Lady in Training (I'm No Princess Book 2) Read online

  Why the hell he had to look so good while he was glaring was beyond me. I was starkly reminded of my assessment of Lord Barr the night before. Dmitri was a guy who looked amazing in a suit – which was excellent for me since he pretty much lived in one. He was a guy who I knew from limited experience looked brilliant out of a suit but unnecessarily great in a suit as well. I pulled my mind firmly away from what he looked like without a shirt on and smiled at his little sisters.

  “Come on, come on!” Lina giggled. “We only have about two hours before we have to leave and we want to spend it all with you!”

  They took hold of me and I had very little chance to do any more but give Dmitri a stiff, insincere smile, to which he responded with a curt inclination of his head and a twitch of his jaw muscle.

  Chapter Three

  Monday saw me finally getting to see the family estate in person. Sergei and Nikolai drove with Dad and me out of the picturesque town of Albia – which was already bedecked in Christmas trees and lights though obviously not finished yet – and through the countryside to the village of Genovich, outside which stood the estate from which the village got its name.

  “I thought Nikolai was just for the palace?” I hissed to Dad, leaning over in the hopes Sergei and Nikolai wouldn’t hear me.

  Based on the way Nikolai’s head shifted, I’m pretty sure he did.

  Dad shifted almost guiltily in his seat, but he kept his eyes on the passing winter wonderland scenery like everything was fine. “Plans change, kiddo.”

  I frowned. “Plans you’re going to let me in on… Or…?”

  “No.” Dad was usually short and his mouth was pressed thin in a way I knew meant now was not the time to pry.

  So I nodded slowly. “Okay.”

  We spent the rest of the trip in silence and I soon forgot to worry about any plans as I got swept up in the beauty of the Gallyrian countryside. I’d been on a horse only once in my life and yet I still had a great time imagining I was in one of those Victorian governess dresses like out of a Brontë novel and galloping purposefully across the fields of snow probably towards my lover with the intention of returning his previous declaration of affection.

  “Anya,” Dad said as he nudged me gently and I got off my imaginary horse and looked at him.

  I then followed the direction of his pointing finger and saw a pair of massive wrought iron gates just before we drove through them. A shiver of excitement ran over me. This was a place I’d seen in plenty of pictures over the years, but not somewhere I’d really ever considered could be home. Until now.

  Unlike the palace, Genovich Manor was surrounded by sweeping lawns that made the whole estate bigger than the village. Of course they were covered in snow at this time of the year, but I could picture the swathes of green that would be coming. And right in the middle of it all was the manor, sitting tall and proud and welcoming.

  The manor itself looked like something out of one of the million princess or period movies Bea had made Jenn and me watch over the years. It was something like three stories, and built of that gorgeous old stone that made me feel transported to another time and place. It wasn’t like the palace hadn’t been a pretty swanky piece of architecture, but there was something about Genovich that felt less surreal. There was a real sense of history and wonder as I looked at it.

  Sergei pulled up outside the front door and I pushed my way out of the car without waiting for anyone to open it for me. That earned me a stern frown from the man walking towards me, but I didn’t focus on him long, instead looking over the other staff behind him.

  “Welcome home, your grace,” the man said with a bow. “Lady Tatiana.”

  “Thank you, Hendricks. Sergei has a new list for you to go over for this week, but I imagine it will be quiet until Annie arrives.”

  “Is Lady Malmont coming home for the weekend, your grace?” Hendricks asked as he followed Dad to the front door.

  “I couldn’t tell you yet, I’m afraid. Last I heard, she wasn’t planning to be back until Annie gets in. Something about a final assessment before the holidays.” Dad paused and turned back to me. “Oh, Anya. Hendricks is the Butler. Mrs Illyc is our Housekeeper. She’ll take you to your room.”

  I looked around but saw no sign of the car that had followed ours from Albia. “Where are Gerta and Shelly?”

