by Maria Luis
I blink, asking, “How did you know?” in the same breath that Damien deadpans, “You overheard me talking with my brothers.”
“Three Priests frowning under one roof? Not at all suspicious.” Her smile is stiff as she climbs to her feet and thwacks away some of the soil from her knees. “I may be sheltered but no one should ever call me naïve. No, all I needed was one look at the lot of you arguing to know that my fate was once again up for debate. And, as usual, I wasn’t given a seat at the table to make my own voice heard.”
“There’s no way that you could have . . .” With narrowed eyes, Damien looks from the orchids to Holly Village. It takes me a full five seconds to realize that he’s staring, hard, at the annex connecting the greenhouse to the house’s kitchen. “You’re more devious than I ever gave you credit for, ma’am.”
“Devious . . .” A floater skates by, and I shake my head to clear my vision. “Wait. You sent Gregory to buy you orchids so that you could listen in on Damien and his brothers?”
“Not one of my finer moments,” Margaret mutters, “but desperate times and all that.”
I don’t know whether to applaud her ingenuity or feel pity for the flowers in question. Margaret’s thumb is decidedly black, and she’s failed at gardening more times than she’s ever succeeded.
“Then there’s no point in rehashing everything you’ve already overheard.” Damien’s hand falls from my back as he steps forward, his brawny frame treading carefully on his weakened leg. “Confronting Carrigan in Westminster, of all places, is the very definition of insanity. We all know it. But this may be our only chance to—”
“I saw you at St. James’s.”
Damien’s shoulders visibly tense. “Sorry?”
“You told my father that you suspected someone of wanting to murder me, the same as someone assassinated Evie.” Her blue eyes slip my way, lingering briefly on my face, before returning to Damien. Her mouth firms into a thin line. “And he tossed you out on your arse for it.”
The unexpected confession is a one-two punch to the gut.
One glance at Damien tells me he feels the blow too. Though his expression barely twitches, he touches a palm to his left clavicle like he’s reliving those final moments down in the Bascule Chambers when he was locked inside a body that would not obey him. Vulnerable. Paralyzed. His blue eyes gleam with suspicion when he lowers his arm. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because you’ve given your life to the protection of mine, and it’s a debt that I . . .” Her eyes slam shut on a shuddering breath. With hands that visibly shake, she shoves her blond hair behind her ears. “I let you drown, didn’t I? You’ve been treading waters for months, ever since that bounty ended up on your head, and I let you drown. However I look at it, I put you on that hospital bed.”
“Your Majesty, it’s not—”
“Father was paranoid,” she interjects, pressing a hand to her abdomen, “and he was right to be paranoid. After twenty-five years of doing everything in his power to avoid the same fate as Evie, he was killed too. Murdered. Assassinated. But he wasn’t right to think that you would ever hurt me. If he’d just listened to you at St. James’s . . . God, if he had just listened to what you had to say instead of spinning theories in his head, none of this would have happened and he’d still be alive.”
The truth is insidious.
King John turned Damien away and then came to me to deliver the Priests their fall from grace. My mission brought Isla Quinn into direct contact with Ian, and then Hugh nearly killed us all in his grief for his brother. And my father, the greatest puppeteer of all time, made Silas Hanover jump through hoops for his freedom and started Damien down the road of vengeance months before we ever crossed paths.
Margaret may be the queen, the woman born to take the throne and reign over all of Britain, but she remains my oldest friend. She earned my loyalty the moment that she freed me from my bedroom in Golspie. Twenty years of friendship. Twenty years of sisterhood. She deserves the truth about Isla, but it won’t . . . Oh, God, it won’t come from me. My gaze moves to Damien and all the air in the greenhouse feels like it’s been eviscerated.
I can’t breathe.
Turning in Isla means ending all chances of Damien walking free. Margaret will burn down all of Holyrood if she learns what we’ve kept from her, and I’ll be the first to go for my betrayal. Treason. It would be treason. And I’ll die knowing that I chose Damien Godwin above all else.
