The Ring and the Crown

by Melissa de la Cruz

  However did she land so many wonderful things? First the luxurious suite on the ship, and now the best room in the best hotel in London. Ronan had been prepared to scrape by on nothing for the season, but so far it was as if everything had been handed to her on a royal platter. She was made for this life. Providence was shining down on her, and she was glad she had turned down “Heath.” She could not live any other way but in the best way possible.

  When Lady Grosvernor arrived that afternoon to call on her, finally, she insisted Ronan call her “Aunt Constance” and nodded approvingly at the pretty lilac gown she was wearing. “I just ordered the same dress in peach for my Melisande,” she told her over buttered scones.

  Whitney’s wardrobe was even better than Ronan could have dreamed. It was full of the prettiest day dresses and glamorous evening gowns, made of gossamer silks and satins softer than butterfly wings; suede gloves lined with fur; and a full riding outfit, with gleaming black boots and a new leather saddle from Hermès. There were hats for Ascot and Covent Garden, as well as nightdresses and robes, a full tray of jewels, and several standing wardrobes that opened to reveal shoe closets. There was one trunk that was bigger than all the others, simply marked DO NOT OPEN UNTIL ROYAL BALL and Vera said it was probably because it had some deep magic in it. The two of them were beside themselves in anticipation to see what it looked like, and had to restrain themselves from opening it immediately. Ronan had sent her own shabby trousseau down to storage, but she did not share that with her guest.

  Ronan was glad to find that this “old friend of the family” (whom she had actually never met) was a woman her mother’s age, with a warm and friendly demeanor. She was not at all like the frosty English ladies who had raised their eyebrows at her on the ship. Lady Constance had a charming way about her, with her bright dark eyes and neat dark hair. “You are such a great beauty, like your mother,” she said.

  “Thank you,” Ronan said simply.

  “Your mother and father and I had such a wonderful time during our first season,” Lady Constance sighed, as if remembering. “Oh, to be young again.”

  Ronan took a sip of her tea. “I’ve heard,” she murmured, thinking of her mother’s old stories.

  “And do you find the rooms to your liking?” Lady Constance asked, after the usual polite chitchat about the weather in New York, the health of Ronan’s parents, and the weather in London.

  Ronan allowed that the rooms were fine—in fact, the finest in the house. She wasn’t sure how much Lady Constance knew about their finances, but she supposed it was better for everyone to think the Astors were on top of the world. The royal suite on the top floor was practically a little mansionette on top of the building, with a full garden terrace and dizzying views of the city. She and Vera had done a little jig after the butler and footmen had left.

  “The season doesn’t really start until the ball, but there are a few entertainments that you might find amusing. I’m sorry you missed my dinner the other week; we had the prince as our guest,” said Lady Constance.

  “Leopold?” she asked eagerly. “You hosted the prince?”

  “And his brother—what’s his name? I can’t remember! The prince is so terribly charming! It’s a pity you missed it!”

  Was I invited? Ronan wanted to ask, but didn’t.

  “Anyway this week, Lady Warwick—a friend of mine—is having a little dinner, and is looking for fun young people to invite. Would that be something you might be interested in?”

  “I’d love that, but I have to check the diary,” Ronan allowed, trying to appear nonchalant.

  “Wonderful! I will see what I can do, as she’s a bit choosy about her guests. I myself have to attend a hunting party this weekend—such a chore. But I will try to entreat her to invite you.”

  For the first time since she arrived in town, with her beautiful dresses and beautiful room at hand, Ronan was able to banish thoughts of the boy on the boat and what he had asked her. It was difficult, but in the face of such bounty it was easier to forget how much she had liked him, and how much she had regretted letting the moment slip away from them. She could not give all this up, could she? Already she was forgetting that “this” was not actually hers to give up, but a gift from the gods themselves. She could not imagine life with someone of lower station, a commoner (forgetting that she herself was without a title)—no matter how handsome or charming the boy had been. This was what she was used to, what she had set off to London for. Once she met a rich little lordling, her life and her family’s would be set.

