Shatter

  I catch sight of Lord Aaron, trying to appear nonchalant beside Lady Mei, who meets my eyes as though sensing my attention. She flashes me a quick smile and then looks away, perhaps thinking she shouldn’t be acknowledging me. She’s new to the secrets game, but she’s trying.

  The King nods an acknowledgment to Saber, standing just beyond my shoulder, then flicks his head to the side, dismissing him. I’m too frozen in fear and apprehension to watch how Saber reacts, but I feel the heat of his body vanish from my side, leaving me unreasonably cold.

  His Highness takes my hand and leads me up to a dais, then parades me to the center. I feel every bit the trophy wife he’s made me out to be.

  By my own insistence, I remind myself. My own choice. My penance.

  A hush falls over the crowd, and the King passes me in front of him with an impressive hand-switch-and-pull move that turns me just enough to bell my skirt. I have a hazy memory of seeing his father doing exactly the same thing with the late Queen on television and, mirroring the memory, I dip into a deep curtsy for the crowd. The King follows with his own bow a moment later. It occurs to me that if this young man I’ve somehow ended up married to weren’t a narcissistic, murdering, power-hungry monster, he might make a decent husband. Instead, he’s merely an accomplished ringmaster. The thought puts me in an odd melancholy.

  We settle into our chairs, which, though not precisely thrones, are more ornate than the other seats on the dais. The crowd in the hall follows our lead. At the same time, a few people wend their way toward our table, including Lord Aaron, and, yes, after a long moment, Sir Spencer—disentangling himself from his wife, who looks after him in confusion. The six meet at the foot of the steps almost together and head up single file, ladies first. The crowd quiets, realizing something is happening, then begins to buzz again as the guests pair off: Duke and Duchess, Marquis and Countess…and Sir Spencer and Lord Aaron.

  The King gives Sir Spencer a long, meaningful look, and I see him melt a bit beneath Justin’s gaze. By the time a plate is placed in front of me, my stomach is churning so violently there’s no way I can eat a thing. But I push my food around and take sips of water, hoping I’m fooling someone.

  The King eats with gusto, as though nothing important were happening at all. When I start twisting my napkin in my lap, where no one but he can see it, he reaches over and lays his hand atop mine, stilling me. “A few more minutes,” he says in a soft voice that’s surely meant to calm.

  I recall Lord Aaron’s words about what would make Justin Wyndham ecstatic, and wish I’d given them more credence. He’s practically rubbing his hands together in glee. The divorce isn’t the only plan he mentioned at our dinner—just the one he was willing to tell me about.

  Finally, when I’m nearly ready to toss my entire plate on the floor just to make something happen, the King rises and taps his glass with his spoon. “My lords and ladies,” he says once the crowd settles into silence. “It’s been quite an eventful few weeks, hasn’t it? My royal wedding.” He pauses and turns to me, bowing solemnly. I try to smile, but my face feels broken. “A shareholder revolt.” At that he raises his glass to the Tremain family.

  The audience titters nervously. I feel my own face flush at his brazen address of the still-tender subject, but when my eyes dart to the clearly enraged Duke Tremain, I see that he’s glaring not at the King but at Sir Spencer. He clearly understands that Sir Spencer has abandoned them, though he can’t yet puzzle out why.

  “And, of course, my own victorious reemergence,” the King continues. Applause starts up somewhere but, uncharacteristically, the King doesn’t pause to preen, speaking over it instead. “With so many grand events, changes are inevitable, and I wanted to bring a few to your awareness.”

  He assumes a commanding, straight-backed posture that makes me wonder whether there was a Giovanni-esque teacher in his past. “This is the twenty-second century, and though we embrace the trappings of the Baroque, we’re not savages. Marriage should be more than a blending of fortunes for the furthering of one’s political ambitions. Inspired by the bliss of my own recent marriage, I find myself unable to tolerate the idea of a loyal subject trapped by circumstance in a marriage of despair.”

