by J. J. McAvoy
“Sir, Prince Arthur had a very small circle of trust. I believe he did not even trust me all the time.” He did not look pleased with that, but I related to the sentiment.
“My brother told you more than he often told me. In all honesty, Arthur was good at secrets.” Slowly, the realization came to me. Arthur was secretive and careful. “The only person I felt he could ever be truthful with was...Sophia.”
“Sir, I am not sure.”
I cracked my jaw to the left to hold back my anger. “Who else would Arthur ever tell anything to, especially about me? He never complained to my parents or my sister. He did not keep close friends as he believed they only hampered a king. The only person who he could vent to—”
“The duchess, but sir—”
I didn’t wait for him to speak, opening the doors myself. I walked out of the room. No one was on my side of the hall, and I had a good feeling my mother had cleared everyone before she came to me. When I reached the northern part of the palace, I started to see the staff preparing for the day. They were all shocked as Sophia all but ruled this side of the palace alone. No one ever came here except my mother.
Walking to her doors, I knocked.
“What is it? The duchess is not yet ready,” her assistant asked, opening the door. “Your Highness.”
“I need to speak to her now,” I demanded.
“It is not appropriate to discuss anything in her chambers, sir. She will meet you in—”
“I said now!”
She jumped, startled, but did not move to inform her precious duchess. Luckily for her sake, Sophia stepped behind her. “It is all right, Milana,”
Her assistant stepped aside, allowing Sophia to move forward. “Adelaar, good morning.”
“If only it were,” I replied.
She stepped aside for me to enter, and the very first thing I saw was the picture of Arthur by her bedside. It calmed me down slightly but not enough. “To what do I owe this disrespect?” she asked me.
“I am only returning the respect you have shown me.”
“And that is—”
“You are leaking to the papers.”
“I beg your pardon!”
I bit the inside of my cheek, doing my best to ignore her fake demeanor. “You can hate me, Sophia. I can, and I will take it. Throw all your insults. Curse me from now until the end of time. I will take it and love you still as my sister-in-law. I will always be there for you because Arthur loved you more than he loved air. But I will never, ever sit by and let you harm Odette with your rage. I have said nothing so far as you force your grief on us—”
“I have to force you to grieve your brother!”
“No! I grieve him on my own! In my own ways! At my own times! I do not need to wear black every day. I do not have to give up smiling or all sense of joy to grieve my brother. It does not mean that I did not love him. My living does not mean I did not love him!”
“You get to live! How lucky for you!”
“Yes! How lucky for me!” I hollered back. “It is by God’s grace that I wake up every day to this life. And I do not know how much of it I have, which is why I am trying so hard to live, to enjoy it. Thankful I have the person I want to spend the rest of my life with me. I do not understand the depths of your pain. But that is not a reason to destroy her or me. We cannot stop living because you are heartbroken. And your heartbreak is not an excuse for betrayal! Not to me, not this family, not this monarchy. My brother’s widow or not, I will not forgive betrayal. Ever.”
“Get out! You miserable excuse of a man! Get out!”
“With pleasure. It reeks of death in here anyway,” I snapped before exiting, slamming the door behind me.
There Iskandar was still waiting.
Brother, forgive me.
“Go through all of her correspondence and have her watched from now on.”
“Yes, sir.”
Chapter 25
Silence.
Everyone was at breakfast, but no one spoke.
The air was tense, so I just nibbled on a piece of toast and kept my head down. I could feel Gale’s glances on me, but I tried to ignore him. I couldn’t talk to him, not when so much was going through my head right now.
I couldn’t be pregnant.
Sure, I’d missed one period, but that isn’t out of the ordinary for me, especially when I am stressed. Besides, what are the odds that just that one time—well, it was twice, but still? I mean, it happens, but...But I am on birth control.
It was just stress.
I sat up straighter. I was confident in my answer, but when I went to grab my glass of juice, one of the butlers moved to clear the table, and it was like I was smacked across the face with a bag of rotten eggs.
“Uhh.” I cringed and pulled away from him, closing my eyes in hopes the smell would run away.
“Odette?”
Blinking, I opened my eyes to see everyone else looking at me.
“Is something the matter?” the queen asked, eyebrow raised.
I shook my head. “No, just a slight headache.”
Eliza frowned, leaning in. “You slept all day yesterday. Maybe we should call the doctor—”
“No!” I said very quickly. Too quickly. I laughed awkwardly. “I’m a bit scared of doctors. Never mind. I will take some aspirin after eating.”
“Parsworth, have aspirin brought,” the queen ordered the head butler, who bowed to her and moved to go.
“It’s all right, Your Grace, I can get it—”
“We wasted much of our time yesterday. There is still a lot for you to do before tonight,” the queen replied sternly, her softer tone from yesterday gone.
“Right,” I whispered, drinking my juice slowly. I didn’t mean to, but I finally met Gale’s eyes.
He offered a slight, tight smile to which I returned.
“Your aspirin, miss,” Parsworth said, bringing it out on a small tray.
I stared at them for a second before slowly taking it. Could you take aspirin when you were pregnant? I’m not pregnant, just stressed!
