“Calm,” he echoes, and I’m not sure he truly comprehends. But he’s docile enough. And I only need twenty-four hours.
Lifting my heavy skirts—made even weightier with over two hundred tiny pots of Glitter—I kneel on the bed behind him, and once I’m completely out of his sight, I reach into my panniers and remove a pot of colorless gloss. I start by rubbing his back and am pleased to discover that that does part of my job for me. My father groans as I find masses of knotted muscles in his neck and shoulders, and once my hands are tired and my self-disgust tamped down, I reach for his shirt with one hand and the gloss with the other.
Once the shirt is tossed over his head, I dip a gloved fingertip into the pot, hoping it won’t bleed through to my own skin. It’ll ruin the glove, but my budget for gloves is exceptionally generous. I absolutely can’t risk touching the Glitter. Down that road lie madness and financial devastation.
Saber said my father has been on a particularly high dose. The better to get him addicted quickly and reel in the fish Reginald was actually after: me. I consider whether I could slowly wean him off the Glitter…but that would mean coming here every day instead of giving him the patches. And risking him figuring out about the makeup. Not to mention that I don’t know what exact dose he’s on now and Reginald certainly isn’t going to share that information, so I might just mess everything up. High is all Saber said, so I’m liberal with the gloss I spread at the back of his neck, where there’s no way he can see it.
The glimmer would give it away. He’d know, and then I’d get no peace. Not a moment. Tamping down a sense of horror at what I’ve just done, I button his shirt so it covers the sticky spot, then gather his long hair into a queue, tied with a black satin ribbon.
“There,” I say, slipping off my soiled glove. “You look much better now, and I’ve no doubt you’ll soon feel better as well. Lie down,” I add before he can argue. I need him to hold as still as possible so the Glitter can get into his system before he unknowingly wipes it away.
My father looks unconvinced but obeys. I fuss with his blanket and pillows and start a film on the wallscreen that looks like a painting of a tide-bound Mont Saint-Michel until I fiddle with the controls concealed in its frame. Once he’s distracted, I grab a clean set of very plain clothing for my new assistant. I don’t expect Reginald to be astute enough to consider such details—or perhaps what I expect is for him to be malicious and “accidentally” forget them.
Only when a glassy expression steals into my father’s eyes do I feel safe sneaking away, the lump of iron in my heart heavier by far than the product in my skirts.
“MON DIEU!” GIOVANNI exclaims when I reveal this week’s stack of euros to be stored in his safe. “Chouchou, I must—”
“Please don’t ask,” I beg. Truly, he’s been a paragon of patience. This is only the second time he’s tried to query me in the nine weeks since I arrived in his studio after almost a two-year absence. I smile and lay a hand on his shoulder. “I’ve already lied to one person today—please don’t make me do it again.”
Molli caught me on the way to the car this morning. I almost told the truth when I said I was going to see Giovanni. She knows about the lessons I used to have with him.
“Can I come?” she asked. “My day is free, and I’m so curious about what you do there.”
“It’s embarrassing,” I said after a long pause.
“But it’s just me,” she said quietly. And there was an answer to far more than the day’s schedule in those words.
I’ve been keeping her at arm’s length the last two months, and she knows it. How could she not know it? My heart wept as I fobbed her off and drove away. She watched my car all the way out the golden gates.
“I’m a liar!” I shouted at the Nav computer when it asked where I wanted to go. “I’m a lying liar who lies.”
“I’m sorry,” the computer replied. “I didn’t get that. Please repeat your destination.”
And here’s Giovanni, asking me to lie again. I can’t. But there’s a reason I chose him as my secret-keeper of sorts. He’s utterly trustworthy and loyal. In the end, after a long, heavy silence, he gathers me into his arms and whispers in my ear, “You know you can always ask for my help, yes?”
I pull back, smiling, though inside I want to cry. “I do. But at the moment, this is the assistance I need.”
“Then it’s the assistance you’ll receive.”
