The Queen's Secret (The Queen's Secret #2) - Melissa de la Cruz Page 0,22

to my mother, asking her to intervene in some way—in any way. But there’s no point; my mother would agree with Hansen. She would tell me to endure the obligations of my marriage with grace and fortitude, and after I’ve had a child or two, Hansen and I can resume our separate lives.

It all sounds so clear, so rational. So hateful.

Tap-tap-tap. I almost run to the door, hitching up my trailing linen nightdress so I can leap over a footstool, skidding my way across the floorboards. When I open it, Cal is there. He doesn’t take me in his arms. My eyes have adjusted to the room’s darkness, but it’s hard to make out his expression. Something in the way he stands, so stiff and unyielding, makes me step aside to let him in. Instead of walking to the bed, he heads for the fireplace and pulls off his jacket, flinging it onto a chair.

I want to ask him what’s wrong, but it’s a stupid question. Nothing is right. Cal is going away, and we may not see each other for months.

Cal drops into another chair and runs his hands through his hair, a sign that he’s agitated. He kicks a stool out of the way. He makes no effort to take off his boots.

“So,” he says, his voice flat. “You and Hansen, playing happy family. Were you planning to tell me about this, or was it your idea that the news got broken to me in a public place?”

“That’s not fair,” I say, marching over to him and giving the stool another kick, for good measure. “When could I have spoken to you this afternoon? It was a surprise to me, as well. I had no idea they were planning to send you away.”

“You didn’t look very surprised.” When he looks up at me, his eyes are dark and narrow. Suspicious.

“Well, of course I knew before the meeting itself.”

“I see. You knew, but didn’t tell me.”

“How could I tell you? I can’t summon you in on a whim for a personal audience, not with the castle on edge and suspecting the worst of me. Hansen came to see me this afternoon, very upset, saying we have to . . . do something about the way the people here have turned on us. And to him that means having an heir, to change public opinion, to cement the alliance between our two countries. So I’m no longer seen as an outsider. Hated as an outsider.”

“That sounds like a speech written by the Duke of Auvigne,” Cal says, and I could smack him. He’s being so difficult about this.

“We both knew this day would come,” I say, trying to placate him. “We just hoped it wouldn’t be this soon.”

“You seem to have made up your mind very quickly.” Cal is not placated. “The first time Hansen raises the issue, you capitulate.”

His words make me cringe. “I hate the idea. Hansen’s not happy either.”

Cal sits shaking his head. “Hansen has a different mistress every month. To him you’re just another young woman he sleeps with, another notch on his royal bedpost. But you . . .” He turns away, and I hear the break in his voice.

“You are everything to me,” I say. Why won’t he listen? “Hansen is nothing. We are obligated to each other, no one else. One royal heir, and everyone is happy.”

For a while, at least, I think, but I don’t have to talk about having other children with Hansen. Cal is broken enough as it is.

“Everyone?” Cal echoes pointedly.

“Don’t be jealous,” I tell him. “I am as trapped as you are. You are being stubborn and emotional.”

He sighs, leaning back in the chair until his head lolls. Why won’t he be reasonable? Isn’t that what Hansen said to me? Be reasonable?

“Just admit,” he says to the ceiling, “that you’re relieved to get me out of the way, so you can be queen, and be the wife to Hansen you so obviously want to be.”

“Is that what you think?”

Before he can answer, I continue in a rush. “Why don’t you admit that you’re happy to be leaving this castle that you hate and this capital that you hate and this country that you hate, so you can ride off with Rhema?”

“Ha!” Cal’s laugh is forced, and there’s a nastiness to it that I’ve never heard from him before. “Now who’s being jealous and emotional?”

“You’re impossible,” I tell him again, crossing my arms tight. “And you’re not answering my