That ungrateful brat.
How dare that spoiled child run from court and abandon those she called family? Those she claimed to care for, including the sickened, now dead, King?
It didn't surprise Clémentine to see the Duchess turn tail and flee, but not that night. Not after all the arrangements she'd made and the meetings she'd attended to secure her a decent match following Antoine's rejection.
She'd expected her to sneak out later, after encountering her intended, after realizing how serious the situation was.
Clémentine's eyes burned, filling with sticky, spicy tears that chunked at her lash-line. She'd been so composed, so put-together at the Ball, but upon finding her husband deceased, all her resolve and strength filtered out.
Once the lead physician uttered the official declaration—the King of Totresia is dead—it became real, too real. As lumps bulged in her throat, she ordered soldiers to Torrinni Chapel to rise the clergy, ring the bells. She dismissed her maids and ladies, assuring them she would be fine, and needed isolation.
So, lower lip quivering, stomach churning, she whisked into her chambers, where lavender and floral perfumes still permeated the air from earlier. A gentle glow emanated from the hearth before which she'd stood hours before Edouard's death, before the Ball, pondering her options, evaluating her words.
To interfere and break their engagement? Or to leave it alone?
When Edouard's condition worsened, she had to act in haste.
She drew her curtains, halting moonlight from pouring in. With a trembling sigh, she sank into the chaise before the fireplace to wait; wait to wake from the nightmare she'd been living in. Wait to throw aside the toxic layers weighing her down. To accept her plot taking form, and all her schemes amounting to the final climax; one that wounded her more than anticipated.
Edouard wasn't supposed to die. Not him—not her pillar, her core, her stability. Yes, they argued more than they made love, and yes, they disagreed on everything; but she loved him. With every fiber of her being and every ounce of her soul, she loved him. But amidst her designs, while she scurried about planning, operating in secret to conduct her deals for Totresian peace, she lost him.
She hiccuped, recalling the fragile shell of a man he'd transformed into, defeated by the strange sickness that ailed him. In less than twenty-four hours, he went from his regal, respected self, to a tiny, frail thing wriggling about in sweat-drenched sheets. And the lead physician's hushed accusations—foul-play from someone in Edouard's staff—never left the confines of her mind.
It couldn't be. His subjects revered him, his men traveled across Europe at his behest, his squires and pages would die for him. Who, if anyone, would poison her departed husband's food or wine? Who would dare?
One of her handmaidens checked on her halfway through the night, though she had no clue who sent them.
She remained focused on the fire but croaked a desperate order. "Anyone who came in contact with Edouard, who had access to his food: interrogate them."
The young woman gave a faint "Yes, Majesty" in reply, and covered the Queen with the velvet throw from her bed. The one that smelled like him, his pine and cigar scent that always made her smile.
It only caused her to weep harder, to dread having to tell her sons and daughter that their father had departed the world.
His ultimate words—"Do what you must."
I will repeat those to no one.
She took the small sentence with the utmost seriousness, without knowing it would be his last. After he uttered it, she convened with Antoine, who was erratic, pacing in his quarters, refusing to attend the Ball if his father was ill. She warned him, convinced him. Together, they pretended all was well and let the festivities go on as planned.
Clémentine fixed on the blazing fire-light, unsure if she wanted the truth; to understand if Edouard died of natural causes, or if someone poisoned him. She did want to catch and imprison the one who put them in this situation; the one who caused distress and despair with her every breath. The one whose presence at court made noblemen of ancient ancestry uneasy and likely prompted them to conspire.
Marguerite.
The golden-haired Duchess who ruined Clémentine's life near eighteen years ago by surviving a carriage wreck. By wrapping her tiny fingers around Edouard's heart, stealing his soul, captivating him in ways their actual children couldn't.
As time passed, angry that her King preferred to spoil Marguerite and not his sons, Clémentine dug. For what, she wasn't sure—secrets, weapons, anything she could use to sway Edouard into sending the Duchess away, to a real foster home.
What she found sent her reeling, screaming into her pillows, scribbling enraged letters to verify her sources. She told no one in Totresia—not even him—what she'd uncovered.
I swore I would never divulge it to anyone.
When pregnant for the fourth instance, Clémentine had had enough. She urged, beseeched her spouse—the Duchess had to go, and leave the royal family alone. She had no business tutoring with Antoine, spending mornings and afternoons and evenings with Antoine, ogling Antoine with tenderness and affection.
She cannot marry into our family—not her.
At the memory replaying in her head, she clutched the blanket closer, shuddering at her dearest and his dejected features, his exhausted breaths.
"Stop the madness," she told him, as he lay in his perspiration-coated blankets, his eyes milky, saliva and blood dribbling from his mouth. She hated to take advantage of his vulnerable state, but it was then or never; persuading him hours before the Masquerade was her only alternative. "Promise Antoine to someone else, someone better suited for a Totresian crown. Better suited for royalty; able to secure alliances for our kingdom."
