“No less than you understand that you are not actually Marie-Antoinette,” he counters, gesturing at my late eighteenth-century attire. Though comparing me to Versailles’s least popular monarch is a cheap shot.
“If you’re going to be insulting, I’ll excuse myself. Your Majesty,” I say, fluttering one hand and bowing exactly low enough to placate him and not a fraction of a centimeter more. “Come, Molli,” I say, clutching her arm close to my side like a lifeline. Then I turn and make my escape.
Almost.
His arm snugs about my waist from behind, fingers gripping so hard I can feel them even through my ribbon-bedecked stomacher, bodice, and corset.
“You look divine,” he whispers, lips close to my cheek, where Molli cannot hear.
I paste on a half-smile because half is the best I can muster. “Your Highness is too kind.” I speak at full volume, highlighting the rudeness of his secret murmurings when we’re in another’s presence.
“Come to the balcony with me. I’ve not had you alone for ages.”
His breath hits my neck and I shiver. Despite the vehemence with which he originally declared that he would never marry me, once he was blackmailed into it, he rather warmed to the idea.
“Molli, look, they’re serving my favorite wine,” I say, gesturing at a table filled with glasses at the far end of the Salon de Vénus. My arms are puckered in goose bumps, and I can feel my stomach rebelling at His Majesty’s nearness. “So if you’ll excuse—”
“Actually, I need to speak with you.”
Damn.
The King glares down at Molli. Her cold fingers tremble on my arm, as they always do in the presence of our monarch.
“Mademoiselle Percy, is it not?” the King says, lifting one of her hands to bow over it. His lips don’t quite touch her glove as he pulls her away from my side. Molli makes a valiant effort to keep her fingers on my arm, but soon she cannot maintain contact without being unforgivably rude.
Which, like so many other things in life, is something my Molli cannot afford.
As soon as the two of us are separated, His Majesty’s solicitous façade disappears and he reclaims his hand, carelessly dropping hers. “You have something to do, I have no doubt,” he says, one eyebrow raised as he straightens the waterfall of lace on his cuff. “Be off with you.” And he slides to step between us.
I see the horror in Molli’s eyes as the King moves, and panic flares in my chest. She’s about to receive the cut direct from the King of Sonoman-Versailles—and for someone in her position, that could amount to social execution. Everything Molli has worked to achieve, swept away like a pup tent in a tornado.
Spoiled, selfish, inconsiderate brat!
“My lord,” I burst out, catching the arm of a fine silk jacket passing by, barely registering the face and body attached to it. My outburst stops His Royal Highness before his back is fully turned on Molli, and I reach blindly for her hand, pulling her toward me and smiling up at the man I’ve near assaulted.
Bonne chance! It’s the Compte de Duarte. He’s at least seventy and hardly a fashionable escort—but he’s wealthy, titled, and reasonably pliant, which will satisfy my present aims.
“Lord Duarte, I fear royal business has called me away from my dearest friend, Mademoiselle Percy. If you would be so kind as to complete my task and escort this fine lady to the”—I hesitate, ever so briefly—“the Guard Room, where I believe they have set up a particularly lovely display of gourmet petits fours.”
In truth I have no idea what’s happening in the Guard Room, but this nobleman would never consider returning to correct his future Queen. Now Molli—a young lady of little social standing—will be paraded through no fewer than five salons, plus the length of the Hall of Mirrors, on the arm of high nobility. Excellent. The compte bows to me with a smile and offers his arm to Molli.
Perhaps His Highness will think twice before trying to give a friend of mine the cut direct again, I think victoriously, watching a pleasantly flushed Molli depart with the Compte de Duarte—who looks only too pleased to have an excuse to escort such a pretty young thing, with no threat of harping from his shrewish wife.
But His Majesty seems not to have noticed the incident at all. So typical of him—nearly destroys a young woman’s social standing and he remains abominably unaware. Instead, he offers his own arm to me. I see little choice but to take it.
