Mom was sitting in her favorite room, in a chaise against the now-dark window.
“Why did Theo leave?” I asked. “All those years ago, why did he go work for Papa?”
I’d never asked her. I’d never thought to ask her. I saw him with Gemma, and I assumed he didn’t want to be around me anymore.
“I was protecting you,” she said simply, without looking up from her book.
I was getting real fucking sick of people protecting me.
&n
bsp; I barely whispered my question. “Is that why he left again? Did you make some kind of deal?”
She looked up, eyes slowly finding mine. “You were never going to marry Theo, Abigail.”
I had to swallow every emotion. Rage, betrayal, anger at myself for being so foolish.
“You were protecting you.” The truth was charcoal on my tongue. “You let me believe Gemma was better than me. You let me believe Theo loved her. No… you made it impossible for me to believe anything else.”
The pain came out of me jagged and rough, and I stumbled, grasped the back of one of the two wingback chairs between us to keep from falling over.
“All this time it’s been about you, your insecurity, your need. I wanted your approval so badly it kept me up at night. It destroyed my chance at love, but you never wanted me to win. You just wanted to keep watching me lose.”
I gripped the wingback until the fibers groaned against my nails.
“Why?” I probed. “Because I was happy? Because I still had my Theo?”
Mom looked away. In all my life I’d never witnessed my mother avert her eyes or show any kind of weakness. Her jaw was tight, and she swallowed roughly. For a brief, blinding second, I thought I would see some of my mother’s humanity.
Real humanity.
But as quickly as it came, it vanished.
“That’s quite the story you wove,” she said coolly.
Uneasy is the girl who wears the name Crowne.
This fight has never been with Ned. If it were just about that, it would’ve been over already.
We were all chess pieces fighting to be queen.
Ned was a pawn.
It’s a good thing I’ve been warring with the best queen since the day she gave birth to me.
“I’m not you. I’m not going to let the love of my life go because I was too afraid.”
She looked up, eyes slowly finding mine. “You don’t get to stay a princess and marry a pauper, Abigail.”
“Maybe I don’t want to be a princess,” I said.
“You will always be a Crowne, Abigail,” my mother said. “Unfortunately.”
To be a Crowne was more than a name, it’s blood, it’s the insidious connections laid root centuries before you were ever born. I could change my last name to Squarepants and still be a Crowne.
“You underestimate me. You always underestimate me. The next time we meet, I will be just Abigail.”
Her brows furrowed, but I walked out, not giving her a chance to respond.