The group chuckled knowingly, and Evelyne took a moment to observe them through her own lens.
She had grown up watching them speak in hushed tones behind their fans, sipping their wine as they grumbled about their marriages. While the knowledge passed from father to son. The fact that she had been allowed into certain rooms, taught certain things, didn’t mean she’d ever been treated as an equal.
Lady Vivienne fanned herself lazily. “Honestly, if Catriona were born a man, she’d be running this court by now.”
Catriona laughed, lifting her glass. “Please, I already do. The men just haven’t noticed yet.”
The women laughed, a ripple of amusement and something sharper beneath it. Vivienne leaned toward Evelyne, eyes glinting. “Perhaps when you wear the crown, Princess, you’ll fix all that. Change a few rules for the rest of us.”
Evelyne smiled, matching their tone. “I’ll add it to my schedule.”
More laughter, light and knowing. But as it faded, the thought lingered.
She glanced at Catriona—sharp eyes, sharper mind. She could have run a council better than half the men at court, but she never would. None of them would.
They had no freedom to choose their work or travel alone or marry on their own terms. They were praised for silence and for bearing sons. For standing still.
And Evelyne wasn’t sure she had the power to change that either. Even as Empress of a neighboring kingdom, her father would never bend.
But maybe Thalen would. Maybe, if he remembered.
And maybe she could do more than endure. Maybe she could leave behind something that mattered.
The conversation among the ladies-in-waiting continued, flowing effortlessly from one subject to another. Evelyne took another sip of her wine, nodding politely at the appropriate moments, while her eyes searched the room.
It didn’t take long to find him.
Alaric, poor thing, was surrounded by a group of older men, likely enduring yet another round of questions about trade agreements and wedding contracts. One of them was gesturing wildly, a goblet of wine sloshing dangerously close to Alaric’s robes.
He caught her gaze across the ballroom. His expression was a perfect mask of suffering. It was so utterly pitiful, so genuinely exasperated, that Evelyne felt a laugh bubble up before she could stop it. She suppressed it with a delicate cough behind her fan, but the corners of her lips twitched nonetheless.
“Oh, my dear, you’re smiling. Have we said something particularly amusing?” Lady Vivienne’s voice, as always, was far too sharp to be casual.
Evelyne lowered her fan slightly and shook her head. “Not at all. Please, continue.”
And continue they did.
“I was just saying,” Lady Catriona quipped, idly swirling the wine in her goblet, “that there is no greater betrayal than a husband who snores through his own marital duties.”
“You should count yourself fortunate,” Lady Isabeau scoffed. “Mine has the stamina of a farm horse, and I assure you; it is not a compliment. I have spent half my marriage either with child or recovering from being with child just to buy myself a little respite.”
Another wave of laughter rippled through the group.
Evelyne was not ignorant. She knew what would be expected of her. The act itself was a duty, an obligation that came with marriage. But beyond that she had only books to rely on. The ones hidden beneath more respectable tomes on diplomacy and history. And books, as much as she adored them, were not always to be trusted.
She had never been kissed. Never touched by anyone but herself.
Not because she didn’t want to be.
But because she couldn’t. Because she wasn’t supposed to. Her body had belonged to duty first. She was still what they calledpure—as if desire diminished a woman’s worth. She hated that word.
A burst of laughter from the ladies-in-waiting snapped her back to reality. Her gaze flickered sideways, drawn back to Alaric.
He was laughing at something one of the nobles had said, head tilted slightly, a half-smile playing at his mouth. His hair had slipped forward again, refusing to obey the tidy style the attendants insisted on. He gestured as he talked, and those hands... he held a goblet in one hand in a way that should not have looked as good as it did.
Well. He might have annoyed her, arrived at the worst possible time, and upended half her peace—but she wasn’t blind.
Clearly, her mind hadn’t been functioning properly—only Evelyne could follow an impromptu investigation intoher almost-husband’s murder with a bout of completely inappropriate lusting for her future one.