We head toward the very balcony I suggested and—maddeningly—the crowd parts for His Highness as the Red Sea is said to have parted for Moses.
A row of delicate Jacobean chaises lines the perimeter of the small balcony, and when His Royal Repugnance gestures, I sit right in the middle of one, letting my panniers do their work. The word comes from a French name for baskets slung on either side of a pack animal, and though the comparison is hardly complimentary, it’s apt. Baskets under my skirts extend the curve of my hips up to half a meter on either side of me, making the satin pouf out just enough that he can’t sit beside me without crushing the fabric. Not something a gentleman of breeding would ever do.
Strangle a woman half his size during their amorous tryst? Yes. Crush her dress in public? Never.
Not that anyone else knows that. The cover-up was quite thorough. “An aneurysm,” the physician—bribed by my mother—proclaimed as the cause of Sierra Jamison’s death. “A terrible tragedy.” But I know the truth. Justin Wyndham, fourth King of Sonoman-Versailles—raised to demand everything his little stone heart desired—handled his plaything too roughly and broke her.
And now he’s moved on to me. I lower my eyelids so he can see the shimmering plum powder one of M.A.R.I.E.’s bots spread across them tonight, along with the sooty black liner and dusting of gold on my eyelashes. Lavish cosmetics are one of my favorite relics of our faux-Baroque society. Petty, perhaps, but one thing I have learned about Justin Wyndham during our short relationship is that he prefers his women striking, sensual, and subservient. For a few seconds, I look like everything I know he wants.
And he cannot have me. Not yet.
There are a handful of other nobles on the balcony, but a pointed glare and the noisy clearing of His Highness’ throat has them quickly scurrying away. Curse them. My heart speeds with each person’s exit until the King and I are very much alone.
I peer up at his profile as he continues to glare the nobles out of his space. His glossy brown hair always seems to fall in annoying perfection. I remember seeing him when I first moved to the castle, during one of the rare times I was allowed in the public rooms before my official début. He was fifteen at the time, tall already and just starting to broaden, and I and every other tween girl fancied ourselves half in love. Even now the unbiased part of my mind can’t deny how attractive he is. He makes me feel false—all the grace and aesthetic appeal my mother purchased for me are his by right of excellent genetics.
That thought makes the silence feel awkward, and I force myself to speak. “What do you want, Justin?” I say, determined to claim the first point.
He stiffens. “I’ve told you, you may use my given name when you are my wife, or my lover.” He grins and I feel like prey. “Whichever comes first.”
I look away and say nothing. It seems pointless to address him so formally when we’re both teens, and engaged besides. But the King is so touchy about the strangest things, and I enjoy perturbing him.
“It’s time you moved into the Queen’s Bedchamber,” the King says.
Even with my covertly trained poise and control, I can’t hide a cringe. “It most certainly is not,” I snap, before reclaiming my composure. “We’re not yet married, my lord.”
“Marriage is hardly necessary for you to move to someone else’s bed,” he drawls.
It takes everything I have not to react to his blatant insult. Not to rise and strike him—slap his face, spit on his lapels, strangle him with the cravat tied so perfectly around his neck.
But he continues in a nasal, lofty voice. “We’ve deemed your parents unfit to
be your guardians and require that you take up residence in the Queen’s Rooms immediately.”
I despise it when he slips into the royal We. “That’s impossible.” Certainly it feels that way. It must be. Move into quarters specifically designed to accommodate nightly visits from the King?
“I’m not to lay a finger on you,” His Highness continues as though I hadn’t spoken. “Your mother was quite insistent.”
“You’ve spoken to my mother about this?” I shouldn’t continue to feel a pang of heartbreak every time I hear of yet another layer of my mother’s betrayal, but I suppose a child’s hope never completely dies.
“I have to speak to your mother about everything these days, don’t I?”
I feel a bit light-headed and struggle to keep my face impassive. At least she set some limits. A small favor, I suppose. “Why such a drastic change?”
“Where is your father?”
