“Do you wish the King’s Guard to flank you on the dais, or line the steps up to your throne?”
He waves his hand. “No need for any of that. It’s just a dance. Enjoy yourselves.”
I stare at him in shock. The King’s Guard has always been on duty at balls. At the Royal Barracks this morning, I told the men to prepare for it. The older members stared solemnly ahead, flanked by a dozen young recruits from the best families in Paravel. Is this punishment for failing to protect his mother and father? I want to protest and demand that we’re allowed to perform our traditional duty, but that would mean talking back to the King.
I bow smartly at the waist, and then back out of the room.
“You can just walk out normally, Devrim,” the King calls after me.
I walked quickly down the corridor, my uniform jacket feeling like it’s trying to choke me. Perhaps King Anson doesn’t want a guard filled with gray-haired men who couldn’t keep his parents alive.
At home, Aubrey is waiting for me in the dining room. Sunshine is blazing through the windows. It’s almost obscene how much golden light there is in this one room. I’m still not used to it. Light. Space.
“How was your meeting with the King, Daddy?” Aubrey asks, with a tentative smile.
People.
I stare at her for a moment, searching for something to say. Then I turn and glare at the wall.
Aubrey puts down her butter knife. “I’m sorry you hate it so much. Maybe we can redecorate?”
“What?” I snap, before I realize she means the wallpaper.
Aubrey shrinks in on herself. Her face is pale, and there are shadows beneath her eyes. I thought we’d share so much now that I’m free. As I laid on my cold, hard bed in prison, I imagined her on the outside. Bent over her homework or riding a horse in France, far away from the madness that destroyed our country.
Aubrey’s not going to be happy living here with me. She should marry and have a proper life.
I stretch my hand out to hold hers. “You’re so young, and so beautiful. I want you to have everything that I didn’t have. You should get married, as soon as possible.”
Aubrey looks at me in surprise. “There’s time enough for that. I’m only twenty-four. I’ll settle for getting to know my father first.”
I draw back. She doesn’t understand. There’s nothing to know. Nothing I’m proud of, anyway.
Aubrey seems to cast about for an appropriate topic of conversation. “Are you looking forward to wearing your dress uniform at a ball? Mama often told me how handsome you looked in it.”
“Did she?” I say absently. Moira and I knew each other for three months before we were married, and then had only six weeks together before the revolution.
“Mama loved you, you know.”
I look up sharply at the reproach in my daughter’s voice. I’ll always be grateful for the bravery Moira showed when she visited me in prison during those early days. For a while, she was able to bribe the guards to let us be together. That we were able to conceive Aubrey, at all, is a miracle, and I was devastated to hear that she’d died of pneumonia only a few years later. “I know she did.”
“And did you love her?”
I pretend not to hear her.
“Daddy.” I look up and see that Aubrey’s gripping her knife angrily in her fist, and her cheeks are burning with two spots of color. “Why won’t you talk about her? Why won’t you talk about anything with me?”
I glance at the clock on the wall. “I thought you were riding this afternoon.”
“Stop changing the subject!”
I raise my voice, so it’s louder than hers. “There’s nothing to talk about. We have our duties to think of. The future of this country.”
“But I don’t understand anything that you—”
“You need to do as you’re told.” I know my shouting is scaring her, but I can’t seem to stop myself. I stand up and throw my napkin onto the table.
“You can’t treat me like one of your soldiers. Your past is my past, too. Why can’t I know what you and mother went through?”
It’s just a question, but panic seizes me. “The past is dead, Aubrey. Do you hear me? Dead.”
Aubrey jumps to her feet and runs from the room. She doesn’t understand how much I need the past to stay dead.
I watch her go, wishing I knew the first thing about having a daughter.Chapter FourWraye“Viscount Pieter Olad. Lord and Lady Romfott. Duke Constantine Mezaros. Duke and Duchess Balzac and their daughters, Sachelle and Tamsen.” Mama keeps up her constant whisper in my ear as people make their way up the ballroom to bow or curtsy to King Anson.
We’re standing off to one side with the debutantes and their mothers. It seems like every family in Paravel is paying homage to King Anson tonight.