Cheating Royalty (Chasing Royalty #2)

8

I hold the crinkled paper up to my eye with a shaking hand. “What could that mean?”

“Florentine must have known Queen Cassandra.”

“How would she have known my mother?”

Grace points at the letter, “According to this, no one must know their true connection. Maybe she knew her before she died. Maybe Florentine had a job at the castle. She wasn’t…she wasn’t your mother’s lady in waiting, was she?”

“No,” I say, “It was a woman named Juliette. She left the castle shortly after my mother’s death, unable to bare the memories haunting the halls. I’m afraid she’s passed away this last year.”

“She didn’t stay to watch you grow up? If she was close to her mother, wouldn’t she want to be part of her children’s lives?”

I shake my head, “Even if she had wanted to, she couldn’t have. She was in the room when my mother gave birth to us, she held my mother’s hand as it went cold. Any people within the room, including the midwives, were dismissed from their duties. They didn’t anyone sharing who the true first born was. They paid the midwives huge amounts of money to keep the secret. I don’t think any of them have been heard or seen from since our birth.”

“Do you think that the midwives have been watching you and your sisters grow, seeing if the true heir to the throne is the most deserving?”

I glance up from the paper to stare at her, “You think that they can tell which one of us was born first? They haven’t personally seen us since the day of our births. Surely, we’ve changed too much to be identified.”

Grace shrugs, “You aren’t identical. I’m pretty sure they could tell Alexanne’s dark hair from your gold. My guess is that they are watching from a distance, probably clucking their tongues and shaking their heads as Alexanne was crowned Queen.”

“You don’t think Alexanne could have been the first born?”

“She might have been, but the thought of her deserving her position makes me sick.”

“We have to find them. We have to find the midwives who helped my mother give birth. If they could tell us who the real heir to the throne…”

“It probably wouldn’t change anything. Your father and mother wanted the heir to be chosen through the contest, remember? They didn’t want a horrible, cruel Queen to be anointed when the perfect Queen was second, third, or fourth born. They wanted the queen to be chosen through qualities and characteristics, not birth order.”

“But Alexanne doesn’t have the right qualities or characteristics. She’s the Queen because she lied and killed to get there. Maybe, if we could get proof that she isn’t the blood heir, we would gain some people’s support.”

Grace sighs, “There’s two problems in your plan. Number one, just because Alexanne isn’t the blood heir to the throne, doesn’t mean you’re the heir either. Emilienne or Violette could have born first too. Number two, everyone hates you for being a ‘traitor’ and there’s also the small detail of you being supposedly dead. If you were to suddenly appear to take the throne, it’s likely that more people would accuse you of being a witch, rather than a queen.”

“Fine,” I say, “maybe knowing the birth order wouldn’t automatically make me queen, but I’d like to know anyway. What’s the harm of trying to find them anyway? The worst thing that could happen is they won’t tell us.”

“Or, they could report you to the castle guards for trying to know information you shouldn’t, and our disguise will fall and we’ll be killed.”

I mutter, “Try not to be too optimistic.”

Grace smiles, “I’m just trying to be honest.”

“We could ask Florentine if she knows where they are. She seems to know a lot of people she shouldn’t.”

Grace points to the letter between my fingers, “But we don’t know if we can trust her or not.”

I sigh and dramatically collapse into the nearest chair, “This is exhausting.”

Grace presses her lips together, “I had another thought.”

I groan, “What?”

“Florentine has said that there are hundreds of guards combing the city for us. That’s why we need to be here, right? For our own safety? But have we actually seen any of these guards? We didn’t pass or see a single one when we came here. Sure, we were going through hidden alleys and abandoned streets, but isn’t that where the guards would be searching for two criminals? What if Florentine just made that up, so that we would stay here?”

When Florentine visited me early in the morning, she looked distressed and moved faster than I would have thought possible. Was it all just an act?

“We should ask Augustine.” I say.

“Can we trust him?”

“Besides you, he’s the only person I trust with my life. I know how much he loves to complain about me, but he would never lie to me. I’m sure of it.”

Grace hesitates for only a second before she nods, “If you trust him, I do too. Let’s go right now. If we can’t trust Florentine, we will need to leave as soon as possible.”