And it’s not a question; it’s the answer. My father has passed much of the last few weeks languishing in a stupor. A drunken stupor, I’m certain, except no one can figure out where he’s getting his liquor. Still, he spends nearly all of his days in his chambers, staring absently into space and occasionally giggling to himself. Which is most disconcerting from a man in his midfifties. My mother stopped sharing his rooms a month ago. Now she shares with me, which is, of course, delightful….
“Fine. Why now?” I press.
His Majesty rolls his eyes, then lowers himself onto the chaise beside mine. Even so, he’s a good meter away, and he looks silly leaning forward trying to whisper to me. “We have a bit of a PR problem. Rumors are cropping up. More from the outside than the inside.”
The outside. In other words, the rest of the world. “Rumors? Truths, you mean?” I say, batting my eyelashes.
“Besides which,” he says, ignoring my words, “you don’t actually have a choice.”
I chafe at his arrogance, but he’s right. He’s the King. As long as I remain a citizen of Sonoman-Versailles, his word is law. And as long as all I have is a company passport, there’s nowhere in the world I can run where he and my mother can’t find me and drag me back. Especially as a minor. Thus the catacombs two months ago.
“When I make the announcement, you must appear to be utterly delighted,” he whispers, sensing my defeat. “There’s a great deal riding on this.”
“For you.”
He takes his time, pulling his gloves off, then running a fingertip up my arm to the stripe of skin between my own glove and sleeve. The touch of his skin against mine makes me feel ill. “You’re as tangled up in this as anyone,” he whispers. “Conspiracy, aiding and abetting, tampering with evidence.”
That sets me shaking with fury, and though I grasp for control, it slides through my fingertips like oiled ribbons. “I didn’t do anything.”
“You’re right,” His Majesty says, and he tips his face to look me squarely in the eye. “You didn’t do anything.”
Instantly, the anger is gone, frozen out by despair. Grief. Guilt. I hate that he’s right. That I let my shock overwhelm my conscience, my sense of decency. That I let the death of a girl barely older than me go utterly unpunished.
I wanted justice. Of course I wanted justice! But my mother brooked no argument. “The truth won’t bring her back,” she said. “It only makes sense to gain what we can from this misfortune.” Misfortune. It’s a funny way to say murder.
My initial refusal to marry Wyndham fell on deaf ears. By the time I realized I needed to do something else, there was nothing else to be done. We were already mere flies in my mother’s web. I hate that I let myself be cajoled and pulled along by the current that night. If an opportunity ever comes to right that wrong, I swear I will.
The King takes advantage of my inattention to run his finger down my neck and across my shoulder, half bare in my formal gown.
“Don’t—”
But he cuts me off, bending to place a kiss at the nape of my neck. “I was told to make this betrothal look realistic. One of us has to do our part.”
I imagine his fingers wrapped tight around my neck, covering the spot his lips just brushed, squeezing the life from me. I shudder and start to pull away.
“Careful,” His Majesty whispers. “She’s watching us.”
I turn, like a compass needle spinning to point north; I can’t help myself. My eyes meet my mother’s where she’s stationed herself just inside the open doorway to the ballroom, preventing anyone from invading our privacy. Her gaze flits away. Pretending she wasn’t actually spying.
“You’ll excuse me,” I say, rising and stepping away from His Majesty. From his touch. “With this turn of events, it appears I have much to do tonight.” I offer a deep, mocking bow, my skirts a perfect circle around my feet.
“I’ve already instructed M.A.R.I.E. to fetch your belongings,” he says, pushing his brocade jacket back to slip his hands into his pockets, a portrait of nonchalance. “Wouldn’t want you to have to do anything, would we?” And he stares down at me, his blue eyes so predatory that my knees weaken. When I turn and leave the balcony, we both know I’m fleeing.
I don’t so much as glance at my mother as I pass.
IT FEELS LIKE hours before I manage to extricate myself from the event. I deflect conversation from dozens of lords and ladies hoping to worm out a bit of gossip—the second-most-common currency at court. When I reach the empty staircase to the north wing, it’s all I can do not to run.
