Princess Isabella Georgianne Catherine de Saxe-Gotha, or Izzy as she thought of herself, sat in the cushioned window seat with the drapes pulled back exposing the white lacy curtains beneath. She knew she was beautiful framed thus, and the sunlight glinting of her blonde hair didn’t hurt either. The page boy—what was his name? Not that it mattered—gulped when he looked at her then turned away blushing. Her ladies oohed and aahed over her that morning, but ladies were notorious for rating the woman who buttered their bread higher than she deserved.

But men were different. If they liked what they saw, Izzy could always tell. She spent her young life watching men watch her mother the queen. Not that Izzy was so old now, she was sixteen and in the first bloom of womanhood. Every man who looked at her saw that. Even her father said she was growing up and that she looked more like her mother every day.

Everyone that was, except Oliver. He smiled and greeted her as he entered the room, but his nose didn’t flare, nor did his face grow red. Izzy’s appearance never affected him at all. Even the time he’d seen her in her nightgown. Although that was before her chest filled out.

His hair was a blonde as hers—blonder for he spent many days in the sun while she was relegated to the shade or even indoors as if a moment in the sun might burn her ivory skin. Oliver wasn’t tan, not now anyway, but he had been the summer that King Gerald Thomas Henry George de Saxe-Gotha—or Papa as Izzy called him—hired Oliver to be Izzy’s bodyguard.

She’d need one then, but since Oliver started protecting her she hadn’t been kidnapped even once. Well, really, that one time was the only time and Oliver had saved her. Well, he was in the party that saved her. And then only because he was passing through town and was called before the king for something.

No one would tell her what.

But Papa hired him. Against the judgment of several of his councilors. No one would tell Izzy their objections either, but she overhear that those objections were overruled when Anders conceded that Oliver was exactly what was needed.

And the quote had been ‘what was needed’, not ‘who was needed’, but no one would tell Izzy why. Really, no one told her anything. Oliver said to listen to what wasn’t said. But she found it easier to listen when people didn’t know she was around. Although her free time decreased drastically after that horrid kidnapping.

Oliver stifled his smile when Anders appeared to recite Izzy’s schedule, but the laughter never left his eyes. He wasn’t just pretty—Oliver was gorgeous. Izzy forgave herself for the use of such a vulgar word; she just mustn’t say it aloud. His eyes were blue as the morning sky, and even at rest his body radiated energy, like a river behind a dam. He wasn’t as tall as Anders, but then few men were; Anders looked like a just grown boy who hadn’t yet filled out, even though he was fifty. But Oliver as perfectly shaped. Just the right size for her to looked up into his eyes without getting a crick in her neck. His shoulders broad, but not bulky. And he was strong. At least strong enough to lift her without grunting and carry her up two flights of stairs that one evening she pretended to be too tired to walk.

She never did that again. Oliver carried her as if she were a small child—or worse yet, like he was her father. And she’d been forced to retire two hours early for a month. She’d missed her first ball.

Well, she’d been to balls and parties before, but only as a spectator, or rather a decoration. At that ball she would have been allowed to dance.

Oliver’s eyes were on her again and when Anders paused to turn a page, Izzy asked. “Oliver, do you love me?”

“Of course, my princess.”

His answer was a quick and even as always, like he hadn’t had to think about it at all.

The footman with eyes the color of ice—how does a man with dark hair get eyes so pale?—choked; he was new. Moore, Izzy’s governess, clucked her tongue; Izzy was going to get another lecture for this. Anders stopped and glared at Izzy. “Your Highness, were you listening?”

Izzy relaxed a bit, ignoring Moore’s raised brow—princesses weren’t allowed to lounge, but queens were, so Izzy would argued that she needed the practice—and recited everything Anders said from the time he’d started though his notes. She tried not to sound sing-songy—that would earn her another lecture on top of the two she knew were coming. When she didn’t miss an urm, ah, or pause, Oliver’s smile broke though. He said before that her memory astonished him. But she was royalty, bred for who knows how long—Anders probably did—on both sides for the task of appearing to pay complete attention. What else were queens for?

Besides producing heirs.

“But Oliver,” Izzy said when she was done with her recitation, “I want to hear you say it.”

Moore rolled her eyes, but if Izzy was getting a lecture, then she might as well deserve it. Oliver laughed, leaned close, and said. “I love you, my princess.”

But he ruined the affect by patting her head as if she were a child—or a dog. She wanted to yell, scream, gnash her teeth, pull her hair, pull someone else’s hair—why hurt her own head?—but she breathed in deeply, filling out her already heavy chest and asked, “Will you love me when I’m grown?”

The footman gulped and his face pinked. Even stoic Anders turned away, but Oliver shrugged. “I’ll love you no more and no less than I do now. Perhaps we should add a visit with the tailors later this week. Your clothes are looking a little tight.”