I slip the torn letter into the bottom of my shoe. “If we need to leave, we should escape at night. We have no proof of the guards actually searching for us, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t. At least in the dark we’ll have a chance of hiding from them.”

Grace agrees and we slip out of the library. I’m lost easily within the mansion, but Grace seems to already have the entire building mapped out. She confidently guides me back to Augustine’s study. I gather my resolve and knock firmly on the door.

No answer.

After a minute passes, I knock again.

Nothing.

I frown, “Maybe we should go inside, just to make he’s not there. I’ve seen him absorbed into a piece of literature. He doesn’t hear or see a single thing, completely in his own reality. This is too important to ignore.”

Grace says, “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Florentine made it quite clear that we weren’t to be sneaking around and it’s probably best not to anger her.”

But I’m already turning the brass door knob. I check to see there are no servants in the hall before slipping inside.

Grace slips after me, “You know how earlier today you said that I should stop you from doing foolish things? This is one of those foolish things.”

I close the door behind us, and survey the room. It’s empty.

Grace waves her arms towards the abandoned room. “Okay, it’s empty. We can go now.”

“But if it’s empty, maybe we could find some more information.”

“You keep saying you want to search for ‘information’ but you have no idea what you want to find. You’re blindly looking for anything that might seem suspicious. We should go back to our room, decide what information we want to know, and come back later. You said that Augustine would never lie to you. We’ll just ask him the questions we want to know, and he’ll answer, right?”

“One minute.” I say, and run behind his desk.

Grace’s lips press together and she crosses her arms.

I stand behind his desk and search all the papers scattered across. I’m careful not to touch anything, just scanning the papers for anything that might be interesting. My eyes fall on a short letter, written in Augustine’s hurried, scribbled writing. My name stands out among the other words.

I snatch the letter off the desk, slip it into my corset, and hurry to where Grace stands.

“Let’s go.” I say and begin turning the doorknob.

Grace’s hand falls on my shoulder, “You’re really going to steal that? You say that you trust him and that he would never lie to you, yet you’re willing steal from him? If you really trust him as a friend and mentor, would you like it if he stole it from you?”

Her words send guilt into the pit of my stomach, but I pull the door open. “He doesn’t have to know. Just because he won’t lie to me doesn’t mean he’ll voluntarily tell me everything that he knows. I saw my name. I’d like to know what’s being said about me. Besides, you were willing to steal from Florentine.”

“She’s not my friend.”

We pass by a few servants, strolling with our chins held high. If we pretend that we have nothing to be guilty off, perhaps they’ll believe us.

Our door is unlocked as we enter. Once the door is shut securely behind us, I slip Augustine’s letter from my corset and Florentine’s torn sheet of paper from my shoe.

I hand Florentine’s scrap of a letter to Grace and study Augustine’s letter.

It reads:

Dear Florentine,

Your words regarding my situation are, unfortunately, true. As I’ve lost my job, I don’t have the finances or the will to live anywhere else but the castle. But, as my profession is no longer needed within the castle walls, I will indeed need somewhere else to live. I have to admit that it was not the free stay or the expansive library or the opportunity to have a quiet retirement that beckons for me to stay with you for perhaps a short period of time into the future. On the contrary, it was your mention of a certain deceased royal. Princess Admira’s betrayal and death have broken me into many pieces, as I was her mentor. Your beliefs match mine with striking similarity. I will come to the address you’ve given me when my free stay at the castle is up. Thank you for your generosity and I hope I can find a way to repay you.

Sincerely,

Sir Augustine Baudin

I take a deep breath to keep tears from falling over my eyelids. The reason Augustine came to live here was because of me. Florentine must have mentioned me sometime, and that’s what convinced him to stay here. What were their ‘beliefs’ that matched with ‘striking similarity’? Perhaps they were too traitorous against Alexanne to write in a letter leaving the castle.

I lift the letter to my eyes to read again, but a servant swings up the door and hurries inside.

I discreetly hide the letter behind my back, “What is it?”

The servant speaks in a rush, her words jumbling together, “You must come with me now. It’s in your best interest not to say a single word, and definitely do not use each other’s names. Guards are in the house searching for you.”