  “What is it?” she asked the next morning, when Vera came marching into the room looking like a general who had just vanquished the enemy.

  “Your first invitation! Dinner with Lady Warwick in honor of her son, the Viscount Lisle!”

  Ronan smiled. She had, as they say, arrived.

  When Marie-Victoria and her loyal guard knocked on her door the night before the royal ball, Aelwyn had been dreaming of Avalon. She was back on that magical island, and Viviane was teaching her the ways of magic and the language of the stones. Stones were the foundation of their magic; the mages of Avalon derived their strength and ability from the legendary stones of Avalon. There were stones that granted power, like the one Artucus’s sword was buried in, and there were Pandora’s cursed stones, which harnessed the power of evil. Avalon mages learned the language of the stones, from onyx, citron, and opal to musgravite, garnet, jade and more. There were as many stones as there were spells.

  In her dream, Aelwyn was holding a ruby in her hand, using it to direct the fire on the hearth, making it dance and turning it off. But she was not listening to her aunt, not listening to the song from the stone, because she was distracted—too distracted. So the fire burned as it had when she still lived in the palace. An annoyed Viviane stopped the fire before it could rage out of control. Because it was Lanselin’s song Aelwyn was singing when she should have been tending the fire—his face she was thinking of, his name on her lips, when they woke her.

  “Winnie—Winnie, wake up, I need you.”

  Aelwyn opened her eyes. For a moment, she was frightened that it was the night of the fire again—Marie twelve years old, her gray eyes so large and wide in her face.

  “What is it? What’s wrong? Why are you here?” Aelwyn asked, frantically pushing off the blankets. “Is it a fire? A coup? Have rebels found a way to destroy the wards again?”

  “No, nothing of that sort,” Marie said anxiously, and it was then that Aelwyn noticed that she was holding Gill’s hand in hers.

  She blinked her eyes and looked from one drawn face to the other. “What is this, Marie?”

  “Winnie, you must help us. Please.”

  When she found out what they wanted her to do, what they were begging her to do, it was as if they had read her mind. They had known, somehow, that she’d wanted this from the beginning—that what they were proposing was exactly what she’d wanted to happen when she arrived at St. James. That Aelwyn Myrddyn had returned from Avalon for the purpose of becoming the princess.

  She bade them shut the door, put a kettle to the fire, and poured them each a cup of tea. Quickly she put a spell on the room so no one would hear, but even so, their voices were low, whispered, urgent. What her friend was asking her to do was treason, a betrayal of everything the empire stood for—everything her father had worked hard to secure. Aelwyn worried that maybe even the walls could hear them; that her father would know, somehow, that she was party to this faithlessness.

  Marie sat on the edge of the cot, holding her teacup in both hands. She was still wearing the golden gown she had worn for the state dinner, but her hair was wild, and her dress had a rumpled look. Her lips were red and crushed—kissed raw, Aelwyn thought. Her friend had been kissing the soldier. They had come to her room after being with each other, she could tell. “I don’t want it; I’ve never wanted it. I just want to be able to go away, to live a small life. To be with him,” Marie said, looking at Aelwyn pleadingly.

>   Aelwyn asked if the soldier—Gill—could leave them alone for a while. He nodded and left the room. She looked her friend in the eye. “Do you know what you are asking of me? If I do this for you, we will be traitors to the crown—to the sacred trust between the royal family and the invisible order. My father, the Merlin, would never forgive us, and your mother! The queen—if she knew what you were planning…Marie, this is deep magic, a perversion of the way of things, and if we are found out…” Aelwyn shuddered.

  Marie put her teacup down on the side table. “We will not be found out. And if we are, I will go to the gallows for you, for it was my idea all along, and they will believe me. But we will not be caught, my darling Aelwyn. You are the most powerful sorceress since Viviane. You can make this happen. I know you can, and you know you can.”

  “Marie—I can’t—my vows…”

  “You are but an acolyte. You have not yet said the words that will bind you to the Crown.”

