by Laura Kenyon
Her instinctive reaction was to block him with both arms and slide backwards.
“Right,” he said, immediately receding and offering a weak handshake instead. “My apologies. I suppose catastrophes have a way of stripping away things like decorum. Please sit.”
Belle hesitated as Angus held onto his cane and lowered himself shakily onto the cushion. He looked like he was pushing eighty rather than fifty years old. Halfway down, he spotted the guards. “Thank you for keeping Ms. Middleton safe,” he said, using her maiden name in an attempt to butter her up. “But there are three thousand terrified people downstairs who are going to need help getting off this island in an orderly fashion. I’m sure your colleagues would appreciate some help with crowd control.”
“Yes, Prime Minister, but—”
Angus held his hand flat in the air and moved it side to side. “Two men outside this door should be plenty of protection for us.”
The lead guard eyed Belle one last time, then reluctantly departed. His legion followed.
“I apologize for all the secrecy,” Angus said once they were alone. “But these are dark times and frankly, I don’t know who I can trust right now.” He waved his hand toward the empty couch and reiterated his previous invitation.
Belle didn’t know whether to expect a friendly chat or an interrogation, but she couldn’t refuse the opportunity to find out what Angus was up to.
“What do you mean, you don’t know who you can trust?” she asked, settling into the middle cushion and letting her head tilt slightly to one side. God, she hated pretending to be this clueless—probably because it wasn’t an act until recently. “What’s going on, Angus?”
Angus plucked at the fuzz balls on the end of his armrest. Then he straightened both elbows like a cat stretching after an afternoon nap.
“What’s going on?” he repeated, mulling the words with his tongue. “That’s an interesting question indeed. But I’m fairly certain you know the answer to that a lot better than I do.”
Belle froze as all thoughts flitted away except one: What did Angus know—or want her to think he knew? His upper lip thinned even further as he pressed it into the lower one, waiting for an answer. His fingers looked extra long and spindly from this angle.
“Belle,” he finally said, his voice patient, not confrontational. “I know you’ve been through a lot lately. I know your generation has had a hard time accepting the need to abstain for a whole nine months.” Her eyebrows pulled downward, partially obstructing her view. “But downing half a bottle of wine midway through your second trimester doesn’t … well, it just doesn’t seem like you.”
Belle’s shoulder blades tensed as she shifted on the sofa. This was really his main concern?
“Nor does shacking up with a roaming handyman while you’re still technically married—though that’s slightly more forgivable under the circumstances.”
Belle swallowed hard. She could actually hear the blood flying through her body as he spoke. She could feel her pulse slamming into every appendage.
“You’re supposed to be carrying the last heir to the Braddax throne. I never thought I’d say it about you, but your actions could create another Monarch Morality scandal. And to put it bluntly, I don’t think the Marestam monarchies can take any more. I think your best option now is to set the record straight.”
By the time he finished speaking, Belle was in all out shock. Her limbs felt gelatinous and she was at a total loss for words. Set the record straight? What did that mean? Was that his way of saying he knew about Rye? Did he know she’d hidden him in Tantalise? Did he know Belle was part of the insurgent group who’d just attacked the Hall of Curiosities and wanted to bring him down at almost any cost?
“Please don’t misunderstand me,” Angus continued, firing more bullets while maintaining the face of fatherly concern. “I’m in your corner. I just don’t want history blaming you for the death of the whole monarchical system when really you’re just another one of its victims. One of its most tragic victims at that.” He bowed his head for a moment while Belle struggled to understand what he was saying. “You really would have made a wonderful mother.”
Belle’s head whipped up suddenly. “What’s that supposed to mean?” The words took on a mind of their own, spewing past her lips with no prior thought or planning. “I am a—I am going to make a wonderful mother.”
Angus yanked a particularly large thread out from his armrest and balled it between his fingers. The sides of his mouth seemed to be growing. “Would a wonderful mother put her child in that kind of jeopardy for a few hours of … how did that columnist put it … a few hours of liquid relief? Belle, why are you lying?”