If war is hell, then love is carnage, and the blood that’s spilled belongs to us both.
“If you agree to do this,” Damien tells Mags, his voice gruff, “then there’ll be no rewinding the clock. You’ll back the anti-loyalists from Broadmoor in the same breath that you tell the MPs that Carrigan wants you stripped of your crown. Nothing will be left to chance, and we need every person in the Commons feeling like Carrigan is gunning for them personally.”
Margaret’s stare falls to the potted orchids.
The orchids sit, waiting to be placed in the soil and allowed time to flourish. In the months since Isla killed King John, Margaret has hidden herself from the world, same as the king once hid her away in the Highlands for safekeeping. She’s become a monarch in name only, and a queen who refuses to rule will soon find herself without a throne.
“You want me to start a war,” she says, softly.
“No.” I swallow, hard, and feel Damien’s gaze on me like I’ve spent hours bathing in the sun. It warms my soul and flames my courage. “No, Mags, my father started the war. We only need you to end it.”
54
Rowena
Caren Fitz wears a mask of nausea.
In other words: he looks like absolute shite.
Dressed in a three-piece suit, the infamous London hotelier jerks hard on the lapels of his jacket as he stops in front of me. Against the backdrop of the Palace of Westminster, he looks rich and untouchable. Regal. Only the sunken hollows of his cheeks and the scar bisecting his left eyebrow tells the story of a man who was ripped away from his life and forced into a world of deceit and treason.
I lower my sunnies and tuck them into my handbag. “Mr. Fitz.”
Carefully, he allows his gaze to roam the contours of my face. It’s obvious from the way his brows lift that he misses nothing. Not the thin scar that winds itself around my head like a crown. Not the shiny blister that kisses my temple. He stares there the longest, and I’m tempted to quip that I would have been a feast for the eyes just weeks ago.
Biting my tongue has never felt like such an exercise in self-control.
“You were in the palace for the fire,” he says, his voice whisky-smooth, “weren’t you.”
It’s not phrased as a question, and since we both already know the answer, my welcoming smile veers straight into mind-your-own-bloody-business territory. I won’t be bullied for supporting the Crown, just as I won’t apologize if my appearance unnerves him. I refuse to feel ashamed for surviving. “I’m glad you could make it today, Mr. Fitz. And I’m grateful that the Priests were able to return you to your wife and children.”
Embarrassment flickers in his expression. “I don’t know how they managed it, but I always figured . . . Well, you know.” When I raise a brow, he clears his throat. “They’ve always seemed a bit too notorious, if you catch my meaning. No pub owner can afford the toys the lot of them do. Not that I’m complaining, of course, because Broadmoor was . . .”
“Hell?”
This time, a genuine smile softens his austere features. “Hell is a good word, Miss Carrigan. Although I’ll tell you—when Saxon Priest said that your father was the one responsible for our kidnappings, I didn’t know what to believe. We never saw him there, not once. But I’ll be . . . Well, I’ll be glad to make a difference today, that’s all.”
With an apologetic murmur to Fitz, I step back and dig through my handbag for my new mobile. One glance at the home screen has my palms growing clammy, and I quickly open my last text thread.
; Me: ETA for QM? Session starts in 15.
Damien’s reply is immediate: Head in there now. Be strong. A moment later, a second text comes through: I love you without mercy.
Me: And I love you forevermore.
With sweaty hands, I dump the mobile back into my handbag and motion Gregory over with two fingers. Stamping out a cigarette under his boot, he bypasses the equestrian statue of Richard the Lionheart and beelines straight for me. After a brief explanation to Caren Fitz about the role he’s meant to play until we’re seated in the Commons, I lead our trio toward Westminster’s entrance.
The heels of my pumps clack loudly against the pavement.
My heart threatens to burst from my chest.
I don’t allow us to be sidelined by security, instead smiling pleasantly at the guards as we put our electronics into proffered trays and step through the X-ray scanner with our arms lifted by our ears. To them, I’m just the prime minister’s daughter visiting her father. To them, Gregory and Caren Fitz are nothing but members of my security team.