“Thank you,” I say, though words feel grossly inadequate. When he agreed to let me make use of his business safe, I thought the large, heavy rectangle would be more than enough space. I had no idea the footage a million in euros actually takes up, and as soon as next week I’ll have to flow over onto the floor. Odd, that thought: euros stacked on a closet floor because there’s no room in the safe.
With my father’s pilfered clothing tucked under my arm, I slip out Giovanni’s back door to find both Saber and Reginald waiting for me. I peer around them but see no one else.
“You made me a promise,” I say sternly to Reginald. I hold a thick envelope—this week’s payment for his Glitter—where he can see, but I don’t proffer it.
“Are you blind?” Reginald asks, and knocks Saber with his shoulder.
Only then do I realize that Saber’s dressed not in his usual black jeans and the sacklike gray garment the world calls a hoodie but in the same Baroque costume he was wearing the last time he came to me at the palace.
“No,” I say before I even realize I’m about to speak. “Not him.”
“I’d like one good reason why not,” Reginald says, sounding most affronted.
But what to say? That I don’t think I can concentrate when Saber is around because the sound of my own heartbeat fills my ears? That his green eyes are so hypnotizing I feel as though I’m taking drugs rather than selling them? Or maybe simply that I’m already fighting my conscience so hard that I don’t think I can tolerate this person who treats me like a particularly putrid bit of mud on his boot?
I had considered this possibility but dismissed it instantly. “He’s your second-in-command,” I argue. “You can’t think to send him to live in the palace for two months.”
I don’t expect Reginald to laugh. I certainly don’t expect him to bend over and howl. Saber avoids my eyes and color stains his cheeks and somehow, I’m not in on the joke.
“Don’t worry,” Reginald says, dabbing at his eyes once he’s recovered. “Saber’s no one. I can do without him.”
I don’t dare even glance at Saber to see how he bears that insult. “He’s conspicuous.” Lord knows I can focus on nothing else when he’s around.
“I dressed him up.” Reginald sounds petulant, like a child wanting praise for his abysmal art project.
“It’s not his appearance. Or rather, it’s more than his appearance. It’s his very presence. He draws the eye.” An almost-honest answer.
“Then why haven’t you noticed him before?” Reginald says, a strange smile on his face.
“Pardonnez?”
“Why. Haven’t. You. Noticed. Him. Before?” Reginald repeats slowly, mockingly, as though I were a lackwit.
Wordlessly, I give him my best look of regal displeasure.
“He’s in your palace often. Used to bring your father his patches—scouted the place for me when you first started. In case you weren’t up to snuff and I had to take matters into my own hands,” Reginald adds, because he can’t let pass an opportunity to slight me.
“But—” I’m trying to avoid looking at Saber, even though I can feel his eyes boring into me as he stands, determinedly saying nothing, even as we speak of him. I remember how Molli’s eyes slid by him in the hallway. Is it truly just me?
“He blends in quite nicely, I think,” Reginald says. “He’s been working with you for months, he knows the palace, he knows the product. Maybe the problem, Your Highness, is that your eye is drawn to him.”
I suck in a breath in a hiss of indignation, but though my mind whirls, I can’t t
hink of a single thing to say in response. If Reginald wanted to sabotage any degree of friendship Saber and I have been able to cobble together the last several weeks, he’s just pulled it off magnificently. With a sigh of faux resignation, I attempt to mend my tattered dignity. “I suppose I won’t need my father’s clothes, then. I confess myself surprised to find you so prepared.”
“Pleasantly, bien sûr,” Reginald says with a grin.
I only shoot him a glare.
“Saber has better ways to communicate with me than you do. So any messages can go through him. I can also get the raw Glitter to him more often, so you won’t have to worry about these meetings.”
I raise an eyebrow. “I have my own reasons for coming to Giovanni,” I say, letting a trace of false innuendo slip into my tone.
“Of course you do,” Reginald says, his drawl fairly sopping with sarcasm.
There is a real reason: I keep my money at Giovanni’s.
