Chapter 161: Servants’ Gossip

Chapter 161: Chapter 161: Servants’ Gossip

Melrose read Hale Varro’s message once.

Twice.

By the third time, he threw the tablet across the room.

It hit the upholstered armchair instead of the wall, bounced off the cushion, and landed on the carpet with enough force to make the screen flash.

Melrose stood behind his desk, breathing hard.

"Fucking bastard."

The formal notice had arrived less than an hour after the wedding ceremony ended, sent directly from the office of the Chief of Royal Security.

The wording remained painfully clear.

Lord Melrose Mynatt is not authorized to attend any private or semi-private celebration held within the royal palaces of Saha during the Crown Prince’s wedding events, regardless of household invitation, accompanying spouse, prior guest status, or inclusion on previously issued correspondence.

Hale had even included Nolan in the clarification.

Nolan’s invitation remained valid.

Melrose’s had been revoked.

He shoved the chair beside his desk out of the way. It rolled across the polished floor and struck the cabinet behind him.

The loophole had been perfect.

His invitation named both him and Nolan. His restrictions focused on keeping him away from Nero. Tomorrow night’s celebration would have placed hundreds of people inside the palace, enough movement and noise to make an accidental encounter with Sebastian entirely plausible.

He had been careful.

Apparently Hale had been more careful.

Melrose snatched the whiskey glass from the side table, took one angry swallow, and hurled the rest into the fireplace.

Glass shattered against stone.

The flames hissed.

His office looked too composed for his mood. Dark wood, expensive furniture, shelves Nolan actually used, and tall windows overlooking gardens maintained with irritating precision. Even the fire burned neatly.

Melrose paced past the windows and dragged one hand through his pale hair.

Nolan would return that evening.

Wonderful.

His husband would see the notice, read the language, and probably tell Melrose to stop testing the royal family’s patience.

Melrose could already hear the reasonable tone.

He hated it.

He hated the marriage.

He hated Hale.

Most of all, he hated that Nero had married Sebastian that morning and was probably somewhere in the royal palace being disgustingly happy while Melrose sat here banned from entering.

His gaze landed on the board across the room.

Photographs and printed records covered nearly the entire surface now. Nero on one side. Sebastian on the other. Dates, appearances, compatibility information, old articles, and years of public history connected between them.

Melrose approached slowly.

He had found very little he could actually use against Nero.

The prince had pursued Sebastian openly enough to make half of his behavior useless as a secret. He manipulated meetings, appeared where Sebastian would be, arranged seating, sent gifts, and used every family connection available to him.

Sebastian knew most of that already.

The compatibility records were different.

Melrose picked up one of the sheets pinned near the center.

Three dominant omegas.

Before Sebastian reached eighteen, three registered dominant omegas had shown enough compatibility with him to remain under consideration.

The results had never been spectacular, but they had existed.

After eighteen, the matches began falling apart.

The first disappeared after a dramatic drop in compatibility to just 10 percent.

Another became unusable later.

The last eventually deteriorated until Sebastian had no registered compatible dominant omega at all.

Melrose stared at the dates.

Nero’s first rut and manifestation fell into the same period.

His obsession became public later, around twenty, once the gifts, appearances, and suspiciously convenient meetings became impossible to miss.

Melrose smiled.

He went back to the desk, picked up the tablet from the floor, checked that the screen still worked, and sat down hard in the chair.

Hale could keep him out of the palace.

The rumor did not need an invitation.

Melrose opened a separate device kept away from the household network.

A few people working inside the royal palaces still owed him.

He had been very careful about those relationships over the years.

There were no payments tied to them, no contracts, no messages that could be interpreted as employment. He had helped a brother avoid dismissal once. Recommended someone’s daughter for a position. Made an inconvenient scandal disappear for another family. Small favors, given at exactly the right moment.

People remembered debts like that.

Melrose opened the first contact.

He began writing slowly.

The rumor had to sound ordinary.

Something overheard in a service corridor while people prepared for tomorrow’s celebration.

A conversation between staff who thought nobody important was listening.

Did you hear Fitzgeralt used to have three dominant omega matches?

Before eighteen, apparently.

Then the results started collapsing around the same period Prince Nero manifested.

Strange timing.

Especially considering how obsessed Nero became with him later.

That was enough.

Nobody needed to say Nero had done anything.

Someone else would reach that conclusion.

Melrose added another line.

Maybe Sebastian already knows.

People loved information they thought they were not supposed to have.

He leaned back and pictured how it would spread.

One server mentioned it near visiting household staff.

A secretary overheard half of it.

Someone from Palatine recognized the compatibility history and confirmed that Sebastian really had been tested repeatedly.

By the time the story reached anyone close to Sebastian, the details would have grown on their own.

Melrose picked four people.

Two women assigned to guest service.

A man working ceremonial dining.

Another temporary staff member placed near the royal residential wing for the wedding events.

Different departments. Different social circles.

He sent each a variation of the same message.

Speak about it casually.

Do it where someone can overhear.

Never mention Melrose.

Never approach Sebastian.

Leave the rest alone.

People were very good at ruining stories by trying too hard.

Melrose sent the final message and placed the device flat on the desk.

His hands had stopped shaking.

The anger remained, though it felt cleaner now.

He returned to the board.

Nero and Sebastian stood together in the central photograph, caught at some previous royal event. Sebastian’s hand rested against Nero’s back while Nero watched him with the same obsessive focus he had displayed for years.

"I’m not going down alone." He murmured to himself.