The kind that could never, ever hold a candle to Marie-Antoinette.
As Saber and I walk away, the whispers break upon us like waves on the sand, bringing with them a strange clarity—an epiphany.
The King is right. We are alike.
The suffering I’ve caused in desperation harrows my soul, but desperation no longer forces my hand. I’ve punished Lady Cyn with utter ruination, I planted the seed of the Tremain family downfall, and even now I plot to destroy Reginald utterly, even if it hinders my own efforts to leave Sonoman-Versailles.
I’ve become as ruthless as my husband.
I understand now what Justin meant when he said we could be a power couple. You don’t gain power by fighting the people greater than you; you gain power by joining them, taking it as your own, and making it bigger. Stepping on your enemies to make yourself taller. I’ve been trying to cross a great sea by walking around the beach, afraid of getting wet. I need to just wade in and cross it.
It’s time I grew up.
I squeeze Saber’s hand. “Thank you for your help,” I whisper. “But I have to go the rest of the way on my own.”
He looks at me in concern, but after a searching glance, he merely bows and gives me back my hand. I continue on, leaving the person I thought I was to drown in my wake.
Though I don’t see my husband, I see the frenzy of the milling crowd that tells me he’s at its center. I draw myself up and approach, knowing the crowd will part for me though I refrain from so much as clearing my throat. I walk slowly, regally. The King doesn’t see me at first, but as the circle about him hushes, he finally looks up.
Our eyes meet, and when his widen very slightly, I don’t drop my gaze. I tremble inside, not in fear of him, but in fear of myself, fear of this step. Can I keep the good part of me tucked away? In hiding until I can let it back out again? I suppose I’m about to find out.
When I reach his side, rather than formally setting my hand in the crook of his elbow, I slide it down his arm and entwine my fingers with his. Everyone’s eyes are on us. The King’s expression asks the question his lips can’t: Are you with me?
I smile back—a practiced expression. Literally, in a mirror. The smile that tells someone, You are the most important person in my world.
Justin seems to understand that now is his time to make a choice, and he lifts our joined hands to his lips, making sure everyone sees that, despite everything, the King and Queen are in complete accord. I turn back to the crowd, snuggling close to his side. We are the picture of solidarity.
I don’t look at Saber, who’s been trailing along behind me. I can’t. He’ll have to understand this for the playacting it is. This is my price. And his. No one escapes payment.
The new wave of whispers starts, the two of us its epicenter, and I fancy I can feel the moment this wave of gossip meets the one that was coming the other way after my confrontation with Lady Cyn.
They crash. They multiply.
And suddenly the entire milling population of the palace is alive with the news: the Queen has forgiven the King, the King has chosen the Queen, and the mistress Lady Cyn is disgraced. The mood of the assembly turns jovial as the King and I put on a show so worthy we almost believe it ourselves.
Don’t lose yourself, Lord Aaron told me. But I finally know exactly who I am. I am Danica Wyndham and I am the Queen of Sonoman-Versailles. I will protect my loyal subjects, I will avenge my loved ones, and I will take what’s mine by any means necessary.
“CAREFUL, THERE’S A STEP HERE.”
I laugh as Justin guides me, his hands on my shoulders, a silk cravat tied over my eyes. I’ve been blindfolded, spun, and led about the palace for ten minutes at least, but I have the odd suspicion he’s simply brought me back to my own chambers. The back rooms. But still my rooms.
“Ready?”
“More than.”
He fusses with the knot for a few seconds, and then the silk falls. Sunlight pierces my eyes, and I hold up one hand and blink. I’m in a good-sized room with heavy white molding around the crown. A pastel fresco of a pastoral landscape on the ceiling, and pale green textured silk on the walls. Ivory curtains over two windows allow for plenty of natural sunlight, and a graceful crystal chandelier hangs from a dome in the middle of the fresco, ready to take over when the sun sets.
