A Jewel for Royals

Angelica knew most of them. She made a point of knowing what people said about her so that she could have revenge for the slight later.

“They say that you’re vain and you’re cruel. That you’ve ruined people just for speaking to you in the wrong tone, and arranged for rivals to be shipped off with a mark of indenture tattooed on them where it wasn’t before. You think you deserve mercy?”

“Those are lies,” Angelica said. “They’re – ”

“I don’t much care either way.” He pulled her over toward the parapet. “The Dowager has given me my orders.”

“And what will she do when you’ve fulfilled them?” Angelica demanded. “Do you think she’ll let you live? If the Assembly were to find out that she murdered a noblewoman, she’d be deposed.”

The big man shrugged. “I’ve killed for her before.”

He said it as though it was nothing, and Angelica knew then that she was going to die. Whatever she said, whatever she tried, this man was going to murder her. By the look of it, he was going to enjoy it as well.

He pushed Angelica back toward the edge, and she knew it would just be moments before she fell. Inexplicably, she found herself thinking about Sebastian, and the thoughts weren’t the hate-filled ones they should have been, given the way he’d abandoned her. Angelica couldn’t understand why that would be the case, when he was nothing but the man she’d targeted as a husband to further her position, a man she’d been prepared to lure into bed with a sleeping powder…

An idea came to her. It was a desperate one, but right then, everything was desperate.

“I could offer you something more valuable than money,” Angelica said. “Something better.”

The guard laughed, but even so, he paused. “What?”

Angelica reached down to her belt, drawing out the small snuff box of sedative, lifting it as if it were the most precious thing in the world. The guard let her, staring almost entranced as he tried to work out what it was. Very delicately, Angelica opened the box.

“What is it?” the guard demanded. “It looks like – ”

Angelica blew sharply, sending a scattering of powder into his face as he gasped. She cut left as he grabbed for her, hoping to dodge past while he was still dealing with the powder in his eyes. One meaty hand clamped on her arm, and the two of them pressed back toward the edge of the palace’s roof.

Angelica didn’t know what effect the sedative would have. It had worked quickly whenever she’d used it, but it was normally a thing of small doses and minor effects. How much would such a large dose do to a man that size, and would she have enough time before it happened? Already, Angelica could feel the edge of the roof against her back, the sky visible as the big man pushed at her.

“I’ll kill you!” the guard bellowed, and the best Angelica could say about it was that his words came out slightly slurred. Was his grip weakening? Was the pressure pushing her back any less?

She was tilted back so much now that she could see the ground below her, and a scattering of servants and nobles. Another second, and she would be falling, to crash to the cobbles of the courtyard and smash as surely as a dropped goblet.

In that second, Angelica felt the guard’s grip weaken. Not much, but enough for her to twist and slip by him, putting him with his back to the empty sky.

“You should have taken the money,” she said, and charged forward, shoving with all her might. The guard teetered on the edge for a second, then toppled back, his arms flailing at the air.

Not just the air. One managed to catch at her, and Angelica found herself jerked forward, to the edge and over it. She screamed, grabbing for anything she could find. Her fingers found a piece of stonework, lost their grip, and then found it again while the guard continued to tumble below her. Angelica looked down just long enough to follow his fall to the ground. She felt a brief moment of satisfaction as he hit, quickly replaced by the terror that came from hanging from the side of the castle.

Angelica scrabbled for handholds, trying to find something more to hold onto. Her feet hung in thin air for a moment, then managed to find purchase on the rough sides of a stone-wrought heraldic shield. Angelica noted with faint amusement that it was the royal crest, but also couldn’t help feeling relief at the fact it was there. Without it, she would undoubtedly now be as dead as the Dowager wished her to be.

The climb back up onto the roof seemed to take forever, Angelica’s muscles burning with the unexpected effort. Below, she could hear screams now, as people started to gather around the fallen guard. No doubt, some of them would be looking up, seeing her as she made it back onto the roof, toppling over and lying there, breathing hard.

“Get up,” she told herself. “You’re dead if you stay here. Get up.”

She forced herself to her feet, trying to think. The Dowager had tried to kill her. The obvious thing to do was run, because who could stand up to the Dowager? She needed to find a way out of the palace, perhaps make it to the docks and set off for her family’s lands overseas. That or sneak out through one of the city’s smaller routes, avoiding any watchers that had been set and making it out into the country. Her family was powerful, with the kind of friends who could raise questions in the Assembly of Nobles over this, who would —

“They’ll do what the Dowager tells them,” Angelica told herself. If they acted at all, it would be so slowly that she would undoubtedly be murdered in the meantime. The best she could hope for was to run and keep running, never being safe, never being at the heart of things again. It was an unacceptable solution to it all.

Which brought her back to her earlier question: who could stand up to the Dowager?

Angelica dusted herself off carefully, rearranging her hair as neatly as possible as she nodded to herself. This plan was… dangerous, yes. Unpleasant, almost certainly. But it was the best chance that she had.