If Izzy hadn’t been a princess she would have blushed with mortification, instead she was simply mortified in her heart.

--

***

--

“Oliver,” Izzy said during her riding lesson. “Take me to the marketplace.”

“No.”

“But Oliver, I’m your employer. You have to do what I say.”

Seduction hadn’t worked, perhaps if she strong-armed him…

“My princess,” Oliver said, looking into her eyes. “I am your guard, but I work for your father, not you.”

“What if I run away?”

“Then,” he said, looking at the sky. “I will recommend you not be allowed out of the castle, even as far as the gardens.”

Izzy let out an unprincesslike gasp. “You wouldn’t?”

“There is nothing I wouldn’t do to keep to safe.”

The others were still lengths behind them. “Then sleep with me.”

Oliver laughed as if she was a child who had said something unintentionally funny. “Safe and pure, safe and pure.”

Izzy succeed in not rolling her eyes, but when she glanced at Moore, Moore nodded tightly. Izzy catalogued her don’ts. She hadn’t touched her face, her brow wasn’t wrinkled, she wasn’t frowning. Oh no, she was biting her lip. Had anyone besides Moore noticed?

She slowed her heart by simple force of will. No one else looked the least bit concerned. They must not have noticed. She couldn’t ruin her image of perfection over a simple thing like a broken heart.

--

***

--

“Oliver, have you ever been in love?”

The evening light glinted off his beautiful head as he turned to her, his brows raised. Two maids were working on Izzy’s hair, quiet girls both and not known to gossip. Moore and her eyebrows were safely in her own room, getting ready to chaperone Izzy at tonight’s party. Oliver wouldn’t be going. He never worked after dark. Perhaps he had someone more important than her. “You must think I’m simple not to have asked before.”

Oliver laughed. “I would never say such a thing.”

“You don’t have to. It is written all over your face.”

A tiny laugh escaped one of the maids and the other girl smiled. Izzy refused to be a laughing stock. But she trusted these girls not to talk.

“My princess, I have a lover who I will run to the moment I am dismissed.”

“Who?”

“No one you’ve met.”

Izzy didn’t stand up and scream in frustration. But she wanted to. “How do you know?”

“Because my love has only been to the castle once—the day you were kidnapped. And you have never been out of the castle gates.”

Oliver and the others caught the man in the garden as he tried to lug a bound and gagged Izzy over a wall. Her servants realized she was missing almost as soon as she was gone. Papa sent men to search far and wide, but Oliver told him to close the gate and search the castle and gardens first. That blocked the man’s means of escape and trapped him in the gardens. The wall he was climbing wouldn’t have gotten him further than the vegetable garden. Stupid man.

But Oliver wasn’t stupid. He was smart and nice and fun and beautiful. And someone else’s.

--

***

--

The maids, not being gossips, knew nothing about Oliver’s lover. Anders shut up like a trap; he knew but he wasn’t talking. And Moore shook her head and warned against the evils of too much interest in servants’ lives.

Izzy needed to be more discrete, but hiding behind door wasn’t an option now that her chest was so large. And now that she was never alone. She needed someone to be her ears and eyes. Someone she could trust.

Not one of the ladies-in-waiting; they would have the same troubles as she did. And she couldn’t trust them. And they always put themselves forward. Her maids didn’t; they could go many places she couldn’t, but they were all pretty and their modesty tended to attract the eye.

No, she would need a plain looking person, or at least a child. Even a pretty child might do. That might help him get out of difficult situations. Humble perhaps, or quietly bold. What made a good spy?

After a long evening of smiling to just the right degree and laughing the correct laugh for each rank of person and kind of joke—certain kinds, no matter how funny could not be laughed at—Izzy settled into her bed next to the maid who had twittered earlier.

A lady-in-waiting climbed in on her other side. Princesses never got any privacy. Moore said that when Izzy married she would finally only share a bed—and room—with one other person: her husband and, on nights when he slept in his own room, her favorite lady. Izzy would rather have her favorite maid, but she knew that discrete maids came after—far after—nosy ladies in husbands and fathers' preferences.

When the lady beside her was snoring comfortably, Izzy nudged her maid. The girl woke quickly as if she hadn’t really been asleep. Izzy leaned close to whisper, “Don’t speak. I will ask you questions. If the answer is yes, nod, if no, shake your head. If someone else wakes up, then go to sleep.”

The girl nodded. Asking the right questions was more difficult than Izzy imagined. She hadn’t discussed what to do if the girl wasn’t sure. After several false starts, Izzy realized the girl would just stop moving. She offered her hand. “Squeeze for not sure.” After that it was easy. The girl had an eight year old brother. She could come up with a reason for wanting her brother around, but her parents wouldn’t ask as long as money was forthcoming. The boy was small, but bright and understood more than he let on.

Izzy hoped the girl was right, not that she had much choice.

The most important thing when picking as spy? Accessibility.