Lady Mei blushes and averts her gaze, but I don’t stop.
“You must be subtle.” I lean forward. “I want to know who her friends are these days, and I need to know their every indiscretion.”
Lady Mei’s eyes widen and she looks back and forth between Lord Aaron and Sir Spencer, universally known as two of the friendliest gentlemen at court, clearly expecting some protest at my viciousness.
At their silence, she turns wide eyes back to me. “I feel as though I hardly know you,” she says with wonder.
I lay a hand on her knee and try for a comforting smile. “I picked you because I adore you,” I say gently. “Don’t forget that. I’m testing you, it’s true, but I wouldn’t bother if you hadn’t been my loyal friend for years. I need you. I need another lady in my corner, and you’re incredibly resourceful.”
The smile Lady Mei sends back is tight, but genuine.
“And the King?” Lord Aaron says, bringing us back on track.
I suck in a breath and hold it. “I’m still working on that,” I say reluctantly, hating that I have nothing to use against him. Yet. “I fear him. Now that the confidence vote is passed, he seems inclined to grant me favors, but only when cajoled and always accompanied with unseemly threats. Sir Spencer, I’ve spoken to His Majesty on your behalf—let him know that you never wanted his throne. Perhaps you can eventually find your way back into his good graces. But he’s understandably angry with your father-in-law, and he’s looking to punish someone. At the moment, I simply ask you to keep your eyes and ears open.”
“I’m not in my father-in-law’s good graces at the moment either,” Sir Spencer says. “But I’ll do what I can.”
“I appreciate it. If you, any of you, need to communicate something with me that needs to stay out of M.A.R.I.E.’s monitoring queue, com me with a question about the gardens. We can arrange a meeting. I’m now privy to which rooms in the palace are or are not being monitored at any given moment, so—” I pause when a gasp escapes from Lady Mei’s mouth.
We all turn to her, and she presses her linen napkin to her lips. “Do excuse me,” she says. “Continue.”
I hide a grin—she’s grown accustomed to the water in this cesspool rather quickly, I think.
“I’ll ask the question our lovely friend doesn’t seem to be able to find words for,” Lord Aaron says coolly. “How in the world did you gain access to such information?”
“A deal with the devil, Lord Aaron. The way I acquire most things these days.” He rolls his eyes and I continue. “So with careful planning we should be able to avoid most eavesdropping.”
Silent nods all around—my coconspirators are turning pensive—time to seal the pact.
I remove three canisters from my panniers. “The three of you know what this is now. I cannot proceed further without giving you the choice that has been robbed from everyone else.” I swallow hard, guilt tightening my throat. “You are my inner circle—you may have as much or as little Glitter as you choose, gratis. I give you that choice in reparation for the damage I’ve already done to you. All three of you. I strongly recommend you cut down, beginning now, but any smoker can tell you that cold turkey is a bitch.”
The silence is heavy around the table. But three hands reach forward, and I can only hope that sound minds made that decision, not chemical-driven need.
ONCE THE GREEN outline returns to my rooms on the monitoring display, I bring out the dessert and liqueurs. We eat and drink for another half hour to keep up appearances, but it’s clear that no one’s feeling especially jovial. Lady Mei, for certain, will need a few days to process the situation into which she’s been inducted. But the mood is basically cheerful when we part ways at the doorway of the temporary dining room.
“Did you have fun?” Saber asks when I walk into my bedroom, already pulling off my long gloves.
“Fun? Hardly.”
“Sorry to have missed it,” he says softly, though his arms are crossed over his chest and I know he resents being left out. Understands, but resents. I lay my head against his cheek and feel his warm skin to assure myself that he’s alive. The other night I realized my fingers were pressed to his wrist, checking for a heartbeat. Reginald’s betrayal boils my blood, but part of me can’t help but be grateful. I thought I could leave Saber behind and look back on him fondly from my new life. I understand now that I’d have slowly withered on the inside without him; knowing he was alive, and the situation I’d left him in.