“Lying?” Belle’s palms launched to either side of her hips and pressed down. But rather than blasting to her feet as intended, all she did was pin her dress to the couch and bounce against the cushion. “How dare you criticize me. You who gave me a painting that—”
“All right. All right. Perhaps lying is a bit severe. Let me put it another way. Why are you sacrificing your reputation—the only thing you still have left—to protect a man who’s betrayed you in so many ways?”
She paused. Elbows locked. Torso bent forward. Cheeks pinched. What was he talking about?
Again, her interrogator sighed. She watched as he pulled both arms off the chair and laced his fingers over the top of his walking stick. “You aren’t pregnant anymore, are you? You lost the baby during Donner’s attack.”
Her jaw dropped. Her elbows loosened. Still, she didn’t dare make a sound.
“I spoke with several doctors. There’s no way a twenty-two-week fetus could have survived that degree of trauma.”
“Twenty-three-week fetus,” she corrected.
He frowned, though it seemed to be more out of pity than of disapproval. “Add to that your shrinking belly, your secrecy, the slip with the wine, and it’s perfectly clear what happened. You had a miscarriage but are covering it up to protect him—either from the guilt or the prison sentence or the fact that there’s no coming back from that kind of public loathing. You’re suffering in silence for what? For a man who imprisoned you, humiliated you, and then tried to butcher your reputation on top of it. He lured you in, made you believe he was some sort of white knight fairy tale, and then hurled you into the streets like a ten-dollar prostitute. It’s what that family does. They deserve to have all their sins brought into the spotlight once and for all. Why aren’t you doing that?”
As soon as he finished speaking, Angus flattened his bony hand over his stomach and leaned back. His face was flushed red. His chest was pumping faster and higher than could possibly be safe for a man of his health. As if out of respect rather than complete bewilderment, Belle waited for him to catch his breath before responding.
But rather than confirm or deny his suspicion about her baby, she decided to give the interrogation desk a little push. Knowing he’d come to the wrong conclusion gave her an advantage. Plus, there was something suspicious about the degree to which he seemed to loathe the Wickenhams. She suddenly wondered whether his goal was to eradicate all of the monarchies or just the one in Braddax.
“Wow. I don’t think I’ve seen such intense hatred since my mother found out my father was bankrupt,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “What did the Wickenhams do to you? Steal your parking spot at the mall? Criticize your term extension? Kill your favorite cat without leaving a—”
“Not my cat,” he interrupted, taking a sharp inhale through his nose. “My mother.”
He held Belle’s gaze for another few seconds, but then broke away, focusing instead on a section of rug between their feet. Belle’s lips pressed inward as she contemplated how to proceed. What did he mean? They killed his mother? Was he speaking metaphorically?
“You remind me of her,” he continued, his voice even softer than before. “She was kind and optimistic and had this inexplicable need to see good in everybody.”
“She came from nothing but took everyth
ing life gave her with a smile and this undying sense of forgiveness that I’ll never understand.”
“She sounds like a wonderful—”
“And just like you, she fell for a deceitful Braddax King who promised to love her but turned tail the second something more glittery strutted along.”
Belle’s ears buzzed as she thought back to the day Penny picked her up from the hospital. She’d said something about Angus’s mother working at Braddax Castle, a detail that seemed inconsequential at the time. But now, the pieces were finally bumping against each other and shakily starting to fuse. His mother had worked for Donner’s father. Donner’s father had been an infamous philanderer. He wouldn’t have overlooked a pretty maid fluffing his pillows at the castle.
“So your mother had an affair with Varek Wickenham?” she said, not sure why this was such a sore point twenty-plus years after the man’s death. He’d had hundreds of affairs during his marriage to Hazel, possibly thousands. How could that possibly have impacted—
“Yes,” Angus confirmed, knuckles white on the tops of his fists. “But it wasn’t an affair at the time. And she never called him Varek. She had these ridiculous pet names for him, even though he never came to visit.” He shook his head. “But the one I remember most is the one that came out when she overdid her evening gimlet.”
