Veronica

Breathe, Veronica, breathe.

The world was spinning around me, as if I was standing in the center of a merry-go-round. I squeezed my eyes shut and wrapped my arms around my body, trying to ground myself.

Tomas, the hot valet I’d practically mauled in the bathroom, was actually the bastard son of King Cyrus II. Not only that, but Tomas’s daughter was actually the illegitimate daughter of the legitimate Prince Bennett!

Man, the royals were messy. What a tangled web, indeed. It was enough to give someone a headache, trying to piece it all together. What next? A hired assassin? Prince Bennett turns out to be the queen’s love child?

I thought back to how Tomas had shadowed Bennett at last night’s reception. He’d been the perfect manservant, taking all of his orders without batting an eye. To think that they were brothers!

Everything Tomas had said during our encounters made so much more sense now. What sort of man was he? How strong did he have to be, to know that he was of the same royal bloodline as his older brother, but have to wake up every day to do the work of a humble valet? And what sort of man was his brother, to be able to force his own blood into a life of eternal servitude?

I could never order my brother around the way I’d just witnessed Bennett speaking to Tomas. But then again, I would never be able to ignore my own daughter either.

My heart warmed as I remembered the soft look on Tomas’s face when he spoke about her. He’d called her his daughter, and it was clear he loved her just as much as if she was biologically his. Hell, he’d even gone toe to toe with Bennett to help her!

To care for his awful brother’s daughter with that much love…well, one thing was clear. Not only was Tomas a sinfully beautiful man with exceptional physical stamina—he was also a goddamn saint.

I’d had plenty of experiences with men, but they had largely been the sort of men who were good for a tumble in a shadowy shed somewhere, never to be spoken to or of again. I’d never slept with a man who had gone through anything close to what Tomas had endured and come out the other side as kind and gentle as he was. In fact, most of the men I’d been with were little better than trash—most of them had been merchants like me, who had let their family wealth get to their heads. They swaggered around as if their money could buy them class, mistreating anyone who dared to look at them the wrong way.

Tomas—he was more than a breath of fresh air. He was like night and day from all those other men.

I pondered the situation all the way back to my rooms, where the maid was waiting to prepare me for dinner.

Perfect. I grinned as she started riffling through my best dresses. Just what the doctor ordered.

Maids were the perfect information system. They knew everything about everyone. Who was cheating on who, who secretly hated their wife, who was planning a major deception. They were better than even the most talented spymaster.

It only took a couple well-placed questions and sweet compliments to get the maid—Lynette—talking. It helped that she was eager to chat. I asked her about the obvious topic first, mentioning oh so casually that I was nervous about holding an actual conversation with the Prince Bennett. After that, it was easy enough to steer the conversation toward my real goal: his valet, Tomas.

Apparently, Tomas was a celebrity within palace walls. His good nature and kind heart had earned him quite a following among the servants and even a good number of the nobles who frequented the castle. Apparently, Tomas’s parentage was only a secret in name. Anyone who spent a reasonable amount of time in the palace would hear about King Cyrus’s handsome second son before long, and even if they didn’t, it only took one glimpse of King Cyrus II to make the connection.

“Tomas is his spitting image,” she said as she tied me into my corset. I nodded, too out of breath to come up with a decent response. “You only need eyes to see that they’re related. It’s no wonder Prince Bennett is so threatened by his very presence.”

“About King Cyrus—where is he? Bennett’s been the only member of the royal family—well, the legitimate royal family—to be present during the merchant-wooing receptions.”

Lynette tied the corset, then started fastening the skirt around my newly shrunken waist. She paused with her clever fingers on one of the lower buttons. “I really shouldn’t be saying this…” she hedged.

“I won’t tell anyone,” I promised.

Her voice lowered her voice conspiratorially, the way one only does when sharing the most deliciously juicy gossip. I leaned in, excited to hear it.

“The king’s health has been increasingly precarious for years now, and he’s retreated almost entirely from public view. Only his wife, Queen Caroline, sees him with any regularity. She monitors every aspect of his treatment. No one, not even the doctor, gets access to him without her say-so.”

My brows shot up. So it was Queen Caroline who held the power—not the king. This was definitely interesting news.

Lynette picked up the matching jacket and slipped me into it. It was absolutely beautiful, made of navy blue corded silk imported all the way from the western territories. It had cost me an arm and a leg to buy, but it was worth it. The color highlighted the blue accents of my eyes and offset the creamy undertones of my skin.

“Bennett must be devastated his father is so poorly,” I said, knowing full well that a man as horrible and ambitious as Bennett would never be able to feel “devastated” about anything that didn’t concern him.

Lynette snorted. If she rolled her eyes any harder, they would roll out of her head. “The only thing Bennett is feeling right now is impatience. It’s looking like he’ll have a clear path to the throne when the time comes, and it seems as though the time will come sooner rather than later.”

She leaned back, whistling lowly as she admired my completed ensemble. “You look gorgeous, my lady.”

“It’s all your doing, Lynette,” I said as I looked at myself in the mirror. “You are the artist. I’m merely your humble creation. Look at this hair! Where did you learn to curl hair like this?”

She smiled and mimed tying her lips. “It’s a palace secret, unfortunately. But I’m happy to do your hair your entire stay here.”

“I’ll take you up on that.”

Later, at the merchant dinner, Bennett once again took the head of the table. When we were all seated, he raised his crystal goblet in a toast to us, his wealthy guests.

“Thank you all for joining me in this wonderful union of merchants and monarchs,” he started. “The war of expansion is ideal not only for the Crown, but also for business.”

Oh, he was good at this. Very good at this. Say what you wanted about Bennett, but the man was a politician, born and bred.

“More subjects flowing into the kingdom means more clients for you, our venerated merchant class. More clients mean more coin, more coin means…whatever the merchants want it to mean!” He sighed and held his hand over his chest, as if the thought of all that money made his heart sing. “Ah, commerce!”

I stopped paying attention at this point. I was more interested in the people hovering in the back of the room, but there was no one tall, dark, and very handsome skulking in the corners. Tomas was probably busy tending to his sick daughter while Bennett was busy—I got the feeling his brother wasn’t the type to give him time off to take care of her.

How horrible of the prince, to keep his own daughter from the medicine she so desperately needed—

Wait a minute. An idea occurred to me around the time the fish was being passed around. Tomas’s situation was unfortunate, and I desperately needed access. Maybe there was a solution that might work for the both of us.

I might be able to style myself as the missing piece to Tomas’s puzzle. The more I thought about it, the more perfect it seemed.

I could help Tomas while helping myself. As I sat there, shoveling big bites of the most deliciously baked, tender salmon I had ever had the honor of tasting into my mouth, I worked out the finer details of my plan. It was the best plan I’d ever come up with—and that was saying something.