The Golden Flower (#1 in the GOLDEN series) ✔

• E I G H T E E N • part two: Bonus Chapter

"I cannot believe it!"

Antoine's voice boomed from one navy-painted wall to the other, resonating within his massive room with an echo that gave him a migraine. The steady thumping in his brain now matched the rhythm of his erratic heartbeats, and he prayed for nothing but sleep, peace, quiet. And Marguerite.

"Can you not? Seriously?" Lying on his back on Antoine's four-poster bed, Sébastien sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. His ebony mane of hair had slithered out of its ribbon and spread about his head like a crown of raven's feathers. He'd shrugged on a pair of pants, but his nightshirt remained half-tucked into the waistband, with several buttons undone. "You picked Adelaide, brother. The least liked of all your contenders. Ah, wait—" he lurched up to a sitting position and glowered at Antoine. "Let me correct myself. You picked Adelaide instead of Maggie, without warning, without reason. Does it truly surprise you that Maggie left because of it?"

Antoine groaned as he paced before the hearth. The thick fabric of his Masquerade trousers was hot, burning his skin. Yet his upper body was wracked with glacial shivers that he was unable to stop, no matter how much he moved. Every breath squeezed in and out of his lungs, every thought shot through him like lightning.

She was gone. Marguerite, his Maggie, his Duchess, his beloved, his everything. She'd grabbed her gorgeous golden skirts and ran out of the Ballroom the instant he'd announced the Lady of Avignon as his future bride.

Could he blame her for being so upset? No, he couldn't. He'd be outraged if Maggie were to choose someone other than him to wed. It would destroy him if she were to change her mind at the last second, like he had.

But her decision to flee did surprise him, contrary to what Sébastien thought. Antoine had expected her to stick around, to confront him outside, on the Patio, the place where they'd exchanged their first kiss. He'd expected her to jab a finger to his chest, to grab him by the lapels and stuff her nose into his face. Hell, he'd even expected her to smack him; but not for her to run away.

Marguerite didn't run away, ever. Not from her fears, not from her troubles, not from a challenge. This—him choosing Adelaide over her—was nothing if not a mountain of a challenge, was it not? Was she too afraid to tackle it? Did she not love him enough to try? Why didn't she linger to understand why he'd done it? Why didn't she give him a chance to explain?

He would have explained, had she stayed. His mother would have done all she could to separate them before he could do so—she'd stop at nothing, since she'd instigated this messy move, this ill-timed twist of fate—but he'd get one last word with Maggie if it cost him his last breath.

He'd tell her he still loved her, always would. That choosing Adelaide was strategic, and his mother—and to some extent, his ailing father—had begged him to reconsider his options. It didn't change his love for her; it never would.

"Marrying Marguerite brings no alliances, son," Clémentine mentioned to him when she convened with him late that afternoon.

He'd cloistered in his quarters, sick of the gatherings where advisors asked his opinion, where they all called him the new King when his father still lived, still breathed. He'd chosen against going to the Masquerade at all—if Edouard wasn't there, if they wouldn't update him on his condition, he wouldn't make an appearance.

Clémentine had barged in and convinced him otherwise. "Your father has kept me quiet for too long. You love her, but she is not who you think she is," she'd said, in her signature sordid tone laced with cold, devoid of emotion. The tone she reserved for speaking about or to Marguerite.