The Queen's Necklace

by Teresa Edgerton

  “As you say—it would be impolitic.” He had been watching her lips intently while she spoke; now his eyes moved slowly down the entire length of her body, in an insolent way that made Lili long to slap him. “May I claim the privilege of escorting you tomorrow?”

  She took such a vicious pull at her hair that the tears started up in her eyes. “Of course. I can be ready by eleven, if that is what you—” But she stopped in mid-sentence, with the brush in the air. “Wilrowan, are—are you going so soon?”

  He paused with his hand on the door. “What do you take me for?” he said under his breath. “Am I really capable of such crude behavior? To neglect you for two whole days, yet expect to spend the night?”

  You can stay if you choose, thought Lili, blinking back the tears, but she was much too proud to say the words out loud. “You must do—you must do whatever pleases you,” she heard herself saying instead. “As Heaven’s my witness, you always have!”

  There was a spark in his eyes, a moment of hesitation, which made Lili think—which made Lili hope—he was going to stay in spite of her. That he was going to stay to spite her, if that made any sense. And while the consequences of that could hardly be pleasant, they might be—interesting.

  But the light in his eyes died; his face became suddenly very cold. “On that note, madam, I will take my leave.” And before she could say anything more, he was out of the room, shutting the door very quietly behind him.

  30

  After a restless night, Lili rose at eight and drifted downstairs to breakfast. As she sipped her morning tea, as she buttered a crumbling caraway scone and set it aside untasted, she suddenly remembered that today was the day she would go to the Volary. Her heart gave a sudden bound. A delicate task lay before her; was it possible she could succeed on her very first visit?

  One of the footmen came into the room, and announced that a gentleman had called. “A gentleman? At this hour?”

  “A Sir Bastian Josslyn-Mather, madam. I told him—”

  “No, no, show him in at once.” And Lili spent the next few minutes wondering what this unexpected visit could possibly mean, until the old gentleman himself appeared at the door of her dining parlor, hat in hand.

  “Do not rise,” he insisted. “And do not look so anxious, either. There is nothing seriously amiss. But as there is something I most particularly wished to discuss, I took the chance that Captain Blackheart would be out.”

  “If I am not to rise, then you must take a seat and allow me to pour you a cup of tea,” said Lili, lifting the flowered teapot. “But, sir, did you know where I am going this afternoon?”

  Sir Bastian pulled up one of the walnut side-chairs and sat down facing her. “To the palace, Lilliana? That is excellent news. But not, I am afraid, the news that brings me here. If indeed it may be called news at all. The matter may be important, or again it may not.” He cleared his throat, looked faintly uncomfortable. “I saw Captain Blackheart at the theater last night. Not to speak to, of course. He was there with—he was there with the queen and a very large party, and someone was kind enough to point him out.”

  Lili wondered about that momentary hesitation. Who had Will been with that Sir Bastian was reluctant to mention? She remembered that one of Wilrowan’s most notorious romances had been with a certain Mrs. Sidmouth, a tragedian. While it was unlikely the liaison had lasted for more than two years, it was also unlikely that Will had lost his taste for actresses.

  “—with the queen on the terrace afterwards,” Sir Bastian had continued on, while Lili’s thoughts were elsewhere, “he wears a ring on his right hand, a smoke-colored stone, carved intaglio, in a silver setting. No doubt you know it?”

  “Yes, of course,” Lili answered, with a puzzled little frown.

  “It is of Goblin manufacture?”

  “It’s so very old, it could hardly be anything else.” Lili lifted her cup and took a sip. “It came to Will from his grandmother, two or three years ago.”

  “Ah,” said Sir Bastian, looking satisfied. “Then I was correct in thinking I had seen it before.”

  Lili put down her teacup. “Do you know Lady Krogan?”

  The old gentleman smiled. “My dear, it would not be possible to live as long as I have, and to see so much of the world, and not at some point meet Odile Krogan. The reason I marked the ring when I saw her wearing it—she was Miss Odilia Rowan at the time—was because I had seen and handled similar stones before.” He leaned forward. “Are you quite, quite certain that Captain Blackheart knows nothing of your secret activities these last several years?”