“If you don’t know anything, I won’t have to ask you to lie,” I whisper into his ear.
Saber pulls back and looks at me, and I can read the questions in his eyes, but I can’t answer them. Not right now. He sighs and flops backward onto the huge bed. “You make my life complicated.”
“But exciting, right?”
He closes his eyes and shakes his head, but when he opens them again, his expression is serious. “Excitement isn’t something my life has ever lacked.”
My smile wilts.
“Oh, don’t,” Saber says. “I didn’t mean to spoil the mood.”
I climb up onto the bed beside him, and my skirts pouf into a taffeta arc. “I was trying to be sensitive by not having you there.”
Saber reaches under the edge of my skirts and grabs one of my ankles. “Because you were talking about Glitter, or because you were talking about me?”
I pause. I’d thought it was obvious. He and I talk about Glitter all the time. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say he and I fight about Glitter all the time. “You. Sort of. Mostly Reginald,” I tack on. As though that makes it better.
Saber doesn’t look at me. He focuses on the ribbons of my dance slippers instead—picking at the knot and then unwinding the ribbons from around my ankle. “It wouldn’t be hard for me to die, you know.”
“What?” I feel the blood drain from my face and I don’t understand his macabre subject change.
“You think it’s so awful being a slave, but it wouldn’t be hard for me to just die. Forget traditional suicide—I could catch a bus out of town on the last day of my countdown and be dead before I got to Dijon.”
I clutch his hand at that, but my throat is too tight to make words.
“All I’m saying is that you seem to think that my life is worse than death, but all signs point to me preferring to live. Maybe you should take that into consideration.”
I duck my head, tears swimming in my eyes. “How do you do it?” I whisper, my voice quavering. “I think of Reginald…of him owning you, and it hurts.” I touch my fingers to my sternum, where even now, my chest aches.
Saber is calm, cool, as he runs his hands up my calves, past my knees, to where my silk garters are tied. “I learned a secret a long time ago. When I was maybe ten.” He looks up and meets my eyes. “I’m never going to be free in my body.”
I open my mouth, but he talks over me.
“Never. The tech is too good.” He leans forward, those green eyes fierce and fiery. “But I’m free here.” He points at his temple. “As long as I hate every wrong thing he makes me do—as long as I refuse to surrender the morals and standards my parents gave me—I’m still my own man.” He shrugs and looks away, as though embarrassed to have revealed so much. “That’s why I fight you so hard. I can’t accept what you do. I can’t justify it. If I do, I’m letting go of the only freedom I can still call mine.”
Guilt is a blanket smothering me and I gasp for air.
“You want to rescue me?” Saber asks.
I nod.
“Then stop selling Glitter,” he whispers.
My mouth drops and I don’t have any idea what I would have said next, because a pounding on the door makes me jump and let out a quiet shriek. Recovering, I let loose a string of French curses under my breath that makes Saber snort. Since I didn’t wear it to my dinner, I still don’t have my Lens in, so I have to decide whether to answer the door without bei
ng able to silently check with M.A.R.I.E. who’s on the other side. While I’m deciding, a second rap sounds, sharper than the first, and the unmistakable voice of everyone’s favorite monarch bellows out, “Wife?”
“How did this become my life?” I groan quietly.
“Should I answer it?” Saber asks with a mischievous grin.
“I’ll do it. I’m trying to get on his not-quite-as-bad side.”
“Does he have one of those?”
“I’m doing my best to find out.” I scoot awkwardly off the bed and pad across the room. I open the door and stand there with an expression of extreme tolerance generally reserved for tantrum-throwing toddlers. “Yes, my lord?”
“Duke and Duchess Sells are hosting an informal soirée.”
“Soirée? It’s almost midnight!”
The King continues as though I’d said nothing. “Much of the high nobility will be in attendance. The Queen should be as well.”
“And you had no notice of this?” I ask, not bothering to hide my skepticism.
