The Ring and the Crown (The Ring and the Crown 1)

So it was not the Prussians who had insisted they replace her Queen’s Guard, after all. “It was you—you were the one—you told them to send him away.”

“I suggested to your new family that it might make a nice gesture. Yes I did, my sweet, I did. I thought it would be easier for you if he went away.”

Marie fell to her knees and put her head in her nurse’s lap. She had always found comfort in that lap. “Wallace, I can’t marry Leo. I can’t.”

“But you looked so happy at the ball dancing with him,” Wallace said, as she stroked her hair gently.

“That wasn’t me,” Marie whispered.

“I knew it was too good to be true. I knew it. That wasn’t you down there, it was just a façade. What a great actress you are.”

“How did you know we were planning to leave?”

The nurse showed her what she had found in Marie’s dresser. A pouch full of gold coins; letters; keys that would unlock each door in the secret dungeon passageways. The first few items in their escape plan. All they lacked was the spell-key for the wards.

“What will you do?” Marie asked, lifting her tear-streaked face.

“It is your life, my dear. I cannot do anything except ask, what are you thinking? You cannot mean to do this. You cannot leave with him—you must know that.”

“I have to,” Marie whispered. “I love him.”

Wallace gave her one of her deep and sympathetic and terribly sad smiles. “But what about your mother? Think of what this will do to her. To lose her only child and heir—to lose the throne—”

Marie shook her head. She hardly knew her mother. Her mother had loved her, but she would enjoy having a different daughter. Let Aelwyn be the strong, beautiful, healthy girl that Eleanor had always wanted—the girl Marie had never been. Eleanor was not losing a daughter; she was gaining a finer one than she’d ever known. But Marie could not tell her nurse that. She would have to tell Aelwyn to be kind to her nurse. “Mother will be fine,” Marie said.

“You are wrong there—so wrong, my chick. Your mother will be devastated.”

“But you won’t tell?”

“I won’t—I promise, Princess. It is your life. But I beg you to reconsider. Think of the queen, of your country. Think of me. If you leave, I will never see you again. And think of yourself. If the Merlin finds out—your actions will be considered treason. You might lose your life in this venture. Is he worth that much to you?”

But Marie did not want to listen. She stood up and walked away from Wallace, taking the small sad envelope of keys and coins away from her and stuffing it back into the depths of her drawer. She was tired of thinking of everyone else. She had spent her whole life trying to gain everyone’s approval: her mother’s, the Merlin’s, the court’s. She was tired of duty, of necessity, of royalty. But even so, she heard the sadness in Wallace’s voice, and knew her nurse had spoken truth. She would miss them all desperately—the palace, its people, her mother. She could not bear to think of Eleanor—what if she learned the truth? Or what if her mother never guessed? Each seemed awful in its own way.

Hopefully Gill would come up with the money soon, and find a way to get his hands on the spell-key somehow. They had to get away before she could change her mind.

The private opening of the Royal Academy of Art was typically the second biggest event of the season. Located in Burlington House, Piccadilly, its annual exhibition showcased the work of the best living artists of the empire. Wolf was looking forward to the event, as he had been a tad disappointed to miss Ronan at the flurry of dances and dinners that had immediately followed the ball. He was very much looking forward to seeing her again. He’d eagerly awaited her appearance at a party at Duchess Wellington’s, a dinner at Earl Pembroke’s, and at the opera on Thursday. But she was nowhere to be found. He was beginning to worry that she had taken Marcus Deveraux’s marriage proposal after all, and was in Avon planning her wedding.

He followed the crowd into the main gallery, where paintings of every size, shape and color filled the wall up to the rafters in a jumbled fashion—portraits of the queen, of the Merlin, bucolic landscapes, fruity still-life studies. Wolf remembered a conversation he’d had with Marie about the formulaic stagnation built into the current artistic movements. She had argued that it was the kingdom’s very culture that was repressing true and enlivened artistic expression—everyone was too afraid to create something that would offend the Merlin, and so the only art that was produced was boring, pedestrian, inoffensive. Wolf sighed and thought she might have a point. Even the most important pictures—deemed the best by the Academy, and therefore set right at eye level—showcased the same cloying, patriotic tone as the lesser works.

Wolf was bored. It had been weeks now since he’d fought that giant from Brooklyn. He was out of shape, and felt stuffed and lazy. Thankfully he had spoken to a few of the good fellows of the Queen’s Guard, and had set up a fight in a few weeks’ time. They’d agreed to meet in the dungeons below. He was looking forward to it, but for now his mind felt like it was full of cotton balls, fuzzy and useless—only consumed with gossip from the vain, venal strivers of the Lenoran court. Wolf had no interest in the usual aristocratic pastimes of shoot and hunt. So far the only thing he was interested in tracking was a certain golden-haired American bird.

He spotted Archie and Perry with the aforementioned Marcus, who soon stalked off, and Wolf sidled up to the pair. He had seen them with Ronan the night of the ball, and guessed correctly that they were good friends of hers. “Hello, lads.” Wolf smiled. “Enjoying the exhibition?”

“Wolfgang.” Archie nodded, raising his glass.

“Evening, Prince.” Perry smiled.

“What’s got him all hot and bothered?” he asked, motioning to Marcus, who was haranguing a waiter for bringing him wine instead of champagne.

Perry took a lazy sip from his flute. “Oh, we were just riling him up a bit about being rejected so early.”

“Rejected?” Wolf asked, ears cocked.

“He proposed to Ronan Astor—the Am

erican girl. Remember her? The looker in the silver dress? I do believe you danced with her at the royal ball.”

“He actually proposed?” Wolf asked, raising an eyebrow, even though he had been there when it happened, and had overheard the whole thing.