I almost do—no one’s looking. But I’ve preserved my sanity, not to mention my dignity, on the assumption that when you’re in the Palace of Versailles, someone could always be watching. Something I forgot when I climbed out my window two months ago.
Out of sheer morbid curiosity, I blink twice. “Danica Grayson,” I mutter under my breath, and my court profile flashes in my periphery, illuminating the monofilament display of my Lens. From the local feed it pulls my picture, rank—or lack thereof—and residence.
Queen’s Bedchamber, Palace of Versailles.
Damnation! I slap my hand against the wall, but as it happens to be a marble panel, I succeed only in hurting myself. When was the change made? Before the assembly? Could I have been better prepared for this? Of course I had no reason to examine my own profile—no one does. Still, I curse myself for letting the Royal Asshole surprise me.
I almost blink to dim the Lens, then pause. “Angela Grayson. Location.”
Angela Grayson, Salon de Diane, my Lens reports, illustrating the information with a glowing red dot on a tiny isometric projection of the palace.
Diana, Goddess of the Hunt. Fitting. My mother is nothing if not mercenary. She didn’t follow me from the balcony, then. I blink the image away and turn down the long hallway that will lead me to the apartment that is apparently no longer my home.
After my father inherited his place at court and we moved into the palace almost four years ago, my mother started treating me more like a tool for her raging social ambition than a daughter.
But two months ago she truly became my enemy.
There was nothing outwardly special about that night, no sign that my world was about to explode. I was sneaking food after a soirée, for myself and Molli, who was sleeping over. It’s a bit difficult to truly indulge when laced into a tight corset, so Molli and I made a frequent habit of filching leftovers from the larder.
Breaking into the kitchens is a rudimentary hack. In addition, I’d discovered a ten-meter stretch of hallway near the kitchens that M.A.R.I.E.’s camera-eyes simply don’t see. It was a juicy tidbit that made me wish I had something truly naughty to get up to in that blackout spot.
As I approached the unmonitored stretch following my kitchen raid—my hands holding a delicate china plate heavy with decadent leftovers—I heard an odd shuffling. I double-blinked, checking the map on my Lens.
It told me there was no one there.
Odd. Even though the cameras have missed this little spot, the building’s security grid should have
picked up active identifiers. Suppressing your identifiers is a complex bit of hacking I hadn’t yet managed. Lord Aaron claimed he could do it, sometimes, and had promised to teach me.
I padded closer to the corner in my satin slippers, and stifled a sigh of exasperation when I heard a low, telling moan accompanied by a rather…rhythmic scuffling. Lovely. I’d stumbled upon some sort of secret hookup between not one but two coders better than myself.
Awkward.
I looked down at my plate, trying to decide which would be more efficient: hacking back into the kitchen and returning the way I had come—and chancing that I’d be spotted by security—or waiting for these two to finish and then continuing on my way.
I hadn’t yet made my decision when the loud sounds I’d already been trying to ignore changed in a way that made the back of my neck prickle. I felt abruptly cold and slid to the edge of the wall for a peek around the corner.
The King!
In my shock, I almost let loose a curse. No wonder the security field was blank; for his own safety, the King can’t be tracked by anyone except perhaps his bodyguards. I found myself frozen in place by an avalanche of half-formed questions and competing impulses—the unwilling voyeur of an amorous tryst in a darkened hallway. And the sound…
More than anything else, it was that sound that glued my feet to the floor, forbidding me to flee. It was a gagging sound, I think, but the most desperate and distorted gagging I’d ever heard. And then I realized that, amid the flurry of limbs, the stereotypical shoving aside of clothing in the usual places, the King’s hands—both of them—were around the woman’s neck. Squeezing. Tight. Even as he…as they…oh lord. I’d heard of this sort of thing, but seeing it was entirely—
A crash assaulted my ears, and only when the King’s arms jerked and his head turned toward me did I realize that the noise was my plate shattering on the marble tile, food spattering my hem.