“I did. But I forgot I had a wife. A Queen. You’re a bit new; I think it’s understandable. It’s important—come on.” He at least does me the courtesy of offering his arm, not grabbing me and dragging me off. I wonder if I can consider that a victory.
“I—” I stop and heave a sigh. I raise the edge of my skirts to show one foot bare, the other clad only in its stocking.
His Highness’ gaze instantly slides over to Saber, standing straight and tall, peering almost sleepily right back at the King. “Put them back on,” he says after a pause. “I’ll wait.”
Turning, I call over my shoulder, “Close the door. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”
“You’re my wife,” he says, with a definite growl in the last word. “I hardly think a flash of your ankles is going to shock me.”
“It might,” I answer, retrieving my shoes and one stocking from atop the bedspread. “You’ve never seen them before.”
He taps his finger against his lips and considers that. “I feel certain they must have been on display at your first lever, and yet it’s not your ankles I recall you flashing.”
I grind my teeth, wishing I were close enough to slap him, and have to concentrate on the laces of my shoe to keep from retorting.
“Are you ready now?” he asks, oh-so-innocently, when I flip my skirt back down over all but the very tips of my slippers a few seconds later. “You should put on some of those jewels you were so desperate to claim.”
“I thought you said it was informal.”
“I should have said impromptu. You’ll learn in time: nothing is actually informal when you’re royalty.”
“Fine.” I walk over to my vanity table and open the wooden box that holds the jewels I selected for earlier today, and pop in my Lens for good measure. Once I’m sparkling with diamonds and emeralds, I turn and wordlessly gesture at my person for my husband’s approval. Chafes, that.
“You’ll do,” he says gruffly, and holds out an arm.
But—in a fit of pique, heedless of my own warnings—instead of walking to the King, I approach Saber, who bows slightly and offers an arm of his own.
“Your secretary need not attend,” the King snaps.
“No? But he’s ever so useful,” I purr, petting his bicep.
“Not this time.” The King’s voice is a deep, throaty sound that cuts like a blade.
I turn and simply glare.
“I don’t think you understand, Your Highness,” he says witheringly. “We’re going to the home of a member of the highest nobility. I suspect this gathering will be held in the duke’s private, unmonitored office. You and I should be there, and no one else.”
My breath catches and my heart rate surely doubles. This is no party; I’m being brought in on a secret meeting of the King and his allies. Because I’m the Queen.
“Shall we?” the King asks, and when I lay my hand on his arm he sweeps me from the room, off to the den of some of the best-dressed lions in the world.
* * *
—
DUCHESS SELLS OPENS the door for us personally, and when I shake her hand I palm her a canister of Glitter, feeling even guiltier than before. She points us toward her husband’s private office—unmonitored, according to the map I discreetly summon to my Lens. In direct contradiction of the King’s recent pronouncement concerning residential offices. Laws don’t matter when the monarch is your bosom bud, apparently.
I keep my face impassive and my hand clasped on Justin’s arm as I take in the attendees. It appears most people are already here—presumably because we were a little late, seeing as how the King forgot he had a Queen. I’m surrounded by la crème de la crème of the Sonoman-Versailles court: the Dukes and Duchesses Sells, Florentine, Wakefield, and Darzi, along with the Marquis and Countess Voroman-Wills and the Marquis and Countess Garcia, and the Countesses Poe. No one here with less than a three percent stake in Sonoma Inc. Myself included.
After a few minutes of talking, drinking, and loading plates with decadent desserts, Duke Sells taps a spoon against his glass. He nods at his wife, who locks the door. Justin seats me prettily on one of the two chairs clearly situated to indicate the front of the room, then kisses my hand with a courtly flourish.
He doesn’t sit.
“My lords, ladies, you all know why we’re here,” he says, addressing the small group. “How do we punish them?”
My heart thuds so hard in my chest I’m almost surprised no one else hears it. I feel ill.
And surprisingly envious. My own secret dinner pales by comparison.
“Tremain must be forced to sell his voting shares,” Duchess Darzi says. “He can’t be allowed to try again.”
