by Julie Berry
Gregor leaned over the railing, rubbing his eyes with the backs of his hands.
His hair dangled below his chin, dark with a night’s whiskers.
“Well? You coming up?”
He finished rubbing his eyes and blinked at us. “There’s two of you,” he observed. “Who’s the… Oh.” I had risen.
“Peter,” Gregor said slowly, not taking his stern eyes off me, “what is going on here?”
Oh, I can face him now, calm as sunrise. Sunrise through a hurricane.
“I must speak with you,” I said. My voice squeaked. Gregor’s eyes were full of pain. “How are you not in prison?” he asked quietly.
“Conversations like these,” Peter interrupted, to my great relief, “are better off face-to-face. Upsy-daisy.” He crouched before me, offering his knee as a stool for me so I could clamber over the railing. Oh, let me do this gracefully, I prayed. Let me not fall on my face. Not today.
I stood on Peter’s leg and reached the ledge. Gregor hesitated, then reached his hands out and swung me onto the balcony. A moment later Peter had climbed up.
Gregor gestured us inside. Peter flopped onto an embroidered couch near the fireplace. I stood by the fire, taking in the plush and polished furniture, the rugs, the flowers, the tapestries, the bed. I felt like a chimney sweep in a linen shop. Just brushing against something I would pollute it. I shivered as the fire showed me how cold I’d been.
Gregor pulled the door shut, drew his curtains, and turned to face us both.
His face turned in an instant from weariness to fury.
“How dare you two show up here?”
I was so startled I stepped back, bumping into the mantel.
Peter took a good-humored approach. “I know it’s early,” he said, “and we didn’t exactly have an invitation…”
“How dare you show up here after trying to rob me last night?”
I felt sick to my stomach anew.
“I didn’t try to rob you,” Peter pointed out in a hurry. “She did.”
Curse you, Peter.
Gregor looked at me. “A thief in training,” he said in a low voice, shaking his head. It took all my self-possession not to cry.
“You work together, don’t you?” Gregor said, striding around the room but glaring at Peter. “When her attempt failed, you thought you’d have another go, did you? Anyway, I don’t mean that time. She spent the night in prison for it. Where were you all night?”
Peter looked like a bug pinned to a paper. “Hanging around the Hall of Justice for a bit, then back home,” he said. “God’s truth.”
“Watch yourself,” Gregor said. “Don’t blaspheme.”
“Prince Gregor,” I burst out, “what are you talking about?”
He looked back at me, and again, his anger turned to hurt. “Two hours ago, I left my bedroom for a moment, and I was waylaid by someone,” he bit off the word. “A man”—he stared accusingly at Peter—”dressed in a mask and dark clothing.” He frowned and rubbed his chin. “No, I suppose it can’t have been you, Peter,” he said. “This man was extraordinarily strong.”
Peter puffed out his chest.
“This person clamped his hand over my mouth and searched my person. He didn’t find what he was looking for. He demanded I tell him where the stone was.”
Gregor was livid. “I fought him off the best I could, but he… at any rate, he took off running faster than I could give chase. And when I called my guards, they were nowhere near.”
He turned back to face me. “Did you send someone to steal it back from me?”
Coxley.
“I swear that I did not, Your Highness,” I said. I prayed my sincerity showed plainly. I itched to say, “I know who did!” But how could I ever prove it?
Gregor’s gaze riveted me to the mantelpiece.
I looked back at him, watching his blue eyes.
At last he nodded slowly. “I believe you, Miss Chapdelaine,” he said.
This time my eyes filled with tears. I blinked them away. There was no reason why he should believe me. Gregor sat down on a chair. He looked exhausted. He raked his hands over his face and hair as if in utter despair. “If you haven’t come to confess, then why have you come?”
I took a deep breath, and then another. Reaching a hand into my pocket, my fingers found the remains of my childhood charm bracelet. I seized it and stroked it. It gave me courage.
