by Lily Blake
In such a short space of time, Mary had become attached to them. And Francis was right, too attached. The girls needed to leave the castle so that they could live their own lives, but more importantly because it was too dangerous for them at court. They had made an enemy of Catherine and a friend of the queen, and it was hard to say which put them more at risk.
And yet, already she missed them. She missed Ada’s tiny hand in hers, the way she said whatever she was thinking without stopping to consider whether or not she should. She missed Alys’s shy manner and the way she opened up when she was excited. In two days, she had found daughters, yet in a whole year she still had not been able to have a baby of her own.
“How are you feeling?” Kenna sat down beside her, making her jump. She hadn’t realized how absorbed she was in her own thoughts.
“Confused,” Mary admitted, resting her head on her friend’s shoulder. Kenna combed her fingers through Mary’s thick hair and nodded in understanding. “It’s been such a strange few days. Did you see the healer?”
“Yes, clean bill of health,” Kenna confirmed. “Just roughed up a little bit, that’s all.”
“What you did for the girls was incredible,” Mary told her, avoiding the dark bruise on her friend’s wrist. “Your bravery is beyond words. If half of France’s armies had your guts, we would never lose another battle again.”
Kenna laughed. “Brave and stupid,” she said. “I’m afraid it’s a dangerous combination. And when you throw pride into the mix, I can’t swear you’ll always get a positive outcome.”
“Well, I am in your debt,” Mary said. “If it weren’t for you and Greer, Alys wouldn’t be here today.”
“What was all that nonsense with Catherine?” Kenna asked, kicking off her slippers to rest her feet in the cool grass. Anything that made her feel far away from that dank little prison was heaven to her now. “Did she find out who poisoned the servants?”
“She sent word to Francis, apparently someone confessed,” Mary said. She couldn’t bear to think about it. After everything she had done to save the Février children, another innocent life had been taken anyway, and by a member of her own family. Would it always be that way in court? An eye for an eye? “The less you get involved with Catherine’s schemes, the better.”
“You don’t need to tell me twice,” Kenna said. “I still haven’t forgotten that she tried to have me killed.”
“And she hasn’t forgotten that you were sleeping with her husband,” Mary reminded her. “Just keep your distance, Kenna.”
She rolled her eyes and smiled. “I promise,” she said. “Now I just wish Bash would return. I hate that he’s in Auxerre. Truly, Mary, I’ve never known such a poisonous place.”
Mary gazed out across the grounds and sighed. “I will admit, I’ll be happier once he has returned. It does my nerves no good to know there are men like this Duquesne out there in my country. France has so many enemies—the English, the Protestants—but to begin to turn against one another? I cannot comprehend it.”
“We always knew life at court wasn’t going to be easy,” Kenna said. “But I have to admit, I wasn’t prepared for what we have faced so far.”
“And only imagine what lies ahead,” Mary said, watching Kenna twisting her wedding ring on her left hand. “But we shall prevail.”
“We shall,” Kenna agreed. “I wonder what our next adventure will bring.”
“Hopefully something far gentler,” Mary said, a smile on her face. “Maybe someone will find a basket of kittens that need rescuing?”
“Maybe you’ll get pregnant again,” Kenna said hopefully. “Maybe we both will. Wouldn’t that be marvelous?”
“It would,” Mary said, thinking back to Ada’s strange offer to be her little girl. What did she mean, boys were awful? She wished she had pressed her further: Had she had a dream about Mary? Perhaps it was better not to know, she reasoned silently. She had learned not to torture herself with hope, after all.
“It’s a beautiful evening,” Francis said, interrupting Mary’s thoughts and bowing before the ladies. “I am very happy to inform you that Bash has returned to the castle, Lady Kenna.”
“He’s back?” Kenna jumped to her feet, her entire face lighting up with joy. “Where is he?”
“By the time you get there, he’ll be in his chambers.” Francis smiled as Kenna hurriedly kissed Mary on the cheek and dashed back to the castle. “Treat him gently,” he called after her. “He’s had a very long day.”
