“I’m not completely oblivious, whatever you may think. I can listen to sense. My whole life, I’ve lived here, either in Mont or at the summer residence in the mountains. Everywhere I’ve gone in the kingdom—villages, towns, shepherds’ huts, fishermen’s cottages, grand manor houses, you name it!—I’ve been loved. Everyone has always loved me.”
I believe him. He’s a handsome young man, and was no doubt a handsome boy. He was the heir and then a young king, and for all his dull predictability and obsession with dogs and hunting, Hansen doesn’t have a cruel bone in his body.
He’s pacing now as well, playing with one of the ornate rings on his fingers. “Now we ride out together and I’m despised.” He shakes his head, as though he can’t believe it.
“It’s not you they loathe,” I say.
“No, I suppose not,” he says thoughtfully. “They think you’re still harboring the Aphrasians in that damp, mysterious country of yours.”
“But that is not true!” I protest.
“It doesn’t matter what’s true or not. We know that, don’t we? Our marriage hasn’t been ‘true’—not for almost a year now. That’s why the Duke of Auvigne says, and I agree, that it’s time to put the kingdom first.”
“Kingdoms plural.” I can’t resist correcting him. I’ve never heard Hansen talk like this. Usually he says that the Duke of Auvigne is a bore. This is the longest conversation we’ve ever had.
“Exactly. We have a duty to our joint kingdoms, however unpleasant it might be. To us.”
I can’t speak. I don’t want Hansen to say another word. I don’t want to hear what he’s about to say, the thing I’ve always dreaded. And yet I know he must.
“Lilac, I am as sorry as you are that it has come to this. Perhaps, like you, I had hoped we could continue this way forever. But an heir will tell the world that we’re a real marriage, a real union, and there is nothing to fear from their queen, as she is the mother of my child.”
He doesn’t look at me when he says this, which is a blessing, as I’m too shocked to reply. I knew this day would come—but not so soon. Not today.
“It will send a strong message through the kingdom that I support you and that our two kingdoms will be united forever through our heir. Or heirs, if we have more than one child, and it is hoped that we shall. Several children will mean more possible alliances through marriage. We can secure the futures of our kingdoms, and all the kingdoms in Avantine.”
Deia, give me strength. Hansen is still talking. The Duke of Auvigne must have blasted him for hours about this. I clutch the shutter for strength. No, no, no. This can’t be happening. Hansen can’t be going back on all his promises to me. He said we could wait. He said there was no hurry. He said he would never ask me for something I did not want to give.
“So that’s why . . . ,” he says, walking to the fireplace and leaning against the mantel. “That’s why . . . I’ve agreed to cast aside Cecilia. Lady Cecilia.”
His current favorite, the one who giggles too loudly and wears black-feathered masks that scandalize the castle servants. Hansen doesn’t need to say the word mistress for me to understand what he’s saying. I don’t like the way this is going.
“She shall remain in court, of course,” Hansen continues. His face is even pinker now; he’s too close to the flames. I’d like to think he is ashamed of himself, but that’s probably inferring too much. “However, she will no longer share the rooms next to my own.”
“I see,” I say. I feel sorry for Lady Cecilia; she no doubt imagines that Hansen is her devoted and adoring lover, but he’s prepared to dispose of her the moment the commoners no longer admire him. “How generous of you.”
Hansen sniffs, as though my sarcastic comment isn’t worthy of a reply. He thrums his fingers on the mantel, and I wonder if I’ve angered him. But no.
“The thing is,” he says, hesitant now—sensing, perhaps, that he’s on more dangerous ground—“the thing is, Lilac, you should be, ahem, seen to be alone as well. The Chief Assassin, I think, shall have to vacate the castle.”
“The Chief Assassin?” I echo. “What does this have to do with him?”
The thought of Cal leaving my side makes me shudder—with rage and with fear. An instant longing for him, for his touch and his smell, the masculine presence of him near my body and in my bed, ripples through me. I think of his deep olive skin against my white sheets, and my whole body aches for him.
Hansen looks at me meaningfully. “I believe you know why.”
“No! We’re not talking about him,” I say, my voice rising even as my blood thunders in my temples. If the king knows—and the king knows—then our lives are forfeit. There is nothing to stop Hansen from ordering our deaths for adultery and treason.
Instead, Hansen is simply asking me to do what he has done. To cast aside a favorite.
But Cal is not a diversion like Cecilia. Cal is . . . Cal is . . . What are the words? Cal was right, there are no words for our relationship but those of an illicit nature. He is no one to me; he has to be no one. I am married. I am the queen.
“And yet we must discuss this!” Hansen smacks his hand on the mantel. “Be reasonable! You know very well that Holt has to be somewhere else if we’re to . . . conceive a child. One that everyone knows is a royal child.”
Disbelief gives way to something much nastier, something that makes me feel queasy. He knows. The Council knows. Our secret has not been a secret at all, but something the king and his counselors have tolerated until now . . .
If Cal is sent away and I conceive a child, no one will be able to say the king is not the father of his own royal heir. Hansen gives up his mistress, but she can stay in court; she just can’t live next to him anymore. Meanwhile, I have to give up my lover—the love of my life—and he must be sent away on a mission, just so all the judgmental, gossiping courtiers in Mont can be assured that any child I bear is the king’s.
My heart is pounding. “Can’t we wait?” I ask, desperate. “We’ve only been married a few months.”
“Wait for what?” Hansen’s tone is weary. “Wait for people to start loving us again? Wait until we’ve been married more than a year and everyone is talking about us, wondering what’s, uh, going wrong? That the king is . . . un-un-unable? Or the queen is infertile? Rumors flying that you’re a witch or an empire builder, refusing to give me an heir? Think about it.” He looks me square in the face. “Lilac, we should have a child, and the sooner the better.”
I see now that Hansen isn’t the bored regent I had taken him to be, or a spoiled and vain boy. He is a king, and he must do his duty, as distasteful as it is, and he is being as kind as he can be.