While the people below shouted, she set off at a run back through the palace.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Sebastian’s eyes were starting to get used to the near dark of his cell, the damp, even the stench of it. He was starting to adjust to the faint gurgle of water somewhere in the distance and the sound of people coming and going beyond. That was probably a bad sign. There were some places that no one should get used to.

The cell was small, just a few feet on each side, with a front of iron bars, fastened with a solid lock. This was not some fine tower prison, where a man’s family could pay for his upkeep in style until the time finally came for him to lose his head. This was the kind of place a man might be thrown into for the world to forget him.

“And if I’m forgotten,” Sebastian whispered, “Rupert gets the crown.”

That had to be what this was about. Sebastian had no doubt about that part. If his brother made him disappear, if he made it look as though Sebastian had run off never to return, then Rupert would become the heir to the throne by default. The fact that he hadn’t killed Sebastian yet suggested that might be enough for him; that he might release Sebastian once he had what he wanted.

“Or it might just mean he wants to take his time about killing me,” Sebastian said.

He couldn’t hear other voices in the near dark at the moment, although from time to time they drifted in from further away. Sebastian suspected that there were other cells down here, maybe other prisoners. Wherever here was. That was actually a question worth thinking about. If they were beneath the palace somewhere, then there was a chance that Sebastian could attract enough attention to get help. If they were somewhere else in the city… well, it would depend on where they were, but Sebastian would find a way to get help.

He tried to think about the journey that they’d taken to get there, but it was impossible to say for certain. Not the palace, he guessed now. Even Rupert wouldn’t be arrogant enough to stow Sebastian there. His brother, his family, had enough money that he could have bought other property around the city. Some extra house kept for liaisons or murky business.

“Probably both, knowing Rupert,” Sebastian said.

“Shut up, you,” a voice said. A figure came out of the dark: a nondescript man who served as one of his jailers. The man only came down a couple of times a day, bringing brackish water and stale bread. Now, he rattled a wooden club against the bars of Sebastian’s cell, making him start at the sudden noise after so long in the silence.

“You know who I am,” Sebastian said. “I’m Rupert’s brother, the Dowager’s younger son.” He gripped the bars. “She will kill anyone involved in harming her sons. You know that, you aren’t an idiot. Your only chance to survive right now is to be the one who lets me go.”

Sebastian didn’t like making the threat. It was the kind of thing his brother might have done, but it was also no more than the truth. His mother would tear Ashton apart looking for him if she thought that he’d been taken, and when she found him, anyone who had harmed him would die for it. When it came to her family, his mother was every inch the cruel, implacable monarch people believed.

“That only matters if she finds out,” the guard said, swatting at Sebastian’s hands almost casually with the club. Sebastian grimaced in pain, but managed to grab hold of the club, pulling the other man closer, his hands going to his belt.

It wasn’t a good strategy. After all, the other man was armed, and Sebastian was trapped in a confined cell, without the ability to get around him, or avoid him. The guard struck him with his free hand, then jabbed him in the gut with his club. Sebastian felt the air rushing out of him. He went down to his knees.

“Arrogant nobles,” the man snapped, spitting on the floor beside Sebastian. “Think that everything will work out for them, whatever they try. Well, it won’t. Your mother won’t come for you, you’re not getting out of here, and I’ll be standing right there when your brother decides to start cutting bits off you.”

He hit Sebastian again with the club, then backed away into the dark. Sebastian heard the sound of a bolt.

He didn’t mind the pain then, even though it ran across his ribs like fire. He didn’t care about himself, or what Rupert might do, or what might be happening now to let all this take place. Even like this, Sebastian found his thoughts turning to Sophia, and Ishjemme, and his child.

How far along would her pregnancy be by now? Far enough that it would be visible; far enough that it wouldn’t be so long until their child was born. Sebastian couldn’t stand the thought that he might miss that moment, might miss hearing their child’s first cries in the cold air of the dukedom. He couldn’t stand the thought that he wasn’t with Sophia now, standing by her side and protecting her from whatever harm the world tried to throw at her. He had no doubt that, once they learned that she lived, whoever had tried to kill her would make the attempt again. Sebastian needed to be there to stop it, whatever it took.

“Which is why,” he said, taking out a key that he’d snatched from the guard’s belt, “I need to escape.”

Sebastian moved slowly and carefully, not wanting to make any more noise than he had to. He fit the key into the lock and managed to turn it, the grating sound of metal on metal seeming far too loud. The creak of the cell door was louder, sounding like it should summon guards at any moment.

Even so, Sebastian kept going. He edged from the cell, into the corridor beyond it. It was a short, cramped, dark corridor which, instead of a door at the end, had barrels, stacked up as if to hide the entrance to it. There were other cells too, set in a line, although for the moment at least, they were empty. Sebastian was grateful for that. He wasn’t sure that he could escape himself without trying to take others with him.

Sebastian went to move the boxes and found that some of them were already set on a small wheeled cart, easy to push out of the way. It wasn’t quite a secret door, but it served almost the same purpose. Sebastian pushed it aside, and now he could see that the corridor that held his cell was set back from a wide, vaulted cellar, lit with candles. Even the light from those was enough to sting his eyes after the dark.