by Maria Luis
“Clarke’s car drove on autopilot,” Godwin interjects, and I can almost visualize him crossing his arms while he coolly assesses me. “The queen was under firm instruction to come here if anything ever happened to Clarke. There wasn’t a damn thing Miss Carrigan had to do besides sit in the driver’s seat.”
He says here as though it’s a place of known notoriety.
Last night, I saw nothing of this so-called palace. Leaving Margaret in the passenger seat, I’d stumbled from the car in search of the owners. Holyrood, Margaret called them. While she never divulged anything else, it’s becoming abundantly clear that these people—these people who also knew Clarke—are in some way tied to the Crown.
Guardians, maybe.
And, if not guardians, then at least allies in a war ripe to explode at any second. Someone killed Clarke, and someone shot Margaret, and someone set Buckingham Palace on fire. If that’s not an act of war, then I don’t know what is.
I tilt my head, listening.
Guardian or not, Godwin’s voice is a match for the man that I already met. The man who promised to shoot me if I failed to give him my name. And here I am . . . without my sight, without any knowledge of where I am, completely at his mercy.
“Bring me to Margaret.”
The air around me thickens at the sound of a single footstep. Heavy, commanding. Deadly. “No.”
“You have no right to keep me here.”
Another step, and this time Godwin doesn’t stop until I feel the texture of soft fabric against my bare knees. Beyond the material lies a land of hard flesh that doesn’t so much as twitch when I angle my leg to keep him at a firm distance.
“I have every right,” comes his husky, velvet baritone. I feel the grip of the sea at my feet, a tempting seduction to let the current drag me under. And then I’m drowning, those waves sucking me so far deep beneath the surface that I can barely breathe when Godwin’s calloused fingers find the table beside mine. “Matthews, leave us.”
The surgeon hesitates. “She needs the rest of the glass removed.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
It, not her.
No, this man—Godwin—has no concept of compassion. Which is only fitting because I’ve already spent a lifetime of going without. Father taught me that particular lesson the hard way. And if Godwin is anything like Edward Carrigan, then at least I have personal experience on my side.
I’m no pawn to be moved at a whim across a chessboard.
Godwin will learn that soon enough.
“I’ll be fine, Dr. Matthews.” Ignoring the irrational desire to seek him out, I keep my gaze trained forward. Do I face a window? Medical equipment? Godwin alone? From the way his hands bracket mine, and the alluring scent of cloves that I catch on every inhale, there’s no doubt in my mind that I’m face to face with Godwin, for better or worse. “No need to worry.”
“Your burns—”
“Have been dressed. Right?”
The surgeon’s disgruntled “yes” reveals nothing about their severity. Not bad enough to need a skin graft, yet bad enough to make me wish that I could strip out of my skin. So much for silver linings.
“I’ll be back at half past to discuss your next steps,” Matthews mutters gruffly. “Godwin, use the sedative if she—”
“Out.”
Godwin utters the word with such authority that the surgeon doesn’t argue. His harried stride echoes like a death knell as he flees the room, the door clicking shut behind him.
Immediately the fingers resting beside my own disappear.
Godwin brushes past me, and I twist my head to follow the sound of his footsteps. One, two, three. He moves so far to the right that rotating my body to such an angle has agony rupturing down my spine. And my ribs . . . bloody hell.
Swallowing a whimper, I barely stop myself from pressing a hand to my diaphragm. “I want to see the queen.”
“The queen isn’t taking visitors.”
My heart plummets with a burst of dread. “Dr. Matthews said that she came out of surgery.”
“Let me rephrase—she won’t be seeing you.”
The clear-as-day hostility in his voice straightens my spine. “Why in the world wouldn’t she see me?”
His answering silence reveals more than a thousand words ever could. Judgment. Disdain. Suspicion. Each second that passes where he leaves me to draw my own conclusions feels like a lash snapping against bare skin, striking deeper and deeper until I’m raw and floundering. Dr. Matthews may have tended to my injuries, but it’s obvious that further kindness won’t be coming my way. Not from this man—this Godwin.
