Delay your Progress to indulge yourself

You decide there's no urgency to press upon your Royal Progress. Instead, you deal with Court matters, consulting the various Lords and officers, spending time in the Map Room. When Count Holly presses upon you the importance of consolidating the last few major lords yet unsworn to the Crown and mayhap showing the royal standard up in the unsettled Duchy of Hightree, you put him off.

After several rounds of complaints and polite insistences from the members of your Court, you finally tell yourself that you'll get going on your Royal Progress.

But first.

This night, as you have for a good string of nights, you join with the Phoenix Company of the King's Own Regiment and the regimental wives. Flora, the Mistress of Quarters, is your favorite, and you and Pinch frequently bed her in either order, or in unison. Clever Flora is good with her cunnie, with her mouth, or, as you've lately adventured, up her bum while Pinch takes another hole.

Phaedra seems to have settled in well, picking a few favorites from among the troops and acting as Flora's strong arm, enforcer, and right-hand woman. Phaedra seems to have attracted her own admirer from among the wives, a young woman named Pippa, who is often by her side.

Merrimay hesitates yet, guarding her virginity for some special occasion. She seems to have despaired of help from her country, which decided her on joining as a wife of the Phoenix Company. But, at Flora's suggestion, she consented to yield her bum to you, bearing up with grace on the first occasion, and by the third, actively taking pleasure in the perverse connection and achieving release with her fingers as you plumbed the tight, hot channel of her breech.

Next day, you go about your routine, mentally setting out the steps for getting the Progress in gear, when you notice that your bodyguard Lanks is not to be found. You ask around, and the palace officials and members of the Royal Guard promise they'll find out what's happened to him.

Bemused, you finish the day in the royal chambers of the palace. When it's full dark, the sentinels voicing last call, you hear a scratching behind a wall in the Necessary Closet. You listen; the sound continues, becoming more insistent.

"Bryce, Bryce," you hear. "Open up, you're in danger!"

Holding up a lamp, you perceive the outline of a door you hadn't noticed before, and find what looks like a catch to open it.

You frown. Is this some trick? Is an assassin trying to get at you via a secret panel? Or is there some more dire threat?