingers. "Someone wanted me dead twelve days early, and did not even trust the axe."

Haruka crossed the cell in two strides.

"Nobody gets near you," she said. "Not while I'm breathing."

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