“She forgot her shoes.” Mary laughed, pointing at Kenna’s slippers in the long grass. “Not that I imagine she’ll notice. Is he all right?”
“He’s fine,” Francis confirmed. “Angry and bloodied and exhausted but he is fine. Are you all right?”
“You made me jump,” she said, allowing him to take her hand. “That’s all. I’m quite all right. You’ve spoken with Duquesne?”
Francis straightened his collar and sighed heavily. “Bash dragged him into the dungeons himself. He didn’t even try to deny anything. My father would have been quite upset not to have a reason to torture the truth out of him.”
“How does someone come to be so twisted?” Mary asked. “What has to happen to you to make you think it’s acceptable to take lives? To destroy families?”
“I don’t know,” Francis said. “And I hope I never learn it.”
He pressed Mary’s hand to his heart. “What I have learned,” he said, pulling her face toward his, “is how quickly people who love one another can find themselves on opposing sides. What happened over the last few days was a test, Mary, and I’m not sure any of us passed.”
“I believe Greer passed,” Mary said. “At least, she proved she can defend herself very well.”
Francis laughed. “Quite. But Greer shouldn’t have been in a position to prove she can knock a man unconscious using only kitchen implements. If Kenna had discussed her feelings with Bash, they never would have been in Auxerre.”
“And then Alys would be dead now,” Mary pointed out. “And that would be innocent blood on our hands.”
“My hands,” Francis corrected her gently. “And while I am beyond happy that Alys’s innocence was proven and that we are able to find a semblance of justice for her and her family, if the execution had gone ahead, that would have been something I would have to live with. Do you understand what I’m saying, Mary?”
She looked back at the swans gliding effortlessly along the lake, knowing full well that beneath the water they were paddling furiously, frenetic energy pushing them along with nothing even remotely regal to look at.
“I do,” she said. “As rulers, we will make decisions during our reign that are not always popular or even the right ones.” Francis nodded as she spoke. “But we will have to live with them.”
“And that is much harder to do when one of us is not there for the other,” Francis added. “I wanted very much to believe that Alys was innocent but there was no proof. All the evidence suggested she had killed those servants, and what’s more, my castle, my country, needed to see me taking action against a threat of the occult before it spread any further. Fear is dangerous, Mary, especially fear of something that cannot be defined or explained.”
Mary lowered her eyes, blinking away tears she did not want Francis to see. “Do you wonder,” she asked, “what would have happened if we were never meant to be king and queen? If we were just a boy and a girl? Do you think we would be happier?”
Francis pressed her hand harder against his chest so that she could feel his heart beating. “Not any more,” he said.
She looked up into his eyes, needing to know if that was a good or a bad thing.
“I made you a promise that I would never forget what was important. And to me, that means this. For all the terrible things that have happened to us, that will happen to us,” he said, his voice low and hoarse, “if taking away a single minute of it meant that I might not have you in my life, then no. I would not want another life.”
“I love you, Francis,” Mary said, her lips pressing against his just for a moment before she leaned into him, resting her cheek on his chest.
“I was born a king,” he said, “but you make me a good man. And for that, I can never thank you enough.”
Content at last, they sat beside the lake and watched the sun slip away over the horizon, their scars fading with the dying light of the day.
For more great reads and free samplers, visit
LBYRDigitalDeals.com
and join our communities at:
Facebook.com/LittleBrownBooks
Twitter.com/lbkids
theNOVL.com
Keep reading for a look at
REIGN: THE PROPHECY,
the first original novel based on the hit
CW television show Reign.
AVAILABLE NOW.
CHAPTER ONE
I’ve laid out your dresses, my queen.” Kirsten, the youngest of Mary’s maids, gestured to the two gowns hanging by the window. One was red satin with rabbit fur around the collar. The other was embroidered green velvet. “I wasn’t sure what color you’d like.…”
Mary stared at her reflection in the vanity mirror. Her other maid, Lissy, brushed Mary’s dark brown hair away from her face, pulling the front piece into a side braid. As she worked, her fingers threading the strands, Mary had to blink back tears. Even from within the stone walls of the palace, she could just make out the sound of people crying out beyond the gates.