  “They went around to the servants’ entrance to unpack your things. Have something to eat if you want. I just need to take one conference call, then I’ll come find you and show you around. Okay?”

  I nodded, feeling more lost than I had in the palace. “Sure. I’ll see you later, then.”

  Dad nodded, then strode inside with Sergei and Hendricks hot on his heels.

  “This way, my lady,” one of the women waiting outside said.

  She was about the same height as me, her hair pulled back in a taught bun at the nape of her neck. She stood out among the other female staff with her lack of apron and the huge bundle of keys hanging from the belt of her thick black dress.

  I nodded and looked to Nikolai who inclined his head slightly, which I hoped meant he was going to follow too. With a significant lack of slipping or tripping or making a fool of myself in any way, I meekly followed Mrs Illyc inside and was feeling awkward enough that I didn’t really stop to look around, I just shuffled up the stairs after her while keeping a careful eye on my feet.

  “This is your room, my lady,” she said as I stopped short a respectable distance away from her.

  She opened a door and I peeked in. Then I looked around and realised that Nikolai had not followed me. A little more panic was starting to set in.

  “Uh… Was Nikolai not supposed to…?”

  “Nikolai and Mr Mironov are with His Grace. Nikolai is here for your protection, my lady. However, unlike at the palace, he will not be required to follow your every move.” She seemed rather impatient with me and she didn’t seem to feel the need to hide it quite like the staff at the palace. “You will find most of your things are in your room. Much of it has been unpacked, but you are of course more than welcome to do with it what you will.”

  She strode in quickly and I hurried to keep up like I was following the principal at school for a right telling off. I took a moment to look around the room and I forgot everything as I did so.

  The room was larger than the one I’d had at the palace, with its own sitting area and a small kitchenette section – that I was pretty sure was not standard – complete with coffee machine and bar fridge. The bed was a massive four poster affair with even more fluffy pillows than the palace and the fire was already roaring. The whole room was done up in steel blues and silvers, and quite a few of my posters and pictures were already up on the walls. I was so busy looking around that I ran into the back of her with an audible “oof” on both our parts.

  I stepped back again and grinned at her stern expression somewhat sheepishly.

  “His Grace and Lady Malmont were very particular about the room, my lady. Your wardrobe is through that door.” She pointed to a door to my left. “And the restroom is through that one.” She pointed to another door further down the room. “I will leave you to settle in. Your lady’s maids will be up as soon as they have finished their requirements. You will find you have free reign here, quite unlike the palace.” I thought she was done with the welcome speech until she added almost ominously, “Unless there are guests.” She gave me a short curtsey-like bob and turned to leave. At the door, she added a little more softly, “Welcome home, my lady. I know His Grace is very happy to have you back.”

  “Thank you, Mrs Illyc.” I smiled at her, feeling like maybe she wasn’t quite as hard as she seemed.

  She nodded once, then left, pulling the door closed after her.

  And I turned back to my room and had a little squeal of excitement. No way did anyone in any of Bea’s period dramas have rooms this big. It had to have been like three rooms or something. I’d been in it all of two minutes, but a
lready it felt like mine.

  My books were on the shelves, my throw pillows were on the couches, my fleece rug was on the end of the bed, and my pin board was up on the wall just waiting for me to put up all the prints from our last year of school. I felt at home and comfortable in a way I never expected. Two of my favourite people had planned this room for me, had unpacked my things for me and put them away as best they knew how and I felt nothing but love in there.

  Still love only went so far and I had to see what my wardrobe looked like. I pulled open the doors and peeked in.

  “Well it’s nothing on yours, Mia,” I told myself. “But I don’t recognise the majority of it.”

  Then the implications of what Mrs Illyc had said kicked in.

  “I’m more free here…” I said, walking into the wardrobe. “Ergo I get to wear what I want…?”

  I rubbed my hands together somewhat like one of those villains in an old cartoon and pulled off the woven jacket Gerta and Shelly had stuffed me in that morning.