“I’m sorry to disturb you.” I took another breath. “I know the hour’s early, but I had to be up early, because”—Gregor’s gaze was unnerving—”that’s when they were going to kill me.”
He looked away.
“How did you escape?” he asked. “Did they set you free?” I swallowed. Would he call Rolf and send me back?
“A… a friend helped me. More than that, I cannot say.” I licked my lips. “I know you could send me back to jail, and you’d be justified. But I hoped… I trusted in your kindness”—the prince shut his eyes—”and dared to come and explain myself, and explain whose the stone is.” I took a deep breath. “And why I need it back.”
He opened his eyes with apparent effort.
“You thought, I was a fool for you last night, perhaps I would be again?”
Peter let out a low whistle. I was stung with shame.
“Who are you?” Prince Gregor asked. “No pretenses. I need to know.”
It was good that he needed to know. Good that he needed anything from me.
I stood a little taller. “I am Lucinda Chapdelaine,” I said. “Daughter of August and Olivia Chapdelaine. You were right when you said you thought you’d known me from your childhood. Our parents were intimates, and we were children together. I remember you.”
He studied my face for an uncomfortably long time. Then I could tell that he remembered, if vaguely. He rubbed his head again.
“Yes. Then… why the goldsmith’s shop?”
I rubbed my little red rose until I feared the enamel would fall off. “My parents died when I was five, and their wealth was stolen from me,” I said.
“My uncle by marriage, the goldsmith, was the only one who wanted me once it was plain I would be no heiress. But his second wife hated me. And there I’ve lived for the past ten years, until his death, when my aunt kicked me out.”
“She was the woman who accused you?” he asked. I nodded.
“An unpleasant person.” He rose from his chair and paced, still keeping a safe distance from me. “So, you robbed me because of poverty.”
“No!” I reigned in my voice with an effort. “No. Never that.” Regret settled over me. “I have never taken anything from anyone in the world, until last night.”
“You picked a fine time to start,” Gregor said, his voice a lash. “What was I, some challenge? The start of a new career?” The bitterness he’d restrained until now startled me.
“No !”
He was hurt, and it was I, the scrubber of floors, who had wounded him!
Standing so near the fire toasted my backside. I moved closer to him.
“I had to get the stone back because it belonged to me! No. Not to me, but it was entrusted to me by someone. I had to get it back to that person.”
Gregor frowned. “It was mine. I paid three thousand for it.”
He didn’t understand. “Don’t you see?” I said. “You bought it from Peter! He stole it from me!”
Our heads turned in Peter’s direction. He’d been lounging, apparently enjoying the show, but at this turn of events he scuttled to the end of the couch like an escaping spider. Now caught, his eyes darted back and forth between us.
“She can’t prove that,” he said. “No warranties, no refunds.”
I stamped my foot. “How dare you deny it, Peter! D’you think I came here to discuss horse racing? I’ve come to set things right, and to get my stone! Do the right thing for once in your scheming life and tell the truth!” I regained my breath. “And give Gregor back his money.”
Peter folded his arms and sat like a clam, his e
yes shooting daggers at me.
More the fool I, for thinking his timid overtures this morning meant he was my repentant, loyal friend.
Gregor’s face, taking all this in, betrayed no emotion.
I hadn’t come this far to let Peter forfeit the game. If he wouldn’t give the money back, there was nothing left for me but to beg.
I approached Gregor and went down on both knees before him.
“Please,” I said. “To you the stone is an exotic gem. A gift for your bride. It could be replaced by almost anything. To its owner, its significance is far greater. It has…” I needed to tread carefully here, lest they send me to a madhouse this time. “It has a power, of sorts, a connection to her soul that is irreplaceable.”
Still his face gave me no sign if my words were penetrating his scorn. “And for me,” I continued helplessly, looking at his slippers, “it means—or meant—everything.”
Gregor gestured for me to rise again. “How so, Miss Chapdelaine?”
Not my given name. Not Lucinda.