I’m feeling somewhat more in control until Saber lets a snort of laughter escape and I’ve a sudden wish to expire where I stand.
Instead, I glance over at him skeptically. “Any particular instructions, beyond feed it and dress it?”
That makes Saber shut his mouth. And clench his jaw.
And makes me feel awful. I suspect his opinion wasn’t solicited on this assignment either. I swallow the urge to apologize—at least in front of Reginald.
“He’s got an extra set of clothes and—”
“They won’t do. I’ll have him fully outfitted.”
“He’s always been fine there before.”
“He wasn’t the future Queen’s personal secretary before. He’ll need full livery.”
Reginald raises both eyebrows at this. “I’m not paying for fancy-pants Louie duds.”
“Of course not,” I snap. “His Majesty will provide.”
A grin splits Reginald’s face. “Ah, very poetic.”
I incline my head ever so slightly in agreement and let a smile touch my lips. Our eyes meet in shared amusement, and somehow we’re back on course. “Saber does seem a good choice,” I admit. “The fact that we don’t get on needn’t hinder us. After all, you and I don’t think much of each other either, do we?”
“We certainly don’t,” Reginald replies, with far too much humor for my taste.
“I suppose he’ll do, then,” I say. Saber looks as disgruntled as ever. What is it about him that turns me into such a trou d’balle? It’s worse than my mother! “Come along, then.”
I turn and simply expect Saber to follow. He begins to, but Reginald stops him and mutters several sentences into his ear in such low and fast French that I can barely hear, much less comprehend, what he’s saying. But Saber only gives a vague grunt of agreement before hefting his messenger bag higher onto his shoulder and following me into Giovanni’s studio.
“You’ve picked up a friend,” Giovanni says, eyeing Saber appreciatively.
So much for the not-so-effective ruse that I was visiting Giovanni for romantic reasons.
“Employee,” I correct, oddly not wanting him to get the wrong idea. “I doubt you’ll see him again, though.”
“Shame.” Giovanni kisses me on both cheeks and walks me to the front door.
We enter the car silently, and I murmur instructions to the Nav computer. As we pull away, I stare at Saber’s scuffed but definitely heeled shoes and try to think what else to say, lest we travel the entire journey in silence. It’s a short distance, but not that short. “So, Saber,” I say brightly, cringing at my own tone. “Is there a surname?”
“Not anymore.”
Odd. “Were you raised in France?”
“No.”
“Family? Parents? Any—”
“Must we?” Saber says, cutting me off, sounding weary.
“I simply thought that if we’re to spend the next months working so closely together, we ought to know—”
“I already know everything about you that I have any desire to know.”
“You’ve no right to judge me,” I snap.
“I have every right to judge you!” He leans forward with his words, our noses only centimeters apart, and I tremble, frozen, staring into the fountains of raw anger in his eyes.
But it lasts only a moment before the shutters descend and his eyes are unreadable once more. He moves slowly away, as though I might claw him if he were to startle me. Once he’s leaning back against the seat again, staring out the tinted windows at the streets of Versailles, he says softly, “What do I call you?”
“Your Grace,” I say weakly.
He only nods.
“En français on Wednesdays, of course,” I add lamely. “Excellence.”
Another nod.
“I truly am pleased to have you,” I offer after a long moment of tense silence.
“You mean you’re pleased to have someone,” he corrects.
I say nothing more the entire drive and focus instead on trying to slow the beating of my heart.
The car pulls through the golden gates, around to the back of the palace, and into the underground garage. Since we’re trying to keep my visits to the dance studio in Paris a secret—His Highness for false reasons, me for real ones—it would hardly do to parade through the front. As the car descends into the darkness, I’m pleased to see a flicker of surprise on Saber’s face. He wasn’t aware of the garage’s existence at all. Considering the lack of motorized vehicles in the seventeenth century, I can hardly blame him. Most people from outside Sonoman-Versailles are unaware of the new complex beneath the palace’s formidable expanse. A far more modern facility, this area houses not only the motor pool, but also M.A.R.I.E.’s server farm, the vaults, some more modern office spaces, and even a dormitory for nonpalace staff.