“Let me guess,” Belle said, rolling her eyes. “Cuddlebug?”
“No,” he replied with just as much disdain. “Your father.”
Belle’s tongue pulled into the back of her throat. She choked on it for a second, then swallowed. “Your father?” Her head did a full circle. She sank deep into the sofa. “How is that even— When did this—”
“It started long before Donner was born. Before he even met Hazel.” The white knuckles flattened out for a split second, then curved back into a claw. “My mother wasn’t the type of person to start a romance with someone else’s husband. Like I said, she was good. She was in love and thought he was too. Even after he turned his back on us, she still believed that.”
“So … he knew about you?” she asked, feeling drawn in. She’d never seen Angus Kane struggling to hold back so much emotion.
“Oh, he knew.” His breath deepened. “They both knew.”
“Both?”
His jaw clamped shut for a few seconds. “Hazel. That pureblood jezebel came along and made sure he tossed my mother aside. She convinced the arrogant prick that it was ludicrous for a man of his stature to make his life with a paycheck-to-paycheck servant. So out she went. And when she came back ten months later with a sickly baby in her arms—blessed at birth with brittle bones, apnea, and a weak heart—they stuffed ten thousand dollars in her pocket and told her to never contact them again.”
Belle shook her head. “That’s awful.”
“It covered fourteen months’ rent in a rat-infested apartment in southern Riverfell. My mother worked three jobs for the next twenty years to make sure I had the medicine, food, and shelter I needed. I helped out as soon as I could fling a newspaper or pour a cup of lemonade, but she worked herself to the bone. And just when things were finally about to change—when I was preparing to take my graduation walk and make some real money to ease her burden—she collapsed. Liver cancer. The doctors wanted to do some experimental treatment that would have eased her suffering and could have possibly cured her, but her insurance wouldn’t cover it. She got put on a waiting list but there wasn’t enough time as it was, and she didn’t have the influence to bypass it like so many others.” His lips crumpled as he said this. Belle scooted to the edge of her cushion. Angus shook his head. “So I tried to get in contact with my father. I was desperate. She was everything to me. But Hazel wouldn’t even deliver a letter, let alone allow me to see him. I was nobody then.” He paused. Belle saw the unmistakable film of tears rise up and then drop, silently, over his lids. “My mother died three months later. It wasn’t painless.”
Belle started to speak, letting her emotions drive without proper instructions, but she couldn’t figure out what to say. “That’s terrible, Angus,” she finally whispered, shaking her head. “I’m so sorry.” She couldn’t help but picture a little boy in squalor while his mother toiled away just to give him a decent chance at a halfway decent life. She could only imagine how painful that must have been. “I always knew Hazel was vain and selfish, but I never imagined her being that cruel. Maybe she’s changed.”
“She hasn’t changed,” Angus said with a snort. ‘The money we needed would have meant nothing to them. They turned their backs on us and let my mother die in the most degrading way possible because she was nothing more than a threat. Hazel Wickenham will protect her family at all costs—by letting an innocent woman wither away thirty years ago or by betraying the people relying on her today. How do you think the Marestam Guard responded so quickly to the Hall of Curiosities today?”
Belle flinched but contained her reaction. He had to be bluffing. Why would Hazel tip him off when they were trying to cure her son?
“My mother was brainwashed into believing there was good in the Wickenhams,” Angus continued, “just like you. And now they’re finally getting their due. I just don’t want to see you tumbling down with them. It’s too late to save my mother, but it’s not too late for you.”
Belle panned from one corner of the room to the other. The dark olive wallpaper was peeling in several places, and the painting over the fireplace made her think about the charm Angus had given her for the inn. The Trojan horse. The mole wrapped up in a pretty bow. It was just what she needed to yank her back to reality.
“I can’t blame you for hating Hazel,” she said, hardly believing that she was actually about to defend Donner. “And being a spineless oaf is no excuse for Donner’s father’s behavior either. But that’s not my story. And Donner is not another version of his father. Neither of us were in a good place when he had his affair. And he only had one.” She stopped, cringing at her own words but standing by them nonetheless. “Not hundreds. Plus, he wasn’t even in control of himself. It wasn’t even fair. And you know it.”
