Caroline allowed herself to laugh. The nerve of this woman. She’d deal with her later. “Yes, but she didn’t know I’d already promised, right, Agnes?”
Agnes paled and eyed the bench like she wanted to crawl under it and die, but she said, “That’s right. Let’s go and find your pony, dear.”
Caroline cleared her throat and with a nod, Angus approached the little girl. He knelt, offering her one of Caroline’s peppermint sticks he dutifully kept handy. “My commander will escort Cecily to the stables. I’d be honored if you’d stay,Your Majesty.”
Breicher knew the sardonic slash that had cut a path across the queen’s face, exposing her gleaming teeth all too well. A sympathy pang squeezed his chest for his former queen. Agnes was on her own. He and his brother were smart enough to stand by and let Caroline deal with Agnes’s boldness as she saw fit. Hollis had warned his wife that they should leave the girl out of it, but Agnes seemed to want to use her as a weapon against the queen. Agnes had said if she had to be there, might as well use the opportunity. It was a good life experience, she said, for the turbulent world Cecily would be married off into one day.
He’d seen the adoring glimmer in Cecily’s eye when she’d seen the beautiful woman in the library, though. The instant spell Caroline had unknowingly cast over the girl, and the way her mother had gone rigid as a board as she’d realized it. Agnes had been working daily to instill the same hatred his father had instilled in him as a boy toward anything to do with the southern kingdom. It didn’t seem to be working.
Caroline tapped her foot impatiently as her eyes redirected to the podium Angus had vacated. Reading her thoughts, he started to rise, but her grip stilled him.
“Jaden,” Caroline called across the room. “Please.” she pointed to the podium. “Time to get your feet wet, since you seem sointerested.”
Breicher had to suppress a groan, but even across the room, he sensed his nephew perking up. The extra briskness in his usually languid motion, or the intelligent glimmer brought to life he was trying to hide from his father. Breicher had spent years learning how to read people. He doubted anyone else noticed.
Gods, the prince was all legs and arms, so much taller than when he’d left five years earlier. He stood as high above the podium as Angus, but he was gangly by comparison. Jaden flipped through the papers, tapping his long fingers against the wood as he reviewed them. It only took a few minutes, then he nodded back to Caroline. The couple minutes’ delay making the petitioners antsy.
“Very well,” she said. “Proceed Prince Jaden Ivanslohe.”
That voice, which was like an unpleasant memory Angus couldn’t shake, resounded through the room as he entered. He’d figured Caroline would stall for as long as needed. She was the queen, and they could wait all day if needed. Still, he’d hurried back as soon as he’d deposited the little princess with the awaiting female handler, a reigning champion from the south Caroline was a fan of. Angus thought it was an absurd length to go to for a child, and he’d told her as much when she’d whisked the woman in this morning for the lesson. But that was how Caroline did everything.
“Petitioner, please come forward,” Jaden said, erupting a flurry of movement from the audience. Two men pushed through and bowed before Caroline. “Stand and state your case.”
Angus stopped short. Caroline was allowing Prince Jaden to run the petitions. And he wasn’t supposed to be the one to release them from their knees. He waited for Caroline to reprimand the prince, but the men began speaking, and all Angus could do was try to seal his mouth shut.
He caught Caroline’s eye as she listened to the men. She gave a subtle jerk of her chin, indicating he stood aside. That didn’t bother him, her will was his own. It was that she seemed amused, which meant she was likely viewing this as some sort of punishment for the flippant man. But the more he watched the young Prince, the less he believed that’s what was happening in his mind.
No, this wouldn’t do at all.
It was nightfall again in this ever-waking nightmare that comprised Breicher’s life now. A few moments earlier, Caroline had sauntered into his rooms, poured herself and him a glass of wine and walked out onto the balcony expecting him to follow. It was the same thing she’d done every night since they’d arrived in Veetula—after the night he’d embarrassed himself. They were establishing a pattern, and he caught himself looking forward to her arrival, another source of his shame. Grabbing a throw blanket, he wrapped it around his shoulders and followed her outside to where she’d taken a seat on the plush chaise he’d relocated for her.
“I didn’t expect Kierengaard to be so beautiful. It was supposed to be a place where nightmares came to life and your family acted out all the atrocities we hated you for,” Caroline said.
Breicher glanced out at what he could see of his family home from the balcony. Rugged snow-covered mountains rose to the east beyond the sprawling town which lit the valley with the lamplight that illuminated its many homes and businesses. The white stone multilayered castle rose up from the plateau it was built upon, similar to how Roskide was atop a hill. But where Roskide seemed to drape itself over the hill, weighing it down, Kierengaard felt spindly, reaching up toward the empty heavens.
Caroline’s spire was visible where it rose from a sheer wall that met the face of the rock rise and the slate roof tiles almost lifted into the clouds. The spire had been abandoned, but after he’d given her a tour of the castle, she told him she’d fallen in love with the view and immediately commissioned the wing renovated. It had been done precisely to her detailed specifications in a few short days.
“Both of our homes are beautiful in their own right,” he said, hating the need he felt to maintain a neutral stance, or else anger the queen.
“That went well, don’t you think?” she asked, ignoring his diplomatic response, and took a long drink. She gestured to his glass, then the side of the chaise opposite her.
He stared at the drink warily but took a seat. Had she worn that silk robe through the halls to get from her spire to his? He’d offered her a blanket before, but she didn’t want one, claiming she liked the way the chill bit at her skin.
“You think that went well?” he asked.
She huffed. “I didn’t have to kill anyone. I figured I might with it being the first one. But I’m thinking my subjects here are timider. Or they’re unfamiliar with the process, but I expect in time that will change. Our little spy did well.”
“I’m not so sure about having Jaden lead the petitions, especially considering that fact.”
Caroline shrugged and took a sip. “You believe me now? I guess we caught him outright, so even you can’t deny it.” She winked at him. “He needs something to do besides bedding half the kingdom. You know the saying aboutidle hands…” As she said it, her own hands slid along the silky material adorning her thighs, to emphasize the point.
Why was she here, tormenting him like this? He’d sided with two of her judgments against his brother, and Hollis had berated him for an hour afterward. He’d called it a hairline betrayal and issued him a warning. A full crack, as he described it, and Breicher would be stripped of the family name. He didn’t even want to know the tongue-lashing Jaden was getting. “I can’t do this with you, Caroline.”
Her teeth clenched, but her eyes remained impassive. “Hollis is going to have to accept that we’re going to rule as a team.” When he didn’t respond, she said, “I imagined you had more backbone.”
He snorted, his thoughts flickering back to his finger in her mouth. “Yeah, me too.” Breicher stood and walked across the sitting room into his bedroom, shutting the door behind him. She was too prideful to follow. He leaned back on the door in case he was wrong, waiting. Glass crashed against the old timber vibrating through his shoulders and when he looked down, red wine was seeping beneath the door. A second later, another goblet, presumably his glass this time, smashed against the door. He chuckled, shaking his head. He could almost see the fury on her beautiful face.
After the door slammed, he glanced at his bed longingly. The soft linens beckoned him, like they’d erase the struggles of the day and whisk him away to a simpler place. But when he nestled himself beneath the covers and allowed his eyes to drift shut, being the traitor he was, all he saw was her face.
