Page 23 of Wicked Queen

“Fuck.” I stomped out the door and the mousy secretary dropped a stack of papers. I didn’t even apologize.

I’d overlooked a number of things about bringing Sarah home. While I’d been concerned with getting her here safely, I’d never considered what I would do when she got here. Clara agreed that Sarah should come back to Buckingham, but to where in Buckingham? Her old room was down the hall from the quarters my family currently occupied. There were other concerns, as well. What would she wear? Should she go back to school? Now that she was here, it was real. Sarah was back. But what exactly did that mean?

Brex and Norris followed behind me, nearly matching my pace. They didn’t have quite the same incentive I did to prevent a spontaneous meeting between my wife and my sister. It was something I’d planned to control. Now that was out of my hands, too.

Sarah had barely spoken the day Clara had found her at Windsmoor House. She’s been as confused as my wife. Now that they both knew everything, the dynamics were likely to be a little different.

“By the way, Poor Boy, now would be a good time to tell me if you have any other dead family members stashed away,” Brex called from behind me.

“Brexton,” Norris said his name sharply.

“What? I’d like a little warning if his dad is going to come bursting through those doors next.”

“There’s no one else.” I stopped in my tracks, realizing I’d made another blunder as the two caught up with me.

“I just think it’s best to keep me in the loop on these matters.” Brex masked pain well, but I’d known him long enough to see past it. I trusted him with the secret about Anderson. I’d made him head of my family’s security when I’d moved Norris to my primary advisor. Why hadn’t I shared this?

It was the same reason I hadn’t told Clara. Shame. Guilt. I’d wanted to let that night go, but I never really had—or else I would have been honest with them. I couldn’t do much about it now. “I’m sorry.”

“I suppose you didn’t tell your wife, either, or so she said to the press, which seems like a pretty good punishment for your cock up.“ He shrugged as if this was some comfort. “But, seriously, I need to know about these things. I should have been overseeing the security there.”

Would it have happened differently if he had? Would Clara have ever found her way there? Would I have been given warning my sister had woken up in time to come clean? Did it matter?

It wouldn’t have mattered. Besides, there was no point entertaining hypotheticals. I had real problems to deal with, and I smelled a shit storm brewing.

“Where did you leave her, exactly?” I asked.

“She went straight to the North wing,” Brex told me. “She headed home.”

“Christ.” I started again, speeding my way toward inevitable disaster.

“Don’t have a coronary. Clara and Elizabeth are out for a walk,” Brex said, moving alongside me.

“Walks don’t last forever,” I said through gritted teeth.

“I know you wanted to be there when she got home. But what’s the big deal? It’s not like she doesn’t know the place.”

“She doesn’t know the place,” I reminded him. “Or my wife. Or my daughter. You said it yourself: have you met her?”

In my mother’s absence, Sarah had been queen of the castle. Now, there was a new queen. I didn’t have a clue what to expect when their paths crossed.

Then there was the matter of Clara. I was trying to be more open with her. I was trying to include her in decision-making. If my sister showed up in our front parlour, it was going to look like I’d failed again.

“I’m sure everything’s fine,” Brex said hurriedly, but now he was moving even faster than me.

I walked into my living room and I stopped the moment I saw her. In the hospital bed, she’d been so small and so pale. Her hair had hung around her shoulders as limp and lifeless as her last ten years. She had aged into someone unrecognizable. That wasn’t the woman waiting for me now.

She looked exactly like our mother.

I shook my head, trying to process what I was seeing. My mother was a beautiful woman. Her Greek heritage had combined with my father’s traditional British looks to create something entirely different in Edward and me. But where we shared a mixture of our parents’ traits, Sarah was all our mother. Her dark hair swung around her shoulders, setting off her olive skin and dark eyes. Despite years of being in a hospital bed, she had the full figure of a woman. I’d expected a girl to come home. Only now did it occur to me how unprepared I was.

“Hello, brother,” she said. She lounged back, legs crossed, and spread her arms over the back of the sofa with the air of a queen greeting her court. “I’m home.”

Chapter 11

Clara

After I finished my walk, I discovered my living room wasn’t empty. The doctor suggested I take a “calming walk” when I felt stressed. I’d walked the better part of a marathon around the grounds over the last few days. As soon as I entered the room, I nearly turned around and headed back out for another lap. My pulse sped up as I took in the scene before me. Elizabeth squirmed out of my arms when she saw her father. I let her go without thinking. She toddled over to him and raised her hands in the air. Alexander picked her up, his eyes watching me the whole time.