  “My lady?” I heard from the main room and recognised Shelly’s voice.

  “Yeah?” I called.

  “Anything you need, my lady?” she asked.

  “Tell me about the dress code here.”

  “Dress code, my lady?”

  “Mm-hmm. You told me my first day you were told to dress me a certain way. How are you supposed to dress me now?” My hands hovered by an old familiar hoody I hadn’t realised it was possible to miss until I hadn’t seen it for three weeks.

  “Unless there are guests expected, my lady, or you have a social engagement, we do not have any instructions.”

  I grabbed the hoody off the hanger and pulled it on with more glee than was probably strictly necessary before kicking my heels off and walking out.

  “Anything else you need, my lady?” Gerta asked as they both sort of hovered, looking a little lost.

  “Am I allowed to give you the rest of the day off and say I’ll see you tomorrow?” I asked hopefully.

  “We need to unpack your bags from the palace, my lady.”

  “But after that?”

  The two women looked at each other and it was Gerta who answered, “I think that would be considered acceptable, my lady.”

  “Do you have a time in mind for the morning?” Shelly asked.

  “Um… Do you know what my timetable looks like tomorrow?”

  “You have nothing planned until Friday, my lady, when you have an afternoon tea with the Marquise de Ronique,” Shelly answered.

  “There may be some media requests, but His Grace will advise us as they come in.”

  I wrinkled my nose in distaste. “Media requests?” I asked and they both nodded. “Great. Okay. Well then. Shall we say whatever time suits you tomorrow? I’m sure I can deal with whatever tonight, then dress myself and find my way to breakfast in the morning?”

  They both nodded and curtsied. “As you wish, my lady,” they said in stereo then we all giggled.

  “Okay. Do you need me out of the way…? Or?”

  Shelly shook her head. “No, my lady. We shouldn’t be too long.”

  “Great. Then… As you need to be, ladies.”

  “My lady,” they both said again before they left.

  I looked around the room again and felt an unnecessarily excited smile creep over my face. I hurried into the wardrobe… My wardrobe! And pulled on a pair of jeans in place of the skirt and found my other pair of trusty ratty Converse, then threw myself on the couch and just enjoyed looking around the place I was going to be calling home at least for the next ten months or so.

  I sat and caught up with emails to Jenn and Bea, and Mum, taking pictures of the room to send them while Gerta and Shelly moved in and out of the wardrobe as they unpacked my suitcase.

  “I really feel like I should be helping…” I said for about the third time.

  “Let them do their job, kiddo.”

  I turned to smile at Dad standing just inside my door. “You know Mum’s over the other side of the world punishing us for lazing around while people put away our clothes and stuff, yeah?”

  He grinned, those bright green eyes shining brightly. “Yeah. But those ‘people’ were your Mum and she wasn’t being paid.”

  “I paid her in love!” I told him with a smile and he huffed a short laugh.

  “Of course you did. Come on. You want the tour or not?” he asked me.

  I nodded. “Definitely.” I jumped up from the couch then paused. “I’ll see you both in the morning, then,” I said to Gerta and Shelly.

  “Yes, my lady,” Shelly answered with a small head bob and Gerta followed suit.

  “Your Grace,” the both said, giving Dad a deeper head bob.

  “Ladies,” he replied before leading me back out into the hallway. He looked around as he paused. “So this is it, kiddo.”

  I looked around as well. “I mean I like hallways as much as the next eighteen year old, Dad…” I teased and he threw an arm around my shoulder in a half-hearted headlock as he laughed.

  “You get that smart mouth from your mother,” he said, his tone a mock-warning.

  “Your Grace, should you really be roughhousing in the hallway?” I mocked him, putting on my most snooty accent.

  “You’re not too old to be grounded, Tatiana,” he said, giving one more squeeze then leading me down the hallway away from the stairs.

  “I so am, though.”

