“The first order of business is to have Lady Alana dressed for supper. Your wishes are secondary,” Winnie scolded, then went over to the vanity. “My lady, I say we change out your sleeves and stomacher, but the dress remains. As for your hair, let us clean it up from that long ride, shall we?”
“Oh, Winnie,” I sighed. “Allow her ladyship to get comfortable. Go on and seek out the master tailor, Florence.”
Florence nodded appreciatively, giving Winnie a wide berth as she left the room. Winnie scoffed and began unpinning my hair. She brushed through it, my curls loosening into puffy, unkempt strands. Then she tamed it with oil, pulling it back into a high updo. Once it was set, she reached for the makeup.
I groaned, stopping her hand. “Must we?”
“Hadria has spoiled you,” Winnie replied. She once again made an attempt to paint my face, but I leaned back in my seat.
“I just saw the queen in men’s clothing, participating in a hunt with very little in the way of company—two men lagging far behind, and a single lady-in-waiting,” I justified, standing up. “I will not wear it today. Should anyone speak against my fashions, I’ll handle them.”
Winnie glowered, putting down the cream and brush. “Fine.”
Reeling with victory, I stood with my arms out while Winnie made a quick effort of changing the sleeves, working faster as her stomach growled. Once I was freshened up, we exited my bedchambers.
Curiously, there was no sign of Quinn at the door. Winnie clicked her tongue, then marched over to his door and knocked. When no answer came, she tried the handle, only to find it locked.
I shrugged. Just as we turned to go to the dining hall, though, he emerged, an opened letter still in his hand and a troubled expression on his face.
“Forgive me,” he said, quickly folding the parchment and tucking it away. “I was attending to correspondence.”
“Ooh? Did the doting Sofia Costa follow you from home?” Winnie teased.
“My mother is unwell.”
My chest tightened at the flatness in his voice. I exchanged a look with Winnie.
“I-I’m sorry, my lord,” she said.
The viscount softened with a sigh, motioning for us to start walking. He took my other side, distancing himself from Winnie. “My mother’s been in and out of sickness my whole life. That’s why I was sent to Pontarena as a child; she couldn’t mother me, and my father was too busy handling affairs of the state. It’s hardly news, but just the same, I cannot rest easy.”
My heart broke for him. I’d never lost anyone, though I had only two people to lose before coming to Castle Altaigne. The few times my mother or father had ever fallen ill, it was a grave concern. For his mother to be sick for that long was unimaginable.
Quinn turned toward me. I smiled weakly, brows pinched with sympathy.
“In my early memories of her, she was always fatigued,” Quinn went on, made more pliable by the gentle display. As we reached the stairs, he took the lead, speaking over his shoulder. “She’d get headaches that would make her highly irritable. It made being a child around her rather difficult. Then she…well, perhaps I shouldn’t.”
“Go on, sweet Quinn. You can always trust us with the matters of your heart,” Winnie said, playing nice so that he’d indulge her in more details. It might’ve swayed him away from continuing, but he was clearly too sad to read further into her words.
“Well, she lost a child when I was very small. Too young to know if it was to be a brother or a sister to me,” Quinn confessed, the darkness as clear in his voice as it was in his eyes. I reached out uncertainly, hesitating as my fingers grazed the cloth of his coat. “And another, years after that. A sister…Juliana Navarro. She was especially sad then, and distant.”Juliana.Such a pretty name.
I wasn’t sure why, but I prodded him on the shoulder, bringing him to a halt. He turned, looking up at me from the lower stairs, and I pointed to the letter tucked away in his coat. He seemed uncertain, then shook his head.
“It’s in Hadrian,” he said. “And even if you could read it…well, she’s seen a number of apothecaries over the years. I believe she’s beyond the point of second opinions.”
It hurt my pride, but I nodded with understanding. Then I stopped, my ears registering the sound of some commotion from the dining hall.
Quinn and Winnie heard it, too: masculine shouts, followed by the clatter of metal against stone. We exchanged glances before hurrying toward the dining hall, where we found Percy in the midst of a tirade, facing down a composed Nicolas.
“You cannot!” Percy shouted, ignoring the three of us as we entered and carefully stood against the wall. Quinn put a hand on the hilt of his sword, just in case. “Those lands were taken from me—from myfather—given to that Hadrian pig! Must you insult me further, cousin?”
“The canal will allow usallto prosper,” Nicolas replied calmly, not once removing his eyes from the man. All familial trust was long extinguished between them, if it ever existed to begin with. “As it stands, trade moves around us, but if we construct a canal, we can tax the ships that move through it.”
“Yet when my father wanted to build a canal, King Elias denied him the right! Too many tensions with your beloved Hadria!” Percy shouted, turning on his heel to throw his arms out in spectacle. He wanted everyone to watch, from the nobles in the room to the servants prying from the hall. “Where exactly do your loyalties lie, Prince Nicolas? Does my own cousin believe that this fat foreign lord should be able to—”
“Lord Marius is not a foreigner, cousin.He is a loyal servant of Antier, a countryman of honor. You will recall that it washisfather who prevented a battle onyourformer land, who served my father the King with devotion well before the merger took place.” Nicolas took a breath, but it did little to calm his rising temper. “The tax revenue Lord Marius proposes would fund a number of undertakings for our country. A year’s worth of such income would provide for our entire navy; it would help rebuild the villages lost to last year’s floods and restart the farms that were wiped from the map! You dare question my patriotism and deny our citizens their next meal? Have you forgotten how famine has ravaged the countryside, cousin? Perhaps I should have you take a holiday in the north!”
Famine.The word echoed in my mind, drowning out the rest of Nicolas’ rant. I’d been so consumed with court that I’d forgotten there was a kingdom beyond these walls, one that was apparently dying. I remembered hunger like an old friend who came for visitsin the dead of winter, when crops wouldn’t take and my family relied on illegal hunting and preserved foods to survive. How many were experiencing that now, while I carelessly dined on multicourse meals?