At the hard clip of his stride, I draw my fingers into a fist. “You told the doctor not to sedate me.”
“I need you lucid.”
“Why.”
“Interrogations don’t work when the guilty party is too drugged up to participate.”
Shock has my mouth falling open. “Guilty? There’s no way . . . You think that I’m the one who shot Margaret?”
“It’s up for debate.”
“It’s ridiculous!”
“Is it?”
That velvet voice comes from behind me now, raising the tiny hairs on my nape. I can’t see him, but I imagine him—large and ruthless, with broad, heartless features that speak to a lifetime of brute resilience. Dark hair. Cold, dark eyes. Clarke’s polar opposite in every single way.
While the good die young, beasts live on forever.
As if he’s dived straight into my head to pluck out every one of my thoughts, the beast at my back demands, “How did Clarke die?”
The bold question strikes true, and the visual that follows is nothing less than a nightmare. Clarke’s unseeing hazel eyes, the droplets of blood that carved their way down the slope of his nose. The weapon that I took to use as my own, now lost to the flames and to the chaos and to the all-out destruction.
“He was . . .” I swallow past the growing lump in my throat. “He was—”
“He was what?”
“Shot,” I manage. “He was shot.”
“Where?”
Increasingly familiar hands fall upon my shoulders, angling me forward. I can’t bear to think about what lies beneath the bandages so tightly wound around me, so I dig my fingers into the table to keep from tipping forward. “The forehead. But I wasn’t the one who killed him, so your interrogation is completely unwarranted. The queen will tell you exactly what happened. All I know is that I—”
“You weren’t on the list.”
My lips part. “What list?”
The razor comes again, and though I’m prepared for its sharp edges, a broken moan still escapes. My grip on the table grows desperate, and I link my ankles together to keep them from swinging like a child’s.
“What list?” I repeat thickly. Do not flinch, do not show weakness. I bite down so furiously on my bottom lip that blood beads on my tongue. “If there’s some list I should know about, then tell me.”
“Of people allowed access to the queen.” Another pluck of glass from my skin. With a hiss, I feel its jagged edges tear free, just as Godwin’s thumb smooths over the curve of my shoulder. “She didn’t have you listed, but you were at the palace anyway—and on the night that all hell broke loose.”
“You can’t be serious.” I whip around, intending to say my piece, only to be held immobile when his palm moves to the back of my neck. Unable to shake him off, I gnash my teeth together. “Margaret is my friend.”
“And yet she never gave us your name.” The razor rakes down my spine, Godwin’s hand still damn near collaring me like a dog. “An alleged best mate decides to spend some quality time and the fucking place goes up in flames. A bodyguard is dead. The queen has been shot. A mysterious killer is out causing havoc, and you—”
A scream rips from my throat, and it has nothing to do with Godwin’s ridiculous assumptions and everything to do with the agony enveloping my left shoulder blade. Nausea looms, and though my world remains elus
ively dark, I slam my eyes shut anyway.
“Stop,” I breathe, fingers spasming, “please stop.”
I’m covered in bandages, and crystallized shards of hell penetrate my back, and my eyes see absolutely nothing, all the while this man—this blasted bastard—twines my weaknesses to his advantage and bends my body to his will.
My nails carve indents into the thinly padded table beneath my thighs. “I did not shoot the queen.”
“Someone gave you access to her,” Godwin says, “and it wasn’t me.”
“And who are you?” Agonizing pain or not, inevitable death or not, I won’t let this man do to me what so many others before him have done—run me to the ground, use me for their own gain, steal my light and fortitude.
Never again.
“I don’t know you,” I hiss from between clenched teeth, “and yet I’m not accusing you of anything. I’ll only say this once more: I didn’t shoot Margaret. I definitely did not kill Clarke. And, in case you’re busy coming up with more absurd conspiracy theories, I can promise you that it wasn’t Clarke who tried to take out Margaret either.”