  She had her there, but still Aelwyn shook her head. It was wrong; it was cowardly of them. They had roles to play, duties to perform, and one’s personal desires did not factor into their lives, into this equation. She could not do what her friend was asking. She knew it would be wrong of her—wrong from the beginning—wrong.

  “Please. I beg you. Help me be free,” Marie said, her voice breaking now. “I cannot marry Leopold. I cannot—he will make me miserable for the rest of my life.…”

  “But if I do this, what will happen to you—where would you go?”

  “I will marry Gill and we will go far away from the empire—to the farthest reaches of the American frontier, maybe, or even farther away. Somewhere we can never be found—where my mother cannot go, where your father cannot find us.”

  Did Marie know what she was giving up? She would trade a life bound by duty and decorated with privilege for a life as a frontier wife—a simpler life, certainly, but one that was difficult, poor, and hard. Aelwyn had seen the lives of such women in her aunt’s crystal glass: their tired faces, their callused hands, the backbreaking work they did every day in the fields and in the home. Marie had never had to work hard in her life. She’d had a difficult upbringing, yes, one marked by illness and indifference, but she did not know the feeling of poverty, of hardship, of hunger pangs gnawing on your dreams; of falling on a coarse and lumpy mattress after a hard day’s work. Did this soldier know what he was asking of her? How could he love Marie if he would take her away from the palace, everything she knew and everyone who loved her? How could one man’s love equal the love of an empire, a family, a mother, a people? Aelwyn shook her head. She would not consign her friend to such a fate.

  “No. I cannot do it,” she said. “Go back to your room. Tell him good-bye. You will hate me tonight, but one day you will forgive me. This is not the life that was meant for you, Marie.” Aelwyn took Marie’s hands in hers, trying to make her understand. This delicate friend of hers, this princess who had been educated in five languages, who quoted literature and spoke of art, who made music and beautiful embroidery—who, more importantly, had compassion for her subjects—would make a wonderful queen. The empire could not afford to lose her, nor could she lose such a friend.

  But Marie was adamant. “Just—just try it. Please Aelwyn, use your power for one night, tomorrow night only, for the Bal du Drap d’Or. If we are not caught, if they accept you as me, then maybe…maybe we can do it forever. But give me one night. Please? I beg of you—one night,” Marie implored, and she knelt before Aelwyn with tears in her gray eyes.

  And Aelwyn found she could not refuse her friend one night.

  The Warwick dinner turned out to be a relatively small affair, with only twenty at the table. Ronan tried to hide her disappointment at finding only a handful of gentlemen at the party, and consoled herself with the fact that at least she was seated next to two of the most handsome ones there. Lord Stewart, on her right, insisted she call him Perry. To her surprise he was not fat, puffy-nosed, or squat at all. He was tall, slim, elegant, and handsome, and closely resembled a long cigarette on a slim black holder.

  “You don’t look at all like your picture!” she exclaimed, as the footmen served the first course, a clear consommé dotted with tiny, perfectly square croutons.

  “Oh—that hideous thing in Debrett’s?” he said with a wicked grin. “That’s because we entered the ugliest photographs of strangers we could find! Howlers! D’you know, ladies use it to pick and choose husbands for their girls? Good prank, no?” he asked, picking up his spoon and taking a sip of the savory liquid.

  Ronan blushed, as he had hit it right on the nose, but she kept her consternation hidden. “Yes, too funny.”

  “We’re not getting married off, are we, Archie?” he said, smiling at the equally handsome lad on his right, who had been introduced to Ronan earlier as his beau, the Honorable Archibald Fairfax.

  Ronan admired them with an almost jealous longing. They were both so beautiful, it just made sense that they were in love with each other. They were like a pair of twins—two tall, thin, devastatingly handsome twins. The majority of the laws in the empire concerned the governance of magic, and, as in America, there were very few rules concerning personal liberty. Sir Oscar Wilde was a favorite at court, and lived openly with his partner.