“It feels wrong, doesn’t it? Having a feast tonight?”
Lissy and Kirsten didn’t answer. Lissy had kept her gaze down the entire time she laced up Mary’s corset. She wouldn’t look Mary in the eye as she smoothed the rouge on her cheeks or pinned the curls at the nape of her neck.
“I’m not one to say, my queen,” Kirsten replied.
“Even if the feast is in memory of the king… It’s just that with the plague, and everything else that’s going on…”
Mary didn’t say more. Show no weakness. Never let them pity you. It was advice Catherine once gave her, and the words were in her head now, whether she liked it or not.
She couldn’t explain it to her maids. How awful it felt knowing Francis was somewhere beyond the palace gates. That he could be stuck somewhere. He could contract the plague and die alone, in some hovel, and she would never know.
He had been so foolish. Did he believe he was being brave? What was he trying to prove as he mounted his horse, as he ignored his wife’s wishes? She’d begged him. She’d pleaded with him not to go to Lola, no matter how much she hated thinking of her friend alone, in childbirth, in pain, amid the horrors of the plague.
Now he was out there… and even if he did manage to get to Lola, even if they were both alive, there would be complications with that too. What would it mean when Lola had their child? Who would the child be when he returned to court? Another Bash, casting about the palace, while everyone gossiped about the king and his mistress, the king and his bastard son?
His son… Mary had somehow already assumed it would be a boy. Every month she’d waited, hoping, praying to get pregnant. The months had come and gone. Francis had told her not to worry, that it would all be all right, but how was she supposed to believe that now? If she couldn’t bear him a child—an heir—and Lola could… what did that mean for her? For their marriage?
Mary stared at her reflection in the mirror, watching her eyes swell. She forced herself to turn away, thinking again of the feast. “I guess I’ll wear the green one. Thank you, Kirsten.”
As Lissy finished tying her hair back, Kirsten pulled the gown off the hanger. She was fourteen, maybe a little younger, with huge gray eyes. Her nose turned up a bit at the end. She carried the gown carefully, arranging the skirt on the floor for Mary to step into.
“May I be excused, my queen?” Lissy asked, her gaze turning away. Her fair skin was red and splotchy. She wrung her hands together, squeezing the blood from her fingers.
“I suppose so,” Mary said. “Everything all right?”
Lissy just nodded. Then she curtsied and slipped out the giant oak doors.
Kirsten helped Mary’s arms into the stiff sleeves of the gown. Then she tied the back with a green satin ribbon. “I shouldn’t tell you this, my queen…” she said, pausing for a few breaths. “But it’s Lissy’s brother. She heard this afternoon that he was sick. That it could be the plague.”
“How awful…”
Kirsten knotted the back, then went to the basin to change Mary’s wash water. “She was going to go to him, but then the gates came down. She’s stuck here now.”
“It will be safer for her,” Mary said. But she knew it was much more complicated than that. Living… surviving. What did it matter if you couldn’t be with the people you loved?
Mary walked to the window, looking down at the gates below. Villagers huddled outside the perimeter wall. There were thirty or forty of them demanding to be let in. Some clutched the wrought-iron bars. Others threw things—pieces of firewood, broken pots.
There was a knock on the door, the sound so sudden Mary flinched. Kirsten opened it, revealing two of the palace guards. They knelt on one knee as soon as they saw Mary.
“Your Majesty,” the tall, redheaded one said. “We await your orders in regards to the palace gate. The villagers are requesting food and medicine.”
Your Majesty. It was strange to hear those words directed at her. The king had only been dead for one day, and Mary was used to seeing the servants bow before Catherine when she entered a room. Catherine was Your Majesty, the one they feared. This—their sudden drop to their knees, their heads down—was not something she was yet used to.