At least, that’s what I know of from sneaking visits down here when we first moved in and everything about the palace was new and exciting. The court rarely bothers to descend belowstairs at all.
“This way, please,” I say to Saber, trying my best to be polite as a member of the motorcade staff holds open my door and we head toward the lift.
The lift doors open as we approach, and I curse inwardly as they reveal Saber’s first hurdle. My constant hurdle. His Majesty. Why couldn’t it have been Lord Aaron or Molli, or Lady Nuala? Even Lady Cyn would be more welcome.
“Good, I caught you,” His Highness says. I don’t even pause as I enter the lift, as though I’d been fully expecting to find the Loathsome Lord within.
“Take the next one,” the King grumbles, turning his back to block Saber’s entrance.
“He’s with me, Justin,” I say with no inflection while putting out a jeweled slipper to stop the door from closing.
The King gives him a slow once-over, apparently finding him lacking. “You’re certain?”
“My new secretary.”
He pauses, looking between the two of us several times. “Your what?”
“Secretary. It was approved by the finance committee last week.” A lie. “You must have been absent.” A truth.
“What the bloody hell do you need a secretary for?”
“You have Mateus; what precisely do you use him for?”
“I have a company to run!”
“And I have preparations to make if I’m to fulfill my own rather key role in that company.”
He gives me an appraising look, then drops his arm and allows Saber into the lift. “He’s a bit shabby,” the King says.
“I’m taking him to be liveried now,” I say, a bristle of defensiveness in my voice against the very insult I bestowed upon Saber not an hour ago. “Allowances must be made for one’s first day.”
“Yes, you do know something about that, don’t you, sweet cheeks?”
The back of my neck prickles. My weekly lever has gone flawlessly for months, but the King never misses an opportunity to mention that first one. “Would you press L for me, please, Your Gracious Majesty? I’m taking him right to the staff tailor.”
The lift starts up with scarcely a bump and I turn to my fiancé. “What is it you were so anxious to speak to me about?” I ask, knowing that whatever it was, he won’t breathe a word with Saber standing at my shoulder.
Sure enough, he flicks his lace-bedecked hand airily and says, “We can discuss it later.”
“Perhaps you should make an appointment,” I say as the doors open to the lower level of the palace—almost in sight of the hallway where His Majesty once strangled a woman. “Saber can help you with that.”
The King shoots an angry look at my new employee, but Saber—rising rather beautifully to the occasion, if I do say so myself—stretches out one foot and, with a swirl of his cloak, bows low over it and murmurs, “Your Royal Highness,” before following me out of the lift.
SABER ENTERS THE livery office with the expression of a man mounting the gallows—an attitude that doesn’t improve when the tailor begins to poke and prod him with devices that must, judging from his usual mode of dress, be utterly unfamiliar. A lifetime of fittings has inured me to the beeps and clicks of laser calipers and nanostitchers, but through Saber’s eyes I can see how the uninitiated might confuse such mundane objects with surgical devices—or instruments of torture.
I get the impression that Saber might prefer instruments of torture.
As his shirt comes off to make way for the red-and-gold livery, butterflies trouble my tightly bound stomach. His skin is a bronze—no, a deep sienna that complements his dark brown hair, sharp cheekbones, and angular eyes that speak of origins in the East, though I’m not sure exactly where. Several centimeters above the inside of his left wrist I notice a black tattoo—a disjointed symbol that looks like the mutant offspring of Mandarin hanzi and a quick-response bar code. My Lens makes no attempt to subtitle it, however, suggesting that it’s neither of those things. Perhaps a religious symbol?
The tailor proves as unaccustomed to fitting surly Parisian criminals as Saber is to being fitted, and the two come nearly to blows when Saber steadfastly refuses to remove the pair of shorts that apparently serve as his undergarments. I intervene again when the tailor brings in a pair of heeled slippers and Saber looks as though he might actually bolt.