  Lili gave a tiny jerk and spilled her tea. “Does he know I have been training as a Specularii magician?” She righted her teacup, picked up an embroidered napkin, and began to mop up the spill. “So far as I know, he is unaware the Specularii even exist. Why do you ask?”

  “Perhaps I am wrong, then. These stones are not always used for reading the minds of other people.”

  Lili stopped and stared at him, with the tea-stained linen still in her hand. “Sir Bastian, are you saying that—that Will might have been invading my thoughts all of these years? But that is incredible!” Shaking her head, she began mopping up tea again. “Will did study magic at the university, but he completely lost interest when he left.”

  “You will know best. Yet I think you ought to be cautious anyway. You must guard your thoughts whenever your husband is near. There is no harm in being careful.”

  But Lili was no longer listening. She sat with burning cheeks, thinking of all the things that she would rather die than reveal to Wilrowan. Last night—what if he had known that she wanted him to stay? What if he had known, and still he left, to meet some actress at the playhouse?

  And if he did, Lili wondered bleakly, how could I ever, ever face him again?

  Will appeared that afternoon in a conciliating mood. With one of those startling changes of front for which he was so justly famous, he was all smiles, charm, and easy conversation as he escorted Lilliana to the Volary. Despite Sir Bastian and his disturbing theories, she found she was still capable of enjoying Wilrowan’s company.

  The king received her in his study. If Lili was shy at first, Rodaric soon disarmed her with his forthright, sensible manner. They spent a pleasant afternoon, during which he allowed her to examine his collection of ancient manuscripts, and they discussed a number of books they had both read. The visit was apparently a success; she was invited back for the next day, to play chess with the king.

  Much to Lili’s surprise, Will reappeared in time to escort her home. Hailing a chair, helping her to climb inside, making every effort to secure her comfort, he walked alongside as she was carried back to the house. He stayed for supper, making agreeable conversation all the while, and it was only much later, when she realized that he was spending the night, that Sir Bastian’s words came rushing back into Lili’s mind. Then she grew flustered, excused herself early, and ran upstairs to her bedroom to cool her cheeks in privacy.

  She was already in her nightgown, just climbing into bed, when she heard Wilrowan moving around in the adjoining dressing room. She sat bolt upright against the pillows, pulling the crimson counterpane up to her chest and trying to regulate her wildly beating heart. For once, her Specularii training was no help at all.

  After a few minutes, the connecting door opened and Will walked into the room, barefoot, stripped down to his linen drawers and shirt, carrying a lighted candle in one hand. He put the candlestick carefully down on a table and seated himself on the edge of the bed.

  Lili had always felt safe in her big white bed at Brakeburn Hall, safe in her long-sleeved nightdress that covered everything. But if Will knew everything that I was thinking, she thought in a panic, if he always knew everything that I was feeling—I was worse than naked the whole time!

  “So,” he said softly, as she caught her breath sharply and averted her eyes, “it seems that I am not forgiven. I must admit that is disappointing. I thought we were getting along so wel
l.”

  Lili gave an uneasy little laugh. “I suppose it depends on what you have done that needs forgiving. I can—I can hardly forgive something I don’t even know about.”

  He shook his head slowly. “Not a thing, I swear to you. Not a blessed thing in a long, long time. I wish you wouldn’t listen to what others say of me. If you want to know something, you have only to ask. I may be a scoundrel—a rogue—anything you like, but I would never lie to you.”

  Lili cringed inwardly. There was a liar in this room, and she knew who it was, even if he did not. She swallowed hard, tried to relax, but found that she could not.

  And as Will bent over to kiss her gently on the mouth, as she felt herself go suddenly stiff and cold under the covers, Lili knew that it was going to be another dissatisfying night for both of them.

  In the weeks that followed, Lili visited the Volary often. At Dionee’s invitation, she attended two card-playing evenings, and a third devoted to dancing, held in the Music Room under the oppressive gold ceiling and the great chandelier. On each of these occasions, it seemed to Lili that Will was less occupied attending the queen than he was with some of the women attending her.

