“I will ask you this just once, Lady Ivy, then we put the matter to bed forever.”
“All right.” My voice shakes.
“Would you rather have Prince Emmett De Vere?”
I freeze, my blood sluicing in my veins. “I’m sorry?”
“I’m not ignorant of what happens within the walls of my palace. I’ve noticed an... affection between the two of you. Would you rather have him? Bram deserves a wife who is devoted to him completely. My son has a big heart. It won’t do to have it smashed by the people he loves most.”
There’s a knock at the side door closest to the throne. Queen Mor and I both pause. Prince Consort Edgar is leaning against the doorframe. He’s got a pair of wire spectacles on his nose and a book in his hand. “Just wanted to let you know breakfast has been served, darling. I didn’t mean to interrupt.” Is it a coincidence that he’s back?
“I’ll be along shortly,” she answers, and I watch Emmett’s father walk back through the door and know immediately what I have to do.
“No,” I say decisively. I excise my mind from my body. I float somewhere up on the muraled ceiling so I don’t feel the cracks in my heart so intense it’s like my ribs are breaking.
“Emmett and I are merely friends. He was only helping me get to know Bram.”
The queen looks me up and down. I’m not sure she believes me.
“As for the matter of the bargain,” I continue. “I need time to consider. May I have an hour?”
“I suppose tea is ready, and this would give me time to drink it.”She nods. “See you in an hour, Lady Ivy.”
I read in a book once that if sharks stop moving, they die. I feel like that now, like if I stop walking and consider what I’ve just done, my heart will cease to beat.
I walk down the stairs, out the door, and into the same carriage that brought me here. “Savile Row,” I direct the driver.
The footman helps me down from the carriage, his face still bloody from my scratch, but he betrays no emotion. I instruct the driver to wait. “I won’t be long.”
The tailor’s sharp scissors glide through a row of gray tweed. The shop smells of sewing machine oil and warm wool. He pauses as I walk in. “Lady Ivy, a pleasure. Your order is ready. Would you like to examine it, or should I wrap it up?”
“Wrap it up, please. Thank you.”
I’m grateful I had the foresight to commission the coat weeks ago, back on a lazy day between Viscountess Bolingbroke’s lessons. At the time, I’d pictured delivering it to Emmett as a joke, something to commemorate the end of the season.
Package in hand, I hop back into the carriage and race back to the palace. An hour isn’t long, and I have so much I need to say.
Caledonia Cottage feels like a haunted house without the six of us in it. I walk into the sitting room and can see us, like ghosts, sitting around the fire.
But I am alone now, and I have to be strong.
There’s a fountain pen and parchment on a small writing desk by the window. I sit down in the hard wooden chair, dip the metal nib into the dark ink, and drag it across the page.
I can’t make anything better. I only hope I can make him understand.
Tears stream down my face and neck and into the collar of my dress as I write, but I don’t stop to brush them away. I don’t have time.
When I am done, I fold the letter and slip it under the ribbon of the box from the tailor.
With only minutes left to spare, I race back across the main palace, shove the box at a footman, and ask that it be delivered to Emmett. I’m running, a clumsy escape on heavy feet. But it will be a bloodless goodbye.
There was never going to be another end to our story. I can see that now.
I burst back into the throne room, hunched over, my hands on my knees, gasping.
“Well,” the queen asks. “What have you decided?”
I brush a sweaty lock of hair off my forehead and take the deepest breath I can muster. “I want you to make me forget Prince Emmett.”