  Now it’s my turn to try to halt a red flush working its way up my neck. I’m certain everyone in this room is aware that Lady Cyn has spent the last two weeks swanning about, making sure the court knows she remains the King’s paramour despite his wedding vows. Damnably, His Majesty is right—I’m in no position to lecture on fidelity—but to raise the issue so publicly, at such a gathering, is humiliating. I force myself to continue gazing at my supposedly adoring husband.

  “Therefore, as King of Sonoman-Versailles and at his personal request, I hereby dissolve the marriage between the Honorable Sir Spencer Harrisford and Lady Julianna Tremain and annul the marital contract, effective thirty minutes ago.”

  A chorus of gasps erupts from the crowd, and Duke Tremain rises from his seat with a shout. But two of His Highness’ burliest guards are already there to place heavy hands on the duke’s shoulders, returning him roughly to his seat.

  Sir Spencer’s eyes shine with a light I’ve never seen before—and it helps me understand Lord Aaron’s attraction, and how terribly tortured he was in his marriage. He must have doubted, until the moment the decree was made, that the King would keep his word. He turns to Lord Aaron and they smile at each other.

  Then a shadow clouds Sir Spencer’s countenance—the briefest flicker of darkness. He scoots his seat closer to Lord Aaron’s, lays an arm over the back of his chair, and leans forward and kisses his temple.

  The audience explodes into shrieks and whispers, and I feel sick inside. Even though I know how strongly these two feel toward each other, how desperate they must be to stop hiding, that gesture was staged. It was for His Highness’ purposes, and I can’t help but resent that this moment between them will always be a little bit tainted.

  “Furthermore,” the King says, his voice echoing loudly through concealed speakers, drowning out the crowd, “tyrants cannot be permitted to stand, so by royal decree, Duke and Duchess Tremain are hereby stripped of their titles and Sir Spencer Harrisford is ennobled as Duke Spencer Harrisford.”

  At that the din in the hall grows so overwhelming I have to fight the urge to clap my hands over my ears.

  Still the King continues, nearly shouting into the microphone. “Along with the title, Duke Harrisford—excuse me, Duke Spencer, you’re no longer married,” he clarifies with a polite bow of his head, twisting the proverbial knife into the Tremains. “Duke Spencer inherits the symbolic duchy in the form of the Tremains’ twelve-room suite in the south wing. Those of you who wish to offer condolences may call on the Tremains at the former home of my own dear wife’s parents, the Graysons.”

  I fancy I can feel a thousand sets of eyes turn my way, though my own remain fixed on a point just over His Highness’ right shoulder. The King’s decrees are incredibly harsh, but one risks these kinds of consequences when one attempts to overthrow a government, don’t they? Even in an enlightened corporatocracy. But the humiliation being heaped on the Tremains is…unfathomable. My own contribution to their punishment is almost trifling by comparison.

  I wait for the guilt.

  It doesn’t come.

  I smile instead.

  The King raises both hands into the air, and though the hall certainly doesn’t return to the silence of the beginning of his speech, his next words are at least audible. “As a show of goodwill, the new Duke Spencer has agreed to offer half his voting shares for private sale.”

  Goodwill? I seriously doubt that. It was Sir Spencer’s punishment.

  The combined expressions of outrage, disbelief, and confusion form an overwhelming cacophony as the court sheds decorum entirely. Voting shares in Sonoma are almost impossible to purchase, ever. But the King’s announcement is little more than thumbing his nose
at his detractors; the CEO of Sonoma Inc. has right of first refusal, meaning, simply, that Justin will buy up all the Harrisford shares himself and will henceforth, essentially, be untouchable.

  The Tremain faction, the only genuine threat the Wyndham dynasty has ever faced, is finished. The rebellion is over, and Justin is the undeniable victor.

  The King lowers his arms and turns to me, holding out his hand for mine. Overwhelmed, I simply do as I’m expected, and the King sweeps me away, down from the dais, ignoring the crowd’s many shouted questions. Guards bar anyone from following us—a measure rarely taken within the palace, where we’re accustomed to royalty walking among us—and with a strange suddenness, we’re alone in His Highness’ office.

  The King is walking tall, jauntily, and I realize that this is the true Justin Wyndham. Smart, charismatic, brilliant, yes. But ruthless and cutthroat in a way no nineteen-year-old should be.

