by M. J. Haag
“And you?”
“I could never forget my real mother’s face,” she said without malice. “Or what she would think of the monster I’d become.”
“A monster you chose to become.”
“Imagine not a few weeks of failed lessons but years. Cecilia and I weren’t her only daughters. There were many who never learned their lessons. I learned from their mistakes and many of my own. I told you to learn quickly because I knew how it would progress. Magic can smooth away scars, so I bear no marks of what I endured. But, they were lessons I will never forget and would do anything never to repeat. I’ve suffered more than one person should and caused equal suffering in turn to spare myself.”
I didn’t like Porcia. However, I did understand what she was saying. She’d done what she must to survive. I hadn’t had to endure years of Maeve’s manipulations. If I had, would I have deaths on my conscious, too?
“I’ve done vile things, and I regret those actions more than you know,” she continued. “I cannot change the past. Yet, I beg the court for mercy.”
“You presume to ask for mercy after all the lives you’ve allowed Maeve to take?” the King said with outrage.
“Allowed? You had the support of an entire kingdom yet could not stop her, Your Majesty. I had no real power to stand against her and was spelled to prevent speaking against her until my actions had damned me just as certainly as they had her. It was never a question of allowing anything.”
“It was survival,” I said.
She nodded.
“All I request is a quick death. I’m tired and wish for this wretched excuse for a life to be over.”
Had I not thought the same thing only weeks into my life with Maeve? Had I not sat on the cliff and considered jumping? I thought of all that I suffered since her arrival then tried to imagine years of it. I’d witnessed for myself how Maeve would lash out at the two. How Porcia had been her least favorite by far.
“A quick death would be a mercy,” I agreed. “One I cannot justly give. Yet, having experienced Maeve’s reeducation, I find I cannot fault you for self-preservation. It is what anyone would do.”
“You did not,” she said. “You continued to defy her.”
“I defied her at great risk to Kellen’s safety. My defiance cost others their lives. I once told someone that a king’s life should hold no more value than a common man’s life. I still believe that to be true. Thus, I cannot now say your life is less precious because of the circumstances you were forced into. Yet, you are not without guilt or cruelty.
“You will not be marked or mistreated. You will find menial employment in a bakery and work every day to serve the people who suffered because of your compliancy.”
Porcia looked to the King, her expression showing neither relief nor fear. Only acceptance.
“Put her in the dungeon with the others,” the King ordered. “She will watch their fates before seeking her own.”
While the guard led Porcia away, the King turned to look at Rose.
“The use of magic in this kingdom is forbidden. For your service this night, I will suspend judgement against your crimes and suggest that you leave for Turre immediately.”
“I understand, Sire. One can never be too watchful of the temerity of those with power.”
She chuckled and disappeared. For a moment, the King just stared at the spot she’d been. Then, he turned to me and offered his arm.
“It’s time for me to retire. Walk with me.”
Setting my hand lightly on his sleeve, I left the whispering court and listened to several sets of footsteps echo behind us.
“Greydon has told me of his affection for you,” the King said when we reached the private hallway that led to the rooms I’d seen the night of the last ball. “And his offer for your hand and of your recent rejection of that offer. I ask you to reconsider.”
“My life has changed so rapidly, and there is too much yet unsaid to give a fair and honest answer. But, I can promise I no longer want to push either of your sons from the highest turret.”
He chuckled.
“Your mother was an honest woman as well. We will speak of this again tomorrow. Until then, you’ll be our guest.”
The thought of spending the night here, so close to Greydon, upset me because I knew what would happen. He would seek me out. He would attempt to sway me with his words and touch. I wouldn’t be forced to make a decision I was not yet ready to make.
“Forgive me, Sire, but I would prefer to go home. There’s much I must set to rights.”
“Oh?”
“The last two maids she brought to the house are in the attic. Dead. And Seth is still there. Though he is not guilty of murder, I do not trust him. There is little left of my mother and father, but I would like to keep what there is.”
“I understand. However, I cannot let you go alone.”
“I will take her home, Father,” Greydon said from behind me.
“A guard or two will be fine,” I said, quickly.
The King smiled.
“I think some time to discuss those unsaid things might be just what is needed before we speak again tomorrow. Don’t you agree?” He didn’t wait for my answer before looking beyond me. “Now that I’ve made known who you truly are, the kingdom will be watching. Take an escort and a chaperone.”
“Yes, Father.”
The King released my hand.
“Go. Garreth, you will attend me.”
I stepped aside and allowed Garreth to pass me. Left alone with Greydon, I finally turned to look at him fully.
“Will you tell me everything?” he asked softly. “From the beginning?”
It was the last thing I’d expected him to say and the one thing that stalled my anger.
“It’s not pleasant,” I said.
“That’s precisely why I need to hear it. I was so blinded by what my family was facing that I didn’t know the full extent of what you were facing.”
“You never suspected it was Maeve?”
He paused and offered me his arm, which I took.