“We can look into that,” His Highness says, nodding. He turns to murmur something to a youngish lady in the corner—the daughter of Marquis and Countess Voroman-Wills, I think. She’s taking notes on an actual piece of paper. Sneaky.
“Is eviction off the table?” Countess Garcia asks.
“Of course,” His Majesty says dryly. “It’s difficult to torture a man in absentia. What else?”
Some make suggestions touching on inheritance and positions within the company. Others focus on social ostracism and general shunning. But their petty, almost trifling proposals don’t satisfy His Majesty.
“What of the boy?” Duke Darzi asks.
My attention snaps into sharp focus. Sir Spencer. If Sir Spencer finds himself disgraced and miserable, Lord Aaron will no doubt spirit him away via his Foundation people. And himself as well. Then where will I be? I have to do something. But Sir Spencer is so inextricably linked with the sinking ship that is the Tremain family.
An idea stirs within me, and I wonder if I’ve just stumbled on a solution to everything. As the conversation buzzes around me, I examine it from all angles. Try to find the flaws.
“Husband,” I say when the conversation has a momentary lapse. The King turns, giving me a sharp look of warning that only I see. I’ve never referred to him as such in public before. “What if we used Sir Spencer to humiliate the duke?”
The King studies me for a long moment, clearly not trusting me, wondering if it’s he who’s about to be humiliated. “How so?” he finally asks.
I force myself to think twice, speak once. This is the only chance I’m going to get. “Suppose you privately offer Sir Spencer a hasty divorce from Lady Julianna on the condition that he immediately begin flaunting the long-term affair he’s been having under the duke’s nose.” I count off on my fingers: “Legally separate the master from his protégé, deprive him of control over the substantial voting stock Sir Spencer inherited from his parents, destroy the familial legacy the duke expected from his daughter, and make him look like an ignorant fool, all in one go.”
The entire room is silent for so long I feel sweat start to break out at the small of my back, trickling down un
der my corset.
“This is brilliant,” Countess Ardetta Poe says breathily. “Is it true?”
I don’t dare twitch a single muscle in my face. “The affair? Indeed. The two are desperate to be together openly.”
“But will the young upstart agree to it?” Duke Wakefield asks.
I smirk. “I feel entirely confident that he will. Puppet or not, he never wanted to play this role. I daresay he’ll jump at an escape. Especially”—I pause before taking my biggest risk—“if it could spare him from some of the other consequences I’m certain he’s expecting.”
There’s a bit of grumbling at that, but they’re all so anxious to rain down embarrassment on the Tremains that they come to terms easily enough.
“Diabolical,” Countess Maria Poe says to me with a saucy grin, saluting me with her glass. I incline my head in acknowledgment and force a calm smile. Is this how it begins? The heady satisfaction of pulling someone down?
“This,” the King says, lifting the tips of my fingers near his lips, “is why I married her. As brilliant as she is beautiful, and as devious as both combined.”
My stomach churns as I fix the smile on my face. I’ve just made my first big move on this chessboard of court politics.
THE BEST TECHNOLOGY is invisible. That’s the first rule taught in Sonoman-Versailles’ Assisted Coding for Semiautonomous Mechanical Systems, my favorite advanced programming class—back when I had time for such things. Flashy, cutting-edge tech is naturally impressive, but on the surface, the Palace of Versailles is a marvel of eighteenth-century aesthetics. From the very beginning, with King Kevin, the overarching question of the Palace of Versailles was, can the benefits of technology be realized without sacrificing décor?
The answer, developed with the help of Sonoma’s frequent corporate partner, Amalgamated, was the “three Cs”—compression, communication, camouflage. Following the first C, some devices shrank until they were essentially invisible, like the Lens that can show me anything I might see on other screens. But compressing technology has physical limitations; for example, a Lens can’t broadcast or receive sound. It’s possible to supplement the Lens with transceivers—devices that serve both as speakers and microphones—but in Versailles, it’s also common to just rely on the palace’s existing audio systems. Or run a lip-reading app.