Traitor's Masque (35 page)

Inside, a single lamp burned. Lady Isaura was pacing feverishly from one side of her desk to the other, while a second person sat in the chair in front of it, his back to Trystan. Definitely male, short, and balding… he looked familiar even from behind. It did not take long for her to realize that the nocturnal visitor was Lord Fellton! Was this some sort of romantic assignation? Probably not in the study.

“Don’t you understand, this solves everything!” Lady Isaura’s voice crackled with excitement. “If he marries her we will have no need to go through with it.”

Trystan froze. Definitely not a romantic assignation. Were they talking about her? They had to be. Unless Lady Isaura was making a habit out of arranging marriages.

Lord Fellton’s voice sounded more skeptical. “Don’t be a fool, Isaura. How is his marrying your
cousin
going to help us?”

Lady Isaura’s soft voice was both exultant and threatening as she answered. “Because I know who her mother was.”

Trystan felt a strange shiver down her spine. How could Lady Isaura know that? Her father had never allowed anyone to speak of her mother. Even Vianne had refused to answer Trystan’s questions, but Trystan had always attributed their silence to grief.

“And,” Lady Isaura continued in that same voice of long-awaited triumph, “I also know that she was not married to Lord Percival.”

What?

Not married.

That meant.

Trystan was illegitimate. If she married Prince Ramsey, he would no longer be eligible to rule. Rowan would be king. This was their new plan!

Wait. New plan? What had the old one been? Despite the roaring in her ears, despite her shock and distress at the revelation of what seemed yet another disheartening fact about the man she called Father, Trystan kept listening. She had to hear more.

“I still think it would be simpler to get him out of the way permanently. Tie everything up neatly. Why risk being discovered? Just… give him whatever you gave Hollin! That seems to be working well enough.”

Lord Fellton sounded both petulant and impatient. One would never have guessed he had just implied that the king had been… poisoned? Trystan clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from gagging in horror. Had he really said that? Had her neighbor, her hostess, the woman who had eaten at her father’s table, really given poison to Donevan’s father? But how? And more importantly, why?

“Because, fool, it’s too soon!” Lady Isaura was no longer the pleasant, genteel widow Trystan knew. She was a commanding woman who apparently possessed both the means and intention to kill. “Rowan says we must act now! Besides, the boy has no desire to wear the crown! Take it away from him legally and he will simply fade into the background. But for now, he still has too many supporters. If he died, so soon after his father, there would be nothing but suspicion and outrage. This is far simpler, and, more to the point, faster.”

Lord Fellton made a grumbling sound. “The girl will do it?” He sounded doubtful. “Do you think she suspects?”

“Victor, you must think me an imbecile! Of course she will do it! Do you think I would risk everything we have worked for on a girl I was not sure of?” Trystan could hear a snort of disbelief. “She loves him, for some idiotic reason. Even if she suspected, she would do nothing.” Lady Isaura sounded utterly confident. “She has no hope of marrying him if she does not go along with our plan. Can you imagine a young woman in love, willing to give up a prince over a small matter of principle?”

Trystan went cold. Was that what Lady Isaura thought of her? Even worse, could it be true?

“And His Highness agrees with this course of action?” Ramsey’s brother was a part of this whole diabolical scheme?

Lady Isaura appeared to indicate that he was and he did.

“And who will be getting rid of the evidence?”

The evidence? Of what? Of the king’s poisoning?

“His Highness has suggested it would be a simple matter to hire someone to deal with her.”

Who, Trystan wondered frantically, was “her”? Surely not herself. Surely Lady Isaura would not… This conversation had rapidly spiraled beyond anything she had imagined, but she had no time to think. Lady Isaura was still talking.

“I have taken the liberty of dismissing her servants already, and closing the house.”

Trystan would have sighed in relief on her own behalf if she’d had the time. It could not be her.

Lady Isaura went on. “They have been told that their mistress is moving to Evenleigh with no intention to return, and she has no other acquaintance that is likely to travel this far. Once she is disposed of, I see no reason Trystan cannot become Elaine permanently. At least until after the wedding, when we will expose the truth of her parentage.”

Her eye glued to the crack, Trystan felt her relief drain away. The moment extended out into eternity as she watched a perfectly ordinary woman speak words of unimaginable horror.

Lady Isaura had lied. About so many things. But most importantly to Trystan, she had lied about Elaine.

Elaine was real. She had a home, servants, a life. And she was about to lose it all so that Trystan could become the tool they needed to make a monster into a king.

Trystan could barely breathe. Her heart seemed louder than Lady Isaura’s voice. She had to get back to her room. Now. Quietly. If they heard her, she was dead. Literally. Trystan did not for a moment imagine that Lady Isaura possessed any fondness for her as a person that would outlive her discovery in that hallway.