“I began suspecting Maeve when I met Cecilia and she introduced herself as your sister. She said ‘Mama’ sent her to find you. I found it odd that after hearing you state your father’s love for your mother, he would re-wed so quickly. However, as I asked questions during our encounters after that, you seemed ignorant of who Maeve might be. I never thought she was hurting you. You were her reason for maintaining a presence there. If all your family had gone missing, it would have been obvious.”
Her need to keep me alive became so much clearer.
“Tell me what really happened,” he said again.
As he led me to the stables, waited for our shared mount, and then started home, I related my sorrowful tale, beginning with the gift that I thought was from my father. The guards trailed in our wake, a discreet distance away.
I told Greydon how I’d suspected him because of the boy’s cap. He said little as I spoke of Judith and Anne’s deaths, Hugh’s odd devotion to Maeve, or the first conversation I had with Rose about magic. I relived that moment of fear when I explained how I’d witnessed Maeve draining Hugh and how I’d tried to run.
Greydon’s arms tightened around me as I continued through my beatings and the times spent chained to the hearth. It hurt to speak of Kellen and Maeve’s use of the huntsman to keep me in line.
“I didn’t know the depth of her depravity until her daughters arrived with her mirror,” I said.
I told him of the dinners. Of how Maeve had used Heather and Catherine and drained the men. Of how she’d tried to use the mirror to find him, and used it to spy on Kellen and others in the court, instead.
Relaying the full tale took its toll on me. I relived every horrific moment. Every terrible death. When I needed to stop and grieve for a moment, he held me in silence. The quiet of the night and the gentle sway of the horse helped soothe me as well.
By the time we reached the road to the Royal Retreat, I’d told
him everything. I felt lighter and freer for it.
“Forgive me, Eloise. In my self-centered need for revenge, I was blind to your suffering. I will never be able to forgive myself.”
I twisted in his lap to look up at him.
“Don’t be foolish. I purposely misled you so you wouldn’t see the truth. It was only your ignorance and the Prince’s favor that kept you safe. You wouldn’t be here now if not for both. She threatened your safety many times to keep me in line.”
“I am to just accept that you were beaten, chained, and taught how to act as a whore so I could remain safe?”
“No, you have a choice. You can dwell on what’s happened and let your hate and anger destroy any chance of future happiness, or you can find a way to accept it and move forward to make a better, happier life for yourself.”
He was silent as we started up the path to my home.
“I cannot tell you what to choose,” I added. “But I will tell you what I choose. Tomorrow, I will watch Maeve suffer every torment she inflicted upon me, and I will pity her inability to let go of the past hate and anger that drove her to that point. Then, I will walk away and never think of her again.”
He pressed a kiss to my temple and brought the horse to a halt in the yard.
“There should be enough room in the stable for the horses,” I said. “If not, you can put them in with the pig. He won’t bother them.”
“With your permission, I’ll dismiss your groomsman on your behalf, too,” Greydon said, helping me down.
“Please do. When you’re done, come inside. There are plenty of rooms and beds in the attic to accommodate everyone.”
“I’ll come in,” Greydon said. “However, the guards will make use of the stables and keep watch out here.”
I didn’t comment about our lack of chaperone. After all, it was a moot point. My innocence was long since gone in many ways.
Instead, I nodded and let myself inside. The house echoed its silence around me as I crossed the entry, the dying fire from the sitting room barely casting any light. Upstairs, I went to the room that used to belong to Kellen and me and opened the door. Porcia had removed Kellen’s bed but had kept much of the room the same, unlike Cecilia with Father’s room.
Lighting a candle, I looked at the dress lying over the back of the chair beside the wardrobe. It was one of my old dresses. Cecilia had taken a knife to it, rending it down the middle from neckline to hem. There were other cuts in it too, making it irreparable. I wondered why Porcia had even kept it. Balling it up, I turned to leave the room, intending to gather all of their clothes to take into town with me the next day.
However, I froze at the sight of Seth in the doorway.
“I thought you might be the only one to return,” he said.
“An obvious conclusion since the others were led away in chains.”
“A pity for sure. I’ve never been so thoroughly fucked before coming here. Maeve rode me hard daily. I can still feel her on me, in me, calling to me.” He looked at the window, in the direction of the castle. “I know right where she is. I can feel it.” He smiled and looked at me.
“But the spell she kept trying to cast on me didn’t quite take, I think, because I couldn’t stop seeing you, bathed in moonlight as you washed in the horse trough.”
He took a step toward me.
“I want to make you scream,” he said. “I want to hear you moan my name as you ride me like she did.”
I felt no fear as he approached me.
“Will you force me?” I asked.
He chuckled.
“I don’t mind a bit of a struggle.”
“I do,” I said as he stopped before me. I could smell his sweat and the faint odor of horse.
“Do you know what happened to the last groomsman? The one you replaced? I killed him for trying to force himself on me.”
Seth grinned.
“You’re just building the anticipation, luv.”
“Allow me to kill it,” Greydon said from behind him.
Seth jerked and grunted, the smile fading from his lips. He pivoted slowly to face Greydon, and I saw the knife sticking out from Seth’s back.