“Never can be too careful nowadays,” I say with a trembling bottom lip.
As predicted, the flirty one working the scanner just grins. “Be safe now, Miss Carrigan. We hope you’ll visit us again soon.”
There’s a good chance they’ll want me dead within the hour.
Jerking my chin toward the nearest corridor, I make sure to keep my voice light and breezy. “Daddy will be down this way, lads! Follow me.”
Gregory snickers under his breath.
Fitz’s pallor whitens, and I have half a mind to ask if he’ll be needing a vomit bag.
Knowing that they’ll follow, I book it for the Commons Chamber. Ten minutes. We have exactly ten minutes to be situated in place or this will all come crashing down on our heads. I pick up the pace, spotting a few familiar faces along the way. None, however, seem to recognize me. My long hair was lost to the fire and my face is bare of makeup. No winged liner. No pop of blush. No bold red lip that was once my signature color.
I escaped death and lived to tell the tale.
And it’ll be me who brings my father to his knees.
Slamming to a quick stop, I pull around and point a finger at the hotelier. “You’ll speak when I tell you and not a moment before. Understood?”
Fitz blinks. “There’s a protocol to the Commons, yeah? Ceremonial procedure? Will I know when I’m meant to—”
I shove him inside the chamber.
“’e looks like a bloody penguin in that getup,” Gregory grunts, lowering his head so that his voice won’t carry. “I thought Saxon told ’im to dress like me. Nondescript, yeah?”
Pressing a hand to my friend’s shoulder, I murmur, “Trust me, no one will ever match you.”
And then I turn around and collide with Quentin Keely.
Oh, fuck me.
“Running into you so soon,” he says, his tone slick as he clasps my upper arms, “is beginning to feel like a brush with fate. First, my home and now Westminster.” He bends at the waist to put us at eyelevel. “Did you miss me already, my girl?”
Bile swims in my gut.
I’m all too aware of the stares landing on me from all corners of the rapidly filling two-story chamber. Brows raising curiously. Rumors being traded from behind the fan of open hands. If I ask, Gregory will tear Keely’s head clean from his body and punt it like a football. It’d sail over the Commons’ infamous green benches and—
Be too much of a risk.
Sensing Gregory’s bristling, bulldog energy, I touch a finger to his wrist to settle him down. Turning to Keely, I adopt a tone infused with saccharine sweetness even while my words spew poison: “Just imagine what Mr. Hastings will think when your little enterprise becomes the talk of Parliament.”
Dark brows snap together over the bridge of his nose. “Don’t you dare—”
“Then take your hands off my body,” I seethe through a tight smile. “And if you so much as look at me again, Gregory here is going to enjoy severing your prick from the rest of you.” Leaning forward, I allow my mouth to graze his ear. “There’s not a single woman alive who’ll shed a tear at your tragic loss.”
With my head held high, I make sure to knock his elbow with mine as I skirt past him and lead Fitz to the long, wooden table sandwiched between the tiered benches dominating both halves of the Commons Chamber. Sweat coalesces on my spine as I push the hotelier into the chair meant for a Clerk of the House, then swat at his hand when he reaches for the antique copy of Erskine May. “Don’t.”
“But it’s just a—”
“Touch nothing,” I growl, “or we’re going to have six-hundred MPs breathing down our necks for violating the ways of the land.”
Then I spin around and claim the spot on the first bench that’s reserved for the prime minister.
Ten years.
Ten years of silence and simmering hate and it all comes full circle in the end. It would be poetic, maybe, if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve done all that I can to avoid returning to Father’s sphere. Politics. Mind games. Subterfuge. He used them against me, just as he used those same tactics against his peers.
One by one, those peers filter into the grand room with its wood-paneled walls and green-patterned benches. One by one, their whispers gain volume until Gregory’s hand finds my shoulder in a silent squeeze of encouragement.
I am not alone.
