The Queen's Secret (The Queen's Secret #2) - Melissa de la Cruz Page 0,68
staring at him. “Do you know of another entrance?”
“I do,” he says. Queen Lilianna’s face blanches. She must have suspicions about his relationship with Lilac, he realizes. He won’t be surprised if she orders the door barricaded.
He leads Moriah to the far end of the room and lifts the tapestry away from the paneled oak door. “The queen has the only key,” he tells her. “The door leads to a small antechamber, and then stairs down three floors into a cellar. The access there is by a secret panel.”
“Nothing is secret for long in a place like this,” she mutters to him. “You must know that. Queen Lilianna can leave by this staircase, so the guards don’t realize she’s departing. But after that it must be secured. I can create a temporary enchantment in the cellar, though I’m not sure how that will hold if Aphrasians want to break it down.”
“That will not be necessary.” The sound of the dowager queen’s voice makes Cal jump. Her step is so quiet he wasn’t conscious of her approach. “After I leave tomorrow, Lilac will no longer sleep in this chamber. Officially, she and I will both be moving into the king’s apartments, where there are many more rooms. This is a matter of both politics and security.”
Cal takes care not to react, but inside, his mind is racing. Lilac still hasn’t moved into the king’s apartments? And once she does, she’s moving in with her mother? Perhaps there is hope for him and Lilac yet.
“You should go to His Majesty now to secure the plan,” Moriah tells her. “Be ready for me at daybreak. You can bring nothing with you, I’m afraid.”
“I have nothing,” says the queen. “The fire took all that was precious to me, apart from Lilac.”
“May I escort you to the king’s chambers, Your Majesty?” Cal asks. No more Queen’s Secret. No more nights with Lilac. She’ll be with Hansen from now on, under lock and key.
“The guards will take me,” she says, and the look on her face tells him that he’s dismissed. He leaves without even a farewell to Moriah. Outside, a breathless page is arguing with one of the guards.
“He said I wasn’t to interrupt,” the page tells Cal. “But Lord Burley wants to see you now, in the physician’s quarters.”
It’s late in the day for a scientific breakthrough, but at least, Cal thinks, this might take his mind off losing Lilac. That’s how it feels, even worse than if she was fleeing the castle herself tomorrow, smuggled out in a potato cart.
When they’re halfway down the gallery, the page grabs Cal’s arm.
“I didn’t want to say this in front of the guards,” he whispers, so close that Cal can smell the onions on his breath. “But there’s been another death in the castle.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Lilac
My intimate dinner with Hansen starts well enough, while servants are present. We speak in civil tones to each other, and I tell myself that this is how we could proceed as a married couple who are friends and allies. But I can barely summon up the appearance of interest in his conversation about which hunting dog is better: pointers or retrievers.
It doesn’t take long for us to run out of safe things to say, and to turn to more dangerous topics.
“We should have dined together sooner,” he says, pouring himself more wine. “We need to think more about how things are perceived by other people. Our lives are not our own.”
“Alas,” I say.
Hansen puts down his napkin. “If only Holt wasn’t back in Mont. We can’t have people thinking that you’re having an affair.”
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t play the angel with me. It won’t wash, Lilac. It really won’t wash. If it weren’t for your mother sleeping in your chambers with you, I would have to call for both your heads.”
“Why haven’t you?” I ask. Truly, I am curious.
Hansen takes a sip from his goblet. “Accuse the queen of adultery and start another war between our kingdoms? I hope you don’t think I am as daft as all that. Or cruel.” He turns up his fine, aristocratic nose at the thought. “All that useless bloodshed for what?”
So that’s why. Hansen hides behind a façade of disinterest and yet he cares about his people, so much that he even cares about me, about my welfare. If I didn’t have to love him, I could probably like him. We could have been friends. Maybe we still can.