The Golden Flower (#1 in the GOLDEN series) ✔

•T W E N T Y - S E V E N•

"What is wrong with you?"

Jules cringed—with that voice, Antoine sounded like their mother. The same viperish intonation, the words heavy with implications, the disdain and disappointment in each syllable.

"Nothing is wrong with me." Jules crossed one leg over the other, his copper-colored breeches creasing. He glowered at his brother, at his King. It was a dare—tempting him to yell, to sanction, to find a way to lock him up in the castle and halt his excursions.

He can try, but I can always get out.

"Everything is wrong with you! You are out of control! It needs to stop." The King, his face so youthful, so clean-shaven, seemed to harden and grow older with every heavy breath he took.

Such weakness made the Prince grimace. They were blood, they were brothers; but he didn't know the man before him, hunched in his Office throne, cheeks sullen and lips chapped. This fellow, who once had such a resemblance to their deceased father it caused most men double-takes, was someone else. A grumpy, groaning, grudge-holding boy; it irked Jules to the core. Antoine had become an unhappy monarch who'd married an atrocious French bitch and cast away the only woman who ever suffered through his moods and loved him anyway.

"I have not the slightest clue what you refer to." Prince Jules rubbed his knuckles on his crisp ebony frock coat. "You must have me confused with someone else, Majesty."

His tone would cause chaos; out of all Antoine's siblings, Jules had always been the rebellious one. Perfect Sébastien, seventeen and traveling abroad doing who-knew-what, never talked back like so. Sweet Cordelia, soon-to-be fifteen, would rather hold her breath than raise her voice in the King's presence.

Jules didn't care.

Someone has to speak up, to help Antoine see reason.

He'd taken his outbursts too far, but Sébastien used to be there to control him, scold him, remind him to bite his tongue. And he'd been away for a while. For too long. No one had expected him to keep true to his word, to not return until he was ready.

"I have refined my skills," the middle Prince had written, a few weeks past, keeping his location a mystery. "And oh! The people I have met! The ladies, the damsels, the aristocrats. Exquisite."

Jules had choked on his breakfast reading the note—Sébastien, the bookish and serious and shy boy, mingling with damsels? What had happened to him?

Antoine pounded a fist on his desk. "Are you listening to me? This is not funny."

Jules sucked his lips between his teeth as he realized he'd been laughing at the image of Sébastien trying to flirt with a woman. "I—"

"—no! No excuses! This is not some game, and you need to grow up! You are a Prince! Until Séb returns, you are the Prince." He blew out his cheeks. "It is getting harder and harder for me to conceal your nighttime adventures from court. From Mother."