by Morgan Rice
“I’m not here to steal anything, your highness,” Angelica said, her hands folded carefully. “I’m here to give you something. To offer you something.”
Rupert’s look held a note of expectation. “And just how did you even find me?”
That part hadn’t been hard. Angelica knew all about Rupert’s bolt holes. She’d thought that, once she married Sebastian, it might be useful to find him disgraced in one of them; possibly even dead in one of them, in time. She’d thought that it was prudent to know more about a man who might be her enemy than he wanted the world to know. Now, though, that knowledge had proven useful in trying to work out what to do in the wake of the Dowager’s attack on her.
“Perhaps I just followed the trail of men of quality flocking to your door,” Angelica said. “That was how I got in, incidentally. The servants were easy to convince that since you were seeking allies, I was one you might have invited.”
“Seeking allies?” Rupert said. He frowned slightly, and with him, that was a dangerous expression. “You should be careful where you put your ears, milady, in case I decide to have them cropped.”
Angelica made a point of not showing the fear that lay under the surface in that moment. She’d seen Rupert around the court. The only way to handle him was to match him perfectly, giving way so as not to spark his fury, but only after showing that you weren’t weak enough to be beneath his contempt. It was the kind of balancing act that would have given a tumbler pause. Angelica needed to play it perfectly now.
“Is it so bad that I have heard?” Angelica asked. “Perhaps I’m exactly the kind of ally you need.”
“The woman who was to be married to my brother?” Rupert shot back.
“The operative word there being ‘was,’” Angelica replied. “And I’m also a woman your mother has no love for. Just as I’m told that her love for you has waned in recent months.”
Rupert was there before her then, too close, his hand raised as if he might strike her. Angelica beat him to it, standing and slapping him so that he put a hand to his cheek.
“You dare…” he began.
“I dare that, and plenty else besides,” Angelica said, not looking away, refusing to look weak in front of him. She brushed her fingers over the spot she’d struck, careful as a circus performer working with a barely tamed lion. “Besides, compared to the slap in the face of your mother picking Sebastian over you, we both know that’s nothing.”
“My mother did no such thing,” Rupert said. “As I told the men who came here—”
“You told those fools what they needed to hear,” Angelica said. “And from the look of them as they left, you did a good job of it. They’ll never like you, but they’ll rally to you rather than restart the war, or let your mother behave as she pleases.”
“You make it sound as if I don’t need you,” Rupert said. He caught hold of her hand and squeezed. “It would be very bad for you if I didn’t need you, right now.”
“Oh, I’m sure you feel all kinds of need for me, my prince,” Angelica breathed, ignoring the pain. “We’ll get to that. For now, there’s the part where my family has wealth and resources. Enough to support you in your rise to the crown. Enough to support you against our common enemy, if need be.”
“My mother isn’t my enemy,” Rupert said.
Angelica raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow in a question. “Isn’t she? Haven’t you considered what she’s done to you?”
“Perhaps,” Rupert said, in a tone that suggested he’d thought it through a great deal.
“From what I hear, she tried to exile you in all but name. She’ll hear you’re back soon enough, and then? She probably won’t call it imprisonment. You’ll probably just be confined to one of your family’s estates, or maybe here, but we both know what it will amount to.”
Angelica took a breath, giving that a moment or two to sink in. The trick here was not to say all of what she wanted. She needed to guide Rupert in the right direction, and let him go the rest of the way himself.
“You’ll stay there until you agree to serve Sebastian,” she said. “She’ll probably enjoy watching you bend your knee to him.”
“I am already acting to deal with that,” Rupert said.
Angelica shook her head. “By gathering a little support in the Assembly of Nobles? It’s a start, but it won’t be enough alone.”
He cocked his head to one side. “What do you care, milady? I’d always taken you to be quite unfeeling about anyone but yourself.”
“That isn’t quite true,” Angelica said. “There is at least one other person I care for.”
She kissed him then, direct and sharp, catching Rupert unawares. He had some skill as a kisser once he recovered himself, but probably not as much as he thought. Or perhaps he just didn’t care about anyone else’s pleasure but his own.
“Are you going to try to tell me that you love me?” Rupert said. “When you’ve so nearly been married to my brother, twice?”
“If nobles only married for true love, you wouldn’t have such an easy time seducing noblewomen from their husbands,” Angelica pointed out. “We marry for power, or for bloodlines. Your brother was the one I thought I could get, when it seemed obvious that you would be married to some foreign princess. Your brother was offered.”
“And you think I am for sale now?” Rupert demanded. He stepped back from her.
“I think that your mother has tried to kill me once, so I have no reason to listen to her decisions on the matter anymore,” Angelica said. “I think I should marry the person with whom I want to spend my life.”
It was a lie, but it was, she hoped, the right lie. Sometimes that was the best thing to hope for. She didn’t want to think about what might happen if it proved to be the wrong lie.
“Because you’re so desperately in love with me?” Rupert said. “You’ve rejected my advances before, Angelica.”
