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“Tell me that anger didn’t sustain you those long first months at Cognac.” There is no mocking note in his voice, no faint drawl of amusement. He is . . . It’s true, damn his rutting eyes. I clench my teeth, not willing to admit that to him.
His voice softens with something that sounds surprisingly close to affection. “I always said you were different than the other women. I wasn’t wrong. They wanted reassurances and safety. Attention, and to be loved or cosseted.” He shrugs. “I gave them what they needed. You needed something else. So I gave you that.”
I feel as if I have been chained to a water wheel and given a hard spin. “But why?”
“It is what makes me a good guardian. I enjoy keeping those around me happy. Even churlish, angry people.”
No. I do not believe that. It is yet some game he is playing. “And what of Margot?” We both grow still, her memory sitting between us as palpable as the marble column Count Angoulême leans against.
He eyes me warily. “What of her?”
“How was seducing her keeping her happy?”
A look of annoyance distorts his face. “Sweet Jesu, you are blind. She initiated the flirtation with me.”
“Because the convent ordered her to!”
He outright laughs at that. “Is that what she told you?” He shakes his head, then glances down at his hands, his face growing somber. “She was as unhappy as you were, but for a different reason. She was lonely. Missed her old life. Not the one at the convent that you missed, but the one before that. Before her father found out his wife had been unfaithful—with a god, no less!—and insisted her mother send her away. She missed the luxury of that life. It suited her. She wanted to be a lady, with all the privilege that came with it. She never saw the convent as an opportunity, but a punishment. And for her, it was.”
My heart feels stripped bare as he exposes the depths of Margot’s unhappiness, taking the bones of what I knew and dressing them with all the confidences she’d shared with him. That she never shared with me.
“Being my favorite was as close as she could get to that dream—and I would have let her keep it as long as she liked.”
No. My fists clench. He will not try to paint himself over with kindness. Not when I know how heinous a betrayal he has committed.
“You intimidated her, you know. For all that Margot looked down her nose at you, you made her feel lacking and inferior.”
His words not only rip open the faint scab that has formed over that wound, but pour salt into it. “How?” I whisper.
“Your sense of purpose, duty, your fierce commitment and loyalty. In contrast, she felt none of those things.”
“But she could have felt those things, too, if she chose!”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Gen. She was never going to feel that way about anything. When you set a vine to a trellis, it becomes so entwined that the two cannot be separated. So it was with her and her earliest dreams. They could not be removed and replaced with new ones.”
His words make me want to burrow into the earth like a worm and hide from the world. “I do not know any other way to be,” I whisper, stricken.
“Of course you don’t. You were set to a different trellis when you were planted. But that trellis was better suited to the convent’s purpose.”
No, I realize. That trellis was the convent’s purpose. My mother encouraged my own wants and desires to grow along that framework rather than the foundation she could offer me.
Perhaps to pull me from my despairing thoughts, Angoulême looks to the grand salon. “Where is the prisoner?”
His words are so unexpected that it is all I can do not to gape at him.
“Do not look so surprised.”
I scowl and increase the pressure on the knife. “Why do you care what has happened to him? You left him for dead.”
His eyes shift to the ballroom behind me. “I had orders.”
When still I say nothing, he ignores the knife pressed against him and leans closer. “Tell me what has happened to him.”
“So you can report to the regent and she can set new men after him? I think not.”
“Do not be an idiot. She is why I couldn’t act. She was having me watched. Closely. But not you. I knew that her spies would follow me when I left. Why do you think there were no guards on the lower floor?”
“B-because he was in an oubliette that was impossible to escape from.” Heat rushes along my skin, as if my body understands before my mind does.
“Did you truly think I didn’t know where you disappeared to, all those times? In my own holding? I wanted you to free him. That was the plan all along.”
“Why?” I whisper, still not sure I believe what I am hearing.
“Because what they did was wrong. There are codes of conduct that were broken. And if that code does not mean anything, then we are all at the mercy of their whims and tempers.”
“Some of us already are,” I point out. “Why would the regent not honor her agreement with Chancellor Crunard? He did her a great service.”
“Because she was protecting General Cassel. He has long been loyal to her father and the crown, and she did not want to see the king’s displeasure fall on him. He has been too good at being France’s brutal fist for too long.” He pauses to study me. “What did you do with the prisoner?” he asks again.
I shrug my shoulders. “Freed him, like you planned.” Oh, how that galls me! I lean closer, nearly putting my nose against his. “I do not think you comprehend what you have set in motion by forging that letter from the convent. Weren’t you afraid they would come after you?”
“Let them,” he says. “They chose to ignore you—and my own letters—for five years. They ignored every letter I sent. I am half convinced they have disbanded.”
My eyes narrow. “They haven’t, and if I were you, I would watch my back and have a better excuse at the ready when they come for you.”
Chapter 48
Sybella
My steps are light as I head back to the palace. While it is true that Beast’s safe return and news of the girls has lifted my spirits, that is not the entire reason. Nor is it that being with Beast makes me feel whole again. We are always stronger with each other at our backs.
Something else has changed. Something deeper and older. Gingerly, with the memory of Beast’s arms wrapped around me, I allow myself to pull that sliver of burgeoning awareness from its dark hiding place.
It is Charlotte, I realize. Somehow, getting her to safety feels inexplicably as if I have reached back through time and gotten my own self to safety. As if I have somehow managed to unravel the tapestry of fate and rewoven it with the ending I had wished for.
There is no longer a sharp barbed splinter residing there, only scar tissue, newly formed. It is as if from the ashes of my own innocence, I have created safety for Charlotte. Given her a childhood that will not have to end like mine.
The small black pebble that I carry with me grows warm, the first time it has done so since I made the decision to kill Fremin. Although I do not understand what causes the warmth—my thoughts, the heat from my own blood, the flush of pleasure that still purrs along my skin where Beast has touched it, or something else I cannot fathom—I welcome that heat. I have missed it. Mayhap it is simply yet another small miracle Mortain has left in his wake.
I nod to the sentries at the door. With all the festivities, there are many people coming and going, so my presence does not raise any questions.
Once inside the inner courtyard, I head for the queen’s wing of the palace. I want to savor what Beast and I have just shared. As I come around the corner, the pebble burns hotter. I frown down toward my pocket, then stop and begin to reach for it. But as my footsteps’ echo fades, I hear the faint sound of heartbeats. It could be two more guards, but one of the beats is familiar to me—both, I realize. I cock my head, trying to discern the direction. There. They are coming from the guard room at the base of the old donjon.
Moving silently, I use the shadows to cover my approach. As I draw near, I hear a voice, and recognition slams into me like a fist. It is Pierre’s voice.
“My men were not the problem,” he is saying. “You promised me my sisters—all of them—and still I have none. Surely those men of yours were the most inept soldiers in all of France.”
“You cannot be here. It is not safe for us to meet,” the woman hisses. The regent. A chill runs down my spine, then simply disappears. No familiar fear follows in its wake.
“You are ignoring my letters.”
“Letters you should not be sending. Besides, I gave you what you asked for—the ambush went off as planned. It is not my fault your men could not follow through on the opening we gave them. We are done here.” I hear two footsteps before she comes to a stop. “Get out of my way.”
