Conditional Covenant
Two days after the fitting, Poppy secured permission from her parents to visit Catherine under the pretext of seeking marital advice. Thoroughly satisfied that she was making efforts to accept her fate, her parents agreed readily.
Catherine and Theodore ushered her in, calling for iced lemonade and sweets. As they waited for the refreshments, Catherine’s anxious gaze roved over Poppy, darting from the scab on her thumb to the pink line of new skin across her throat. “You must have been terrified,” she fretted. “Poor thing.”
“It was... unpleasant,” she said. She recalled her days in the cell, the slow pressure of fear building in her chest, to the blank terror of the fire and blood of the night at the museum, to the desperate panic when Hasan’s knife had bitten against her thumb. All of these things had been horrifying, but the original danger still remained: a future bound to Richard Montrose.
Catherine took Poppy’s hand, running the tip of her finger below the wound on the base of her thumb. “The Jackal must be a real brute.”
The corner of Poppy’s mouth turned up. “He was,” she said, “and I told him so too. Several times.”
But when she thought about it?—reallythought about it?—the wounds Hasan had inflicted on her were transactional, blood for his brother. Richard’s hatred was violent and personal. Only one of the two men was a monster, and it wasn’t the one who had abducted her.
“Well, I’m glad you’re safe now.” Theodore sighed. “The last few weeks have been tense, to say the least.”
Poppy looked down at her lap. “I fear that your relief may be premature.”
Theodore and Catherine exchanged a look. “What do you mean?” Catherine asked.
Here was the part she had been dreading: telling Catherine about Richard’s plan. She knew her friend would believe her?—after all, she had tried to warn her off him from the beginning. What she feared was being blamed for her predicament. She would take responsibility for pursuing Richard, but his violent racism could not be laid at her feet.
“Richard plans to betray me, once we’re married,” Poppy said.
Both of them gaped. Whatever they had thought she was going to say, it clearly wasn’t that. Without mincing words, she told Catherine and Theodore exactly what she had overheard the night of the engagement party. “And in case you think I misunderstood, he all but admitted it to me in the car ride on the way home.”
“I believe you,” Catherine said. “In a way, this is my fault?—if I had been more adamant, perhaps I could have prevented you from getting tangled in all this.”
“No, I would have found some other way to pursue him?—which is one of the reasons my parents, and the rest of society, would likely never believe me. I should have listened to you. But I need to get out of this engagement. I cannot allow Richard to become viceroy.”
“What are you planning to do?” Catherine asked.
Poppy bit her cheek, holding back her next words. But if she could not voice her ambitions to her best friend, the one person on this island that she trusted, then she might as well not do this at all. “Ihave to succeed my father, not him.”
Poppy saw Theodore shoot a glance at Catherine. Catherine didn’t return his look, but she hadn’t been able to stop her eyebrows from shooting up her forehead. Poppy held her breath. How her best friend responded now would change the course of her life.
“Poppy, there’s never been a vicereine,” Catherine said cautiously.
“I’m aware.”
Catherine chewed her lip. “Do not think me insensitive,” she said, “but why not just break off your engagement, weather the storm, and marry someone else? Someone you trust to become viceroy instead?”
“I cannot trust that the same thing wouldn’t happen again,” Poppy said. An edge of bitterness laced her words. “I doubt there is a single man in the nobility who would court me if not for my father’s station.”
Theodore put up one hand. “To be clear, you intend to put yourself next in the line of succession as a single woman, thus thwarting any attempt by any man to take the office through marriage and abuse his power over you.”
“That sums it up.”
“Is there no other reason?” Theodore asked. “Why go to all this effort to take an office, if all you want is to avoid being controlled by a husband?”
“Because I’m the best fit,” Poppy snapped. “It’s not just about my husband controlling me. It’s about my husband commanding this colony. I am the child of the current viceroy. Why should my blood and my gender make a difference? This is my right, both by birth and by parentage. I am just as qualified, if not more, to inherit my father’s office. But I cannot work alone. I need allies. Will you help me?”
Tentatively, Catherine said, “You know I will support you, Poppy, as your friend. But in a bid for vicereine? What could we even do for you? We are not even part of the First Families.”
“Then I want you to introduce me to the Second Families,” she said. “The First Families will likely side with Richard, but if I can gather enough connections within the Second Families, my father may see merit in my case.”
“I’m not sure how familiar you are with the history of the Second Families,” Theodore said, pushing his glasses back up his nose, “but I’m sure you’ve realized by now that there’s not a lot of goodwill between us and the office of the viceroy.”
There had always been a palpable divide between First and Second, but Poppy had never thought about why. “I’m afraid I’m not familiar with this.”