“Thank you,” I said to him, moving to take my glass of orange juice. However, as I thought about taking it, I started getting nervous. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself than I already had, so I did what I did when my mother used to give me vitamins I didn’t like to take as a child. I tossed them back into my mouth, and lifting the juice, slipped the drugs back into the cup, not finishing it. Setting down the cup, I kept eating as if nothing had happened.
I just needed a free moment. Gelula would be back with a test. I’d take it, settle this once for all, and then get back to whatever I was supposed to be doing.
“Your Grace, may I be excused?” Sophia asked.
“Of course, yes, dear.”
Sophia curtsied before exiting, giving no one else a single glance.
“Odette, we should go as well,” the queen replied, rising.
“Go?” I questioned rising, as well.
“You shall see. Come,” she ordered.
With no other choice, I put down my napkin and walked out of the room with her. Gelula was already outside waiting. She gave me a look, and I knew she had been able to get a test, thank God. Now I just needed a moment to escape.
“Your Grace—”
“Do you wish for me to speak out here in public?” she questioned, the look in her eyes sharp.
There would be no escaping. “No, ma’am.”
There was silence as we walked down the hall, up some steps, then down another hall before going down other steps. However, I didn’t recognize where we were going. Not because I wasn’t shown this part of the palace, but all Wolfgang had told me was that they were security rooms.
“You all will wait here,” the queen said, speaking to Gelula and everyone else who followed the queen.
They nodded and stepped back. When the doors opened, it looked like any other portraits room. However, the wallpaper was a more cream-gold color,
and the portraits on the wall were all of queens.
The live queen in front of me walked up to a portrait of herself. She was much younger, her red hair shorter. She wore a soft-pink ruffled gown and crown of white diamonds on her head, a cross in one hand, and scepter with another large diamond on the top. In the background was a picture of the capital.
“I regret that dress now. It makes me look like a cupcake,” she said as she looked up.
“It kind of does, but it is still nice.”
She glanced over at me, frowning as she stepped forward before lifting a small remote I hadn’t noticed she had been holding. What she needed it for since there was no television—well, no furniture at all—I wasn’t sure until she pressed a few numbers and all of a sudden, a humming noise sounded it. Slowly rising from the ground, before her portrait, was the same crown she wore in the painting. Turning back, it wasn’t just hers but in front of everyones. Crowns in glass cases rising from the ground like resurrected queens was something I’d never thought I would see.
“I wish to yell at you,” the queen said, drawing my attention back.
“What?”
“I said, I wish to yell at you. To scream. To tell you how inconceivable it is to me that you married my son without my blessing, presence, or even a proper wedding. I wish to throw things and vent at how much of an utter mess everything has been from the beginning. We are flung from mayhem to mayhem. It is all very upsetting, and I wish to take it out on you and scream,” she said it all very calmly and stood poised and elegant as if she were not bothered at all, which was a bit scarier actually.
“But you won’t yell at me.”
She nodded. “Do you know why?”
“You are the queen?”
“Exactly,” she replied. “Even if the sky is falling. Even if all the world is in chaos and I am in pain, even if my children are in pain, I must be the calm one. I must be the queen, not the sovereign but the queen. My role is to support. And so, I am supporting. I shall ignore everything else and do what I must do anyway. Gale is the future king. Sadly, he does not see me as his support but as another person demanding something of him that he does not think he can do. You married him, even though no one else knows or if it is legal, so you are that support. He needs it now, and he will need it again tonight for the state dinner. Therefore, you will need to choose a crown.”
“If I wear a crown instead of a tiara, won’t everyone know what they reported was the truth?”
“Of course, someone will say that. Others will say it is customary that every woman wears a crown or tiara at a state dinner. People will always say something. We are above it. We ignore it. Choose the one you like so it can be taken out of the volt and prepared for you,” she demanded, waiting.
Once again, I looked around at the crowns.
“With haste, Odette, you still have a schedule to keep.”
At first glance, it was hard to choose. They were all so sparkly and royal. A room of crowns worn by former queens, all of them different, but all of them stunningly beautiful. I wasn’t sure which one to pick. How did you just pick a crown? Part of me wanted to pick the least “in your face” looking one. However, as I walked, I found myself stopping and staring at a golden crown covered in every color of jewels—sapphires, rubies, emeralds, pink diamonds, and white diamonds. It wasn’t at all quiet. It was in your face. I glanced up at the queen, who had worn it in the painting above. She was a petite woman with long, light-brown hair and a large, red birthmark on her face right under her eye.
“Queen Polina,” she said, coming up beside me. “She was a commoner. The first commoner to ever marry into nobility, let alone become queen. To make matters worse, she was not of stunning beauty, either. But she not only saved then Prince Michal during the Second War of Princes but treated his wounds and helped him sneak past enemy lines to rejoin his army. After the war, he came back for her—a butcher’s daughter—and married her. But she was not treated nor felt like a queen. So, he had a crown of every jewel, embedded in gold, created for her.”
“It’s beautiful,” I whispered. “Well, they are all beautiful, but this one really is.”
“It has a name.”
