Sound of Madness A Dark Royal Romance - Maria Luis Page 0,173

me. Nondescript, yeah?”

Pressing a hand to my friend’s shoulder, I murmur, “Trust me, no one will ever match you.”

And then I turn around and collide with Quentin Keely.

Oh, fuck me.

“Running into you so soon,” he says, his tone slick as he clasps my upper arms, “is beginning to feel like a brush with fate. First, my home and now Westminster.” He bends at the waist to put us at eyelevel. “Did you miss me already, my girl?”

Bile swims in my gut.

I’m all too aware of the stares landing on me from all corners of the rapidly filling two-story chamber. Brows raising curiously. Rumors being traded from behind the fan of open hands. If I ask, Gregory will tear Keely’s head clean from his body and punt it like a football. It’d sail over the Commons’ infamous green benches and—

Be too much of a risk.

Sensing Gregory’s bristling, bulldog energy, I touch a finger to his wrist to settle him down. Turning to Keely, I adopt a tone infused with saccharine sweetness even while my words spew poison: “Just imagine what Mr. Hastings will think when your little enterprise becomes the talk of Parliament.”

Dark brows snap together over the bridge of his nose. “Don’t you dare—”

“Then take your hands off my body,” I seethe through a tight smile. “And if you so much as look at me again, Gregory here is going to enjoy severing your prick from the rest of you.” Leaning forward, I allow my mouth to graze his ear. “There’s not a single woman alive who’ll shed a tear at your tragic loss.”

With my head held high, I make sure to knock his elbow with mine as I skirt past him and lead Fitz to the long, wooden table sandwiched between the tiered benches dominating both halves of the Commons Chamber. Sweat coalesces on my spine as I push the hotelier into the chair meant for a Clerk of the House, then swat at his hand when he reaches for the antique copy of Erskine May. “Don’t.”

“But it’s just a—”

“Touch nothing,” I growl, “or we’re going to have six-hundred MPs breathing down our necks for violating the ways of the land.”

Then I spin around and claim the spot on the first bench that’s reserved for the prime minister.

Ten years.

Ten years of silence and simmering hate and it all comes full circle in the end. It would be poetic, maybe, if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve done all that I can to avoid returning to Father’s sphere. Politics. Mind games. Subterfuge. He used them against me, just as he used those same tactics against his peers.

One by one, those peers filter into the grand room with its wood-paneled walls and green-patterned benches. One by one, their whispers gain volume until Gregory’s hand finds my shoulder in a silent squeeze of encouragement.

I am not alone.

Swallowing, hard, I set my handbag down beside me and fold my hands in my lap. Legs crossed at the ankle. Spine straight. Shoulders pressed back. Any minute now Father will walk into this room and the games will begin. Trial by fire. A battle with only one victor. The voices no longer carry on whispers:

What’s she doing here?

Wait . . . is that Caren Fitz at the Table?

What the bloody hell is going on?

“Look sharp, Rowan,” comes Gregory’s gritty voice from my right, “Daddy’s ’ere.”

A shiver crawls down my spine.

Temptation begs me to watch my father enter the Chambers but that would give him the upper hand. After all that he’s done, he deserves nothing but a space to rot behind a pair of bars for all eternity. I squeeze my linked fingers together to the point of pain.

A tangible hush sweeps over the room.

There’s nothing but creaking benches as people take their seats, as well as the heavy breathing of an elderly man behind me. One of my father’s private secretaries, no doubt. He’d probably stab me with a pen, given the chance, and I resist the urge to clap a hand down on my nape like I’m swatting an obnoxious fly.

This was once my world.

The deceit. The power. The never-ending greed.

His approach is muffled by the rug beneath my feet, but I can feel his presence. Gregory is nothing but a shadow on my righthand side. Before me, Fitz leans forward to touch one of the dispatch boxes and I pray for patience.

And then a lean body is cutting off my view of the hotelier and the Table and the opposition at