"Do what you must."
So, she did. He gave her the nudge she required. For the sake of their legacy, for the sake of the real daughter he often ignored, she interfered.
Thinking of Cordelia sent stinging shivers down her spine. The Princess, the forgotten girl who spent little to no time with Edouard, because of her. It wasn't fair—Cordelia needed her father, needed attention from him, and he died before expressing any pride at the woman she was becoming. He preferred to waste his affection on a child he never should have kept so close.
As she grew, Duchess Marguerite developed a tongue for exquisite words and a penchant for luxury; a desire to wear a crown. She became comfortable—too much so for Clémentine.
"Find her," she growled into the fire, clenching the covers so hard her hands trembled.
"Your Majesty?"
The voice, so faint yet so sudden, startled Clémentine from her rage. She'd been glancing into the flames for too long and rubbed her eyelids to yank herself back to the real world. "What?" She tipped her head to find her favorite lady, her handmaiden, her spy, curtsying a few feet away. "Oh, Mary... you... you cannot call me that anymore."
Mary winced. "Your Grace, then?" She lifted from her curtsy, her violet velvet skirts swishing over the floor. A young thing in her twenties, with a dark complexion and bright, all-seeing eyes, Mary was a treasure among Clémentine's staff, and a sly serpent who snuck about gathering information for her. "What is it you need of me? I have no news, if that is what you summoned me for. The rain is too perilous for a full patrol."
"I summoned you?" Clémentine leaned into the cushions, prying through her memory for the moment she'd rang for her preferred handmaiden. "Oh, well, since you are here, I wish to send you on a mission, while they search the town and the surrounding cities."
Mary wandered closer and kneeled. "Anything, Maj—Your Grace."
Clémentine got lost in the woman's heaps of raven curls as they unfurled past her cheeks and spilled over her shoulders. "I have had much time to think, and I want you to go to Limesdale."
"Limesdale?" Mary blinked. "The Vidame's home?"
Clémentine tapped her chin with her fingertips. "No, the cabin I told you about, in the outskirts, the forest." Mary acquiesced. "The girl I bought years ago, the one I did not want in my service here: fetch her."
"The girl..." Mary's brows laced together. "Ah, that girl. The servant the Vidame sought to get rid of and harm, but changed his mind?"
Lips pursing, Clémentine sat up. "Take her to the Academy."
Lashes batting so fast they made Clémentine dizzy, Mary stilled. "The Totresian Royal Academy for Noble Girls?"
"Yes." Squinting, Clémentine waited for the questions; for the rebuttals other women might have dared.
Unlike the Queen's regular maidens, Mary was less hesitant, more used to the woman's capricious nature. "You want me to go, not one of the guards?"
Clémentine scowled at her. "The guards are to continue searching for that damned, disrespectful Duchess." Mary's jaw grew heavy and she dipped her head, but Clémentine reached out and seized her chin. "You may pluck a few to escort you. But I trust no one but you, Mary. Your discretion is what I value most."
Mary inhaled a lengthy breath, then got to her feet. "As you wish, Your Grace."
"I need that girl at the school as soon as possible. She will serve a particular purpose in the next few years. You will be the liaison between her and I."
The Queen smacked her lips; and Mary, reading her mind, hastened to the pitcher of tepid water near the adjoining door to the Parlor.
"Liaison," she said, pouring the liquid into a silver goblet, "because you plan to contain someone at the Academy, under her watch?"
Clémentine would have scolded anyone else presuming to be so bold, but not Mary. Her sharp wit always impressed the Queen; and as the bastard daughter of an ambassador to southern countries, she spoke with equal reverence to most noblewomen. She enjoyed her, more so than she did Alice.
She accepted the goblet as the exotic maiden handed it to her and guzzled down a few sips. "I do not want Antoine or his future bride aware of anything. The funeral..." She choked, and Mary lunged over, crouched, and wrapped her palms over the Queen's knees. "The funeral will take place soon, and I would like you back by then, but safety first. This mission... that girl..."
"She will be in my care, Your Grace. I swear it."
After a few prayers together, Clémentine gave Mary a brief description—gray eyes, ebony hair, too poised for a servant—and sent her off.
The moment the door closed, she returned to the flames, tears pouring out like violent waterfalls.
Her husband. Her dearest. The man she adored for nineteen years left her to fend for herself, for their children. Left her to oversee Totresia and its welfare, to supervise his plans for the country. To make sure Antoine followed in his footsteps without a nagging Duchess at his side.
He abandoned her to ensure Sébastien continued his reading, to end Jules' bad habits—that he thought she knew nothing of—and to raise Cordelia from her shyness.
Pounding one fist on the armchair, setting the other over her mouth to muffle her squeals, she rocked back and forth, queasy with dread. Yearning to scream, to kick and yelp until her voice disappeared and her body was sore. A nauseating mix of misery and fury joined in her gut.