I’ve been in here a hundred times. More. The books are in here. “It’s…my library,” I say lamely, my eye settling on the only new sight—a white desk with intricately carved legs, with a velvet-upholstered office chair posed behind it.
“It’s your office.”
“It’s my…” My eyes widen. “My office? Unmonitored?”
The King leans casually against the doorframe, looking unruffled. Honest, even. “Truly, I owe you an apology for the delay. I should have given you one the first time you asked. You proved you wouldn’t betray me at the vote, and I should have responded in kind.”
I can’t keep the shock from registering on my face. I thought I was prepared for anything from this man I’m married to. Scorn, derision, lies, downright cruelty. Feigned romance for the public eye, certainly. But…an apology?
“Try not to look so surprised,” he murmurs, and his eyes dance with amusement. “I do like to learn from my mistakes.” He takes my hand and spins me under his arm before pulling me close. Not an embrace, exactly, but a moment of physical intimacy—something I’ve had to grow accustomed to the last few weeks. “I need you to be happy,” he whispers in my ear. “And if I have to eat some crow to make that happen, I will. So happy belated birthday. You’re of age, the world can stop muttering that I’m a pedophile, you can sign all your own contracts without a guardian, and yes, you get your own office space, as befitting a major shareholder.”
“Thank you.” I’m not sure I dare say another word lest I rock the rather precarious boat that is our marriage. The last three weeks have been an interesting case study. Despite everything that happened before, I’ve convinced the court that I adore my husband. I’ve begun to think I’ve convinced my husband. Sometimes I worry that I’m living the lie so thoroughly that I’m starting to convince myself. “I’ve always liked this room,” I say, untangling myself from his loose embrace. “The windows overlook the Queen’s Courtyard.” As if he didn’t know that. But I’m rambling as the atmosphere settles into a companionable aura with which I’m still not comfortable.
“It was the private office of all the Queens who lived here during the original reign of the Kings Louis. My mother never used it as such, obviously, nor my grandmother, but I thought it fitting for you.”
Fitting indeed. I grace him with one of my special beaming smiles. “Thank you, Justin.”
He waves away my gratitude with a disdainful twist of his lips and in an instant he’s the impatient, spoiled monarch again. Still, at least the impatient, spoiled monarch is giving me what I want for the moment. For many moments.
Lady Cyn’s downfall has been a joy to behold. Some of it was slow and almost meaningless to most, but I saw it all. Ladies Annaleigh and Breya immediately joined my retinue, their parents looking on proudly. The night after I snubbed her, a group of older noble matrons turned their backs when Lady Cyn walked in—alone—to the ball. But my greatest pleasure came from watching the King himself engage in a public argument with her on the very morning of my birthday—one that eventually resulted in his bodyguards dragging her away. He had adjusted his mussed cravat, looking satisfyingly bored while she continued to screech like a harpy. The exquisite necklace and bracelet set he publicly bestowed upon me at the party that evening wasn’t half so pleasurable.
Less happily, it’s become impossible for me to go anywhere in public without an entourage. I’m the darling of the court, and much of the time it’s the King himself beside me. We dance, we laugh, we exchange very public kisses over glasses of champagne, and together we create an entirely new public opinion, serving it up fo
r the consumption of our observers—who devour it like a child with a crème pastry.
That’s the charade: we’re young, we’re in love, and we’re the rulers of a pocket sovereignty backed by one of the wealthiest global corporations in the world, and certainly one of us could not be secretly planning to undermine everything. It’s a strange thing to discover that happiness is my best disguise.
When the King finally leaves me alone in my new office, I sink down onto the new chair behind the new desk, exhausted. It’s satisfyingly soft, and I take just a moment of rest—a moment to close my eyes and massage my temples. This act, this farce, takes so much more energy and stamina than I ever could have imagined, especially considering the amount of time and focus I’m already pouring into my own personal projects on the side. Well, unmonitored office space in my own chambers will help with that. A little.
