Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,27

all.

I watch, and I listen.

These days, watching has taken on an entirely new meaning.

“He saved his own arse,” I say without inflection, careful to quash all emotion from my voice. Because while I’m willing to peel back my layers to win my way out of the Palace, I won’t reveal it all. Not to a man more likely to laugh in my face than cradle me close and share my pain. “If it weren’t for Margaret climbing the tree outside my room, and smashing the window with a rock, I wouldn’t be alive today.”

Godwin draws in a deep breath, and even though I shouldn’t, I can’t help but visualize that inhalation expanding his broad chest. I felt him yesterday, when he dangled me from his grasp. Big, rough hands. Muscular legs that didn’t so much as budge when I kicked him. A body strong enough to lift a grown woman right off the ground without breaking a sweat. I might not be tall, but curves . . . Well, those I have in spades. A fact that didn’t seem to trouble Godwin one bit while he was playing caveman.

“Obviously, my father and I have a . . . complicated history. And I’ll be the first to say that loving someone like him isn’t”—possible—“easy. But even with all that, I don’t think he’s behind the attack on Buckingham Palace.”

“He’s putting it to Parliament that the queen is mentally unfit to rule.”

I jerk back. “What?”

Those footsteps start again, slow and methodical, drifting closer and closer until I feel him at my side. “And he plans to do it soon, I’m sure,” Godwin says as our arms brush. A single touch and I feel singed, down to my core. “Clarke told the queen, who told us.”

Swallowing roughly, I shake my head. “Are you sure? There’s no way he would—”

“Your father is not a good man . . . but you already know that.”

For once, there’s no disdain in his tone. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel his words like a blow to the stomach. I’ve never been naïve to my father’s motives—no, it was so much worse than that.

I was always so blasted hopeful.

Hopeful that if I did what he wanted I’d earn his love. And, if not his love, then at least his approval. Neither ever came. Not during those emotionally tense years following the fire and Mum’s death; not in all the time that I spent as his “partner-in-crime” while he worked London’s political circuit; not even two months ago, at the Jewel Tower, when he’d spotted me, hidden within the shadows, and turned away like I meant nothing to him.

Nearly ten years without any contact and it was like I didn’t even exist.

I might not want to believe that Father would so underhandedly unseat Margaret from what’s rightfully hers, but . . . I can see it. If it means returning power to him as Prime Minister, and power to the rest of the politicians who take their seat in Westminster every day, Edward Carrigan will be ruthless.

The same can’t be said for him trying to kill her in the fire.

“Explosions aren’t his style,” I say.

“Then tell me what is.”

Tipping my head back at the gruff command, I concentrate on the hard pitch of Godwin’s voice and turn in his direction. “Blackmail. Political sabotage.” I touch my tongue to my bottom lip. Muster up the strength to give him this last sliver of truth. “Spies to weed out his enemies.”

Before I can move, Godwin’s wrapped a hand around my upper arm, away from the bandages. Fiercely he twists me around, growling, “Who?” His breath is hot across my temple and his proximity so close that goose bumps flare across my blistered skin. “Who the hell does he have working for him?”

“Did, past tense.” I wonder if the smile I offer looks as ruined, as shattered, as it feels stretching across my face. “And you’re looking at her.”

The hand on my arm tightens imperceptibly. “I told you what would happen if you lie to me.”

I shake him off with a sharp bite of my nails down the back of his hand, and his hiss of pain . . . It washes over me like music to my ears. I hold onto the sound, the only reminder I’m likely to get that I can still inflict damage. Knives and guns have never been my choice on the battlefield. My body is a weapon; my mind the only tool I’ve ever needed