The steps became narrower and ended next to a magnificent oak door. Darian sighed, knowing he was lost. #MMromance #midweektease #MWtease

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This week's teaser is from

The Dreamboat

Darian rushed to the castle early. He sought out the treasurer and pled his case for advance wages. The keeper of monies laughed at him. Darian slunk away. He went to the cavernous room where the musicians practiced, rehearsed, and wrote new material. The dance troupe filled the room with choreography, spinning, diving, and jumping, in readiness to entertain the queen that evening.

The viola player came to him as he stood at the door.

“Queen Lissabella is using the southern long-room for lunch today. Since you’re new here I’ll take you.”

Darian needed a lute that day. He still smarted from the treasurer’s laughter and denial of an advance on his wages. He shook his head at the viola player. “I know where it is. I need to collect instruments from the storage chamber,” he lied, wanting time alone.

The other musician shrugged and left him.

Darian edged around the dancers. He checked his guitar in its ornate leather case. I wonder if this would fetch much at the pawnbrokers. Then he put it back on the shelf where it was safer than in his apartment. He took a castle lute from the stand and wandered out to the corridors. It can’t be that hard to find the southern long-room. I know where the south half-moat is. Into his mind dropped the memory of Indigo approaching him as he waited at the skeeter tether park. His heart pounded and butterflies whirled in his stomach. Darian took a fork in the wide stairs that seemed to him to lead in a southerly direction as he thought about Indigo. I can’t wait to see him again, to kiss him, to tell him how I feel.

He climbed higher without thinking. The steps became narrower and ended next to a magnificent oak door. Darian sighed, knowing he was lost. He tried the door. It swung inward, open. Darian looked in. Lining the room was row after row of dresses and cloaks, shawls and jackets. At the far end was another door. Darian strode to it and opened it. This must be a dressing room or maybe where the queen’s apparel is stored when she’s tired of it. He glanced around quickly as he traveled through the room. It must lead somewhere … her sleeping chambers are in the other turret.

The other door opened onto a smaller room still laden with clothes hanging on rails, but at the window end, a dressing table faced the light streaming in. Panic gripped Darian. I am in someone’s chambers, and then, glistening at him from a silver dish next to a set of hairbrushes, Darian saw jewelry. He rushed to look. From somewhere deep within his psyche his younger self’s thief rose. He eyed the jewelry hungrily. An emerald bracelet and a sapphire ring called to him. He grabbed them and stuffed them into his pants pocket. His heart ached. I shouldn’t do this.

“What are you doing here?” a woman’s voice demanded.

He spun around. “I got lost. I opened doors thinking there was a way through to the southern long-room.” He gave the woman a helpless look.

She frowned. Another woman joined her and stared at Darian.

“I leave the room for two seconds and this happens. Don’t breathe a word to anyone about it. I’ll be fired for sure. Zelda, show this idiot to the southern long-room. I can count on you?”

Darian saw the anguish in the first woman’s eyes and cringed with shame.

The second woman, Zelda, nodded emphatically. “Certainly.”

He followed Zelda down the stairs he’d taken, along corridors, over a courtyard and up another flight of stairs. The other musicians gave him glares when he strode into the luncheon chamber moments before the royal party and guests arrived.

Copyright E.D.Parr November 2017 Evernight Publishing

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