Those calloused hands briefly pause on my back before peeling away completely.
“Clarke was her bodyguard.”
For the first time since unofficially meeting him, there’s hesitation in Godwin’s voice. It’s subtle, maybe even a bout of wishful thinking on my part. But there’s no mistaking the thread of disquiet when he stiffly adds, “Only her bodyguard.”
Turning my head, I plant my chin on the curve of my right shoulder.
Though I can’t see him, I take strange delight in knowing something that the Almighty Godwin doesn’t. Only, the delight is extremely short-lived when I think of Margaret in the car as we made our way to Sevenoaks—of the sobs that racked her body. Tears that she didn’t shed for herself, or even for me, but for the man I left slumped outside her door.
The man who took his very last breath protecting her.
Quietly, I confess, “She was with Clarke.”
“What the hell do you mean she was with him?”
“They were together—in every meaning of the word.”
Godwin rises, the air between us straining with tension that feels suffocating. Menacing. A chill strokes down my spine when he growls, “You’re lying.”
Ten years ago, I would have trembled before all that anger.
Rowena Carrigan at twenty-three had no courage, no self-respect. A whore, my father’s friends whispered behind his back—but they could have said it to his face, and he only would have laughed. Because it was through me that Edward Carrigan scaled the ladder of ambition. The charm I wielded like a weapon, the tears I hid, the inner confidence that never lasted more than a handful of hours. Each rung he climbed was on the back of his daughter’s defeat.
I’ve tasted dirt, I’ve drowned in self-loathing, and though it’s clear that I’ve hit rock bottom all over again, I turn toward Godwin, desperately wishing that I could see the smug look wiped clean from his face, and throw down the metaphorical gauntlet:
“From where I’m sitting, it looks like you know nothing at all.”
4
Damien
Clarke and the queen—together.
Bloody fucking hell.
I pride myself on knowing every detail about a person—their triumphs, their failures, the secrets they’d move heaven and earth to keep under lock and key. No one is off-limits. Not our enemies, not even our allies.
But this . . . Jesus.
Clarke never let on, and the damned bastard knew me well enough to keep all PDA with the queen hidden away from the security cameras. Cameras which, in the last seven months, have become my only lifeline into Buckingham Palace.
Over a hundred years of serving the royal family, and the lines between Holyrood and the Crown have finally blurred.
Unless Rowena Carrigan is lying.
With my hands planted firmly on the exam table, I piece together my limited memory of her—the smooth, porcelain skin, and the vivid violet eyes, and the hair so deep a shade of black that it encompassed all color—with the woman seated before me now.
That thick mane of hair is gone.
The striking eyes are concealed behind white bandages wrapped around her head.
And her skin, once so perfect, is mottled with blisters from the fire.
Still, she manages to glare down her nose at me like I’m nothing but the grime beneath her shoes.
I’d expect nothing less from the prime minister’s only child.
“Does your father know where you were last night?” I ask, keeping my voice purposefully low in a smooth taunt that I know, deep in my gut, will shred that prim composure. Give me your secrets, Miss Carrigan. And if she doesn’t hand them over, I’ll take them, each and every one, until she has nothing left to give. “Or do you spend your days pretending that your old man doesn’t want your friend stripped of her crown?”
“Stripped of her . . .?” The muscles in Rowena’s upper back flicker as she jerks her head to the side. “Why would you say that?”
“Maybe we both know things that the other doesn’t.”
“You’re wrong,” she utters tightly, twisting her broken body around to face mine. “There’s no pretending. My father has always supported the royal family, and that didn’t stop with the king’s death. He’s loyal to Margaret.”
Edward Carrigan is loyal to no one but himself.
It may have been Marcus Guthram who put out the warrant for my arrest, sealing my fate to a life on the run, but it was Rowena’s father who appeared from the shadowed wings of the House of Commons to cut me a deal.
Take out the king, he’d said, and no one will ever know what you’ve done here tonight.