Angus Kane’s right eyebrow rose, then his left. His focus hardened. “What do you mean by that?”
She was too incensed to think straight, too overwhelmed to decide whether revealing what she knew was a good idea. But nothing could stop her now.
“How can you sit there and tell me how dishonest the Wickenhams are, while you’re waging a war against the very magic you’re using to attack them?” she said, jumping up and storming around the room. “Doing right by your mother is one thing, but launching a witch hunt on innocent people and trying to bring down a system that’s been in place for generations is something else entirely.”
She halted by the window and stared down at the square. Orderly lines of people were filing down the streets toward the docks. The castle was being evacuated. So much for Letitia’s grand wedding.
“Excuse me,” she heard, “but certainly you’re not accusing me of using magic, are you? Forgive me but what sort of hypocrite do you think I am?”
Belle seethed and spun around. “The kind who would plant a charm in my house in order to spy on me and send blackmailing pictures to the newspaper,” she snapped. “That kind.”
Angus’s brow furrowed as his lips curled up in amusement. “You think the painting I gave you is enchanted?”
“I know it is.” Belle’s fists were so tight, she thought she felt nails breaking her skin. “Just like I know you took Jacara’s magic when Dawn’s curse broke, and used it to steal Ruby’s powers. And I know you did something to make the most beloved monarchs in Marestam vanish off the face of the earth. You’re just using magic left and right, Angus. Don’t even try to tell me it isn’t true.”
“It isn’t,” he replied, as easily as if she’d asked whether his turkey club sandwich was supposed to come toasted. Belle could practically see the wheels turning behind his eyes—his cold, dust-colored eyes—as he refocused on the purple orb topping his cane. Then he
laughed.
Belle halted beside an ornate desk holding a stone bust of a regal looking old man. He had wide, googly eyes, fat cheeks, and hair that spiked off at the ends. She ran her hand along the spikes and wondered … if she threw hard enough in Angus’s direction, would it kill him? Knock him out long enough to let her escape without him knowing she’d used magic? Or would she miss completely and turn their little chat into a skirmish? Would he holler out for his guards just in time to see her zap off to Tantalise? Would he yank off the “goodwill” gloves and tell the Marestam public that the Braddax heir was dead, Dawn Tirion was a fallen woman, Belle was in cahoots with the magical terrorists, and the monarchies had reached their end?
“You both under and overestimate me at the same time,” he said, bidding her back to the couch. Belle just narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. “I’m not going to pretend I didn’t contribute to that miscreant’s rampage in one way or another. What kind of entitled egomaniac just starts getting monthly shipments of alcohol and doesn’t ask any questions?” A wicked little smile popped up on his face but he forced it back down. “You’d be amazed what the right mix of hormones can do to a person’s brain.”
Belle felt her entire insides spasm. “Are you saying you—”
“I certainly didn’t curse him. Nor did I harm the Charmés. Cinderella’s mother was one of the only people who treated my mother with dignity during her final years. I would never hurt her daughter.”
“But do you know where they—”
“And the painting? Yes, the painting is more than it appeared to be. But it certainly isn’t enchanted.” He shook his head and flattened his hand over his heart. “That’s just insulting. You should know by now how much I distrust magic. It’s done far more harm than good and those who have it did nothing whatsoever to earn it—not unlike the monarchies. Had it not been for magic, that tyrannical mother-in-law of yours wouldn’t have been able to ruin my mother’s life to the extent that she did. And your father wouldn’t have been taken prisoner by a monster. You would have been free to have a normal life with a normal husband and family. You wouldn’t have lost the child you waited so long for because he went on a murderous, magical rampage.” He uncrossed his legs, pushed himself up, and meandered a few feet toward the door. “No, I trust science. Chemistry. Technology. But if you’d rather throw your hat in with Ruby Welles and all of her magical supremacy ideas, so be it. I just wanted to give you a chance.”