I ignore the paper for a moment longer, then pick it up again and stare at his picture. Imperious nose. Flinty eyes. Hard, implacable jaw. Yes, I think he would have.
I read the accompanying caption.
Archduke “Ironclad” Levanter meets privately with King Anson at the palace. The Archduke is known for his strict adherence to tradition, but will twenty-seven years of prison have softened him, or only hardened him further?
I can answer their question: there’s nothing soft about the Archduke. Ironclad is a good nickname for him.
“There’s a piece in here about Briar Balzac,” Mama says, her eyes not lifting from the newsprint. “You remember, the illegitimate niece. It’s come out that her father isn’t Lord Anthony Balzac, Duke Balzac’s younger brother, but one of Lord Anthony’s oldest friends. Did you hear anything about that last night at the ball?”
“Only what you told me,” I reply, getting up to serve the casserole.
“Do tell me if anything interesting reaches your ears, about anyone at all. Such things could be useful.”
I place a bowl and spoon at her elbow and sit down to eat my own dinner. “Useful for what?”
But Mama’s too absorbed in reading and doesn’t answer. We eat, and my eyes keep straying to the gossip papers. My fingers itch to riffle through them, searching for more pictures of the Archduke. More tidbits about the Levanter clan.
We eat in silence, and I play every moment of both encounters with the Archduke over in my mind. The first at the ball when he swept past us, regal and haughty, in his scarlet uniform. Then again when he appeared in the doorway of Aubrey’s bedroom. He’d seemed different then. Distracted. Frustrated. I wonder what was bothering him. Other than me, that is.
“Wraye, are you all right? You haven’t said a word all evening.”
I jump and realize that dinner’s over, and Mama is trying to put a mug of cocoa in my hands.
I accept the cocoa. “I’m fine. Just…trying to memorize the names of all the nobles who were presented last night.” I take a swift mouthful to hide the guilty expression on my face. If Mama knew that I’ve inflamed the ire of the most important man at Court, she’d probably become hysterical.
The day I came home and told her I knew the truth about how Papa had died, she fell to the floor sobbing. It’s one of the scariest things you can see, I think, witnessing a parent lose all control. I was eleven at the time. I don’t ever want to see that again.
I reach a hand across the table toward her. “Mama, I promise to do everything I can to restore favor to our family.”
She looks up quickly and then smiles, but she still looks worried. “You’re a good girl. I know you will.”
“But if for some reason I can’t…” I begin.
Mama jumps to her feet. “Time for bed. You need your beauty sleep and so do I.”
“Mama—”
“Tomorrow, I’m going to book salon appointments for us. We could both use a proper haircut.”
Mama and I have been cutting each other’s hair for years. We’ve become quite good at it, though the styles aren’t anything elaborate. “How can we afford that?
“I have a little money set aside. Our appearances are important.”
Personally, I would prefer something more to eat, as our dinner was little more than stewed tomatoes and beans. Mama’s in charge of the money, though, and always has been.
I get up to wash the dishes. Once we’re installed in our proper home, I suppose I can eat as much chicken in white wine sauce as I please.
I stare at the curtains as I swirl sudsy water over the dishes. Our curtains are always closed these days to prevent the neighbors and any journalists from snooping. My thoughts drift back to the day we watched the chains being cut on the gates to the abandoned palace. After, Mama took me to a part of town where I’d never been before, a place of wide streets and elegant houses.
“Here,” she whispered to me. “This is where we shall live soon, in Rugova House. Our rightful home. I wish your father were still alive, so he could be here with us.”
It’s an eighteenth-century townhouse, painted cream, with a glossy black front door and enormous white columns out the front. Mama stood at the gates with a huge smile and tears running down her face. I’d never seen her so happy, and I’ve watched that happiness ebb from her eyes, day after day, since then.
If we don’t get our home back, I think she’ll die of a broken heart.
As I get into bed that night, my mind drifts back to the Archduke. Seeing him in the ballroom, stiff and at attention in his uniform, as he strode about having people curtsy to him. I bet he just loves that, I think huffily, turning over. In the split second before his expression became one of pure hatred, I thought he seemed handsome. He’s well-groomed and fit for a man in his early fifties. His steel gray hair is thick and touchable and his eyes are striking. He’s strong, too. I remember that from the way he lifted me off the ground.