I should check on Saber. The King sent him away, and I hated the hollow look in his eyes before he bowed and turned from me. This spell of make-believe amour the King and I are casting for the court takes its toll on Saber as well as on me. It was tolerable at first, but even the pretense of affection for someone else has driven a wedge between us.
Things are…fragile. And it’s far too easy to stumble into an argument. We both hate it, and the emotional cost is driving us into a devastating amount of psychological debt. And it’s not just Saber—the acting makes my own mind blur what’s real and what’s false, and sometimes I need a reminder from him that I didn’t make up what we have, the way I conjured my “relationship” with Justin from nothing. From less than nothing.
Oddly, it doesn’t leave Justin untouched either, but in an entirely different way. The animal wanting I first witnessed that day in the Hall of Mirrors, months ago, has reignited. I don’t know if he even realizes it. But his caresses and smoldering glances seem increasingly genuine, and his kisses will haunt my nightmares for years to come. Of course, I’m expected to return them with apparent appreciation.
I’m not even certain His Highness realizes that all my pleasure is an act. Which is perhaps just as well—I want him pliable and thinking highly of me. If my plan is to work, the cooperation of the King is essential.
But playacting a romance makes me long for Saber all the more, and watching me hang all over someone else can’t please him, either. Worse, instead of the mutual-infidelity compromise my spouse and I used to have, now I have to conceal my affection for Saber. I hate hiding—as though we’re doing something wrong.
As if summoned by my thoughts, Saber appears in the doorway of my office, his eyebrow lifted in silent question.
“There you are,” I say, jumping up and flinging myself into his arms. His fingers dig almost painfully into my back, and I wish I didn’t have to put him through this.
“What did the King want?” Saber asks. He hides the brittleness in his tone adequately, but I know him too well.
Still, his question brings a genuine grin. “My office,” I say, arms spread wide. “Private and unmonitored.”
He smiles back—soft and unfeigned—and I warm from the inside out. “Congratulations. And right here within your personal rooms. Convenient,” he adds wryly.
“Indeed.” I slump against his chest. “He has no idea how much easier he’s made everything for me.”
“Seems fair, considering he’s the one who made them difficult in the first place.”
I merely give a quiet hum of agreement. We stand that way for a long time, and I’m just starting to relax when Saber clears his throat and his fingertips stiffen on my back.
“It looks like we’ve finally reached a decent balance,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
He kisses my forehead and leans his cheek against my hair, breathing in my scent. I don’t know what it is that he likes—my conditioner, maybe, or perhaps my pomade—but he often smells my hair, and I love it.
“With the Glitter,” he says, not meeting my eyes. “I didn’t feel like I was a leaf blown around in a storm today. There was something akin to organization and, dare I say it, manners in the way people gave me their orders. Their desperation isn’t gone,” he adds after a moment of thought, “but it simmered instead of boiling madly.”
“That’s good, right?” I say, stepping back to him and twining my arms around his neck. I don’t want this moment to get away from us. I don’t want to talk about Glitter. That never ends well.
He laughs as he tries to untangle himself from his messenger bag without ending our embrace. “I’m not going anywhere,” he says with a laugh when the strap of his bag twists around my bicep.
“Better not,” I say into his chest, then reluctantly let him go, if for no other reason than so that he can shrug out of his jacket and waistcoat.
“We have work to do,” he says, pointing toward my room.
I groan. “Now? Can’t we do it later?”
“That’s what you said yesterday and we…never got around to it,” he says with mock-severity.
“I was rather pleased with how yesterday turned out,” I say coyly as he leads me into my bedchamber by the hand. “Weren’t you?”
“Indeed,” he says, touching the tip of my nose. “But your core only gets one day of rest.”
I fall to my knees and sprawl melodramatically on the carpet. “If I must, I must,” I say, a gloved hand to my brow. “I am your—” I snap my mouth closed on the word slave. “Yours to command,” I finish lamely.