  Almost on sight, Lili conceived an aversion to a certain Lady Steerpike and a Maria Ascham, as both of these ladies were far too caressing, much too familiar in their manner toward Wilrowan. Letitia Steerpike was handsome and hard-looking, her lips very red, her eyes very bright, and her bosom very bare in her low-cut gowns. As for Maria Ascham, she was the woman that Will had “kidnapped” all those years ago.

  Thanks to Blaise, who danced with Lili twice, the informal ball was not a complete disaster, but her one dance with Will was silent and hostile, simply because she had seen him in whispered conversation with Letitia Steerpike only moments before.

  Why did he invite me to Hawkesbridge only to humiliate me? Lili asked herself, all through the dance. She felt hot and miserable in her splendid new gown. The dress—made of peacock satin with three rows of lace—had made her feel elegant when she first put it on, but how had she imagined she could ever compete with the far more mature, and certainly more blatant, charms of a Letty Steerpike?

  That the Steerpike creature’s interest in Will was considerably more marked than his in her was not much comfort. Even Wilrowan would not be so shameless as to flaunt his mistress in the presence of his wife.

  He is such an accomplished flirt! thought Lili, as they walked through the complicated figures of the dance. A slight squeeze when their hands touched, a light brushing of fingers as he passed on her left—oh, he knew all the tricks, that much was certain. Had she not been so well-acquainted with her wayward husband, she might have been fooled into thinking that it actually meant something.

  But if Lili was learning to dread Dionee’s evenings, she did look forward to her afternoon visits with the king, where the mix of books and tea, chess and conversation, was exactly to her taste.

  One afternoon, during a visit to his library, he offered to show her some of the rarer items inside the Treasure Room. Lili felt a stir of excitement; the chance she had been waiting for had finally arrived. It was only with difficulty that she hid her elation.

  Leaving the building through an arched doorway, Lili and the king followed a meandering stone path across a vivid green lawn. Somewhere in the distance, a bird or a monkey shrieked, a great cat roared. Passing down an avenue of budding fruit trees, Rodaric led the way up a short flight of mossy brick steps, through another door, and into the dim, chilly vastness that was the museum wing.

  Moving from one drafty chamber to the next, he paused briefly in a long torchlit gallery to show Lili a collection of full-length portraits done in oils. “My earliest ancestors,” said Rodaric, with a motion of his hand. “I should say: the earliest kings and queens of Mountfalcon. One knows so little of one’s family history before the Fall of the Empire, but I believe we had some employment in the southern tin mines.”

  Yet these were no portraits of men and women contemplating their humble origins. There were dignified men in pouter-pigeon doublets stuffed with bombast; more dashing ancestors decked out in love-locks, slashes and ribbons; amorous young women in bare-shouldered wasp-waisted velvet gowns—and one small grey-eyed boy, closely resembling Rodaric himself, though by the cut of his coat and the length of his loose flowing hair, he had probably been dust for centuries.

  Then it was out of the gallery and into a long corridor, where the king proceeded to point out some of the choicer curiosities for which the Volary was famous: some newts, frogs, lizards, and serpents put up in pickle; a corn-mill in a bottle, that moved without wind, water, or clockwork; the skeleton of a whale; a dried cockatrice and a necklace of tears; and an immense great-grandfather clock, towering (so Lili discovered by craning her neck) a full two stories high inside a stairwell.

  Ascending those very same stairs, Lili and the king finally reached the corridor just outside the Treasure Room. Two guards in maroon-and-gold stood at stiff attention before a massive door; at Rodaric’s approach, they saluted smartly and stepped aside.

  The king reached inside a pocket in his waistcoat and drew out a large and ornate silver key, which he proceeded to fit into the lock. As the heavy oak door with its five bars of iron swung slowly open, Rodaric sent one of the guards in to light the candles, then he beckoned to Lili to follow him in.

  Once inside, Lili glanced around her in wonder and delight. There was so much color, so much beauty—it was like entering a private universe, a miniature cosmos, exquisitely painted.