I took a deep breath. “Its owner had the means of restoring to me my name and some portion of my birthright, which I lost when my parents died.” I felt naked, groveling, saying these words. “It would have meant the end of my dependency upon others.”
“Not anymore?”
Oh, the gentle voice. I felt a lump in my throat. But I thought of Coxley.
There was no place for me in a world where he held power. “The way things have transpired, I’m afraid not.”
My merry dancing partner from last night now sat as grave and sober as a judge. A good one, too, I thought with a broken heart. That air of pure goodness about him that I’d felt the first time I saw him was even stronger now. This would be easier if I could hate him later.
He stood and walked to the mantel. I clutched my bracelet in my pocket, fingering the clasp Uncle never fixed.
“Sorrows all around in the way things have transpired,” Gregor said. He opened a jade box and removed Beryl’s stone. At the sight of it a tingle ran up my back.
“Do you know, Miss Chapdelaine, that I bought this stone off of our light-fingered friend there with the thought of presenting it to my future wife, the princess Beatrix. But as soon as I held it in my hands—and met her, soon after—I felt she was not its rightful owner. I couldn’t make sense of it. It was almost as if the stone had a will of its own.”
If only you knew. I waited, my heart thumping.
“I puzzled over it. I became so absorbed in the mystery that I carried it around with me, thinking perhaps it might tell me whose it was.”
Again he rubbed the exhaustion from his eyes.
“The curious thing, Miss Chapdelaine, is that when I danced with you last night, I had the strongest sensation I should give it to you. It never occurred to me that it might have been yours to begin with.”
Once more his gaze compelled me to look back, no matter how much I’d rather not. I stroked the bracelet, tiny between my finger pads. Here was a knot where the chain had kinked.
Here were the broken ends of my chain.
“I asked you to come to the ball tonight so I could give it to you myself.” He laughed, a short, unconvincing sound. “A wild thought, I suppose. But the music, and the dancing, put wild thoughts into my head. Such as breaking off my betrothal to Princess Beatrix. A monumental task that would have been! My mother, my father, the king and queen of Hilarion, with all their court here visiting… but last night, with the music playing, I actually thought I’d do it.”
My eyes flooded and I turned away. His elegant quarters disappeared behind tears. Just as well; I couldn’t bear to face him. Yet an accusation buzzed in my head, demanding to be said.
“You felt all this, yet you sent me to my death willingly enough,” I said.
Sobbed.
There was a long silence. I closed my eyes.
“Was it I who sent you?” His voice wavered.
He was crying!
No less was I. But I couldn’t stop stabbing yet.
“You lost no sleep over it,” I said. “You slept like a baby. Peter had to wake you.”
I felt petty and foolish, my bitterness spent. I rubbed my eyes and waited.
“You’re mistaken, Miss Chapdelaine,” Gregor said. He brushed a finger against my chin, asking me to look at him in the eye. What I saw there was a wide, gentle patience, calm like Laurenz Harbor on a summer morning, and forgiving.
I hated to need his forgiveness. But I had no power to blame him when I looked him in the face.
I watched his lips as he spoke. “I haven’t slept at all this night. I wasn’t asleep when Peter summoned.” He gestured with one hand toward a room that adjoined this one. A private chapel. A small nave, with an altar for kneeling.
Dozens of candles flickered against the walls.
“I was praying.”
* * *
He waited a few minutes for me to compose myself. He then took my wrist and placed the stone in the palm of my hand.
“I give this to you now,” he said, “because clearly it belongs to you. Peter can owe me. I’ll write to Lord Coxley and issue you a full pardon, and I’ll summon a carriage to escort you safely to wherever you wish. I imagine Coxley’s hounds are out in full force by now.”
I clenched the stone in my fist. Having it back brought no relief, no joy. No more did my pardon. Kindnesses from Gregor were worse than blows now.
“One thing more, Miss Chapdelaine. I must rescind my invitation to the ball tonight,” he said, his voice gravelly and strange. “The night is devoted to presenting Princess Beatrix, the future queen of Laurenz, to her people. I must remember my duty to her, and to them.” His eyes bored holes through me.