"That cruel thing!"
She recalled Marguerite's golden gown as she ran; the expensive silk used to weave it, the diamonds sprinkling down its bodice. Without a shred of decency, of gratitude, the selfish child flitted through the Ballroom doors before Clémentine could order them closed. She shimmied down the halls, farther and farther from reach. Gone.
"Did she think I would permit her to leave like that? To destroy us, our reputation?" She pressed the covers against her torso, glaring at the flickering oranges and reds and yellows in front of her as if they were the Duchess she despised. "I had plans for her. All set in motion. Someone who would wed her, take her away at my command, when I decided it. Drag her off so she would never d-disturb my peace again."
She glowered at the portrait of her husband above the hearth, blinking to avoid another surge of sobs.
Edouard didn't like it, and he fought her on it, but Clémentine had found the perfect suitor for Marguerite. In place of their prized son. Someone of high praise and whose home was far away.
"She will marry Antoine, and that is that!" the King had roared in one of their heated arguments, a few weeks ago, after learning her idea.
His booming timbre still echoed in her scalp, a refusal that bruised her to the core.
Marguerite.
She scoffed—if that unappreciative bitch couldn't have Antoine and Totresia at her feet, she wouldn't stay, would she?
No, she stole a horse, traumatized the Stable-master, and fled from Torrinni.
"I should have never let her attend that stupid Masquerade!" She sucked her lips between her teeth, and her nose started running. "Never heeded Edouard's words. I should have fought him on it! I knew what was best, I knew he—"
Her sobs spewed out, sending her to her knees. The fire's warmth caressed her cheeks, filling her with momentary comfort; but with each lick of heat she cried more. She prayed for all her tears to erupt now, to break free, to dry—so that she may never cry again. Never show weakness, never let an eighteen-year-old fraud stomp all over her plans.
They would find Marguerite and lock her in that damned Academy, where the entire staff belonged to Clémentine. Where she'd be monitored, observed; alone, afraid, and away from her beloved. Punished for her defiance, for daring to think if she played sweet and coy, all would bow to her.
She pushed me one time too many.
By fading into the atmosphere as she chose to, Marguerite embarrassed the royal household at the Masquerade. Aristocrats scrutinized Clémentine, hounded her with their concerns, worries of what the Duchess of Torrinni would do, where she'd go, why she left. With Edouard's sickness still under wraps, and Antoine too busy drowning in Adelaide's attention, Clémentine took the reins, as the King wanted her to. She was the head of the family, the rope binding them together.
Edouard's last breath chipped at that rope, broke it, burned it.
As her weeping slowed, she recalled her children visiting her as dawn approached; after she told her crew to warn them of their father's demise.
Antoine came first, still in his Ball garb, tumbling chestnut tresses cloaking his expression—but she knew he was furious.
"Father is dead? You did not think to tell me yourself—no, you send your servants to recover me, instead? When did you find out?" If sorrow sloshed somewhere inside, he didn't show it, ripe with rage at his announcement at the party.
She struggled to glance at his red-rimmed eyes. "A few hours ago, I... son, please, understand my distress, I—"
"—he is gone, and for all I know, he died while we danced at the Masquerade, and you..." He pivoted from her, his spine tensing. "How could you, Mother?"
She imagined herself springing from her chair to slap him, but she couldn't move, too weak to retaliate. She only listened as he stormed about, breaking pots, shredding papers, cursing in low grunts that she couldn't understand. Soon, he slithered out, and his footsteps banged down the hall until he reached his father's quarters.
Then came Sébastien and Jules. The former's ebony locks stuck up with static, and he hunched, his slippers turned inward as he bowed to his mother. "Is he... can we... see him?"
She bit the insides of her cheeks to not wail. "In his rooms, son."
His robe gliding down his upper arm, Jules touched her hand, but said nothing. Her last boy, her precious, albeit frivolous, gallant Prince. He kept his palm atop hers for what felt like forever, before Sébastien tugged him off to Edouard's chambers.
Cordelia—she heard her weeps, sensed her embrace when she burst into Clémentine's room and sobbed in her lap.
That recollection tipped Clémentine over the edge again, and she shot up. "How dare you?" She gaped at the ceiling, at the shadows dancing on the plaster, taunting her, tormenting her. "How dare you die, Edouard? You, the vibrant, the perfect, the wonderful man I love, you—" She squeezed her eyes shut, tightening her fists as she lowered onto the cushions. "The only thing keeping us together, united."
That wretched witch. I blame her, always.
She heaved the fur blanket up and over herself as she pulled her knees to her chest. The satin of her night-gown brushed against her bare legs, and she sighed, sucking in her grief once more.
The darkness in her heart grew, and the obscurity dampening her soul expanded. Never again would she love a man. Never would she trust any woman near her sons. Never would she allow anyone close enough to rip her family apart.
"They had better gether."
•••