Mary waited a moment before responding. She could feel Kirsten watching her from across the room. She steeled herself against it… those bright, innocent eyes. She was queen now. She must not waver in what she said. Even if Francis was beyond the gates. Even if there were people dying out there.
“Stand guard along the perimeter of the palace, far enough away from the gates that there’s no chance of contracting the plague if any of the villagers are sick. I don’t want to take any chances. All night, all day—there should be men at every entrance and exit.”
“Right, Your Majesty. Of course.” The redheaded guard nodded.
The other guard, a thin man with a graying beard, locked eyes with Mary. “Your Majesty… the people… they’re sick and desperate. Some have tried to climb over the gate. What should we do if they try to breach the wall?”
Mary took a deep breath, trying to separate it all. How awful she had felt when she saw Francis riding beyond the gates.… What would it feel like if he was one of the desperate people outside, calling to be let in? How could she possibly turn him away?
“No, we…” she said softly, under her breath.
“Pardon, Your Majesty?”
She straightened up, looking him directly in the eye. “We cannot let anyone in.”
“And if they get past the gate…?” the man asked.
“They must be killed. The plague cannot enter the palace.”
The two men nodded. They knelt down one last time before they stepped out into the hall.
“I’m sorry you had to hear that, Kirsten.”
The young girl was staring out the window, down at the crowd below. “You have to protect our kingdom. I know that. I just… I can’t stop thinking of Lissy. My parents are out there too, in a village outside of Loudun. I have two sisters younger than me.” She glanced down at her hands, working at the hem on the front of her apron.
“Let us go,” Mary said. “They’ll be expecting me at the feast.”
Kirsten picked up the pail of wash water, waiting for Mary to exit before her. Mary turned, looking at her reflection in the vanity mirror one last time before leaving. It was getting harder to meet her own gaze. She was losing herself; she could feel it happening, could feel herself growing more callous. It had begun during King Henry’s madness. She’d plotted
with Catherine to murder him, hoping to end his tyrannical reign. The plot had been stopped, but then she’d needed money to fund soldiers in Scotland. She’d hired someone to kidnap Catherine and demand a ransom. It had resulted in Catherine’s cousin Cortenza being executed, and though Cortenza hadn’t been wholly innocent, Mary had harbored guilt. She hated that she was constantly questioning motives, that she constantly worried about her own safety. Was that what this was now? Did she really need to be so extreme in defending the palace walls?
When she looked up at her reflection again, she noticed the wall behind her. She turned back. The hidden door to the palace tunnels was open ever so slightly. The pink tapestry was off. She hadn’t used that door since the attempt on Catherine’s life… it had been closed just yesterday, she was certain.
“Did you see anyone in my room today while I was out?” Mary asked. “Anyone at all?”
Kirsten shook her head. “Just me and Lissy, Your Majesty. That’s it. Why?”
“Oh… Kenna mentioned she had something for me,” Mary lied. “Go ahead, Kirsten. Go on in front of me. I’ll be down shortly.”
It wasn’t until the girl left, closing the door behind her, that Mary went to the tapestry. She was right—the hidden door to the tunnels was open. She could feel the damp draft coming through. There were only a few people alive who knew about the secret tunnels that led outside. Mary and her ladies, Francis, Bash. The man Mary had hired to kill Catherine. And one other person—Catherine herself.
Who would want to enter Mary’s room unnoticed? Who would want to find her here alone, and evade the guards stationed outside? Who could be planning an assassination attempt? Mary pushed the door closed, but she didn’t feel any better.
There was only one answer to all of those questions, one person Mary kept coming back to. Catherine. She knew what Mary had done… and now she wanted her dead.
CHAPTER TWO
Francis tore through the woods, riding fast. He tried to concentrate on the sound of his horse’s hooves striking the ground, the endless rhythm of it. He tried to push away his dark thoughts, but they kept coming back to him, with every mile, with every village he passed. Mary’s face as she watched him through the gate. The way her hand rested on the portcullis, her cheeks that deep pink they always turned when she was about to cry. He’d only glanced back once… but once was too much.