“Miss Cartwright planned to dismiss you,” Greydon said. “After your compliancy with what has transpired here, I’m not quite so benevolent.”
Seth slumped to his knees and looked up at me, coughing on his blood. I felt no pity for him.
“You should have left when you had the chance,” I said.
As he fell to the floor, I looked at Greydon.
“Can you have the guards remove him as well as the maids upstairs? We can use the wagon to take them to town so their families can claim them.”
“Of course.” He studied me. “Are you all right?”
“No. But I will be.”
He nodded and left the room. I stepped over Seth and began removing any hint of Maeve, Cecilia, and Porcia’s presence in my home. It wasn’t until sunup that the house once again looked like it had before my mother’s death.
“Thank you,” I said to the weary guards as they went downstairs.
“We will rest for two hours then must leave for the castle,” Greydon said.
“Yes, Sire,” the lead guard said with a bow before closing the front door.
Greydon turned to me and took my hand.
“Where are we going?”
“To bed.”
I briefly considered pulling my hand from his as he led me to my mother’s room, but I was too tired and didn’t want to be alone. For all of my thoughts of accepting the past, the things that happened in this house still echoed in my mind. I couldn’t stop seeing Maeve with Hugh in my mother’s room.
Greydon seemed to know it too for he pulled me into his arms and tucked me close against his chest as we lay fully dressed on top of the covers.
“What was your mother like?”
I smiled slightly and shared my memories of her until I fell asleep.
“Can I interest you in a citrus tart, miss?” a server asked.
“I couldn’t eat another bite if I wanted to,” I said with a kind smile.
The dress I wore was impressive and well corseted. One of the many surprises that had greeted me since waking in an abundantly feathered bed at the castle. That I’d slept through leaving the estate, the carriage ride here, and being carried inside still amazed me.
The server took away my plate, and I looked at the table’s three other occupants.
“I apologize for sleeping so late,” I said to the King.
“Nonsense. Greydon told me all that you accomplished when you returned. And all that you had endured since your mother’s death. I’m truly sorry, Eloise. For her death and for all that you suffered. We are forever in your debt as we were in hers.”
“As I told Greydon, the past is passed.”
“Almost. There are a few more things yet to attend to.”
He stood and offered his arm.
“If you will allow me to walk with you,” he said.
“Of course, Your Majesty.”
“Ah, yes,” he said, setting his hand over mine and leading me from the room. “Your Majesty seems too formal for a new daughter, don’t you agree? We must decide on a new title.”
“Shouldn’t that wait until I agree to Greydon’s proposal?”
“Do you love the boy?”
“The boy is right here,” Greydon said dryly from behind us.
“Your Majesty, considering all that’s happened because of Maeve with Sevil and my mother…doesn’t it prove that love is not enough?”
“Just the opposite,” he said. “If not for the love Sevil bore for her family and for the love your mother bore for you and Sevil, the kingdom would have fallen long ago.” He stopped walking to look me in the eye. “Above all else, the future queen needs to feel a great deal of love for her future king and for her future people. I think you will do well in both.”
Trumpets blasted outside the main doors, and the King heaved a sigh.
“Duty demands our attention, and I can see you need more time to consider Greydon’s proposal. We will speak of this later.”
As we started forward once more, I glanced back at Greydon. His deep blue gaze caught and held mine, and his promise that I would be his echoed in my mind.
Chapter Eighteen
The four of us, followed by the King’s advisors, continued down the steps toward the gate. Once there, we climbed the stairs to watch the proceedings from the top of the walls surrounding the castle.
“Good people of Drisdall,” the King called. “This is a day for celebration. Before you stand the condemned. They are responsible for tormenting our kingdom with their evil magic. Their reign of terror is at an end, and Drisdall is once again the safe home you knew and loved.”
The King nodded to a man below, who began listing Maeve’s crimes as she was brought forward. The list of what she’d done was horrific, but so were her injuries. She could barely walk. Bruises covered her body, and blood covered her face. As I’d ordered, she’d been blinded and shaved.
As I watched, the hate I felt toward her bled out from the well in which I’d kept it imprisoned for so long.
“Maeve Grimmoire confessed to her crimes and has been sentenced to suffer as we have suffered,” the King said. “Her life, what is left of it, is her own when she reaches the docks. Any who choose to take pity on her there, may.”
The people jeered and threw rocks at her as she stumbled forward. One hit her square in the hip and knocked her to the ground before she had gone very far. And, I felt pity as she lay there, struggling to get up, and wondered whether she would have been able to let go of her hate and anger for the King if she would have known her fate. I doubted it.
Once Maeve stopped moving, Cecilia was brought forward, and her crimes were listed as well. She sobbed and looked at the crowd before her as they reacted to her wrongdoings. She was no better than her mother, and she saw it as she looked for any mercy within the throng. Like Maeve, she was beaten and shaven but also branded.
“Cecilia Grimmoire confessed to her crimes and has been sentenced to endure the same suffering as those she tormented. Her life, what is left of it, is her own when she reaches the docks.”