James woke with a start to the sound of his service bell ringing incessantly and the cries of his charge echoing throughout the halls. "Jimmy..! Jimmy, come here this instant!", she cried, "You don't want to disappoint me yet again...!" she added, in a mockingly musical tone of voice.
This was the fifth time in a single night that brat of a princess had woken James up. So far it was always for the most inane purposes one could imagine.
First, her pillow had to be turned to its colder side. Then her royal foot was uncovered when she turned on her side. The reasons became more inane as the night progressed. And, of course, such issues could not be fixed by the princess herself. No, no; of course not. The night would continue like that without fail, James knew.
As protocol demanded, her royal aloofness could not take care of any minor issue with her own hands, but instead just had to call on the most trusted — and currently only — serf available. Leonora's parents had sent the two of them to a secluded summer residence so that the princess may recover from a cold. According to her, the cold was so severe she was rendered bed-ridden and relied on James for everything she needed.
Jimmy, she called him. And she knew that annoyed James. It was the express reason the brat chose that nickname.
Soon after the first dozen utterances of his new nick-name, James 'accidentally' called Leonora by the name Leyley. Much to his chagrin, that sort of nickname suited the nagging noble just fine. In fact, she demanded James called her Leyley whenever they were alone.
The head servant's name continued to echo throughout the abandoned hallways of the royal family's summer residence. It made James's skin crawl to hear her call his nickname so incessantly.
As he began to walk towards the royal bedchambers, James wished he had given up his position for someone else to fill in, as some more aspiring, scheming servants at court had plotted. But no, the head servant of the royal family had told himself he had noble principles to uphold, and that he alone was suited for that position.
Now, having been rewarded for his self-sacrificial servitude by being assigned to watch over the sickly Leonora, alone with nothing but miles of countryside all around, James wondered what had driven him back then. Certainly, Leonora's parents were good people and treated their subjects quite well. But none of that had translated to how the princess had grown to treat anyone beneath her.
It was almost absurd, he mused as he ascended the steps to the where the princess was, how cruel and demanding their child had turned out. It was as though they had turned her into the exact opposite of their own motivations and ideals.
James took a deep, shaky breath just outside the door to the bedchamber of the princess. At the sound of another call to him James simply knocked once, then stepped inside the room without waiting for permission.
For the sixth time that night the tired head servant stepped beside the bed, a candle in his hand and asked "Yes, Princess Leyley?"
The princess frowned, regarding him with a bemused smile. "What, no bow? No waiting for permission to enter? Jimmy, you're getting quite bold, are you not?"
The grating, self-satisfied tone of the princess's voice made James's hair bristle with a barely held back burst of rage. Instead of letting it out, though, he carefully muttered, "My apologies, Leyley. Your calls sounded rather urgent so I chose to be at your service as quickly as I could by doing away with formalities."
The princess's lips quivered, and she tittered as she shook her head. "No, no, that simply won't do. Try again."
"Pardon?" James asked, feeling his face grow red with his rising temper. "I'm afraid I don't quite understand."
"Go out, and come back inside as would befit the head of my servants. I can't stand to look at you without the proper show of respect," the princess cooed, waving James away with a lazy motion of her hand. The brat couldn't even keep a straight face, as her polite frown turned into a cruel, self-satisfied smirk.
With a hasty bow, and trembling fists, James hurried out of the room, shut the door and paused for a few breaths before knocking on the door.
"You may come inside," the princess announced. James re-entered the brat's bed chamber and bowed, far too deep to seem proper, before stepping beside her.
James felt the heat of his face rise as he took in the smug expression the princess regarded him with.
"See? That's much better. Was it really so hard to show a princess the proper amount of respect? Tsk tsk, I thought I'd taught you better by now, Jimmy," Leonora hummed. The amount of gloating she put into those words was only overshone by the radiant smugness of her sickening smile.
Something snapped inside of James at that moment. Decades of servitude and humility could not help to quell the rage that had festered and broiled inside of him ever since he had been put in charge of this demon of a princess.
James's polite mask of a servant crumbled, revealing the enraged and almost mad visage that had hidden underneath.
When Leonora witnessed the change in her servant's expression, her mood suddenly shifted to a more somber, uncertain one.
"What's the matter, Jimmy? Feeling unwell all of a sudden? Did you perhaps not sleep well?" the brat dared to ask as James began panting with rage.
The head servant realized then just how much the princess was at his mercy. Somehow it had never occurred to James that, without him, without his direct influence and submission, Leonora would not last a week; hell, she may not even last a day if her sickness was as severe as she made it sound.
An involuntary smile crept onto the face of the head servant as he regarded his sickly charge. A plan was brewing in his mind.
In the meantime, Leonora seemed to have caught on to a sliver of what was going on inside of her serf. The smug expression adorning her pristine face slowly made way for one of mild concern.
"Jimmy..? Are you quite alright?" Leonora asked, a subtle hint of fear having taken root in her voice.
James took in the soft, well-kept face and features of the princess. When he leaned in to cup her cheeks, Leonora tried to shy away. The head servant was too quick, however, and held on to her head, staring deep into her eyes and regarding her supple lips.
"Such unmarred, pristine beauty. Truly, you have the looks befitting of a princess. It's a shame your soul is so rotten," James almost spat as he stared down and fondled the face of the now trembling Leonora.
"Jimmy, this isn't funny," the princess said, her voice trembling.
A chuckle forced itself out of James's throat before he could stop it. Admiring the fright this spawned on his charge's face he whispered "It isn't meant to be, swine. And my name is James, as you well know."
When Leonora simply stared at him, wide eyed with her pupils dilated, James added, "But let's not fret over that. You require a lesson in humility. Right. Now."