  The walls were all covered with allegorical frescoes, depicting the four seasons—the elements—and the arts and sciences. Ancient gods and goddesses sported overhead, in a cloudless sky of purest blue, while the golden chariots of the sun, the moon, and the thirteen planets chased each other in endless circles across the painted firmament. At Lili’s feet, a beautifully inlaid mosaic tile floor depicted the depths of the ocean, with glowing fishes, colorful seaweeds, and deep-sea monsters swimming about with their mouths wide open.

  Walking a few steps ahead of her, Rodaric touched an unseen spring on one of the frescoed wall panels. A door slid open, exposing the secret cabinet behind. “As you will see,” said the king, moving on to another place and opening up a second section of wall, “the objects inside each represent absolute mastery of the various arts: metallurgy, lapidary, clockwork, bookbinding—” He went on to open another, and yet another hidden cupboard.

  On velvet cushions inside these cabinets the Royal Treasures fairly dazzled Lili’s eye, with the gleam of silver and gold, the flash and glitter of precious stones.

  Rodaric watched her reaction with a faint smile. “Yes, it is a monstrous display of vanity and avarice. You must remember, however, that my family has been collecting these things for fifteen hundred years.”

  “But I think it’s perfectly beautiful,” murmured Lili, impressed in spite of herself, as much by the craftsmanship as by the costly materials. “Though perhaps I would be embarrassed if it was all mine.”

  “Fortunately, very little of it actually is mine, which removes some of the embarrassment. I hold most of this in trust for my heirs, and for the people of Mountfalcon.”

  Continuing around the room, Lili felt a tingle across her skin. It was the result of the currents of force drawn to this place over many years by the presence of the Goblin engine. Now that the Chaos Machine was gone, the effect would eventually dissipate as the magnetic rays were attracted elsewhere, but for now it was still very strong, at least to someone as sensitive as she was.

  “The Orb of Mountfalcon,” said the king, opening one of the cabinets and indicating a golden globe of the earth, about the size of an apple. Tiny gemstones sparkled at the poles and around the equator.

  Though Lili knew that the Orb was only a decoy, she could hardly say so. Believing her interest genuine, Rodaric took out the globe and opened it up, displaying the intricate clockwork mechanism inside. As she watched the small wheels spin, the v
arious movements of the delicate machinery, Lili thought it was all so cunningly made, it was a great pity that it did nothing.

  On the same shelf where the Orb had been resting, there was an empty cushion. When Lili bent down to peer at the red velvet pillow intently, the tingling sensation was stronger than ever. “And what was here?”

  “Nothing of great importance,” said Rodaric with a shrug. Only because she knew the truth and was watching him did Lili see that sudden tightening of muscles which belied his casual reply. “A little jeweled orrery.”

  So this was the very spot where the Chaos Machine had rested. Around Lili, the magnetic forces seemed to coalesce like a tiny thunderstorm.

  Concentrating her will, she forced all of the air out of her lungs in one long breath. The room began to grow grey, the walls to close rapidly in around her. As her knees buckled, she heard the king say her name, felt him reach out and grasp her by the waist.

  Then the world went black, and Lili went limp in Rodaric’s arms.

  When Lili came back to herself, she was seated on a low marble bench in the corridor outside the Treasure Room. The king was kneeling at her feet and vigorously chafing her wrists, while the two guards hovered behind him.

  As her eyes fluttered open, Rodaric gave an audible sigh of relief. He turned to the guards and waved them away. “For the love of Heaven, one of you go at once and fetch Captain Blackheart.”

  The taller of the two guards saluted and hurried off; the other took up his position again by the door, leaving Lili alone with the king at the other end of the corridor.

  “I beg your pardon. I can’t think what made me do anything quite so—foolish.”

  “Not at all,” said Rodaric, taking her wrist and stroking it more gently this time. “I am the one who should apologize. The room needs airing. I should never have taken you inside.”

  Lili flushed guiltily. Her swoon had been authentic enough, but it had not been the fault of the stale air. It was the sort of trick she despised, feigning the sort of feminine weakness she hated even more, but it had been necessary in order to initiate that brief yet intimate contact with the king. During the moment before she lost consciousness completely, when she was in his arms at the heart of the magnetic storm, something had passed between them, unnoticed by him but not by her.