  “You loved that,” I say softly.

  “Of course I loved it.”

  “You destroyed Tremain’s life.”

  “He tried to destroy mine.”

  “You used my home. You didn’t even ask.”

  He scoffs at that. “I don’t have to ask; I’m the King! Besides,” he adds offhandedly, “you don’t live there anymore, and neither does your father.”

  “He’s in the hospital!” I snap. Even though I don’t intend for him to stay there long.

  “Your father departed for Languedoc-Roussillon this morning,” the King says, waving away my concern. “I assumed you knew; was that not your signature I saw on the travel requisition?”

  I blink. My father is…gone. I wasn’t even there to see him off. Did he put up a fuss about that? Was he even sufficiently lucid to understand what was happening? The revelation threatens to derail me—but of course, that’s why the King mentioned it when he did.

  I refuse to give him the upper hand.

  “You dragged me into it. You implicated me!” My words are angry. I think I should actually be angry. Why am I not?

  “I credited you. It was your idea! And it was excellent,” he adds, as though I could want that praise. “I was thinking corporate. I wanted to render him powerless, to tear down his life’s work the way he tried to tear down mine—tried to tear down my parents’ legacy. But you? You came up with something better.”

  He looks down at me and it’s only then that I realize he’s still holding my hand; he’s been holding it since he helped me rise from my seat on the dais. I want to snatch it back, but now he’s gripping it in earnest, lifting it to his lips to place a long, slow kiss on it.

  “You know we could make a true partnership of this, don’t you? We’re so young—we could be a power couple that rules for decades, Danica. We would live in the history books for ages.”

  I’m shaking my head almost spasmodically and backing away, tugging on my hand until he releases it.

  “I’m not asking you to be lovelorn. You needn’t even leave your ‘secretary’ behind. We all need entertainment, bien sûr. But we’re a match, Danica, a real match. We could be amazing.”

  “I’m not like that,” I manage to whisper.

  His Highness steps toward me, a wide smile on his face, and leans close to my ear. “Then why are your eyes shining like a child in a sweetshop?”

  My mouth clatters shut. Are they? My hands rise to my cheeks and they’re hot. Not with anger. Nor even with illness. I am thrilled.

  I love this.

  THE FRENETIC PALACE buzz is like nothing I’ve ever seen. In some ways it’s worse than the morning of the big vote. Then, there was mystery and hope and fear and the unknown; now, we’re witness to a great downfall and we must all cast ourselves in the role of cowardly onlooker or taunting bully.

  I don’t know where I fit. No, I’m afraid of where I fit.

  “M.A.R.I.E. wouldn’t even open their doors. There were trunks and boxes stacked—neatly, mind you—all along the hallway,” Lady Mei says. She and Lady Nuala, along with Tamae and Lady Ebele from my lever staff, are gathered around me in a corner of the salons. “Duke Tremain—well, not the duke anymore—was the picture of stoicism. But the mother sobbed and sobbed and yelled a bit, and near the end started to throw things. And Mademoiselle Julianna was said to have shouted the most dreadful things at her parents.”

  The ladies around me gasp, and I stare at them, feeling like I’ve forgotten the proper way to respond. “Such a shame,” Lady Nuala says. “None of this was her fault.” And I suppose she’s right. I’ve always thought of Lady Julianna as simply part of the greater mass that is the Tremain family, but was she really? Was she as much a puppet as Sir—no, Duke—Spencer? How many of these young ladies are completely at the mercy of their parents’ choices?

  Wasn’t I at that very mercy mere months ago?

  “But what a way to react,” Lady Ebele says, a hand on her hip and her chin held high. “A person is defined by how they act not in times of prosperity, but in times of challenge. Lady Julianna is simply showing her true colors.”

  A murmur of halfhearted approval meets her words, and I realize that no one wants to say the wrong thing, even if they might disagree. Moreover, their eyes keep darting to me to see what reaction I will have. I am the person in power; my reaction will be the “right” one. But I simply turn my eyes to the rest of the room. There’s a luncheon assembled, but few dare depart their cluster of friends—except perhaps to flit to another cluster to trade old gossip for new before flitting back again. Who needs food when we can glut ourselves on the carrion of our peers’ disgrace?

