“Caroline, I thought we were meeting about the logistics of the wedding.” Angus frowned when he saw Jaden, the object of their scrutiny, at the end of the passageway. “Jaden,” he said in greeting, then went back to ignoring the man. Breicher thought he noticed the glint in his nephew that suggested he’d found a new object of his interest and moaned internally. That was not what they’d needed now, and for Jaden’s sake, it was futile, though he supposed Jaden would figure that out soon enough on his own.
“To answer your question, Your Majesties, I am actually in-between bed partners at the moment,” Jaden interjected. “I plan to open applications any day now, so if you know anyone who would be interested, please send them my way.”
Breicher knew the look Jaden shot Angus as he prowled by. Predator and prey because he’d been that man on the hunt before, too.
He left the study, turning as her eyes tracked him. “I was wrong. Hollis doesn’t have him up to it… he’s too irreverent. Agnes?”
He didn’t want to speculate on the young prince’s motives and Angus seemed more than happy to pass over any conversation that had to do with the man, thankfully. The rattling of porcelain drew their attention. “Sounds like the tea has arrived. Let’s have a cup and get on with the charade,” he announced, earning a glare from Caroline as he made his way back to a larger table beside the orderly row of desks. Never would he’d imagined he’d be sitting with the woman he’d tried to assassinate, planning their wedding.
Breicher shoved the winter’s sin away. “I tried, Hollis. I’ll see if we can make it her coronation instead of a wedding, but she won’t agree. You don’t get it. Attention or glory isn’t what makes her tick.”
“Then what makes her tick, Breicher, since you seem to know her so well?” Wrinkling his nose at the drink Breicher had rejected, he snatched it, tossing it back in a single swallow.
Had his brother’s face always gotten that red when he drank? “She wants two grand public weddings because she believes our marriage symbolizes the joining of the kingdoms.”
As he finished, a glass flew across the room, shattering against the stone wall. Grabbing a new glass from beside the decanter, Hollis poured himself another finger. “That is exactly why we can’t let it happen.”
Shaking his head, Breicher pushed up from the plush chair he’d sunk into in Hollis’s solar. “You seem to forget if we don’t do what she’s asking, we’re all dead. Starting with me since she has my blood. She could make me kill you, Hollis, and I’d be powerless to stop her. And she hasn’t. Can’t you be grateful for that?”
Jaden’s uncle released a deep sigh and stormed out of the room. He’d never seen such a conflicted man. Breicher clearly wanted the queen, but his love for his brother, Jaden’s father, who was clearly in deep denial about his situation, was preventing him from giving in to his true feelings. Maybe he’d write a story about it one day, or a play perhaps.
Slipping into the room, he made his way to the bar cart, gesturing to the broken glass along the way. “What a mess.”
His father looked up from where he’d buried his head in his hands. Deep red, almost purple fine veins etched their way down his puffy cheeks. A ring of pink surrounded the deep blue of his eyes. “No kidding,” the older Ivanslohe said, waving his glass in the air at his son.
Jaden picked up the decanter, pouring himself a glass, then another for his father. “I meant the glass. I don’t think you can prevent this… them, I mean.”
Hollis growled and threw back the drink. “You’d have me give up my throne so easily?”
Eying the empty glass clutched in the former king’s white-knuckled fingers, he said, “It was just an observation. I’m not suggesting anything.” Jaden sipped, the clear liquid burning a path down his throat.
“Sit down, son. We need to talk about the fate of this kingdom. If your uncle won’t do what must be done, then it will be up to us.”
Jaden set his half empty glass down on the side table. “Actually, I have a date to get to.” He was out the door, and it was snapping shut behind him before his father replied.
Chapter 7
“Howmanypetitionsdowe have, commander?” Caroline had seated herself on her newly carved throne on the dais of Kierengaard’s Great Hall. Breicher, as her intended, sat to her right on Hollis’s old throne beside her. Angus had arranged benches for the rest of the royal family directly below the lowest step. She’d demanded the former king and queen be in attendance and was determined to show a unified front.
“Only five today, Your Majesty.” Angus stood at a podium and was reading a tally handed to him by a reporter. She’d opened the hall so any subjects who were interested may observe.
“Very well.” She fidgeted with the sash she wore around her gown. “Where are they?” she grumbled under her breath to Breicher. She’d stalled as long as she could. Movement at the back of the room caught her eye. The four missing Veetula royals slipped into the room. Jaden dipped to the side as soon as they’d passed the threshold. He leaned on the wall opposite the benches, with his knee bent and foot rested on the stones. He lazily hooked his thumbs in his pockets, and the casual smirk he wore gave Caroline the impression he was up to something.
A gust of cool air breezed through the room as Agnes nudged Cecily forward. Hadshedone that? The child seemed to read the foreboding charge in the space and was pressing back against her mother’s palms as Agnes shoved her forward. Every urge in Caroline’s body screamed for her to wrap her hands around Agnes’s throat and let her know exactly how she felt about that smug look as she seated Cecily next to her.She’d even dressed the child in a somber grey frock and twisted her pretty auburn curls into a tight knot at the base of her skull.
Letting her eyes bore into the woman, she said, “Approach.”
Agnes sat unmoving and Caroline swore the world had turned scarlet for a moment. A thought and the defiant woman was on her feet, scuttling to the queen, wide-eyed. Bringing her within an arm’s length of her feet, Caroline forced her to her knees and leaned down to whisper, “What type of monster brings a child to these sorts of proceedings? And that outfit, Gods, you’d think this was going to be a funeral. Are you trying to draw my ire?”
Agnes trembled even as she sat tight-lipped. Caroline hadn’t intended for her to speak because she knew the answer. The defiance in Agnes’s eyes was enough to loosen the tight control Caroline held on her power and, before she could stop herself, she’d seized control of the woman’s lungs, catching her breath.
Agnes’s eyes bulged and Caroline said, “I didn’t want things to be like this between us, but it seems I need to make myself clear and you need to understand the threat that I am.”
Caroline wasn’t sure if it was the nervous glance from Cecily or the gentle hand Breicher laid upon her forearm that made her release the compulsion. She shook Breicher’s hand off. Agnes sucked in a breath, but Caroline kept her kneeling. Cupping her cool fingers around the other woman’s cheeks, she tilted her face up to meet her own, then she kissed her forehead. Let it look like she was blessing this audacious woman.
“Rise,” she commanded loud enough for the whole room to hear. Agnes scrambled to her feet and glanced around like she was unsure of what to do with herself. “Thank you for coming, Princess Agnes and bringing Princess Cecily, but I’m afraid I promised the young lady a pony ride. Isn’t that right, Cecily?”
The child’s innocent wide eyes darted between the two women. “But mother said I must attend the…. umm.” She paused like she was trying to remember the word her mother had used, then her eyes brightened. “The spectacle.”