Lifting her skirts, Trystan moved backwards, ever so slowly, one foot at a time, until she was outside that brutal sliver of light. Still silent, still hardly daring to think lest she be heard, she turned and crept at an agonizing pace until she reached the stairs. She let herself go more quickly then, still holding up her skirts so there was no chance of tripping. Up, up, up, soundlessly down the hall, counting the doors till she found her own. She twisted the knob, eking out her patience for a few moments more until finally, finally she was inside her room and could close the door behind her.

Some of the terror began to ebb, some of her breath began to return, but not until she was in her nightgown and under the blankets did she eventually let go her furious tears and allow herself time to mourn her own innocence.

Well, she had wanted to know. Trystan still could not imagine why they wanted Rowan to be king, but it no longer really mattered. All she cared about now was the means, and they had used her, Trystan, because she was fool enough to let herself be used. She had done no murder and brewed no poison but her choices had made it possible. If she had not said yes, never agreed to this plan, Elaine Westover would not now be in danger. The king, she believed, would not now lie dying.

The note, she could see now, was a ploy, meant solely for her! Lady Isaura had used her to gain entrance to the castle, on a night when everyone would be looking the other way. That was why she had left the ball early, not to go home with a headache, but to work her mischief above stairs. And now, because of Trystan’s unlooked-for success, they were determined to take another young woman’s life so that Trystan could go on living it.

She could not. Would not. She hoped it would always have been so. But the question she did not have the courage to answer for herself was this: had she not met Donevan in the Kingswood that day, had she been a stranger to him, so that no danger could be found in the baring of her face, would she have said the same? Would she have refused to steal for herself the life she desired? Or would she, as Lady Isaura had seemed so certain, have traded her principles for her prince?

There was nothing she could do to change what had passed. Her guilt was not a thing that could be hidden, or made reparation for. But she could act. Change what was yet to come. The future was not yet so certain as Lady Isaura believed.

Trystan would meet with Ramsey, tomorrow, at dusk, as promised. She would tell him everything, and then accept her punishment. Her true punishment, she knew, would be his eyes. Donevan’s eyes, when he realized she had betrayed him. That would haunt her long past any other punishment they could devise.

Reaching over to the table beside her bed, Trystan found her little golden horse and clutched it to her chest. A token of fealty, Donevan had said. A gift given in faith. And she had proven faithless. To everyone who had ever trusted her. She could no longer help Andrei and Alexei, or Hoskins, or Beatrice, or any of her friends. Those hopes were gone. But she would have one last chance to prove herself not entirely unworthy of their gift. One chance to make everything right. To prevent even more people from suffering for her decisions.

Silently, tears sliding down her face onto her pillow, Trystan began to apologize. To an entire life’s worth of people. To her father, for worshipping him instead of loving him. To Vianne, for never really listening. To Andrei, Alexei, Hoskins, and the others, for not being able to help them. For not letting them say goodbye. For not seeing how much they cared until it was too late. To King Hollin, for bringing Lady Isaura to the ball. To Elaine, for stealing her name and her life. And to Donevan. For everything.

Long before she ran out of apologies, Trystan fell asleep.

 
Chapter 13
 

Evenburg Castle was waiting. Above and below stairs, from the bailey to the garderobe, every breath was tense, every step fraught with questions. The king, contrary to expectations, did not improve. In fact, he seemed worse. And yet, despite the physicians’ inability to identify what troubled him, despite his age and unsettled constitution, he seemed too tenacious to die. Ramsey had tentatively begun to believe in his own prediction: that his father would prove unwilling to depart this life until he had seen his son safely married. It was a tiny, flimsy thing to cling to, but he could scarcely grudge himself the deception. Today, for the first time in weeks, he felt hopeful.

Elaine had agreed to meet with him.

He tried not to let it distract him. Pretended that he hadn’t re-read her original note three times already that morning and that it was not currently lodged in his jacket pocket as he went about his tasks. But he had and it was and in truth Ramsey felt a bit ridiculous about it.

He had barely spoken to the girl. At best, all she knew about him was that he was grumpy, but a passable dancer. No… a better dancer than Rowan. Or so she had said. He was much too old to be succumbing to the peculiar feeling of satisfaction that gave him. But it seemed worthwhile to remember that he had been very nearly at his worst when he danced with Elaine three nights ago, and she had still agreed to see him again. He had been a poor enough partner that she had sprained her ankle, and yet she had decided to give him another chance.

It was with an uncharacteristic spring in his step that Ramsey entered his aunt’s office. He suspected there would be a great deal of unpleasantness to deal with that day. Despite Mrs. Ulworth’s assertion that they did not wish to pursue the newly minted Mr. and Mrs. Arthur, Mr. Ulworth had initiated a quickly widening search. Andar was a small enough kingdom that they could hardly avoid detection forever, but without Rowan’s assistance in the matter, Ramsey doubted they would be found soon.