The Queen's Secret (The Queen's Secret #2) - Melissa de la Cruz Page 0,59
her actions. But now her hooded eyes are as bright as a bird’s. Perhaps she is alarmed by Lady Marguerite’s suggestion, even while she dismisses it.
“You have no intelligence to this effect?” I ask, my heart pounding. Lady Marguerite often hears things around the palace that others want to keep from me.
“No one has said anything to me, ma’am,” she says. Her pink face is earnest. “It’s just intuition and possibly quite . . . quite untrue. But it struck me today as a distinct possibility, given all the other strange and terrible things happening here.”
“And in Renovia,” my mother says. She shivers, even though she sits close to the fire. Outside, snow has begun to fall, soft but fast. Flakes hit the panes of my window and dissolve. I hope it’s just a passing cloud, not a real storm. Piled snow will confine us in this place even more. It will dull the sound of approaching horses and approaching armies. It will obscure unseen enemies creeping about Castle Mont, with their poisons and magic. Everything I see and hear makes me feel more paranoid, more tense. More afraid.
“Thank you, Lady Marguerite,” I say, trying to sound calm. “You may leave us. We will serve ourselves.”
My mother waits until she leaves the room, then stands, rubbing her hands.
“I like none of this,” she says, pacing to the window. “Either that girl is impertinent, or she knows something she dare not confess.”
“Perhaps she’s just scared,” I suggest. “She is generally very reliable and loyal.”
“Well.” My mother’s face is a mask again. “I am here with you now, and I can admit that we may be vulnerable. For that reason, my dear, I would feel much better if I could sleep here with you. We could have double the guards outside these apartments rather than spreading them across two.”
The light outside is fading, but my mother lingers at the window, peeking through a shutter so she can peer down at the courtyard.
“If you wish, of course,” I say. She seems very interested in something below, so I walk over to the window to join her, gazing past the splotched flakes. It’s almost time for the braziers to be lit, and for us to be closed in for the long wintry night.
In the courtyard, men from the Renovian guard mingle with the Montrician soldiers. Another party has arrived, it seems, and the stable hands have gone out to take their horses.
One man swings down from the saddle, and I know by the way he moves who he is, even before he strides over the cobbles in his mud-splattered boots and heavy cloak.
It’s Cal.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Caledon
The atmosphere in Castle Mont is tense, as bleak as the weather. It’s clear to Cal that the mood here is worse than it was when he rode out to Renovia. The city itself looks shuttered and unnaturally quiet, its narrow streets of terraced houses deserted. When he rode in, the only signs of life in its main square were three goats chewing some strewn hay, and crows huddled on the frozen-over fountain. Snow falls, but it doesn’t stick, as though even the weather has the sense to move on from this troubled place.
In the castle stables, there is a cool welcome from the grooms. They seem to regard him—and Rhema and Jander—with suspicion, as outsiders or potential spies. That Rhema was born and bred in Montrice doesn’t matter. They’re associated with Caledon Holt, and Cal is associated with the queen. Lilac’s reputation has hit a new low, it seems. He hears them talk in low voices about the bizarre attack during the Winter Races, and tries to piece the story together.
Lilac. Cal longs to see her, but Queen Lilianna has arrived, and Cal thinks it’s best to keep a respectful distance. That’s what he tells himself, anyway. The truth is more unpleasant. If he bounds up the stairs to the Queen’s Secret tonight and knocks on the door, how will he feel if nobody answers? All it will be is confirmation that Lilac and Hansen are sleeping together in the king’s apartments.
If that’s the case, Cal really doesn’t need to know.
Tomorrow he has to seek an audience with Queen Lilianna, because in returning to Mont, he’s defying her order to investigate the attack on Violla Ruza. Cal needs to explain why he and his apprentices have hurried back here, and why he thinks it’s essential that the two queens be separated before the Aphrasians mount another attack.