“Sounds to me like you have the office all lined up for you, then. Congratulations. But why smear the name of your future wife?”
“Plans change,” Richard said. “The girl came back different?—she’s no longer the meek creature that used to blend in with the wallpaper at social functions. She holds herself like a lady and quotes the scripture of the Founder. Old Sutherland is convinced she’s ‘one of us’ now. He even lets her sit in his office and help him; would you believe it?”
Her heart plummeted. This hard, angry voice couldn’t be Richard. It might have sounded like him, but there was no way that the same man who had taken her out to the finest places in town and bought an orphanage in her name could speak about her with such derision. She was not so foolish to fancy them in love, but she had thought that he at least respected her.
“You disagree?” The first voice was neutral.
“Ofcourse, I fucking disagree,” Richard snapped. “I’ve worked with enough Virians to know that they’re a race of crude creatures who will eat their own to survive. The Founder’s manifesto doesn’t call us to make other races our equals. He calls us to take them firmly in hand, to guide them the same way a shepherd guides its flock. We don’t dress our sheep in silks and satins and then breed with them, do we?”
Heat seared her cheeks. Her head spun. Surely this must be a nightmare, a stress dream from having a limited amount of time to plan such an important party. She staggered backward, searching for support. Her hand met the bookshelf, and she braced herself against it, grateful for something solid as the world dissolved beneath her feet. But it still wasn’t far enough from the door, wasn’t far enough to protect her from Richard’s next words:
“Sutherland thinks his daughter deserves more power. And while he’s still alive, he may legally redefine the role of the viceroy’s wife entirely, just for her. What the fuck do I look like, sharing power with a Virian? She ought to be shining my shoes, not sitting and debating legislation with me.”
“If it came to it, we could try to vote him down in the House,” the first voice said. “I doubt he would go so far as to try to change succession laws, either. Why go to such extremes?”
“Because as the old man grows more addled, he becomes less predictable,” Richard said, his words audibly twisted by the scowl that must have equally marred his features. “Women’s rights have advanced in the last half a century, particularly when the law changed to allow them to own land. If Sutherland brings this to a vote, I cannot confidently say that it will die in the House. And while he might be old, he still holds a lot of sway among the Council of Lords. No, framing Poppy is the only way.”
At this, she straightened. Her cold, numb body flushed hot with indignation.Framingwhonow?She took another step toward the door.
“The smuggler we captured has been taking opium to Welkland for years,” Richard explained. “I forced him to surrender a list of his clients and accomplices on foreign shores. It won’t be difficult to add Poppy to the list, especially since hehasstopped in Cloudcliff, the closest port to Thornhaven, several times. Once Sutherland sees that his daughter will always be a Virian sympathizer, he’ll send her back to Welkland. Since we’ll be wed by then, I’ll be free to rule on my own. Once the whole scandal has passed, I’ll seek out a proper wife.”
“How can you remarry when your legal right to the office is through your marriage to Poppy?”
“Laws change,” Richard said flippantly.
“So, what’s the next step?”
“I’m going to return to the party soon, before people start looking for me. But I need you to write to your cousin in Welkland, the one who also attended Thornhaven, and get her to agree to sign a statement testifying that she saw Poppy Sutherland leave school grounds multiple times, especially on these two dates. This, plus the smuggler’s records, should be enough to damn her. I’m sure deep down, her father doubts her, too, so it shouldn’t be too hard to convince him.”
The words struck her like a kick to the ribs. Her father didn’t doubt her, did he? Poppy thought he had believed in her change. Believed inher.
But then again, she had also been foolish enough to believe that Richard cared for her as an equal. If she had been wrong about him, what else had she been wrong about? Was there anyone in this society who believed that she could be civilized, or were they all like those vicious gossips out there, racist and cruel?
She didn’t care to find out. She turned and ran from the library, sprinting into the hall.Fuck society,she thought, and a thrill ran up her spine at the foul language. What a relief, to break free of the mold?—to cast off the act. If an uncouth, uncivilized girl was all they would ever see, then she saw no reason to try to become anything else.
She skidded to a halt in the foyer. On her left, music drifted from the ballroom, an obscenely cheerful song given what a farce this whole engagement was. To her right, a warm breeze blew in from the front doors, propped open so guests could come and go with ease. Her heart slammed in her chest like a bird’s wings against cage bars.
She needed to get out. Party be damned, she couldn’t spend one more minute in this mansion.
She spun, turning her back on the ballroom, and hurried toward the front doors. The two valets outside started at the sight of her, but wisely held their tongues. She took off her earrings: genuine Welkish pearls, worth a hundred gold crowns each.
“You never saw me,” she said, pressing one into each of their hands.
“Of course, Miss Sutherland,” they said.
With that, she turned and started down the drive on foot. She didn’t know where she would go, not yet?—but it had to be anywhere but here.
• • •
Hasan had burgled homes and assassinated men twice his size, but somehow, his skill set seemed to have ended at kidnapping pampered noble daughters. Finding her had been the easy part?—even if she hadn’t been surrounded by a swarm of brownnosers and bootlickers wishing her well over her engagement, she looked just like every photograph of her he’d seen in the news. But it had taken him ages to get close to her, especially when she’d hung around her fiancé as though he’d had the same gravitational force that kept the moon trapped in the earth’s orbit. The whole time, he’d had to play a skillful game of dodging the summons of entitled Welks, hoping to avoid one of them taking the spiked drink on his tray before he could give it to Poppy.
Then that bastard Montrose had finally left the room, and he’d closed in on her like an arrow to a bull’s-eye. She’d spotted him, flagging him down, and he’d been too happy to oblige her. He’d all but put the drink in Poppy’s hand when the two of them had overheard a group of women making disparaging remarks about her.
It hadn’t shocked Hasan at all?—the comments had been tame compared to things he had heard in the past?—but Poppy had acted like she had been sucker punched. It became painfully obvious to Hasan that she had come into this party with her guard down, which was about as smart as coming to a gunfight with a butter knife.
That wasn’t what had pissed him off, though. What had really infuriated him was the way she had brushed him off, spinning on her heel and running away, leaving him standing with the spiked drink. Andthen, because things had obviously been too easy for him earlier, the woman who had made the disparaging remark had come over and snatched the drink from him. Hasan couldn’t say a word as she’d downed the whole thing in front of him.
Fuck it,he thought as the woman pressed the empty glass back into his hand.We’ll just have to do this the old-fashioned way.An involuntary pang of guilt sprang up in response to the idea of hitting a woman, but Hasan shoved it down. This was for Paranjay.