“And in the future, I’ll remember not to heed rash ideas that arise when dancing with pretty girls.”
He spared me the faintest sliver of a wry smile, which somehow I returned, shattered though I felt. Yes, sweet. I remembered our moments together, too, and always would.
No less than this one.
Chapter 22
Ragamuffins such as I did not often ride in the prince’s personal carriage. I didn’t need the footman’s sneer to tell me so. He shut my door, sparing me a brief glance of reproach, as though I might muddy its upholstery.
“Will you look at that?”
Peter made no attempt to conceal his admiration. He slid back and forth over the polished leather seat, and picked at the ornaments on its lanterns.
The horses started abruptly, and both of us were thrown back against the stiff cushions. Beryl’s gem slipped from my fingers and fell to the floor. Peter pounced on it.
“I’ll take that,” I said, holding out my hand.
“Half a second,” he said, holding it up to his eye.
I snatched it forcibly from his hand. “I said I’ll take that.”
“Criminy,” Peter said, rubbing his palm, “you don’t think I’d steal that thing again, do you? After all the trouble it’s caused?”
“In a heartbeat,” I replied. “Or less.”
I watched the city sweep by through the windows. Even with festival traffic, the royal coach had no trouble getting through. Everywhere we went faces turned to stare, in hopes of seeing Prince Gregor, no doubt. Imagine their confusion at seeing ragtag me instead. I sat back and pulled down the blinds.
The carriage’s movement made me uneasy. I sat small in a corner of the seat opposite Peter and clutched the gem close to my heart with both hands. It thrummed reassuringly. I itched to escape the carriage. The inside smelled of fur and perfume and mint.
I’d ridden in carriages like this one as a child, but never since my arrival at Aunt’s. And not only because there was no money to hire them. I feared them. Mama and Papa had died when their carriage tipped into a ravine on their way home from the ball that night.
And Coxley had been the one in charge of things as soon as my parents were gone. The one who sent away the servants and sold off so many of my parents’
valuables.
He was the same man who took such delight in sending me to my death.
What had he said, about his unfinished work? And watching me die would conclude it? Last night those words had slid underneath other, more urgent fears. Now they demanded attention.
Had he murdered my parents?
Could such a question ever be answered after so many years?
Hadn’t he all but admitted it?
The answer was present in the asking. Of course he had. I was sure of it. He would, and he did. I knew it. It was as though the whole universe had been poised, holding its breath, waiting for me to make this discovery.
He’d been an upstart working for my father ten years ago, and now he was the second most powerful man in the kingdom. Lord Coxley. The kings arm of justice. Such transformations took fortunes. Among other things.
Ruthless enough to do it, clever enough to conceal it, shrewd enough to profit from it.
I felt numb. Empty, as though I’d drained out of myself. That my parents had died in a tragic accident was my life’s central truth. This horror was paralyzing—not mere chance, but deliberate evil had stolen them from me.
They’d been killed. Their killer was determined to finish the task of exterminating my family. And I’d just slipped through his fingers. He was not one to take that lightly.
We crossed the bridge without incident, despite a cluster of constables waiting at the toll booth. Gregor’s carriage, it seemed, was not subject to searching.
“This is the life for me,” Peter said, folding his arms behind his head. “Snap your fingers and you’re at the head of every line, and no nosy officers. Do what you want, when you want!”
I shook my head. “I don’t think Prince Gregor sees it that way. It’s not just a life of ease.”
Before long we drew close to the fork in the lane where the road led off to my—Beryl’s—house. I rapped on the window, and the driver reined in the horses.
“Would you let us off here, please?” I called.
The footman opened the door and helped me down with the least possible civility. Peter jumped down, muttering that I should have let them drive us all the way.
“What do you mean, ‘us’?” I asked between my teeth, watching the carriage circle around and head back. “I don’t know where you think you’re going.”