Swallowing, hard, I set my handbag down beside me and fold my hands in my lap. Legs crossed at the ankle. Spine straight. Shoulders pressed back. Any minute now Father will walk into this room and the games will begin. Trial by fire. A battle with only one victor. The voices no longer carry on whispers:
What’s she doing here?
Wait . . . is that Caren Fitz at the Table?
What the bloody hell is going on?
“Look sharp, Rowan,” comes Gregory’s gritty voice from my right, “Daddy’s ’ere.”
A shiver crawls down my spine.
Temptation begs me to watch my father enter the Chambers but that would give him the upper hand. After all that he’s done, he deserves nothing but a space to rot behind a pair of bars for all eternity. I squeeze my linked fingers together to the point of pain.
A tangible hush sweeps over the room.
There’s nothing but creaking benches as people take their seats, as well as the heavy breathing of an elderly man behind me. One of my father’s private secretaries, no doubt. He’d probably stab me with a pen, given the chance, and I resist the urge to clap a hand down on my nape like I’m swatting an obnoxious fly.
This was once my world.
The deceit. The power. The never-ending greed.
His approach is muffled by the rug beneath my feet, but I can feel his presence. Gregory is nothing but a shadow on my righthand side. Before me, Fitz leans forward to touch one of the dispatch boxes and I pray for patience.
And then a lean body is cutting off my view of the hotelier and the Table and the opposition at large. The beat of my heart echoes in my ears. Nerves bundle into a tight knot in my belly. Every scar and fading blister from the fire at Buckingham Palace leaves me exposed and vulnerable.
If I am ruthless, it’s because Father turned me cruel.
If I am cunning, it’s because Father taught me all the ways that I’d be bested.
And if I show weakness, it’s because a sliver of my soul will always be the little girl who beat her fists on a window, screaming to be saved from the fire that would swallow her whole.
Slowly, with methodical nonchalance, I allow my gaze to crawl over my father’s body. His sleeves are rolled up to his forearms and his suit jacket buried under a stack of folders at his left elbow. His collar is undone, just one button, and his face is bristle-free. At the Jewel Tower, I’d stood back far enough that I missed the signs of age that have claimed him.
I see them all now.
The loose skin at his jowls and the gray peppered in with the black of his brows. His hair, thinner than
it was a decade ago, is combed over to the right in the same style that he’s worn for years. It hides a patch of baldness from when Mum tried to cut his hair and stabbed him with the shears instead.
Young Rowena cried over the spilled blood.
I wish that I still possessed even a quarter of her blissful innocence.
He killed that too.
With the sly smile that was once my trademark, I lean back on the bench and spread my arms wide across the back. Ownership. A line drawn in the sand from one opponent to another. And then my smile deepens, and I meet a pair of eyes as effervescently blue as my own, and oh, the satisfaction I feel at seeing all the rage locked behind a stare so sharp as his.
“Hello, Father. Have you missed me?”
55
Rowena
His reaction is instantaneous.
Gripping my arm, he shoves his face close to mine. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Pointedly, I look to the place where he’s holding me. “Your hand.”
“What?”
“Your hand,” I repeat, emphasizing the statement with a kick of my chin toward our audience. “I’d hate for the world to realize that you aren’t pleased to see me when it’s been so long.”
“I’m not—”
Only, he doesn’t have the chance to finish that thought because Gregory has already pried him loose. Looking like a windup toy caught in a pair of big paws, Father’s cheeks turn a blustery red as he grapples for control, never releasing his hold on the precious paperwork clutched in his arm. “What is the meaning of this?” he snarls, slapping one hand back at the man restraining him. “Release me!”
“Should I, Rowan?”
Instead of answering Gregory, my pumps sink into the soft rug as I stand. In every direction that I look, there are faces peering back. Puzzled. Uncomfortable. They stare as if I’m the shite beneath their shoe, that which they thought they’d already scraped off before stepping indoors. Unfortunately for them all, they’ve been harboring a cockroach in their midst. I’m nothing more than the trail of seed prepared to lead them down the path of no return.