Saber just raises an eyebrow at me, a grin tugging at the edges of his mouth. I hate that he’s so cavalier about his life, and I hate even more that I’ve grown so accustomed that I almost made a joke about it. It makes me a little sick to my stomach, truly.
“Roll over,” Saber says, bursting through the tension with the grace of a stampeding bull. “I’ll loosen your laces.”
He puts me through my abdominal workout, and I’m soaked in sweat when we’re finished, but for the first time, I hold my plank for sixty seconds and collapse with a whoop of elation.
“Splendid,” Saber says, with a faux-snobbish accent. It’s what he thinks we sound like, but I’m long past actually feeling insulted. “You deserve a reward.” He scoots his lithe, shirtless form next to me—sweat and all—and pulls my face gently to his, kissing me soft and long, his lips playing with mine. No one else has ever kissed me like that: like my mouth is a fascinating subject worthy of languid exploration.
I roll on my back, enjoying a rather perverse sense of satisfaction at getting sweat on the ludicrously expensive carpet, as Saber props his head up on one elbow, looking down at me.
“I think you’re even more beautiful like this,” he whispers.
“Sweaty and disgusting?”
“Free,” he says with a shake of his head. “Hair down, corset off, lying on the ground with no thought about what’s all proper or anything.” He kisses me again, a feather-light touch this time, waiting for me to lift up to press harder against his mouth. He knows I will, and by the time I relax again, he’s smiling.
I stare at that smile. I’m not the only one who seems freer this evening. “I want a life with you,” I whisper, reaching up one finger to touch his skin.
His face shuts like a book and he sits up to reach for his shirt.
“Saber!”
He pauses, then turns, his face like stone.
“You won’t let me imagine a future for us?”
“Imagine away, but I can’t talk about it,” he says without looking at me, sounding sad rather than angry. “When the illusion shatters, you’re left in a frustrating situation. I’m left in…in my life. It’s…it’s too hard. I just can’t.” He hesitates and then adds, “I am sorry. I wish I could imagine.” I don’t think he realizes that he’s rubbing his chest like his heart actually hurts. He stops and drops both arms, then turns back to me and smiles sadly. “I’m proud of you, though. You’ve worked hard, and you’re doing
amazing.”
“Thank you,” I say, but when he heads to the bathroom to splash off, I let him go. I roll back and flop my arms over my head, and my hand meets Saber’s messenger bag. “Can I look at the list?” I call out.
At his muffled acquiescence, I dig into his bag and extract his tablet, already open to the list when I touch the screen. It’s not a short list—several hundred names—but I seem to be satisfying everyone.
My lips tighten as I continue to read. Saber has the list prenumbered, but there are a few blanks at the bottom. Spots left over. Left over? That seems too good to be true.
I push to my feet with a groan at my aching muscles, but note with satisfaction that I’m walking upright with a steadiness and confidence that don’t come from the corset crumpled on the floor behind me.
As I come around the corner into my bathroom, Saber flips back his damp, chin-length hair, dark strands tumbling about his face in such perfection it makes my mouth go dry.
“What’s up?” he asks as he runs the towel over his damp shoulders one more time before reaching for his linen shirt.
“Um,” I say with exceptional grace and wit.
Finally he pauses and looks at me in question, his shirt half unbuttoned. Whatever he sees in my face makes him grin, and he stands a little straighter as he finishes dressing. “Did you need something?” he asks, meeting my eye in the mirror.
It takes a few seconds, but I finally find my voice, not to mention the snippet of an idea I’d completely lost track of at the sight of his bare chest. “Do you think we have a canister of Glitter from…maybe three or four weeks ago?”
He snorts and shakes his head. “Where would you keep it that it might have gotten missed in the frenzy? Especially last week. Some of the courtiers nearly came to blows over my last dozen canisters.” Managing Glitter sales has fallen increasingly on Saber’s shoulders, and in some cases he has even returned to me mildly bruised, or with a crushed toe, from the ministrations of our…enthusiastic clientèle.
“True.” But there’s got to be one somewhere. Surely.