  I should feel bad. I should regret my part in Lady Julianna’s downfall. But I find that I don’t. I don’t know how involved she was in the scheme to trap Duke Spencer into marriage, but at the very least, she was complicit. It’s a kind of guilt. One I know too well.

  But since I can’t face blaming myself for the same crime, I instead lash out at Lady Julianna. “She had it coming,” I mutter, cementing her social downfall.

  The circle buzzes again, each girl having been given permission to indulge in her pettiness. “Eventually they got all their belongings settled, but you’re well aware of the size of that place,” Lady Ebele continues, demurring to me with respect as she insults my former home. “And only the two bedrooms. Lady Julianna—just Mademoiselle Julianna now—will go from titled, independent, married woman to sharing a bedroom with her little sister.” The look on her face marks this news the greatest tragedy of all.

  Unable to stand there and marinate in the pool of schadenfreude I just created, I grab hold of Lady Mei’s arm and pull her along with me, making my way down the length of the salons. I don’t excuse my abrupt exit; I’m the Queen.

  Saber trails silently behind us and, for once, I find myself avoiding his eyes. We haven’t had a chance to discuss anything that has happened in the last two hours, and I truly don’t want to know what he thinks of me at this moment. I think of our intimate conversation last night and feel as though I’ve betrayed him somehow.

  As we pass through the Mercury Drawing Room, I spot Sir Spencer and Lord Aaron standing together, not touching more than a shoulder bump now and again as they converse, but clearly a couple nonetheless. I sense that their joviality is a bit forced, but it doesn’t bother me as much as it did this morning. Everyone pays a price, and this is theirs—a dramatization of affection in the public eye for the freedom of love behind closed doors.

  At our approach they drop into bows, the courtiers around them following suit. Lord Aaron was so right—everything is different now that I look like the Queen. More importantly, now that the King is treating me like the Queen. I was by his side on that dais this morning—to say nothing of my appearance before the highest of the nobility in the secret meeting where this whole charade was begun. Honestly, I’m even starting to feel like a Queen.

  And wondering how far that power can carry my own schemes.

/>   I can feel Lady Mei trembling at the social honor of being the Queen’s closest confidante this evening, paraded about before the high nobility. At my left elbow. She often is. She’s proving herself, day by day. And I’ll ask more of her. Perhaps the time will come when I’ll ask more than she wants to give. I wonder what she will say.

  “Your Highness,” Lord Aaron says. “I was hoping to see you. Might we have a word?”

  “Of course,” I say formally, and the courtiers surrounding us hang on my every word. “Duke Spencer, if you’ll keep this one out of trouble?”

  “A challenge indeed,” Duke Spencer says playfully. The crowd titters as I hand Lady Mei off to Duke Spencer, who, in turn, passes Lord Aaron to me.

  I wave off a few hangers-on as he leads me very purposefully into the King’s Clock Cabinet. It’s a small chamber, open to the public during daytime hours, but only one door is available without special credentials; it’s about as private as we’re going to get. Once we pass into the room, Saber takes up a position in the open doorway, glaring at anyone who tries to enter. An unwritten royal privilege.

  “How are things? With Sir—Duke Spencer?” I ask.

  A wry chuckle rolls out of Lord Aaron as he leans a hip against the table, and his entire face lightens. “They’re good. It’s…amazing to not hide. I can’t deny that it feels like a dream come true.”

  “But?” I prompt when he falls silent.

  “I wasn’t in that meeting between your husband and my love,” he says, staring straight ahead. “I don’t know what the King said, much less what he implied, but I get the impression that Spence feels very much indebted to the King. And that the King wants very much for him to feel that way.”

  I nod soberly. “An unspecified debt is always a source of unease.”

  “I’m trying not to think about it too hard. I’ve grown quite good at not letting myself think about the future and making the most of the now.” A gentle smile lifts the corners of his mouth. “It’s much better when the now is good, though. Much, much better.”