Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,57
me sound naïve.”
Naïve like a young girl playing dress up in a man’s world.
A girl like I was, a million years ago, who twirled from one man’s arm to the next, none of them ever suspecting that I was anything more than a beautiful face. It was never meant to be that way with King John. The decisions were mine to make. The control mine to wield, when and however I saw fit.
In this house, I wear the crown.
“I knew what was expected of me,” I bite out, nearly giving in to the temptation to pound my fists on his chest and demand that he see me; how I am, how I’ve always been, had anyone ever cared to look deep enough. “And I knew what he wanted from me. I knew, Damien. You can hate me for what I’ve done, especially after tonight, but the fact is that the king—”
“Lied.”
I suck in an angry breath. “Are you really going to pretend that you didn’t go to St. James’s? Or is that just another pretty lie that the king spun for me too?”
“Oh, I went,” he sneers, his breath hitting my cheekbone as he lowers his head. “I went knowing that I was only wasting my time.”
“Then why even bother?”
“Because I was willing to sell my soul to the devil to get the information I needed.”
“And the king was the devil, I’m guessing.”
At my undisguised sarcasm, Damien scoffs under his breath. “For King and Country, right? A pledge forced on us all since John took the throne. But allegiance isn’t blind, and there’s always a tipping point. Tell a person to sit, and they will. Tell them to sit while balancing a book on their head, and they might get on with it just because you asked. But tell them to do all that while placing their bare feet on a bed of nails . . . Yeah, the look on your face tells me you understand. Obedience is earned, Rowena, it isn’t freely given. After the Westminster Riots, I knew it was only a matter of time before someone, somewhere, remembered that Princess Evangeline’s killer was never found.”
That stops me cold. “You thought there’d be a copy-cat killer?”
“I knew there’d be one sooner or later.”
“That’s why you went to St. James’s,” I say slowly, hearing the grim edge to his tone.
I don’t need to see his nod to know that he’s dipped his chin in confirmation. “John wouldn’t let the Met handle the princess’s autopsy report. He had everything handled in-house—not even Holyrood could touch it. I was only six, then, but I grew up hearing the rumors from the older blokes. Said that the princess had been receiving secret letters leading up to the assassination. I figured that if it was true, the king would know. And if he knew, and he still had the letters, then I needed to see them. Try to piece together whatever I could so the same thing wouldn’t happen to Margaret.”
Or so he says.
He thinks me naïve to have trusted the king, but it’d be exponentially more naïve of me not to question everything that falls from his lips.
“And why should I believe you?” Stubbornly, I lift my chin. “You say that a copy-cat killer is waiting on the horizon. You say that the king lied to me. Since I just spent three days undergoing your special brand of interrogation, excuse me if I don’t take your word for it. In case you’ve forgotten—you didn’t earn my obedience, you bloody well stripped it from me!”
“Because you’d have done it any differently?” His calloused hand reflexively tightens around mine, his voice lowering to a deadly pitch. “You may have sent your men to collect the queen tonight, but it was me you hunted. And had they brought me to you, I have no fucking doubt that I’d have been shoved at your feet and forced to grovel.”
I hate that he’s right.
Hate even more that he knows it.
“Then give me proof.” I try to tug my hand away from his, but he doesn’t let me go. “Give me something tangible.”
His nose brushes mine and holy hell, he’s close, so blasted close, that I feel the vibration of his every word when he growls, “I owe you nothing, Rowena.” His breathing shifts, roughening. “The fact is, you’re too scared to even consider that you’ve been wrong this entire time. It’s always easy to hunt the monster when the monster isn’t you.”