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“Or pretending to help,” he said, stepping forward to present me with a file.
“What is this?”
He said nothing, so I opened it to find typed letters. Some were simply in support of the prime minister’s anti-immigration message. Some were flatly anti-Semitic, others racist. My mind couldn’t put it all together. It didn’t make sense. I’d known Ambrose all my life, and I’d never heard him ever say anything even close to this.
“Are you sure these are his?”
“He did not write them...but he has spent a lot of time reading them,” Iskandar replied. “While he waits by the queen, I had a search done of all his things. He has sympathies toward a lot of these groups, it seems.”
It still didn’t make sense. Outside of my family, Iskandar, and Wolfgang, he was the person I would never have thought of.
“He’s been helping her. Even Odette says he has been helping her—”
“Or hoping she’d fail or realize she could not do it and leave. He chose the hardest tutors for her. But she dedicated herself to learning what she needed to learn. So, he let the stories leak to press, hoping she’d be torn enough to want to leave. She stayed. He was in charge of the guest lists for the garden party, and he added Ms. Franziska—the queen, of course, would not say anything. That almost pushed Ms. Wyntor to leave, but still, she stayed...When she was supposed to give her speech, he expected her to fail. Instead, everyone started to warm up to her. So, the very next day, the story leaks her most intimate secret, one that not even the queen knew. Maybe he was hoping for pressure to mount, for more questions to be brought up, but then he thought she was pregnant and crossed the last line.”
The more he spoke, the less it made sense to me.
“Surely, someone could not hide this type of thought, this...for all this time. He’s never...he’s never been like this.”
“As you said, there has never been a Miss Odette,” Iskandar replied.
This was the most I’d ever heard Iskandar talk in all the time he’d been with us. He was convinced. He wasn’t one hundred percent sure, but he was ninety-nine percent.
Stepping around him, I moved out the door and walked down the hall.
I already knew where he would be because he was a shadow, support, and the right hand of the queen at times of crisis.
“Gale?” Eliza jumped up when I entered the room.
“What happened?” my mother questioned, rising from her chair as well. Behind her, exactly as he had always been, was Ambrose.
I ignored everyone else and walked directly in front of him. He stood straighter.
“Adelaar—”
“Tell me what I have learned is a mistake,” I demanded.
“Gale, what are you talking about?” My mother questioned.
However, Ambrose stood still, staring into my eyes, breathing in slowly, saying nothing.
“Ambrose, what is he talking about?” My mother moved to step forward, but I held up my hand, telling her not to move.
“I have asked, is it a mistake?” I repeated.
He stood taller and exhaled. “Sir, you were on the right path. You were becoming the man this family and this country needed. No more distractions. No more foolishness. You were no longer the careless prince. You were serious. And then she came, and you began to revert back. I only wanted to protect you. Protect this family, this country. We need stability, not change, not new. Especially their kind—”
“You son of bi—”
“Sir, no!” Iskandar held me back before I landed my fist in his face. And he stood tall, with his chest out as if this were something to be proud of. As if this were honorable.
“She ruins you, sir—”
“Guards!” I roared out so loudly it felt as if the room shook. Maybe it did. Maybe this was what hell was, men screaming, rooms trembling in agony. The room flooded with men as they circled him.
“Wait! Wait!” My mother came up beside me, holding my arm. She was shaking as much as I was. She stood in front of me and turned to look back at the monster in our midst.
“I do not understand! Ambrose, what are you saying? You had something to do with this? You?”
