The Betrothed

“I’ve had new linens put in, of course,” Jameson said, walking me in. “And these rugs on the walls are new, too. I thought they might help with the draft.”

My heart was skipping beats left and right, trying desperately to keep up. I leaned into him. “Your Majesty . . . I am not queen.”

He smiled again, so pleased with himself. “But you will be.” He kissed my hand. “I am simply bestowing upon you what is rightfully yours . . . a few months ahead of schedule.”

I could hardly catch my breath. “You are far too good to me, Your Majesty.”

“This is nothing,” he whispered. “When you are queen, you shall be drowning in jewels and gifts and praise until death. And I suspect for many years after,” he added with a wink. “Look around the room. Settle in. My men will be moving all your things in the morning before Quinten arrives.”

I was still quite stunned. I was to live in the queen’s apartments. They were mine.

“It seems silly to tell the sun good night, but I do it anyway. Good night, Lady Hollis. I’ll see you in the morning.”

The second the doors closed, Nora and Delia Grace shared their first moment of true camaraderie. They clasped each other’s hands, jumping and squealing as if the apartments had been gifted to them.

“Can you believe this?” Delia Grace exclaimed. She grabbed my hands and pulled me back from the entry space, where the queen received her guests, to the bedroom proper. To the right of the large four-poster bed was the sweeping window that looked down upon the city and the river, and to the left along the wall was a passage to an antechamber. I knew from my few visits to the queen’s rooms that her ladies slept in that space. But along the wall behind the bed, there was another door, one I’d never been through.

Nora and Delia Grace followed in hushed awe as I pushed the heavy door open. The apartment went on and on. There were desks for writing and rooms for private meetings and, in another antechamber, a collection of armoires for my clothes.

I felt faint, like the floors were set upon the river itself, lilting with the tides.

“Delia Grace, will you walk me back to the bed?” I asked, holding out an arm. She came and grabbed it quickly, concern painting her face.

“Hollis?”

“Here.” Nora pulled back the drapes on the bed and I settled down, slowing my breathing.

“Aren’t you happy?” Delia Grace asked. “You’re getting what every girl in the kingdom wants!”

“Of course. It’s just . . .” I had to stop to slow my breathing. “It’s so much at once. I’m to entertain a queen, take all of these lessons, and move to new rooms? In a day?” I lamented. “They’ll be here tomorrow!”

“We’re here to help you,” Nora offered.

I shook my head, starting to cry. “I don’t think I want this.”

“You need sleep,” Delia Grace said before turning to Nora. “Get her shoes.”

“I don’t even have a nightgown,” I sniveled.

“I’ll go and fetch one. Just stay calm.” Nora was gone in a flash, and I was left with Delia Grace, who had moved on to the task of taking off my shoes.

There was no water in the pitcher, no fire in the hearth. Linens had been brought and candles had been lit so the room would be suitable for presentation, but the apartments weren’t quite ready to be lived in.

“Let’s go back to my room tonight,” I murmured. “We can do this in the morning.”

“No!” she insisted, pushing me back onto the bed. “The king will see it as a slight. You’ve been given the second-best lodgings in the entire palace, and you want to leave them for a handful of personal items? Have you lost your senses completely?”

I knew she was right, but it felt like I’d gone from spinning out of Delia Grace’s hands to the right hand of the throne overnight, and I did not know how to handle it.

I lay on my side as Delia Grace made short work of loosening my dress. Within a few minutes, Nora was back with a nightgown, robe, and slippers. She also had my brush and a small vase.

“I thought you’d appreciate seeing something of yours in here,” she said. “Shall I put it on the vanity?”

I gave a small nod, managing to get out a smile as she set it in place. Delia Grace sat me up as Nora pulled back the curtain to see into the antechamber. “Space for four or five, I think, should you want to go ahead and choose your ladies.”

“If it goes beyond the two of you, you can choose. But not today.”

“Nora, see if you can find some maids,” Delia Grace commanded. “I’m going to get her in bed and get the trimmings—firewood, flowers.”

“Should we go back to her room and move some more of her belongings?”

“The king said he’d do it in the morning. It can keep until then.”

They planned around me, like I wasn’t even there, like this wasn’t all happening for and because of me. And because I couldn’t bear to think of anything more for the day, I let them. The drapes were closed around my bed, making for a cozy and quiet space, but it didn’t entirely block out the sound of them moving around the apartments or the maids building a fire.

I didn’t go to sleep. But I heard when Delia Grace and Nora finally did. And that was when I found my shoes and quietly slipped out of the room.

Thirteen

BY THIS POINT IN THE night, I knew the moon would be shining through the stained-glass windows of the Great Room. I passed corners where couples whispered and giggled, and I was bowed to by guards and servants working at even this late hour.

In the Great Room, the fire from the wide hearth was down to glowing embers, and a lone servant was stoking it, getting the last bits of heat where he could. I stood in the middle of the archway, looking at the explosion of color on the floor. Nothing, of course, could match the way the colors danced in the roaring light of day, but there was something other, something almost sacred about the way they fell by moonlight. Still the same designs, the same patterns, and yet quieter, more deliberate.

“Is that you, Lady Hollis?”

I turned. The person I’d thought was a servant at the fire was actually Silas Eastoffe.

Of course he was here. In the moment when I was wondering if it would be worth abandoning my king, I ran into someone who’d done something similar to his. And who could say which of us was a better criminal?

He might be the worst person I could have come upon. Not just because he too had been tempted to the life of a traitor—tempted and succumbed—but because there was something about those blue eyes that made me think . . . I couldn’t even say what they made me think.

I tried to look dignified, as if my night robe was the same as a gown in my eyes. It was difficult under the weight of his stare. “Yes. What are you doing up at such an hour?”

He smiled. “I could ask the same of you.”

I stood taller. “I asked first.”

“You really are going to be queen, aren’t you?” he said in a teasing tone. “If you must know, someone thought it would be a good idea to make two matching pieces of metalwork for two great kings in a single day . . . Sullivan and I only stopped working about twenty minutes ago.”