“I had no wish to be some brief fling for you, discarded in the morning,” Angelica said. “I don’t want to be just another one of the women you use. I want to be your partner in all of this. I want someone beside me who will think as I do, and have the strength to act when it is needed. I want to share everything with you, my prince. My king.”
She saw Rupert’s expression change, caught with almost as much surprise as when she’d kissed him.
“Of course,” Angelica added, “marrying me would bring considerable resources to your cause. My family has plenty of allies, enough to help secure a kingdom. For both of us, if we work together.”
“You make a very persuasive point,” Rupert said. Angelica could see him looking her up and down. “Very persuasive.”
“Don’t you want me, Rupert?” Angelica asked.
“Oh, very much,” Rupert said. He moved closer to her, his hand twining in her hair... Angelica gasped as it jerked tight. “Tell me, though, is there any good reason why I should marry you for that, rather than taking what I want from you and finishing what my mother started?”
Angelica didn’t squirm there. Instead, she held still, holding his gaze.
“Three reasons. First, you won’t get anything my family has to offer if I’m not your bride. Second, I don’t think you want to do what your mother wants right now…”
“And third?” Rupert prompted, with another painful jerk of his grip on Angelica’s hair.
She moved quickly, taking a small knife from a fold of her dress and pressing it to the pit of his stomach.
“Because I’ll gut you if you try,” she said with a smile. She pressed forward, kissing him again then. “I’ve told you, Rupert. I understand you, probably better than anyone else here. I know what it’s like, being surrounded by weak, stupid people. Do you want to throw away the one person who sees you for who you are and loves you for it? Your brother doesn’t. He’s fought you at every step. Your mother doesn’t. She’s trying to give away your throne. I will be there, beside you. Don’t you want that?”
Rupert didn’t hesitate. He kissed he
r hard. “Yes.”
When he pushed her back toward the bed, Angelica barely remembered to get the knife out of the way in time.
***
Angelica lay beside Rupert, staring up at the painted plaster of the ceiling. He was asleep, in a way that was so predictable after everything that had happened between them in the last little while.
His lovemaking had been like his kissing: not quite concerned enough with her to be truly good at it, and just a little too rough for her tastes. Angelica knew that she would have to cover bruises with powder come the morning, but that was a price worth paying for everything she stood to gain.
A kingdom, security, revenge. Any one of them would have been worth this, but all three together would have been enough to make her give herself to almost any man. Rupert… well, asleep he looked like a sculptor’s finest creation, and awake he was at least useful to her.
So why couldn’t she stop thinking about Sebastian as she lay there? Even at the height of Rupert’s efforts, it had been Sebastian’s face she’d been picturing, and she’d had to make an effort to keep from crying out his name. Only the thought of what Rupert would have done to her if she had kept Angelica from doing it.
She pushed aside thoughts of Sebastian. He didn’t matter now. She’d said it to Rupert: nobles like them didn’t marry for love. Rupert was the brother she was going to marry, and who would give her the crown. More than that, with just the right touch, he was the brother who would give her the Dowager’s fall for what she’d tried to do. That thought made her smile, and when she looked over at Rupert, she found him awake and staring at her.
“What has you so happy?” Rupert asked, in a surprisingly soft voice for him.
“You do, my love,” Angelica said. Let him think of that what he would. It was even true in its way. Thanks to Rupert, Angelica would be safe from the Dowager’s wrath. Thanks to Rupert, she would have the position she deserved at last. Thanks to Rupert, she would be queen.
That was worth smiling about, and more.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Sebastian sat in the dark of his cell, and it seemed to press in around him, reducing his world to the small sounds of the house above. There was the scrape of something that might have been a rat moving over stone, a faint drip of water somewhere that said it must have rained in Ashton. Even that small clue to the outside world felt like a precious gift to Sebastian, reminding him that there was something beyond the box of walls his brother had imprisoned him in.
He picked out other sounds too, as people moved through the basement that served to hide his cell. With an effort, he thought he could start to pick out the differences between the people who came to the basement: the heavy tread and loud jokes of the guards, the more hurried movements of the servants rushing to fetch and carry. Hearing those differences, Sebastian thought that he could see the beginnings of a plan taking shape in his mind. It was almost foolishly direct, but he couldn’t think of another way right then.
He waited until the next time he heard a servant walking there alone, and called out, hoping that he was right, and that it wasn’t just some guard with a lighter than average tread.
“Help! If you can hear me, this is Prince Sebastian! Can you hear me? This is Prince Sebastian! I am being held here against my will!”
He kept going, not knowing if it would work or if it would just bring violence down on his head from the guards. It was a dangerous move to try, because if he’d misjudged this, he was endangering any opportunity he had to try it again. If guards came, they would gag him, or find some other way of silencing him. Sebastian kept calling anyway; it was worth the risk.
For the next couple of minutes, he thought that nothing would happen. That even if somebody had heard him, they’d chosen to ignore him. It was obvious that Rupert would pick the kind of servant prepared to ignore calls for help from these cells. Sebastian could only hope that knowing it was him made a difference.
When he heard the creak of the barrels being pushed aside on their trolley, Sebastian dared to hope. A glimmer of light broke through and he saw a figure creep around the corner, holding a candle. It wasn’t one of the guards. Instead, a young woman stood there, wearing drab servant’s clothes, the hem of her dress high enough to show a mark of indenture.