  He laughed and pressed a kiss to my hair. “Okay. So all our rooms are along this hall. Lia’s in here–”

  “When she’s home.”

  He nodded. “When she’s home.”

  “I’m down there further, last door right at the end.”

  “Who’s in that one?” I asked as he stopped – there weren’t that many other doors, so I figured there was not much else to see down there.

  “It’s one of the spares.”

  “One of?” I scoffed. “Just how many are there?”

  “Less than the palace. Now there’s stairs to the servants’ quarters at the end of the hallway. I am not telling you this so you can sneak more easily and quickly down to the kitchen to where I have stocked a few packets of Golden Gaytimes and told everyone in the house they are not to eat them.”

  “Really?” I squealed. “Can we…? Now?”

  Dad sighed. “Right now?”

  I told myself I could wait. “No. Okay. I’m good.”

  “Good.”

  “Hang on…” I said as something hit me.

  “What?”

  “Where are all the decorations?” I asked him accusingly.

  “What decorations?”

  “Dad!” I cried. “It is the most wonderful time of the year and we are without decorations!”

  He chuckled. “I don’t usually bother, kiddo. I’m at the palace for Christmas and Lia’s at uni until the week before…” He stopped as my glare intensified. “I can get the staff on it if it means that much?”

  I huffed. “No. Don’t make them do that. But next year!”

  “What about next year?”

  “Next year, we’re going all out!”

  He laughed as he hugged me. “Okay, kiddo. You have a deal.”

  The tour continued. I saw the drawing room and the sitting room and the library and the breakfast room and the dinner room… The list went on, although not quite as long as the list at the palace and the layout seemed to make far more sense to me, so I was feeling less apprehensive about the fact that Nikolai wouldn’t be there to chauffeur me around, as it were.

  It was less ostentatious than the palace. This largely meant there were less things I was worried about breaking. But that probably just meant that I was even more clueless to how much those very breakable things cost.

  I was going to have to be very, very careful.

  Chapter Four

  “Why do you look like someone unwrapped their Barbie too early?” Jenn asked as I wandered pa
ssed the camera on Friday.

  “You can shut right up,” I yelled back in the direction of the laptop as I picked up my phone and checked the alert.

  Nikolai was going to be knocking on my door in about two minutes.

  “I think you look…” Bea paused and I stopped to glare at her. She cleared her throat. “Weird. Nice, but weird.”

  I smiled at my best friends. “Well you get points for honesty.”

  “What are you doing tonight…afternoon…yesterday? What time is it?”

  I had to leave in about a minute, so I knew. “Twelve twenty-eight. Your yesterday.”

  “That’s weirdly specific,” Jenn commented.

  I shrugged. “Nikolai…” I paused as I heard him knock, “is at the door.”

  “Do you have something horrible to go to?” Bea asked sympathetically.

  I struck my best elegant lady pose in front of the camera. “I have an afternoon tea with the Marquis de Ronique’s wife and her friends,” I told them in a snooty voice.

  “Sounds thrilling.” Jenn rolled her eyes.

  “Yeah–” Another knock on the door. “Yeah!” I called to Nikolai and he poked his head in the door as I said to Jenn and Bea, “I’ll give you an update on how many fancy ladies I spill piping hot tea on, yeah?”

  “Sounds good,” Bea said and Jenn obviously caught sight of Nikolai with a, “Hello again, handsome!”

  Nikolai bowed to the camera. “Miss Jenn. Miss Bea.”

  “Look after our lady, yeah?” Jenn asked him.

  He inclined his head politely. “Always, miss,” he replied before moving back towards the door. I noticed how he stayed inside the door as a reminder I had somewhere to be.

  “Good man. Bye, Anya. We love you!”

  “Love you!” Bea added, obviously able to talk now that Nikolai was no longer the focus.

  I waved at them as I went to the computer to shut down the chat. “Email you later.” I blew them two kisses and hit ‘hang up’.

  “We must go, my lady, or we will be very late.”