“A name?” I looked at her.
“Kings named their swords. Queens named their crowns,” she replied, amused. “This one’s name is Bevilën.”
My mouth dropped. That could not be possible. “Bevilën? Beloved? Really?”
“Yes, really. Why?”
When the queen asked a question, you had to tell her the truth. But I couldn’t look at her face to say it. “Gale has started calling me that.”
“I see.” Her voice was unshaken. “It is fate then. I will tell them to have it ready.”
“No, isn’t it a bit too much for my first crown? People will think—”
“People will always think, Odette. Did I not just tell you that?” she asked, walking away from me and back toward the door. “Come, there is still much to do.”
“Coming,” I replied, watching all the crowns sink back into the floor. I had been so focused on where we were going and why we were there, then on the crowns, that I had forgotten about what I should have been worried about. It was when I saw Gelula still waiting for me outside that panic and the fear that I might be pregnant entered my mind again.
Logically, I tried to tell myself that it was just one time. I was safe. Puking once in the morning and sleeping all yesterday, and then being nauseous because of smells were all just coincidences.
“Ma’am, we have the finalized seating chart,” Ambrose stated to the queen, giving her the folder.
I let them walk forward a bit, and Gelula came over to my side.
“Where is it?” I whispered.
She leaned in closer. “On me. Everyone is cleaning and preparing for the evening. I did not wish to leave it—”
“Odette?”
“Yes,” I asked, both of us immediately separating.
“Do not lag. Come and see.”
“Of course,” I replied, stepping up farther.
I told myself I’d wait until I had a spare moment in my schedule for lunch before making my escape. However, it never ended. I spent almost three hours going over the protocol for the evening once more with the queen, everything from place cards to the name and importance of all the guests. When she finally let me go, I had to spend another hour doing last-minute alterations on my gown. Now I was being led to meet Lady de Marissonne to go over my Ersovian waltz one more time.
“Once we finish here, a light meal will be brought to your room for you to eat as you prepare,” Wolfgang informed me as we reached our destination.
There was nothing I could do but nod, though I was starting to feel a bit tired again, which made me more anxious as to why.
“Lady de Marissonne.” My voice faded as I entered to find my fabulous teacher waltzing with Gale. Lady de Marissonne was dressed as she always was in a purple beaded dress with a beaded headband, standing with her old thin hand on his shoulder.
Gale stood in black trousers and a white shirt, his jacket and tie gone. For some reason, the age difference, the difference in their clothes, everything was just funny. It looked like two different eras sliced and placed together.
“Am I interrupting?”
“Yes, actually.” Gale snickered. “I was about to be complimented on my waltz.” To prove his point, he glided across the room and spun Lady de Marissonne once as they reached me.
“Yes, miss, Prince Galahad is devising to deploy his full arsenal of charm,” Lady de Marissonne said with her head high. “I do believe he may seek to outshine you.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Still, I watched them dance.
“Me? Lady de Marissonne, you must be mistaken, for it is she who outshines me. Did you not see her speech? She brought members of parliament, graduates, and a whole nation to their feet in less than fifteen minutes yesterday.”
“United, we are.” Lady de Marissonne chuckled, and Gale grinned
, glancing at me.
“Shall I give you two another moment?” I asked.
“If only,” Lady de Marissonne replied and ended their dance, bowing to Gale and he to her before she turned me. “Sadly, I much prefer my own partner, and I believe His Highness prefers his.”
“I do,” Gale said, outstretching his hand to me. Stepping forward, I took it, and he spun me toward him. “Does she prefer me?”
I shrugged. “That is still under deliberation.”
“Is that so?” he asked, placing his hand on my hip as I put mine on his shoulder. “What can I do to hasten those deliberations?”
“Get me through tonight,” I said seriously as I put my feet together. I didn’t have much time to learn this dance, and I still wasn’t that great at it.
“With pleasure,” he whispered and began to lead. “Just don’t let go.”
This morning, I was worried she would be panicking over the recent headlines of our secret marriage. No, in fact, I was sure of it. She had looked terrified at breakfast and had refused to make eye contact with any of us. There was so much happening within the palace that there were no chances to speak with her privately. My mother had whisked her away. I was hoping for some time as we practiced our waltz, but the light-hearted nature in Lady de Marissonne had utterly disappeared as we got into our one and only rehearsal.
The woman should have been a general. There was no time for Odette to get any more words in as she paused to comment about every little thing, from space between our bodies, the positions of our heads, and how we breathed. It made me wonder if this was how she’d been teaching Odette this whole time. If it was, it explained why Odette had gotten so much better in just a few days and why she was always hard on herself. It also made me feel guilty for not coming to rehearse with her earlier. However, my schedule barely left any room for me to come today.
Just when we had gotten through one dance without interruption, it was time for me to go. I didn’t want to, but I had to sign the new acts before the state dinner. From there, I was sent to prepare for dinner. The day raced by, and there was nothing I could do about it except go along with it, for now, at least, taking comfort in the fact that in a few months, Odette and I would be truly married. That we’d be returning to our rooms together after a long day and what we weren’t able to say during the day, we would be able to say at night.