And when I told him to shove the offer up his ass, Carrigan ensured that I would be forever remembered.
The Mad Priest.
The terrorist who stormed Westminster and struck the match of rebellion.
My fingers twine around the thin sheet in a pitiful attempt to ease the rage battering down my veins.
Since that night, I’ve lived for nothing but vengeance. Against Guthram, who turned on us all and served my head on a platter to the Metropolitan Police. Against Edward Carrigan, who dealt his power like a king, though I could crush his throat with a twist of my fist—if only the chains were cut from my wrists and I could leave this godforsaken house.
And here I’ve been gifted his daughter.
Now blind. Now ruined. Now mine.
A good man would ignore temptation.
A better man would turn Rowena Carrigan over to her father—or to someone, at least, who cares to keep her alive—and wash his hands clean.
But I’m not a good man; not a better man either.
Not anymore.
“My father was best mates with the king,” Rowena adds, as though uncomfortable with the lingering silence. “It wouldn’t be in his best interest to see Margaret deposed.”
“Wouldn’t it?” I stare at her, at those bandages that reveal nothing of her expression but the fullness of her mouth and the hollows of her cheeks. I drag my fingers over the sheet, crumpling the fabric within my grip, because it’s either that or strike her down. Now, while she suspects nothing. “No king,” I say, barely leashing the bite in my voice, “no queen—who’d be left to lead the country?”
That full mouth of hers pulls sharply to one side. “You’re speaking treason.”
“Or just stating the facts.”
“You can’t just . . . just imply that my father wants the throne!”
“I’m not implying a damned thing. Ask yourself what the PM has to gain with the queen dead. There’s no other heir, no one to stand in the way of taking what he wants for himself. Maybe some random cousin, farther down the line, but who’s to say that he wouldn’t take them out too?”
“Stop.”
Her hand flies out, and it takes two attempts for her to make contact with the back of mine. Instead of letting go, h
er slim fingers glide north, linking around my wrist to squeeze tight.
A warning, a silent threat.
I lower my head. Brush my mouth over the shell of her ear. “If you’re looking to do permanent damage, you’ll have to try harder than that.” A dark, victorious smile curves my mouth when she audibly swallows. “I don’t bruise easily.”
Her nails carve unapologetic half-moons into my flesh. “I don’t know what sort of . . . organization Holyrood is, but if Margaret catches wind of you claiming that the prime minister wants—”
“What makes you think that she doesn’t already know?” Not giving Rowena the opportunity to retreat, I pin her fingers to the table. A shocked gasp breaks from her cracked lips, and then I lean forward and close the gap between us until my breath ghosts over her mouth. “For being the queen’s best friend,” I murmur, purposely baiting her, “it seems you know nothing at all.”
“Don’t you dare throw my words back in my face.”
“Or what? You’ll strike me down? Call for backup?” My gaze tracks the thick bandages wrapped around her from breastbone to hip. Between a strained rib and the second-degree burns littered across almost every trace of exposed flesh on her upper body, Rowena Carrigan is the very manifestation of misery—and I don’t feel an ounce of pity. “No one is coming to help you, and you’ve nowhere to run.”
“I’m not going to run like a . . . like a coward.”
“Probably wise,” I drawl, “because you wouldn’t get very far.”
A feminine growl reverberates in her throat.
Too bad she can’t see that I’m not even remotely close to shaking in my boots.
It’s painfully obvious that Rowena is alone—physically, emotionally. She may claim to be the queen’s best mate, and hell, she may have saved the queen’s life tonight, but their “friendship” is clearly a one-way street.
Queen Margaret had multiple opportunities to add Rowena to the list that I had her write up, not even a month ago. “Tell me every person who might need access to you,” I’d told her, “and think hard on it.”
Via Clarke, the queen sent over sixteen names, not a single one of them belonging to the woman seated before me. The same woman whose own father so desperately wanted the king dead that he was willing to enlist a Priest to get the job done.