“You shouldn’t call out like that,” she said, in a frightened voice. “If someone heard, it would cause trouble.”
“I think I’m already in trouble,” Sebastian said, with a gesture that took in his cell. “What’s your name?”
The servant hesitated, obviously thinking about all the things that might happen to her if Sebastian revealed that name to anyone. “I… I’m Julia.”
“Well, Julia,” Sebastian said, “I’m Prince Sebastian, the Dowager’s younger son. My brother is keeping me here against my will.”
He suspected that all of that was obvious, but he wanted to be clear about it. He wanted to make it obvious what was at stake with all of this, and leave no room for doubt.
“I know,” Julia said. She brushed a strand of dark hair back from her eyes. “I know who you are.”
“Then you must also know that you need to help me,” Sebastian said.
The young woman looked horrified at that prospect. “I can’t,” she said. “I can’t. If they even find me talking to you like this, they’ll put me in one of the other cells and… I heard someone’s screams down here once. I won’t end up here.”
“No, you won’t,” Sebastian said. “I won’t ask you to do anything that would put you in danger.”
“I should go,” Julia said. She glanced back toward the way out. “I was only supposed to be fetching wine.”
Sebastian had the feeling that if she left now, she wouldn’t come back. He had to stop her, and he could think of only one thing that would do it.
“Don’t you want to be free?” he asked.
It was enough to make her stop, turning back to him. “Why would someone like you care about whether I’m free or not?”
Sebastian knew it was a fair question. It wasn’t as though he’d spent his life trying to help every one of the indentured he could find. To her, he was probably just one more noble, trying to use her for his own benefit.
“Someone I love was indentured,” he said. “I sent her away because of it. Now I’m trying to get back to her. If I can help other people like her along the way, I will.”
The servant swallowed, obviously still thinking about the consequences for herself if she were caught.
“Then there’s the other side of it,” Sebastian said. “My mother will start tearing apart the city to find me soon enough. If I’m still here, that could put you in just as much danger as if you were caught helping me.”
Sebastian didn’t like trapping this young woman between the prospects of his mother and Rupert like that. Even so, it seemed to be what was required, because she nodded thoughtfully.
“I can’t get you out of here,” she said. “I don’t have the keys. I couldn’t steal them.”
“I’m not asking you to,” Sebastian said, trying to sound reassuring. “I just want you to take a message for me.”
“To the palace?” the young woman said, looking just as horrified by that prospect. “They wouldn’t let me in, and even if they did—”
“Not to the palace,” Sebastian said. “I want you to take it to someone going in the direction of Ishjemme, or to someone who can send a bird there. The woman I love is there, and I think… I think she might be able to help.”
“I don’t know,” Julia said. She glanced back toward the door. “They’ll be calling for me soon. I have to go.”
“Wait…” Sebastian called, but she was already leaving, darkness returning as the barrels moved back into place.
He sat there in the dark, not calling out when he heard the next set of feet. If he hadn’t been able to convince someone who obviously had so much to gain from helping him, what hope did he have with anyone else? He spent his time trying to think instead, cons
idering the ways that rescue might come for him. His mother might send people, learning about this place in the mysterious ways his mother seemed to learn so much else about the city. Someone involved in dragging him there might sell the information. Sebastian even had the brief hope that Sophia might come back for him, unable to live without him beside her, and find the location somehow.
He tried not to think about the more likely option: that he would sit there un-rescued until his brother decided that it was more convenient to simply kill him. If it came to that, Sebastian would fight. He would take any opportunity that arose to escape, but he’d already seen just how difficult that might prove. For now, he couldn’t do anything but wait, and hope.
When he heard the sound of the barrels scraping back again, Sebastian found himself caught between that hope and the fear that he might have been found out. It wasn’t fear for himself as much as it was for the servant he’d enlisted to help him. Had she been caught on her way out of the cellar? Had Rupert been there, and somehow guessed what had been happening there? Sebastian didn’t want to think about what might happen then.
Yet, when the light flickered back into his view, he saw that it was Julia, carrying the stub of her candle, along with what looked like a scrap of paper and a short stick of charcoal.
“It’s the best I can do,” she said as she pushed them through the bars to Sebastian’s cell. “Write your message, and I… I’ll do my best to make sure that it gets to Ishjemme.”
Sebastian had rarely written with tools so crude before, but right then, they might as well have been a gold-tipped quill and the blackest ink. All that mattered was that he had what he needed to get a message to Sophia, and tell her…
That was the hard part. There were so many words hemmed up inside Sebastian then that a whole sheaf of paper wouldn’t have been sufficient for them, let alone this tiny scrap. He wanted to tell her how sorry he was for all the things he’d done, and how much he loved her. He wanted to tell her the things he dreamed for their future together, and how much he wished he were with her in Ishjemme. There was so little space, and so much he wanted to cram into it. Sebastian hunched close to the bars, working on the paper with his stub of charcoal by the candlelight, trying to write quickly, before they were discovered.