  “Sorry we’re all there is,” Perry said. “I assume you were hoping to meet some lords or baronets, but they’re all at the hunting party in Chatham before the big ball-o. The prince went down there, so then everyone else wanted to go. Our hostess is a bit miffed at the turnout.”

  Ah. So that was why she’d been invited to this dinner. She recalled her last-minute invitation, and Lady Constance begging off because she had to attend “this chore of a hunting party.” But in truth, it appeared Ronan had been fobbed off onto the lesser event, and tonight’s invitation was not so much a social triumph as a social failure. Then there was the dinner Lady Constance had thrown in honor of the prince, to which she had failed to invite Ronan. She wondered how close this friend of the family really was. Ronan understood the hierarchy of parties; her mother had kept lists of guests divided into desirability, back when they’d had the wherewithal to entertain. Still, it pricked a bit to realize one had been dumped into the C-list.

  Archie looked up from his glass. “Well, here’s one who didn’t go out with the dogs. Hullo, Marcus, come and meet this lovely lady from the Americas!”

  Marcus Deveraux, Viscount Lisle, was the eldest son of her host, and the guest of honor. While he was nowhere near as pretty as Perry or Archie, he was titled, male, and apparently available. “Hate hunting, can’t stand it,” he said, wiping his sticky fingers on his jacket before taking her hand.

  “Or he wasn’t invited,” Archie murmured into his champagne glass.

  “Can’t ride a horse, that one,” Perry whispered in her ear. “Keeps falling off. Can’t shoot either, unless he means to aim at his foot.”

  Ronan tried not to laugh. “Nice to meet you, Marcus,” she said with what she thought was a flirtatious smile.

  He nodded brusquely and stalked off. Ronan tried not to feel too insulted.

  “Ignore him, he’s got awful manners,” Archie said. “It’s why no one’s accepted him yet, even though he’s gone and proposed to half the girls in London already.”

  It was a shame the boys had to go off after dinner; she had quite enjoyed their company. Ronan followed the ladies into the drawing room and sat down on one of the flowered couches. A girl around her age took a seat next to her. She was wearing an obviously expensive but somewhat ugly dress, hampered by an abundance of lace and embroidery. Ronan had chosen Whitney’s dove-gray silk for the evening, and she wished she had not wasted it on so trivial a party. The real action, it seemed, was at the hunting party down in the country. There was nothing worse than feeling as if life was being lived better somewhere else. Ronan attempted to focus on the positives instead of the letdowns of the evening, but her first foray into the London Season felt a lot more like tinse
l than gold.

  “Perry’s a laugh, isn’t he?” asked the girl next to her, whose name she now remembered was Lady Fernanda Something-or-Other.

  She nodded eagerly. “He and Archie are hilarious.”

  “Life of every party. Thank God they have no patience for hunting, or this shindig would be a total bust.”

  “Oh, it’s a very nice party.”

  “You don’t have to lie, it’s my mother’s,” Fernanda said. “I told her no one would come if the prince went down to Chatham, but she wouldn’t listen. Said she had to do something, as Marcus is to make a match this season or she’s going to take away his stipend. She’s tired of worrying that the estate will go to my third cousin and we’ll be turned out on the streets.”

  “Is there any danger of it?” Ronan asked. She was fuzzy on the rules of titles and inheritance, but had a vague understanding that only the eldest son could inherit everything. The rules were a bit more lax in the Americas, since there were no titles to fight over.

  “Always,” Fernanda said. “Speaking of weddings, congratulate me—I just found out I’m to be a bridesmaid for the princess.”

  Ronan was impressed. “You are friends with Marie-Victoria?”

  “Never even met the girl! But Daddy’s a friend of the Merlin’s, so I’m on the list. There are twelve spots—I hear not all of them are taken yet. Perhaps you’ll get a nod,” she said sagely.

  “Me?”

  “The Merlin wants all the empire represented. He’ll need an American on the carpet, holding up the gown. It’ll look good. Diversified,” she said. “Maybe calm down those rebels overseas. Bring the Americans closer to the fold.”